finer focus the source of his associative course, which concurs with the
direction of the previous one. The sight of the immaculately synchronous
rhythmical waving of the huge “forest” reminds him of “fronds of kelp rocking
in the surge.”
The meaning of this idea is obvious: it merges doubly with the image of the
“giant mushroom” from the previous association, which is very similar in form
to a medusa. On the one hand, the new association defines the location of the
central symbol of Falcon’s fear—the sea—while on the other, the image of the
bending of strands of seaweed directly suggests the sight of “jellyfish pulsing
their mindless way above a shallow tropical reef” which has one of the key
places in the first part of the novella.
It is quite certain that these two scenes are not only joined by formal
similarities but also by a complex referential link that will become evident
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during the next encounter. When he sees the “oval mass” again the next day,
Falcon needs only a few moments for all his previous doubts as to its identity
to disperse. The image that now flashes through his consciousness is congruent
with the one that occurred to him many years ago on Earth while he was
watching the inflating and deflating of the bubbles on the dirigible Queen
Elizabeth. “It did not resemble a tree at all, but a jellyfish—a medusa, such as
might be met trailing its tentacles as it drifted along the warm eddies of the
Gulf Stream.”
Here at last we see explicitly how, step by step, Falcon’s image of potential
intelligent beings gradually expands around the medusas—from the bizarre
mantas, by way of the puzzling oval mass, right up to the direct incarnation of
the medusae themselves. Falcon immediately takes a negative emotional
attitude towards these possible entities, conditioned by fear of loss of human
identity that, as we saw in the example of the mantas, casts seriously doubt on
the possibility of getting to know them on the level of noumenon.
The manifestation of this negative emotional determinant, that is, the fear
that is closely linked with the process of “medusation,” also occurs this time, at
two characteristic places, immediately after Falcon has reliably established that
the medusa certainly represents a higher form of life. In the first case, the fear is evinced in his instinctive use of atmospheric circumstances to justify avoiding
approaching the medusa so as to observe it in as much detail as possible.
Indeed, the adjective “secure” that he uses to describe his position at that
moment could in principle have two meanings: secure from sinking into the
lower layers of the atmosphere, and secure from possible arrival within reach of
the medusa.
(To go down would present easily predictable exophysical dangers. A certain
hesitation, however, in his use of “secure” tells us that what is involved is
avoidance of something that arouses in Falcon’s consciousness much greater
suspicion of the relatively easily predicted exophysical dangers with which he
would have been confronted had he gone down to the foot of the terraced
clouds.)
The real nature of this suspicion soon surfaces, although there has again
been no very serious motive for it on the level of phenomenon. Observing the
medusa for some time through a telescope, Falcon suddenly begins to ask
himself whether its inconspicuous color is not some kind of camouflage:
“Perhaps, like many animals of Earth, it was trying to lose itself against its
background. That was a trick used by both hunters and hunted. In which
category was the medusa?”
The question is, obviously, just a formal one, because the whole of the
previous structure has been erected to suggest only one answer. This answer
The Theme of First Contact in the SF Works of Arthur C. Clarke
23
has already been present, in advance, in Falcon’s consciousness, and it was only
necessary to provide a convenient occasion for it to be made concrete through
some external characteristic of the medusa.
Fear has not for a moment been absent from Falcon’s consciousness; it
would appear without fail whenever data at the level of phenomenon even
conditionally allow it. Everything up to the battle between mantas and the
medusa has not really provided a serious motive for this manifestation; a
sharper expression of fear before this would have seriously conflicted with
the known data on the medusae, that have in this sense been, almost without
exception, strictly neutral.
Falcon’s consciousness has only been latently, and not maniacally, burdened
with one of the strongest phobias that, with inessential differences of degree, is
present in all people. If Falcon had been conceived as a psychologically
disturbed person who projects the key symbol of his mania everywhere (the
medusa-like form), the degree of misconception about the known data on the
gigantic inhabitant of Jupiter’s terraced clouds would have been much greater.
However much fear prevails in Falcon’s consciousness, though, it never
gains a pathological dimension; that is, it never reaches a point of confronta-
tion with the knowledge acquired on the level of phenomenon, but arises only
when he attempts to pass to the level of noumenon.
