Salvation (Salvation Sequence, #1)

by Peter F. Hamilton

Drifting through interstellar space, three light-years out from the star 31 Aquilae, the Neána abode cluster picked up a series of short, faint electromagnetic pulses that lasted intermittently for eighteen years. The early signatures were familiar to the Neána, and faintly worrying: nuclear fission detonations, followed seven years later by fusion explosions. The technological progress of whoever was detonating them was exceptionally swift by the usual metric of emerging civilizations.

Analysis of the radio signals, now becoming analogue audiovisual broadcasts, revealed a bipedal race organized along geo-tribal lines, and constantly in conflict.

That was posited as the probable reason behind their faster than usual technological progression.

The segments were aimed at a small inlet a few kilometers west of the city, where, even in AD 2162, the rugged land lay unclaimed by developers.

There were seven people waiting, and none of them using a wall chair.

I don’t understand why sci fi books have to make up shit like this. I’m assuming it won’t ever say what a stupid wall chair is?

genetically modified to be both male and female, spending hir adult life in a thousand-day cycle between genders. That baseline genome alteration to every person born into the Utopial culture—enabling and enhancing their core philosophy of equality at a fundamental level—had

He was connected to the globalPACs operating out of DC, the rich old men who really run Earth, who make sure Universalism, the established democratic capitalist society, stays in place and doesn’t get seduced away from its oh-so-holy guiding principles by shiny new concepts like Utopialism.

Now, all you do is drop a perfectly spherical portal into the sun. Meta-hot plasma slams into that hole at near-relativistic speed. At the same time, the portal’s exit is fixed at the apex of a magnetic cone, which channels the plasma into a rocket exhaust. There is no limit on how much plasma from the sun you can send through, and the starship masses very little—just the portal and its nozzle, guidance units, and a smaller portal communication link to mission control. It can accelerate fast.

I watched them, Callum, Yuri, Kandara, and Alik, as they stared around at one another, trying to read their expressions, to see any forgeries amid the shock and surprise. They gave nothing away. And I still didn’t know which one of them was the alien.

We live in a dangerous galaxy, and it may be that Juloss is home to the last free humans. You have to look out for each other to survive.

“Not necessarily, no. Certainly not at the start. Remember how Callum and Yuri had parted a hundred years earlier? It wasn’t on the best of terms, was it? So who can tell me the two reasons they were brought back together?” “Politics and treachery,” everyone chorused.

“Your infamous preemptive rendition,” Eldlund said sharply. “Arrest people because a G8Turing thinks they might do something based on behavior and interests. What sort of justice is that?”

Every major city in the world has an air shield now. Missiles and drones can’t get through, and if you bond enough air together, it can withstand a nuclear blast. Whole national arsenals were rendered obsolete overnight—well, five years plus. That just leaves us with low-level threats now: terrorists building their own nukes, rogue nations, extreme political groups, etc., etc. Everyone realized the only way to prevent that menace being realized is to get rid of the world’s stockpile of weapons-grade fissionable material.”

air-con

I don’t know why these annoy me so much. Just call it a/c. Ugh

This new transgalactic society we are about to embark on affords us the opportunity to deal with such unreasoning fanatics humanely. We will simply part company with their kind and allow them to live their lives by their own ideals.” “So what happens to them?” “Exile.”

The hostile policies of the human elite toward the Olyix have been growing steadily, ever since the Salvation of Life arrived at Sol in 2144—fifty-two

Suspicion of an alien species is part of the human condition, and relatively understandable.

the emergent Utopials with their ideological goal of a pure and decent post-scarcity society, with a correspondingly technology-heavy infrastructure,

“Conestoga offered other Sol governments an exile destination for undesirables,” Yuri said. “Everyone agreed on an improved standard for the survival packages, and bam, the queue of convicts was suddenly six months long.

“Zagreus is not the way we should judge civilized progress. It’s a bloody disgraceful throwback. Education and a dignified standard of living is the true solution to elevate the poor and disenfranchised. Utopial society produces so few of what you class as exile-level criminals we don’t even exile them. They are removed from the general population, given a comfortable residence, and supported. That is our society’s triumph.” His glance swept around the Trail Ranger. “I don’t know what time zone you’re all from, but I’m off to bed.”

