Vernor Vinge
Aug. 6th, 2005 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowIt is, I suppose, a commonplace that many authors return repeatedly to the same theme in their works. For example, many of C. J. Cherryh's stories deal with acculturation, in particular with individuals isolated from their native cultures and forced to adapt to an alien (frequently literally so) society. Having just finished a marathon reading of Vernor Vinge, I'd like to offer a few comments on a recurrent theme in his stories. To a remarkable degree, his works seem to hinge on betrayal, deception, and subversion.
I want to narrow those terms down somewhat; let me stipulate some definitions, for the purposes of this post. By "deception", I mean the act of persuading another that one is a friend or ally, with the intention of taking advantage of, and ultimately harming, the other. By "subversion", I mean taking control of another's resources, usually without their knowledge; most often this refers to electronic subversion - viruses, Trojan horses, and the like - but "Focus", from A Deepness in the Sky, is another and rather more horrifying example.
Let's look at some examples; I'll put them under a cut, since there are spoilers for a number of Vinge's works (specifically, "True Names", The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime, A Fire Upon the Deep, and A Deepness in the Sky).
"True Names": The Mailman, Mr. Slippery, and Erythrina each subvert substantial portions of the global datanet. The Mailman is destroyed, and Slip and Ery voluntarily relinquish control, but Ery plants the seeds of an even greater subversion - and this is presented as a good thing.
The Peace War: Miguel Rosas betrays the Tinkers (and yet he is generally presented as a good guy); Wili subverts the Peacers' surveillance system; and Della Lu betrays the Peacers (saving many lives by doing so).
Marooned in Realtime: Juan Chanson subverts the Korolev net, causing Martya's death; Gerrault deceives the Peacers and the New Mexicans, subverting their systems and those of most of his high-tech rivals; Chanson in turn subverts a part of Gerrault's system; and Brierson then betrays Chanson. (The latter two acts are presented as good.)
A Fire Upon the Deep: The Blight's entire M.O. consists of deception and subversion - first at High Lab, then in Straumli Realm and elsewhere, climaxing in the murder of Old One and the subversion of the Skroderiders. Steel deceives Amdijefri, disguising his disgust with them and plotting evil against them once they cease to be useful. Tyrathect's story is also one of subversion, as the Flenser Fragment struggles with the schoolteacher for control (and, though Flenser is seemingly victorious, the teacher still ends with unexpected influence).
A Deepness in the Sky: The Emergents work to subvert the datawebs of the Spiders, and subvert the very minds of many of the Qeng Ho via Focus; Nau's treatment of Qiwi is a mix of deception and subversion; and Pham and Sherkaner, unknown to each other, subvert some parts of the Emergent systems. (Pham and Sherkaner are presented as good guys.) In flashbacks, we also learn how Pham himself was betrayed at Brisgo Gap.
Two related points interest me. First, there is the extent to which acts such as these - on the surface despicable - are attributed to people we're expected to root for. Second, there is the larger point that, in the presence of sharp differences between people in knowledge and technology, subversion and deception are almost inevitable, and potentially extremely harmful. Each of these stories has a happy ending, at least by contrast with the alternatives, but it seems a matter of chance, each time, that there was someone in position to act, who chose to act for the side of "good". In each case, had that person not acted, the situation would have dramatically deteriorated, to the point where any improvement would have been many times harder to achieve.
The result, it seems to me, is a curious blend of a very bleak view of humanity's (or sapiency's) nature with a frankly romantic theory of history, of the Great Man variety. Throw in Vinge's apparent commitment to an extreme libertarianism (visible in The Peace War, "The Ungoverned", and Marooned in Realtime), and I'm not sure what to make of his work.
I want to narrow those terms down somewhat; let me stipulate some definitions, for the purposes of this post. By "deception", I mean the act of persuading another that one is a friend or ally, with the intention of taking advantage of, and ultimately harming, the other. By "subversion", I mean taking control of another's resources, usually without their knowledge; most often this refers to electronic subversion - viruses, Trojan horses, and the like - but "Focus", from A Deepness in the Sky, is another and rather more horrifying example.
Let's look at some examples; I'll put them under a cut, since there are spoilers for a number of Vinge's works (specifically, "True Names", The Peace War, Marooned in Realtime, A Fire Upon the Deep, and A Deepness in the Sky).
"True Names": The Mailman, Mr. Slippery, and Erythrina each subvert substantial portions of the global datanet. The Mailman is destroyed, and Slip and Ery voluntarily relinquish control, but Ery plants the seeds of an even greater subversion - and this is presented as a good thing.
The Peace War: Miguel Rosas betrays the Tinkers (and yet he is generally presented as a good guy); Wili subverts the Peacers' surveillance system; and Della Lu betrays the Peacers (saving many lives by doing so).
