Seeker

by Douglas E. Richards

Kagan nodded to himself as he considered civilization from this perspective for the first time. Seeker was right. Some of the most vital cornerstones of modern civilization were all the result of mankind’s preparations for war. Rocketry was an obvious example, but computers, radar, jets, GPS, and the Internet could all trace their origins to the military. “Because of this,” continued Seeker, “unlike the Androms, your rise has been spectacular. Only the blink of an eye ago, cosmologically speaking, you weren’t even aware that your planet revolved around its sun, or of the simplest laws of nature. Yet you’ve gone from this state of barbarism and primitive superstition to your current level of scientific sophistication—all in less than a thousand years. For the Androms, this same progression took millions of years. “So, despite the melding of the Androms with their technology, and the super-enhancement of their intelligence and capabilities brought on by their singularity event, in the end, their underlying natures were too pacifistic to prevail against the ASI. They didn’t have a warrior mentality baked into their very genetic material to serve them. “It eventually became clear to them that a biological species that had more bloodthirsty origins would fare much better against this godlike computer intelligence. While the genetic ferocity of such a species would be subdued and diluted in the vast explosion in evolution brought on by the singularity, it would remain a core p...