That it is not a question of individual disturbance but of a characteristic of
human consciousness in general—which is in Falcon’s case over—accentuated
by the fact that he finds himself in a completely unknown environment. For
the first time he encounters heterogeneous forms of life, and in the physical
sense, he long ago ceased to be a real man. The complex psychological changes
this produces are best shown by the sudden and seemingly unexplained
attitude of the astronaut towards the medusa at the moment when it looks
as though the mantas’ attack has got it into serious trouble.
Only a few moments before, Falcon was taking an explicitly negative
emotional attitude towards the creature, conditioned by a subconscious fear
of the loss of human identity, but he now suddenly starts to feel sympathy and
share in its trouble:
“It was impossible not to feel a sense of pity for the beleaguered monster,
and to Falcon the sight brought bitter memories. In a grotesque way, the fall of
the medusa was almost a parody of the dying Queen’s last moments.”
The roles remain unchanged, and only for a moment does Falcon’s emo-
tional attitude change—and that only towards the medusa. The strategically
well—conceived attack by the mantas which, for a short time, suggests the
existence of intelligence, causes a defense mechanism of fear to be
strongly activated in the astronaut in relation to these bizarre creatures, a
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fear which—as we have seen—has occasionally been a little subdued but not
completely removed as far as they are concerned. It is therefore only a matter of
a change in intensity within the context of the same emotional attitude, not of
a change in that attitude itself.
Such a change is arrived at only in relation
to the medusa which begins to
arouse, instead of a feeling of fear, a quite short-lived feeling of sympathy and
inclination. This ambiguity in Falcon’s emotional attitude towards the crea-
ture can only be explained from the angle of a different, considerably broader
ambiguity in the complex being of Falcon: this relates to the above-mentioned
split between the strongest fear—the fear of losing human identity—which
dictates a negative emotional attitude towards the medusa, and Falcon’s
endeavors to get used to his new, nonanthropomorphic identity of cyborg,
in which context the emotional weight of the medusa symbol is diametrically
changed. It now becomes a synonym for a new birth, and the only possible
emotional attitude towards it is a positive one.
This emotional change towards the medusa does not arise in an ad hoc and
unmotivated way but originates in an event which took place directly before
the battle between the inhabitants of the terraced clouds of Jupiter. A seem-
ingly innocent remark by Dr. Brenner has for the first time brought into
focus—although not yet fully explicitly—the slow but steady transformation
of Falcon, who is gradually and by no means painlessly alienating himself from
his human origins in order to get used to his new status of cyborg.
Understanding the reasons that have led Falcon to avoid approaching closer
to the medusa, exobiologist Brenner uses the pronoun “we” to express his
consent to Falcon’s wish to retain his present altitude. However, “that ‘we’
gave Falcon a certain wry amusement; an extra sixty thousand miles made a
considerable difference in one’s point of view.”
The difference which has here been expressed in units of spatial distance will
change at the end of the novella into the fundamental and unbridgeable
difference between human beings on the one hand and the cyborg Falcon
on the other. Nevertheless, however much this first hint of that all-embracing
transformation has been superficial and subdued, only it can be a valid
motivation for the short-lived ambiguity of Falcon’s emotional attitude
towards the medusa. Minutes later, this ambiguity is soon resolved when the
medusa uses its “secret weapon,” in favor of a strong tide of fear. But in the
distant future, this ambiguity will make Falcon more capable of the act of
contact with alien creatures. During his first mission to Jupiter, he is not
mature enough to make contact, still too overwhelmed by the sharp contra-
diction of his imperiled anthropomorphic status.
The Theme of First Contact in the SF Works of Arthur C. Clarke
25
1.3.3 Prime Directive
The spectacular counter-attack by the medusa, which disperses the mantas
forever from the scene of events, reveals a further significant feature of this
strange creature. It is revealed that the “monstrous bag of gas” has an organ
that acts like a special kind of radio aerial. The possibility that the medusa
possesses a radio-sense arouses two particular types of reaction: phenomenal
and noumenal.
Dr. Brenner’s opinion on this unusual organ does not arise from the
immediate external functionality of radio aerials in the special biophysical
environment of the Jovian atmosphere. Starting from the assumption that
senses arise depending on the prevailing physicochemical stimuli of a given
world, the exobiologist concludes that it is not at all strange that the radio-
organ has not developed in any terrestrial organism, as it would have been
superfluous in the biophysical conditions of our own planet. There is, how-
ever, radio energy from Jupiter in abundance, and there it represents a very
important factor in the physical environment, so that evolutionary processes
could not simply neglect it.
