(no subject)
So I'm one chapter away from finishing "Neptune's Brood" by Charles Stross, but I just wanted to get down some thoughts I've had about it before I forget. It seems kind of odd...though maybe not, it is after all space opera, but I feel like this AI society of Stross's could be a pre-Culture type civilization, à la Iain M. Banks. For one thing, in the Culture, who is the primary lifeform? Well, the AI ships clearly. Not that it's a bad thing. In fact, it works out pretty nicely for the fleshy human precursors to the AI in the Culture. In Stross's universe, things are not working out so well for the Fragile, what he calls the fleshy pre-AI humans. But then again, things aren't necessarily working out so well for the AI either. You have this society where you're born into debt-induced slavery (like being born into sin, except debt is scarily more real than this religious abstraction), and are seemingly lucky to work one self out of debt/slavery. But, at the same time, the AI's feelings toward the Fragile are not necessarily antagonistic--in fact you have a new Church based off the worship and preservation of the Fragile. They often seem to be pretty bad at this preservation of Fragile lifeforms, but who knows, maybe in the future they'll figure out how to more successfully maintain Fragile lifeforms.
Anyway, what really made me see this connection between the Culture and Stross's AI society are the squid people on Shin-Tethys. Here you have the AI consciously altering their programming to become basically a post-scarcity utopian society. Now, I haven't made it to the end of the book yet, so maybe Sondra succeeds in destroying the Alizond sisters along with the squid people, but either way, we have this glimmer of hope, and maybe if not the squid people, some future AI society will succeed in making the same changes that the squid people want to make. Anyway, I feel like societies like the utopian communist squid people are the seeds of a society like the Culture--an optimistic vision of human potentiality, but where humans themselves are no longer the primary species...but where the new primary species, the AIs, are conducive rather than deleterious to the now inferior soft human creatures.
Maybe more thoughts about this book later, but that's all I feel like writing down for now...
Edit: Wow, what an awesome ending. I was almost a little surprised that Stross ended up coming to the optimistic side of space opera. Not that everything is peachy now in the post-Fragile universe, but at least there's some hope for the end of slavery. I was a little worried that squid people of the deep was just a ploy to show us something wonderful just so it could all get fucked up and be that more tragic. I really hope he continues telling this story-it seems like there is so much potential now. On another note, I love a book that ends with an exciting space boarding/battle scene...makes those last few pages not seem as long to get through!
Anyway, what really made me see this connection between the Culture and Stross's AI society are the squid people on Shin-Tethys. Here you have the AI consciously altering their programming to become basically a post-scarcity utopian society. Now, I haven't made it to the end of the book yet, so maybe Sondra succeeds in destroying the Alizond sisters along with the squid people, but either way, we have this glimmer of hope, and maybe if not the squid people, some future AI society will succeed in making the same changes that the squid people want to make. Anyway, I feel like societies like the utopian communist squid people are the seeds of a society like the Culture--an optimistic vision of human potentiality, but where humans themselves are no longer the primary species...but where the new primary species, the AIs, are conducive rather than deleterious to the now inferior soft human creatures.
Maybe more thoughts about this book later, but that's all I feel like writing down for now...
Edit: Wow, what an awesome ending. I was almost a little surprised that Stross ended up coming to the optimistic side of space opera. Not that everything is peachy now in the post-Fragile universe, but at least there's some hope for the end of slavery. I was a little worried that squid people of the deep was just a ploy to show us something wonderful just so it could all get fucked up and be that more tragic. I really hope he continues telling this story-it seems like there is so much potential now. On another note, I love a book that ends with an exciting space boarding/battle scene...makes those last few pages not seem as long to get through!