New Eden

by Kishore Tipirneni

  “What is it?” Williams asked.

  “Let’s give him a Twitter account. Joshua and I will personally manage it since Seth isn’t allowed to use any electronic device. People will have access to Seth from anywhere in the world. In keeping with security protocols, we’ll tweet Seth’s answers to a select group of screened questions as well as other information about Seth’s movements and pronouncements. Porter’s representatives can vet each and every tweet if they want. I feel that if people are given more information about him, they may feel less compelled to crowd the streets and look for him.”

  Porter gave his begrudging approval since he didn’t like the cult status the alien had attained. “Popularity can become power,” he warned, “but as long as he confines himself to his mystical babble, I’ll give it a green light.” He sternly urged Joshua and Rachael to screen questions carefully, and he forbade Vinod to have any input into the process unless Seth was commenting on “that crap that Bhakti calls music.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Vinod said later. “I guess Porter never listened to the lyrics of sixties rock music. I can think of worse things to discuss with petrins than peace and love.”

  In the days following the creation of an account under the name of SethTheAndroid, Twitter crashed after the first tweet of “‘Sup?” since he acquired ten million followers in the first hour. When the social media giant was online again—Twitter quickly allocated additional server resources to handle the extra load—Seth’s profile picture became iconic and was copied and put onto tee shirts and posters, and his image became the avatar for millions of his online devotees. He immediately received thousands of marriage proposals, requests to attend Star Wars and Star Trek conventions, and the offer of millions of dollars to endorse every kind of product one could think of. Scientists asked Seth to solve the Unified Field Theory, and physicians asked Seth for the cure to cancer and other diseases even though the news media had written extensively about petrin rules prohibiting the introduction of new science techniques into an existing culture.

  Despite Seth’s refusal to respond to any of these requests, doctors and physicians alike pleaded with the android to provide a cure for Ebola, and a small backlash was created by his refusal to help. People accused Seth of being cold and emotionless since the disease was spreading to more countries every day, and the number of deaths was now approaching one hundred thousand. Behind the scenes, the president had instructed Dina Williams to ask Seth to make an exception to the petrins’ rule of noninterference for humanitarian reasons. She relayed the request, promising Seth that any help he might provide would be kept confidential and that no one would know where the cure had come from.

  “I’d like to help, Ms. Williams,” Seth said after the chief of staff flew halfway around the world to make the plea in person. “Many civilizations throughout the universe face a multitude of crises, but we’ve learned through the millennia that it is the knowledge, wisdom, and ingenuity of a species to solve these problems, especially very serious ones, that allows these species to grow and evolve. To skip any steps in the natural evolution of your planet’s culture would be cheating you of the very means by which a civilization learns to thrive and become truly advanced.”

  “We respect your position on the matter,” Williams countered, “but do you know how cold that sounds? Here on Earth, the greatest among us have learned that helping those who can’t help themselves is a virtue. Evolution is very real, but we also believe that the acquisition of technology must be used to help others.”

  Seth stared at Williams for many seconds, and whether he was communicating with the collective or simply analyzing her question was unknown to the personal team, who were the only other members in the room when the request was made.

  When Seth spoke at last, he said, “I think your philosophy of aid and compassion is admirable, but it applies only within the framework of the actions that your own species chooses to take. If you choose to help yourselves, then that is your decision. If you chose to harm people, that would be your decision as well.”

  Williams, despite her jetlag, pressed Seth further. “You mention evolution, but are you invoking Darwin’s survival of the fittest? If so, then your lack of help might condemn an entire planet to extinction.”

  Seth nodded his head. “At present, the collective does not view your Ebola outbreak as an extinction event. It is affecting only a small percentage of your total population. We have a strong moral obligation to prevent extinction, but we don’t see this as the case with your current outbreak. I know this is difficult to accept, but we can’t change our philosophy of nonintervention even for heartbreaking cases such as this. I believe you’ve heard of the Butterfly Effect, a well-known phenomenon on your planet. A butterfly disturbs the air only slightly in one hemisphere but causes a tornado in another. It’s a ripple effect that can cause severe changes in an ecosystem in a short period of time. The butterfly seems harmless, but the tornado can be devastating and take many lives. Curing Ebola may be beneficial in the short term, but the consequences can be harmful in other ways.”

  “This is all too theoretical when people are dying,” Williams confessed.

  “Let me give you another example,” Seth continued. “You manufacture beneficial chemicals, but many are turned into substances that are harmful when ingested. They have unforeseen consequences, just like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings.”

  “By that logic,” Williams said, “any action may end up being harmful.”

  “That’s quite true, but the collective wisdom of your own planet must govern what actions are taken, not the wisdom of Petri. Every planet is its own contained system. In fact, you have a branch of science called systems theory which states that any influence from an outside system can cause chaos, as in formal chaos theory. Petri is an outside system and must remain that way so that we don’t unintentionally cause disaster for your planet. We can’t endanger the Earth in an attempt to save it in the short term.”

