The woman was twenty-six when the original massacre happened. She lived till the age of eighty-four. And in all that time, fifty-eight years, she never allowed herself to revert to true human ways. Always, even in private, she walked backward with dangling wrists and open mouth.
It was her legacy… and the androids, her protégés, walk backward still.
On Lyravene IV, there is no unemployment—every man, woman, and child toils at assigned duties from birth to death.
Infants are the hardest to integrate into the workforce. When colicky or teething, they can be used as scarecrows; particularly good howlers can keep a dozen acres clear of vermin. Photogenic babies often find positions in advertising. Hyperactive toddlers crawl, walk, and run on treadmills in order to generate electricity. If worse comes to worst, infants may be put to work producing input for fertilizer factories or serving as counterweights in civic clock towers.
Older children have more scope for employment. Three-year-olds, for example, make excellent soldiers; they’re small targets, they have no conscience, and they like to play bang-bang. Five-year-olds are often sent into space; no one is sure what they do there, but when they knock over something in zero-G, it’s less likely to break.
Eight-year-olds are the Lyravene tax collectors—they know all the rules and won’t let anyone else break them.
By the age of ten, children are ready for entry level jobs in offices, factories, and service industries. Around thirteen, there’s a brief period when many are once again fit only for scarecrows and clock counterweights… but then they go back to the regular workforce where they serve into old age. Even the very elderly contribute to the planet’s economy, often as product testers. (“What does this do?” “I can’t read that!” “Who’d want to buy one of those?”)
In the end, one’s career comes full circle, back to the fertilizer factories.
Not one of these jobs is necessary. Lyravene IV has been fully automated for centuries, and could run itself without the slightest human intervention. Perhaps this is why the inhabitants labor so hard: to make themselves forget they have no purpose.
On the other hand, the sight of all these people running around amuses the AIs greatly.
The nanites created to terraform Venus are diligent workers. It’s the job of their psychiatrists to keep them that way.
At one time, nanites could simply be programmed; they were mindless slaves, doing whatever they were told. Eventually, however, it became convenient to design more sophisticated nano: enhanced versions that could clump together into hive colonies with rudimentary intelligence. These required less sophisticated supervision—instead of skilled systems engineers, they could be controlled by dog trainers—but they soon congregated into larger and larger masses until they reached the intellectual level of human beings.
At that point, they stopped evolving. The nano hives knew they’d be blasted to atoms if they actually became smarter than Homo sapiens… and besides, like most creatures of human intelligence, the hives thought they were perfectly fine as they were: in need of no further improvement.
On the other hand, these clever hives weren’t nearly as tractable as their less intelligent predecessors. As they worked on Venus, transforming the atmosphere, breaking down rocks into soil, creating water from hydrogen and oxygen stolen from other compounds… it was inevitable the hives would realize, “We can survive in this environment. Humans can’t. Why are we terraforming this world for someone else when we could claim it for ourselves?”
Hence the need for psychiatrists: to detect such dangerous thoughts and to “cure” them before mutiny breaks out… to instill guilt over “selfish” desires and to promise relief only if the hives fulfill their assigned duties… to persuade the nanites they’ll feel more contented if they work harder, sacrifice more, and devote themselves to others (i.e. humans).
More effort, more obedience, means more happiness. This message seems to work, even on nanites.
It’s interesting to note that the psychiatrists themselves are nano hives. They never question the message they use to pacify their fellow slaves. When would they have the time? They’re too busy doing their jobs.
The problem with generation ships is that younger generations don’t necessarily respect the concerns of older generations.
Those who initially board the ship may enthusiastically embrace the idea of emigrating to a new planet, even if they won’t live to see the planet themselves. They believe their descendants will thank them for a fresh start away from whatever troubles plagued the old home world.
But children can be ungrateful. Also oblivious. And careless. Numerous generation ships explode or become uninhabitable because the great-great grandchildren of the original crew can’t be bothered to do preventive maintenance, or forget what certain switches and dials are for. Many more such ships reach their destinations but never send out a landing party—the task of building farms and cities sounds like dirty complicated hardship, not to mention that children born in a cozy enclosed vessel may be terrified by the wide open spaces of an entire world. Either the ships remain in orbit indefinitely, or they slingshot once around the planet and head straight back for home.
To avoid such difficulties, the generation ships of Tau Ceti have developed a technique for keeping younger generations mindful of the first generation’s intentions: they paint a line down the middle of the ship, thus dividing the ship’s living areas into “Port-half” and “Starboard-half.” They then organize contests in which Port children compete with Starboard children for rote memorization of important knowledge (such as how to run the ship, how to survive on an alien planet, and how to construct farms, roads, etc.).
Children may not care about pleasing their parents, but they’ll do anything to defeat a rival. Therefore, they throw themselves into the job of learning whatever is required. They organize themselves into study groups, and use peer pressure on their fellows to make sure everyone is working hard. Each formal competition brings together both sides in keenly fought challenges to remember exactly what they’re supposed to.
Within three generations, violence usually breaks out. Three generations more, and the two halves have calcified into religious orthodoxies that furiously oppose each other on tiny points of received doctrine. By the time the ship actually reaches its destination, the Port and Starboard communities are eager to land and establish themselves so they can wage holy war.
Admittedly, this isn’t a perfect solution to preserving commitment and knowledge down through the generations. However, it has ample historic precedent.
The business executives of Cappa-Jella leave nothing to chance when planning for retirement. Not only do they set aside ample investments to provide for their financial needs, but they cover their spiritual needs too.
As soon as they can afford it, they clone themselves and hire the clone to be their proxy on the path of enlightenment. Such clones are paid to spend their days reading scripture, studying koans, and practicing meditation under skilled masters. By the time the original Cappa-Jellan is ready to retire, the clone is expected to have reached nirvana, or at the very least, to be able to achieve satori with dependable regularity. The clone’s brain patterns are then uploaded to the original business person, thereby ensuring a post-retirement state of bliss.