The Wrong Kind of Evolution | Blindsight
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- The technical term for modern humans is Homo Sapiens Sapiens, we are the current iteration of a genus going back two million years. There were however, obviously many species of humans who did not go on. Who for whatever reason could not adapt to their environments well enough to carry on their DNA. Examples include, Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Erectus, and Homo Floresiensis. In the novel, Blindsight, Peter Watts, merely adds an additional species to that list, they evolved in a different way, the wrong way.
This particular species of human lacked the ability to synthesize the protein, protocadherin - Y, which other species of humans produced naturally. Their brains and bodies were different as well, they were smarter, stronger, and faster than other humans. And in the earlier eras of humanity, when myth and legend were still being formed they preyed upon us in the night. Ancient humanity was only able to drive them to extinction when they discovered that the creatures had an aversion to right angles. This trait had developed naturally through some fluke of genetics. It was seemingly neutral at first as right angles do not form very often in nature. But once this fact was revealed to humanity, they drove them back into the darkness, seemingly forever. Until many eons later science brought them back.
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The fascinating thing about the artificial specialized evolution in Blindsight (which really just reduces people to specific functions), is how each time it achieves the opposite result to the one intended.
The supersoldier turns out to be a pacifist, the communication specialist can't even connect to her own species, let alone the aliens, and the predatory monster is the one who shows actual empathy and even compassion.
it's like trying to insist that your kid go into a certain field, it never works
So it's a book based on Grunge lyrics?
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
@@wingracer1614 I can hear that text in my head
@@wingracer1614 iv spent years trying to figure out what was being said, so it's "as an old enemy" thank you so much.
@@aceundead4750 I do the se thing haha. I'll spend years just being too lazy to look up the lyrics, singing them wrong everytime. And I'm a musician lol! (A guitarist not a singer but still embarrassing. I've played Piano, Drums and Trumpet fairly often so no excuses)
I love the fact this was referenced in the Casltevania series, Trevor Belmont said vampires weren’t stopped by holy symbols, but they got confused by geometric shapes.
Cool thing about the cross is that it is also a representation of the three dimensional cube (a core platonic solid) unfolded in a 2D plane.
@@Dxtuned that's actually really trippy
@@Dxtuned You mean the net of a cube.
Yes! Someone else who noticed that reference!
There's a Terry Pratchett book called Carpe Jugulum where vampires try to desensitize themselves to holy symbols by deconstructing them. That isn't a cross, it's just two right angles stuck together, etc. It works for a while, but then a witch starts messing with them and they can suddenly see holy symbols EVERYWHERE.
Ever heard of the book Those of my blood? Vampires were aliens that crashed on earth long ago then split into two groups the tourists which saw humans as merely food and the residents whom wanted to coexist with humans. Good book
Sounds almost like the Magius from Valvrave lol.
Honestly, the vampires depicted in Blindsight are one of my favorite concepts, as well as one of my favorite versions of vampires-to the point it inspired how I intend to depict vampires in one work, but I digress.
It really does make me hope that, if and when this series gets more well-known, more people will get inspired by this “hard sci-fi vampire” and showcase their own versions. Maybe even do a hard sci-fi version of other folkloric creatures. 🙂
You know, in Brazil theres the legend of the Mapinguari, a gigantic creature so monstruos that would scream with a giant mouth in their belly.
Turns out that the creature was real all along, it was an now extinct species of sloth's, and that wasn't the only creature more and more scientists find other creatures that seem to be mythological, but actually exist, another example is the Anaconda wich scientists find not a fossil, but an actual anaconda dead body.
@@efxnews4776 I brought up Watts' vampires with my family before when we started getting into Bigfoot conspiracies. I think it's entirely plausible to think that a large majority of folklore is/was species that may not even be around anymore, maybe even species that are sub-species of our own genes. Who knows, Bigfoot could've been a Neanderthal that forgot to shave and just took a bit too long of a cave-nap ending up on the flip side of the century!
