Reading Orbit: OCSFC Book Club
Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton
Summary: In a far future, where interstellar trade has devolved into legitimized piracy, the Zantiu-Braun Corporation sends an elite troop of Skins, nearly invulnerable soldiers, to the planet Thallspring to collect their periodic dividends. The residents of Thallspring, however, have different ideas, as well as a secret weapon that has the potential to change not only the future but the past as well. The author of the "Night's Dawn" trilogy (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, The Naked God) offers a standalone novel that combines personal drama with high-tech military sf and political intrigue. Hamilton has a knack for complex, believable characters; his heroes have flaws while his villains act according to their own codes of honor.
About the Author: Peter F. Hamilton was born in Rutland in 1960, and now lives near Rutland Water. He began writing in 1987, and sold his first short story to Fear magazine in 1988. He has also been published in Interzone and the In Dreams and New Worlds anthologies, and several small press publications.
Analysis: At the center of Fallen Dragon there is a story told by Denise Ebourn, a revolutionary on the planet Thallspring dedicated to the stopping of the Zantiu-Braun corporation's 'asset realization' invasion of her planet, to her class of grade-school children. It is the story of Mozark and Endoliyn, 'who lived a long time ago in the early days of the galaxy.' Mozark was a prince of the Ring Empire; an empire residing on the stars that circled the core of the galaxy; an empire composed of thousands of separate kingdoms all living in peace. Mozark loved Endoliyn, who was a member of the kingdom's nobility; and one day he asked her to marry him. But Endoliyn would not answer Mozark's question. Instead she asked him a question of her own: what was he going to do with the kingdom once he became king' Although Endoliyn seemingly had everything one could desire, 'she worried about what would fill her life and how she would spend it.' Mozark gave her a tradition answer: he would try to rule as best he could, bringing justice to his subjects. But this answer was not enough for Endoliyn. And this had to do with the situation of the Ring Empire: everyone was happy and content in the kingdom. And this led to a kind of inertia, a 'sameness,' in the society. After all, where was the need to create something new in the Empire? And where was the need, Endoliyn asked, for leadership? Would not such a society, from the most lowly of subjects to a future king, foster, in the end, only followers? What Endoliyn wanted in a husband was someone who inspired her. A follower, she felt sure, could never do that.
After some time of disappointment, Mozark, who was a person of character, decided to try to find some way of inspiring Endoliyn; to find 'something he could dedicate his life to that would benefit everyone in the kingdom.' To this end Mozark ordered there be built a spaceship by which he and a crew could explore other kingdoms; to see how other societies organized themselves; to see if, possibly, one of them possessed some insight which he could bring back to his own kingdom; all 'in the hope that one of them might be different enough to make people change their lives.'
This began Mozark's seventeen years of questing around the Ring Empire. During his time traveling Mozark visited many societies, each with its own genius and shortcomings. Probably due to the accumulation of his experiences with these other societies, one day Mozark decided it was time to return home: 'Because he knew then what he was going to say to Endoliyn, the thing he was going to devote the rest of his life to.'
The Empire knew of Mozark's return weeks before he arrived. So it was ready with many planned honors and celebrations. When these were completed Mozark prepared himself to meet Endoliyn at her palace. His thought was to ask Endoliyn for her 'forgiveness.' Why?, she asked, when she heard his request. Precisely, Mozark answered, because he had spent seventeen years away from her. One should never treat one's beloved in such a way. But, said Endoliyn, this was exactly why she loved him: 'What other person would sacrifice so much for the ideal he believed it?' And then she asked Mozark the question she had been waiting seventeen years to ask: what did he find?
Mozark bowed his head. His voice full of shame he answered: 'Nothing.' He had failed in his quest. There was nothing these other societies knew or built which could not have been found in their own kingdom. 'I almost wasted those seventeen years,' Mozark concluded.
Wait, Endoliyn thought. 'Almost?' What did Mozark mean by 'almost?' What had Mozark found? 'He replied that there was indeed one thing that he found. A small, trivial, selfish thing, he said, which is mine and mine alone.' But what is this?, Endoliyn insisted. Life itself, Mozark answered: '. . . life is the most precious thing. It matters not where you are, or who you are. All that matters is how that life is lived; and lived it should be, to the full. And I know that my life can only be lived in such a fashion when I am with you. That is the only knowledge that I have returned with. I care not whether my kingdom rises into glory or falls into the abyss, all that I ask is that I share that prospect with you.'
Endoliyn laughed with joy at Mozark's answer. She felt inspired. She agreed with Mozark; and here was something she could dedicate her life to: loving and living her life with Mozark. As many fairy stories conclude, Mozark and Endoliyn married. Mozark became king and ruled wisely and with kindness. And the kingdom was saved from its inertia through Mozark's leadership.
