Waking

 

Harmony

 

Infinity

 

On Ansible Waldos

         On Ansible Waldos

 

          A “Waldo” is a telepresence robot. If you put on the gloves and goggles, then you see through the robot’s eyes, and move its grabbers. Waldos are used in glove boxes, as drones, and on submarines.

          The term “waldo” comes from a Robert Heinlein science-fiction story, named after a disabled man who used waldos to play an heroic role in a space emergency.

          I figure that waldos would be useful in low-earth orbit, or even in high-earth orbit. The limit is lunar waldos, for there is a three-second round-trip delay due to the lightspeed limit. On the Moon, waldos would be slow to respond; and since they’d need onboard processing, they’d have minds of their own. Slow, stubborn, and willful; so I propose to call them “moon mules”.

          Beyond the Moon, the lightspeed limit prevents telepresence. To transcend that limit, we’d need faster-than-light communication. That would be the “Ansible”, so named in Ursula K. Leguin’s science-fiction novels. Ansibles would provide instantaneous communication across interstellar distances.

          Make the gloves-and-goggles interface with the waldo via ansible; that is the “Ansible Waldo”. With it you can explore strange new worlds on distant stars, and do so from the comfort of your home planet.

          Interstellar probes carrying ansible waldos won’t need to carry air, water, food, or as much radiation shielding. Those ships would be faster and cheaper than any ship carrying humans.

           I imagine a sphere of human influence expanding at some fraction of the speed of light, as the ansible-waldo ships fly out; and once at their destination, that planet would be in instantaneous contact with Earth. One of the things that the ansible waldos would do is manufacture more ansible waldos. That way, ansible waldos would be disposable.

          All in all, I’d say that translight telepresence robots are the best spacesuits. By comparison, manned space flight is like packing ape meat into a tin can.

 

 

Eve Did Nothing Wrong

           Eve Did Nothing Wrong

 

Eve did nothing wrong. The Apple gave knowledge of good and evil; that means moral choice, which means free will. Eve chose to choose. She grew up! Adam followed her, for love. If free will and love are wrong, then there is no right, and there is no wrong. But I say there is, and Eve did the right thing.

          Even Yahweh looks good, in this reading of the legend. The breeding pair had attained mental and sexual maturity, so he released them into the wild. That’s competent wildlife management.

          Eve did nothing wrong, and she was not punished. She and Adam wanted to know what was good about the world, and what was evil, so Yahweh told them personally. Eve, sex will frighten you. Adam, you’ve got to work for a living. Both of you, you’re going to die. That was the bad news. The good news was: see that gate over there? It’s open now! You’re free to go!

          And as for Eve’s suffering: that’s not a sign of sin, that’s a sign of sainthood. Ask any mother if mothers are saints. The polite ones will smile and lie; but watch out, the honest ones might give you an earful.

          So blessed be Saint Eve, the Mother of Choice!

Cold War Stories, 3 of 3: Dragon's Hoard

         3. Dragon's Hoard

 

When Mikhail Gorbachev disappeared, I got a bad case of coup flu. For three whole days I held my breath. I would go up to people and ask, "What do you think?" and they knew what I was talking about, because they too had coup flu. For three whole days the world watched the past and the future play chess. We hovered, suspended, over the abyss. We saw ourselves within it, screaming, burning, dying, but we did not have time to be afraid. We did not fall; we flew.

         Then suddenly the crisis was past, the coup had failed, the Cold War was over, our deaths had died.

         Days later, driving home under the influence of the full moon, I was still grinning, still laughing at nothing in particular. The attendant at the toll plaza had headphones on, and he was dancing. 

         I parked my car at home, then climbed up to a park atop a nearby hill. I sat on a stone bench there, and I stared at the city. Downtown was close by, for long before I had moved to within the second circle in the explosion maps, where death would be within milliseconds. I never intended to envy the dead.

         It was night. The city's lights were on.  White incandescent lights, blue mercury lights, orange sodium lights. The city at night was... beautiful. It looked like a dragon's hoard of citrons and sapphires. I gazed at the city at night. I said to myself,

         "Maybe we'll live after all."

Cold War Stories, 2 of 3: On My Own Terms

         2. On My Own Terms

 

As I grew up, my father and I often argued, for we liked to argue. During one such argument, he waved a hand dismissively and said, "Ahhh, you'll become a Conservative in your old age!” Stung to the quick, I retorted, “If so, then it shall be on my own terms!” Since then I've seen that we were both prophetic. He knew me, and I knew me.

As an example of those terms, I fondly remember when I shut him up. He had the bad habit of referring to someone's "good intentions" with an audible sneer. Finally I had enough of that. I told him, "I get it. Intentions are no excuse for bad results. I get it! People have the responsibility to be competent! I get it! But do not insult good intentions as such... or this conversation is over!" My dire threat made him stop talking, and from then on he never sneered at good intentions.