@@mediumsoftdrink2866 You should check out SCP-1000. Whilst its more sci fi than hard scifi I still found it to be an enjoyable read
House of Suns has a race of post-humans who are centaurs that spring to mind
Watts' writing is quite unusual to me. I started reading the Rifters trilogy, and it's not your usual sci-fi where only the good guys win. He describes a civilisation collapse caused by what can probably be best described as a genetically engineered DNA virus that also somehow infected the future Internet (?) in such great detail, while also making you really _feel_ the characters thoughts. Great read so far
Blindsight is incredible, this videos are great! Hopefully you cover echopraxia:)
Have you ever read the novel or watched the anime series "From The New World"/Shin Sekai Yori? (Don't read the manga.) It has a really intriguing set of human evolution and genetic manipulation on psychic humans going to hundreds of years into the future. In it, due to terrible wars that brought down the modern world using psychic humans, humans with psychic powers were genetically manipulated to carry a gene that would cause them to "die of shame" if they ever killed a fellow human. However, that causes dire consequences when one is raised among beings who are not human.
You awoke my PTSD from that anime. D:
Is the manga bad or what's the problem? I genuinely don't know.
@@rasputin924 No, its quite good I would say. It just can be disturbing, sometimes.
Why the dire consequences?
Is it because the gene actually just works to stop you from killi g those you are raised among, so they DO kill other humans when they finally see them? Or because the gene only stops them from killing humans, theg wind up killing the beings who raised them?
I’m loving the high quality streak of videos, Quinn! It’s great that you’re branching out, excited to see what comes next.
Where do you get your general artwork you use when you narrate? So much of it is so good, dark, or awesomely creepy!
Quinn you're on a roll man. Thanks for the upload and keep up the good work.
Hey Quinn, awesome video! I think there isa series you would enjoy called "Sun Eater Chronicles". A young lord in a galactic human empire strives against the first human predators to grace the stars
thank you for finally covering blingsight!
Good day Quinn; have you ever consider being sponsored by an online bookshop, an audiobook service or a eReader manufacturer? Your channel has been definitely driving what I've been reading/listening for a long time now. I appreciate very much what you are doing and the love and care you put into your work; your channel is amazing. Thank you!
Oh man, I'm happy you did a video on a Peter Watts book. I highly suggest his Rifters series!
Very intriguing. The explanation about the vampires like a subspecies of Homo Sapiens is fantastic!
I loved this book and found it more than a little disturbing (but that was more to do with the consciousness issue). However my first impression when starting the book was negative. The human crew seemed at first generic 'mix of quirky space badasses' thats been so popular since 'Aliens' and when one crew member was described as a vampire, I just rolled my eyes 'someone should tell this guy vampires arent trendy anymore' But the atmosphere and building tension drew me in and anything that can turn an unfair bad first impression around has to be very good.
At first I didn't like the crew either. almost for the exact same reasons. However, once Siri's story and memories were developed, it became clear to me that all of their augmentations and their drawbacks were an intentional choice to highlight how they had lost a part of their humanity and it contrasted with Siri who was slowly regaining his empathy. Lots of themes and interpretations to pull from how characters relate to each other and their technology. I think that's what takes it from a cool first contact story to a great sci fi that explores the relationship of humanity and technology.
@@donventura2116 Yes, great points!
@@donventura2116 Yes exactly! As Siri said himself, here at the edge of interstellar space, thanks to a boatload of freaks, 𝘐'𝘮 𝘏𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯. These aren't just quirky space badasses, they are specifically chosen "people" with legitimate biological augmentations that significantly impact their psychological activity. That make them just as alien as the 'thing' they are going to meet. And even the vampires played a very integral part of the overall thematic representation of sentience, and how it may not be what we think it is exactly.
I just absolutely love the rollercoaster that Watts sends you on. It's funny when you first mention to new people how a space vampire is the mission commander of a teleported-anti-matter-propelled spacecraft with the directive of finding new intelligent life in interstellar space. I am now EAGER to tell anybody I know about just how cool a "𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺-𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘷𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦" would look like lol.
This is a must-watch channel for me every time Q drops something new!
Stoked you’re doing videos on one of the finest, but least known, modern science fiction writers.
Quinn is pumping out videos, each top tier. Amazing work
Finished an audiobook of Blind Sight today. One hell of a recommendation, very trippy at times.
