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Childhood's End Hot Takes
Feb. 9th, 2019 11:34 pmI read Childhood's end for school way back in 2015. These are my thoughts that I didn't get to say back then because my professor wanted to focus on other things, and that I've posted in shorter forms on Tumblr in various ways but no one really cared there, and I also tried to talk about on amirite.com but everyone there is an asshole especially Loraine, a joyless and judgmental prick of a woman who deserves to be accosted by a gang of flying monkeys.
1. Childhood's End is way more cosmically horrifying than the more traditional idea of cosmic horror, in which humanity is a meaningless speck in a vast universe that doesn't give a shit about us. That's not really horrifying to me. In Childhood's End, someone does care about humanity, and we do have a destiny, but it's not something most people want, and while there are plenty of people who think they want it, they'd quickly change their minds if it actually happened. The idea that the universe is full of indescribable beings far beyond our understanding that don't give a shit about us is scary, but it's also awe-inspiring. The idea that there's one power who wants to bend every species in the universe to its own ends is fucked up.
2. The Overmind are, in fact, genocidal bastards. As much as they're presented as blue and orangely moral and above good and evil and all that, they really aren't any better than any other given space genocidal bastards, they're just kinda pretentious about it, and well, genocidal bastards in real life often come up with bullshit to justify their genocidal bastardry so the only real difference is their godlike powers. See also Tumblr User Prokopetz's views on the matter.
3. Ok, it's been a few years, but there might in fact be a way to beat the Overmind, or at least defiantly shout into the void regarding them. Jan did the first step right in the book, although he didn't know that his position would be useful and he didn't take advantage of it. You need to not be on earth when the end comes, for rather obvious reasons. The next thing you need to do, is find a way to access the Overlords' broadcasting technology, possibly by asking. They did let Jan be sentimental after all. The list of things that should be included in the message you broadcast to the stars as loudly as you possibly can:
Or I could be getting something wrong. It's been several years after all.
*This video goes into why a sufficiently large amount of data might be enough for an alien civilization to decode our languages, although not all of it applies to this situation. Also it's long.
1. Childhood's End is way more cosmically horrifying than the more traditional idea of cosmic horror, in which humanity is a meaningless speck in a vast universe that doesn't give a shit about us. That's not really horrifying to me. In Childhood's End, someone does care about humanity, and we do have a destiny, but it's not something most people want, and while there are plenty of people who think they want it, they'd quickly change their minds if it actually happened. The idea that the universe is full of indescribable beings far beyond our understanding that don't give a shit about us is scary, but it's also awe-inspiring. The idea that there's one power who wants to bend every species in the universe to its own ends is fucked up.
2. The Overmind are, in fact, genocidal bastards. As much as they're presented as blue and orangely moral and above good and evil and all that, they really aren't any better than any other given space genocidal bastards, they're just kinda pretentious about it, and well, genocidal bastards in real life often come up with bullshit to justify their genocidal bastardry so the only real difference is their godlike powers. See also Tumblr User Prokopetz's views on the matter.
3. Ok, it's been a few years, but there might in fact be a way to beat the Overmind, or at least defiantly shout into the void regarding them. Jan did the first step right in the book, although he didn't know that his position would be useful and he didn't take advantage of it. You need to not be on earth when the end comes, for rather obvious reasons. The next thing you need to do, is find a way to access the Overlords' broadcasting technology, possibly by asking. They did let Jan be sentimental after all. The list of things that should be included in the message you broadcast to the stars as loudly as you possibly can:
- As much human created information as possible. This isn't just important because you want humanity to be remembered, although that's a nice benefit. This is so anyone who receives it can understand human languages*. (You probably are multilingual if you've grown up in Overlord controlled earth). This step probably has at least partially been accomplished if anyone's close enough to us to hear our radio broadcasts, but the Overlords probably have something better.
- An explanation of what the Overmind is, what happened to earth, and a reason to believe you.
- As much information about DNA and genetic engineering as you can muster.
- As much information about ESP as you can muster, this would be harder since it's something the Overlords have been suppressing.
- Tell them explicitly that they need to genetic engineer out any ESP related abilities. This is why you really need to give them a reason to trust you; ESP sounds like a really useful thing.
Or I could be getting something wrong. It's been several years after all.
*This video goes into why a sufficiently large amount of data might be enough for an alien civilization to decode our languages, although not all of it applies to this situation. Also it's long.
