There is no writing except in primitive accounts of food inventory. Spelling is not regular, nor is the majority literate beyond the capacity to make tallies. There has been some linguistic change, on which we might derive more information if we knew the world of origin of these Union colonists and the azi (see document E). The accent is distinctive after less than a century of isolation, indicative of a very early breakdown of formal education; but the forms of standard grammar remain, not uncommon in azi‑descended populations where precise adherence to instruction has been tape‑fed as a value.
The local nomenclature has changed: few townsmen recognize Newport as the name of the colony. Their word for their world is Gehenna, while the primary is called simply The Sun, and the principal river on which they have settled they name Styx. The literary allusion is not known to them.
There is no indication that the inhabitants understand any political affiliation to Union, or that there will be any active opposition to Alliance operations or governance.
There is, however, a second and more serious consideration, and it is one which the mission hesitates, in the absence of more evidence, to present to the Bureau. While Union documents describe the highest lifeform as nonsapient, evidence points to caliban intrusion into human living area during the colony’s height. It would be speculative at this point to suggest that caliban activity may have led directly to the decline of the colony, but it is remarkable that the decline has been so thorough and so rapid. Dissension and political strife among the colonists might have disrupted human civilization, but the town, of considerable population, does not show any fear or carry any weapons excepting utilitarian objects such as knives or sticks, and does not threaten with them. We do not yet have a census, but the town is a little smaller than we would expect. Granted the usual Union colonial base, the world population in fifty years might well exceed a hundred thousand by natural reproduction alone.
Possibly poor health care and limited food have worked to keep the rate of increase somewhat lower than average, although families observed are large. Possibly there was a conflict. Possibly there was decimation by conflict or disease. Based on information given by townsmen, nomadism may be a factor to be considered both in population estimates and in politics. The town numbers perhaps as many as 70, 000, with extremely crowded conditions. There are small outlying settlements of less than 1000 individuals sharing town fields, and probably established for convenience.
The heart of the town is limestone slab construction, but the outlying districts and later additions to central district houses are brick and timber, indicating change of supply or change in technological level. Access to the limestone of the central hills may have been cut off, perhaps marking some change of affairs regarding hill communities and the town, but it would be speculation at this point to draw any conclusion.
There is division of labor into brickmaking, pottery, weaving, agriculture. There are no domestic animals: clothing is linenlike, from the cultivation of local plants. There has been a successful economic adaptation to locally available materials, and insofar as success of a colony might be its ability to remain viable without offworld supply, Newport, or Gehenna as the locals name it, has achieved at least a tenuous success.
The atmosphere is overall agrarian and tranquil, although our military advisors persist in warnings that they may be awaiting the departure of the ship and attempting to secure an advantage of surprise. The scientific mission doubts this, but will of course take suggested precautions. The mission for its part has advised that extreme precautions extend to native lifeforms.
From Section D, mission report
Dr. Cina Kendrick
…Intelligence is not, as indicated above, a scientific term. I have objected to the description sapiencein previous studies and again take issue with biological studies which attempt to attach this imprecise assessment of adaptive and problem‑solving capacities to non‑human lifeforms.
Two considerations must be made. First, that an organism’s behaviors may be survival‑positive in one environment and not in another, and second that its perceptive apparatus, its input devices, may be efficient for one environment but not for another. The quality imprecisely described as intelligence is commonly understood to describe the generalization of an organism, i.e, its capacity to adapt by the use of analogy to a variety of situations and environments.
On the contrary even the concept of analogis anthropocentric. Logicis another anthropocentric imprecision, the attempt to impose an order (binary, for instance, or sequential) on observations which themselves have been filtered through imprecise perceptive organs.
The only claim which may be made for generalization as a desirable trait is that it seems to permit survival in a multitude of environments. The same may be said of generalization as part of the definition of intelligence, particularly when intelligence is used as a criterion of the inherent value of an organism or its right to life or territory when faced with human intrusion. Generalization permits migration in the face of encroachment; and it permits one species to encroach on another, which adds another dimension to natural selection. But when extended to intrusion not over another mountain ridge within the same planetary ecology and the same genetic heritage, but instead to intrusion of one genetic heritage upon another across the boundaries of hitherto uncrossable space, this value judgement loses some credibility.
The dominant lifeform on Gehenna II is a scaly endothermic quadruped without aesthetic attraction. The description that leaps too readily to mind is reptile, which does not adequately describe an interior structure which is not reptilian or pertinent to any previously catalogued lifeform; it does not describe behaviors such as mound‑building or suggest reasons for an advance into human “territory”. Nor does it adequately describe the adaptive process by which this lifeform succeeds in the face of a human colony armed with modern weapons, furnished with heavy construction equipment, and established with the precedent of many previous successes.
I dissent from the mission opinion which seeks to debate whether the Union colony may have “contaminated” a sapience. I dissent not to condone the intrusion of humankind into this ecosystem, but to protest a proceeding which will attempt on the basis of quantitative anthropocentric standards to determine the relative value of a lifeform against the desire of humankind to possess what this world has held until now unique within the rules established by its own genetic heritage.
Report, document E
Dr. Carl Ebron
Observation indicates human sites scattered through the hills to such an extent that it would take years and force to lift human presence off this planet. The colonists of the town might obey a summons to be lifted off. It is doubtful that others would be receptive, and the result of any attempt to remove the human population would be a scattering of human presence on a world where humanity can survive without technology. The end result is still contamination, and possibly hostility which might be exploited centuries hence. We are ironically faced with a first‑contact situation involving our own species, a situation fraught with the direst potential hazard to zonal stability and peace.
My own recommendation is a quarantined observation point, allowing what has begun here to take as natural a course as is possible under regrettable circumstances. The other logical solution, a thorough sterilization of the entire area of possible contamination, the elimination of both human and native lifeforms in the hope of preserving a planet from contamination, is Draconian and unthinkable. We are human beings. Our morality constrains usfrom such a decision as might undo an evil. I do not know whether this is (a term to which Dr. Kendrick would object) intelligenton humanity’s part, but it is certain that nothing on this world offers us resistance or seems to mean us harm, and I see no choice but the maintenance of the status quo until such time as a more informed decision might be made.