Nature does not create intersecting right angles!
also the human instinctively fells unconfortable around the vampires, because that trait evolved along with humanity, the way petter watts puts it is like the cat that gets crazy when around a cucumber because it instinctively think it is a snake, they are more inteligent than humans because they have a predator brain that uses all of its power to attack while humans had to think of survival so they can come up with better strategies and we get stuck with our prey brains.
Excelent video!! Blindsight has become one of my favorite books and i discovered it on the comment section of one of your dark forest videos i think!
This was such a cool video. I hope you can make a video about star trek
Watts’ visions are at another level. Cheers
Man I've always had such a love for science, and particularly biology and biochemistry, and your channel was the thing that made me realize that love translates to fictional biology and scientific concepts as well. Thanks for opening me up to this stuff, I'm obsessed now 😂
I love stories that bring classic horror creatures into sci-fi settings. Wish there were more films and books like this.
Quinn is pumping out these amazing videos consistently now. LOVE IT!
I am starting to read it now. I was blow away by the language. The fragments was for me a Polish reader as if Lem was one day decided to get down to doing the Vampires.
I have recently read The Invincible by Lem and it gave me the same goosebumps. The language and the forms of the description. I could only recommend it for you. Besides the game will be having a premiere soon so maybe you will capitalize on it ;) Be prepared for Jacek Dukaj, a writer second to Lem in Poland. When he will be translated to English you will have a wonderful material to make vidoes about.
3:57 - I love how you took the photograph of the Theseus lamp somebody made and used it.
This is one of the best youtube channels I've stumbled upon. I've got to read all the books now. Thank you so much😊
God what an amazing vision on vampires, that caught me so offguard. Just plain brilliant
Loved the book, love this channel! But something I’ve never understood: why does everyone say there are no/few right angles in “nature”? Every conifer tree and many other trees and plants grow at a right angle to the ground they grow from. We literally see millions of right angles in nature
Another great video on a great book. Hope the next one is about the insane customization of human brains that characters in Blindsight possess.
Quinn, do you ever consider doing complete narrations of entire books?
I'd pay for that. Just sayin'.
I really enjoy your videos! It's become somewhat an event whenever I see a notification, I know I'm in for a treat!
This Channel is getting better and better!
Quinn, you are an absolute godsend. You got me into three body after I watched a ton of dune videos you had. Im going to start reading this now.
Also I think youd make an amazing narrator for audiobooks. I wish you nothing but success in everything you do ❤
Great vid, I love your style!
OK you convinced me, I've procrastinated on blindsight long enough
Please do more of this
One of my favorite scifi books ever
Go wild with the Blindsight content. There's a lot to be said.
SAME THOUGHTS. I saw another Quinn Blindsight video and I was like YOOO ITS NOT OVER, LETS GOOOO
Blindsight and Echopraxia have so many interesting ideas to be explored, but for some reason there’s not a lot of videos exploring them. I’m glad to see someone finally making content about them
Excellent video. I’m subscribing for more!
I can't wait for "Omniscience", if Peter goes through with it, I need a sense of absolute closure for this series ❤
Love your videos as always but especially love hearing about books I didn't know about. Time to see if my library has it!
idk why i clicked on this but thank you for sharing.
To evolve is often mistaken for "to improve." To evolve simply means to change. Change can be for better or worse.
Awesome that your writting your own Space saga
Very well done!
Looking forward to hearing more of you.
It's so weird how people hate the vampire element and feel like it's shoehorned into the book. I feel like it's a parallel to the alien thing they find in terms of an allegory for evolution.
Someone needs to hire this guy for VA or audiobook reciting work
The creatures weakness being right angles is both hilarious and interesting.
Dude, awesome book recomendation. You sold me on this one.
What an amazing take on Vampires. Great vid as always.
So happy to see this, the firefall books are AMAZING!
Yes! Just finished this, what great timing.
