Since the moment humans began to imagine and write stories, or making films, they have been dreaming of all sorts of future worlds. Some of them are incredibly beautiful, some serene, some freaky and some chilling.
Humans thrive on willpower and thought, so here is a shout out to all the writers and showrunners, who have been nothing but awesome to give us so much food for thought! In this article, we are going to share with you five of the most realistic dark sci-fi futures and five that are just impossible, irrespective of what point you may be looking from.
Realistic: A Handmaid’s Tale
The series is based upon the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood and is spun around a dystopian world(which is not that far ahead) where the majority of the men and women are no longer fertile. Those who are, have been made into concubines of influential people. June is such a woman, who wants to rescue her daughter and be free. The show is so realistic that we have seen a few glimpses of such unrest in our current times. Just a couple years ago, pro-choice protester women stood against the oppression of women wearing scarlet cloaks and oversized bonnets in the US, UK, Ireland, etc. The Handmaid’s outfit has become a feminist symbol.
Not Possible: Mortal Engines
Mortal Engines is about a world where civilization has long been destroyed and the cities have become predators. They move on wheels and devour everything that they run into. While on the surface, this may seem like a fascinating premise, but, the idea of cannibalistic cities is highly obtuse to actually materialize.
Realistic: Orphan Black
It is a highly rated series with an incredible performance from the lead actress Tatiana Maslany. Orphan Black is about a classified neolution(experimental evolution) group, that is secretly creating clones of humans and planting them in societies, to study how they function.
Frankenstein was inspired by real events and it is entirely plausible. Who knows if these sorts of experiments have already started? Who knows how many clones of ourselves are running around in the world?
Not Possible: 3%
The very first Netflix original in the Portuguese language, 3% is a dystopian thriller. The story takes you to a world where poor candidates from the impoverished society are given the opportunity to excel in a test “The Process”, and move to the sophisticated offshore society. Only 3% qualify this test, on average. A time when we are relaxing extremely tough parameters to assess children, 3% seems extraterrestrial.
Realistic: Blade Runner & Altered Carbon
Everyone has seen Blade Runner! A cop is assigned the task to bring back a group of fugitive synths(replicants/artificial humans) from the Earth. Netflix’s TV series Altered Carbon is a younger sibling of the movie series Blade Runner.
The show revolves around a world where no one “has” to die unless they are poor or Catholics. Made possible through alien technology, we can totally see AC or Blade Runner universe happening in a distant future.
Not Possible: The Man In The High Castle
The Man In The High Castle is a TV series based on an alternate reality and will surely haunt you for several nights. A parallel universe where Axis Powers have won against the Allied Powers, and the society has morphed into a regime, a woman discovers a series of films which show a normal world in another reality. This could never have turned into reality because during World War II, Germany did a grave mistake of attacking the US and that's when their dreams of ruling the world crumbled to dust.
Realistic: The Matrix
Resourceful and robust computers have created an entire simulated reality to subdue the human race. The source of energy of this world is activities and body heat of the population who are deeply engorged in a dream world. A software programmer joined by a group of rebels lead a war against these powerful computers. The pace at which the Artificial Intelligence is growing, this reality seems dangerously practical in the near future.
Not Possible: Snowpiercer
Sci-fi movie Snowpiercer is based on an imagined world, after the second ice age. The survivors of the apocalypse spend their time aboard a luxury train that is piercing through the ice as it moves, using perpetual motion engines.
The ice age is brought upon by humans' failed experiment. Little do the travelers know that the train is moving towards doom as they indulge in a war among themselves. While the global warming failed experiment may seem feasible, the storyline is arguably unlikely to happen.
Realistic: Black Mirror
Black Mirror is a British TV show. This anthology series is a collection of stories from future (and present) where technology has started to manipulate and play with human emotions and behavior. Almost all the storylines are reasonable and you have been watching some of those happen around yourselves too.
Not Possible: The Walking Dead
The Walking Dead is a horror story of a world after the zombie apocalypse across the US. A group of lucky survivors are looking for a safe zone to escape from the zombies infestation and the impending death. The show is incredibly good and a complete entertainer, but, let's be honest, a zombie invasion is highly fictional.