(i) A spaceship with robots directed by a downloaded human personality has already visited the planet Demeter in the system of Alpha Centauri. The download returned to Earth whereas the robots remained to continue exploring and transmitting data.
(ii) Matter-antimatter interactions propel a ship of unconscious downloads and microdevices at nearly half light speed to Demeter.
(iii) The downloads, activated on arrival, redirect the exploratory robots to mine, refine, build and produce equipment.
(iv) Microdevices build self-replicating robots that spread across Demeter and the Centaurian asteroids, constructing solar accumulators to power an industrial plant and a laser system that will decelerate ships, four decades en route, carrying hundreds of colonists in suspended animation.
(v) A download becomes the presiding intelligence of the artificially grown Demetrian ecology.
(vi) Other downloads are re-incarnated in newly grown human bodies.
(vii) Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is created on Earth and data transmitted to Demeter.
Thus, I think, Anderson answers the charge made against him by Brian Aldiss, and against sf in general by CS Lewis, that we are taken to other planets only to be shown the same kinds of things as we saw on Earth. But it should have happened sooner in Harvest Of Stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment