The book describes our species’ conquest of the solar system, interplanetary wars, scientific and cultural progress, and our evolution towards a more perfect society. Gradually, there is world unification and expansion into space. Our federated Earth – Gaia – expands into the Solar System – Solaria. There are many ups and downs, but eventually war between nations becomes something of the past and humankind relies increasingly on true science. The narrative culminates in a apotheosis when, in the late 25th millennium, Solaria begins to expand into the galaxy in order to humanize it. Because of Solaria/humanity, the universe becomes self-aware.
Targeted Age Group:: adults
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
This latest book was my first experiment in Science Fiction. It was inspired by Arthur C Clarke’s 2001, George Orwell’s 1984 and H. G. Wells’ “History of the World” as well as his “Time Machine.” I had always wanted to apply my sociological skills (that’s what I taught for more than 40 years) to a holistic prognostication of humanity’s distant future – as Wells did. However, unlike Orwell and Wells (but LIKE Star Trek), I am optimistic in the long run. I am an admirer of the philosopher Karl Popper. I agree with him that science and knowledge are infinitely expandable, and although humans are currently making some very dumb decisions, I am betting on the power and the triumph of the human brain in the long run.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
The first version of my manuscript hardly had any characters. It was a general “alternative history” book. Then, some reviewers and editors told me that characters would enliven the story. So I developed a multitude of characters. I made sure that they were “dynasties” of important historical figures – politicians, scientists, generals, astronauts, etc. These major figures – some good, some evil – are each other’s descendants and ancestors, separated by centuries.
Book Sample
By the end of the eighteenth millennium, thousands of virtual inter-stellar expeditions were taking place. One of the most memorable ones was the Great Unification Expedition (GUE) of 18053-18056. This was the first virtual expedition to Tau Proxima’s Nitrogenia – a satellite which solarians had discovered in the hundred-and-seventy-second century. Like most virtual expeditions, the GUE was launched at the New Amundsen Omega Space Center in Antarctica. The reception took place at Nitrogenia’s main science center on a huge lake given the name of Tau Ulterior. The team consisted of fifteen symbio-cyberons and their G?s, led by Jean-Baptiste Trinh and Paula Minh.
As always, while the team was under way, the cybersystem took over all operations and placed every team member in total limbo. This meant that no trace of their existence whatsoever existed anywhere in Solaria. For the duration, it was as if the leaders and the members of the G?s who made up the Great Unification Expedition had never existed. Knowledge of them was deleted from the consciousness of anyone who had ever known them, including their closest relatives. With its immense resources, the cybersystem was able to temporarily restructure the social fabric surrounding the members of the expeditionary team. No one was missed. And upon the astronauts’ return, everything would be restored. Use of tachyons made it possible to complete the entire transmission to Nitrogenia within a few weeks. Interaction between the virtual Gaian visitors and the Nitrogenians began immediately upon download.
Trinh and Minh were both radiant 2.5-meter tall verdants. Coming from the Jonasi capital, they were both mutants. Having grown up in the orbit of Uranus, they were highly resistant to the adverse conditions of outer space. They benefitted from the cultural and genetic heritage that was established on that satellite by the Halévyson dynasty. Furthermore, their roots were also in part Acpan, as their names indicate. They brought along fifteen artists, philosophers, cosmologists and musicians. Their IQs at rest ranged from 210 to 300. Trinh and Minh themselves were cosmologists trained at Verda’s Halévyson-Santander University.
The next three years were devoted to empathic interaction between the visitors from Gaia and selected Nitrogenians. This was an 80% one-way process. Gaians were much more evolved, hence much of the empathic process consisted of Gaians teaching Nitrogenians, although Gaians also learned a great deal of the aliens’ culture.
The prime Gaian focus was on knowledge and Judgment. Their approach was based on the Minding paradigm which Bao Rescuer had introduced in her neo-Kantian Lacrimal theses during the sixteenth millennium. Moving beyond the distinction between analytic and synthetic knowledge, Bao had introduced a third ontological category – that of integral knowledge, which consisted of new forms of scientific judgments NOT subject to positive (=empirical) proof – in sum synthetic a prioris. Science must become a deductive-inductive, natural and holistic process. It is the expression of Solaria’s evolving consciousness towards the Omega point. The Law of Homeostasis is contrary to the use o f violence against humans as a means. Life is sacred, including many higher forms of animal life. Solaria’s two prime directives are self-evident, as are the rules of critical reason, natural law, the fusion of Yin and Yang and human freedom.
The Nitrogenians were captivated. A young Nitrogenian named Rising Mind had an empathic relationship with one of Jean-Baptiste’s daughters – Trinh Vox ?. After the first few sessions, he requested to be re-linked with her, rather than to be assigned to another Gaian visitor. The elder Trinh okayed it. Rising Mind rejoined the young Vox and began, thus:
“Teach me to become you.”
Vox ? replied that, instead, they must strive to be in telepathic communication while keeping their selves intact.
“Can a Nitrogenian become a Gaian?” Rising Mind inquired.
“That’s not necessary,” Vox replied. “Nitrogenia and Gaia share the same well. The transcendental Reason, logos, is universal, essential and eternal.”
“Yet, I do not have your wisdom,” the young man replied morosely, adding, “you are my future and I am your past…”
“You may phrase it that way. However, past and future are connected not only by chronology, but also by essence. Imagine the Holon: It is an organism which contains a seed, or the essence of its own future. Conversely, the full-grown organism contains its own past in the form of memory. We are all teleological creatures, we all have what the ancient Gaian philosopher Bergson called the Elan Vital – the vital force. The telos is what guides us. It has already been revealed…”
“But why are we not the same?”
“We are at different developmental phases….In time, you will know many of the things which I now know, and other things which I will never experience…Let me show you…”
In the following three years, Vox ? shared with Rising Mind some of Gaia’s great treasures: The words of Homer, Dostoevski, Manu V, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the music of Mozart, Mahler, Hwang Wei, the waves of Somnat Hore, the particles of Stevensonii, and many others.
One day Rising Mind asked Vox ? :
“Does God live on Gaia?”
“Yes. And on Nitrogenia,” she replied.
“You must show us, then. I have not seen God.”
“God is but a metaphor.”
“What is a metaphor?”
“It is a word or an image used to represent something else, to represent an idea…Primitive Gaians developed an anthropomorphic image of the idea of God…”
“Anthropomorphic?”
“Yes, a picture that resembles man – for example the bearded old man sitting on a cloud whom I showed you a few weeks ago…”
“So God doesn’t look like that? What does he look like?”
“God is perhaps the wrong word for what you and I are talking about. What matters is not what we call it, but what it IS…”
“?”
It was not easy for Vox ? to move forward and answer Rising Mind’s questions. She tried a variety of answers, she talked about God as experience, God as first cause, God as immanent and transcendent, God as the evolving universal consciousness… The relationship between the two was deeply rewarding for both.
There were many such student-teacher relationships. They developed on location during those three years. More importantly, they multiplied after the expedition’s return to Gaia. During the following centuries, it became fashionable for the Gaian intelligentsia to go teach distant Nitrogenians.
In the year 18476, a formal union was declared between Gaia and Nitrogenia. The two civilizations became linked through a positive affirmation stating that he good of one was inextricably bound to that of the other, as was their suffering. Subsequently, other such pacts were sealed between Gaia /Solaria and extra-solar groups. Solaria was exporting universal values. It was bonding with other planets’ consciousness. It was beginning to spread its wisdom across the galaxy.
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