Interviews 
Hikahi,
trusted confidant and close friend of Credeiki, Captain of the “Streaker”.
(David Brin: Startide Rising)
Kinkajou: Thank you clever Dolphin for agreeing to talk to me and to tell my readers of your life experiences. Can you tell us how genetics technology has affected you?
Hikahi: The gene materials of we Neo- dolphins was originally harvested from shore hugging “Tursiops amicus” dolphin species. Humanity and mankind has been responsible for the uplift of our dolphin species to intelligence, a pattern that has been replicated throughout the galaxy for billions of years.
Indeed many of the other galactic species would attest that nobody reaches spacefaring intelligence without the intervention of another spacefaring race.
Initially we had existed in a state of grace, drifting in the corner of the whale dream. The concept of endless parallel universes was one known by dolphins since long before humans learn to fire. It was integral to the whale dream. The great cetaceans had long moaned complacently of a world that was endlessly mutable.
Humans change this.
Our forebears often felt oppressed by the towering invasiveness of uplift. They would needs often thrash their fins and squawk in Primal, “Who gives you the right?” For dolphins, the road to uplift has been a difficult rite of passage.
Through genetic engineering of our neural frontal cortex, humans introduced us to new aspects of the logic of Keneenk. This was the study of relationships in our dolphin heritage.
However, humans introduced Keneenk to us in thought as a study of strict comparisons. Keneenk became a synthesis of our two worldviews: those of humans and those of dolphins.
Kinkajou: Tell me more about Keneenk logic!
Hikahi: Dolphins in looking at the surface of the ocean would always consider first the reflection of sound waves from the air – water interface. Humans looking at the surface of the ocean would consider the reflection of light waves from the air water interface. Both humans and dolphins envision a barrier. The other side is a realm that to each of us is only faintly apparent until the barrier is crossed.
Human genetic manipulation and improvement of brain neural processing has resulted in the dolphins being able to understand both concepts and to see choices. Where once instinct ruled, now intelligence prowls loose. A by – product of human uplift of our species by genetic engineering.
Another gift that human genetic engineering has stowed upon our species (the neo-dolphin), is an expanded repertoire of facial expressions. This has changed our very nature and made us able to interact with others of our species via visual clues. However, we have not lost our basic sonar skills.
Many humans with whom we interact often described how they feel when fields of analytic sonar pass over them. Our sonar waves will penetrate to the level of internal viscera, often telling everything about another being down to what they had for breakfast.
Such power often frightens many of our human patrons. It is an integral part of the powerful and convoluted mind crafted by human gene shaping in our foreheads.
However human genetic engineering has limitations. Much work needs to be done in epigenetic control mechanisms. Genes are truly not everything. Also genetic engineering in dolphins is a new technology, with a long way to progress.
Consider that in the human face, all expression is a product of millions of years of evolution, whereas dolphin facial expression arises from a mere 500 years of genetic engineering.
However, the changes that humans have introduced now mean that fins are capable of looking worried. No longer were dolphins locked into that smiling grimace that nature has created.
’s patrons for the gift of uplifted intelligence, a species must deliver hundred thousand years of servitude.
Humans have not asked this of us. Humans have also asked us our opinion on which direction the uplift process should progress. Cetaceans sit on the Terragens Council. Dolphins regularly are regularly allowed to speak their mind.
Kinkajou: Has human genetic engineering changed the dolphin lifespan?
Hikahi: Yes to this issue as well. Humans have altered we dolphin sophonts to live longer lives so that we can retain our experiences longer and to benefit others more. However, humans have also taken neo- dolphins out of the food chain. We have better healthcare. We do not lose our lives to predators or illness.
I personally think that longer life is essential to enable a species to become sapient and uplifted. I think to this extent we dolphins have been fortunate.
Longevity is a complex issue, dependent on many factors. For example, one uplifted species with whom we often come into contention look like little horses. Their lives are frozen to a maximum of a few decades.
Superior galactic science has been unable to change this for them.
Humans have also helped us by gene crafting into our DNA, capacities and latencies far in excess of those with which nature has provided us. Much recent work has been done with Stenos brudenensis genetics. This dolphin species lives in deep water, and has a reputation for its insatiable curiosity and a reckless disregard for danger.
Experience on earth has shown the gene grafts have often turned out very well, with recipients showing streaks of initiative and individual brilliance.
