Meeting of the Sydney Futurian Society: 19th March 1999.

In attendance were

• The Reverend G. P. Dalrymple
• Ron Clarke
• Saint Peter Eisler of the Beard
• David Bofinger
• Saint Ian Woolf the eclectic
• John August
• Ted Scribner
• Alexandre Rafalovitch
• Brian Walls
• K. Dillon

The Reverend G. Dalrymple attempted to pass around a prototype bookmark, festooned with the names of Ditmar winners. The idea is to show it to "foreigners" (apparently an ignorant subculture within the science fiction community) so that they will understand and support the Australian Science Fiction export industry. Peter Eisler raised a point of order, pointing out that there was no agendum for just handing stuff about. The bookmark was immediately declared "news", and the meeting opened. Abuse was dropped on the revered head for his choice of "temporary Australians", specifically the fact that Cordwainer Smith got "squeezed off" (by who?!?).

Gary Dalrymple then pointed out he was standing ("indeed, running") for the Legislative Assembly in the upcoming New South Wales election, on the Australian Democrats ticket. Part of his platform is to correct the "ineffective lighting" in the district: given that Gary is an enthusiastic amateur astronomer bitterly opposed to light pollution he may not see this in the same light as everyone else. Various solutions were suggested, ranging from placing reflectors above the lights to spray-painting matte black every surface in Canterbury to opaque monster-proof blankets large enough to cover the Sydney basin. Fun was made of the amazingly youthful picture ("same as last time, I'm afraid") on the ballot paper.

Next item was a device that blinked, and was guaranteed to continue blinking until thirty seconds before midnight on the 31st of December, 1999. The theory was that this would give you half a minute to escape from the jet aircraft before the millennium bug turned it into an uncontrolled coffin. The devices seemed to have been made in the European Union, suggesting that they will in fact give their warnings about nine hours after its too late to do any good for Sydneysiders.

Gary has a list of famous atheist science fiction writers. "Why", you ask? Perhaps we could leave the list lying around Mount Olympus and see if their tyres get let down in a divine fashion?

Some Danish physicist has managed to slow the speed of light to 17 metres per second, through laser-cooled sodium ions. This makes supraliminal travel a lot easier ... but kind of dull.

Kennewick man is an apparently Caucasian skull, from 7000 BC, found in Washington State, USA. Current prehistorical understanding cannot explain this, but any number of time travel stories could.

Ian Woolf is presenting science radio programs at 8 PM on some Tuesday nights, FM 107.3 MHz. The "FM" stands for "frequency modulated", which means Ian appears at irregular intervals (but there's always someone talking about science).

A solar maximum is coming. The last one crashed the power system in Quebec, but today it would do a lot more damage, since there are a lot of expensive vulnerable systems out there (including satellites). Quebec and Finland seem to be the only countries addressing the problem. Finland's system is so well-tuned it will be useable as an instrument to study the problem. ("It's working ... it's broken ... it's still broken ... still broken ... ")

Occasional Futurian Alexander Rafalovitch reports that progress has been made on solving the perennial "drumstick problem". A chicken embryo has been injected with goop of uncertain nature, its wings developed into legs.

Much discussion of how to get down to Melbourne for the World Science Fiction Convention. Anyone who wants to be into a group train booking get in contact with Gary Dalrymple (no, I don't have his number, but I guess he lives in the electorate of Canterbury ...)

Some news was lost at this point because the tape ran out and nobody noticed.

John August is running for the Legislative Council, for the "Abolish State Government Party". (This boils down to changing Australia from a federal state in the style of Germany or the United States to a non-federal state in the style of New Zealand or Britain.)

An article about Metal Storm, a truly impressive Australian-designed gun with no moving parts and a rate of fire of a million rounds a minute. For the benefit of some members this had to be translated into multiple of some gun Bruce Willis used. A suggested application from someone in the meeting was inkjet printers.

A discussion of the Vladimir initiator, a catalyst useful for making polymers which are all alike. Presumably another expression of the Russian desire for conformity. Useful, apparently, for inkjet printers.

A lost continent has been discovered off the coast of Western Australia. No non-Euclidean buildings were found, and the natives, who may or may not have had inkjet printers, left no evidence of their existence. Seriously, it's a piece (several pieces) of Gondwanaland that sank.

Space Pirates, Space Vikings, and the Brigands of the Starways in Science Fiction

Pirates were defined, more or less, by their tendency to roam about in spacecraft, taking things that belong to other people, and buggering off again. Conquerors didn't qualify because they came to stay. Vengeful types didn't qualify because they weren't motivated by profit.

• Keith Laumer's Earthblood, in which aliens are classified as "gooks" or "geeks" according to how humanoid they look.
• Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant series.
• Stephen Donaldson's Gap series.
• Niven's The Borderlands of Sol and Relic of the Empire; some argued that The Soft Weapon also qualified, but nobody could remember the motivations of the Kzinti -- or, more accurately, everybody could remember but nobody could agree.
• Paul French's (i.e. Isaac Asimov's) Pirates of the Asteroids, from his Lucky Starr series.
• E. E. "Doc" (Ph.D. in food technology, making sugar stick to donuts, I understand) Smith's Triplanetary, and perhaps other books from his Lensman series. The Nevians get the camera time but some people recall other pirates as well.
• Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Moon and others Planet Pirates series, and McCaffrey's The Something That Somethinged books.
• Backplot references in Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series.
• David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
• ? Pollotta's Illegal Aliens (?). [Since putting this up on the web I've received mail from Nicholas Pollotta, containing mildly ironic expressions of pleasure that at least his books, if not his name, are known in Australia.]
• Edgar Rice Borroughs' The Gods of Mars.
• James Blish' Cities in Flight, where the term "bindlestiff" is used to describe such rogue cities as the Interstellar Master Traders.
• A Poul Anderson story whose name is forgotten: "we are your friends, come to do business with you."
• John Morrisey's Starbrat.
• Robert Anson Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy.
• Various episodes of Lost in Space.
• C. J. Cherryh's setting: either the later Mazianni or, arguably, the Knnn qualify.
• Piper's Space Viking stories.
• Iain Menzies Banks' Consider Phlebas.
• Once-Futurian Richard Harland's Taken By Force.
• Alfred Bester's Tiger, Tiger (is this The Stars My Destination?).
• Movies: Ice Pirates and Battle Beyond the Stars. George Lucas' Star Wars was, of course, partly inspired by pirate movies of the Errol Flynn school.
• Anime: Sol Bianca and Space Adventure Cobra.

So Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and hypothetical and fictional tenth planets are to be lumped together in "The Outer Planets in Science Fiction".