A friend of mine asked during dinner the other night, “If you could live in any science fiction universe, which would it be, and why?”  I struggled with this question for a lot of different reasons, mostly because I have read about a lot of different science fiction universes, but many of them do not completely flesh out what life is like for the common person.

I think my first choice would have to be Frank Herbert’s Dune universe.  I think I would want to live in the pre-Fremen Jihad era (under one of the Padisha emperors), on a planet of one of the great houses – most likely Caladan of the Atreides.  I’m not sure that the climate perfectly fits my style, though I’m sure I could find a nice rain-shadow to live in. My impression is that, while the political landscape at the galactic level is fairly difficult, planetary governments are relatively stable, and the great houses, at least, are economically fairly stable.

Based on my current education and occupation, I would like to be trained at some level as a mentat, and work in an archives facility (possibly with some teaching opportunities).  Working archives as a trained mentat is probably the closest one can get to performing psychohistory as a job requirement, which sounds pretty amazing.

The runner up goes to Jerry Pournelle’s Exile — and Glory universe.  I think it would be amazing to be an organizational troubleshooter like Mr. Adams from A Matter of Sovereignty.  For me, I’m less interested in profit margins compared to Mr. Adams, but I like the idea of being someone sought after to find creative solutions to organizational problems.  In A Matter of Sovereignty, it’s clear that this isn’t a megacorp-run-cyberpunk-dystopia world, but an international-businesses-with-power kind of world, which I think is an interesting difference, and may make for an interesting place/time to live.

Finally, the honorable mention is the universe of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy – specifically working in the second foundation.  The idea of working in an organization dedicated to helping the seed of Civilization form would be pretty neat.  Sure, there would be difficulties (the Mule), but being that guiding light…  …That has some real meaning in life.  Also, to correct my earlier statement, the closest one can get to performing psychohistory as a job requirement is working for the second foundation…  …Which was required to keep psychohistory on track.