I'm quite the fan of the fantasy vampire (if done correctly) but this sciency interpretation of them definitly is great as well. I'd say it is the best non-fantasy depiction of vampires I have yet encountered:)
idk when this book was written, but that right angle thing reminds me of the hounds of tindalos
It would be super convenient if you had captions yo
That was a good read. Kinda. Seemed abrupt at times but hey, Siri had no idea what was going on and the commander said he doesn't know what he's doing...or the captain did? Unclear on that.
Damn ur just pumping out content this week
Fuck yes. Been waiting for your video on this series
Needs to be a movie
love your story telling,, but when you stated that evolution cut short because of their aversion to right angles, i laughed so loud the cats woke up and i made a bit of wee
We too. I mean, such immense aversion to just geometry, which cannot directly harm them, seems funny 😂
Its not simply an aversion, they basically have an epiliptic seizure if they dont look away.
an aversion to right angles is certainly an interesting interpretation of aversion to crucifixes. Impractical, a bit silly, but interesting
Garth Nix also does a neat (but completely different) sf version of vampires in one of his short stories, I think it's on Escape Pod... ah, yeah, it's ep 222, Infestation. Really good stuff.
Does the book explain why they have an aversion to right angles? That's so random and odd.
Interesting premise,
Some things that are never explained. How do vampires reproduce if they can't stand to be close to each other? Why didn't vampires just herd people like cattle? If they lacked a key protein why didn't they just synthesize it in a lab? Why didn't they set up blood banks or genetically modify some farm animal to produce the needed protein?
30 second intro/promo before video starts is a real drag, I'm guessing a lot of people jump first. You should try making it much shorter ~5 seconds (and putting the other content later during the video)
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Cool story
Intresting book.great video👍👍
(Crying desperately) I love you Quinn!
Not really one for vampire stuff but this sounds cool.
Small correction the name of our species is Homo Sapiens not Homo Sapien Sapien. The sapien sapien is from when scientist believe we were a subspecies with neanderthals. But since then neanderthals have been classified as their own species so the extra sapien has been dropped.
If the vampire is classified as a subspecies then Sapien Sapien would be correct
Please be in the same universe as blade
I love the vampire concept and in this book is totally interesting
God I love your narration. Please please keep going, good sir.
I haven't read the book, but why didn't they made the vampire able to synthesize "protocaterine y" instead ? That way, he wouldn't have to prey on humans. Any thought ?
They DID actually fix that when they grew the modern ones, or the synthetic food they eat supplements it, they DON'T nutritionally need humans in the book's time. Domestic cats who are being fed by their humans still love hunting and playing with prey before killing it, though, they aren't evil, they're just predators. Blindsight vampires are cognitively very different to humans, it's like talking to a large cat that physically outclasses you in every way and that's vastly smarter than you, if humans didn't have the "anti-euclidean" drug supply hostage they'd be livestock or at best pets to the vampires. The sequel makes it very clear that the vampires are actually making good progress on reducing that particular problem, as well :P
The real biological examples made this novel were amazing to me, the finesse would be amazing in the metahuman hero genres, realistic mutants that couldn't break physics laws but perform at specialized biological levels with all the weakness that come with it.
So, should I read the book?
By ancient records there used to exist pale people around the Mediterranean who were primitive even for that time, they drank the blood of animals with the flesh, and hide in the darkness a lot except for dim fires, during the day they didn't come out as it was believed they would burst into flames from spontaneous combustion, which is an actual condition some human gene pools while rare I think still carry, these people were probably one of the inspirations for vampires or ancient blood suckers.
They were originally thought of by the first people to see them as ghost or demons, maybe the offspring of spiritual creatures, though neither is confirmed, they definitely were human or human like enough, maybe they were monkeys with a mutation or some other we never saw as well because it was always dark when we saw them.
Regardless, blood sucking as a show of power and proneness to violence against other humans specifically has definitely been in our cultures since the dawn of man, there's always a blood sucking demon, this is probably because cannibalism at certain periods for a few basic reasons ran rampant and if groups of cannibals formed from that, coupled with whatever trauma led them to resort to that lifestyle for what they thought was survival, and those certain groups got outcasted and had enough kids for long enough with less than aversion to raw meat and blood (though as we would all guess the reason they ain't still here a lot is because that would incorporate many more potential diseases which probably killed all of them.
