Interviewer: Bill, as your first venture into the genre of science fiction, what would you say sets the theme of The Other Side of Yesterday apart from other similar works?
Bill Ferro: Thanks for the question. My story is about Fermi’s Paradox and the theory of “The Great Silence”.
Interviewer: And what is Fermi’s Paradox and The Great Silence? . . .
Bill Ferro: Fermi’s Paradox poses the question why we haven’t been contacted by the other intelligent species that must be teeming in the universe. There are over a billion stars in just our own Milky Way galaxy and over a billion galaxies in the universe. The math suggests that there must be millions – if not billions – of intelligent species out there. So where are they? Why haven’t they contacted us – or have they?
For the more skeptical among us, authentication of alien contact must take place overtly; that is, they must announce their presence. For example, in the scenario of the old sci-fi movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still” an alien space craft (the proverbial “flying saucer”) lands on the mall in Washington DC and demands an audience with the world’s leaders. That is the “standard of proof” the more practical mind requires: “show me the aliens”. Personally, I will admit to being in that camp. I have a high standard of empirical evidence when it comes to all things; alien presence included.
However, I recognize the possibility that alien contact could take a far different approach. In fact, my story is about that.
The “Great Silence” is a theory that provides a possible explanation of Fermi’s Paradox with a more likely scenario for alien contact: that we have not been contacted overtly deliberately; that contact is being reserves for a time when we transcend a future level of evolution that makes us worthy of overt contact.
Interviewer: How do these two theories interact in your story?
Bill Ferro: The story theorizes when and how humanity might transcend the boundaries of the Great Silence and be “officially” contacted by an advanced alien species. In this case, as we transcend the limits of our organic evolution.
Interviewer: Sounds similar to Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek “prime directive” scenario.
Bill Ferro: In a way, yes. The “prime directive” scenario defines a premise; a threshold for when advanced species would consider contacting a less advanced species. There have been many theories how this might work. My story simply suggests a new one.
I’ll give you a few examples: In one of the first iterations of the “prime directive”, the alien visitor from the 1951 classic sci-fi movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (Klatu) came to Earth because we had developed nuclear weapons, which not only threatened humanity with self-destruction, but also posed a threat to Klatu’s civilization. In the remake of the movie 60 years later, the modernized Klatu’s concern was that humanity had trashed the environment. The new Klatu was here to foreclose on our lease to the Earth and kick us off the planet. Same dark message as the original movie, but still a prime directive theme, but with a different spin.
Star Trek’s “United Federation of Planets” postulated a more benign approach to the prime directive. Here overt alien contact was flipped around; administered by us (we were the aliens) where it was only appropriate for us to contact an intelligent species once they were capable of “warp drive” which would enable them to develop practical interstellar travel. In other words, Star Treks’ “prime directive” was waived for species only when they became capable of coming looking for the Federation on their own.
OSOY addresses the “prime directive” from the previous perspective where we are not the aliens; but those who are contacted. The new angle for first contact is once we evolve to the point where we are ready to take the step from an organic to a machine culture, we become worthy of contact. Not quite as sexy as the aforementioned prime directive themes, perhaps. But my theory, I would argue is far more plausible in what we can already see as a possible evolutionary path for our species. By the way, that is my answer to your first question of what’s new about my story.
Interviewer: So you do not think your story’s ideas will be seen as piggybacking Star Trek’s “prime directive”?
Bill Ferro: No, because it doesn’t. The “prime directive” theme has been used by many, if not most, sci-fi writers in one form or another before and after Star Trek. It’s a general sci-fi theme that has been and will continue to be used. I apply my own spin to it, as others have.
But it’s interesting to note that all of us – including and specifically Gene Roddenberry – have been accused by alien theorists of being in league with covert alien intelligences that have supposedly contacted us and who are responsible for putting these ideas into our heads. In fact, Star Trek’s prime directive has been described as an alien-introduced idea; given to Gene by aliens themselves in the 1950s. Quite frankly, that is ridiculous; unimaginative notion that short-changes us sci-fi writers. I think we humans could come up with the prime directive idea on our own. And I believe – as most do – that Gene did. So on behalf of Gene and the rest of sci-fi author community, I take offense at the suggestion that we would need alien help to come up with the idea of alien contact scenarios.
Interviewer (chuckling): Yes, I saw an “Ancient Aliens” program suggesting that Gene was influenced by aliens. So bear with me as I have to ask you: Have you been contacted by aliens? Did they help you write the book?
