Living right now, it's hard to imagine anyone having the degree of vision required to put something like this into action. The best we've been able to manage so far is a 10,000 year clock.
Anyway, this idea reminds me of 2 stories or story-cycles: First (probably most obvious) is Blish's "seedling stars" cycle, which basically involved re-engineering humans to suit the environment on the target world. It seems as though 'what is essential to humanness' was a really big question at the time. (I believe Fred Pohl's _Man Plus_ dates to about the same period.) There, though, there's active engineering, not evolution. Second, it brings to mind the '90s Sterling story "Taklamakan", and I'm torn to talk about it because the relation is a bit of a spoiler, but what the heck, it comes a third of the way through. The Chinese build fake "Generation Ships" in a cavern under the Taklamakan desert, and create environments inside them with artificial social and material pressures on the inhabitants, for reasons that aren't entirely clear (to the POV character -- who, incidentally, also has a walk-on in "Bicycle Repair Man") but probably in part involve harvesting new technology from them. Of course the inhabitants know nothing of their true situation, and the cavern is patrolled by highly adaptive and dangerous robots to prevent any escapees from getting back into their "ships" or out to the world above. Sitting here it occurs to me that the Sterling story could be construed as being in part about absence of long-term vision. They can pull off a fake trip to another star for immediate purposes, but it doesn't seem to occur to anyone to try the real thing. On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 6:26 PM, Donald McCarthy <[email protected]> wrote: > The evolution of miles long generation ship could be manipulated to match > conditions on the target world. If it takes thousands of years to get their > genetic tinkering and controlled environmental changes could be implemented > to allow the animals - or people for that matter - to survive in a world > quit a bit different from earth. > > On Mon, May 7, 2012 at 9:03 PM, David Ennocenti <[email protected] > > wrote: > >> Sounds like the Damon Knight's Twilight Zone story "To serve man." >> >> On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 1:37 PM, Alicia Henn <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > The New York Times invited readers to write them a paragraph about >> whether >> > eating meat was ethical. Interestingly, an argument was made that the >> > survival of animals in the future depends on their tastiness. >> > >> > "...like it or not, when we render this planet uninhabitable, we’re >> going to >> > have to move to another, and the only thing that’s going to make anyone >> let >> > animals into the spaceship is the chance to eat them." >> > >> > >> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/magazine/the-winner-of-our-contest-on-the-ethics-of-eating-meat.html?src=recg >> > >> > Is anyone out there writing space opera? Are there food animals on board >> > your ship? >> > >> > Alicia >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups >> > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. >> > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> > [email protected]. >> > For more options, visit this group at >> > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. >> >> >> >> -- >> David Ennocenti >> 9 West Crest Drive >> Rochester, NY 14606 >> 585-426-2348 >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. >> >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en. > -- -- eric scoles | [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en.
