Why aren’t there more of them?
In a way, this ties to thoughts I’ve been having about vampires and science fiction. Maybe it was in some way born out of my persistent questions about dhampirs (why are vampire traits being passed on genetically?) or maybe because of playing Breath of Death and having a vampire computer tech in my party. Or maybe I’m just crazy.
Either way, vampires don’t seem to get into science fiction very often. I know why that is, or at least I’d have a good guess. Science fiction is linked to science and that means you’ll have technology, rational explanations for things, and logic. This is the future, a time of enlightenment and reason, with little room for superstition. Science fiction vampires almost always get some sort of rational explanation affixed to them.
I’m not going to accept that. Imagine, just for a moment, that vampires–genuine, blood-drinking, sun-fearing (maybe), sleeping-in-coffins, turning-into-bats, stake-it-through-the-heart vampires–are real. Are you imagining it? Good. Now, this world, with its real vampires haunting it and terrorizing victims at night, does not suffer some sort of vampire-induced apocalypse or launch a crusade against the undead, but instead progresses on as it has, year by year, into the far future with vampires still existing. Now, we have a futuristic setting, the potential for science fiction, and classic vampires that have continued to do their thing through all the centuries (the less fortunate have been locked away in their coffins for a few millennia and are going to be in for a rude shock when they finally break free and emerge into a shiny world of robots and spaceships). Why isn’t this done more often? Why does it feel like vampires are fine for stories set in the past, popular for stories set in the modern era, and taboo for stories set in the future?
And getting back to my topic title, how would vampires fare in space? Even vampires who burn up in the sun seem just fine with starlight, so would a vampire be able to cruise around in a starship unharmed most of the time and just have to get back to the coffin any time the ship got too near a star? For that matter, what would count as the sun being “up” if you’re out in space? Would there be anything that would even count as “day” to a vampire, or would the undead flock to the starships in droves, having found that space flight has the potential to be a billion times more awesome than polar night?
If this sort of story exists, I want to know about it! If this sort of story doesn’t exist, it should……and I’ll start taking notes for its creation immediately!