Fenn has been shot dead but his brain has been preserved and its contents will be downloaded into an artificial neural network that will be carried at sub-light speed to an extrasolar colony where technology will allow Fenn's personality to be re-incarnated in a newly grown human body. Does "FENN WOKE" mean that all this has happened or just that the download has been activated? I think that the former is implied but the latter is possible.
Does the conclusion of The Fleet Of Stars feel like a double anticlimax? The reported galactic civilisation does not, after all, exist. Further, not only has the cybercosm tried to deceive the entire human race but its attempted deception has been exposed quite quickly. Not that I wanted it to succeed but the cybercosm is now revealed to be both dishonest and incompetent. This means that:
I do not think that it lives up to its self-description of "pure intellect" - surely deception should be as unacceptable to it as violence?;
Anderson had carefully preserved a moral ambiguity about the cybercosm's interaction with human society but the question is now answered decisively - the cybercosm has become manipulative, therefore harmful, unless, of course, it is obliged to return to its original role of merely helping the majority who "...want to keep on in their familiar lives." (p. 401)
Download Guthrie calls the attempted deception a "...conspiracy." (p. 396) Chuan, a man who interfaces and communes with the cybercosm, replies that "conspiracy" is "...an ugly word..." (p.396) It is accurate. Chuan also describes "...organic beings..." as "...limited, fallible, reckless, greedy, often hideously cruel -" (p. 396) We need not remain so. Indeed, "greedy" is a one-sided cliche when we consider that cooperation is basic to humanity and that people, as Anderson shows, are capable of generosity, love and forethought.
Such organic beings, according to Chuan, "...should not run loose in the universe." (p. 397) But they have wrought wonders at Proserpina and beyond. Chuan refers to "...warriors, hunters, butchers, bandits, carousers, criminals, grovelers in superstition, blood sacrificers...leftover animality." (p. 399) Again, one sided. Humanity can certainly transcend superstition and blood sacrifice!
The outcome is favourable from Anderson's point of view. Observation of the galactic centre has not revealed life or intelligence but has shown that the cybercosm's theory of everything was incomplete so there is more to be learned. Some people will go back into space. The Lunarians will be able to negotiate enough antimatter to fuel interstellar journeys. (The Lunarians are unpredictable but that cannot be helped.)
6 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Your last sentence runs: "Now the Lunarians are unpredictable but that cannot be helped." I would have stressed that ordinary, genetically unmodified human beings are just as unpredictable. After all, the reason why the Teramind/Cymbercosm had been to keep mankind on Earth swaddled in a cocoon of idle comfort was precisely to keep them from breaking loose of its control, from becoming unpredictable.
Sean
I agree and did consider using a different adjective for the Lunarians. Volatile? Fiery? Impulsive? Chaotic? Amoral? Not accepting human standards of honesty and fair dealing?
Hi, Psul!
How about saying the Lunarians were like the elves we see in Tolkien's THE SILMARILLION? That is, some of those elves were cruel, ruthless, greedy, etc.
Sean
Yes. Also the Selenarch's retainers seem to be perfectly happy and fulfilled in their subordinate roles. It looks as if there will never be a movement for democracy or egalitarianism among the Lunarians? In which case, it would be wrong for another species, home sapiens, us, to tell the Lunarians that they should want the kind of sociopolitical arrangements that we prefer.
Hi, Paul!
What matters to me is that a regime, what ever form it has, be accepted and considered LEGITIMATE by its people. I side with Poul Anderson here both in his scepticism of big government and his dislike of a "one size fits all" theories of government.
Also, those Lunarian retainers don't always have to be like that. Some will rise to become Selenarchs themselves for one reason or another.
Sean
The Lunarians certainly seem to accept the Selenarchy as legitimate.
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