Talk & Discussion // Who Broke the Future?

This is the first event in a new Northern Commons lecture series called *Diverse Futures*, which explores different visions of what a more inclusive and pluralistic future might be like. T. Aaron Cisco will kick off the series, and the description below is his own. Who broke the future? That’s not a rhetorical question. It’s the question I want us to sit with. Because many of us grew up on visions of tomorrow that felt expansive, hopeful, and full of possibility. Futures shaped by stories like Star Trek and Doctor Who, where curiosity mattered more than fear, and difference was something to explore rather than suppress. Those stories taught us that the future could be better. More just. More inclusive. More human. And yet, somewhere along the way, that promise started to feel incomplete. Or distant. Or broken. This is not a talk about perfect futures. It is about necessary ones. It is about the work of imagining worlds where we are not simply surviving systems that were not built for us, but actively reshaping them. The session moves through narrative, reflection, and cultural analysis, and then opens into conversation. Together, we will ask what it means to repair a future that feels fractured. What we carry forward, what we leave behind, and what we are willing to build differently. Because the future did not just break on its own. And if it can be broken, it can be rebuilt. \- T\. Aaron Cisco \-\-\- As always, no need to prepare or bring anything but your curiosity and an open mind.