Kate Payne  
LITR 4632: Literature of the Future  
June 2, 2003  

Evolutionary Narrative: Humans in Space

Evolutionary Narrative: One common evolutionary ideal found in literature about the future is human beings living somewhere other than Earth. This idea can be approached countless ways, but the underlying scenario remains the same.

Text 1. Political theme

Orson Scott Card

Songmaster

Prologue to novel:

Nniv did not go to meet Mikal’s starship.  Instead, he waited in the rambling stone Songhouse, listening to the song of the walls, the whisper of the hundred young voices from the Chambers and the Stalls, the cold rhythm of the drafts.  There were few in the galaxy who would dare make Mikal come to them.  Nniv was not daring, however. It did not occur to him that the Songmaster needed to go meet anyone.

          Outside the Songhouse walls the rest of the people in the planet Tew were not so placid.  When Mikal’s starship sent its savage pulses of energy onto the landing field and settled hugely and delicately to the ground, there were thousands waiting to see him.  He might have been a well-beloved leader, come to hear the bands and see the cheering crowds that filled the landing field when it was cool enough to walk on again.  He might have been a national hero, with flowers spread in his path and dignitaries bowing and saluting and struggling to cope with a situation for which no protocol had yet been learned on Tew.

          But the motive behind the ceremonies and the outward adoration was not love.  It was an uncomfortable memory of the fact that Tew had been slow to submit to the Discipline of the Frey.  That Tew’s ambassadors to the other worlds had toyed with the plots and alliances that formed to make a last, pathetic resistance to the most irresistible conqueror in history. None of the plots came to anything.  Too many greater leagues and nations had fallen, and now when Mikal’s ships came no inner world resisted; no hostility was allowed to show.

Text 2. Fantasy theme

Anne McCaffrey

The Skies of Pern

Introduction to the novel:

          When mankind first discovered Pern, third planet of the sun Rukbat, in the Sagittarian Sector, they pain little attention to the eccentric orbit of another satellite in the system.

          Settling the new planet, adjusting to its differences, the colonists spread out across the southern, most hospitable continent.  Then disaster struck in the form of a rain of micorhizoid organisms, which voraciously devoured all but stone, metal and water.  The initial losses were staggering.  But fortunately for the young colony, “Thread” as the settlers called the devastating showers, was not entirely invincible: both water and fire would destroy the menace on contact.

          Using their old-world ingenuity and genetic engineering, the settlers altered an indigenous life-form that resembled the dragons of legend.  Telepathically bonded with a human at birth, these enormous creatures became Pern’s most effective weapon against Thread. 

Video 1. Technology theme

Cowboy Bebop

Often in animation and film dealing with the future, humans are found living away from Earth (ex. The Jetsons, Star Wars).  A major theme in many of these works is the technology that is available at whatever time period the piece takes place.

Questions:

v     Why is the idea of living on other planets so prevalent in our culture?  What is appealing about living outside of this solar system, potentially with other species?

v     What does this interest reveal about our culture?  Is this a possible justification or explanation for the general disregard that is shown for the Earth’s resources?

Discussion Summary-

(notes by Kim Kimmel)

The discussion began on the topic of wanting to live on other planets.  Some of the reasons presented for wanting to live on a planet other than Earth stem from our lifelong fascination, as a society, with spaceships.  For the past several decades, space travel and space exploration have been an integral part of our existence because of the program NASA has established.  The space probes currently used by NASA are to determine how and if life can be sustained on other planets.  Also, astronauts who are currently living on space stations are a very good example of the reality of living in a place other than Earth.    Additionally, our collective natural curiosity has compelled us to continue to ask, “Are we the only people out there in the Universe?”  Our sense of manifest destiny, and our need to know about who and what else is out there motivates us to want to seek answers and to consider moving beyond our known earthly boundaries in search of other life forms and living environments.  

What this does this desire to live in space say about our current culture?  We are a throw-away society.  We consume natural resources at an alarmingly high rate; in fact, we don’t even mind if we ‘throw away’ the earth in the process.  Humans, as a whole, appear to support the false belief that “humans have come so far, what harm could possibly happen to us?”  Since we choose to behave and think in this manner, and we are not willing to give up our lifestyles, then it naturally follows that eventually we will have to find a suitable place to live elsewhere.  If we continue consuming resources at the current rate we are, some day the earth’s limit will be reached.  Then we will have no choice but to succumb to the earth’s collapse or move further out to establish new societies on other planets. 

In fact, China is already making plans to set up their own space station on the moon, so the idea of occupying other places in space is certainly inside the realm of current possibility.  China may be setting the example for all other nations to follow in planning for a future society capable of sustaining life elsewhere in the Universe.