However, there has also come tendency to a harsh temperament, not typical of we Tursiops neo-dolphins.
There had also been some strange rumours of work done with orca genes, and in their introduction to the neo--dolphin gene pool. We dolphins trust and believe in humans. However ,there are some who are coldly calculating and capable of playing with our very souls through the medium of genetics. I am a starship officer. I have earned my place in the crew of the Streaker.
Kinkajou: Yes I think my exploration of Sigma Psi quantum communications has revealed that it is possible to turn the dolphin into a monster. Humans should be warned.
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Hikahi: True. For too long as a species we neo-dolphins have simply learnt to endure. We must accept the hand that nature has dealt to us. We learned through humans of the advantages that medical science can bestow upon an individual. For too long we have believed simply in the sanctity of the food chain.
Death so often would come to us in this way. The weak, the infirm and ill would be abandoned. The ocean food chain would deal with our kind in much the same way as a judge with his charges. Indeed many of my primal cousins would say, “Why do you endure? The food chain takes us all in the end”.
Medical science has allowed us to take care of our own, far in excess of the capacity that nature has endowed us with for millions of years.
However medical science is not as valuable to the neo-dolphin as it is to the human.The Paill family of disease is not an issue with the dolphins. We have diverged from humankind many millions of years ago, when our ancestors into the sea. So though we share a mammalian heritage, many of our chemical and biochemical systems have evolved in a different direction, ensuring altered susceptibility to these horrific human killing agents.
To this extent I truly pity humans. They told you they would feed you. But they did not say to whom.
It is the genetic technologies that have enhanced our life expectancy the most. Fortunately for we neo-dolphins we are immune to the Paill family of disease, a blessing of our divergence from the main mammalian line, so long ago, when our ancestors colonised the oceans.
Kinkajou: Do your people live in Ocean colonies?
Hikahi: Indeed! Some of our first and still most awesome colonies exist in Moreton Bay just adjacent to Brisbane in Australia. The sheltered bays amid the islands keeping the Pacific Ocean at bay, nurtured the first of our species. Humans initially took an active part in excluding predators, particularly sharks. But with the success of the program and the increased ability of neo-dolphins to utilise tools, we dolphins took over these responsibilities ourselves.
The waterways of Moreton Bay have formed a cradle for our species, from which we have spread to conquer the globe. The ocean even in the crowded human world was largely unutilised.
Dolphins have colonised the oceanic ways of the planet Earth. Floating submersible islands loll sedately across the oceans providing a technological home base for our species.
Yggdrasil- the treeship of the future.
Humans share much of our habitat based on galactic technologies enabling them to effectively breathe underwater, to become mobile in the marine environment and to sense danger in the distance. Proudly, we neo-dolphins have adapted to this technology very well, enhancing our natural abilities and making us a truly formidable species in the open ocean.
But it all started in the bays outside of the city of Brisbane, amongst the myriad waterways between the small islands. This place has almost a religious significance to us.
Kinkajou: How has your species coped with climatic change across the oceans of the world?
Hikahi: Humans have done an excellent job in extending our natural ability to tolerate changes in water temperature. However, although the oceans are a hostile environment, the temperature of the oceans changes substantially less than temperatures in terrestrial environments. To this extent we neo—dolphins are lucky in that climate change has done little to confront us. If the world tropical oceans are slightly warmer, this affects us a little. If the coldest of the world’s oceans are a little smaller, this affects us very little as well.
With the most significant aspect of climate control is the necessity of controlling significant tropical storms such as hurricanes in the northern hemisphere and cyclones in the southern hemisphere. Massive storms such as these lasting for prolonged periods of time can substantially affect the operation and safety of many of our Ocean colonies.
The ability to submerse as many of our colonies possess, bypasses much of the power that storms introduce into the upper ocean layers. However, dolphins still need to surface to breathe, unless technological solutions are used.
It is for this reason that many of our submersible environments maintain submarine breathing facilities for our Ocean colonists. Simply submerging to depths as little as 20 m, can substantially reduce the effects of waves on permanent structures. Although we are naturally not a deep diving species, tolerating pressure changes up to 5 atm, equivalent to 50 m of open water, is well within our capabilities.
Kinkajou: I would like to think you for your contribution to my readers.
