Death among the Genesaunts

Neuron death and personality death

In Exode, the human residents of Hemmal do not get sick. Their bodies swarm with symbiotic nanoscopic components that efficiently repair damaged molecules, cells and tissues. Under such conditions, might the residents of Hemmal be immortal?

The Huaoshy have a few specific reasons for keeping humans on Hemmal. In particular, the Prelands are being subjected to a continuing process of genetic modification and artificial selection in an attempt to produce human variants that can merge into the transgalactic Genesaunt civilization that has been created by the Huaoshy.

Humans, as evolved on Earth, are viewed by the Huaoshy as little more than a dangerous and self-destructive life form, an evolutionary dead end. On worlds such as Hemmal there has been a 7-million-year-long search for useful gene combinations that might allow apes from Earth to evolve into a new form of life that is compatible with Genesaunt civilization. The Prelands are a work in progress, part way along the evolutionary arc between humans as we exist on Earth and the type of artificially evolved form of life that the Huoashy hope to craft from Earth's genetic stock.

Hermaphroditic Prelands: the future of human evolution

Given the advanced technology available to the Huaoshy, it is possible to keep the residents of Hemmal alive indefinitely, but such immortality would not facilitate the continuing evolution of the Prelands. Prelands are trained to live dramatic lives in an attempt to attain heroic glory and they usually die young.

The second important function of worlds like Hemmal is the production of Interventionists. The Buld Clan is an evolutionarily specialized branch of humanity. The Buld were engineered as a hermaphroditic human variant that can evolve in parallel with humans Earth. A true Buld has one more pair of chromosomes than we Earthlings. When additional Interventionists are needed on Earth then "false" Buld can be produced by subtracting the extra chromosome.

The Buld believe themselves to be immortal. However, while their bodies can be repaired and can theoretically last indefinitely, their brains are constantly changing. After a hundred years a Buld has few memories that are 100 years old and so that individual will have a distinct cognitive identity that is different from that of 100 years before. Each Buld individual has a human-like concept of the self, but that cognitive self is not immortal. Further, the Buld have an interesting reproductive process that impacts heavily upon the Buld concept of immortality.

Reproduction on Hemmal

 

Preland reproduction is entirely artificial. Genetic material is extracted from Prelands and artificially recombined to produce new Preland individuals. The infant Prelands are raised by the pek who have complete responsibility for passing the Preland culture from generation to generation.

Buld reproductive processes are different for the true Buld and the "false" Buld. The "false" Buld are difficult to distinguish genetically from Earthlings. The first few months of gestation take place inside the body of a true Buld then the pek assist in an early birth process. Gestation continues artificially (inside the body of a pek who will function as the "false" Buld's mother for the first few years of life). The newborn "false" Buld is raised in a special pek community to adulthood. In most cases, a "false" Buld has trouble fitting in to Buld society and is happy to leave the home world, receive training and then serve as an Interventionist agent on Earth.

For true Buld, the conceptus is never born. After three months of growth in the uterus the cells of the developing embryo become aggressive and, in cooperation with a swarm of symbiotic nanites, the cells of the new embryo being to spread through the body of the parent, eventually destroying and replacing all of the parental cells. Typically the parent is unaware of the pregnancy until the cells of the central nervous system are being replaced. The parent is suddenly incapacitated and enters into the religious ceremony of taiuoro, viewed by the Buld as a religious ritual of transformative meditation. After several weeks of being cared for by pek in a temple, the transformed Buld returns to normal life, usually with dramatic personality changes and vastly disrupted memories of previous life.

Many Buld view their life cycle as being a significant advance over that of the Prelands. Most Buld view the taiuoro as a kind of reincarnation. Some religious Buld think of the taiuoro as an opportunity to move one's self closer to perfection. Others view "the change" as an indication that one's past life was a failure and "the change" as being imposed by the Creators as a way to erase a failed Buld from existence. Some non-religious Buld abstain from engaging in sexual activity and thus avoid the taiuoro. A central tenet of Buld religion is that sexual behavior is required for transformation of the Buld towards the form of the Creators, however the Buld believe that they have evolved beyond the need for physical change and the needed transformation is spiritual.