It makes sense how these adaptions could form.
If a certain isolated group of humans constantly interbreeding and such who aren't allowed into normal society because of.legends and certain features or customs or habits they have the normal populas was told to report as a monster sighting for the warriors to go kill, they couldn't even attempt to run from their ancestors poor or desperate choices, and would be forced to keep doing things which their genes in a desperate attempt to not have them go eztinct would probably rapidly adapt the human body with numerous errors and deformities to create a nutritional need and somewhat hyperphagic (hope I'm spelling that right) desire for blood, blood with certain nutrient profiles only other mammals or heavy blooded animals would have, this would naturally make a humans teeth a bit sharper, all the excess iron would need to go somewhere so an increase in k2 and vitamin d to shuttle all of it would make their skeletons much harder or have a higher threshold for iron storage or calcification, they would probably go to the bathroom a lot more to excrete excess plasma and would have probably stronger gut bacteria to kill off blood borne pathogens or have guts more designed to survive with harmful pathogens in them even if they ended up with chronic illnesses that would be debilitating within the time they get out of their 30s to create some level of symbiosis with it, the increased gut bacterial activation towards certain genes would then affect the brain development and senses especially if the pregnant women are feeding these things to people from the womb on up, the body is naturally going to go to whatever extreme species limit to make a carnivorous as appealing and easy/energy conserving as possible, also humans deemed regular or not apart of the immediate tribe would be natural enemies as the stories told to offspring would be they will all think them evil and will get them killed and the tribe killed or hunted, and that could spell doom for their own breeding and what little social life among their own they have, so it's a great deal of pressure and stress to not be seen, not be heard, and to kill anyone who threatens either of that, many more normal humans than them though, so it's bound to be when animal blood or potentially fruit isn't available, eat the normal human enemies as we contain lots of.blood they can bring back to the tribe if they capture one alive or killed in a place that didn't let out too much of our blood (hence probably the neck or stomach for biting traditionally,
I can definitely see how a people somewhere formed from this. I'm not saying they have, just that I can see how oddly plausible this is.
Can someone explain what about right angles was the kryptonite to the vampies? Was it line nails on a chalk board or like that cringe chagrin you feel when running into TikTok’rs shoot with no sound, or like… I’ve got nothing else…also I bet I could find a few right angles in rock formations or insect forms. But I digress… what’s this short circuit thing in the presence of right angles??? Please explain!! I’ll totally Smash LIKE, comment, share and subscribe!!
I still don't get the right angle/ crucifix thing
Do they die when they turn right?
Nah. Squares and crosses just gives them sea sickness and makes them voulnerable.
Anyone know the name of the intro song?
Cool take on vampires i like it
Who in their right minds would send a predator amongst a crew of prey on a deep space mission in a confined space?
Just a slight side-note. Homo neandertalensis DNA is in most of us. Especially Europeans. So in a way they did live on and not go fully extinct.
Can someone please explain how vampires being (afraid?) of right-angles let the humans defeat them
They aren't afraid, they seizure and most often die when right angles take up enough of their visual field. "The so-called "Crucifix Glitch"- a cross-wiring of normally-distinct receptor arrays in the visual cortex, resulting in grand mal-like feedback seizures whenever the arrays processing vertical and horizontal stimuli fired simultaneously across a sufficiently large arc of the visual field. Since intersecting right angles are virtually nonexistent in nature, natural selection did not weed out the Glitch until H. sapiens sapiens developed Euclidean architecture; by then, the trait had become fixed across H. sapiens vampiris via genetic drift, and-suddenly denied access to its prey-the entire subspecies went extinct shortly after the dawn of recorded history."
Glad to see you're continuing your work Quinn. Rare talent.
Just got thought the book…are you shure they were on the wrong side of evolution? Drawing on the themes explored in the book, I think the author seems to think that might not be the case.
Oh man, a human species that predates on other human species. That's facinating.
I don't dislike supernatural vampires but I do prefer it when they have to start dealing with the laws of nature and biology as how strange it can get always interests me.