Hikahi: Thank you Kinkajou: I believe I have nothing else to report of any major significance to your mission or the survival of your species. The propensity of earthlings to get into trouble and to learn thereby, has enriched many species, perhaps including your own.
Kinkajou: Yes. I believe that the chain of calamitous events that have affected humanity over the millennia are truly awe-inspiring. Their talents are underrated.
GeneControlTrue.html |
Brin, David |
Hikahi |
Startide Rising |
ClimateControlTrue.html |
Brin, David |
Hikahi |
Startide Rising |
CloningCellGrowthControlTrue.html |
Brin, David |
Hikahi |
Startide Rising |
LifeExtensionTrue.html |
Brin, David |
Hikahi |
Startide Rising |
MedicineTechnologiesTrue.html |
Brin, David |
Hikahi |
Startide Rising |
OceanColonyTrue.html |
Brin, David |
Hikahi |
Startide Rising |
Kinkajou interviews Ethan From Fortune of Icerigger fame
(Allen Dean Foster: Commonwealth series: Icerigger sub series)
Kinkajou: Greetings Ethan: Thank you for agreeing to talk to me. Our readers are interested in learning your perspectives on ocean colonisation.
Icerigger Novel
Ethan: My experience largely involves the planet Tran Ky Ky. Although, the planet is largely oceanic, the oceans are frozen. There are some parallels here to ocean colony worlds in that spots of civilisation are widely separated by oceans (of ice) across which sapients /natives must travel in vessels built to sustain life in the wilderness.
Kinkajou: How do you think on ocean environment affects the development of civilisation?
Ethan: Probably the most important issue is the desperate need to dominate the small towns or outposts of civilisation as may exist. The population is large enough that needs to be mobile. The island outcrops are only of sufficient size to support a small population, which is often insufficient in size to attain the critical population mass/military manpower to reject the Wanderers.
The bands of Wanderers have the upper hand due to their mobility, and their ability to live off the land.
Over many years a couple of these bands have grown large enough to acquire the status of nations in themselves. They migrate on a fairly predictable circuit, living off the tribute from the people they encounter.
A friend told me what it is like when these wandering bands move in. It doesn’t make for pleasant listening.
In addition to this standard tribute of money and food and clothing and such, they take over the town or whatever for about a week local time. They take what they like from the shops and aren’t above broiling the occasional shopkeeper who might venture an objection. Raping or carrying off the local girls who haven’t been safely hidden or killing a few kids are common practices.
I suppose you could even say they are the usual pre-technological primitive innocents, free from the corrupting influences and laws of civilisation.
If there is any hint of opposition or resistance, the entire town is put torch and the entire population down to the youngest is massacred. Excepting a few women, they don’t even take slaves. They have absolutely no hesitation in killing.
Kinkajou: No wonder everyone elects to pay tribute.
Ethan: They move in big columns, perpendicular to the wind sometimes 3 to 4 ships deep. There are up to thousands of sleds and it is in these sleds that they spend their whole lives. The sleds even carry livestock and feed for the livestock. The males of the tribal nation take time running scouting patrols. But the rafts never stop except when they may moor in some city anchorage.
Kinkajou: Almost like army ants on earth.
Ethan: I think ocean, even frozen ocean is a very hostile environment for civilisation. The scarcity of resources means there is intense competition for the same resources. Consequently often there is very little consideration for the lives or needs of others.
Kinkajou: Probably a perspective which many have never considered. I thank you for your comments. I hope you find a warm place to live soon.
OceanColonyTrue.html |
Alan Dean Foster |
Ethan From Fortune |
Icerigger |
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Kinkajou interviews John Christian Falkenberg
(Jerry Pournelle: CoDominion series)
Kinkajou: Tell us about the world of Sparta which dominates your era, John Christian.
John Christian Falkenberg: Most of the population of Sparta is spread out along the nearly 10,000 km of the Eurotas. Most traffic movement is at the pace of the riverboat, with faster alternatives being “blimps” due to the limited use of high technology for rapid transit on this the world.
There was very little high-tech transport, in its early days. Sparta saved its money for building its industries and imported little in the way of personal luxuries.
They will rule a thousand worlds from here. There will be nothing like it anywhere in the universe, but you get used to changes and new impressions when you travel a lot.
Population is dense on Sparta. The cost of land is so astronomical, that usually only the richest would try to buy it.