Related reading: The Religion of Exode.

The Religion of Exode

intelligent design

"Is God a race of sentient alien beings that see all of time and space at once and is helping us evolve in ways we are too small to understand?"

During the construction of Exode I've been struggling with the temptation to make religion a significant part of Genesaunt Culture. At one point in my thinking I suggested that Genesaunts might "never question their origins". Genesaunts live in an entirely synthetic culture where they are miraculously provided with just those technologies that their keepers want them to have. For example, Genesaunts almost never suffer illness. They live with nanorobotic medical nanites in their bodies that automatically repair injuries and damages tissues.

However, I decided that one of the main characters in Exode, Kach, would have religious beliefs about how humans were created. After making that decision to include religious Genesaunts in Exode I realized that maybe the pek would actively support and foster certain religious beliefs as part of their need to prevent Genesaunts from developing an interest in science and technology. If Genesaunts are trained to believe in the existence of a powerful but unseen Creator then maybe they would not question their origins and the artificial structure of their lives.

In my previous blog post, I described the special role that the pek play in raising and educating young Prelands. As part of their indoctrination of Genesaunts, the pek find it convenient to provide a specific religious belief system that explains how the human species was created. Initially I was thinking of the various types of religious belief systems that we have here on Earth and the kinds of creation myths that have been invented by the many cultures of Earth. However, the pek encourage a different kind of belief about human origins, a religion specifically designed for Genesaunts living in the special environment of worlds in the galactic core such as Hemmal.

Conflicts between Religion and Science
One of the interesting aspects of religion on Earth is conflict between different religions, but within Genesaunt Culture the pek have an efficient system for making sure that there is only one religion: the one that they create and maintain. On Earth the creation myths adopted by religions can come into conflict with our scientific understanding of the world. For example, some people have adopted the religious belief that the Earth and humans were created recently by divine intervention. Such beliefs are very different from the scientific view which is built on objective evidence for a very old Earth and a long evolutionary process by which humans came into existence. Would Prelands be subjected to such conflicting accounts of human origins?

What do the pek teach the Prelands about biology? Not much. In fact, the same can be said for any scientific topic. The only pocket of scientific thought within the Genesaunt Culture of the galactic core is within the ranks of the Interventionists and primarily among the Fru'wu.

Upon arriving at Earth seven million years ago, one of the major goals of the pek was to transform the primitive apes of Earth away form their natural biological form towards a type of artificial life. This is the kind of transformation that the Huaoshy went through about a billion years ago and for the past several hundred million years the pek have been going from galaxy to galaxy and guiding thousands of different species along the path of cultural development that the Huaoshy went down.
From our perspective as humans, the most important biological fact is that the pek have accumulated a huge amount of evidence to support the idea that technology-wielding species self-destruct. The only known antidote to this problem of self-destroying technological cultures is to transform species like humans into an artificial lifeform that does not have the disadvantages of a biological lifeform.

Towards that end, Genesaunt Culture is initiated when species such as humans are taken away from the planet where they evolved and placed into the artificial environment of worlds near the galactic core where exposure to gamma ray bursts from exploding stars has prevented the evolution of native complex lifeforms. The typical Genesaunt has no chance to experience an Earth-like environment and even begin to wonder about the possibility of humans evolving from an earlier-existing form of life. Genesaunts are like a blank slate; ready to adopt a creation myth provided to them by the pek. There is some spread of the scientific notion of biological evolution from the Fru'wu to the Interventionists of other species, but the Fru'wu are a very special case. The Fru'wu are the most accomplished galactic explorers within Genesaunt Culture and they found their home world and other worlds beyond the galactic core with rich ecosystems. Fru'wu Interventionists understand biological evolution and they understand that the pek use advanced nanotechnology to shape and control Genesaunt Culture. Still, the Fru'wu can't refute the evidence that exists concerning the self-destruction of technological species so they are not tempted to use their knowledge of biology as a basis for trying to oppose the religious belief system that is imposed by the pek on most Genesaunts.

