Science Fiction Baseball

Figure 1. A baseball card by Gemini

There are two previous wikifiction blog posts with the word "baseball" in their titles: from 2014 there is "The 1941 Baseball Mystery" and from two years ago "Sci Fi Baseball". In 2022, I tried to find and read all of the old baseball-related science fiction stories that had been published in Sci Fi magazines. 

Text prompt: "Gemini, generate an image depicting a year 2042 baseball card for the Alien Baseball League (ABL) showing an alien baseball player with avian features as imagined by Jerry Sohl in his original story (“Danger Zone”), which became the basis for the humanoid alien Balok in the Star Trek episode 'The Corbomite Maneuver'."

Figure 2. Generated by Mr. Wombo.

I took the image that had been generated by Gemini (Figure 1) and used it as a reference image for Mr. Wombo along with this text prompt: "science fiction alien baseball card, a blue avian humanoid holding a bat and wearing a baseball uniform, a baseball field in the background, a UFO in the sky". One of the resulting images in shown in Figure 2, manually modified by me to add the text and the UFO.

Figure 3. Text only.

The image that is shown to the right was generated by Mr. Wombo when only the text prompt was provided and no reference image. Poor Mr. Wombo seemed quite unwilling to add a UFO to any of these baseball cards. 😠 

Would I recognize a UFO if I saw one? But then again, who knows... maybe that big white object in the sky behind the alien baseball player in Figure 3 is not a moon. 

Mr. Wombo likes the idea of having distinct left and right field bleachers with a forest for the batter's eye in center field. Look at the alien's feet in Figure 3. Mr. Wombo struggles to visually depict home base on a baseball field.

Figure 4. Balok's planet.

 Alien Baseball League. Here are my ideas for "science fiction baseball" (SFB). In SFB, half of the baseball players are from various exoplanets that exist in published science fiction stories. The other half of the players in the ABL are human beings.

 Future History. Here is a brief future history of SFB:
1) SFB started in the year 2025 when members of a humanoid alien species called the "pek" revealed that they had come to Earth in order to play baseball. 2) the pek were eager to finance the construction of at least 2943 new "embassy stadiums" on Earth, one for each of the 2943 humanoid alien species known in the galaxy. 3) since the pek were continuing to explore the galaxy, additional new "embassy stadiums" would be built in the future as more humanoid species were found by continued exploration of the galaxy. 

Figure 5. Baseball colony in
the Kepler-452b star system

4) the pek revealed that with their advanced technology, it was possible to create "new" human baseball players by means of cloning and genetic engineering. The pek had already collected the genomes of every human baseball who had lived since the pek first visited Earth in 1947, and their scientists had established a breeding colony for human baseball players on an Earth-like exoplanet in the Kepler-452b star system. 5) The pek were prepared to field one human baseball team for every alien humanoid team; all games in the ABL would feature a human team playing against an alien team at the alien team's "embassy stadium" on Earth. 6) the pek insisted that the new Alien Baseball League (ABL) would not replace MLB and the ABL would always use the same rules as MLB."

A first draft of the images shown in both Figure 4 and Figure 5 were generated by Gemini and then I had Mr. Wombo use the Gemini-generated images as references for these final images.

An alien embassy ballpark.

The image that is shown to the left was completely generated by Mr. Wombo. Imagine the amazing baseball stadiums that could be constructed with the help of advanced alien technology.

By mentioning aliens in my text prompt, Mr. Wombo felt obligated to put multiple planets and moons and stars in the sky where I had only requested that there be hovering alien spaceships. I had to manually cover up one of the moons with a purple alien spaceship that I pasted into the ballpark scene (image to the left). Fortunately, it looks like most of the seats are protected from the sun during day games.

Baseball fan.

 Baseball Fans. I'm not sure if the human population of Earth could keep up if they had to attend hundreds of baseball games each year in each of 2943 gigantic stadiums such as this one. However, maybe the opportunity to watch alien baseball players would increase the number of baseball fans all around the world.

Alien baseball players.

Maybe the bulk of the attendees at ABL games would be alien visitors to Earth. Earth orbit might become crowded with alien spaceships bringing baseball fans to Earth from across the galaxy.

An alien playing baseball.

An example of some alien baseball players that were generated by Mr. Wombo is shown in the image to the left. Maybe that is an alien language spelling something out across their chests.

