This past Saturday I attended the MegaCon Science Fiction and Fantasy convention in Orlando, Florida. It was held at the Orange County Convention Center, which was a great venue for it, considering the number of exhibitors attending as well as the amazing crowd that was packing the place. The convention is a three day affair (from March 7 through March 9) featuring a main exhibition hall as well as break-out rooms for sessions such as the Sci-Fi/Anime Game Show, How to Prepare a Good Portfolio for artists, an Independent Film Makers panel, and a number of costume contests spread over the three days.
Speaking of costumes, there were some amazing examples of reproduction detail as well as creativity on display. There were, of course, the requisite Star Wars characters all over the convention with several intimidating Darth Vaders roaming the aisles. The first picture* here is of me with the Master Chief from the Halo video game series. Other characters were Indiana Jones (giving whip usage demonstrations), the entire Gotham City crime syndicate as well as Batman, more Storm Troopers than on an Imperial Battlecruiser, Morphius from the Matrix (it was fun to see him strike a pose with Master Chief), Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario and Luigi, quite a few of the Pokemon characters, and on and on.
One of the more enjoyable aspects for "older" folks like me is the opportunity to see the people who played characters out of our childhoods. The second picture* here is of me with Mark Goddard, the person that played Major Don West, the pilot of the Jupiter 2 on Lost in Space. That was probably my favorite show as a young boy (a bit young at the time to truly appreciate Star Trek), so it was a big thrill for me to shake his hand and get his autograph.
An interesting characteristic of people that are big fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy is that these folks often find themselves taking an educational path and selecting a career that brings them as close to their imaginations' desires as possible. (It's not at all difficult to find interviews with dozens of NASA engineers and technicians from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo eras who cited Robert Heinlein as a strong influence in bringing them to the space program.) For students in computer-related programs, there is often a shared interest in truly imaginative fiction: time travel, robots, space travel, and alien encounters are common elements in our dreams and play, and they inevitably find their way into our daily work lives as well. That's certainly how it worked for me, having started as a fan of Astro Boy in my early childhood and progression through TV shows such as Ultra Man to Battlestar Galactica, authors including Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov, and formats that included a healthy dose of comic books (you've got to check out the Iron Man movie trailer).
The upshot of it all is that the inventions of our imaginations often become world-changing reality as we grow up. All political rhetoric aside, that's the kind of change I'm most hopeful about. Back in the 1970s there was a band named Klaatu (named after the alien character in the famous movie The Day the Earth Stood Still) that composed much of their music from a Science Fiction perspective. This is from the song "Hope" off their second album of the same title:
Hope is like a lighthouse keeper's beam.
Hope - the master cobbler of our dreams.
For Hope believes in desert streams.
The mightiest of stars,
the microcosm in a jar -
vast or small they all revolve on Hope
Spanning the mightiest of stars down to the microcosm in a jar is the reach of our imaginations. And tying it all together is hope for what the future may bring.
*Yes, I am wearing a Tick t-shirt from the original cartoon series. Spoon!
- Hap Aziz