Role of Speculative Fiction
Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, written in 1993, speculates the future of 2024 in a world with rampant technological and scientific progress. The majority of citizens suffer from poverty and crime and live miserable lives while the wealthy and the government do nothing to help. The world in Parable of the Sower is based upon the world Butler lived in in the 90's to critique the socioeconomic conditions of the time, and through the book, she suggests better ways for humans to think and live.
PotS as an Omen
Parable of the Sower demonstrates how speculative fiction can clearly show what to avoid. For example, many of the social services are privatized including the fire department. When the Duns's house catches on fire, Lauren remarks how no one called the fire department because it would be too expensive to pay the fee (25, PotS). If Lauren's community didn't have water on hand, the Duns house would have burned down, as fire services are too expensive for their community. If fire services were free, Lauren's community wouldn't have to waste water putting out the fire themselves. Thus, this disaster warns readers of the dangers of privatization, as it either forces people to pay high prices for insurance or face the risk of losing everything in a preventible accident.
Another example is the danger of technological development. Drug use is a very common problem in Parable of the Sower. Lauren's mom, while pregnant, took Paraceto, a prescribed drug that caused hyperempathy, a birth defect, in Lauren (pg. 10, PotS). According to Professor Alexander, in his December 1st lecture, Paraceto shares similarity to the real life drug Talidomide, a prescribed drug for anxiety that caused horrible body defects to infants. Through Paraceto, Butler critiques our world's over-realiance on technology without considering the consequences. Paraceto is technically legal, but that doesn't make it safe. Lauren's mom didn't know or care about its effects on her daughter. Thus, regulations are necessary to prevent new, unpredictable technology from harming our livelihood.
While PotS may appear discouraging, its critiques on human society teaches us how to be better, and ultimately gives up hope that our society can improve. At the end of the novel, Lauren's group founds their new community, Acorn, and all of her friends stay to help her because they believe in her dream (PotS, 254-261). They acknowledge that they'll face dangers from crazy people and the harsh environment, but they continue anyways with the hope that their new society will work out. Ultimately, Parable of the Sower teaches us to embrace the fact that society will be corrupt while also striving to make it better.
Library of Ruina
The games of Project Moon all take place in the same setting, the City, divided into 26 districts all controlled by corporations under the leadership of A Corp, also known as the head. In the City, there's a big disparity between the rich, who get protection in the Nests run by a corporation, and the Backstreets, rampant with crime syndicates and a lack of any laws. A citizen of the City must follow the arbitrary laws of the City, the Corporations, and avoid the wrath of a major crime syndicate and all other dangers of the City. It's impossible to fully describe how bleak and insufferable it is to live in the City.
Xiao
The second title of Project Moon, Library of Ruina, explores the connections people make despite the bleakness of their surroundings. In the game, you play as Angela, who sends invitations for people to either accept a battle or reject the invitation. They do not have to accept, but if they do, they will be rewarded with any book of their choosing if they win, but if they lose, they will be turned into a book themselves. Angela justifies the Library's process by claiming she never forces anyone to accept the invitation, as it is entirely optional, meaning everyone who accepts does it out of their own free will.
One such person who accepts the invitation is Xiao, a Fixer who is the director of Liu Association section 1**. She is the director of the highest section, and prior to meeting her, she planned a marriage with Lowell, the director of the section below hers. However, the player had already killed Lowell, who was ordered to investigate the Library in a prior episode. His death drives Xiao to a rage. Thus, she willingly accepts the invitation, knowing she would die if she failed and that she wouldn't even get Lowell back.
Xiao planned to go alone and subsequently stepped down from her position as her director. While her subordinates were no longer under her control, many of them went with her, including a man named Miris. In the end, most of her crew were slaughtered, with the exception of Miris, who escaped and pulled Xiao out of combat.
However, Miris brings her out of her grief. He reassures her that everyone followed her because they cared about her and wanted her to succeed, and he urges her to not let the deaths of their friends be in vain by fighting for their sake.
Through Xiao and Miris, Project Moon delivers a heartwarming lesson: connections to others make us stronger. Xiao, with her new resolve, battles the Library with Miris by her side. Although Miris dies, Xiao prolongs the fight longer, vowing to honor the deaths of Lowell, Miris, and the rest of her subordinates by taking down the Library. Although she eventually dies, she dies with no regrets.
"…You aided me while I was blind, like a chance drifting log that saved a sightless turtle."
Xiao wasn't a perfect human. She had to suffer through grief before she letting go of her despair. The City is a terrible place to live in, yet Xiao found love and friendship through her journey, and she fought to honor the people she cared for. Xiao gives us hope that, despite how corrupt our world is, we can live happier through the bonds we share with each other.
The world of Parable of the Sower and The City
Both worlds are chaotic, violent, and individualistic, in general, but many people are exceptions to that rule. Lauren, with her hyperempathy, understands the pain people go through and wants to stop the normalization of suffering. Thus, she forms a group by helping strangers and inviting them to travel, and by making friends and showing kindness, she builds community that can defend and help each other.
