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I have recently begun working with the good folks at the Sci-Fi channel and last Thursday, the 11th, I had the extraordinary opportunity to live tweet a special event at the Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Topic: the role of television in helping society explore the big issues of the day, as well as the big issues of tomorrow.

One thing that made the event so extraordinary was that it was framed as a panel discussion with stars from the recently concluded Battlestar Galactica (Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell), producers of the show (Ronald D. Moore and David Eick), and two representatives from the United Nations dealing with many of the issues in fact — human rights, torture, justice — that shows like BSG deal with in fiction. But as the UN’s Craig Mokhiber told the audience at the Mann last Thursday, “There’s not much fiction in Battlestar.” (Note: the BSG crew ran a similar panel at the World’s Science Festival at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.)

         

If you aren’t already following Visions for Tomorrow on Twitter, then hit us up! We’ll be tweeting live from yet another Battlestar Galactica panel with cast members from the show. The topic this time? The science, ethics and philosophy surrounding a future where intelligent machines walk alongside us.

Actor, comedian and Deep Space Nine alumna Faith Salie will moderate a panel made up of the Galactica crew and company, including Mary McDonnell, who played President Laura Roslin, Michael “Colonel Saul Tigh” Hogan, World Transhumanist Association co-founder Nick Bostrom, University of Reading professor of cybernetics Kevin Warwick, and Hod Lipson, evolutionary robotics researcher and director of the Computational Synthesis group at Cornell University.

The action starts tonight at 8:00 PM until 9:30 PM, Eastern, at the World’s Science Festival at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, and you can follow it all right here.

         

Want to chat about the impact of Battlestar Galactica outside of the TV screen? The Sci Fi Channel and the United Nations Department of Public Information partnered up in March to talk about just that, covering topics ranging from fundamental human rights, the realities of equal opportunity, and justice in a diverse society.

On Thursday June 4th at 7:30 PM Pacific Time, the Sci Fi/UN panel will reconvene, and you can follow it all through the Visions Twitter, or join the discussion yourself.

         

As a Poli Sci major at the University of Redands, I often considered a career in the field of diplomacy and international relations. To that extent, the U.N. was always the Holy Grail, in terms of places it would be awesome to see. I never did the tour, because I thought it wouldn’t count. The only way I wanted to see the U.N. was on official business. Once I’d sold my soul to Hollywood, I figured the U.N. dream was over. So imagine my surprise when I got the call that my two worlds, past and present, had unexpectedly collided.

The best way to describe my reaction to actually being in that room is what I whispered to Whoopi Goldberg after my introduction as I made my way to the stage: “I can’t believe this.” Except I added a colorful adjective between “can’t” and “believe,” which she seemed to appreciate. Of course, the best part was how someone at the U.N. had replaced the name plates which usually say “France” and “Botswana” with the names of “Galactica“‘s colonies: “Picon,” “Tauron,” “Caprica,” etc. If we were at a nerd convention like Comicon, I would’ve thought that kind of thing was taking scifi geekdom to an absurd level; the fact that the United Nations had arranged such a thing was nothing short of sublime.

         

On March 17th, the delegate country names lining the rows of seats in the main “theater” of the United Nations were replaced with the names of the colonies that were home to the crew of Battlestar Galactica. Whoopie Goldberg and the cast and creators of the Sci Fi epic were seated on the dais, facing the audience. Dignitaries attached to the United Nations’ efforts to stop crimes against women and children, seek reconciliation amongst warring peoples, and keep up the struggle for universal human rights were rotated on and off the stage in concert with episodic clips from the show that eerily reflected our similar dramas here on earth at the beginning of the 21st century.

It was surreal. And too real. It is painful to think that civilization on this planet has advanced thousands of years, and we still resort to uncivilized behavior when our turf or status is threatened, when we are under stress, or when we are just plain stupid. Science fiction, at its best, has always shown not only the wonders of what could be if we projected our society and knowledge into the future, but the horrors as well. I sat listening to how our earthly crimes are no different, and our moral centers no less grounded, than those depicted in a dark series about a homeless civilization elsewhere in the universe, struggling with each other and the intelligent beings they created.