A Fire Upon the Deep

Apparently the name of 1992 science fiction novel A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (Oct 2, 1944 – Mar 20, 2024 -- died just three days ago; a somber coincidence) was built by the author's editors in a brainstorming session: they wanted to utilize Robert A. Heinlein's technique of using either Shakespeare or the Old Testament. I have to say that what they came up with is a lot better than what Vinge had wanted to call the novel. A while back there was a Youtube video about Fire in my recommendations (again by Media Death Cult) and the novel's name is what immediately piqued my interest.

On the video, Moid started to describe Fire's premise, and after I had heard how in it the Milky Way has zones where physics work differently, I closed the video: I was sold on it right there and then. It was the depiction of a situation followed from the proposal mentioned in Echopraxia by Peter Watts: we can't know if the physical laws in our part of the Universe aren't merely local phenomena; we just have to believe they apply universally because we can't observe anything else.

Vinge's original name for the novel, Among the Tines, would have been more accurate. A big part of the book is spent among the Tines, a canine-like species whose individuals are hive minds, packs of 4 to 8 members.

The Finnish name for the novel is also something different: Linnunradan ääret, 'the verges of the Milky Way'. [Literally linnunrata means 'bird's flight path', although Wikipedia seems to talk about "the pathway of the birds". But the point is that the Finnish name for the Milky Way comes from a different myth.] I don't know if 'a fire upon the deep' was too challenging to translate in as majestically mysterious way or if the publisher threw in something that would sell better for Finnish readers. The 'verges' do describe the novel's setting, though.

The mentioned zones of the galaxy are four in number. These 'zones of thought' are in layers: the innermost being the center of the galaxy. The main consequence of the zones is their effect on biological and artificial intelligence.

The Earth -- Old Earth as they call it in the book -- is located in the second innermost layer, the Slow Zone where things work as we know. Human-level intelligence is possible and the speed of light is the absolute limit (due to automation not being able to calculate faster-than-light jumps within the zone). True, sentient artificial intelligence cannot function in the Slow Zone. In the galactic core's Unthinking Depths even biological intelligence ceases to exist.

The advanced civilizations of the galaxy are found in the third zone, the Beyond where travel and communication speeds get fast and automation gets really smart -- each the more the farther one is from the Slow Zone. Outside the Beyond there is the Transcend where things get weird.

When a Beyonder civilization Ascends by reaching technological singularity, they become a Power who is no longer comprehensible to a human mind. In the Transcend these Powers are able to work towards their unfathomable motivations at such speeds that they disappear very quickly. I found that an interesting notion; the progress happens like on an exponential scale.

Vinge wasn't the first to use the word singularity in the sense of technological singularity but he's credited for having popularized it.

The novel's events are set in motion when one human civilization is researching the archives of a past Power in lower Transcend. The Power turns out to have been malevolent and merely dormant. Things don't go well for the humans when it wakes up. One ship manages to escape all the way into lower Beyond where it crashes on the planet of the Tines. The only survivors of the crash end up being two children, Johanna and Jefri.

I'm not a fan of children protagonists because how frustratingly dumb they can be. But I guess that is exactly why Vinge needed such for his story: adult humans could not have been manipulated by the Tines as easily. Tines are in some ways smarter than humans and are quick learners but they are well behind in understanding of things due to the level of their civilization, the current point of their sciences. While the Tines are cool, their medieval squabbles are not particularly interesting in a science fiction book.

The Power that was awakened turns out to be more than your regular superintelligence and is dubbed Blight. It starts wreaking havoc in the Beyond and seems to be worried about the ship that got away. The ship had sent a distress signal and later Jefri starts sending messages (while being controlled by the Tines).

A hastily set-up rescue mission is launched from Relay, which is the de facto capital of the galaxy's communication network in the Beyond due to being able to directly reach 30% of the Milky Way. The single ship is manned by Ravna Bergsndot, Relay's only human employee; Pham Nuwen, a human rebuilt by a Power; and two Skroderiders: Blueshell and Greenleaf. The latter are of a widespread plant species whose members move on mechanical rides, skrodes.

The book was translated by Hannu Tervaharju who came up with the word 'kiesikäs' for the Skroderiders. I didn't initially realize how clever that translation was because the -käs suffix made it look like a plant name that could very well exist. Kiesikäs is basically an adjective that means '(something) with a chaise' or "chaisey". Like with Revelation Space, Tervaharju had left some words untranslated. Johanna's "dataset" for instance which is basically just a tablet from what I gathered.

I enjoyed A Fire Upon the Deep mostly because of the novel setting. I wish the book had been harder science fiction, though, focused more on the nature of the zones and theoretical reasons for them. The novel does at least utilize the effects of the zones in its narrative.

Vernor Vinge followed Fire with a loose prequel in 1999, called A Deepness in the Sky which I am reading now.