  Vinod stood and approached Williams and Seth. “He’s right. I know exactly what he’s talking about.”

  Williams sighed wearily. “I do too. Put in those terms, it all makes abundant sense, but I had to ask. We’re desperate, Seth.”

  “I understand. We’ve monitored the outbreak carefully and will continue to do so, and I hope you’ll soon succeed in finding a cure.”

  There were those humans who didn’t understand the science behind the Bowman sphere or spookyons or who simply thought it was all made-up nonsense. They believed that the announcement of Seth and the existence of extraterrestrials was a government hoax, a misinformation campaign worthy of the X Files. Others believed the news, but they became survivalists and doomsday preppers and sat outside their homes, trailers, or bunkers, drinking beer and waiting for an invasion to begin.

  Most people, however, were genuinely excited by the news and even embraced the information, as redacted as it was, that Seth was providing. The 103 Club continued to grow thanks to social media. Surprisingly, the majority of those who joined the club were not fervent believers in existing religions. They were mostly those who had grown up in the information age. There were many atheists and agnostics, as well as scientists and engineers who viewed The 103 Club not as a religion, but as a belief system, one that made sense in a world increasingly dependent on information. The believers of established religions viewed the club as more of a cult. Some of the more fervent believers in the club sported tattoos of the number 103 on their bodies.

  It came as no surprise to Joshua and Rachael when Vinod came to one of their meetings one morning with a new 103 tattoo on his left arm.

  “Are you paying homage to your guru?” Rachael asked.

  “Yup,” Vinod replied.

  Mitchel Porter’s response on seeing the tattoo for the first time was more jaded. “Bhakti, I see that you’ve decided to have your IQ tattooed on your arm.” Porter didn’t care about the outpouring of enthusiasm since Seth’s repetitive recounting of pe
trin ideas—the 103 garbage, as the general sarcastically called them—contained nothing related to technology except the vague mention of backup copies minus the instructions as to how humans could accomplish the same task.

  Seth’s definition of life as purposeful complexity sparked a vigorous discussion on his visit to Russia. During the scientific discussion, Rachael and Joshua in attendance, he was asked a question by a female scientist.

  “Given your definition of life as information with purposeful complexity,” she began, “what do you feel about the controversial topic of abortion.”

  “I can see both sides of the issue,” Seth began. “First of all, there is no question that an abortion ends a human life, but petrins believe that life itself is not an absolute quantity but an accumulated quantity. For us there is not much difference between a fertilized egg that will eventually grow into a human and one that will eventually become a pig for example at the time that they are both embryos. However, the human will accumulate more life eventually than the pig. This will happen over many years in the form of intelligence, thoughts, and personality. Therefore, an adult human for us is much more valuable than an adult pig.”

  “Are you saying that you approve of the concept of abortion?” the scientist asked.

  “I’m not saying any such thing,” Seth replied. “It is up to humans to make the determination of where to draw their moral boundaries. I’m simply giving you a way to measure life that can be used to make those determinations.”

  The scientist pressed Seth further. “By your definition then, a newborn infant contains less life than an adult.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But that by no means indicates that we support ending a newborn’s life.” Seth turned the tables on the scientist. “But I feel that you have also determined that a newborn may be less valuable than an adult.”

  “How so?” the scientist asked.

  “What would you do if you had to make a life or death decision between a baby and an adult? Do those situations happen?”

  “I can think of one such situation,” Rachael said. “Sometimes there is an incompatibility between a fetus and the mother so that continuing the pregnancy would significantly jeopardize the life of the mother.”

  “In that situation, who’s life do you choose?” Seth asked the scientist.

  “It’s a difficult decision,” the scientist replied, “but I guess we would choose the life of the mother.”

  “As would we,” Seth replied, “but we justify this decision using our definition of life. What is your rationale for choosing the life of the mother?”

  After pondering the question for a while, she finally replied, “I don’t think I can give you a specific rationale.”

  “It seems to me that you may already be using the petrin definition of life without knowing it.”

  The scientist had no response to Seth’s last statement and moved on to a different topic.

  The concepts in Session 103 had other unforeseen consequences. Thousands of wealthy individuals began to explore the possibility of cryonically freezing their bodies if they became gravely ill or if they died since Seth had created great interest in the topic of immortality. Was it possible, people wondered, to live forever by periodically freezing one’s body whenever serious illness or prolonged age incapacitated individuals? Could it be done again and again, always to be cured as medicine advanced over time?

  Keying on the concept of backup copies of one’s “pattern,” as Seth had termed it, others wanted to have their pattern preserved at life extension centers, a business enterprise that grew almost overnight in the hopes that human efforts at cloning might one day achieve enough refinement to make exact replicas of people over and over again. Seth had correctly pointed out during one of his scientific sessions, that cloning a human was akin to creating an identical twin but would not act as a true backup since the thoughts and memories would not be preserved. For this reason, other people wanted to go to the ultimate extreme of transferring their consciousness to computers in the same fashion as portrayed in the Johnny Depp movie Transcendence. Startup companies in Silicon Valley sprouted quickly, all seeking to create digital machines—even robots—that could accept uploads of people’s narrated or written life experiences, complete with photographs and home movies.