Feeding a population becomes an Achilles heel. If the farmers don’t get some kind of break, they would all sell-out to people who build hotels. Then all the food would have to be shipped in from far away. Where would the Emperor get his fruit? Look over there. Fish farms. Fish from off planet don’t do well in Spartan oceans. If you want seafood, it’ll come from fish farms like here or somewhere like it.
Sparta City
The City of Sparta
Kinkajou: So there is a difference in the biological development of the oceans versus land areas?
John Christian Falkenberg: Absolutely. Terraforming has been used extensively on Sparta. The relative youth of the planet and the great rapidity of the Spartan continent formation and subsidence, means the local ecology has barely begun to colonise the landmasses.
The Biotech is in the oceans. Hence, the difficulty of introducing terrestrial forms into the open oceans. Competition with the native life forms is most intense in the oceans. Hence the fish farms.
But the situation on the land areas is completely different. Faced with an entire planet of virgin ecological niches, introduced terrestrial plants and animals exploded across the whole continent, completely replacing the meagre and primitive natural species- a collection of mosses, lichens and ferns with some amphibious insects. The terrestrial land species dominated almost overnight.
Kinkajou: How rapidly did this situation stabilise?
John Christian Falkenberg: The introduced species have engaged in complex and fluctuating interactions as plant – herbivore – predator associations are worked out to fit the pattern of a world never quite like Earth. Scientists believe a stable ecology will take millennia to form.
Kinkajou: So it is for this world and these people for whom you labour as a soldier? And here biology mimicking real life?
John Christian Falkenberg: A soldier stands alone. No Matter what he commands or who he has with him or if he has only the weapon in his hand – the soldier in the moment of decision, of all men, is most alone.
Civilisation is a complex phenomenon. Biological colonisation and terraforming are complex forms of civilisation for plants and animals. Ocean worlds present their own possibilities and liabilities. Similar to the situation with which a soldier is faced, each situation must be assessed and managed in the here and now.
Kinkajou: Thank you for your indulgence, John Christian.
OceanColonyTrue.html |
Pournelle, Jerry |
John Christian Falkenberg |
Codominium series, Sparta |
Sigma Psi “Google” Probe:
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Kinkajou interviews Glinnes Hulden (Jack Vance: Trullion Alastor 2262)
Kinkajou: Tell us of your world, Glinnes.
Glinnes Hulden. I come from a world called Trullion in the Alastor cluster, a small world, the most part water. It has a single narrow continent Merlank at the equator. From space you can see great banks of cumulus clouds drifting in from the sea and breaking against the central mountains, creating hundreds of rivers returning down broad valleys to the sea.
In these valleys grow fruit and cereals so plentifully as to make them command almost no value.
My own home lies beyond Weldon in the fens, a district of remarkable beauty. Thousands of waterways divides this area into a myriad of islands, some tracts of good mention, some so small as to support perhaps only a fisherman’s cabin and the tree for the mooring of his boat.
Kinkajou: An idyllic world it would appear.
Glinnes Hulden. We Trill do love our world. I remember my homecoming. My boat pulled up to Rabendary dock, whence I unloaded my baggage and paid off the water taxi. I remember staring towards the house. Had it always lurched and sagged so much? Had the weeds always been so rank? There is a condition of comfortable shipping this which we Trills find in daring, but the old house appeared to have gone far past the state.
Kinkajou: So you share your world with another sapient species?
Glinnes Hulden. Indeed! However, it is not really a sharing. The Merlings live in the waterways and the channels, at times overpowering isolated humans. It is a situation we tolerate, due to our respect for higher life. However it is not a comfortable relationship.
I suppose it is their world, but it has become ours as well now. And for better or for worse we are bound to live together. But perhaps the Merlings are less intellectual in their regard for us.
Islands and Waterways Trullion Alastor Cluster
Kinkajou: One of the problems of living in a water world, where there is a potential competitor in an environmental niche where humanity does not reign supreme. We tend to anthropomorphize our contacts from other species, but this would appear to be a particularly human failing, not shared much by other species.
Other species are what they are, and do what they do. It is humans to attribute motives and make war. A capacity that underlies sentience and the cooperation necessary to found and maintain a civilisation.
OceanColonyTrue.html |
Vance, Jack |
Glinnes Hulden |
Trullion Alastor |