Imagine, for a moment, a Harmagian shoreline village of old. It is a busy place, but a simple one. The people there do little more than gather – river mud for building, ocean sand for resting, smaller creatures for eating. There is a world outside this tiny territory, but the villagers know next to nothing of it. There is no need for them to think beyond home and dinner.
Well past the beach, there is a wooded marsh, and in the marsh lives an animal. The villagers have never seen it, but they have heard its call – a strange hooting that pierces the dawning hours. There are many stories about the sound. Some say it is a monster that will prey on any children foolish enough to leave the safety of the village. Some say it is a being made of dead Harmagians, the amalgamation of each body left to disappear under the heat of the sun. But there are some who doubt these stories. How, they wonder, can you speak of what a thing is if you have never seen it with your own eyes?
One day, quite by accident, the question of the animal is answered. Its corpse washes downstream, and comes to rest in the very spot where the villagers gather mud. No one has seen anything like it before. This is a creature adapted not to water, but to trees. It is covered in hair – a feature no Harmagian has seen before. Much debate takes place over what to do with it, and, perhaps inevitably, one question dominates all others: Can we eat it?
When the beast is cut apart, a discovery is made. The poor thing’s stomach is full of metal slag, which the villagers routinely dispose of in an out-of-sight heap on the edges of the beach. Undoubtedly, this was the cause of death. Why was the animal eating this? the villagers wonder. Why did it continue to eat this?
Why?
And so, they make the leap from people of superstition to people of science. A group of the village’s bravest set out for the marsh, in search of the animal’s kin. They discover much more than that, of course, and a frenzy takes hold of the explorers, a mad passion for wanting to unlock every secret the marsh holds. More expeditions are launched. Base camps are built, so they may journey farther and farther still. Trading posts are built near rivers, so as to not waste any time in back-tracking to replenish supplies. Their intentions are born of the purest curiosity, a trait no one can fault them for. But their quest for knowledge has an unfortunate side effect. The animal they were seeking – bal’urut, they have named it – is comprised of a devastating combination of traits. It is skittish to the extreme, instinctively afraid of anything travelling in a pack (thanks to the prowling kressrols, a predatory species our villagers will encounter in due time). If the bal’urut becomes scared enough, its drive for survival will cause it to flee the area – with or without the lengthily gestated young it has been caring for in its den.
The bal’urut is also a specialist. It eats only a specific type of insect that nests in a specific type of tree in this specific corner of the world. Migration to more tranquil territory is not an option, not in the time it would take their guts to evolve for more varied fare.
By the time the explorers realise their presence is what is driving the very creature they wish to understand to abandon its offspring, it is too late. Infant mortality has skyrocketed to the point that the species can no longer sustain itself. Within a Harmagian lifetime, the bal’urut is no more. Other species fall in its wake. Our plucky explorers have the dubious distinction of making the first Harmagian record of a trophic cascade.
If you have studied any scientific discipline through Harmagian instruction, dear guest, you already know the story of the bal’urut. It is one of our most enduring cautionary tales. Many a professor has relished frustrating students with the ethical quandary at its core. If the villagers had not ventured into the marsh to better understand the bal’urut, then its breeding behaviour would not have been disrupted. But had the villagers stuck to their beach and their narrow view, they would’ve continued to pile slag at the marsh’s edge, and the bal’urut would’ve kept dying from eating it (archaeological studies suggest that bal’uruts found the salt deposits left behind in the metalworking process irresistible). My own research methodology professor phrased this concept succinctly: learn nothing of your subjects, and you will disrupt them. Learn something of your subjects, and you will disrupt them.
The bal’urut has been on my mind as of late. As an ethnographer, my role is to be a neutral observer. I cannot judge, I cannot suppose, I cannot fill in blanks with my own biases (as much as this is possible). And yet, my presence here has prompted change. I have not done anything harmful, to my knowledge. All I have done is talk. I ask questions, I give answers, I make connections. This is not much, and yet, I of all people should know that this can be everything.
I am being vague, dear guest, and for that, I apologise. I have set events in motion that will bring new technologies into the Fleet – namely, improved medical equipment, and sentient AI installations to facilitate resource management. I believe – or I sincerely hope, at least – these will be of great benefit to my hosts here. Given the letters I have received from many of you, I feel confident in assuming that you would agree. Indeed, I am humbled by the generosity that has made these donations possible. Truly, the name of our Galactic Commons was chosen well.
Still, I cannot ignore the fact that I came here to document the Exodan way of life, and as I near the end of my visit, that way of life is changing. This should not surprise me. I have ventured into the marshlands. I know this story well.
Received message
Encryption: 0
Translation: 0
From: Tessa Santoso (path: 6222-198-00)
To: George Santoso (path: 6159-546-46)
Well, they actually did it. Cargo bay jobs are going away. Not today. Not for a while. But they’re going to install sentient AIs here on the Asteria as a pilot programme, and, if it goes well, kit out the rest of the Fleet as well. I would’ve told you differently a couple tendays ago, but today, my gut says that pilot programme is going to catch on quick. People love these things. My brother just had to get a replacement for his old one, and he’s being very weird about it. It’s like he lost a pet or something. I don’t get it, but I’ve never worked with one, so who knows. Easier to deal with something that’s always cheerful and there to help than with us slow, cranky people, I suppose.
Me and a few others have been asked to work with the incoming comp techs to figure things out or set things up or however it works. Teach the machines what we’re doing so they can do it better. I’ve also been advised to start talking to the job office now, so I can figure out where I might want to go. Y’know, make time for classes. Make time to apprentice. Stars, George. I’ve been running job trials all standard, and now I’m the one who needs one.
I’m mad about it, and I know it’s stupid. It’s not like managing cargo is the most exciting job there is. But it was my job, and all I can think about are the projects I’m not going to finish and the systems I worked out and felt proud of that don’t matter anymore. I don’t know if this will make sense, but I keep wondering where we’re going to draw the line. Nobody’s talking about replacing pilots or bug farmers or teachers, even though AIs could do all of those, because those are fun jobs. Jobs that mean something, right? But I liked my job. There were things in it that I found fun. I thought what I did was meaningful. I thought I was doing something good. Who decides that? What if we decide that flying shuttles and raising red coasters aren’t actually all that fun, and we get rid of those jobs, too? What do people do, then? I went for a drink with Sahil after we got the news, and I asked him that question. He thought it’d be great. He said he’d go be a permastudent at some university and learn all he could. But why? Why learn anything if you’re not going to do something with it? Why learn anything if everything worth knowing is in the Linkings anyway, and you can ask your pet AI?