Survival of the fittest

In his 2008 novel The Dark Forest, Chinese author Liu Cixin introduced a frightening concept about the nature of intelligent life in the universe:

"The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound...The hunter has to be careful because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life – another hunter, an angel, or a demon, a delicate infant, or a tottering old man, a fairy, or a demigod – there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out.

The concept is one grim possible answer for the Fermi paradox: if there's life out in the universe, why haven't we heard anything from other civilizations like ours? Are we alone, or are we all trying to remain hidden from sight, lest we stumble upon something that threatens our existence?

The idea of venturing out into the depths of the galaxy and finding scary things goes back to the heart of the genre. H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds played out the horrors of an invasion from Mars, H.P. Lovecraft imagined untold horrors from outer space by way of his Cthulhu stories, while the crew of the Llanvabon in Murray Leinster's story "First Contact" realized that even the possibility of alien contact could spell doom for humanity.

Science fiction is littered with plenty of other examples, and James S.A. Corey's latest novel The Mercy of Gods taps into that kernel of an idea at the center of most of them: humanity is a small speck in the universe and one that can be swept away with very little thought. And that's exactly what happens.

At some point in the distant future, humanity settled on a planet called Anjiin, and developed into a robust, modern civilization numbering in the billions. They've settled into nations, squabbled over geopolitical problems, conducted scientific research, and made lives for themselves as they float along through the galaxy.

Those lives are shattered when they detect some incoming objects, which turns out to be an invasion fleet from a civilization known as the Carryx. They're a sort of insectoid species that has spread throughout the galaxy as a sort of hive and empire, taking over other planets and civilizations and incorporating them into their ranks as they slowly take over the galaxy.

They swiftly bring Anjiin to its knees, first by targeting an eight of the population to kill outright in a brutal demonstration that they mean business, and after deploying their ground troops, begin rounding up the planet's best and brightest, including Dafyd Alkhor, a minor researcher, and some of his fellow scientists. Those who're captured are split up into smaller groups, loaded onto ships, and transported to a distant planet. There, they find that they're one of many species, all tasked with carrying out a series of experiments.

From the introductory statement from a Carryx librarian, we know this encounter with humanity will prove to be a turning point for both civilizations, and as we follow the terrified and traumatized band of humans, they sprinkle in details of the much larger conflict that the conquerors are engaged in.

Amidst the humans is an alien presence, a swarm that has taken over one individual, a spy from the Carryx's adversaries working to report back on their activities, laid as a trap as they conquered Anjiin. We're later taken to another world that the Carryx attempt to take over, only to have things go disastrously wrong and this encounter shows that while powerful, they're not invulnerable.

Against this backdrop, Dafyd and his fellow humans are beginning to figure out their surroundings – and the forces that threaten their very existence. As they conduct their experiments, they're attacked by other teams of aliens looking to stymie their progress and help their own standing. The humans quickly adapt, fashioning their own weapons and adjusting their mindsets to these new circumstances.

As they spread out and make contact with the other scattered teams of humans, Dafyd begins to piece together what the Carryx's motives are: testing them to figure out if they'll be useful parts of their larger collective. There's an implied threat: if it turns out that they can't contribute, they'll be slaughtered, as they find out when their monkey-like alien rivals give up their attack against them.

When Dafyd learns that their fellow human cells are attempting an uprising of their own, he's forced to make an excruciating decision: give the Carryx a warning about the plans that his fellow survivors are making and play the long game, or stay quiet and potentially doom them all.

Corey (the pen-name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) has played with with some similar themes in the Expanse novels. In Leviathan Wakes and its sequels, humanity discovers an alien technology dubbed the "protomolecule," created and spread by a the Ringbuilders, a long-dead, advanced alien civilization. Humanity finds itself dealing with its first steps into the darkness with some powerful threats surrounding it, and against the backdrop of geopoltical (solarpolitical?) drama between the solar system's dominant powers, Corey ultimately highlights the value of cooperation as a survival strategy. If we can't overcome our factionalism as we expand into the cosmos, we will face a vulnerable future in a galaxy that's unforgiving to young civilizations.

Running at the center of this novel is a question: what is the cost of survival? Where The Expanse explored ideas of unity as a means of survival, Mercy of Gods follows another strategy: adaptation.

The Carryx invasion of Anjiin echoes the dangers of an imbalance of power to a younger, smaller civilization, but the route to survival isn't quite as insurmountable as in The Expanse. The survivors of Anjiin don't necessarily agree on a course of action after they've been captured: one faction wants to bloody the Carryx's noses on their way out, using what technology they can access to extract as much pain as they can inflict as they go down, even if it means the swift deaths of everyone that's been transported to their new planet and those who remain back on Anjiin.

Dafyd, after watching and observing the Carryx – and learning about the swarm embedded in one of his companions – has another idea: play the long game, even if it means sacrificing some of his companions and friends to ensure that they can life to see the next day. By demonstrating his usefulness to their captors – and the usefulness of humanity – he's able to buy critical time to gear up for a war, rather than a battle.

Historically, we think of the clash of civilizations as extinction events. Europeans arriving in the Americas brought conflict and diseases to the indigenous populations, wiping them out and repopulating the land. Homo sapiens encountered Homo neanderthalensis in Eurasia and triumphed.

But that's not really what happened: despite their titanic and overwhelming losses, the descendants of the Mayans and various other Native American civilizations are still with us today. The Neanderthals' might have gone extinct, but their DNA still lives on in our own. In The Mercy of Gods, the civilizations that the Carryx takes over aren't destroyed: they're repurposed and utilized for their useful traits and technologies to continue the conquest. Even the alien presence that is the swarm isn't your typical hidden-in-our-midst spy: it's just as influenced by its host as it is its original programming. In each of these cases, the very act of first contact and conquest means that all parties come away transformed by the experience into something different.

This means the question of survival that Dafyd finds himself at the center of is far more complicated than the continuation of humanity. If he and his fellow survivors and their descendants are to exist in this new environment, what does humanity look like? What is gained and lost in the act of surviving? The survivors of Anjiin will never go back to their old lives. Unwilling or not, by making the choice to survive despite the costs, Dafyd is about to lead a changed humanity's next step into a strange and uncertain future.

I find this line of thinking to be a refreshing one. All too often, we consume stories of resistance fighters working to topple a totalitarian empire or fending off an invasion, ultimately restoring the prior, comfortable order that they once knew.

That's not generally how the world functions, and both authors are more than aware that looking back at the past with nostalgia can be a fraught exercise. In a world where it seems like we're pelted with crises and problems that would have been unthinkable in years past, the familiar status quo serves as an illusion of tranquility. We can't return to that past, and so we must figure out how to adapt to the coming future with everything that we've learned and experienced.

With The Mercy of Gods, Corey has laid out the building blocks of that evolution, and the next steps feel like they'll bring humanity to a stranger and weirder future, one that will somehow topple the Carryx, or at least leave them with serious regrets that they tangled with humanity. As humanity steps into the dark forest, they're doing so with considerable agency, recognizing that while their surroundings are perilous, they can adapt and learn how to survive against all odds. This is the start to a new epic, and I'm eager to see what Corey has in store for humanity and how their characters go from an insignificant speck in the cosmos to a presence that can't be easily wiped away. If The Expanse is anything to go by, it should be quite the ride.