Bill Ferro: Not that I recall. Maybe they contacted my editor (chuckling). Of course, according to some alien theorists (I believe Ancient Aliens refers to them as “Ancient Astronaut Theorists” – whoever of whatever they are), contact can come telepathically; sometimes even without one’s awareness. But I’m pulling your leg here. My direct answer to your question is categorically “no”.
Interviewer (laughing): Thanks for clarifying that. You had me going there for a moment. Getting back to the story, the early chapters describe aliens observing an emerging dinosaur intelligence on Earth that they allow to be wiped out by the asteroid strike in North America 65 million years ago. Then the story fast forwards to 20th century Earth well into the rise of humanity; likewise being observed by the same alien species.
Are these “observers” your theoretical explanations for the alien contact many feel we have already had or continue to have?
Bill Ferro: I suppose they could be, right?. Yes, the “observers” are identified in my story as a species known as the Aku. The Aku are my story’s means of satisfying the “aliens are already among us” crowd; hopefully attracting those potential readers. to the story. The Aku have themselves evolved beyond their organic past into machine beings. They identify us as a species worth preserving since we are on a similar evolutionary path. They adopt us for machine culture evolutionary “assistance”; as we find out later in the story that they themselves likewise received help from an even older race eons ago.
When a new asteroid threat emerges in modern times, the Aku intervene (this time) and protect humanity so it can continue to evolve into a machine culture like their own. Thus, humanity will transcend the boundary of “the Great Silence” (my story’s version of the “prime directive”) enabling humans to take their place among the association of intelligent species; what my story calls the “galactic collective”.
Interviewer: I need to back you up a bit here: are you suggesting an evolution to a machine culture is a “natural” progression for humans? And that without it, we will remain trapped in the embrace of “the Great Silence”.
Bill Ferro: Yes, my story suggests both – as has been theorized by many other sci-fi writers as well as some scientists who have theorized that machine culture evolution is likely, if not inevitable, in the long term for us. Why? Organic beings’ lifespans are self-limiting; making it unlikely our species will survive long term – and by long term I’m talking about millions of years – unless we evolve into a machine culture.
It may not be such a stretch to think along these lines. We may already be seeing a glimpse of that future evolution now. Even at our current level of technology, with AI, for example, how do we view the likelihood of our organic future persisting for even a few hundred years from now; let alone a few million. The theme of my story is that evolution into a machine culture is a natural progression that allows intelligent beings to transcend the boundaries of their organic limitations; not only by extending their lifespans, but enabling them to explore the galaxy by literally transcending their organic perceptions of space and time; e.g, the enabling of practical interstellar space travel.
Interviewer: Are you suggesting that advanced species capable of interstellar travel are almost certainly machine cultures?
Bill Ferro: Yes, it’s a plausible theory for many different reasons, as I tell in the story. It covers the time and distance issues associated with interstellar travel quite nicely in ways that limited organic life spans cannot. At least not without wormholes, warp drive and other fantasies that would enable interstellar travel in the contemporary sense that its possibility is articulated.
Interviewer: But what about the building consensus of “ancient aliens” being here among us for thousands of years appearing in organic forms; adopt the role of gods (e.g., the 9 God theory that consistently exists in many of our cultures on Earth)?
Bill Ferro: I address that question indirectly in OSOY, with the implication that alien monitoring would be done with some degree of human contact. An advanced species that is, let’s say, a million years more advanced than us, would likely have the capability to appear to us in a form we would more easily identify with; most likely, an organic manifestation approximating our physical dimensions.
Interviewer: What do you believe their physicality might actually be? Your story hints at “energy beings” while also offering physical representations of beings “3 meters tall”. Quite the variety.
Bill Ferro: My story suggests that truly advanced, machine cultures can assume literally any form they wish. It would then make sense they would choose more than one form, as practical needs dictate. For a machine culture, size is of no consequence, either. In one form, they could literally be “nano beings”; riding between the stars on photons of light. Maybe that is how we may one day travel to the stars.
Interviewer: Moving on to another topic you explore in OSOY. The time travel adventures in the story were fun. How do they relate to the overall theme of the story?
Bill Ferro: Time travel is key to the evolution of the story and a personal indulgence of my storytelling. In OSOY, I approached time travel from three perspectives: first, by setting the stage how the AKU kept tabs on the evolution of intelligent life on Earth for over 65 million years. That is nothing for a machine intelligence that regards time much differently than we do. It’s also far longer than purported by the “ancient aliens” crowd that limits its focus on contact with human civilization to only the past 5,000 years or so.
