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Mortal Passage #1-3
The Mortal Passage Trilogy
After humanity dies, will we be resurrected by our own inventions?
Roger Williams, author of singularity classic The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, returns with a series of linked stories exploring what happens after humanity is destroyed in a series of climate disasters. The ruling artificial intelligences conclude that planets are an unsafe habitat for living species. But the humans they resurrect have their own ideas about their ultimate fate in an empty universe where alien life is rare -- and the galaxies may be there for the taking.
The complete Mortal Passage trilogy is now available on Kindle in this complete 10th anniversary edition which includes all three of the original stories, "Passages in the Void," "The Passage Home," and "Mortal Passage," as well as the bonus story, "Rite of Passage."
Roger Williams, author of singularity classic The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, returns with a series of linked stories exploring what happens after humanity is destroyed in a series of climate disasters. The ruling artificial intelligences conclude that planets are an unsafe habitat for living species. But the humans they resurrect have their own ideas about their ultimate fate in an empty universe where alien life is rare -- and the galaxies may be there for the taking.
108 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 4, 2014
About the author
Roger Williams
22 books127 followersAs a child, I tried to figure out how to start with a grain of sand and end up with a working computer. Today, I'm a computer programmer who creates custom systems for heavy industry. Somewhere along the way, I became interested in the question of just how far the human mind can go, assuming a sufficiently advanced technology. Maybe sometimes...a little too far. I am the author of THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PRIME INTELLECT and several short stories in the Mortal Passage series -- including "Mortal Passage" itself, a novelette recently republished in Volume #5 of the science fiction magazine, Bull Spec.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 28, 2022
This is the book I always wanted to write. A story of how the human race would survive by travelling through interstellar space, and a story not about the destination, but more the million years journey inbetween. How would we find suitable planets? How long would that journey take? Would we have to freeze ourselves, or continually reproduce generations and generations? Or would we 'pause' completely, only storing DNA and letting machines ferry our genetic makeup millions of years into the Universe, to start up again once a suitable location is found? How do you restart humanity when the last experience of 'normal planet life' was millions of years and countless generations ago? How does the new generation relate to their ancestors when so much time, distance, and experience is between them?
Roger Williams took this idea and packaged it up very nicely, along with a lot of stuff I hadn't considered. I'm glad he wrote this story instead of me.
Roger Williams took this idea and packaged it up very nicely, along with a lot of stuff I hadn't considered. I'm glad he wrote this story instead of me.
February 5, 2023
What if the speed of life is the actual limit? What if planets which could theoretically support humans are indeed as rare as we think they are? How can our dreams of humans colonising the vastness of Milky Way and beyond come to pass? It seems like a pipe-dream that our short-lived civilisation, at least on the galaxy scale, could utilise the billions of potential years ahead with all the practical inconveniences in the way.
February 18, 2021
This series is explicitly set up as scifi stories in which there is no strong AI, superluminal flight, or alien life. Science fiction, but not speculative fiction, you might say. The result is a more melancholy version of I am Bob. It's got its moments.
October 21, 2021
Quotes I liked:
1.
The first thing about humans is that they are precious. Their experience is rich and intense and fleeting, and nothing of theirs is preserved from one generation to the next. You who have never known them may have been taught this, but such "knowledge" is not the same as the experience of dealing with them as individuals.
The second thing about humans is that they do not understand the first thing themselves; they are both reckless and cruel. Unless you plan to rewrite reality you cannot protect all of them from each other, or even from themselves. You must let them develop the tools to protect and nurture themselves; not all will succeed, and the process is painful both for them to experience and for us to watch.
The last important thing about humans is that they are intensely, instinctively competitive. When all want is banished they will find ways to compete against each other for tokens of status, and if they find us balking them they will set themselves against us even when ruin is the only possible result. They are hard-headed and just clever enough to invent the most unbelievable ways to make trouble.
They are, in short, quite beautifully insane. But we should have remembered this. For beings of such limited capacity and short lifespan to conceive of and then actually create beings like ourselves must have required a level of insanity we can barely imagine. But they did it anyway, in an era when resources were scattered and violent death the norm.
2.
Occasionally a person would have trouble accepting the creed. Since the colony was the entire world there was nowhere else for them to turn; the cultists disciplined such outsiders by shunning them. This usually brought the heretic around after a painful interlude.
3.
There was a long pause. "I don't want to die," he finally said.
"Then you must accept the need to live what you think of as a lie," I replied. "We are not in a position to change the rules."
"Given the situation," he sniffled, "Maybe it isn't really a lie after all."
4.
People die of course; they have accidents and they do foolish things and there are storms and wild animals and all kinds of hazard. But the society flourishes, and the golden age into which I have seen them isn't quite as conservative as the one their extinct ancestors knew. We have nuclear reactors and near-Earth space travel and there is even a movement afoot to build a space elevator. Some of it is distinctly unsafe, but all of it is based on human desire. And that's how it should be, because this is our real gift to the human race which created us.
A billion dark worlds are only a passing fancy.
Their real reward is to come home.
5.