  When asked about these efforts, Seth responded dispassionately by saying that humans were free to do whatever they wished with existing technology. When asked further if any of the efforts at extending life approximated how the petrins made backup copies of themselves, he said that his home world’s techniques were well beyond Earth’s present technology—and comprehension.

  “I naturally can’t share information on how we make backup copies,” he said, “or how we learned to do so, but perhaps you may come up with methods that satisfy your own needs and desires.”

  When Seth made this pronouncement, the tour had moved through Russia and India and was now in Southeast Asia.

  “People are missing the boat,” Vinod told the personal team over dinner at a Saigon restaurant on a rare night off, with Seth in the hands of a security team equipped with tether watches. “Seth has told us unequivocally that his race uses bioengineering to produce backup copies and hence achieve immortality. It’s all about boiling down the essence of individuals to the data that represents them and then storing that data. The petrins aren’t using cryonics or artificial intelligence.”

  “Seth has inadvertently started people thinking about how short their lives are,” Rachael said, “but in reality, that’s nothing new.”

  “It’s new for young and healthy people,” Vinod pointed out. “People in our age group normally don’t think about dying. Like Blue Oyster Cult sang, don’t fear the reaper.”

  “Looks like Seth is changing that,” Joshua said.

  “Actually, there are those people who’ve been thinking about life extension for a while,” Rachael said. “My uncle has been the director of one of those cryo facilities for many years.”

  “Wow, you never told me that,” Joshua said, clearly startled. “Is that the one in Arizona?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you told me he was a scientist,” Joshua asked.

  “He is,” Rachael replied. “He’s a scientist that runs a cryonics facility, and to be honest with you, I’ve been signed up for many years to be frozen there.”

  “What?” Joshua exclaimed. “You never told me that.”

  “I guess it never came up.”

  “Miller, you’re a mystery wrapped up in an enigma,” Joshua replied shaking his head. “I may never figure you out.”

  “Well, I’m sure Seth has been good for your uncle’s business,” Vinod remarked. “Hey, I gotta run and meet up with Langdon. We have the night shift with Seth.” He pointed at his tether watch. “Apple. Don’t leave home without it!”

  After dinner, Joshua and Rachael strolled through a well-manicured Zen garden under a full moon.

  “It’s lovely here,” Rachael said, taking Joshua’s hand in hers. “I miss hiking. We’re either on jets or in SUVs on our way to undisclosed locations.”

  Joshua kissed her lightly on the cheek as they continued walking along a white gravel path, passing under several mimosa trees that glowed a neon green from the effect of the bright moonlight. “It will be over soon. After China, it’s back to the particle center.”

  “Yeah, and then on Seth’s private personal tour,” she said glumly.

  “I’ll insist on a few days down time,” Joshua said.

  They walked in silence for several minutes until Joshua spoke about recent events. “So what do you think of The 103 Club?” he asked.

  “I think it’s quasi-religious, and that’s fine. Everybody has to find his or her own way, but nothing that’s happened or been said has changed my mind about God. I assume that’s what you’re getting at.”

  Joshua laughed quietly. “You can read my mind. I like that, by the way. You’ve had insights into how and what I think s
ince the day we met.”

  Rachael slipped her arm through Joshua’s and snuggled closer to him as they advanced along the path. She raised her other arm in the air briefly, revealing the tattoo of the cross that Joshua had noted at Angelino’s.

  Joshua paused, faced Rachael, and put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re remarkable, you know that? You’re steadfast in your beliefs at a time when the world is questioning and doubting and struggling to imitate the petrins. I love that about you.”

  Rachael smiled as she gazed into Joshua’s eyes. “For me, it’s about faith. I love science as much as I ever did, and Seth has certainly seeded the world with some interesting morsels of information. But I believe in a different kind of immortality. I still maintain that natural science isn’t going to prove a supernatural concept, although I believe that whatever power created all this . . .” She paused as she looked up at the moon and stars. “Whoever created all this left some equally tantalizing hints, just like the ones I described at Angelino’s. That’s enough for me.”

  “You’re not afraid of death, are you?”

  Rachael shook her head. “No.”

  “Then why did you sign up with your uncle’s cryo facility? I still don’t understand.”

  Rachael had a pained expression on her face. She hesitated for a moment before she answered. “It has to do with Richard.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes. When my parents found out that his cancer was terminal, they were distraught. They felt that he was being cheated out of his life. He would never get to be an adult, experience love, or raise children. My uncle had just started at the cryo facility and suggested that Richard could be frozen so that sometime in the future he would be able to have those experiences and live a full life. My parents were open to the idea, but they were worried that if he was ever revived, none of the people he knew and loved would be around. Since he and I were so close, they scheduled both of us for freezing in the hope that we would have each other when revived. I was ten at the time, but they told me that after I was eighteen I could make my own decision on whether or not to continue the arrangement.”