I like the idea of a genetic defect. It could work. Humans have part of the genetic code to create our own vitamin C, but somewhere in genetic history it was broken.
I think the way they treated vampires in the blade movies from when I was a kid was a perfect mix
This story has the greatest ever scientific reasoning behind the reason Vampires get "grand mal" seizures when they look at right angles (crosses) and I FREAKING LOVE IT.
It's like House Asher from edgar allen poe where the sister raised from the dead
@@conq1273 The sister didn't rise from the dead in House of Usher. She literally had a seizure that caused her to go rigid, and her idiot brother entombed her alive, forcing her to break out.
Watts is a biologist by trade, so his explanations around other races and species are extremely plausible. Or at the very least, logically conceived.
True, but he still admitted that the aliens turned out to just be hyper-intelligent cephalopods. I still find it to be one of the most realistic first contact scenarios.
@@Minotaur-ey2lg Hyper-intelligent but not actually conscious.
Meh. The quirk of being so deterred to geometrical shapes, that it literally destroyed your species is very far out there. It would be selected against heavily and there's no plausible reason for it to spread over a whole species in the first place.
@@Scipionyxsam The explanation given is that it was a side effect of other brain wiring which was presumably advantageous in other ways, and not a liability because perfect right angles almost never appear in nature. The "done in by architecture" line mentioned by someone else on this page alludes to it - once people started building things, right angles were suddenly everywhere, which helped push vampires towards extinction. Basically, it wasn't selected heavily against for a long time - and then it suddenly was. Don't recall if that's in the book, or only in the "presentation video" posted as promotional material on Watts' website.
They actually used the right-angle aversion from Blindsight to explain the efficacy of crosses in the animated Castlevania series!
Honestly that moment felt really out of place in that series... Vampires, Monsters, Demons, Gods, Souls, Holy Water, Heaven, Hell and the personification of Death itself are all confirmed to be real in that series. But the idea that a christian symbol can repel a non-christian vampire is the thing that needs to be rationalized in the lore.
Which doesn't make sense considering Castlevania is fantasy with actual magic and actual gods so the vampires would be averse to cross simply because of right angles in that setting.
In Echopraxia there is also a vampire, but besides here there is one more creepy element- the so called zombies.
"Zombies" are people who have an implant that let's them turn off their conciousness, making their brain focus on every other processes. They are extremaly effective as combatants, but need orders to do anything. There is also one time protagonist of Echopraxia manages to get a closer look at one of the zombies- they are expressionless and their eyes dart inhumanly quickly all around, gatthering as much information as they can since their brain is unshackled from pains of migrane or information overload
The most horrifying moment in all science fiction is when the Zombie implant disengages at the moment of death, resulting in you waking up when all your life choices catch up with you.
Don’t forget the escape. Multiple vampires coordinating without communicating. Just knowing what the optimal path would be if they could cooperate. That’s terrifying.
@@Minotaur-ey2lg
And the vampire who is on the mission also found a way to... Manipulate people into exhibiting vampire weakness, among many other things.
In book it was explain that she stresses you in a way that your body subtly changes. She also managed to do that ho herself- she survived seeing the cross in the opening of the book without taking the antieuqlidians
The zombies are more than just implanted humans, the book makes a point to the protagonist who looks down on them that they may in fact be dead people revived by technology in nations lacking ethical compulsions, after all after death a lot of rights go away. Or voluntary conscripts. The zombies the vampire controls are hacked anyway, so we wouldn't know where they come from.
@@masterzoroark6664 I really need to re-read those. Echopraxia especially. Great novel, but he definitely doesn’t spoon feed you anything.
I'm pretty sure the vampires didn't get extinct through our direct means, rather because they would hibernate extended periods, they eventually woke up to find more and more geometrical shapes being built by the other humans, whom did so unaware of both the existence of vampires and their weaknesses.
Damn Crucifix Glitch. Don’t forget, vampires are so insanely territorial that if you put two of them in a room, you’d need a mop for the blood afterwards. They were never that prevalent anyway, being rabidly homocidal toward another of your own species can’t be good.
