The Planet of Apes

For James

 

I woke up completely confused. Something happened last night and I wasn't quite sure what. I felt pain everywhere. Was it a dream? No, it could not have been. I discovered strange markings on my wrist. There was no blood anywhere, but the markings looked liked a freshly cut polygonal wound. I touched it and a beam of light shot straight into my eyes. Like in trance I could suddenly hear a strange metallic voice.

"My name is Xanara, she said. I am a scientist from the planet Throxos.

You may not know it, but we come here to observe the progress of an experiment that our forefathers began in the protium cycle of time.

Back then such experiments were conducted by our scientists all over the known universe. They were incredibly curious and had a vision of a universe that was very different from the one they were born into. And while they were trying to decode their own origins, they decided to experiment with their genetic substance.

If what they already knew was true, they must have been able to recreate themselves or create something completely different. They believed that it must have been possible to recreate the conditions in which life could thrive or even create new conditions for the still un-created life forms simply to see if such exercise would bring any results.

The Planet of Apes, as we call it, is only one of the countless planets our forefathers visited, but not the only one on which the experiment was successful. And unlike everywhere else they went, this tiny planet of a minor solar system in a disc shaped distant galaxy, already had life.

Our genetic code was implanted into various species that lived on the planet. After first few reproductive cycles it was clear that the species lost the ability to metamorphose. Only the embryos retained that quality. But once the creatures were born they remained what they were - clumsy chunks of inflexible matter And their intelligence was minimal. No one would have ever survived on our planet with such an underdeveloped capabilities.

It took five cycles of time for the beings on this planet to finally grasp the fact that they were not alone in the universe! On other planets the species made of our unadulterated genetic code developed much faster and did not even need that much of our help. They began to create their own technologies and went on to explore the intergalactic space. 

But on this planet life seemed to malfunction. The lifespan was too short for them to evolve a functional organ of cognition. The genetic code was contaminated. The animal part apparently took over in every aspect of their existence. We tried to end our experiment here, but the species seemed to possess an impressive will to survive. This quality was not known to us. When time comes we simply know we have to move on.

You are a scientist who got stuck in an "unsolvable" problem, just like many of the more creative minds in the past. Every time this happened, we came to a rescue. A little push just to see what would happen if you solved the problem. 

The "discoveries" your species made distinguished you from all the other species on this planet. And although all of you carry our genetic code, you were the only ones who received help from us. The story of your civilization is written with our ink, but we gave you enough freedom to chose what you would do with the information you received from us. The choices you've made were quite appalling sometimes, but we did not come here to judge you. Sooner or later you will self-destruct.

When you wake up you will have all the knowledge to solve the problem you are working on, but you will forget about our encounter..."

As soon a I heard her last words the light disappeared and there was not a trace of the strange mutilation on my wrist. Did I dream it? I must be overworked or something!

***

I made some coffee and sat at the computer.

The project was almost dead. The Agency wanted to terminate it. Beginning next month there will be no more funding. And worse of all, my friends thought I was mad. The mad man with an Utopian vision! They laughed, but I knew that it was possible!

I took a sip of my java and looked at the blueprints. I checked my calculations. And there it was! The missing link. Faster than I could ever type, one equation sprang after another. So simple. Why didn't I think of it before?

By Dominique Allmon

The Planet of Apes by Dominique Allmon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Happy Birthday Ansel Adams!

Church in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico by Ansel Easton Adams
(February 20 1902 - April 22, 1984)

Ansel Easton Adams, born on this day 110 years ago, was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park. One of his most famous photographs was "Moon and Half Dome" taken in Yosemite National Park, California.

Moon and Half Dome by Ansel Easton Adams

With Fred Archer, Adams developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting clarity and depth characterized his photographs and the work of those to whom he taught the system. Adams primarily used large-format cameras despite their size, weight, setup time, and film cost, because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images.

Adams founded the Group f/64 along with fellow photographers Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham, which in turn created the Museum of Modern Art's department of photography. Adams's photographs are reproduced on calendars, posters, and in books, making his photographs widely distributed.

To read the whole biography please click here

Genesis

A book review by Patrick Ness

The 21st century hasn't gone well. The Last War has engulfed the world in cataclysmic battles and plagues; only the forward thinking of Plato, a millionaire businessman on the islands of Aotearoa (New Zealand, to you and me), saved his country. He built the Great Sea Fence around the entire Republic (that would be, ahem, Plato's Republic) to keep out a planet full of desperate refugees. Isolated, the republic thrived, and as communications stopped being received from the rest of the world, it became, quite literally, the last outlet of civilization on the face of the Earth.

All was not well, though. The citizens were kept in line mainly out of fear, and as the threat of infection and war seemed to dissipate over the decades, so did the republic's control over the populace. Until one day border guard Adam Forde made a fateful decision when a refugee appeared at a section of the fence he was overseeing, setting off a chain of events culminating in the Great War, the event that irreparably changed not only the republic, but the entire world.

Bernard Beckett's Genesis is set some time later, when young student Anaximander is being interviewed by three examiners for a place in the exclusive academy, which accepts less than 1% of all applicants. With her beloved tutor Pericles, Anax has studied the life of Adam Forde for three solid years. She has a risky theory to propound about Forde's true place in their history, a theory that might clash with the academy's official order of events.

Her interview, all five hours of it, makes up the entirety of Genesis, a daring formal experiment that may not always work dramatically, but has a palate-cleansing purity unusual in most young adult fiction. Unsurprisingly, given the plethora of Greek names - Plato, Pericles, even Anaximander was a real philosopher - the novel takes the form of a Socratic dialogue, with pages of Anax and her examiners exchanging views.

Anax describes the events of Forde's life in great, sometimes improbable, detail, creating holograms to illustrate her points. There are, in fact, times when Genesis feels a bit like sitting in on a doctoral defense, but this also allows Beckett to expound his ideas with admirable economy. "Human spirit," he says, "is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism." It's this spirit which we discard at our great peril. Fear is the killer of our species, he argues, allowing us to be easily manipulated by our leaders and by each other.

When Forde rescued the girl, the government used his show trial as an opportunity to scare the populace once again with threats of incomers and fear of the unknown. This had unexpected consequences, and as a creative punishment he was incarcerated with Art, an artificial intelligence android with the face of an orangutan, ostensibly to let Art learn from the interaction but in the vague hope that Art might kill Forde in an "accident".

Art soon grew far more intelligent than expected, though, drifting into possible real consciousness. As Anax digs deeper and deeper into her interview, she reaches towards information she feels is missing about Art's true place in the republic's history and a secret slowly begins to surface, one that provides a Twilight Zone-style moral twist to the proceedings. Beckett has written a very different young adult novel - assured, cool, almost cold - that will make smart teenagers feel very respected.

Set on a remote island in a post-apocalyptic, plague-ridden world, this electrifying novel is destined to become a modern classic.

In this brilliant novel of dazzling ingenuity, Anax’s examination leads us into a future where we are confronted with unresolved questions raised by science and philosophy. Centuries old, these questions have gained new urgency in the face of rapidly developing technology. What is consciousness? What makes us human? If artificial intelligence were developed to a high enough capability, what special status could humanity still claim?

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