Fred’s greatest legacy is his Berserker series. Competent in fantasy (The Book of Swords) and horror (The Dracula Tapes) as well, it seems that mostly people rely liked the killer robot stuff. For example, the screenwriter for the original Star Trek episode The Doomsday Machine credited Saberhagen as an influence on the script.
As with other work directly or indirectly influenced (Terminator, Cylons, Reapers, Screamers) the Berserker concept is quite simple. As black and white as you can get. The Berserkers have no empathy and the sole purpose of their existence is to extinguish all, not just human, all organic life. Because you know those pesky single celled microbes might figure out how to become multi-celled one day and really become a problem later.
Two ancient civilizations had a big war. No surprise as organic life continues to compete relentlessly for limited resources without a thought for long term planning. They did such a good job with their robot army that when the AI perverted it from “enemy life bad” to “all life bad”, those two alien civilizations were at ground zero and got the genocide treatment.
We already knew for thousands of years of nonfiction reality that a total lack of empathy is not great. And if it was as simple as organic life bad/robot life is super cool the stories would never have a series. To be relatable, there has to be a human element. That one pesky species of life that when the shit hit the fan would be able to fight back. One of my favorite themes - the “you’re fucking with the wrong guy” trope. And humans are startling susceptible to psychological manipulation, so the concept in the Berserker universe is the Goodlife. Which way oversimplified means sycophantic traitor his race. That’s the human race, not an ethnic group. (Even Clayface that I wrote of yesterday had a traitor get his comeuppance - a little bit more money and pretty girl is all it takes, no need to invest in killer robots.)
Some think that Saberhagen was influenced by the horrors of war he saw in the Korean War. He was an enlisted Air Force Pilot. Then he returned to the states and worked for Motorola and his brain conceived the ideas he put down for our enjoyment. Pretty standard stuff. Human ingenuity in the face of near impossible odds. Yet some are led astray by the dark side of human nature. They may be Goodlife for a Berserker, but they are not a trustworthy ally. Like The Walking Dead TV series where the zombies become incidental to the more compelling human villains.
In another twist which we’ve seen the movies before, in the original Goodlife story (aka Pressure), there is a moment of lucidity, or a plan all along - I don’t remember because I read it a looooonnnnngggg time ago - the Goodlife at the center of the story is in charge of taking care of other captive humans. Test subjects for all kinds of nefarious things. Disposable lab rats destined to outlive their usefulness. He plants a seed in a crack of the ships wall that takes root, grows, spreads and eventually the Pressure compromises the wall. Yay humans! You fucking rock!
Now with the current state of AI being a hot issue, I have my own thoughts. First is the Fermi paradox and how it might not be a great idea to advertise to a hostile galaxy that we’re here. A signal that can be figured out just by the composition of our atmosphere. I find the idea that we’re headed towards creating artificial intelligence that will turn us. This, however, is not my main point. I wonder what Fred would write about considering his experience as a war veteran and science fiction writer.
I know what my inspiration is; I know what I would do. Asymmetric warfare and the melon seed. Construction of data centers is the big deal. Affordable housing? Nah. Shopping centers? Dead. But AI so somebody can improve search engine, results incrementally instead of revolutionizing anything, security camera policing, and rich asshole wealth hoarding? Oh baby go all in on that because it makes all kinds of fucking sense.
It’s impossible to hide the data centers. The energy and water usage for cooling requirements stick out like a sore thumb. Like battleships not being reliable by the end of WW2, let’s just advertise we’ve got billions of dollars of equipment in a static location that’s just begging for attacks by weapons cheaper than the data centers. Another layer of cost and worry on top of the transparently claimed price tag. Do you really think that nobody noticed that Ukrainian drones hit Russian data centers? That Badlife and Goodlife are just gonna shake hands and magically cooperate for something so vague and not assuring? The Berserkers don’t have to laser us, they just have to out wait us.
And then for silly fun let’s put a story about Elon being a robot from a distant galaxy in disguise. The conspiracy theorists need their fix.
No comments:
Post a Comment