On A Haunting Future

07.00 Unknown 0 Comments

What if Dungeons and Dragons were the most realistic vision of the future possible?

"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only." - Sir Fred Hoyle

Currently today, we use not a little more energy than the earth can produce, but a massive amount more energy. The resources available for this energy are limited and non-reproducible.  What is the end result when they run out?

The Olduvai, a post-industrial age!

In the hundred thousand years our minimally successful species (There were, after all, thousands of different species of dinosaurs, we comparatively are bereft of anything but distant cousins.) will have left, we will toil under a brutal sun in an eternal age of feudal serfdom.

Imagine if we could sustain our industrial society for just a few hundred more years. The marvels! (The actual expectation is that it doesn't last nearly that long - less than 100 years). What ancient relics could be found by enterprising future humans! What dangers?

A chill thought when you wake up and scientific data points to the realm of Dungeons (& Dragons?) being our future. . .