Re: Moreaus?

From: Christian Weisgerber (naddy@mips.inka.de)
Date: Thu Oct 05 2000 - 08:55:45 MDT


[Non-member submission]

Michael S. Lorrey <retroman@turbont.net> wrote:

> > As nifty as these ideas are for a novel, assuming we could, why
> > would we possibly want to [create moreaus]?
>
> The easiest reason in the world: because the bad guys would already be doing
> it...

This already assumes that there is some kind of economic or other
value attached to creating moreaus. Swann's scenario where most of
the moreaus seem to have been created as cheap supersoldiers doesn't
seem very plausible to me.

> I just read _Forests of the Night_, which I am guessing is the second of the
> Moreau novels.

Actually, it's the first.

#1 _Forests of the Night_
#2 _Emperors of the Twilight_
#3 _Specters of the Dawn_

There's also the rather recent _Fearful Symmetries_, subtitled "The
Return of Nohar Rajasthan", which I haven't read yet, but I guess
the subtitle says it all (i.e. it's a sequel to _Forests of the
Night_).

> I've already read Swann's _Hostile Takeover_ trilogy, which occurs in the
> same universe, a hundred or two years later.

It's really a single large novel, broken up into three volumes for
publishing reasons. I don't want to recommend the Moreau novels in
an Extropian context, but _Hostile Takeover_, comprising

#1 _Privateer_
#2 _Partisan_
#3 _Revolutionary_,

is of some Extropian interest:

- The setting is the anarchist planet of Bakunin, covered by a multitude
   of very different communes that only agree on one thing: They don't
   want a government. Internally, the communes follow all kinds of
   lifestyles and social organizations, and then some, but their external
   relations are as libertarian as you can get.

- Nanotechnology has been banned after some unfortunate incidents
   in the solar system (on the jovians? I forgot). Those are never
   detailed, but the implication is some gray goo type catastrophes.
   However, on Bakunin, which is outside the bounds of law and any
   kind of government rule, there is a lone nanotechnology commune,
   well-isolated and under explicit threat of being immediately
   nuked by the other communes should there be any incidents. The
   protagonist eventually visits the commune, which turns out to be
   (in the terms of this mailing list) post-singularity.

- AI has also been banned, though I have forgotten whether for
   any inherent reasons or because it was a staple of The Race, the
   first alien species to mess with greater humanity. For alien
   moral reasons, The Race tried to subvert human civilization
   without direct action--Terra returned the favor by sending some
   warships, and that was it for The Race. A surviving Race AI is
   one of the protagonists.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de 


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