Denise's young students seem disappointed, or perhaps confused, at her story's conclusion. When they are unable to state what they might have learned from the story, she offers this moral: 'The moral of the story is a simple one: This technology we have, and I'm the first to admit that it is a fabulous technology, should not be allowed to blind us to ourselves. Science is not an answer to our problems. By itself it cannot provide happiness, it can only ever help to light the way. We must find that happiness in our own way, in the short time we've been given to walk this universe. When you grow up, you should concentrate on what's important to you as a person. In Mozark's case it was his love for Endoliyn, and it took him a voyage around the galaxy before he realized that. Only when he searched for a solution amid the science and minds of his peers did he see how empty such a quest was. The universe is centered on you, for that's the only perception of it you'll ever have. You are the most important thing in it, every one of you.'
The above narrative acts as an 'organizing principle' for Fallen Dragon; and, as such, it offers to us a way to understand the actions of the novel's main characters. For, indeed, it is his character's actions which Hamilton places as his novel's 'center of gravity.' But in this way: Denise's fairy tale is, what we might call, an 'existential' narrative. And so it is the central characters' actions toward the attempt to create their own beings, to decide and choose what is the meaning of their lives, just as Mozark had to decide, which is the core concern of Fallen Dragon. It is in this way that the novel could be called 'modern;' and residing in a tradition with, for example, Don Quixote. Denise tells her students that science and technology, as well as the lives of others, are not enough to provide one with the answer to the question: what is the purpose of your life? At the most these only provide 'possibilities' for how we may constitute our lives. For an actual, meaningful, life, something more is needed. What is needed is a decision; an intentional act. This is why Denise says that we should never become 'blinded' to ourselves; for it is only out of ourselves that such a decisive act flows. Mozark calls this 'life' (as Vaclav Havel does). Husserl called this 'intentionality:' the active, attentive, aspect of consciousness. Nietzsche called it the 'will to power.' If we are to take science or the lives of others as the basis for the meaning of our lives, this is not because they, as such, carry meaning, but because we have decided that they do so; and have so created our lives accordingly.
Another way to say this, as Denise does, is that 'happiness' cannot be provided by scientific knowledge or the example of other's lives. Now the Greek word for 'happiness,' which Aristotle makes use of in his Nicomachean Ethics, is 'eudaimonia.' Sometimes this word is translated as 'well being;' but the idea here is that one is happy when one has manifested one's being; that is, become what one is. This being, 'Man,' or a 'human being.' For Aristotle this is partly outside of one's control, as one already 'is,' but also requires a deliberate effort (thus the need for education, and the Ethics itself). But for Denise, as for any existentialist, happiness is more a matter of deciding what one values ('you should concentrate on what's important to you'); and then creating a life which reflects these values. Thus Denise tells her students that one must find happiness 'in our own way.' To some degree the act of deciding the meaning of one's life is irrespective of circumstances. No matter what the situation, from precisely within the situation possibilities occur; and thus choices. For Paul Ricoeur, it is exactly because freedom always occurs within a context that freedom is possible; this is what he calls a 'human freedom.' In the case of Hamilton's novel, the context within which one must decide one's purpose is a universe dominated by a totalitarian, capitalist economy.
As has been said, the story of Mozark's adventure is the model for all of Fallen Dragon's characters. Denise, for example, has constituted her life as a revolutionary fighting for the social and economic self-determination of her planet. Simon Roderick, on the other hand, finds his purpose in serving Zantiu-Braun as its Director of Internal Security. But the character that comes the closest to Mozark's life is Lawrence Newton. Like Mozark, Newton's life, though he does not realize it until the novel's conclusion, is organized around the question of love. But he also has another, shall we say, 'dream' or desire which he begins to put in place only when love becomes a disappointment (and here he also resembles Mozark): space exploration. As such a life is only economically possible through multi-stellar, totalitarian, and expansionist corporations, Lawrence becomes a 'soldier' with Zantiu-Braun (which sees him eventually fighting against Denise, which is how they meet). But even this 'principle' for his life becomes a disappointment for Lawrence; and, due to his limited options in a universe dominated by such companies, Lawrence sinks to becoming a thief like his employer. But when the treasure he desires on Thallspring turns out not to be so, Lawrence realizes that what is truly important to him is his beloved, Roselyn (perhaps an anagram for 'Endoliyn'). And this means, like Mozark, Lawrence must return through space (and time) to his home planet. As he tells Roselyn upon his return: 'I'm an idiot . . . But I had a lot of time to think. A lot of time. And the one thing I want to do more than anything else in the universe is tell you that I love you.' Lawrence's own story is so much like Mozark's that, at the novel's conclusion, it becomes the basis for a revised story Denise tells a new group of students on a new planet, a new home, immune from exploitation or dominance.
