
The Mountain in the Sea

of this—all Ha’s hope for a breakthrough, and any hope the Shapesinger and her kind had—rested on violence. On Altantsetseg’s ability to wield violence, to direct it against the people who would destroy this sanctuary. It was easier to pretend that Altantsetseg was an individual, that all of her choices were her own, than to admit that Altantsetseg
... See moreRay Nayler • The Mountain in the Sea
You can ask the automonks questions on philosophy, religion, their views on life. They’ll answer like the dead men they are modeled on. They are walking repositories of memory. Yet they have no apparent will of their own—their present state is automated. If you asked me personally, I would say they are not conscious. They do not progress. They have
... See moreRay Nayler • The Mountain in the Sea
There were no lights anywhere on the ground. The ruin of a runway slanted across most of a narrow neck of the island. The helicopter landing circle was a faded smear. Ancient planes rotted against a black tree line. The plastic siding of the main building was peeled away like scales torn from a dead fish.
Ray Nayler • The Mountain in the Sea
The best-case scenario is they retreat to someplace where they can’t be found. The worst-case scenarios are so much worse I can’t even bear to think of them. This isn’t going to be a first-contact story, where humanity achieves enlightenment because we finally realize we aren’t alone in the universe, and we all hold hands and sing around a campfire
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The porthole’s thick strata of glass and polycarbonate distorted the scene outside. Through it, Ha watched the undulating barrier of jungle encroaching the narrow road. Ruined walls of rubble studded abbreviated clearings, structures that could have been fortresses once. Or mills, or factories. Anything. The full moon cast waveforms on the sea’s su
... See moreRay Nayler • The Mountain in the Sea
One of the aims of The Mountain in the Sea is to explore the idea of communication with a truly alien species here on earth, one that has developed its own system of symbolic communication. Above all, I wanted to be as honest as I could about the complexities of the problem of communication between species. Being true to that goal meant doing a mas
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Across its surface flowed a syntax of shapes—a steady sequence of silhouettes—ringed, scrolled, involuted, whorled. The figures danced on the octopus’s skin. The place the two octopuses had chosen was bathed in light by a beam-angle from the penetrated hull, and the patterns across the larger one’s pale skin reminded Ha of the articulated cut-out f
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But here’s what I think: If you are a company that creates artificial minds, wouldn’t you want to study a new kind of mind up close? If the Con Dao Sea Monster is smart, I bet DIANIMA wants to know how smart. How it works, and maybe how it got that way.”
Ray Nayler • The Mountain in the Sea
I’m not skeptical of what we are dealing with: I am trying to determine the level of development. In humans, there are hundreds of thousands of years between the collection of objects which have meaning to them and the arranging of stones for ritual purposes to the actual carving of symbolic objects. I’d like to know for sure whether it’s the forme
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