The Omega Expedition - Brian Stableford [188]
“I think I know how she felt,” said la Reine des Neiges.
“I thought I knew how Emily felt,” Mortimer said, reflectively. “I think I told her that there was a lot I wanted to see. She told me that she didn’t just want to see things; she wanted to make things. Not just things, but worlds. I didn’t understand what she meant, and I think I betrayed my own resolution by telling her how difficult I thought it would be for people like us to make a home in space.
“I realize now how different we are, Emily and I. I really did think of the future in terms of seeing things, of being a lifelong observer, always analyzing, explaining, criticizing…and she really did think of it in terms of making things, including worlds. First she built ice palaces, then she built cities, then…she hasn’t finished yet, not by a long chalk.
“I don’t know where she stands nowadays on the Type 2 crusade, but I’d be willing to bet that if we ever do build a shell around the sun to conserve its energy she’ll be there, helping to determine its architecture. And if we ever do commit ourselves to lighting up one of the gas giants as an alchemical furnace producing heavy elements she’ll be there too. Last time we spoke she favored Uranus as the fusion furnace, because we’ve already invested too much in the Jovian and Saturnian satellites.”
“Do you think it will ever be possible to carry plans like that forward?” asked la Reine des Neiges.
“I don’t know,” Mortimer said. “Ever is a long time — but that’s a two-edged sword so far as the argument goes. The present generation of emortals has become very conservative. We’ve learned patience so well that we’ve lost all sense of urgency. I don’t believe that the Earthbound are as entrenched in their views as the young are wont to claim, and I don’t believe that they’re becoming even less flexible as time goes by, but they’re certainly prepared to string the arguments out, hoping that a consensus will some day be reached. The Outer System people may think they’re different, but they’re not. Nobody is prepared to take matters into their own hands any more, to get things done in spite of opposition…and that’s a good thing in some ways, though not as good in others. We’re right to be proud of our tolerance for opposing views, even though it’s gradually rendering us impotent.
“People like Emily will always want to make things, to build things and to change things no matter how old they become, but as the population of the solar system grows — and it will continue to grow for a long while yet, no matter how many microworlders choose to emigrate — the resistance to any and all particular projects is bound to increase. We’re already past the point of effective inertia; it’s difficult to imagine how progress can be restarted, let alone reaccelerated.”
“What if some external threat to humankind were to be discovered?” la Reine asked.
I was confused for a moment, but then I figured out that Mortimer must have been so efficiently regressed that he had lost all memory of the Afterlife. The original version of this conversation must have taken place before the existence of the Afterlife was discovered.
“That idea’s been around since the twentieth century,” Mortimer the historian was quick to point out. “The legendary Garrett Hardin was a firm believer in the notion that no common polity could be maintained without an external threat to motivate individuals to sacrifice their self-interests to a common cause. He used to call it the Russell Theorem. The piratical clique that built its mythology on another of his notions discounted that one, though. They didn’t think an external threat was necessary or desirable.