Author Arlan Andrews, Sr., via SFScope friend Joe Lazzaro, reports that the efforts of Sigma have not gone unremarked. (Sigma is a group of future-thinking science fiction authors, organized by Andrews, who serve as a think-tank to advise the US government on formerly unthinkable possibilities.) He writes: “Eight of us participated in a successful panel at last week’s Denvention 3, the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, where Captain Chris Christopher (USN-Ret.) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) surprised us with this new publicity [see below] in front of an audience of about 100. I also announced at the panel that the US Air Force had asked us to come to DC for yet another futurism workshop, on top of the ones we have already done or soon will be doing for the Air Force, various alphabet-named intelligence agencies, the US Army, DHS, and others.
“I suppose all this means that Sigma, the 35-member science fiction think tank I founded while working in DC a while back, is now officially acceptable in government circles. (They need us.)”
That “new publicity” is a 44-page report entitled “Science and Technology for a Safer Nation.” The full document is now publicly available at this link (warning: the file is about 12 Mb). On page 10, the Sigma group is credited with a photo (of, from left to right, Andrews, Greg Bear, Jerry Pournelle, Sage Walker (Dr. Virginia Bush, MD), Rolf Dietrich (now-former Director of DHS Homeworks, the DHS “skunkworks”), and Larry Niven. The text acccompanying the photo, entitled “Stranger than Fiction?” notes that “In addition to border agents, airport police and screeners, air marshals and maritime safety teams, we need people who can think well outside the “box”—unconstrained by the demands of daily operations. So, who better to help DHS balance more traditional thinking about homeland security than science fiction writers? After all, sci fi wordsmiths long ago told us about tourist spaceships and wireless handheld communicators—remember Dick Tracy’s ‘Two-Way Wrist Radio’ introduced into the comic strip in January 1946? And, while only a very few tourists can afford the trip into near-Earth orbit, cell-phones with video are now a way of life.… The writers offer powerful imaginations that are supported by technical knowledge and can conjure diabolical ways in which our adversaries might strike. But they also develop ideas about how governments, communities and individuals might respond and what kinds of high-tech tools and tactics could precent or mitigate attacks. America gets much more than we ‘pay’ for, as Sigma’s members provide their services at no charge to DHS: ‘Science Fiction in the National Interest’ is their motto. And for this group, nothing is unthinkable.”
The document makes for interesting reading.