The image shown to the right is an action shot showing an alien baseball player hitting the ball. There are advantages to having Mr. Wombo generate images of alien baseball players; for example, if the fingers don't look right, we can blame alien anatomy. It is not easy to get Mr. Wombo to stop generating red lips, even when they are on the face of an alien humanoid with green skin.

Figure 6. "Cactus Cat" by Gemini.

Plant Creatures
I'm currently writing a science fiction story called "The Fesarians" in which there are plant-like aliens: the Noema. I have been struggling to decide on the best way to visually depict sentient plants. I asked Gemini to generate an image illustrating an imaginary mascot for an imaginary Arizona "Cactus Cats" Major League Baseball team. 

 Chimeric Cactus. One of the Gemini-generated Cactus Cats images is shown in Figure 6. I'm not sure why the cactus cat is shown with one foot resting on top of a baseball or why this odd creature has a green cactus-like head combined with furry hands (and tail) and human feet.

Figure 7. By WOMBO Dream.

 From one AI to another. I took the cactus at image from Figure 6 and used it as a reference image for Mr. Wombo.

When using the "normal" level of influence for the reference image in generating new images, Mr. Wombo generated images such as the one shown in Figure 7. Figure 7 is actually a composite image with pieces from several other images. 

Figure 8. Green fur.

I then used Figure 7 as a new reference image and switched to the "weak" level of influence for the reference image in generating new images. The image in Figure 8 shows one of the resulting cactus cats. Mr. Wombo seemed to prefer cats with just one hand on the bat. I was impressed that Mr. Wombo could transition to having all of this cat's fur be green, even without me having to ask for that change.

Cats are casually introduced into Part 2 of "The Fesarians" and then Talia's cats take on a larger role in the story in Part 5 when readers learn that it was conflict between the cats and the Merovae that led to Talia moving her home into the hills, away from the coastal land that is important for juvenile Merovae.

Figure 9. Generated by Gemini.

I asked Gemini to: "generate an image depicting a science fiction setting, two hundred years in the future, on a distant exoplanet where three dimensional baseball is played with anti-gravity. Show a baseball game being played inside a large greenhouse. One team is composed of humanoid aliens who have bird-like physical features including feathers. The other team is composed of alien plant people that have a humanoid mouth, human-like eyes and green, vine-like arms and legs covered with leaves. The bird-like alien players are floating in the air and they are wearing futuristic baseball uniforms. One of the plant people is holding a baseball bat." 

Figure 10. Gemini is for the birds.

Two of the images that were generated by Gemini are shown in Figures 9 and 10. I decided to use the image in Figure 10 as a reference image for WOMBO Dream. I could not ask Gemini to show human baseball players because Gemini is still restricted from depicting humans.

Figure 11. Anti-gravity baseball.

 Anti-gravity. Eventually, after much struggle, I was able to collaborate with Mr. Wombo to produce the image that is shown in Figure 11. In "The Fesarians", the Neoma are artificial life-forms composed of femtobot structural components. The Neoma can alter their shape and eventually they experiment with taking on humanoid physical features. 

The idea that the Neoma would play anti-gravity baseball with the Talia and Xylo clones is silly, but I could not resist the challenge of using Mr. Wombo to create this scene. Sadly, it was difficult to get Mr. Wombo to generate an image of a large greenhouse-like baseball park. This more intimate greenhouse (Figure 11) looks like backyard shenanigans.

Figure 12. Talia, Lyssa & Xylo witness an anti-gravity catch.

 Baseball inside a spaceship. The image shown in Figure 12 is a more realistic use of anti-gravity in baseball. Imagine a future advance in protective gear that automatically deploys an anti-gravity field just before a player is about to be injured by a fall.

If the Fesarius is a mile across then maybe it could hold a baseball stadium. If so, then the scene depicted by Mr. Wombo in Figure 12 could be Talia with her clone sister Lyssa and Xylo watching a baseball game. This would be after they have telepathically communicated with the alien Neoma and have departed from Elemacha-z. They would have time to enjoy human-alien baseball games after they have taken up residence onboard the Fesarius with Dave Bailey. If the Fesarius normally generates artificial gravity for its residents then temporarily blocking the artificial gravity for a ball player might be easy to accomplish with a wearable device.

Next: more AI-generated illustrations for The Fesarians.

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