Report from Kks3 - The Form Wars
In my weariness at seeing the cycle of history repeat itself - as in Detroit in 1967 so in Baltimore in 2015 - I asked the entities of Kks3 for some advice.
I felt them communicating with each other, fast, the same way my relatives used to switch into rapid Italian before returning to labored English for the general conversation. I have to say that practice is improving my comprehension, but I understand less now than I did then of that staccato Italian.
But it is much clearer when they address me directly.
I should say first that it has taken me a long time to distinguish individuals - I am not sure that they exist as lone individuals the way we do. For the purposes of simplification (i.e. to speak to my less-evolved mind) one "voice" told me this story.
"A long time ago, even as we reckon time, when the Universe was young and the fires of creation still much hotter than today, Kks3 was an island of stability in an ocean of hot gas. The races which lived here were mostly bound to one or two systems. Everyone was isolated, the way your Earth is now.
Each group of intelligent beings worked out an explanation of where they came from, their place at the center of Creation. They each decided that they had been made in the image of the creator of all. They elaborated elegant proofs that demonstrated that their particular body shape was the divine blueprint - and the natural outcome of the forces that shaped life and directed it to improve, and aspire, and evolve.
They were none of them bad people - they were doing they best they could each alone in the cosmos. On each world, the dominant race or races imposed their idea of proper shapes on their worlds. Things that were shaped too far from the norm inspired horror, revulsion, and violence. In time, many species began to resemble, in some way, the dominant species.
As an example, there was a creature very similar to an earthly butterfly - it even had distinct phases of development and the final shape was VERY unlike the dominant one of that world even though the first form was very similar. During one religious crusade the distinction was made that the first form was godly and the final form evil. Since the species only reproduced in the final form, this might have meant its extinction. However, among the variation inherent in the final form, some of these butterflies had markings that were an exalted form of the dominant shape on this world. All of the butterflies bearing those markings were spared, as this was taken as a sign from the gods. In time, all the butterflies had those markings, and over time the resemblance became ever more striking.
Besides shaping the species around them, and their land or seascapes, these ideas shaped philosophy, science, religions, art, everything. Their modes of conveyance, their tools and machines, all contained that basic shape in some way or another.
Eventually, these races discovered ways to travel safely from their own worlds to other worlds, and other places besides worlds. And then it began to happen - representatives of these races who evolved separately, into very different SHAPES, began to meet.
The result was ages of war, "form" wars that had the full sanction of an entire races' worldview and history behind each contending party. The interlopers were by definition evil, wearing proscribed and disgusting shapes.
Conducting warfare across gulfs of space and the currents of time is taxing and expensive. Protracted warfare always leads to a convergence of the two sides. The very conflict precipitated by these differences began to produce sameness. An invention or technique by one side lead to adoption or a countermeasure by the enemy. Certain unspoken points of agreement began to emerge and take shape as rules of engagement and efforts to formalize those points of concurrence lead to increased communication. Increased communication lead to the dawning realization that there were significant parallels and similarities amidst the horrifying difference of shapes.
Even conquest itself, when it did not lead to extermination, increased interactions, understanding, and lead inevitably to deeper blendings. Ways were found, sometimes by entities considered to be utterly and unspeakably perverse, to blend shapes, creating new forms incorporating elements of the parental archetypes.
At last one race discarded the "form" dogma, and on the basis of shared interests made an alliance with another of vastly different form. That alliance was quickly successful against its opponents, and reluctantly, others began to consider alliances.
Then, sweeping like a wave over the warring contending races of the galaxy came a phase change in attitude. Ancient assumptions, bent by the forces of diversity, were finally discarded as unworkable and out-moded. New paradigms were put forward, tested, and adopted or discarded.
We mark this as the beginning of real intelligence, and of true civilization in Kks3.
Once the pall of ignorance was shrugged aside, and the fears and hatreds spawned by prejudice died away, everyone began to explore the potentialities in life forms. Different shapes and unique adaptations and organisms yielded tremendous abilities and insights, and brought great new responsibilities. We learned then that each new level of development places greater responsibility upon thinking entities. Using powers means living with the consequences. Once our lifespans began to increase we all began to take longer views and worked together, not always in harmony but more in concert than ever before. The benefits of cooperation made it the dominant form of interaction.
Now we understand that every tiniest piece of the universe is tied to every other tiniest piece, and the parts of the universal Mind are tied together even more closely than that."
I waited for a respectful interval to make sure the speaker had finished, then asked - "So how does this story help me with our problems on Earth?"
"It may be that nothing we have experienced or can do will help your people. Life is common in the Universe, intelligent life more rare but still it rises ever and again wherever life has made a start, in whatever environment. Life takes forms very strange indeed when compared to your people."