Looked at from this angle, the medusa’s radio sense is no less probable than
the human eye, terrestrial evolution’s response to the amount of light radiation
which prevails on Earth. The conclusions that Dr. Benner draws from this fact
do not overstep the limit of the level of phenomenon ( just like the conceptual
characteristic which Clarke, in his role of “omniscient narrator,” ascribes to the
medusa): “Until I came here... I would have sworn that anything that could
make a short-wave antenna system must be intelligent. Now I’m not sure.”
In other words, a phenomenal characteristic which would, in the context of
the human world, undoubtedly point to an artificial origin and to the existence
of intelligence, does not have prove it in a radically different environment where
the conditions exist for it to develop in a natural way. The exobiologist’s
reluctance to interpret the presence of the radio aerials as a reliable sign that
the medusa is intelligent (which represents a kind of progress in relation
to the previously mentioned and principally anthropocentric standpoint of
Dr. Brenner), corresponds to an avoidance, on the basis of data from the plain
of phenomenon, of bringing a judgment by direct analogy on the level of
noumenon, which would in this case have anthropochauvinistic characteristics.
But, however much this standpoint seems to be right at first sight, it
nevertheless has one serious deficiency: the scope of its validity is rather
limited. Keeping to the level of phenomenon when encountering alien beings
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Z. Živkovic
can be sufficient only up to the moment when the situation produces a
possibility of making contact.
Contact presupposes the existence of sentience, a completely noumenal
characteristic that—as we seen in the examples of Dr. Brenner’s conclu-
sions—cannot be learned by simple observation of alien beings on the level
of phenomenon. It is clear that the transition to the level of noumenon is
necessary. Of course, this necessity by no means guarantees that contact is
possible.
All Falcon’s attempts in that direction have, up to now, been a failure. In
contrast to Dr. Brenner, who does not move from the level of phenomenon,
Falcon tries on several occasions to draw conclusions on the plane of noume-
non, but each time he is thwarted from doing this by anthropomorphism.
Indeed, in circumstances which might conceivably open up the possibility of
making contact, there is no way in which it can be reliably concluded that the
medusa is aware of the presence of the astronaut, and noumenal conclusions
cannot have any important influence on Falcon’s direct actions. Thus, for
example, his supposition that the medusa is using its radio-sense to monitor
communications between Mission Control and the Kon-Tiki, that is, the hint
that it is a highly intelligent creature (a conclusion diametrically opposed to
that of Dr. Brenner) remains without any echo on the plane of direct action.
A certain change does nevertheless take place, in view of the fact that even
the possibility of an encounter with an intelligent creature is sufficient for the
Mission Commander to order Falcon to be guided as a precaution by the
“Prime Directive.” These special instructions for first contact have originated
mainly on the basis of man’s experience on Earth. Unfortunately, Fal
con
comes to realize that the rules have a basic deficiency stemming directly
from the one-sided nature of human experience on our planet.
The Prime Directive is founded on the assumption that humans will be the
only type of participant in the act of making contact. “For the first time in
the history of space flight, the rules that had been established through more
than a century of argument might have to be applied. Man had—it was
hoped—profited from his mistakes on Earth. Not only moral considerations,
but also his own self-interest demanded that he should not repeat them among
the planets. It could be disastrous to treat a superior intelligence as the
American settlers had treated the Indians, or as almost everyone had treated
the Africans...”
The compilers of the Prime Directive have failed to emerge from the
framework of terrestrial experience, where Man has the opportunity to meet
exclusively with homogeneous races which differ only in terms of insignificant
morphological characteristics and degrees of civilizational development, and
The Theme of First Contact in the SF Works of Arthur C. Clarke
27
have simply remained blind to the possibility of encountering essentially
heterogeneous entities which need not have any common noumenal denom-
inator with the human race. All the other defects in the rulebook’s provisions
have originated from this classic contradiction.
The incomplete and limited nature of these provisions is especially evident
when the method and scale of direct action at the moment of making certain
forms of contact has to be determined. The first clause of the Prime Directive
already contains a by no means innocent vagueness which gains special weight
when Falcon is making his decision on how to react to certain actions by the
medusa that could, but do not have to be, interpreted as an initiative for
making contact.
This first provision states: “Keep your distance. Make no attempt to
approach, or even to communicate, until ‘they’ have had plenty of time to
study you.” While the first part of this instruction matches the attitude which
Falcon—from totally different motives—takes towards making contact with
the medusa, the second part arouses serious doubts.
Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel Page 5