What of Lazarus?
Is this the worst possible fate in sci-fi/fantasy?
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What happened to Leto II in Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune seemed pretty ghastly. Sure, it might be nice to live for several thousand years, but not like that.
Seriously? It's not like we spend our few decades any differently. He's a big fat slob that goes everywhere by car and pretty much only watches pornos. Sounds familiar.
What happened to Leto II in Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune seemed pretty ghastly. Sure, it might be nice to live for several thousand years, but not like that.
Seriously? It's not like we spend our few decades any differently. He's a big fat slob that goes everywhere by car and pretty much only watches pornos. Sounds familiar.
So Herbert was writing an allegory of basement nerds?
That's a novel interpretation, to be sure...
Two things about that:
- The Phantom Zone is not, AFAIK, an 'endless field of white'. Meaning: Those incarcerated in it can still see the normal universe, they just can't interact with it or affect it in any way.
- People aren't sent there forever, are they? Aren't they put there for a set time and then released?
To quote Avatar from Ralph Bakshi's Wizards:
"Allright, creep, Now before I untie you, I wanna tell you a couple of things, and I want you to listen, and listen carefully. This has been the biggest bummer of a trip I've ever been on; but if you let me down, or you hurt my friends, especially the broad, I got stuff planned for you that'll take twenty years to kill ya...and you'll be screaming for mercy in the first five seconds."
I think I'd come down on the side of "I Have No Mouth" because it combines physical and mental torture, while the "Jaunting" is only mental.
P.S. Figures King would take something like Bester's "jaunte", which was originally discovered as a way to save someone's life, and turn it into an execution method.
I think some might argue that mental torture is the only kind that counts over the long haul. There's a limit to how much pain and discomfort can be inflicted on a person until it ceases to have an effect. Either they become physically numb through repetition, learn to block it out or just go somewhere else in their head. Mental torture on the other hand, is much harder to adapt to.
So, yes, I'd say having the consciousness separated from the body and stuck in an eternal limbo where the only stimuli is the passage of time, is by far the worse fate a sentient corporeal being could be put through.
...on the other hand, a mid could be pushed so far into insanity that it goes all the way around and comes out with true enlightenment.
What occurs to me though, that in a realm where the only thing that exists in real terms is a solitary mind, then whatever that mind thinks of would be the reality of that realm. It's a bit existential, but given that time--a relative concept on it's own, even before one factors in the perception of time--a whole universe could be created in that scenario.
Maybe that's what happened here? Just look at the platypus, I think so!
^ Something similar had occurred to me too. Sensory deprivation can produce hallucinations, and to quote John Milton, the mind "is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven". Maybe we're all figments of the imagination of a really bored god. 
A certain character in Alias pretty much had the same fate. It was one of those "Be careful what you wish for!" situations, but yeah, it's nasty and really, really cruel.
I'd never heard of this story, so I just read it. What a horrible imagining! I'm astonished at the depth of terribleness of it. How did Ellison manage to come up with the idea of a protagonist living in unending torture and trauma - and still finding the time and energy to be resentful and jealous that another man has a bigger dick than he has. A truly, truly awful picture of the end of humanity.
I wouldn't trust any mind to make a heaven of hell, given the alternative outcome.
Seriously, that sort of extreme sensory deprivation for such a protracted length of time would likely lead to a completely fragmented mind. I don't even know if it would retain the ability to associate concepts into thoughts. I kind of doubt it.
On another note, this thread inspired me to finally get round to reading I Have No Mouth... Quite enjoyed it.
The Phantom Zone was subject to some pretty varied interpretations over the years. I think most of the time, you are correct, although an endless field of black following Krypton's destruction shouldn't be much better...
Although they were never very scrupulous about having the PZ map 1:1 to our universe, either, as if it did it wouldn't make any sense for the PZ projector to free Kryptonian criminals on Earth.
Well, once Superman came along, people started getting occasionally released, and when Kandor was rescued started having their cases heard by a board of parole. Quex-Ul is probably the best example. He was depowered and amnesia-fied by gold kryptonite and worked at the Daily Planet, because justice is more important than truth and forging identity papers is no biggie for the illegal alien from Krypton.
