21 November: Like Gods

Oh, aren\’t they just magnificent? After a thousand years or so, mankind is gone, erased itself from existence I suppose. To a frozen tundra, now a paleoresearch location(?), future aliens come. Like gods, they restore frozen David (and Teddy — who will get a nod tomorrow) and give him what he wants.After all, isn\’t that what everyone wants gods to do — give them what they want?However, in real life (or some unreasonable facsimile thereof … as a speculative fiction writer, how much do you expect to find here that is exclusively real?) it seems gods often want more than we have the capacity to offer. As the creepy dude in Stephen King\’s Storm of the Century (when made into a mini-series) said,

Give me what I want, and I\’ll go away …

These future aliens want to know everything possible about living humans as David and Teddy are the last connections to them. The future aliens seem like possible gods — graceful, connected, all-knowing through their connectivity, able to withstand the icy rock that Earth has become as if it were nothing more than a temperate summerscape. But David does not have what they want. Well, he does, sort of, but his perspective of humanity leaves quite a bit to be desired. Martin, Monica, and the Flesh Fair people weren\’t the best role models. He had found more humanity in Joe or the babysitter robot he encountered.Role reversal: perhaps it is not the new gods that are required but the old ones. Only the old gods can tell the old stories.