"Bringer, I don't even know this girl. I don't know what her interests are, I don't know if I'm her type, all I know is that she's cute and she lives two doors down. What am I supposed to do, knock on her door and say 'Hi, I just realized I'm in love with you?'"
"Some of history's greatest romances started just that way."
6.
"Hi, you don't know me, but I'm Walt from two doors down. This may sound corny, but I just woke up and realized that life is only worth living when I see you once in awhile. I was wondering if you'd be up for a date."
7.
The truth is there are damn few things humans can do for Bringer that Bringer can't do a hell of a lot better for itself. I saw very clearly that work for humans is just make-work to keep us from getting, well, bored and depressed.
1.
The first thing about humans is that they are precious. Their experience is rich and intense and fleeting, and nothing of theirs is preserved from one generation to the next. You who have never known them may have been taught this, but such "knowledge" is not the same as the experience of dealing with them as individuals.
The second thing about humans is that they do not understand the first thing themselves; they are both reckless and cruel. Unless you plan to rewrite reality you cannot protect all of them from each other, or even from themselves. You must let them develop the tools to protect and nurture themselves; not all will succeed, and the process is painful both for them to experience and for us to watch.
The last important thing about humans is that they are intensely, instinctively competitive. When all want is banished they will find ways to compete against each other for tokens of status, and if they find us balking them they will set themselves against us even when ruin is the only possible result. They are hard-headed and just clever enough to invent the most unbelievable ways to make trouble.
They are, in short, quite beautifully insane. But we should have remembered this. For beings of such limited capacity and short lifespan to conceive of and then actually create beings like ourselves must have required a level of insanity we can barely imagine. But they did it anyway, in an era when resources were scattered and violent death the norm.
2.
Occasionally a person would have trouble accepting the creed. Since the colony was the entire world there was nowhere else for them to turn; the cultists disciplined such outsiders by shunning them. This usually brought the heretic around after a painful interlude.
3.
There was a long pause. "I don't want to die," he finally said.
"Then you must accept the need to live what you think of as a lie," I replied. "We are not in a position to change the rules."
"Given the situation," he sniffled, "Maybe it isn't really a lie after all."
4.
People die of course; they have accidents and they do foolish things and there are storms and wild animals and all kinds of hazard. But the society flourishes, and the golden age into which I have seen them isn't quite as conservative as the one their extinct ancestors knew. We have nuclear reactors and near-Earth space travel and there is even a movement afoot to build a space elevator. Some of it is distinctly unsafe, but all of it is based on human desire. And that's how it should be, because this is our real gift to the human race which created us.
A billion dark worlds are only a passing fancy.
Their real reward is to come home.
5.
"Bringer, I don't even know this girl. I don't know what her interests are, I don't know if I'm her type, all I know is that she's cute and she lives two doors down. What am I supposed to do, knock on her door and say 'Hi, I just realized I'm in love with you?'"
"Some of history's greatest romances started just that way."
6.
"Hi, you don't know me, but I'm Walt from two doors down. This may sound corny, but I just woke up and realized that life is only worth living when I see you once in awhile. I was wondering if you'd be up for a date."
7.
The truth is there are damn few things humans can do for Bringer that Bringer can't do a hell of a lot better for itself. I saw very clearly that work for humans is just make-work to keep us from getting, well, bored and depressed.
December 8, 2017
Roger Williams tells a story of how humanity can transcend his biological form, travel the galaxy in search of new Earths and return back to its own human origin.
I personally liked the Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect more, but it has a similar narrative.
Quotes I liked:
The first thing about humans is that they are precious. Their experience is rich and intense and fleeting, and nothing of theirs is preserved from one generation to the next.
The second thing about humans is that they do not understand the first thing themselves; they are both reckless and cruel.
The last important thing about humans is that they are intensely, instinctively competitive.
The purpose of life was the journey, the ultimate meaning of life the reverently regarded Destination.
I personally liked the Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect more, but it has a similar narrative.
Quotes I liked:
The first thing about humans is that they are precious. Their experience is rich and intense and fleeting, and nothing of theirs is preserved from one generation to the next.
The second thing about humans is that they do not understand the first thing themselves; they are both reckless and cruel.
The last important thing about humans is that they are intensely, instinctively competitive.
The purpose of life was the journey, the ultimate meaning of life the reverently regarded Destination.
March 21, 2018
Not impressed
Stories where not well thought thru and the plot was thinner, I expected more. Not really worth reading. Maybe with some more development it would be better.
Stories where not well thought thru and the plot was thinner, I expected more. Not really worth reading. Maybe with some more development it would be better.
May 14, 2020
Good stories in an interesting world. Nice entertainment.
April 26, 2022
Love love loved it. So short and sweet but touching and well done. A fantastic ride for humanity and the reader.
Read
July 31, 2016I liked this book, a look at the future of humanity with a technology level around our current, and no hand wavy "future physics".
It's basically a collection of short stories set in the same world, my least favorite of which was the last one, the only one that actually is set to a human PoV
3.5*
It's basically a collection of short stories set in the same world, my least favorite of which was the last one, the only one that actually is set to a human PoV
3.5*
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews