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"I received a nice letter the other day from the Dalai Lama. He had read 'The Nine Billion Names of God'. It is about a computer at a Tibetan monastery."
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Men Spread To The Planets | ||
| The idea that human beings should populate worlds other than Earth. |
The notion that human beings should explore or live on other worlds is a commonplace in science fiction. Campbell describes a situation in which humans simply prefer the Earth, and the possible consequences. In this case, an invasion of the solar system and the destruction of the human species on Earth. Save for two scientists, Trest and Roal.
| Then the gathering fleet was driven off, just as it seemed that that hopeless, futile curtain must break, and admit a flood of destroying rays. Great ray projectors on the ground drove their terrible energies through the enemy curtains of blankness, as light illumines and disperses darkness.
And then, when the fleet retired, on all Earth, the only life was under that dark shroud! “We are alone, Trest,” said Roal, “alone, now, in all the system, save for these, the children of men, the machines. Pity that men would not spread to other planets,” he said softly. “Why should they? Earth was the planet for which they were best fitted.” “We are alive — but is it worth it? Man is gone now, never to return. Life, too, for that matter,” answered Trest. “Perhaps it was ordained; perhaps that was the right way. Man has always been a parasite ; always he had to live on the works of others. First, he ate of the energy, which plants had stored, then of the artificial foods his machines made for him. Man was always a makeshift; his life was always subject to disease and to permanent death. He was forever useless if he was but slightly injured; if but one part were destroyed." |
| Technovelgy from The Last Evolution,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
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'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