What is the pek view of biology?
Here is an analogy..... Think about our attitude as humans towards the small pox virus. We view that virus as a scourge and we have celebrated its eradication. What if the Huaoshy view primitive lifeforms such as we humans as little more than a destructive product of random biological evolution, as a kind of weed, as something that needs to be eradicated? Continuing this analogy: some scientists find the vaccinia virus to be useful and, if looking for a silver lining to this dark cloud, we might optimistically note that the means by which a biological scourge is eradicated can have benefits or be of practical value. Similarly, the Huaoshy derive benefit from the process by which the pek transform primitive biological species such as we humans into more Huaoshy-like artificial lifeforms. The pek eradicate the human-like species they find in galaxies and replace them with artificial lifeforms that are compatible with the Huaoshy. This process essentially "immunizes" the universe against violent and destructive lifeforms, making the universe safe for the Huaoshy.

Time to extinction for species under direct observation; past 50 million years

The pek use their religious belief system to assure that Genesaunts will fear the wild and destructive lifeforms that arise by random mutation. The main biology lesson that the pek teach to Genesaunts is the history of the technological species that for the past billion years have been observed by the pek during the time that the pek have spread from galaxy to galaxy. Upon arriving at a new galaxy the pek always find some planets with the remains of civilizations that have self-destructed. Typically, a galaxy might have a few planets with species that make tools or possibly a fledgling interstellar empire. In the case of our galaxy, the pek came across the Fru'wu who were just starting to use fusion-powered spaceships to travel outward from their home star system.

Seven million years ago the pek took some Fru'wu, some primates from Earth, and representatives of about 20 other tool-using species to planets of the galactic core where those species were "cultured" and domesticated by the pek. In the case of the Fru'wu, the pek have detailed records of how the Fru'wu civilization on its home planet destroyed itself. However, the pek were able to preserve some of the Fru'wu on planets of the galactic core and by the time of Exode, some Fru'wu of the galactic core (who descended from Interventionists) have started using hierion technology of their own design.

The Fru'wu thus provide a good example, from our own galaxy, of a technologically advanced species that when left on its own, destroyed its budding civilization, but with the help of the pek, some Fru'wu were genetically modified and those "domesticated" Fru'wu have survived in the galactic core. The pek have thousands of other similar examples from the past several hundred million years and the thousands of galaxies that they have explored.

The pek are rather humble. They don't present themselves to Genesaunts as being the means by which the Huaoshy transform species like the Fru'wu from

1) bumbling creatures who will die off soon after starting to develop a technological civilization

to

2) genetically modified organisms on the path towards abandoning their biological form.

The pek are known to the Prelands as servants who do all the dull and boring tasks that humans don't want to do. A major pek strategy is to provide Genesaunts with religious beliefs that support the idea that it is the responsibility of the Genesaunts themselves to achieve a fundamental transformation of thier nature.

Previously when I was thinking about how the pek would educate young Genesaunts I was imagining a learning environment similar to a modern school, but now I'm leaning more towards the idea that the pek might provide "temples" where the young are systematically indoctrinated with the idea that humanity's chance for survival lies in a future transcendence to a form of existence beyond what is possible for our physical bodies. They Huaoshy have radically transformed themselves into an alternative state of existence where their physical makeup is sedronic matter. The pek use religion to facilitate the process by which humans are being transformed from their natural biological form into an artificial form of life that resembles the Huaoshy.

This devious and deceptive strategy of using a religious indoctrination system might be the only strategy available to the pek. The fundamental transformative process that the Prelands are going through involves adapting their brains for efficient utilization of nanite symbionts. Eventually, the Genesaunts need to willingly abandon their biological bodies and transfer their minds into the form of bodies built from hierion-based nanites. Towards that goal, through a process of artificial selection, Prelands are being evolved away from the use of spoken language towards reliance on a form of "mental resonance" by which hierion-based communications between nanite symbionts in Preland brains allow for a kind of direct telepathic sharing of conscious brain states.

