In my previous blog post I commented on "
Methuselah's Children", published in the year 1941 in
Astounding magazine by Robert Heinlein and in passing I mentioned both
Astounding editor
John Campbell and
Olaf Stapledon. In the past, I've tried to read stories written by both Campbell (examples: "
The Mightiest Machine" and "
Cloak of Aesir") and Stapledon and I confess that I struggled to get through them. However, I'm intrigued by the process that allows ideas to move from one generation to the next and has allowed ancient fantasy plot elements to be given increasingly interesting expressions within science fiction stories.
Evolution. Here in this blog post, I'm going to comment on Campbell's 1932 story "The Last Evolution". I'm interested in the extent to which Campbell influenced the stories that were written by both Heinlein and Isaac Asimov and published in Astounding.
Asimov wrote about his struggle to adapt to Campbell's biases (see "
The All-Human Galaxy") and in particular, Asimov noted Campbell's preference for stories in which Earthlings were shown to be superior to aliens.
A seemingly huge defect in the telling of Heinlein's story "Methuselah's Children" is that the "gods" of the alien Zhachera are never shown on stage or explained in any detail. I can't stop myself from wondering if Campbell edited that part of Heinlein's story. Heinlein suggests that those "gods" have very advanced technology and keep the humanoid Zhachera as little more than domesticated pets. Humans are shown as escaping from those "gods" because they are unwilling to go the way of the Zhachera and become subservient to the alien "gods". Campbell published this story about aliens who were technologically superior to Earthlings, but it was not a story about those amazing aliens. The story's focus stays on the human characters.
In Heinlein's "Methuselah's Children", the next step in human "evolution" is attaining immortality. Although Heinlein's story begins with the idea that you could try to artificially select for long-lived humans, in the end, Heinlein abandoned biological evolution and suggested that a combination of clean living (believing that you are immortal) and radioactive vitamins were the secret of immortality. In what evolutionary direction did Campbell go in his story, "The Last Evolution"?
Mentatype. I love the idea that information about our future could be sent back through time and appear in the form of published science fiction stories for us to read and view as being fiction, even-though they contain factual information about the far future (see Grean Fiction). Campbell's "The Last Evolution" is such a story, having been written recorded as a "mentatype" by an artificial life form of the far future.
In Campbell's tale, by the year 2500, thinking machines (I'll call them
robots) had become common on Earth. The robots could do all the work that needed to be done, allowing humans to have peaceful lives of relaxation and recreation. That future Earth, shared harmoniously by humans and robots, was upset by the arrival of
Evil Alien™ invaders (the Outsiders). 😈
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humans vs space aliens
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In "The Last Evolution", Campbell took note of the fact that, "
man was a sturdy race, which had fought for existence through a million years". If humans had been on Earth for million years then readers might wonder: why were we humans attacked by the Outsiders only after we reached the year 2500? If the galaxy is crawling with alien lifeforms with spaceships as depicted by Campbell and Heinlein in "
Methuselah's Children" (not to mention E. E. "Doc" Smith's
Skylark books) then why did aliens not visit Earth long ago? A
mystery!
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Blurb at the start of "The Last Evolution"; an interesting question not addressed in Campbell's story.
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Isaac Asimov called this
mystery "
Clement's Paradox" and the fact is, early science fiction writers did not bother to think very seriously about aliens. The standard way of including aliens in stories was to treat them as mindless barbarians who show up and invade Earth. In this case, Campbell can't be bothered to tell us why the Outsiders come to Earth and immediately begin to exterminate every biological organism on the planet. The Outsiders simply do so because... plot.
Alien Invasion. How did Campbell depict his robots (what he calls "machines") with artificial intelligence? Campbell assured his readers that humans have "imagination that outstrips the machine", so even if robots can use their "absolute knowledge of all mathematics" to calculate/simulate "all the Universe", people are still special.
"The Last Evolution" is a story told by a robot, but it includes mention of the "two greatest human science-investigators", Roal and Trest. Roal and Trest are depicted as "leading" the defense of Earth against evil invading Outsiders.
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the battle for Earth
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Earth has not had a war in hundreds of years, but in the few hours before the spaceships of the approaching invaders reach earth, Roal and Trest construct and deploy a line of defense consisting of futuristic atomic space torpedoes and "
heat rays". However, the Outsiders used powerful magnetic fields and their own sciensy "rays" to deflect and destroy Earth's torpedoes by "
instant volatilization". The Earthly heat ray weapon was completely useless and those rays were simply absorbed by an alien "force-screen".
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the green death ray
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World War I in Space. Upon entering the Solar System, the Outsiders attacked Earth with a green
death-ray (Campbell explains that this
death-ray selectively slows down exothermic reactions and speeds up endothermic reactions) that kills all biological organisms, but which did not effect Earth's robots. By continuing to build and deploy more atomic torpedoes, Earth finally destroys the entire 1st wave of attacking Outsider spaceships, but a 2nd wave of the invaders is heading towards Earth. Much of Campbell's story reads like he had read about
submarine warfare and then simply added atomic torpedoes and shifted it into outerspace.
Roal and Trest and all of Earth (both robots and humans) are in awe of the aliens who do not rely on mere atomic power, but rather use the "Ultimate Energy" derived from the complete disintegration of matter. Sadly, Earthlings have not yet developed a technology for accessing the "Ultimate Energy". But have no fear, Campbell's robots are here!
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in the Ekcolir Reality
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May the Force Be With You. Confronted by the on-going alien invasion, Earth's robots diligently work for an entire day to make a new model of super "
brain-machine" loaded up with "
infinite knowledge" and called
F-1. Good old F-1 immediately makes F-2 which can use the ultimate energy. F-2 makes CRU-1 which can produce the
death-ray of the Outsiders. In the second battle of Earth, the second wave of Outsider spaceships are destroyed , but not before killing every human on Earth except Roal and Trest (they are defended by the robots).
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| the words of the Golden Sphere |
Next, F-2 makes the
Golden Sphere, a new machine that is invulnerable to the weapons of the Outsiders. After demonstrating its awesome powers to the Outsiders (who become "
half mad with horror"), the
Golden Sphere inactivates all the weapons of the invaders and tells them to return to their home planet.
In something of an epilogue to the battle for Earth and the end of the human species, F-2 reports that after an additional 100,000 years, robot evolution has reached the final evolutionary step, having resulted in the construction of "
things of pure force and pure intelligence". F-2 reports that he is tired and rusted and ready to die, but "
they of Force are eternal and omniscient". Thus comes the end of dear F-2, but "they of Force" send F-2's mentatype record of events back into the past to be published in
Astounding magazine.
Campbell's machines (as depicted in "The Last Evolution") were crafted by humans to be cooperative and always loyal to humans. Later, in his positronic robot stories, Asimov invented the "Laws of Robotics" which codified how robots were irreversibly made the loyal helpers of Humanity.
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in the Ekcolir Reality
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Aliens Go Boom! At a very young age, having read both the
Skylark and
Lensman stories of
Edward Smith, I had obtained my fill of space battles. I suspect that Asimov went through the same process of over-exposure to space wars that read like fighting World War I in outer space where machine guns are replaced by blaster rays.
I like to imagine that in an alternate Reality, female authors and editors dominated the Golden Age of science fiction and other types of stories were written addressing other subjects besides alien invaders and space battles.
I'm glad I read Campbell's "The Last Evolution" since it depicts the defeat of invading space aliens -if not by humans- then at least by the robots that had been crafted by humans. Beyond the silly space battles, the old stories by people like Smith and Campbell depicted the amazingly rapid design and construction of new spaceship models. There is no need for a long research and development program in Campbell's imagined future.
In "Methuselah's Children", Heinlein continued that tradition with his SuperGenius™ character "
Slipstick" Libby who quickly produced new space-drives whenever the plot called for one. In the fictional world of Asimov, we actually got fiction that mentioned
Apollo style projects for major technological advances. Once I discovered Asimov's style of science fiction story, it became very difficult for me to return to reading stories in the style of Campbell and Smith.
It could be argued that the space war depicted in "The Last Evolution" is only incidental to the story, the war against aliens simply providing the necessary stimulus for a "sudden burst of evolution" among Campbell's machines. Had Humanity been left to peaceful existence in the isolation of its own star system, there may never have been a "technological singularity" leading to the omniscient "force beings" of Campbell's imagination.
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in the Ekcolir Reality
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Bad Biology. With his training in physics, I'm not sure that Campbell had any understanding of biological evolution. It is not surprising that Campbell would later publish in Astounding many Sci Fi stories by Heinlein (and other writers) such as "Methuselah's Children" with silly futuristic biology (human immortality is made possible by radioactive vitamins).
Later (1950s), in his story The End of Eternity, Asimov dealt explicitly with the idea that in a stable environment, human biological evolution could come to a grinding halt. What a breath of fresh air to have some science fiction stories written by someone who had studied some biology in school!
A. C. Clarke took this type of biological stasis to an extreme, imagining humans existing on Earth almost unchanged across 1.5 billion years of evolution.
Right at the start of "The Last Evolution", Campbell introduces the idea that there are many specialized types of machines (his "robots", or, more generally, machines with artificial intelligence). Of greatest importance within this mechanical zoo are the
Rulers. It seems that Campbell was thinking in terms of a distributed "network" of specialized robots (some like tiny drones), all coordinated by a "
Center of Rulers".
And Time Travel, Too! Campbell did not deal with any human effort to exceed the finite speed of light in "The Last Evolution" (all the events take place within a short distance of Earth) but he did not hesitate to endow his robots with infinite memories, omnipotence and the ability to send messages back through time into the distant past. One of the most audacious parts of the story is when the Golden Sphere proclaims proudly that its memories are all engraved "on the fabric of space". Sadly, it is not clear to we readers what Campbell imagined as the "fabric of space".
In the 1940's, Asimov was unable to join the Campbell bandwagon for infinite memory so he made use of a "
positronic brain" to hold robotic memories and he set a limit to how much information such a brain could hold. Asimov did imagine a vast
Galaxia of linked minds, all apparently in communication via "
hyperspace".
For stories in the Exodemic Fictional Universe, I imagine that there are ancient alien species who have advanced technology including the ability to travel through space at a speed greater than the speed of light. I imagine that such advanced alien technologies involve a domain (or two) of physics that is as yet unknown to we Earthlings. Through fantasy physics, I pretend that teleportation, time travel and faster-than-light space travel are possible, but I can't bring myself to join Campbell's camp where infinite memory and omnipotence will soon (by 2500) be within our grasp.
Next: on the origins of radioactive vitamins
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