“When the original Space Age was underway back in the 1950s and ’60s, part of the ideological struggle was the hypothesis surrounding first contact. The Soviet Union postulated that any civilization advanced enough to travel between the stars would logically be socialist, and would therefore choose to deal only with Moscow. The battle for ideological supremacy would be over, the world would undergo conversion to enlightenment, and the age of capitalism would be at an end.”

“The Olyix understand. You are new to sentience. Your behavior is still affected by your animal origin. You seek to advance yourselves at the expense of others.”

Buying enough energy to recharge an arkship for interstellar flight doesn’t come cheap.”

Why don’t they just put a portal on the sun?

Salovitz’s fist slammed down on the table.

Ugh

“I don’t get the Utopial grading system, that’s all. I thought the ethos was equality.” Kruse gave a quick smile. “Opportunity is equal. People are not. In our society, you can progress as far as your talent and enthusiasm can reach.” “The same as everywhere.” “Not quite. Here everyone receives a fair share of society’s produce, no matter the level of practical contribution you make. If you choose to do absolutely nothing for your entire life, you will still be fed and clothed and housed, and given access to medical treatment or education without prejudice. But in reality, a life of total leisure, or sloth, is rarely chosen. It is human nature to want to perform some kind of activity. The difference is we do not require it to be what the old communist and capitalist theories interpret as economically viable. With the introduction of Turings and fabricators, the human race has advanced to a technology level that has given us a self-maintaining industrial base. It can provide consumerist products at practically zero cost. Nobody should be regarded as a parasite or sponger, as your media condemns and shames your underclass. Here, if you wish to devote your life to developing obscure philosophy, or an artistic endeavor that is outside the mainstream, that is to be welcomed and encouraged as much as someone who commits to designing new technology or researching pure science.”

The material benefits of post-scarcity shouldn’t be wholly dependent on pimping the DNA of your children.”

“Because I seek more from people. I seek universal equality. And the most basic inequality is that caused by a binary gender.

“Real Utopial von Neumannism,” Tyle said happily as sie sat next to her. Sie smiled contentedly at the vista. “Machines building machines, practically without any human intervention. Now that Onysko has G8Turings, they can manage so much more these days.”

You and I aren’t traveler generation humans. We exist to fight a war—a fact that haunts me still, and probably always will. We may win, we may not, or we might die achieving victory. The only inevitable part of this is that the Morgan will fight. And the odds are not good.”

Got some real ender’s game vibe going on

“Even the combined output of Sol’s solarwells would probably fall short. It would take a type two civilization on the Kardashev scale to generate the power levels required.”

“Suppose that frozen brain-captain thing had been warm and running active routines, or it had an electronic AI like our Turings? If we had a link back to solnet, it could download itself into our networks; multiply itself a thousand times a second. The potential damage it could inflict is impossible to calculate.”

“Hitler wasn’t short of resources,” Loi said. “Not to begin with. World War Two was an ideological war at heart, a crusade to impose Nazi imperialism on the rest of the world. Same goes for the Cold War, which followed, with its capitalism versus communism.”

“Nobody on Akitha could figure out the motivation for what Cancer was doing,” Kandara said thoughtfully. “We all thought some kind of political fanatic was employing her to sabotage their industrial systems, but this…aliens scouting around the human race…I hate to say it, but this makes a kind of sense.”

Which was an interesting outburst. Someone—some group—had to be pushing both Ainsley and the grade-one Utopials into believing the Olyix were chasing a hidden agenda, fueling the insecurities and paranoia of the old and powerful who inevitably see change as danger. And the only people with a reason to do that are the other aliens, trying to deflect attention from themselves. Aliens with influential agents in both Utopial and Universal ruling political classes.

The attack against Bremble made absolute sense if it was in preparation for an invasion.

“We no longer know what we left behind,” Eol-2 said. “For we look to the future, never the past. To us, it is obvious that a sentient species will eventually refine and resolve upon a single life philosophy as it matures. You are diverse because you are physically widespread and can indulge any number of experimental principles and ideas. As you are young, such exploration is good for you. However, despite this current period of extraordinary physical and political expansion you pursue, it is our belief that you will regather yourselves eventually, and live under a unified monoculture. The superior, most liberal, most welcoming of your cultures will spread and adapt and eventually absorb to incorporate all others. Your merging legal systems and binding trans-government treaties are evidence of this, to us at least.”

But their main focus, the reason they snatched so many people, was to research the best way to sustain a human brain on the pilgrimage. Their technology is far more advanced than they have revealed to you.”