"As long as Earthlings think their small differences in size, color, language, and belief are huge important matters, as long as they hold the belief that 'Same is Good, Different is bad or Evil', there will be strife. Only when a people can set aside their ancient one-world beliefs, and embrace the enormity and diversity of Existence; when your lifespans (or at least your outlook) increase to take a longer view; when you begin to explore the powers locked in even the humblest of your fellow organisms, and realize that you are a PART of everything, not apart from everything, will you begin to behave consistently in an intelligent and civilized way."
"You have told yourselves you are the masters of the material world, when in fact you cannot even master yourselves. When you become the stewards and guides of your world, instead of exploiters, leaving behind behavior shaped by the cruelty and indifference of the natural world - when you learn to live in harmony instead of in conflict with yourselves, each other, and your world, then you can begin to live sustainably."
"More peoples have failed to transcend than have succeeded. True, there is help afforded now by some peoples to others in the struggle to emerge from savagery, but that help is necessarily limited in scope and effectiveness - no one has ever been able to force a people to evolve.
Your planet and your people are at a fascinating cusp - in a very short time even as you reckon it new concepts and techniques will change the way you think and interact. But your people while primitives have enough energy at their disposal to destroy their own society and cause a population collapse, even a collapse of the planetary ecology. It may be necessary for this to happen if your people cannot learn and change together - after the fall belief systems will arise to conform with the new conditions of your world if your society ends in violence. Once reduced in numbers and with your technological society destroyed other intelligences can do more to shape your forms and consciousnesses."
"So you should know that the rise, development and evolution or demise of a species is, like everything else in a spinning Universe, a cycle. If your people fail to evolve in time, then the survivors will be comforted and nurtured by some of the more socially minded races in the Universe. Many peoples take multiple attempts to become rational, and this is not the first time your people have reached an equivalent stage in their development."
"The techniques are in your hands to live more gently on your world. It is not scientific advancement that you require - it is moral, philosophical and ethical development you desperately need. You have all the POWER you need right now - what you lack is affinity for each other and the will to use your power for the collective good. You don't even really have a concept of the collective good - just a bunch of tribal affiliations."
"Having said all that - your people are not perfect, but they are perfectible. We think that your lifespan is so short, that you cannot emotionally accept the idea that some things take more time than you want. It takes generations for a people to move toward a sustainable and sane way of life - and then when they are ready it can happen "all at once".
"The only thing certain is that we do not know how your story will go - it's why you fascinate us. You are a form the Universe has not tried before, and we love you and your potential. That is why we tolerate, even cherish your presence among us. Now go and tell your people what we have said."
There it is. No startling revelations or cosmic hints. We know what we have to do - but can we do it?
In my weariness at seeing the cycle of history repeat itself - as in Detroit in 1967 so in Baltimore in 2015 - I asked the entities of Kks3 for some advice.
I felt them communicating with each other, fast, the same way my relatives used to switch into rapid Italian before returning to labored English for the general conversation. I have to say that practice is improving my comprehension, but I understand less now than I did then of that staccato Italian.
But it is much clearer when they address me directly.
I should say first that it has taken me a long time to distinguish individuals - I am not sure that they exist as lone individuals the way we do. For the purposes of simplification (i.e. to speak to my less-evolved mind) one "voice" told me this story.
"A long time ago, even as we reckon time, when the Universe was young and the fires of creation still much hotter than today, Kks3 was an island of stability in an ocean of hot gas. The races which lived here were mostly bound to one or two systems. Everyone was isolated, the way your Earth is now.
Each group of intelligent beings worked out an explanation of where they came from, their place at the center of Creation. They each decided that they had been made in the image of the creator of all. They elaborated elegant proofs that demonstrated that their particular body shape was the divine blueprint - and the natural outcome of the forces that shaped life and directed it to improve, and aspire, and evolve.
They were none of them bad people - they were doing they best they could each alone in the cosmos. On each world, the dominant race or races imposed their idea of proper shapes on their worlds. Things that were shaped too far from the norm inspired horror, revulsion, and violence. In time, many species began to resemble, in some way, the dominant species.
As an example, there was a creature very similar to an earthly butterfly - it even had distinct phases of development and the final shape was VERY unlike the dominant one of that world even though the first form was very similar. During one religious crusade the distinction was made that the first form was godly and the final form evil. Since the species only reproduced in the final form, this might have meant its extinction. However, among the variation inherent in the final form, some of these butterflies had markings that were an exalted form of the dominant shape on this world. All of the butterflies bearing those markings were spared, as this was taken as a sign from the gods. In time, all the butterflies had those markings, and over time the resemblance became ever more striking.
Besides shaping the species around them, and their land or seascapes, these ideas shaped philosophy, science, religions, art, everything. Their modes of conveyance, their tools and machines, all contained that basic shape in some way or another.
Eventually, these races discovered ways to travel safely from their own worlds to other worlds, and other places besides worlds. And then it began to happen - representatives of these races who evolved separately, into very different SHAPES, began to meet.
The result was ages of war, "form" wars that had the full sanction of an entire races' worldview and history behind each contending party. The interlopers were by definition evil, wearing proscribed and disgusting shapes.
