Addendum

I thought about having it be a status symbol, but the problem with that is soon people with unquestionably high status would write poorly on purpose to show off. We' be back where we are now within a few generations. Here's another suggestion though: Genetic engineering.

The Future of Valentine's Day

This will be the day when the reproduction chambers are activated. It won't be terribly romantic, but you'll be far too dead and replaced by a conditioned ultra-citizen to care.

Addendum

I presume we'll already have magic by then. If not, we should start with dwarves.

Grim but Inevitable Future Conflict

When genetic modification techniques have advanced to the point where we can make elves, how will we decide what interpretation to use? Decades of internecine war, of course. I'll be rooting for tall, but outside of that I can be flexible, even collaborative.

The Zoo of Mankind's Yearning

We limped away from the encounter fortunate only by comparison.. The Yuengians, who style themselves independently minded but are in fact pirates, suffered what they intended for us and what still might transpire, unable to resume our course as we were.
Our researches yielded a planet nearby which was registered as habitable. We could do no better. The prospect improved upon approach when we detected signs of not just potential but the thing itself: A vast compound existed near an artifically regular lake easily capable of accommodating our entire convoy.
The job of trying to raise the inhabitants devolved to me based on the reasoning that many who closed their doors to regular strangers opened them for correspondents, particularly ones as famous as the captains pretended me to be. My rejoinder that the opposite often pertained did not win me free from the responsibility. I proved, not the respect accorded my profession, but to have some small knowledge of interstellar celebrity when I recognized Herzerd Klobsarn, the genuinely famous gene theorist. Nor was he displeased at the recognition; in that at least I may have aided my fellow survivors a little.
Klobsarn provided hospitality far beyond the most optimistic projection. The many empty furnished rooms, he said, had been used by laborers who had long since departed. He had seen no reason to bother with tearing down the surplus quarters, negligence which seemed to us a miracle. He maintained stores such as sufficed to feed us and effect repairs out of what he described as two excesses, one of caution and the other of curiosity, for his projects demanded resources.
He was happy to show us one. The complex housed an unthinkable menagerie of creatures created by mingled design and serendipity. If I tell you to imagine horns that are not horns and wings that operate according to unconventional mechanisms, you will not understand me, and in that I have succeeded. For I did not understand what I saw there.
"But why?" I asked. More detail seemed a superfluity.
"Across greater humanity, some seventy-six million sports teams are called the Wildcats. Another twelve million are Bears or Bruins, and barely fewer are the Cardinals. Each planet, each continent, each region must have its own species. I leave it to the denizens to name them, but I take it upon myself to make them."
I was impressed more than ever by the benevolent character of Herzerd Klobsarn.
Finis

Addendum

"It must have been a stylistic choice to make the sports scenes in these movies this slow-paced" - sports fans of the future
"In Rookie of the Year we see the beginning of athletics as we understand them." - movie critic of the future
"Why are Jedi Knights so bad at jumping?" - people of the future

Future Athletic Performance

In the future, physical excellence will have reached such a peak owing to improved conditioning and genetic engineering that people won't even imagine today's sports anime aren't documentaries.

One Horsepower

The only two things keeping horses alive are rich people and racing. Once we have cheetahs genetically engineered to have a little staying power and congenial personalities, it's all over.

The Future's Sole Preoccupation

There it was, the lamentable routine. The distant curve forbade anyone from forgetting he lived inside a space colony, the dream of generations, but closer up, everything was as it ever was. Roger marched toward his designated external trash receptacle, rake in hand, ready to repel the scavengers the engineers back on Earth insisted were necessary for sustainable life beyond the planet. "They spent trillions to make, get out of here, space rats and space raccoons! Get out of here! Get!"
It was the indignity he hated most, Roger thought during the indignity of leaning over to poke the trash cart with the rake at maximum distance. He hated whichever part of the routine he was in the most. Regardless, the raccoon made that weird hissing noise, jumped out, and skittered away. Roger sighed and began composing mentally another request to let colonists put lids on the carts.

That scene was captured by recording equipment miles away. The operative checked the setup, confirmed, and activated his communicator. "I have the combat data," he reported.
"Good. Return immediately to the secondary . . . what's that sound?"
Helicopters deactivated their optical camouflage, eight of them. Through a loudspeaker on the lead, someone demanded, "Leave the combat data there. This is your warning."
By the end of the warning, the operative was hanging from the building's side, about to crash through a top-floor window, when bullets going the other way shattered the glass. "That combat data is ours," the lead power armor declared.
The battle soon became general the way it did every day. As new as life in space was, the routine was already old.
Finis

Addendum

The language of the gods, sure. A language embedded in our genetic code by the life-seeding civilization, of course. A newly developed language that was refined by linguistic engineers so that everybody understands it instantly in a clear improvement over old models. But don't forget about alignment languages!

Christmas Musings

Could it be that all our stories about Santa's sleigh are really about a spaceship and Santa lived his whole life on it? The North Pole workshop is also on the spaceship. You can upgrade it with currencies your elves collect through dispatch missions. Rudolph is a product of genetic engineering, of course.

Addendum

"space tenor"

Altos and Tenors and Whatnot

Will the people of the future discover a new one? Will they genetically engineer people with different vocal chords? The answer is yes, by the way.

What To Do With Giants?

Mostly they should be killed by knights, but there are other options.

1) Where do giants come from? Genetic engineering.
2) Where do humans come from? Once upon a time all people were giants who lived 800 years, but then . . .
3) If some humans turn into wolves, what kinds of transformations might giants have? Dinosaurs?
4) In a faraway country, they say in each community one person grows into a giant and becomes the chief.
5) Giant bodies mean giant magic, idiot.

You gotta pay me if you use any of those, but they're worth it. You can tell just by looking.