Victor Grippi – The Atomic Writer

Hello Readers,

It’s been awhile since my last post here on the AtomicWriter, but I assure you I’m alive and well. I’ve been busy writing my third novel, as well as my first screenplay. So writing on the blog was put on the back burner. More on these great projects in a later post.

I wanted to share my thoughts on two excellent shows I watched this weekend. The first, on Friday, was the series finale for Battlestar Gallactica and then the movie Knowing staring Nicolas Cage. Both these shows revealed a premise or controlling idea that resonates with the premise in both my novels, The Ninth Cube and The Butterfly Virus. The premise that humanity has restarted time and time again and how humans are not the product of pure randomness.

Let’s explore this concept in detail. In Battlestar, we learn in the finale that Cara 1 (Starbuck) held the secret to the location of the real Earth. After finding herself crashed and dead on the first Earth, we find out she holds the coordinates used in the FTL to jump to Earth. These coordinates were contained in a musical piece she played with her father as a child. Now the importance of this is in the idea of determinism versus randomness, the theme of both the TV show and the movie. Cara 1 (Starbuck) was sent back (as an angel) to the fleet to lead them to Earth by a predetermined intelligence that watches over us and protects us without direct intervention. Some my call this entity God, big G or little g, and some may call it an alien intelligence. I’ll leave this up to your own personal views.

We also learn in Battlestar how pivotal Gaius Baltar was to humanities salvation. He gave up the defense access codes on Caprica, that lead to its destruction by the Cylons, but this allowed the fresh start for humanity to be realized. What seemed like an act of treason actually lead to the restart on Earth. We see model Six and Gaius as angels who have witnessed this cycle time and time again. Humanity gains intelligence, develops technology that eventually leads to destruction on a global scale. The model Six Cylon appeared to him like an angel who helped guide him through this process. Whenever humanity reaches the brink of extinction, this intelligence sends beings (angels) to intervene.

The show then uses the young female hybrid as the michronial “Eve”, who became our common ancestor here on Earth. The theme of a restart for humanity based on an ever improving design makes me think how we may all be experiments in a grand test operated by the intelligence that created us.

In the movie Knowing the controlling idea is that we are not the product of randomness. We see that determinism is rejected by the Nicolas Cage character who after his wife’s death, backstory, believes we are the product of randomness, and that science can explain everything. When the paper with the predictions shows up, he changes and believes in a grand order or scheme of things. The fact that someone could predict exactly the dates of disasters, leads him to believe again in determination. An intelligence that can see the future and intervene when humanity reaches the brink of destruction.

I absolutely recommend this movie and when you see the aliens rise up to enter their ship, you will see the resemblance to angels. The metaphor here is the same as in Battlestar. Ascended beings sent down to help humanity survive. When his son and the girl are dropped off on a pristine earth, we see the tree of knowledge in the background. A direct reference to the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve. A restart for humanity.

The Atomic Writer, has written about the same themes. In The Ninth Cube, we have a similar restart for humanity and a direct reference to Adam and Eve in the garden. I don’t want to give away the ending of the book, but if you read it, you’ll understand.

In The Butterfly Virus: A Thriller, again the controlling idea of a restart for humanity takes a different form but the message is the same. Again I do not intend to spoil the book, but would strongly advise reading it, especially if you’ve read this post this far. You must be fascinated with this topic.

In closing, the theme or controlling idea we see in media today is a direct outcropping of the warning writers are trying to convey to their readers. As technology becomes more and more integrated in our lives, will we someday create an artificial intelligence capable of turning on us like a rabid pit bull? Will we be at the mercy of technology to the degree that we can’t live without it? But what happens if technology is suddenly rendered mute? Could humanity survive in a primitive state once again, or will we perish like dust in the wind.

One solution is to never loose sight of our roots. To always be able to be self sustaining and self sufficient, live off the land, feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, and fully take care of ourselves without technology. We belong to the last generation, on this planet, who grew up with little or no high technology. Some of us still remember how to live without a GPS map speaking to us on the road, or a constant electronic communication device tweeting our every move to our social media list of drones. Can you remember how to look up a phone number in the yellow pages? When was the last time you picked up a newspaper? Don’t like ink on your fingers, you say?

I realize I’m writing this on my notebook computer with a browser tab opened to Facebook, and that my books are available electronically on the Amazon kindle, and I have a twitter account. I’ve spent many years writing computer software for a living. I’m very integrated with technology. But if all of this just went away one day, I could survive. I would keep moving forward and not dwell on the fact that these “conveniences” are no longer available. In time, we as ever inquisitive humans would develop technology and in time we would be right back in the same place.

The better solution is to learn how to live with technology, and how to live with each other to the benefit of all of humanity. There would be no reason to restart humanity, no reason for angels to intervene and save us, if we don’t need saving in the first place. A sort of preventive determinism we control. After all, god, or the alien intelligence watching over us, had to have its start. Perhaps we are the ancients, the beings who will leave our small speck of an island and venture into the vastness of the universe to seed new worlds and watch over our children. Perhaps we on this Earth, on this evolutionary line, will be the ones rescuing our descendants millennium from now in our spaceships as we pluck out the next Adam and Eve, planting them on the next Earth.

“So say we all!” — Admiral Adama – Battlestar Gallactica

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking….what if.”

Victor Grippi
The AtomicWriter