The entire process by which Prelands abandon their biological nature and learn to use their nanite symbionts is guided by rituals that take place in the pek-run "temples".

The Buld are in an interesting position with respect to Preland religious beliefs. The Buld Clan is a tiny minority among Genesaunts and the Buld exist for a special purpose different from the Prelands. The pek allow the Buld to decide for themselves if they want to adopt religious rituals and beliefs. Some members of the Buld Clan try to adopt Preland religious beliefs while other Buld are skeptics who prefer a rational and science-based account of Genesaunt Culture. Unfortunately for that scientific Buld, the pek have no intention of helping the Buld pursue science. The process by which a species like a tool-using ape is transformed into a sedronic artificial lifeform is not simple. Here is an analogy: imagine starting with a bacterial cell and trying to transform it into a dog. Even with advanced genetic engineering tools and artificial selection such a transformation is not going to be easy. The gap between a chimp and the Huaoshy is of similar magnitude as the gap between a bacterium and a dog. During the long, slow process of that transformation the pek do not want to have any Genesaunts, including the Interventionists, be successful in developing an active pursuit of science and a society with expanding technological know-how.

The Buld "scholars" have taken on the task of trying to understand relationships between all of the different Preland groups on hundreds of worlds such as Hemmal. The only Buld who are allowed a chance to directly study Preland culture are "missionaries" who adopt Preland cultural practices. Kach is a "missionary" on Hemmal when she meets Parthney. She is torn between revealing herself to Parthney as a "false" Buld female and completing her mission for the "scholars". I have yet to decide the extent to which she is a "true believer" in the Preland religion of "transformation"; possibly she will not fully adopt Preland beliefs and sometimes she will have to just pretend to be an unquestioning believer in order to be able study the Prelands.

From the perspective of the pek, the most important function of the Interventionists is to provide a mechanism by which desirable human gene combinations can be transferred from Genesaunts to humans on Earth. In the first chapter of Exode, Parthney is on track to become an interventionist.

An unavoidable consequence of sending Interventionists such as Parthney to Earth there is also some "cultural contamination". I'm having fun imagining how some aspects of Preland religion and some elements of Interventionist knowledge can reach Earth and influence the development of religions on Earth.

For example, imagine that about 5,000 years ago some Interventionists on Earth were able to share the idea of written language. Imagine that there were four specific locations on Earth where the Buld "scholar" practice of using written language became known to Earthlings. This transfer of cultural knowledge from the Buld to Earth was felt to be desirable by the pek because of the fact that a Buld spaceship was on its way to Earth and it would be dangerous if the cultural differences between Earthlings and the Buld were too great at first contact.

The Exode story itself takes the form of "cultural contamination". Imagine if 5,000 years ago an Interventionist arranged to leave behind on Earth a written account of how the human species was created. How might that story have been integrated into the myths and religions and of Earth?

"religion is the earliest form of science fiction"-Philip Jose Farmer 

Slavery in Science Fiction

"On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends." --Oscar Wilde

In Rich Horton's review of Emphyrio he notes that this is one of Vance's "more melancholy books". How melancholy? After having loaned my copy, and not getting it back, I've never bothered to buy another copy of this book. In contrast, I have many other Vance novels that I have re-read until they fell apart.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, it is not unusual for the young protagonists in Vance's SciFi novels to find themselves dealing with the loss of family members; often they have been murdered. In Empyrio, Ghyl Tarvoke must struggle along through life after the death of his father. As I recall (I last read the story more than 20 years ago), we never learn much about Ghyl's mother. Lonely boys against the world dominate many of Vance's stories.

Star Wars - Leia

Slaves. When selecting dark themes for his stories, along with the frequent murders, Vance is not reluctant to include slavery.

Examples of overt, conventional slavery are found in Vance's Demon Princes novels. Gersen's family was destroyed by criminals who attacked the community of Mt. Pleasant, killing many and enslaving the other victims.

In The Palace of Love, Gersen visits the city of Sabra on the planet Murchison where slaves produce fine tapestries.

In Vance's Allastor Clustor novels there are space pirates who never hesitate to capture and enslave young women. I've never read Vance's Slaves of the Klau.


In The Palace of Love, Gersen encounters slavery at every turn. The climax of the plot comes when Gersen visits Viole Falushe's Palace of Love on the world Sogdian. The residents at the Palace of Love think of themselves as the Fortunate Folk, living their lives at the Palace where they think only of how to contrive romantic encounters.

When Gersen, playing the role of a journalist, finally manages to "interview" Falushe, he notes that the Fortunate Folk live without any of the normal concerns and responsibilities of life: they are slaves.

Viole Falushe agrees with Gersen's observations, but he chooses to emphasize the fact that the Fortunate Folk are not aware that they are slaves. Falushe adds, "All of us are slaves in some wise."

In Star King, a man (Rampold) had been the prisoner of the vile "beauty" Dasce for many years, held captive at a secret hiding place, and subjected to various forms of torture. With the help of Gersen, Rampold is suddenly given his freedom, but he has lost interest in civilization. Rather than return to a life of normalcy and comfort, he elects to remain alone on a distant planet, now holding Dasce as his prisoner.

Vance also often wrote about worlds where populations are subjected to tricky schemes of economic slavery. The planet Halma falls into this category. Ghyl discovers that his people are, unknowingly, economic slaves of the alien Damarans. Ghyl's father worked his whole life creating carved wooden screens, but the wealth from their sale went to the Damarans.

Star Trek - Vina

Star Trek - Drusilla

No human male can resist them. Slavery has been a feature of both Star Trek and Star Wars. I've always been amazed by the sheer amount of murder, slavery and violence in general within science fiction stories. SciFi is not some freakish bastion of horror. For example, the Bible has plenty of murder, slavery and violence. I can almost understand Gene Roddenberry constructing a story in which there is an effort made to tempt a starship captain with a green Orion slave girl. The effort fell flat, but it provided an opportunity to splash some (green) skin across millions of television screens.

What was Jaba's interest in Leia? Bait to lure Han to his death? I mentally stumble over idea that in a culture with amazing technologies such as starships and robots there might be people would still think that slavery is a good idea. Including slavery in stories about technologically advanced future cultures is as hard for me to swallow as the suggestion that in the year 2012 General Motors would put slaves into their factories rather than paid employees or robots. Is outer space so vast that there will always be a "fringe of society" where people behave like it were 1000 BC on Earth?

I suspect that in Hollywood they have data from the folks in marketing to show that profits rise 12.4% if a taught bare thigh finds its way into a story (or, more importantly, into the advertising art work). The commercial realities of SciFi probably are such that including just one slave girl in your story generates enough $$$ to justify building slavery in your fictional universe of the future. You can always generate "human interest" by making a story about revenge for murder or the struggle to escape from slavery.....or, if it floats your boat, the slave girl's discovery that she likes being a slave.

Disclaimer: I've never read any of the novels in the Chronicles of Gor. Almost everything I know about these books is from discussions of them (example). Could there be a human culture within which slavery was welcomed and enjoyed by slaves? John Lange seems to have made a tremendous effort to construct such an alternate reality.

Apparently a favorite theme in Gor novels is for a human from Earth to suddenly be removed from Earth and placed on Gor. For example, "the slave girl of Gor" is apparently an Earth woman (Judy Thornton) who suddenly finds herself transplanted to a culture where she is trained how to be a slave. Judy eventually decides that in the alien-constructed culture of Gor, the slaves actually have more freedom than non-slaves.

What interests me about the stories of John Lange is the backstory; there are obvious parallels to the Exodemic Fictional Universe. Humans on Earth are relatively primitive and there are technologically advanced aliens who have visited Earth and taken humans to live on another world: Gor. These aliens (apparently they have no better name than the Priest-Kings) limit the technology that is available to humans (and other similar species that have been brought there) and all this is done for some purpose, but I've not discovered a description or account of why the Priest-Kings collect creatures like humans and turn them into slaves. From my perspective, it is all done to allow Lange to play out his philosophical and sexual fantasies.

