Wil McCarthy reports on his experiences consulting with the CIA on scenario building in his capacity as a science fiction writer in the new Wired:
My mission, should I choose to accept it: sit in a room full of fellow sci-fi writers and help imagine, shall we say, things that might someday go bump. But first there was a definite moment of double take, and then a scramble to confirm that this wasn't some elaborate hoax. Because, like, the CIA needs my advice on scariness?
Let's face it: The FBI, the NSA, and even Israel's Mossad are second-rate bogeymen. When it comes to the paranoid fantasies of hit lists and ESP drugs, gigabuck dope deals, and orbiting mind-control lasers, the Agency rules. Then again, it's not entirely unprecedented for bureaucrats to draw inspiration from science fiction. Fed techies are as likely to read the stuff as any other geeks, and a few at NASA and the DOD even write it.