Xiao, after losing her future husband, was thrown in a blind rage, forsaking her duties as a director and accepting an invitation that killed everyone except her and Miris. However, Miris reminded her of their respect for Xiao, and urges her not to fight with rage, but with the remembrance of Lowell and her friends. Thus, Xiao fought for honor instead of rage, overcoming her grief in the process.
Both Lauren and Xiao learn from the friends they made. They demonstrate the power of companionship which encourages us to oppose systems of inequality that, when alone, may appear impossible, but with others by our side we can challenge the status quo.
The 100
Jason Rothenberg's netflix show, The 100, is a sci-fi action thriller set in 2149, many years after a nuclear apocolypse has wiped out all inhabitants of earth. The only survivors are those who happened to be living in space stations, far from the nuclear blast. As a result, all survivors joined their stations to create the Ark and lived together under strict guidelines to conserve resources. However, when resources are running low, the leaders of the Ark decide to send juveniles under detention to investigate the status of the Earth and reclaim it for humankind.
They discover that some humans have managed to survive the nuclear war, people that the Ark survivors call Grounders. Eventually, the people on the Ark land back on Earth, reuniting with the juveniles they sent. Eventually, the Ark survivors form a coalition with the grounders.
Promise of happiness?
During season 3, an AI named ALIE is awoken by the Ark leader, Jaha, who went on an exodus to find the City of Light. ALIE was created by Becca with the directive to help human life. However, it took its instructions too literally, as ALIE started the nuclear war in order to solve overpopulation. Then, ALIE created the City of Light, a simulation where humans could live without pain. A person must take a chip to enter the City of Light, which would allow ALIE to take control of their bodies while also removing feelings of pain in the subject and memories of trauma they had to endure.
ALIE converted Jaha with this promise of salvation from pain and sent him back to the survivors of the Ark, where he allured people with the promise of the end of suffering and giving them the chip. Eventually, ALIE forces people to take the chip, mainly by threatening the deaths of loved ones under her control to coerce others to take the chip. ALIE eventually takes control over most of the people, Ark survivors and Grounders alike.
The season ends when the main protagonist, Clarke, invades the City of Light and hits the kill switch. Before its death, ALIE pleads with Clarke, revealing that the remaining reactors on earth are melting down and will cause a second nuclear explosion that no one can survive unless they enter the City of Light. Clarke, however, holds hope that they can survive regardless. She flips the switch, stating that "humans don't ease pain, they overcome it," and kills ALIE, destroying the City of Light and freeing everyone from ALIE's control.
The Matrix
The City of Light is similar to the Matrix. Does it matter if the world is simulated when people feel real things? Are the feelings diminished because it's "not real?"
In Neo's case, the answer might seem more obvious. The machines are profiting off of humans, robbing them of the chance for any real life, so except for people like Cypher, who are willing to remain oblivious under the Agents' control, many characters choose freedom over obedience.
However, many characters of the 100 fall victim to the City of Light even though they know it's not real. They take the chip because they had to endure so much pain to survive, both physical pain from wounds and emotional pain from losing loved ones. ALIE doesn't profit from her chipped followers. She doesn't harvest them for power like the machines in the Matrix, only using them to convert more people and to protect herself. At the same time, she robs her followers of any autonomy and removes their memories of anything that caused them pain, including friends and family. Clarke opposes ALIE because ALIE doesn't believe any amount of pain is good, while Clarke knows human nature is to overcome pain. Thus, Clarke never falls for ALIE's scheme, choosing to liberate everyone from ALIE's control and helping them to deal with their pain.
Clarke and Neo both believe that the real world, where humans can live the real life how they want it, is infinitely better than the simulated world, no matter how hopeless it may seem in the real world. Although they experience more pain in the real world, they grow because of the hardships they experience.
ALIE and Lauren
ALIE is a character with good intentions but flawed morality. Her actions intended to help human kind in some way, but her major oversight is the consequences of those actions. She didn't consider deaths to outweigh the benefits of reducing population, nor does she let people choose whether they want to keep their memories of pain. ALIE, like Lauren, wanted to build a community to help humans, but she doesn't comprehend how her idea of utopia strips people of control over their own lives. The City of Light is really an exchange: autonomy for infinite pleasure. Lauren, on the other hand, understands that utopias can never last. She doesn't try to build a community that will never experience any pain, but rather people who are willing to help each other from human and environmental dangers.
If people in the City of Light could think for themselves, they would quickly realize the city is not a utopia at all, nor would it last. What happens if ALIE's hardware is destroyed by some external factor? What if the people become bored of infinite pleasure? Are they really happy, if they have no memories of their previous families, friends, or anything that might have caused them pain? The society Lauren wants to build would welcome change, ultimately trying to improve through hardships, but ALIE would be stuck trying to solve problems without regard for human safety.
Clarke and Lauren both believe that humans can overcome their hardships no matter how much pain they have to endure. There is no easy solution to our problems; there is no president that will erase every problem nor City of Light that will give us unlimited happiness. Instead, the solution lies with enduring our suffering and becoming better in spite of it.