I guess the Priest-Kings are modeled after social insects, so slavery might seem "natural" to the Priest-Kings. Ed Wilson has often suggested that we try to imagine the ethics and morals of a sapient being that had evolved from a social insect such as an ant. The Priest-Kings prefer to live underground and they are oriented around olfaction rather than vision. They have technologies that are almost magical to us, such as being able to move their planet through the galaxy and, even when placing it in our Solar System, they can keep it concealed from primitive human technology.

Exode
I'm currently constructing a new novel (Exode) set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe. In developing Exode, I've struggled to find a way to slip a murder into the plot.

source

What about slavery, is there a place for it in Exode? The story begins on the world Hemmal, one of many planets located towards the center of our galaxy. There are space aliens in Exode, but the story is centered on humans who were taken away from Earth by the Huaoshy and transplanted to places such as Hemmal.

Why do the Huaoshy bother? The motives of the Huaoshy are not really an issue in Exode. Just as a rancher might irrigate grass in a field, the Huaoshy like to nurture creatures such as we humans. The people of Hemmal live their lives never meeting the Huaoshy or having a chance to become aware of the fact that the Huaoshy are responsible for creating the human species and bringing some humans to Hemmal.

It is not easy for primitive creatures like we humans to understand the Huaoshy. The Huaoshy did have a biological origin that was quite conventional: evolving on an Earth-like planet over the course of billions of years. However, the Huaoshy established a technological civilization about a billion years ago on a planet in a distant galaxy. The Huaoshy long ago created their current physical form, that of an artificial lifeform. The Huaoshy are approximately as different from we humans as we are from a bacterium.

The backstory of Hemmal is that the Huaoshy have been spreading outward from their home galaxy for hundreds of millions of years. The Huaoshy reached our galaxy about 7 million years ago. The Huaoshy set in motion a process by which humanity was created from the primate stock originally available on Earth. The humans on planets like Hemmal are part of the on-going effort by the Huaoshy to domesticate and genetically improve the lifeforms in our galaxy.  I've previously suggested that the relationship between humanity and the Huaoshy is similar the relationship between grass in a pasture and a horse rancher.

pro-choice alien, Adam and three candidate Eves

Are the people of Hemmal nothing more than slaves? They are prevented from learning the truth about their origins and the Huaoshy, but they lead happy lives. Happy and restricted. They might resent their role as breeding stock if they were aware of it.

In addition to the human population of Hemmal there is a large population of humanoid robots. The robots are tools of the Huaoshy, but they provide the humans with all of their material needs. The Huaoshy have a very sophisticated nanotechnology that is deployed on worlds such as Hemmal in the form of the robots, medical nanites (that provide the residents of Hemmal with long, healthy lives) and a few high-tech devices such as food synthesizers and the genetically engineered plant-like organisms that are used to help terraform planets like Hemmal and provide the human residents with a convenient supply of electrical energy.

I'm Spartacus!

I'm Spartacus!

The robots create and maintain the shape of human culture on Hemmal. The robots raise the children, indoctrinating them with the conventions of an artificial civilization that serves the purposes of the Huaoshy and this assures that the humans never question their origins or their destiny. Is any human living under such conditions a slave?

What seems most important to me is this: do you, as an individual, feel like a slave and desire freedom? The main character in Exode is Parthney, a rare mutant among the human population of Hemmal. In general, the medical nanites of Hemmal constantly watch for deleterious mutations and correct them. However, there is one particular mutation that the Huaoshy plan for and make use of. Parthney suffers from this special mutation and ultimately it leads him to believe that the people of Hemmal are slaves, but not until after Parthney has already served as an Interventionist agent while visiting Earth.

A blade of grass cannot resent the rancher's choice to let horses graze on grass, but Parthney resents how he was used to further the plans of the Huaoshy. He can burn with resentment, but Parthney still finds himself to be completely helpless, still trapped in the vast, transgalactic web that has been spun over millions of years by the Huaoshy.

