Lungfish

AUTHOR’S NOTES

Again, the question of why we seem to be all alone.

Why do the skies seem so empty? Could it be that there are no other minds out there to meet?

Even if that is so, we will not necessarily be alone. We will have diversity in our future. In some of my novels I discuss “uplift” genetic engineering of nearly intelligent Earthly creatures, such as dolphins and chimpanzees. Even more likely, we may well see intelligent machines within a generation.

What will we do with them? The Frankenstein Complex will see to it that we are careful to make them loyal. The best way to do that will be to raise them to think and feel as we do, with emotions and a sense of humor… in other words, to be members of our civilization. People.

But that, clearly, is not the only way it could be done. There are many other ways others may have sent forth their machines.

The berserker probe has been made famous by the science fiction of Fred Saberhagen. A more sophisticated version is outlined in Gregory Benford’s Across the Sea of Suns. The “mother” probe concept has been featured in numerous recent stories, as a robot sent forth to recreate humans at a distant star. There are many ways, indeed.

Again, this unnerving concept was too strange to go into my academic treatment of SETI. But one of the more unappreciated uses of science fiction is to catalog and explore eerie and speculative ideas, those with just a glimmer of possibility.

“The Crystal Spheres” dealt with how we might feel if we were too early to find neighbors. “Lungfish” evaluates the opposite possibility. There is reason to believe that the galaxy just may be an awfully dangerous place, and we may have arrived quite late upon the scene.