It was also necessary for time travel to allow our protagonists to experience the past and future and be able to experiment with manipulating the timeline in order to chart out the process of humanity’s machine cultural assimilation. It was an important way for them to understand the mission they were being told to perform by the Aku. It helped guide the rest of humanity towards their machine culture future. The alternative timeline theory (asteroid or no asteroid impact in the modern era) story line marked a turning point not only for humanity, but for their alien sponsors. It also provided a new twist on “the prime directive” which I found hard to resist.
Lastly, the story presents an interesting solution to interstellar travel implied by machine culture evolution. The machine-travelers merely turns themselves “off” for the duration of a star voyage, making the duration of the voyage of no consequence to them. A machine entity can also endure much higher levels of G forces than can an organic being, making continuous acceleration a practical way to expedite star voyage velocities to near light speed. Finally, the Aku show us that a blend of time travel and space travel can make travelling among the stars literally instantaneous (see the voyage to Antares in the later chapters to see what I mean).
Interviewer: So in the end, the story is about what we are likely to become as a species in the distant future – a machine culture. Seems somewhat far-fetched; don’t you think?
Bill Ferro: Well, it may not seem that far-fetched for much longer. Is it even as far-fetched as AI would have been to our grandparents – or their grandparents? That’s less than a 100 years ago.
In fact, we may be a lot closer to becoming a machine culture than we think. How long will it be before we are able to transfer our conscious selves into machine bodies? 100 years? 200 years? Perhaps sooner? Right now, we are nearing the ability to create new life; machines with a sense of self-awareness. How much further of a step will it be to transfer our organic self-awareness (our brains; our souls) into virtually immortal machine bodies?
Interviewer: I can see where you are going with the idea. Today’s sci-fi is tomorrow’s reality.
Bill Ferro: Exactly. We consider the transference of an organic-residing self-awareness into a machine (or synthetic being, aka “android”, if you prefer) completely speculative today. Frankly, that speculation is frightening to us due to its enormous social implications and conflicts with current human philosophies. We’ve been organic beings conscious of our extremely short mortal lives for our entire history. Who are we now and what will we become and how might that change our perspectives presents another series of questions I explore at the end of the story.
One way or another Humanity will travel down the evolutionary path I have described. We could easily become a machine culture at some point in the future. Or we could become extinct at some point in the future. Of the two futures, I prefer the former.
I’m convinced that transference will take place eventually. With the advancement of AI, I again raise the question: when will that be? Will our grandchildren or great-grandchildren be the last mortal generations? It’s possible. We may say it is not likely today. What will we say tomorrow?
Interviewer: One of the more interesting themes you explored in the final chapters was your definition of immortality being itself a paradox.
Bill Ferro: Yes, one of the main characters in the story, a being considered virtually immortal at the tender age of 72 billion years, disputed being characterized as immortal by our human protagonists. The simple reason offered: there was a time before their existence that they had no knowledge of, and the possibility of a time after their existence of which they cannot yet be aware. Thus, they perceive themselves to be trapped between “the two eternities”, even at their incredible age, just as surely as we are with our limited organic lifespans of 8o years or so. In other words, there is no such thing as immortality simply because it is impossible for any being to have awareness of the “before and after” of their existence.
Interviewer: One more question: doesn’t your story have spiritual connotations that may confuse or offend religious sensibilities? How do you think your story will be received by religious-minded folk?
Bill Ferro: Well, to some extent, I’m one of them, so I hope they will not be confused or offended. My mom, to whom I dedicated the story, was a devout Catholic; I certainly wouldn’t want to offend her. In any case, let me be clear: OSOY is just a story; it is pure fiction, intended to entertain and stimulate our imaginations. Let me also say that it does not purport an “either/or” view of the divine or contest the existence of God.
It’s also an important perspective that even stories that make sense often fall short of being factual. The reader should keep that in mind whenever they pick up any work of fiction; especially science fiction.
Interviewer: So where does the story leave us? Will there be a sequel?
Bill Ferro: The story leaves us with the theory that evolution to a machine culture will be an ongoing, adaptive process that could take many millenia; even millions of years. And it could be a contentious experience. For example, our protagonists, even after their direct involvement in humanity’s machine evolution over the course of thousands of years, ultimately decide to retreat into a time period where they can continue to live their lives as they did in their organic past; even after they have physically adapted as machine beings. We may see how that goes for them in a future story.
But that is not a certain path for a sequel. I’m still forming ideas based on reader reactions to the OSOY story. I am particularly interested in my readers’ input.
However, I do have some interesting ideas brewing about how we might play the “first contact” role in our distant future with emerging machine cultures.
Interviewer: Bill, thanks for your time today. I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Other Side of Yesterday and look forward to your future works.
Bill Ferro: Thanks for your questions and kind words.