Blindsight

Date

2006

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Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Tor Books

Research Projects

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Abstract

Blindsight’s narrative takes place in the future (more specifically, in 2082), where humanity has largely withdrawn from reality to live essentially in virtual worlds, and scientific research succeeds in recovering DNA from vampires, considered to be a distant predator that has become extinct, which makes it possible for them to exist again. As part of the main plot of the novel, comet-like objects penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, alerting the population to the existence of some kind of extraterrestrial life form. When presented with the opportunity to know more about these aliens, a crewed ship – named Theseus – is sent to analyse a comet-surveying satellite that is discovered years after the first wave of extraterrestrial objects are found. Theseus is crewed by a number of transhuman scientists, commanded by a vampire, and captained by an artificial intelligence. Eventually, the crew finds out a giant object that is capable of communicating with them via radio and, despite having learned a number of terrestrial languages, it apparently does not understand the meaning behind what is being said. Against the wishes of this object, the crew begins exploring it, finding strange organisms inside it, as well as an atmosphere and radiation. Some of these beings come to be known as “the Scramblers” and appear to possess more brain power than humans, but this is mainly used for them to move their bodies around, which leads the crew to conclude that humanity may be wasting brain power in the same fashion. After a violent battle between the Scramblers and Theseus’ crew, the ship self-destructs in order to destroy the giant object, but not before one of the crew’s members, Siri, gets one board of an escape vessel, so as to reach Earth and convey the news about the alien life forms. However, when approaching the planet, he hears radio broadcasts that suggest that vampires have rebelled against humans and are now in power.

Description

Keywords

space exploration , transhumanism , technology , artificial intelligence

Citation

Watts, Peter. Blindsight. Tor Books, 2006.