Give me liberty

I'm not Spartacus. The dominion of the Huaoshy is actually more extensive than just a "transgalactic web". The Huaoshy have been spreading their cultural influence from galaxy to galaxy for hundreds of millions of years. By the time that the Huaoshy reach Earth, their civilization spans tens of thousands of galaxies. During their exploration of space, the Huaoshy have found thousands of planets where life evolved and human-like civilizations first appeared, flourished, faltered and then finally sank into nonexistence. Only by rare luck did the Huaoshy come into existence as an artificial lifeform that can persist across vast periods of time.

Parthney learns the truth about human origins and struggles with this question: is it better for humanity to accept the patronage of the Huaoshy or would humans be better off if they revolted and went their own way? Are we humans so proud and independent that we would prefer to risk a miserable self-generated plunge into destruction rather than live safely under the guiding influence of the Huaoshy?

Parthney wants to shout, "Give me liberty or give me death!" but across 100,000 galaxies the evidence indicates that liberty, for human-like species, is what leads to death. An important part of the "Huaoshy system" is that anytime someone like Parthney learns too much and begins to feel that they are being deprived of self-determination then they are put into close contact with the social group that they perceive as depriving them of self-determination. In the end, Parthney wants to "go all the way" and "meet his maker" and his cry becomes, "Give me enlightenment!". This is not easy to accomplish since the Huaoshy are essentially a synthetic state of matter that exists beyond the three spatial dimensions known to we humans. It is Parthney's son who elects to adopt freedom and abandon the Huaoshy system. In the Exode Saga, it is left to the reader to decide to what extent we here on Earth are slaves.

"Never before in history have slaves been so well fed, thoroughly medicated, lavishly entertained. But we are slaves nonetheless." -- Edward Abbey
______________

source

Star Trek Continues. A 21st century perspective on slavery in science fiction (watch).

Is Ava in Ex Machina a sex slave?

Related reading: science fiction as a literary genre.
                           2019: Emphyrio and the Cold War

2015: Bringing back Ghyl Tarvoke for a second life. Also: Slaves of the Huaoshy

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Contest

Can you prove to this computer that you are human?

The computer age seems to be blossoming with an endless array of increasingly annoying software "features" that are inflicted upon us by folks with titles such as "software engineer". I love terms such as "software engineer". Clearly, if we are going to compete in global markets, then we need a steady supply of nifty job titles that will massage the tender egos of cubicle-penned herds of information age workers. I suspect that in Asimov's fictional universe it was possible to make intelligent robots because U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. had top staff with titles such as "Head Psychologist" rather than "Software Engineer". In our non-fictional universe it would be dangerous to have psychologists in top positions at computer companies...they'd get fired after mentioning that crappy software infuriates users.

I've been spending a significant amount of time lately thinking about artificial life and machine intelligence. Alan Turing imagined what has come to be known as a "Turing Test", a kind of game that would provide an operational definition of human intelligence. Turing's guess was that by the year 2000 there would be computers that we would all feel comfortable calling "intelligent".

That didn't happen.

image

text

Instead, the year 2000 brought us the reverse Turing test and the need for we humans to prove to computers that we are human. Now that's progress. In the "captcha" example shown above, you are expected to prove that you are human by typing in two words, one that you see in the image and the other that is in the text, a jumble of overlapping letters. So, human, what two words do you see?

Human Evolution

I'm three chapters into a new story set in the Exodemic Fictional Universe and I'm deep into imagining the social dynamics of a culture that includes both humans and humanoid robots. The robots are at least as intelligent as the humans and the bots have to make an effort to not offend the sensibilities of the humans who think of themselves as masters of the robots. In fact, the robots run the show and the main functional role for the humans is to serve as breeding stock.

We like to think of the human species as being at the top, having ascended during the past 7 million years through several intermediate steps from a common ancestor to chimps and humans.

Alien with a big brain.

One of the joys of science fiction is imagining biological species that might evolve far "beyond" the stage reached by we humans. It has long been popular for SciFi stories to include alien species with brains that are even larger than ours.

