Space Exploration & The Shape of Human Consciousness
- Apr 7
- 5 min read
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time and the Ship of Theseus
Re-read and re-visit
I mentioned two weeks ago in my Project Hail Mary article that I’d been diving back into Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time, one of my favourite science fiction novels and series. Since then I’ve finished Children of Ruin and have begun Children of Memory, ahead of finally getting my eyes on the newly released Children of Strife.
The series is a wonderfully imaginative exploration of the future of human space exploration and experiences of being, in addition to extrapolating the possible inner lives of very different sentient beings.
I previously wrote about transhumanism – the idea of human life and experiences beyond our mortal bodies – in Children of Time a little over two years ago, and I think a fresh look is long overdue for any number of reasons. The most important of which is simply the advantage of being in the middle of my re-read right now, rather than trying to recall details from a separation of years.
Spoilers ahead for the first three books in the series, though as always I hope hearing about these ideas only makes the stories more enticing!
Doctor Avrana Kern
Dr. Kern was more or less the sole focus of that previous article, so while I won’t go as in-depth on her today, you can hopefully find more detail here.
I was going to say here that Kern is probably my favourite character in the series, but that’s probably aided by the fact of her being the only consistent character across the books. (Though characters named Portia, Bianca, Fabian, Viola and Paul appear in multiple books and time periods, they’re archetypes of Portiid spiders and cephalopods rather than the exact same individuals.)
Acerbic and superior in her life as a scientist on the forefront of humanity's terraforming and uplifting programs, Avrana Kern survives her society – and arguably her species, since humanity's survivors have noticeably evolved – by millennia, frozen in suspension above a planet named for her and waiting for word from either Earth or her project below to wake her. During this time, or perhaps through her numerous awakenings dealing with the Gilgamesh, a copy of Kern's mind is uploaded to the satellite she inhabits, consuming or merging with the satellite's AI persona Eliza in the process. It is this instance of Kern which continues on, long after the death of her human body and brain.
Once she establishes a dialogue with her Portiid (uplifted portia labiata) creations, they are eventually able to transfer her mind from the decaying satellite to their own version of computing hardware: a specially bred and biochemically controlled colony of ants, whose interactions mimic the passing of information through electrons. This framework is later bolstered with some Human technology and duplicated across dozens, hundreds, and thousands of such ant colonies, but for the remainder of the three books the Kerns we see are (mostly) running on ants, plain and simple.
The Nod Parasite & Imir
Children of Ruin sees a ship of explorers – Human and Portiid alike, with Kern serving as ship's computer – set out from Kern's world in response to detected radio signals from another of old humanity's terraforming worlds.
(By the way: the books use "human" for Kern's species – us – and "Human" for the crew and descendants of the Gilgamesh who have been exposed to the nanovirus, tailored by Kern and the Portiids to increase empathy, reduce violence and to help them recognize their spider allies as kin. Yes, that probably deserves its own article too.)
In addition to an advanced civilization of Cephalopods (octopuses uplifted in similar fashion to Kern's spiders), the crew discover entirely alien life on a planet the ancient human terraformers dubbed Nod. Colonizing much of Nod's life is a parasite capable of encoding vast amounts of information within itself, and which is both incredibly curious and readily adaptable. We see flashbacks to the parasite infecting the original terraformers, eventually bypassing the hosts' immune systems and hiding between the lobes of the brain. It eventually begins passing information from one side to the other, learning what that information means, and even editing it – inserting its own will into the host's thoughts.
Long after the original terraformers have died, the parasite has continued to replay and replay the experience of being them – in particular Erma Lante, who it had access to for the longest. A being of endless curiosity, the parasite is confused why its incredible alien toys have lost all their novelty. (The climax of the book involves confronting its consuming nature, which I'll also go into in that other article.)
Ultimately, the parasite agrees to live symbiotically with other sentient life and explore the universe together (I know, it needs a new name! Hopefully Children of Strife delivers.) In Children of Memory, the Nod parasite is fully embodying the consciousness of a Human woman named Miranda, who allowed it to copy her mind so that she could continue exploring in two separate directions.
Speaking of Children of Memory, the third book mostly takes place in a simulated reality created by an alien machine buried on the failed terraforming world Imir. The machine recorded the lives and minds of colonists who died thousands of years before, and is constantly replaying their existences – which the exploring crew of Kern, Portiids, Miranda, Paul and Corvids find themselves stuck in when they reach the planet. (Another Sanderson/Tchaikovsky parallel! I won't spoil which book, but if you know you know!)
The machine's origins and purpose is a complete mystery, but it's fascinating that it seems to be behaving so similarly to the Nod parasite – constantly simulating the few examples of consciousness and life it was exposed to, as though innately recognizing how special sentience is.
Continuity of Consciousness
I don't think I'm alone in saying I quite enjoy the idea that I am mostly the same person I was yesterday; that my sense of self has continued even through sleep from then to now. The alternative, after all, is that there are breaks in that continuity. Or maybe no continuity whatsoever, just an illusory narrative created by my brain to explain my actions.
We all know the Ship of Theseus, right? The cells that make up my body change constantly, so surely I can't be the same self as I was a decade ago, right?
That's one of the questions clearly at the very heart of the Children of Time series. The Avrana Kern trapped in Imir's machine simulation has faint memories of being a human woman, despite being many steps removed from the original scientist. Every instance of her is under the illusion of continued consciousness, even though objectively Avrana Kern died confused and cold thousands of years ago.
Even stranger are the consciousnesses summoned up by the Nod parasite: while it is Miranda, does it experience that continuity of consciousness, remembering Miranda's childhood and way of being? It seems that way! Though with the Imir machine and the Nod parasite's early attempts to simulate Erma Lante, it also seemed like each simulation brought the mind back to the moment of recording.
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Anyway. All that to say that being alive is very strange, even before you get into the realm of science fiction. Then it's just ridiculous.
If you want more speculation about minds, check out my examination of fractured identity in Ancillary Justice and of uploaded consciousness in Black Mirror! I'll tentatively plan to write about the different depictions of conflict and community in this series next week, with the points I mentioned above plus some fun octopus ideas and more.
Thanks for reading and until next time <3
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