"...the galactic river encompassed him." (30, p. 382)
On Mars, download Guthrie visits David and Helen Ronay shortly after the violent deaths first of their daughter, Kinna, then of Kinna's fiancee, Fenn. Despite the somberness of this occasion, the natural setting seems hopeful:
"The sky was pale rose, bright with morning." (31, p. 392)
Life is always ending and beginning. See:
Sunset And Morning
Quit While You're A Head
By contrast with the Ronays:
"...grief of the Terran kind was unknown to Lunarians." (31, p. 394)
They really are different - can we say "alien"?
Chuan describes the attempted massive deception not as a "'...conspiracy...'" ("'That is an ugly word, captain.'") but as:
"'...a stratagem for a noble purpose and an end too great for you to imagine.'" (31, p. 396)
Buddhists have a concept of "skillful means." Thus, a hermit, realizing that a deer in a remote wood had not learned to fear human beings, tried to teach it that fear, and thus to save its life, by running toward it, waving his arms and yelling. His threatening behavior was a pretense but for a good end. But how much deception might be justified as "skillful means"? Chuan's explanation sounds sanctimonious:
"'Humans...organic beings, limited, fallible, reckless, greedy, often hideously cruel - should not run loose in the universe.'" (31, pp. 396-397)
Greedy? Cruel? Not when we are civilized and have no reason to fight for survival or to hoard limited resources. Do we fight for the air that we breathe? Yes, if we are in a space station and down to the last oxygen cylinder.
Chuan's false dichotomy between, on the one hand, a population intellectually stimulated not by the real universe but by an elaborate fiction dishonestly presented as the cosmic reality and, on the other hand:
"'...your warriors, hunters, butchers, bandits, carousers, criminals, grovelers in superstition, blood sacrificers - your leftover animality...'" (31, pp. 398-399)
- is fatuous. There are never just two options, one bad, the other worse. When discussing alternative social arrangements, we should never have been told that there was only one, demonstrably worse, alternative: totalitarianism.
But something much more interesting is happening:
"...things went on around the great black hole - monstrous forces, convulsions in space-time - which the scientists at Proserpina could not account for or even give a name to." (31, p. 396)
"'...what's really going on at the core of the galaxy.'
"Chuan's self-control wavered for a moment. 'I don't know what it is. I cannot comprehend. But the great equation, the ultimate summation, is clearly incomplete. I suspect that the new knowledge, the new physics, can lead to - a power to transform the universe.' He shuddered." (31, p. 397)
Often, Anderson underlines dialogue with the Pathetic Fallacy. Here, Chuan's wavering and shuddering serve the same purpose. But, if the great equation is now seen to be incomplete, then everyone needs to cooperate to understand what is really happening in reality.
Signing off till next month, tomorrow.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I only have a few random thoughts to offer. Yes, Lunarians were hominids, descended from the same stock as unmodified human beings, but still ALIENS.
I disagree with Chuan, what the cybercosm had attempted to do WAS a conspiracy to deceive mankind. And the ends desired by the cybercosm would, if achieved, would have made the entire human race totally powerless and irrelevant. Becoming no better than pampered pets living in sybaritic and pointless idleness (which is what we see in GENESIS).
I don't share your optimism about mankind someday transcending strife and conflict. I suspect, even in a post scarcity economy, people will pick fights and indulge in intrigues and skulduggery simply to relieve boredom!
And the way to find out what is going at the core of the Galaxy is for PEOPLE to go there and find out! And not to have the wool pulled over mankind's eyes by the frauds of the cybercosm. The solution is for mankind to get OUT into the galaxy.
Sean
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