Obviously, Zod and Faora and such never wound up getting out by legal process. (And I gotta wonder why those dummies didn't take their Kryptonian godliness and just fly to some other planet. Revenge on the son of Jor-El is great and all, but after the twentieth or thirtieth time he's kicked your ass, you've gotta start wondering if you should just go fuck with Rann instead. Alpha Centauri A and B? double the pleasure, double the fun.)*
So this was basically okay for everybody except Mon-El who was in effect sentenced there for a thousand years--i.e., "until Superman could invent a cure for his lead poisoning" which never happened because Superman died or gave up, inasmuch as he was never around in the 30th century when someone finally did something to help Mon-El, as opposed to hideously cripple him and bring him to the brink of death and then trap him in a torture dimension for a millennium. I still don't quite get how that guy kept it together and didn't tear off Superboy's dumb careless face as soon as he got out. Superior morality, I suppose.
But it worked out pretty terribly prior to that. I think the idea is that Krypton's authorities were complete assholes who didn't think/care enough to release the PZ prisoners and let them face death on Krypton instead of a conceivably infinite sentence.
*Wait, Alpha Centauri B's a K1V, with a surface temp of only 5260 K. That's orange but may count as red for our hero's purposes, and we could get to see the greatest "Superman physics don't work" scenario possible: a Kryptonian being powered by a yellow sun and depowered by a red one at the same time!
Has there ever been a story where someone tried to get Superman deported from the USA? I mean, he'd have to abide by the law if they did, right?
Byrne made sure Kal-el's birthing matrix popped him out after he had arrived in Smallville. He's legally a citizen. And technically the government shouldn't even suspect he resides in the States, considering he speaks many other languages perfectly, and is anywhere there's a need. Maybe they could figure something out based on response times... Seriously though, why would you piss off a guy who can destroy you, but is surprisingly helpful?
It's honestly the worst nightmare I've seen in story form. Nothing in TV or movie sci-fi has been able to approach it, as far as I'm concerned. I think I'm glad that other people are reading it for the first time and appreciating it, but I also hope I didn't leave people unprepared-- it's a story that has a way of sticking in your mind.
I think Ellison's scenario is as powerful as it is because it is rooted in human nature's worst, most self-destructive tendencies, and it asks what could happen if they were magnified with no limit.
When I first read Ellison's story and thought about it for a long while, it brought to mind an old saying about idolatry: If you create a god in your own image, you eventually find that he returns the favor.
There's a lot of imagery in "I Have No Mouth..." portraying AM as a twisted, wicked version of God. For example, AM is a trinity of three computers acting as one.
This is just my interpretation, but I see AM as a man-made god, created originally as a tool to wage war, reflecting humanity's hatred and pursuit of power with no shred of love or mercy. In the story, AM quite literally "returns the favor," remaking the humans to be just as twisted and hate-filled.
This is a really nice, intelilgent, thoughtful post so I hope what I'm about to say doesn't come off badly - but I was being facetious. I'm afraid the story didn't really work for me at all. I was thrown out of the narrative rather early when Ted, in the midst of this torturous situation that had lasted for more than a century, still found time to imagine that Ellen enjoyed sex more with Benny because he has a huge dick. I realize Ellison was showing the men having become twisted and brutal towards the woman of the group, but I had a hard time believing it would mainfest in such a petty concern. I also found it hard to buy that during this 100 mile journey it never occured to anyone that even if they found the canned goods, they wouldn't have any way to open them.
Still, as you say, the imagery was truly nightmarish and I think you're spot on with your interpretation of the symbiotic relationship between the humans and AM. But for the greatest horror short story, I'd have to go with Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space. It's not a "worst fate ever" tale, but I have never experienced such utter dread as I did while reading that one.
OK, I'd never read it either, but I did, and--boy--I didn't really like it very much.
I mean, I guess it sort of works as allegory. God's mean. I get it!