I put "beyond" in quotes, because it is not clear what might come next. Bigger brains might not be better. There is some evidence that human brains have actually gotten smaller during the most recent phase of human evolution.

In an Exodemic story, if I introduce the idea of a type of space alien that has existed as a sapient species for tens of millions of years then I'm usually able to leave all the details of the physiology and appearance of those aliens to the reader's imagination. For argument's sake, let's call those aliens the Huaoshy. But here is an analogy:

Imagine that the Huaoshy came to Earth about 7 million years ago and started "domesticating" the common ancestor to chimps and humans. In other words, the course of human evolution has been controlled by the Huaoshy. In particular, they have in mind a goal; they know the type of creature that they want to transform the human species into. Further, imagine that the Huaoshy have set up several "cultures" of humans, experimental laboratories of human evolution located on several different worlds where the trials and errors and designs and genetic engineering of humans can be played out across many thousands of years.

Imagine that we humans here on Earth have gone along an evolutionary trajectory as illustrated above (You Are Here). At the same time, on another world the Huaosy have been more aggressive and they managed to engineer a human variant that is much closer to their desired goal. Now, if brought before your maker (the Huaoshy) how would you argue the case for we Earthlings? What if the Huaoshy have their own concept of what constitutes a sapient creature and in their terms, we here on Earth are still sub-human creatures, not much better than chimps?

Die, Earthlings!

And maybe it is worse than that. Maybe the Huaoshy are disgusted with how we Earthlings are turning out. Maybe the Huaoshy are starting to think that it might be wise to sterilize this culture dish, just drop an asteroid on Earth and start over with field mice as their evolutionary starting point. After all, the Huaoshy already have human variants on other worlds that are nicely evolving towards the goal.

So here is the contest: prove to the Huaoshy that you are human. Warning: the Huaoshy are going to use their own highly subjective standard for what constitutes "human".

Been Here, Done That

Image source: Dallas1200am on flickr.

I've previously blogged about the Fermi Paradox. My "solution" to the paradox is that we should assume a solution that allows us to create the most interesting science fiction stories.

In Hollywood, science fiction has been dominated by stories in which aliens miraculously evolve on another planet for hundreds of millions of years, develop technology and reach Earth while still at a technological level very close to our own. In the movies, it is desirable that the underdog species in a first contact battle be able to defeat the evil invader. Yawn.

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However, it has been estimated that the average Earth-like planet might be a billion or more years older than Earth. Contact between Earth and another technology-using species might very well involve another species that has technology far beyond our own. Is it more likely that Earth was first visited long ago or that Earth would first be visited only now, just when our species is starting to take its first steps into space? Authors like Arthur C. Clarke have imagined human contact with aliens who long ago visited earth and influenced human evolution.

What should we expect of a hypothetical species that has been spreading between the stars for hundreds of millions of years? Would galactic explorers still be biological or some kind of artificial life? Why should their motivations be anything like our human motivations?

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A form of life spreading through our galaxy would likely find Earth-like planets before those worlds had evolved technological species of their own. There would be great temptation to tinker with the life forms on Earth-like worlds, to explore the ways that such life could be pushed into more interesting forms. Does the history of life on Earth show evidence of such tinkering?

Lost World trilogy

Until about 65 million years ago Earth was dominated by small-brained animals. After the extinction event of about 65 million years ago, the mammals diversified and several large-brained clades have since evolved, particularly cetaceans, elephants and humans. As primates, we are unique in becoming a tool-using species that quickly (in evolutionary terms) eliminated all of our closes relatives and competitors. Was the rise of mammals just by chance? Is the evolution of our species a chance event or the result of some sort of intelligent design? When we finally obtain evidence of aliens will we discover that they found Earth long ago?

Image source: Blackwell Publishing.

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Will our experience of first contact turn out to involve aliens who yawn and say, "Been here, done that....long ago. We've been here millions of years guiding your evolution so that you could finally recognize and welcome us."

Related Reading: The Exode Saga

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