In Poul Anderson's Technic History, a Chereionite spies on Terrans for the Merseians and an Ythrian spies on Aeneans both for his own Domain and for the Terrans (Terrans and Aeneans are the same species) whereas, in Anderson's Harvest The Fire, a download spies on an Intellect, a Terran and three Lunarians for the cybercosm but, in the latter case, the various entities share a common origin because Intellects and Lunarians are metamorphed Terrans, the download is the personality of a dead Terran preserved in an artificial neural network and the cybercosm is a global AI created by Terrans.
Thus, in the second scenario, diverse forms of intelligence emanate from a single planet. In fact, might genetic engineers create organisms corresponding to various extraterrestrial species as described in works of sf?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The fact that a world wide AI, the cybercosm, threatens to supplant or shunt aside the human race in the HARVEST OF STARS books would be a subtler, more sophisticated form of the "Frankenstein Complex." That is, the fear that a human creation would displace its creators.
As for the second scenario, we see something like that in "The Queen of Air and Darkness." The non-human residents of the planet Roland must have used genetic engineering to created the intelligent life forms used to help bamboozle and subvert the human colony founded on Roland.
Sean
Sean,
I thought that the Fairyland scenario on Roland was all an illusion?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Not quite! The natives of Roland were able to fool or delude humans into thinking they looked like elves, but they really did create or breed new life forms, in addition.
Sean
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