Reason

By, Isaac Asimov

1941

Personally, as ridiculous as this sounds I've always had a paranoia of artificial life forms eventually taking over if they constantly keep modifying until they are just as capable if not more than us humans. The “Reason” reminded me of the movie Stepford Wives, where in this small wealthier neighborhood the husbands decided a program that would “rewire” their partners, taking away all the traits they deemed negative from their wives and replace them with unrealistic characteristics to create the perfect wife, they even had remote controls to control their actions. The wives were basically slaves and lost most of their humanity. The humans in “Reason” who created the robots and QT planned ahead by making the life-forms lack the emotion of anger or hate but other emotions are just as powerful like curiosity, loyalty, and faith. QT possessed all of those traits and more. When you create something with human aspects but modify it there is no guarantee that it will turn out the way you planned actions. Throughout the story QT shows that he is trying to understand where he came from and what his purpose in life is, he just wants an explanation but when Powell and Donovan give him the truth it is not enough and QT decides he must find out for himself. I found a lot of comparisons within the story that reminded me of the battle between science and religion. QT cannot accept the fact that too mere humans created him, he is better then both of them therefore his creator must be better than him. He blindly follows the control panel that he now calls his master and convinces the other robots to join, no longer taking orders from Powell and Donovan. His faith is stronger than facts. At one point his faith is so strong the earth man start to question what they believe to be true. Even though he is repeatedly explained the process until finally Powell realizes there is no point in arguing with a man and his faith, which is the same for us humans. We don’t typically engage in a conversation on religion because the views are so vast and can cause unnecessary disagreements. Once Powell realizes QT is doing his job, just believing in a different way he accepts QT’s beliefs and encourages him to listen to his master. It’s ironic that something created form science goes against the facts in such a intelligent way but shows that whomever possesses intelligence will chose their own path. Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

By, Brian W. Aldiss

1969

I found this story to be extremely interesting because you never really hear about the idea of Robot children. In “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long” they are serving as a replacement for real children in this overpopulated time and era that is the background basses for this story. It was mind blowing how instead of finding ways to fix the havoc around the world technology was modified so civilization was oblivious. On page 445 Henry Swinton mentions how 3/4th of the world is facing malnutrition while they are developing ways to eat more and not gain the weight, with the invention Coswell Tape. It’s appalling that instead of eating a healthy amount and finding a way to solve the global epidemic of starvation they would instead create a way to eat more than necessary and avoid the weight gain. They also created Synthetic life forms for substitute for real life, because families are not allowed to produce as they please due to population control which makes me question what happened to all of the children in foster homes, or in other countries who have lost their parents, are they given the chance to have a new family? Or would the wealthy rather have a synthetic child who wasn't real? The main character Monica has a son David, who at first seems real but later on you realize he is in fact a Synthetic life form and the mother has a hard time accepting that he is her son, they specify whether it is because she is not the biological mother or because he is just not “real”. David loves her and believes that he himself is real but often questions what the word “Real” even means. He has trouble expressing himself to his mother and I believe it is because he can sense that she is distant and the love he shares for her is not reciprocated. She sees this as a speech malfunction but I see it as a human characteristic of fear of rejection. David and Teddy talk freely. He tries to express how he feels to his Mummy through writing letters with the aid of Teddy but cannot find quite the words. Even when Monica discovers all of the attempted letters she is pained because she wants to love him like her own but she cannot. When the Swinton’s win the lottery and are able to have a child she is automatically ready to dismiss David, because he is not useful while he is in his room thinking about how much he loves her and it hurt my heart to read. It makes me wonder how she would've treated an adopted child, How David’s father treats him and how will David feel if they decide to get rid of him because he obviously has feelings like humans do.

Part one of The Culling by Steven Dos Santos has be asking millions of questions, like what happened before this post apocalyptic world?  Who created such a system where teenagers have to fight for survival and lose the ones they love in the process, Even if they are sweet innocent children like Cole. I really admire Lucky for the fact that he will do whatever he can so he can protect Cole, even if it means risking his life.  I also find it strange how if you survive The Culling you are rewarded a place in the government; the very same government that made you kill your peers and your loved ones.  It makes the simple emotion of loving or caring for someone complicated and dangerous. I can see how going through that process can change someone, it has to but if I survived I would want to destroy the hierarchy, not work with it to cause more pain. The novel is very suspenseful and I wonder what’s in store for Lucy and the mysterious Digory.