Science fiction writers bring creativity to DHS

Among the guests invited by Department of Homeland Security officials to a science and technology conference in Washington, DC, last May was a small group of people who tended to sit by themselves, away from the defense contractors and DHS officials who crowded the meeting rooms. They weren’t wearing the typical Washington power suits, nor did they seem interested in the glad-handing and networking that was happening all around them.

Yet this group, in certain literary circles outside of Washington, was one of pure celebrity. Arlan Andrews, the de facto leader of the group, pulled out his business card, which read: “Science Fiction in the National Interest.” Andrews, who has a doctorate in mechanical engineering and once worked as a White House fellow, has written scores of science fiction stories.

Sitting next to him was Greg Bear, whose book Darwin’s Radio, won the Nebula Award in 2000. Jerry Pournelle, author and past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, was across the table with best-selling author Larry Niven and Sage Walker, a medical doctor and author of the virtual-reality thriller Whiteout.

This group, collectively known as Sigma, was established by Andrews in 1992 while he was working as an American Society of Mechanical Engineers fellow at the White House science office. As he worked with Washington bureaucrats, he said, “I couldn’t find any creativity, which is critical in forecasting the future.” Thus Sigma was formed, a loose confederation of science fiction writers, most with advanced degrees in science, engineering, or medicine.

Their presence at the meeting signaled DHS S&T undersecretary Jay Cohen’s attempt to bring nontraditional thinking to the department (see previous story). “There are a lot of people, including the 9-11 Commission, who believe that the events of 9-11 were in large measure due to a failure of imagination in America,” Cohen said when asked why the science fiction writers were invited to the meeting. “I will tell you that while I’m undersecretary, there will not be a failure of imagination in my organization. Remember, what was fiction 30 years ago, is commonplace today.”

Cohen has a point, according to Sigma member Douglas Beason, coauthor of the futuristic thriller Ill Wind, who in his day job serves as the associate director for threat reduction at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Beason, a physicist and retired US Air Force colonel, said science fiction writing requires nonlinear thinking that isn’t typically used by scientists in making advances. “When science fiction writers can throw those wild ideas that make you stretch, it is a good thing. I think DHS realizes you might not go all of the way on some of these ideas, but what if you use them as a starting point and see what happens?”

Beason said D. Allan Bromley, science adviser to President George H. W. Bush, hired him in the White House science office “precisely because, in addition to being a physicist, I was a science fiction writer. When he interviewed me, he told me the thing he liked about science fiction writers is that they combine creativity with a hard knowledge of the world.”

Astrophysicist Yoji Kondo, also known as award-winning science fiction writer Eric Kotani, said he is glad to help the DHS with suggestions and ideas for new technology. “Most of us are science fiction writers who think in cosmic terms,” he said. “We are trying to come up with specific ideas, ways to think about such things as better security and protection.”

Asked if he is ever looked down on by other scientists because of his science fiction writing, Kondo, an investigator on NASA’s Kepler mission, just laughed. “I am much, much better known as a scientist first,” he said. The derisive view some scientists have of science fiction, he said, may come from the writers who are more fiction than science. But he noted that a lot of scientists try to write science fiction, only to find “they aren’t accustomed to thinking in the creative way you must think.”

Andrews said the Sigma members, who are volunteering their services, have discussed with DHS officials ways to increase the reliability of communications during disasters, methods for detecting deep tunnels on the US borders, and new materials that could be used to seal off hallways in a matter of seconds.

“They haven’t asked us to come in and spend their money,” Pournelle said of DHS officials. “They have asked us to suggest things with a high payoff.”