@@Pete...NoNotThatOne How does the crucifix glitch even work
@@hunterkage2842 it’s basically a result of the way their brains are wired. If an intersecting right angle fires the right pattern of neurons in the retina, it’s the equivalent of flashing a light at a person with epilepsy. Causes a _grand mal_ seizure. When they first evolved, there are very few such intersecting right angles in nature, so it never really became an issue. It was only when people started making things like windows that they found these strange predatory semi-humans having seizures, and were able to kill them. The anti-Euclidians are anti-seizure medications, and administered to allow them to function in our society - with the understanding that we can withdraw the medications if they act up.
@@hunterkage2842 supposedly just a wiring fault with their brains.
@@Pete...NoNotThatOne This turns out to be a trait that was deliberately engineered into a truly extreme form when they were brought back, to prevent them collaborating (it didn't work - they were so insanely good at simulation that they could predict the actions of other vampires without ever meeting them) or breeding - if it had been that extreme when they originally existed, they could never have had offspring.
There are two things I specifically loved about this book. First, the idea that a predatory organism can hide in plain sight within the saccade. Second is the reason why the aliens became hostile towards humanity - they misunderstood our culture to be a DOS attack on their brains because they could not understand why any organism would communicate information that is not useful.
I love how this book sets up Sarasti as a threat and it turns out he's a bro and just as interested in human survival as everyone else.
It's not really clear how much of his actions were his own, and his much he was being run by Theseus, though.
Also, his people live on earth, too.
But it was cool how it was never clear whether he was a villain or hero- because of course vampires don't think in those terms at all.
It'd be interesting to see how his character would be portrayed in a visual medium.
I haven't read the book, but based upon the summary he has an incentive to keep humans alive. If humans are dead then he dies and his kind dies. I don't think that makes him a "bro". He doesn't want to save humanity because he wants to he wants to save humanity because he has to.
@@boringstuff1542 the sequel goes into a bit of it, but long story short, vampires don't need humans to survive. Even on Theseus, they have synthetic food, so why not synthetic flesh for vampires, complete with necessary hormones? Seems easy enough. They might keep us around the way we keep livestock, tho.
@@NevTheDeranged Yeah, they don't nutritionally need humans, but they DO also live on earth and are still too sentient for Rorshach to not consider interactions with them as an intrinsic cognitive attack.
@@thomasjoychild4962 maybe. It probably doesn't matter, once Rorschach was aimed at earth, there's probably nothing that will deter it. The smart play, for both humans and vampires, is to diasporate into the solar system as soon as possible, so we are no longer at risk of being wiped out by a planetary disaster.
I haven't even watched the video as I write this but I just have to say that your channel is by far one of the best sci fi channels on yt. You have introduced me to some of the best fiction I have ever read and tempted me to actually read Dune which was one of the best book experiences I've had since game of thrones. Thank you and keep up the great work.
I’ve yet to see anybody explain _why_ it was decided to resurrect vampires. Their brains are compartmentalised to such a point, they can literally multitask better than any normal computer. Their thought processes are so efficient they can outthink most electronic devices.
There’s a scene near the end where Siri sees inside Jukka’s quarters, and the ship’s readout system is a bank of projected screaming human faces. But, it’s very efficient because our brains are hard wired to pick up subtle clues in facial expressions - so the ships forward momentum may be portrayed by the size of an ear, oxygen might be the lines on a forehead, etc. when Siri asks why the faces are screaming, Jukka just shrugs and says, “I _am_ a predator…”
@@braindeaddiver yeah, people with the vampire’s ability to hibernate, sure. But they also resurrect fully functioning vampires and put them in positions of command.
the vampire brain is an exceedingly efficient algorithm. efficient at hunting humans i.e. always being at least one logical step ahead of their prey. Sirasti is the "missing link" between humans and the cephalopods.
I remember reading somewhere that they were trying to cure some genetic defect with retroviral therapy but brought back vampires instead. After that, they just tried making the best of the situation (put hibernation genes into astronauts, use vampires as walking supercomputers).
Because humans thought they could control them. Simple as.
Resurrecting vampires and putting them in charge was the most edgelord-y, Darwin Award-getting moment in an otherwise smart book that takes itself very seriously.