What does it mean to exist beyond the limits of our bodies?
In my previous two posts I’ve examined depictions of magical and technological transhumanism, by Brandon Sanderson and Adrian Tchaikovsky respectively. Today I’ll close this series out with a few forms of consciousness which don’t quite fit either category, instead rising from alternative science (don’t worry, it's very different from alternative facts).
Speculative fiction that includes alternative science is working towards the same goal as your typical science fiction or fantasy: exploring the consequences of human interaction with a novel part of the universe and its mechanics. I tend to think of this ‘part’ as a novum - defined by scholar Darko Suvin in the 70s, though he limited its use to science fiction.
Where science fiction says the novum is theoretically possible in science as we understand it and fantasy says it exists only through magic, alternative science says it is possible in a world where science works slightly differently from ours. Perhaps a silly distinction, but these stories often feel more grounded than the ones that simply handwave magical explanations.
Transhumanism in The Masquerade
Seth Dickinson’s The Masquerade series is one of my absolute favourites, though it has never yet been featured here on Prose and Context. Perhaps better known as the ‘Baru Cormorant’ books, these novels follow the life and struggles of a young lesbian woman against the terrifying reach, influence and machinery of colonialism.
Baru in her half-mask by Marceline2174
Baru’s tragic story, her motivations and methods, allies and enemies, are a story for another time. Yet there are two fascinating explorations of transhumanism to be found in the world Seth Dickinson has built around her. Neither is necessarily unique to this series, but I think these are strong examples of the fundamental ideas at play.
The first is the more literal, and the more disturbing. The second and third novels in the series explore the Cancrioth, a mysterious group representing an alternative form of government and capable of implanting memories and other attributes through the cultivation and nurturing of different strands of cancer.
It is profoundly horrific and fascinating to explore this social, scientific, political and ideological mystery as it is slowly unveiled, because of how much thought Dickinson has put into each of these aspects of his world. Only one of the Canrioth - the Brain - ultimately has the incredible ability to pass on the personalities and knowledge of past hosts. Unfortunately, in this case having multiple people vying for control of a mind fighting brain cancer hasn’t led to the most cogent of leaders.
I wanted to explore this through The Masquerade because however grim it is, I think this is the most tangible form of transhumanism to be found in fiction: it doesn’t require vast leaps in technology or for our souls to be reconstituted by beings of pure magic. Just playing with one of the scariest things in our own world, whose functionality has been slightly re-imagined.
Retaining predecessors’ memories and personalities has been explored elsewhere and in many ways:
Dune (#topical) sees the Reverend Mothers of the Bene Gesserit communing with their female ancestors, encoded in their genome and accessible thanks to a ritual involving the spice melange.
Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan novels feature ‘imago machines’ which allow personalities, professional skills and knowledge to be passed on from person to person - essential on an unstable space station with a tiny population and high mortality rates.
The Book of the New Sun (strangest series I’ve read) has the ‘alzabo,’ an animal which absorbs the memories and personalities of people it eats, and whose flesh can be consumed by other people to absorb them in turn.
Stay tuned, because I look forward to exploring each of these worlds in more detail!
The masked emperor from Seth Dickinson’s novels - generated by AI
Back to Baru, briefly and with a few spoilers for the context of her journey (skip ahead for now if you’re thinking of reading those books!).
Power is central to The Masquerade - a shocking surprise in a speculative fiction novel, I know. But Dickinson is going beyond all the armies, conjurations, and even thrones; with the struggle at the heart of his books focusing on ideas and secrets. A war in the shadows between idealists who would write their will and vision across the face of the world, just as soon as they can prove their theorems and/or blackmail all competitors into submission.
The cryptarchs’ (rulers through secrets) fascination with the Cancrioth’s transhumanism reflects their own true goals: that by finding a perfect form of society and implementing it, they will achieve immortality. Now, you might notice that I’m stretching things here. Nowhere in the three currently published Masquerade novels is it suggested that either Itinerant or Hesychast (the main dueling philosopher cryptarchs) believes they will literally live on through their accomplishments.
Yet those might as well be the stakes for which they are playing. And honestly, if either achieved the level of influence they are pursuing, what is the difference between literal consciousness and having millions of people thinking the exact way you do?
These books are simply incredible, and I can’t wait to discuss them again. The intrigue at work here puts Wormtongue and Littlefinger to shame - there are a lot of people playing at the level of (book) Varys, if not even better.
Consciousness in A Fire Upon the Deep
One last mention of a novel that blew me away before quickly devolving into mediocrity. Vernor Vinge’s 1992 A Fire Upon the Deep imagines an incredible science fiction universe, then focuses in upon a story about two kids and their quest in an evil kingdom on a single planet.
Yes, I’m still bitter.
But that one planet is why I’m talking about the book, and frankly a significant part of why I wanted to do this series of posts. The narrative here is from the perspective of ‘Tines’, which look like packs of wolves. Packs of wolves.
It's a Tine! Any resemblance to my prompt of ‘pack of wolves’ is pure coincidence.
Pilgrim, the first we meet and whose perspective we share, initially includes four. He isn’t quite a hive mind, constant regardless of the fate of composite drones, but is instead a group mind. Each member of his pack contributes their memories and instincts to the whole, and their loss means those memories become foggy and those instincts dulled.
Accepting a new wolf means facing real tension and potential changes to his personality. There is a limited distance at which one of his constituent wolves can travel before it is lost to him. Traveling through a crowded area means confusion and danger due to the number of individuals present, clouding Pilgrim’s composite will.
A complex consciousness emerging from the workings of other beings. It’s just so fucking cool. It’s also more than a little reminiscent of Avrana Kern and her ants from last week, though Tines seem to have evolved more naturally.
There are books that explore the idea of multiple human minds coming together to form a greater whole: Ninefox Gambit and This is How You Lose the Time War immediately spring to mind, and usually this is seen through technological means and a kind of internet. Certainly our internet has a ways to go before reaching that point.
The group mind is a fascinating form of transhuman consciousness to consider. Whether a few people could form a human Tine or a civilization could bring to life the ideas of its founder like the cryptarchs dream; what that would look like and how it would function.
Mentopolis is a lovely and hilarious look at what makes a Mind - art by Wren Williams
Closing the Experiment
I’ve covered a lot of speculative ground in these posts: minds rebuilt or merged with pure magic, uploaded into software and ants, stored in cancer cells, shared through ideology or emergent group minds.
These were merely the most interesting and applicable examples from the books I’ve read. Black Mirror’s San Junipero, Black Museum and White Christmas all examine the ethical implications of uploading consciousness, and Be Right Back asks whether our behavioural patterns are enough to recreate our minds.
If Tines and alternative forms of consciousness piqued your interest, I’d recommend Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series and a ton of great short fiction from Lightspeed Magazine such as this one.
My takeaway from these posts? Consciousness and embodiment/environment inevitably go both ways. So maybe our current forms aren’t so bad, given how much control we (generally) have over them. Easier to get some sleep and exercise now than try to program the evolution of ant colonies later, right?
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Speaking of our current fleshy forms, mine needs dinner.
Thanks as always for reading, and please let me know if there’s other media you love that touches on similar themes! Until next week~
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