Conflicts In The Heavens

In Poul Anderson's Genesis (New York, 2001), each post-organic intelligence is both a node of the galactic brain and a self-conscious individual. In the latter capacity, each has specialized knowledge and a unique perspective:

"'...withdrawals are not unknown. A node may, for example, want to pursue a philosophical concept undisturbed, until it is ready for general contemplation.'" (p. 107)

No single mind can:

conceive of every possible interpretation of a body of data;
predict every possible outcome of a set of conditions;
follow every factor in observed processes -

- "'...and what is overlooked can prove to be the agent of chaotic change.'" (p. 127)

Wayfarer refers to "...the big continent south of Arctica..." (p. 132) We know from alternating chapters that Kalava hails from there. Gaia used to describe what sound like the earlier mentioned lyrehorns and lions on that continent. When asked by Alpha and other nodes why she had stopped mentioning them, she replied that they have become extinct but never explained why. When Wayfarer asks, she cites rising temperatures although he knows that warming cannot yet have had such significant consequences. She acknowledges that she lacks full knowledge because a living world is complex and chaotic but suggests that many small subtle changes, including new diseases, had broken a balance. However, she needs to learn more and he is too uninformed to be able to help.

Further, she thinks that more can be learned by watching the unforeseeable responses of Terrestrial life to changing conditions and ultimately to its own demise than by trying to preserve it. These do not sound like disagreements that will lead to a war in heaven but they will.