The Cold War has taken a bizarre turn.
The Defenders - Philip K. Dick's 1953 novella contains a number of key themes and motifs the American science fiction author would later develop in such works as The Penultimate Truth, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Dr. Bloodmoney. For PKD fans, this tale is a must read.
So much juice for thought compressed here. To share my enthusiasm for this PKD snapper, below are points of context then a batch of hot button highlights:
DEADLY ARMS RACE
The United States made the decision to further develop the type of atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Thanks to scientist Klaus Fuchs supplying secret information, in 1949 the Soviet Union tested their own atomic bomb. In turn, President Harry Truman announced the United States would build a even more powerful hydrogen bomb. Joe Stalin answered the USSR would do likewise. The arms race clicked in full swing and the Cold War was on, big time, complete with paranoia, fallout shelters, duck and cover drills and everyone imagining the consequences of nuclear war and nuclear fallout.
BIT OF AUTHOR BIO
Having been educated at Quaker schools as a boy, in 1949 Philip K. Dick went off to college at Berkley (U of Calf) where he was required to take military R.O.T.C., which he hated. He left college after several months. Then, at age 25, in the teeth of the Cold War, author Phil wrote The Defenders.
PKD FRAMES HIS TALE
Eight years ago there was a nuclear war between the US and USSR. Survivors on both sides abandoned the radioactive surface and retreated to massive bunkers miles underground. Highly intelligent human-like robots (leadys, as pictured below) carry on the war on behalf of the Americans. The Soviets do likewise. Both sides only knows the happenings on the surface via photos and films received from these robots.
ARE THE REPORTS THE TRUTH?
During a subsurface meeting, a leady reports the war continues and lethal radioactivity remains high. But the human war planners detect the leady isn't "hot" with radioactivity. Similar to another leady in a previous subsurface meeting, there isn't any evidence of a radioactive surface. What's really happening up there?
REVELATION
Indeed, the US Security Department has Taylor, the story's main character, join other top war planners on a visit to the Earth's surface to determine the truth. What they discover is a surprise.
A PHILOSOPHIC TALE
PKD has written a highly philosophic tale prompting an entire list of questions. Among their number:
How intelligent are these leadys? Are they capable of turning their war efforts on humans? At one point, we read: "Franks laughed. "Stop us? You saw what happened when they tried to stop us before. They can't; they're only machines. We built them so they can't lay hands on us, and they know that." In other words, the leadys are programed to follow Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics:
First Law
-A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law
-A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law
-A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws
What the human war programmers discover up on the surface just might be the robots following Isaac Asimov's laws to their logical conclusion.
Much different than if the leadys developed intelligence to the point where they themselves constructed even more intelligent versions of themselves, so super-intelligent, those next generation leadys recognized their real enemy: warmongering humans! The first thing to go: abiding by Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics. Fun fact; such a scenario is explored in Rudy Rucker's novel Software.
Yet again another line of questions: How feasible is one unified world culture? In other words, people around the globe abandoning national identity to come together as one global community (something perhaps akin to the United Nations)? Recognizing the vast current day influence of multinational corporations, is such a world culture at all desirable?
Treat yourself to this probing tale. Can be read online - link: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28767...
American science fiction author Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982
"Lead and rock, and above that, where the tubes opened, the great expanse that no living being had seen for eight years, the vast, endless ruin that had once been Man's home, the place where he had lived, eight years ago. Now the surface was a lethal desert of slag and rolling clouds. Endless clouds drifted back and forth, blotting out the red Sun. Occasionally something metallic stirred, moving through the remains of a city, threading its way across the tortured terrain of the countryside. A leady, a surface robot, immune to radiation, constructed with feverish haste in the last months before the cold war became literally hot." - Philip K. Dick, The Defenders
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