Page 44 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Pluripotentates

that could survive and thrive would be pluripotent in most of its
cellular makeup. That way, whatever few of them remained after
what would have been extinction events on Earth could easily
regenerate all the variants capable of occupying ecological niches as
they reopened. Chance could favor any one of these creatures—
obviously the dominant species on the planet—to become the
origin of their rebirth. Any competitors would be eliminated over
time, simply by their inability to recover from disaster. They were,
you might say, by dint of this happenstance, pluripotentates.”
“So, dear colleagues, there is the situation. I can flesh out this
framework with scientific mumbo-jumbo and sympathetic—or
otherwise—portrayals of the principal characters. But having set up
the scenario for my miniature space opera, I need the final act. How
would you resolve it?”
Rutger Schlager had no doubt.
“You can’t ignore the mission. If this is a planet we can live on,
and such places are rarer than hen’s teeth, then the captain has to
fight and possibly destroy these critters or forever be frittering away
resources keeping them at bay. Rescue their hostage? Worth a try,
go in with guns blazing, meet their resistance with overwhelming
force. Look at the history of Earth: repeated aggression, genocides,
colonization led by gunships and military superiority. No quarter
asked, none given.”
“And if their hostage dies in this assault?” asked Perversity.
“One life? Small price to pay for the possession of another
homeland for humanity. Maybe the things are edible, and herds of
them could be bred for taste and nutrition—you implied their
physical attributes could be altered very quickly.”
“I see,” said Fred, but not as if he had just had the bandages
removed following a risky ophthalmological surgery. “Well, I could
slant the story to make the locals inherently malevolent and quick to
develop a warrior variant ready and able to attack the spaceship.
And the humans could be seriously desperate to establish a
beachhead—maybe they are the last of their race, and so forth.
Ends justifying means. Any other ideas?”

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