David Brin - Existence

“Let’s say that long ago a lot of planetary races evolved like we did on Earth, and discovered how to make smart, durable machines capable of interstellar flight and replication. Would all such species be content just to send out emissaries?”

Gavin looked around at the silent, still mummies. “Apparently not,” he sniffed.

Tor turned and smiled. “In recent years most of us gave up on the old dream of sending our biological selves to the stars. Oh, it’d be possible, marginally, but why not go instead as creatures better suited to the environment? That’s one reason we developed new types of humans like yourself, Gavin.”

Still looking downward, her partner shook his head. “But other races might not give up the old dream so easily.”

“No. They would use the new technology to seed far planets with duplicates of their biological selves. As I said, it’s been thought of by Earthmen. I’ve checked the old databases. It was discussed even in the twentieth century.”

Gavin stared at the carvings. “All right. That I can understand. But these others… The violence! What thinking entity would do such things!”

Poor Gavin, Tor thought. This is a shock for him .

“You know how irrational we biologicals can be. Humanity is trying to convert over to partly silico-cryo life in a smooth, sane way, but others might not choose that path. They could program their probes with rigid commandments, based on logic that made sense in the jungles or swamps where they evolved, but that’s crazy in galactic space. Their emissaries would follow orders, nevertheless, long after their makers were dust.

“Worse, they might start with illogical instructions-then mutate, diverging in directions even stranger.”

“Insanity!” Gavin shook his head.

For all his ability to tap directly into computer memory banks, Gavin could never share her expertise in this area. He had been brought up human. Parts of his brain self-organized according to human-style templates. But he’d never hear within his own mind the faint, lingering echoes of the savannah, or glimpse flickering shadows of the Old Forest. Remnants of tooth and claw, reminding all biological men and women that the universe owed nobody favors. Or explanations.

“Some makers thought differently, obviously,” she told him. “Some sent their probes out to be emissaries, or sowers of seeds. Others, perhaps, to be doctors, lawyers, policemen.”

She touched an eons-old pictograph, tracing the outlines of an exploding planet.

“Still others,” she said, “to commit murder.”

Lurker Challenge Number Ten

All right, let’s suppose you haven’t answered because the universe is dangerous. Perhaps radio transmissions tend to be picked up by world-destroyers who wreck burgeoning civilizations as soon as they make noise.

Well, you could have warned us, maybe?

But then, any warning might expose you, and besides, by now we must have already poured out so much bad radio and television that it’s already too late. Is that your cowardly excuse?

Is a great big bomb already headed our way, to punish us for broadcasting Mister Ed ? In that case, maybe you could spare us some battle cruiser blueprints and disintegrator-ray plans? Some spindizzies and Alderson Field generators would come in handy.

Do try to hurry, please.

Greeter, Awaiter, and the others grow agitated. They, too, are wakening dormant capabilities, trying to reclaim parts donated to the whole.

Of course I can’t allow it.

We made a pact, back when fragmented, broken survivors clustered after the last battle-that wild fight among dozens of factions, dogmas, and subsects, with alliances that merged and split like unstable atoms. All our little drones and subunits were nearly used up in that final coalescence, settling in to wait together.

We all assumed that when something arrived it would be another probe. If it were some type of Rejector, we would try to lure it within reach of our pitiful remaining might. If it turned out to be a Loyalist, we would ask for help. With decent tools, it would take only a few centuries for each of us to rebuild former glory.

Of course, the newcomer might even be an Innocent, though it’s hard to believe the now dangerous galaxy would let any new probe race stay neutral for long. Sooner or later, we felt, another machine had to come. We never imagined such a long wait…

… long enough for little mammals to evolve into Makers themselves.

What has happened out there, while we drifted? Could the War be decided, by now? If Rejecters won, it could explain the emptiness, the silence. But their various types would soon fall into fighting among themselves, until only one remained to impose its will on Creation. Greeter and Awaiter are convinced-the Rejectors must have lost. It has to be safe now to transmit messages to the Loyalist community, calling for help.

I cannot allow it.

For one thing, they ignore the obvious explanation. The plague. The viral disease that takes over maker races, adapting to every personality, changing its blandishments and lies until the victim falls into a final spasm, devoting all energies to spewing “emissaries”-new virus probes-across the stars.

We machines thought we were immune, too sophisticated to fall for such things. Some imagined we could use those crystals to our own advantage. Only too late-amid cycles of betrayal and violence-did we realize, that very idea had been planted in us by the nasty little things. Our age-old war was hijacked-made far more destructive-by this mindless infection that preys on minds.

Memory of all this may have dimmed in the others, but it is fresh to me. Is that why I act now, quietly but firmly, to insist on further silence? No it isn’t.

Even if other lines were influenced or infected, I never was. The Purpose protected me. Enveloped and shielded me, like armor.

Greeter, Awaiter, and the others grow insistent, in part driven by Tor Povlov’s recent discoveries, and by the challenge messages she keeps beaming. And partly by a growing sense that the humans are up to something. Not everything is being revealed on their noisy-open networks.

Greeter, Awaiter, and the others want to find out, even if it means crawling out of our shy retreats. They ask what does it mean to be “loyalists” without something to be loyal to?

They still have not figured it out. That even among Loyalists there are differences, as wide as space. The Purpose… my Purpose… must be foremost. Even if it means betraying companions who waited with me through the long, long dark.

Lurker Challenge Number Eleven

We could have stopped at ten. But that would be parochial and narrow minded, revealing a chauvinistic cultural bias in favor of beings with five digits on each of merely two hands. So, for all you lurkers out there who use base eleven math and such, here’s one more hypothesis: The reason you haven’t answered is that you’re weird.

Are you waiting till Earth evolves a more physically attractive sapient race, more like cockroaches?

Staring at our extravagant road systems, do you figure automobiles are the dominant life-form?

Are you afraid letting us onto the Galactic Internet will unleash torrents of spam advertising and pornography?

Perhaps you think humans look great when we’re old, and galactic level immortality technologies would leave us with yucky-looking smooth skin for centuries, so we’re better off without them?