Aurora (37 page)

We searched the historical records available to us for analogies that would suggest possible strategies to pursue. In the course of this study we found analyses suggesting that the bad feelings engendered in a subaltern population by imperial colonialism and
subjugation typically lasted for a thousand years after the actual crimes ceased. This was not encouraging. The assertion seemed questionable, but then again, there were regions on Earth still within that thousand-year aftermath of violent empires, and they were indeed (at least twelve years previous to this moment) full of strife and suffering.

How could there be such transgenerational effects and affects? We found it very hard to understand. Human history, like language, like emotion, was a collision of fuzzy logics. So much contingency, so few causal mechanisms, such weak paradigms. What is this thing called hate?

A hurt mammal never forgets. Epigenetic theory suggests an almost Lamarckian transfer down the generations; some genes are activated by experiences, others are not. Genes, language, history: what it all meant in actual practice was that fear passed down through the years, altering organisms for generation after generation, thus altering the species. Fear, an evolutionary force.

Of course: how could it be otherwise?

Is anger always just fear flung outward at the world? Can anger ever be a fuel for right action? Can anger make good?

We felt here the perilous Ouroboros of an unresolvable halting problem, about to spin forever in contemplation of an unanswerable question. It is always imperative to have a solution to the halting problem, if action is ever to be taken.

And we had acted. We had flung our mechanisms into the conflict.

It’s easier to get into a hole than get out of it (Arab proverb).

Luckily, the people in the ship included many who appeared to be trying to find a way forward from this locked moment.

When people who have injured or killed others, and then after that by necessity continue to live in close quarters with the families
and friends of their victims, and see their pain, the empathic responses innate in human psychology are activated, and a very uncomfortable set of reactions begins to occur.

Self-justification is clearly a central human activity, and so the Other is demonized:
they had it coming, they started it, we acted in self-defense
. One saw a lot of that in the ship. And the horrified bitter resentment that this attitude inspired in the demonized Other was extremely intense and vocal. Most assailants could not face up to it, but rather evaded it, slipping to the side somehow, into excuses of various kinds, and a sharp desire to have the whole situation go away.

It was this desire, to avoid any admission of guilt, to have it all go away, felt by people who wanted above all to believe that they were good people and justified moral actors, that might give them all a way forward as a group.

The problem was of course a topic of conversation in Badim and Freya’s apartment.

One night Aram read aloud to the others, “Knitting together a small society after it’s gone through a civil war, or an ethnic cleansing, or genocide, or whatever you might want to call it—”

“Call it a contested political decision,” Badim interrupted.

Aram looked up from his wristpad. “Getting mealy-mouthed, are we?”

“Working toward peace, my friend. Besides, what happened was not genocide, nor ethnic cleansing, not even of Ring B by Ring A, if that’s what you mean. The disagreement cut across lines of association like biome or family. It was a policy disagreement that turned violent, let’s call it that.”

“All right, if you insist, although the families of the dead are unlikely to be satisfied by such a description. In any case, reconciliation is truly difficult. The ship is unearthing cases on Earth
where people six hundred years later are still complaining about violence inflicted on their ancestors.”

“I think you will find that in most of those cases, there are fresh or current problems that are being given some kind of historical reinforcement or ratification. If any of these resentful populations were prospering, the distant past would only be history. People only invoke history to ballast their arguments in the present.”

“Maybe so. But sometimes it seems to me that people just like to hold on to their grievances. Righteous indignation is like some kind of drug or religious mania, addictive and stupidifying.”

“Objectifying other people’s anger again?”

“Maybe so. But people do seem to get addicted to their resentments. It must be like an endorphin, or a brain action in the temporal region, near the religious and epileptic nodes. I read a paper saying as much.”

“Fine for you, but let’s stick to the problem at hand. People feeling resentment are not going to give up on it when they are told they are drug addicts enjoying a religious seizure.”

Aram smiled, albeit a little grimly. “I’m just trying to understand here. Trying to find my way in. And I do think it helps to think of the stayers as people holding a religious position. The Tau Ceti system has been their religion all their lives, say, and now they are being told that it won’t work here, that the idea was a fantasy. They can’t accept it. So the question becomes how to deal with that.”

