After a battle:
"...I lay in the canoe, vomited, coughed, and wept. It wasn't merely reaction. I was altogether sickened. Galaxy God - any God - must we kill through all time, until time ends when the disgusted universe collapses inward on us?" (pp. 115-116)
I would have said no, nothing will last until the end of time but consider the scenario in this novel. The universe - not just the galaxy - is full of intelligent species at every stage of development and they can all interact thanks to the space jump so, yes, there will be every kind of interaction and some of these interactions will be violent. Every stage of development will always be instantiated somewhere. There will always be violence but there will also be civilizations that move beyond it.
Ah... what happens when the ones who haven't moved "beyond" violence contact the ones who have?
ReplyDeleteYes, that will be one of the difficult (at least) interactions. There can be any kind of interactions in that scenario.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteBesides what Stirling said, I can't help but wonder how realistic Argens' reactions were. A space captain many centuries old should be more case hardened about violence. Was this really the first time Argens encountered violence?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Yeah.
ReplyDeleteI might point out that I've seen people die in large numbers -- I walked past dead and dying famine victims in the street when I was ten years old and saw a room where two men had hacked each other to death a couple of years later -- and it didn't particularly affect me.
I certainly didn't weep or throw up. It was just... there.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteI agree, Valland's reaction was more-hard headedly realistic.
While we should not be cold bloodedly callous about cases of the kind you mentioned, unfortunately It's What Human Beings Do, and is not always going to be averted/prevented. That Haitian sadist, Barbecue, might still be roasting his victims alive!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, I would have reacted more strongly if it had been my relatives or friends. Mind you, I'd have been angry, not so much disgusted.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Stirling!
ReplyDeleteOf course, that's the normal and proper way we should feel about violence done to our friends and relatives. And outraged if any of them had been tortured.
I also recalled Valland mentioned sometimes being a soldier, meaning he had experience in how to react to or handle violence.
Ad astra! Sean