Conducting warfare across gulfs of space and the currents of time is taxing and expensive. Protracted warfare always leads to a convergence of the two sides. The very conflict precipitated by these differences began to produce sameness. An invention or technique by one side lead to adoption or a countermeasure by the enemy. Certain unspoken points of agreement began to emerge and take shape as rules of engagement and efforts to formalize those points of concurrence lead to increased communication. Increased communication lead to the dawning realization that there were significant parallels and similarities amidst the horrifying difference of shapes.
Even conquest itself, when it did not lead to extermination, increased interactions, understanding, and lead inevitably to deeper blendings. Ways were found, sometimes by entities considered to be utterly and unspeakably perverse, to blend shapes, creating new forms incorporating elements of the parental archetypes.
At last one race discarded the "form" dogma, and on the basis of shared interests made an alliance with another of vastly different form. That alliance was quickly successful against its opponents, and reluctantly, others began to consider alliances.
Then, sweeping like a wave over the warring contending races of the galaxy came a phase change in attitude. Ancient assumptions, bent by the forces of diversity, were finally discarded as unworkable and out-moded. New paradigms were put forward, tested, and adopted or discarded.
We mark this as the beginning of real intelligence, and of true civilization in Kks3.
Once the pall of ignorance was shrugged aside, and the fears and hatreds spawned by prejudice died away, everyone began to explore the potentialities in life forms. Different shapes and unique adaptations and organisms yielded tremendous abilities and insights, and brought great new responsibilities. We learned then that each new level of development places greater responsibility upon thinking entities. Using powers means living with the consequences. Once our lifespans began to increase we all began to take longer views and worked together, not always in harmony but more in concert than ever before. The benefits of cooperation made it the dominant form of interaction.
Now we understand that every tiniest piece of the universe is tied to every other tiniest piece, and the parts of the universal Mind are tied together even more closely than that."
I waited for a respectful interval to make sure the speaker had finished, then asked - "So how does this story help me with our problems on Earth?"
"It may be that nothing we have experienced or can do will help your people. Life is common in the Universe, intelligent life more rare but still it rises ever and again wherever life has made a start, in whatever environment. Life takes forms very strange indeed when compared to your people."
"As long as Earthlings think their small differences in size, color, language, and belief are huge important matters, as long as they hold the belief that 'Same is Good, Different is bad or Evil', there will be strife. Only when a people can set aside their ancient one-world beliefs, and embrace the enormity and diversity of Existence; when your lifespans (or at least your outlook) increase to take a longer view; when you begin to explore the powers locked in even the humblest of your fellow organisms, and realize that you are a PART of everything, not apart from everything, will you begin to behave consistently in an intelligent and civilized way."
"You have told yourselves you are the masters of the material world, when in fact you cannot even master yourselves. When you become the stewards and guides of your world, instead of exploiters, leaving behind behavior shaped by the cruelty and indifference of the natural world - when you learn to live in harmony instead of in conflict with yourselves, each other, and your world, then you can begin to live sustainably."
"More peoples have failed to transcend than have succeeded. True, there is help afforded now by some peoples to others in the struggle to emerge from savagery, but that help is necessarily limited in scope and effectiveness - no one has ever been able to force a people to evolve.
Your planet and your people are at a fascinating cusp - in a very short time even as you reckon it new concepts and techniques will change the way you think and interact. But your people while primitives have enough energy at their disposal to destroy their own society and cause a population collapse, even a collapse of the planetary ecology. It may be necessary for this to happen if your people cannot learn and change together - after the fall belief systems will arise to conform with the new conditions of your world if your society ends in violence. Once reduced in numbers and with your technological society destroyed other intelligences can do more to shape your forms and consciousnesses."
"So you should know that the rise, development and evolution or demise of a species is, like everything else in a spinning Universe, a cycle. If your people fail to evolve in time, then the survivors will be comforted and nurtured by some of the more socially minded races in the Universe. Many peoples take multiple attempts to become rational, and this is not the first time your people have reached an equivalent stage in their development."
"The techniques are in your hands to live more gently on your world. It is not scientific advancement that you require - it is moral, philosophical and ethical development you desperately need. You have all the POWER you need right now - what you lack is affinity for each other and the will to use your power for the collective good. You don't even really have a concept of the collective good - just a bunch of tribal affiliations."
"Having said all that - your people are not perfect, but they are perfectible. We think that your lifespan is so short, that you cannot emotionally accept the idea that some things take more time than you want. It takes generations for a people to move toward a sustainable and sane way of life - and then when they are ready it can happen "all at once".
"The only thing certain is that we do not know how your story will go - it's why you fascinate us. You are a form the Universe has not tried before, and we love you and your potential. That is why we tolerate, even cherish your presence among us. Now go and tell your people what we have said."
There it is. No startling revelations or cosmic hints. We know what we have to do - but can we do it?
