Seventeen Marines and three award-winning science fiction writers are teaming up to speculate what the world might look like in 30 years.

The effort is sponsored by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, a group focused on improving the services current and future naval warfare capabilities. But preparing for the future is difficult without gathering several forward-thinking, creative minds. Who better to speculate on the future than scifi writers?

The lab put together the Science Fiction Futures Workshop in order to encourage select service members to map out how the world may progress in the next 30 years. The Marines were paired with “Ghost Fleet” author August Cole, “World War Z” author Max Brooks, and “Fire by Fire” author Charles E. Gannon.

Brooks’ zombie apocalypse novel “World War Z” was adapted into a film in 2013. Cole’s book is about global war, and Gannon’s series explores confrontation with aliens.

The workshop will take place Feb. 3.

“What we are hoping to get is younger, creative minds who will bring fresh ideas of how we could take the [Marine Corps Security Environment Forecast] world and bring it down to an operational and tactical level,” said Lt. Col. Patrick Kirchner.

To kick off the event, Gen. Martin Dempsey explained the benefits of the workshop.

As much as we may want science fiction to be predictive about what awaits us, or perhaps even prescriptive on how we should deal with impending challenges, the true gift of the genre lies in its ability to be provocative and its power to develop the professional imagination.

Science fiction allows us to model future possibilities and explore the practical and tactical possibilities of emerging or future technologies. It should also cause us to consider the ethical implications associated with adopting new ways of approaching conflict.