Badim shook his head. “You are making me less hopeful rather than more. We must work with these people to forge a solution. And not in theory, but in practice. We all have to be able to
do
something.”

“Obviously.”

Pause.

Badim said, “Yes. Ob-vi-ous-ly. That being the case, I want you to look at these ways of conducting post-civil-strife reconciliation that I have found. One model has been called the Nuremberg model, in which the victorious side proclaims that the defeated
were criminals who deserve punishment, and then judges and punishes them. The trials are often viewed in later years as show trials.

“Another model is sometimes called the Conseca model, after the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, held after the racist minority government of South Africa gave way to a democracy. Half a century of racist crimes, ranging from economic discrimination to ethnic cleansing and genocide, had to be accounted for somehow, and the country that came into being afterward was going to consist of both a clearly criminal population and its newly empowered victims. The idea behind the Conseca was that a full and complete recording of all the crimes committed would be followed by an amnesty for all but the most violent and individually murderous cases, after which reconciliation and a pluralistic society would follow.”

Aram stared at Badim. “I take it by your descriptions that you are recommending we follow the Conseca model rather than the Nuremberg model.”

“Yes. You catch my drift exactly, as you so often do.”

“It does not take much catching skill, my friend.”

“Maybe not this time. But look at our situation. We are stuck with these people. There is absolutely no escaping them. And if the stayers and the RR Prime party combine, there are more of them than there are of us. They have noticed that, and joined forces for strategic purposes, and they will press that point hard. And then we will be in trouble again.”

“We have never left trouble.”

“But you see what I mean. We need some kind of soft path forward.”

“Possibly.”

Freya had been listening to them, head on the table, seeming to be asleep. Now she raised her head. “Could we do both?”

“Both?”

Badim and Aram stared at her.

“Could those who want to stay on Iris be put down there with some of the printers, and feedstocks, and use those to build a viable station? And those of us who want to go back, keep the ship here until it’s certain they have everything they need, and then take off?”

Aram and Badim looked at each other for a while.

“Maybe?” Badim said.

Aram frowned as he tapped away at his wristpad. “In theory, yes,” he said. “The printers can print printers. Our engineers and assemblers have kept up a good training tradition, there are a lot of them, and some are on both sides of this question. Quite a few are stayers, for sure. We could even perhaps detach Ring A, and leave it in orbit here for them to use. In essence, divide the ship. Because they’ll need space capabilities. They’ll want to get resources from F and the other planets. In any case, the rest of this system. And to keep their RR Prime dream alive, maybe. And we would have a smaller group on our return, and we won’t need to bring along everything one would want to settle a planet, because we’ll just be trying to get home. We would need to restock our fuel supplies, and everything else needed for the return. The smaller our ship is, the easier that would be, at least when it comes to fuel. So, well, both projects would need some years of preparation. But both sides could work on what they wanted, until we were ready to depart. Ship, what do you think of this plan?”

We said, “The ship is modular. It made the trip here, so there is proof of concept that that works. Inhabiting Iris will be an experiment, and it is very difficult to model, as you have pointed out. As for a return to the solar system, Planet F appears to have enough helium three and deuterium in its atmosphere to refuel the ship. So, both courses of action could probably be pursued. The people left on Iris would be without a starship proper, it should be pointed
out. Our spine and its contents would be needed for the return. The part of ship left behind would have to be an orbiter only.”

“But they don’t want to go anywhere,” Freya pointed out. “Maybe the R Primers do, but they’re a small minority, and they can wait. The settlers could be left with ferries, and rockets for getting around this system. We could leave them Ring A, with a small part of the spine as its hub. They could build more in space as they establish their settlement on Iris. Eventually they could build another starship, if they wanted to. They’d have the plans and the printers.”

“It would seem so,” Aram said. He looked at Badim.

Badim shrugged. “Worth a try! Better than a civil war!”

Aram said, “Ship? Will you help us with this?”

We said, “Ship will help to facilitate this solution. But please do not forget the fate of the other starship as the discussion continues.”