random fiction idea

I have this strange idea rolling around in my head, about how most of my preferred space-based games have all just been about interstellar truckers and garbage men.

Here's the thing. Space is vast, and barring these mythical FTL drives that have become the common parlance of SciFi novels, it will take incredibly long periods of time to get from one place to another. On the other hand, in order for us to achieve that snail's pace of interstellar flight, computer technology will have to advance to speeds barely imaginable even today.

That there would be an evolutionary divergence seems obvious. On the one side, humans living at ground level, employed in jobs which require interacting with information at the speed of thought. On the other, the menial yet-seemingly-glorious jobs. Space travel. Moving commodities and cultures between worlds, through vast empty spaces. Even if travel only took days instead of months, how much work would there be for the human element? Our job would remain the cognitive elements that computers are inherently incapable of. If I were a space pilot, my job would essentially be to sit in a desk and do nothing until work was demanded of me.

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Worlds revolve in my thoughts. All of this in response to a simple thought I had last night at Neo:

Sometimes, it seems like all of human history can be separated by how much time & energy we have left to dance.