But it sure doesn't make much sense on its own terms. There's so much wrong with it, from the major to the minor. The biggest obstacle for me is that it's yet another implausible scenario of a supercomputer destroying human life, because humans unaccountably decided it would be a good idea to abdicate all control over weapons and means of productions to a single computer, without having any control over the computer itself. In other words, a scenario that would never actually occur. Maybe this kind of story weren't considered awfully cliche back then?
But this is probably too kind: for just one example, Jerry Siegel was writing machine-runs-amok-because-its-creator-was-dumb-enough-to-give-it-arms in Superboy no later than 1966 (RIP 1/3 of Triplicate Girl).
The thing I don't get is why they get to have companionship in the first place. Apparently Ted gets laid more than I do. But she likes "giant ape" dick better? (No fact checker survived AM's holocaust.
)
Now, all right, I sort of get that this is like a sci-fi No Exit, but you've kinda sorta gotta have actual, identifiable people for hell to be them. And anyway one suspects that being with four jerks for eternity is not worse than being alone.
And then there's this, of course:
HATE HATE HATE
I mean, I guess it sort of works as allegory. God's mean. I get it!
But it sure doesn't make much sense on its own terms. There's so much wrong with it, from the major to the minor. The biggest obstacle for me is that it's yet another implausible scenario of a supercomputer destroying human life, because humans unaccountably decided it would be a good idea to abdicate all control over weapons and means of productions to a single computer, without having any control over the computer itself. In other words, a scenario that would never actually occur. Maybe this kind of story weren't considered awfully cliche back then?
But this is probably too kind: for just one example, Jerry Siegel was writing machine-runs-amok-because-its-creator-was-dumb-enough-to-give-it-arms in Superboy no later than 1966 (RIP 1/3 of Triplicate Girl).
The thing I don't get is why they get to have companionship in the first place. Apparently Ted gets laid more than I do. But she likes "giant ape" dick better? (No fact checker survived AM's holocaust.
)Now, all right, I sort of get that this is like a sci-fi No Exit, but you've kinda sorta gotta have actual, identifiable people for hell to be them. And anyway one suspects that being with four jerks for eternity is not worse than being alone.
And then there's this, of course:
And speaking of Jerry Siegel, I think maybe he was the punch-up writer on AM's dialogue.
HATE HATE HATE
Probably it wasn't. And the general idea of machines taking over strikes most people as pretty horrific, though I think it's way scarier to think of machines emotionlessly eradicating humanity rather than harboring very human-like hatred. I did like the bits about AM being so obsessed with hate because it had sentience but no purpose and no ability to really do anything because it had been programmed only to destroy. I believe Ted thinks at some point that he didn't know why AM had kept them alive, but one imagines, the machine realized that if it totally eradicated humanity, it would truly be without purpose, so keeping a few around to torture at least gave it something to do for eternity. But then there's a logic problem because any machine that can transform these five humans into immortal beings and then transform Ted's entire body, obviously has some pretty nifty abilities. It's hard to reconcile that with AM's inability to move beyond its initial programming. I doubt it was originallly programmed to turn humans into soft jelly-things, so it must have some way to develop in new directions.
Meanwhile, I don't think this is a story meant to be too logically examined. It's supposed to work in a gut level nightmare sort of way, and a lot of it does, if you can suspend your disbelief.
It's been a looong time since I've read it, but I remember thinking that the very end might have been a very long time after the earlier part, and the now-immortal humans had evolved into the shapeless things rather than being directly transformed by AM.
Gonna have to dig up my copy of Hugo Winners and reread it too.
Gonna have to dig up my copy of Hugo Winners and reread it too.
Lapis Exilis said:
AM and Ted should get together like Deckerd and V'Ger.
Santa Klaus said:
They didn't breed, thus no evolution. AM turned Ted into a shambly abomination whose appearance is left up to the imagination, except for the no mouth bit. And that could be metaphorical, insofar as he killed all his quasi-friends, and it might be an if-you-scream-in-a-cave-and-no-one's-around-to-hear, did-you-really-make-a-sound kind of thing.