Marooned in Realtime: Juan Chanson subverts the Korolev net, causing Martya's death; Gerrault deceives the Peacers and the New Mexicans, subverting their systems and those of most of his high-tech rivals; Chanson in turn subverts a part of Gerrault's system; and Brierson then betrays Chanson. (The latter two acts are presented as good.)
A Fire Upon the Deep: The Blight's entire M.O. consists of deception and subversion - first at High Lab, then in Straumli Realm and elsewhere, climaxing in the murder of Old One and the subversion of the Skroderiders. Steel deceives Amdijefri, disguising his disgust with them and plotting evil against them once they cease to be useful. Tyrathect's story is also one of subversion, as the Flenser Fragment struggles with the schoolteacher for control (and, though Flenser is seemingly victorious, the teacher still ends with unexpected influence).
A Deepness in the Sky: The Emergents work to subvert the datawebs of the Spiders, and subvert the very minds of many of the Qeng Ho via Focus; Nau's treatment of Qiwi is a mix of deception and subversion; and Pham and Sherkaner, unknown to each other, subvert some parts of the Emergent systems. (Pham and Sherkaner are presented as good guys.) In flashbacks, we also learn how Pham himself was betrayed at Brisgo Gap.
Two related points interest me. First, there is the extent to which acts such as these - on the surface despicable - are attributed to people we're expected to root for. Second, there is the larger point that, in the presence of sharp differences between people in knowledge and technology, subversion and deception are almost inevitable, and potentially extremely harmful. Each of these stories has a happy ending, at least by contrast with the alternatives, but it seems a matter of chance, each time, that there was someone in position to act, who chose to act for the side of "good". In each case, had that person not acted, the situation would have dramatically deteriorated, to the point where any improvement would have been many times harder to achieve.
The result, it seems to me, is a curious blend of a very bleak view of humanity's (or sapiency's) nature with a frankly romantic theory of history, of the Great Man variety. Throw in Vinge's apparent commitment to an extreme libertarianism (visible in The Peace War, "The Ungoverned", and Marooned in Realtime), and I'm not sure what to make of his work.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-07 05:24 pm (UTC)For that matter, the flashbacks in Deepness do include a more sophisticated theory of history, resembling the ideas in Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies, but Pham's entire career in that story is an attempt to overcome that theory. In any event, the broadly pessimistic theory isn't incompatible with a narrower-scope version of the Great Man theory: civilizations are, long-term, doomed, but their trajectory can be made more or less glorious and their term longer or shorter through the efforts of Great Men.
None of this is meant to imply that Vinge isn't a very good writer. He's always been a capable craftsman, and Fire and Deepness are very fine indeed - intricately plotted, with interesting aliens and rich ideas. I'm just not convinced of the philosophical underpinnings.
Structure
Date: 2005-08-08 05:08 pm (UTC)Whenever the storyteller awards the victory to the underdog there is often likelihood that trickery, deception, fraud, deviousness and -- as you say -- subversion is involved. Not always. David wins merely by the favor of God. But often. Jack subverts the giant's household. The giant's wife's loyalty, persuading her to hide him (in her --cold -- oven, in some versions, even while the giant is crashing around threatening to grind his bones to bake his bread); the giant's harp's magic -- Jack using the harp to lull the giant to sleep while Jack himself makes off with a sack of gold; culminating in the ending where Jack literally cuts the support structure -- beanstalk -- out from under the giant.
I'm wondering how to tease out distinctions between "subversion" from "deception" in plot lines, generally.
Re: Structure
Date: 2005-08-09 06:35 pm (UTC)I suspect that your formulation might best be deconstructed in turn by challenging the strong/weak distinction; one might, instead, view these stories as describing fights between different kinds of strength, and different combinations of strengths.
In the technological settings where Vinge operates, knowledge (and cleverness) is power in a more direct sense than it is in "Jack"; Wili, in The Peace War, doesn't have to persuade the satellites to feed the Peacers misleading data. (In fact, he's not very good at persuasion; his attempt to reveal Miguel's treachery is laughed off.) In A Deepness in the Sky, is Pham weak - because he is more-or-less alone against the Emergents - or is he strong - because he built trapdoors into the systems the Emergents have co-opted, and knows how to exploit them? Gerrault hides his true identity in Marooned in Realtime, not because he is weak but because he is utterly confident of his strength. (Indeed, though his identity is concealed, his character is not - he even flaunts it.) He is defeated, at the last, by the three characters - Juan Chanson, Della Lu, and Yelen Korolev - who are arguably more powerful (in the sense of technologically advancement) than he is.
But this gets a bit far afield from Vinge. The strengths he deals in are primarily psychological (cleverness and a smooth tongue) and technical (mastery of electronic or biological information systems). The use of physical strengths - e.g., the nuclear exchange in Marooned in Realtime - is background detail, for the most part.
I'm rambling. Thanks for the thoughts; they cast interesting light on several other passages in Vinge. The scene in Marooned in Realtime in which Brierson and Della Lu are besieged by the dog-things, for instance, takes a new place in the pattern. I'll have to think about this some more.