This existential understanding is also true for the 'dragons' of the novel's title. But here a new factor is added. For the account of the dragons, more properly known as the 'Eternals,' we return to another of Denise's stories. It still concerns the Ring Empire, but at a time far after Mozark and Endoliyn. In fact, it is the 'last' story of the Empire. Amidst civilizations warring for diminishing resources, or 'regressing' in their rejection of technology, or draining the Empire of creativity by drawing the most original to them (all three of these strategies, in fact, contributing to the 'decay' of the Empire), the Eternals, on the contrary, as if they were followers of Oswald Spengler, fully expected such disintegration. Why? Because they were students of life: 'They found one thing that remained constant among all biological species: the cycles of growth and decay.'
Instead of resisting such degeneration, as the societies around them were, the Eternals embraced its inevitability. Indeed, this became the context within which they formed the meaning of their lives. Thus they transformed their society, but especially their very biology and machinery, so as to reflect the cycles of order and chaos. In the end they began living in space, around the galaxy's red giants. Here, their bodies like 'streamlined asteroids' with 'solar wings,' producing eggs and sending them off into space (where one accidently 'falls' on Thallspring, thus the novel's title), they live off the heat of these stars (thus their association with dragons; but also dragons are to be associated with 'mystery,' what is outside the known: 'In olden times, men would write Here be Dragons around the edge of their maps, when what it really meant was: we don't know what's there'). Here their eggs reside, 'dark cold globes circling among the outer cometry halo as they wait for the star's main sequence to come to an end.' But this is only at the end of a star's life. When a giant comes into existence, with its energy expanding, so the eggs come to life becoming fully realized dragons. Then they begin to 'listen to the universe.' They note the becoming of the cosmos: the places that go out of existence and the places where order is built-up. And they remember these events. These events become, for them, the substance of gnosis, praxis, and history: 'All this knowledge they spread among themselves, and think about it, and remember it. On rare occasions they even use it, for they can modify themselves at a molecular level. That is their physical nature, the legacy of the Ring Empire.' They are the consciousness, in particular, the memory, of not only the Ring Empire but the entire universe.
It is on this question of knowledge, which is a concept which not only encompasses action and history, founds them, but is their very being, where Hamilton's existentialism is deepened. Ultimately it is the act of knowing which defines the dragons' existence. As one tells Lawrence: 'The memories are all I have. They are what I am.' And later: 'We exist to acquire and distribute knowledge.' Their being is that of the 'know-er;' one who knows the cosmos; one who is nature's consciousness (as Hegel would have put it). It is from this knowing that not only history becomes something known, something which is an object of consciousness, but where the dragons' power resides. The dragons have almost unlimited power over matter through knowledge. Such is the power that comes from their gnosticism; from their being. Again, knowledge here is not simply an 'object' within one's mental faculties, but ontology. And it is through knowledge that the dragons find a second answer to the becoming and going out of existence of the universe. For knowledge is a type of immortality. Perhaps the only type which carries any true meaning. Everything ceases to exist. But if something can become known, it could well, like Richard Dawkins' 'memes,' extend its life as long as there are beings who 'know.'
But this 'deepening' of Hamilton's understanding of existenz is not reserved only for the dragons. Once these creatures become understood by the reader, we can see this knowledge-being at work in the other characters' lives. With the knowledge/power of the dragons, Denise is able to create a world safe from economic and political exploitation. Lawrence, after the loss of Roselyn, after the loss of, in a sense, his life, withdraws from life; withdraws from being. This is the metaphysical foundation for what we know in psychology as 'depression.' Here is where Lawrence becomes a thief. But once this non-existence has run its course, and Lawrence realizes, as did Mozark, that the life he chooses is one with his beloved on the home-planet he once rejected, the knowledge the dragons provide him allows for such a life ('I finally, finally, have a chance to put my life back together and live it the way I was born to live it. To cancel out the last twenty miserable years'). But will Lawrence, or any of the novel's characters, finally use such power; and if so, how? Once Lawrence comments: 'Love and war. I guess that's part of the human cycle.' But Denise answers: 'We hope to break that. With the dragon's help.' Denise ends her story (and the novel): 'It's just that Lawrence never wanted to get involved. But simply knowing makes you involved. That's what the dragons taught us: knowledge is the only true immortal. And he knew that in twenty years' time the Clichane [a space-ship] was going to arrive back on Earth with . . . the dragons' memories. The human race would change. So there he was on the planet that was his true home, with the girl he loved. And he had the Fool's Errand [the space-ship Lawrence returns home in] with him. He had the knowledge to turn Amethi [his home-planet] into a paradise and populate it with angels long before Earth had the ability. Poor, dear old Lawrence. I wonder if he could resist the temptation.' Sartre once said that we are all 'condemned' to be free; thus we are all condemned to choice. And possibly the first choice is: who will we be? But, for Hamilton, this choice must be accompanied by the power of knowledge; the power to know who we will be.
Henry A. Jimenez
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