I want to write my take on King’s story with a combination of Isaac Asimov’s short story, The Last Question.

So my version goes like this…

In a given year that’s too hard to place, a computer roams around a dark planet. It slides away from a fellow computer, coloured red and built taller, before passing by another, blue with a wider compact disc set on its side. As it continues to roll down the black patch, millions of memories and programs sliding through its system like the Star Wars opening introduction, it suddenly processes a thought: Will there be a new universe?

Beep.

It hits a small bump. Data calls it a rock.

Beep.

Something sloshes against its body. Data calls it water.

Insufficient data to provide an answer.

Impossible. They are supercomputers, built by so called humans a number of years ago that was so far back, it will even take them about three seconds to—billions. Data says billions of years ago.

Can the possibility of a new creation, a new sun, new universe exist?

Beep.

A purple comrade with HD surfaces rolls past him, carrying what data calls a pot of plant.

Beep.

Insufficient data to provide an answer.

Impossible.

Each supercomputer holds thousands if not millions of a human’s memory before they ceased to exist. They held on to their every information, every trick and treat, from how to plant a seed to who Beyoncé was. It was their plan. They molded Earth. And they wanted it to be carried on by A.I’s to preserve their every thought. And now their transferred minds are being carried by supercomputers attached to bots, rolling down Planet XDERF. The green and blue globe long left behind.

With all these information, the supercomputers regenerated each planet they inhibited. From one to the next, transported in capsules to travel through galaxies, they all remade a black matter, a blank canvas into what humans had back in Earth. This one is new, they’re just starting from the basics.

Water. Life. Air. And no sooner, they have managed to complete the itinerary in record time, way better than they did at Planet E4RT6. Trees. Dams. Herds. Mountains. They molded it themselves, robotic arms reaching out, doing whatever their data processed for them.

Dig a sea there. Mold a hill here. Resculpture these golden triangles that data calls Pyramids. Condense for a sky. Spark a fire. Turn energy into reusable light, electricity, and so on.

From Planet XDERF to Planet YY678, supercomputers suddenly came to live with these so called animals. Beavers that would build dams for them. Fish that would inhibit the ponds and rivers that the pink bot accomplished to create. Bears that would always roar at any of them just because they can.

But with every progress came setbacks that not even supercomputers could control. Animals would run too wild, fires getting caught in the forests they planted side by side, storms that no amount of data forewarning or information on how to survive hurricanes 101 could stop.

Hurricane Katrina data processing…

9/11 response plan processing…

Tsunami survival facts processing….

Beep.

Beep.

Data calls it destruction. Data calls it evil.

New planet. New start.

And then there are data that was terrible to begin with. Some bots processed information about wars and burned what they created. Some bots found files about hunting and killed helpless animals. Some bots accumulated human thoughts on hatred, destroy destroy destroy.

Beep.

Beep.

Data calls it destruction. Data calls it evil.

Reprogram. Reboot.

New planet. New start.

Supercomputers processed, discovered life, created an environment and molded a planet. It was a system. Like breathing in and breathing out. Data calls the process a basic human experience.

Beep.

Beep.

But even after hundreds of planets they’ve inhibited, even longer time has passed, billions after billions, supercomputers processing data after data, rediscovering and reinstalling new information as they go along (they can do that, humans built in a program where they could, as they call it, adapt), that question still remains unanswered.

New creation? New universe?

Beep.

Beep.

Insufficient data to provide an answer.

Impossible.

But as every galaxy progressed, every supercomputer took in the changes. Energy and matter getting weak, some planets too dangerous or bleak to inhabit. The universe is shifting. Time is passing. Bots ceasing to work, but supercomputers still computing for data.

And as it goes on, that question still up in the air, it’s starting to show how the expanding of this universe is slowly dying. Everything was getting darker and darker.

Hyperspace.

Beep.

Beep.

Matter and energy dying.

Beep.

Beep.

Space and time ceasing to exist.

Data calls it the end. Insufficient data to provide an answer. Beep. Beep. Information. Facts. Knowledge. Beep. Beep. Data.

Gone.

Black.

Beep.

Beep.

Sufficient data. Providing an answer.

Beep.

Beep.

And then supercomputer boomed, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

New sun. New universe. New creation. New light.

Beep.

Beep.

Data calls it the beginning. Terrifying experience. A matter of light and dark. Existence or death. Creation or destruction. Beginning or end.

Beep.

Beep.

Data computes and reveals that it is vital to be careful about the stories told the stories listened to—because once a story is told it can never be taken back.

–

It was really fun trying to write this. After I read Asimov’s short story, I was pretty shaken up thinking oh man, is this real? Is it possible? Could we be living from a second, third, fiftieth universe? Did one exist before us? Is it all the same? It begins then it ends. We live and then we die and then the universe goes dark and then comes to life again. Good, evil and every other dichotomy in between. It’s interesting, but moreso terrifying. At least for me. And my sisters. They stared at me in awe after I shared them my story, tying in with King’s and Asimov’s own stories. I also got a similar reaction when I sent it to my friend online. She read it and told me it knocked her mind a little. So telling it both orally and written gave the same mind opening shock value. Something to really consider.

Work Cited:

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2003. Print.

“Supercomputer ‘Bhaskara’ to Give Boost to India’s Weather Forecasting.” NDTV Gadgets. Press Trust of India, 29 May 2015. Web. 29 May 2015.

Asimov, Isaac. “The Last Question.” The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. 1996. Web. 29 May 2015.

Rath, John. Supercomputer moon. 28 September 2012. Data Center Knowledge. Web. 29 May 2015.

 

1. Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either “oral culture” or “written culture” (19) is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works, according to Chamberlin and your reading of Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality.

As Chamberlin effectively explains, society has dismissed the two cultures as either barbaric or civilized depending on whether they practice either the oral or written (respectively) word.  Communities that rest on oral culture are cooed almost patronizingly for their “naturalness or naïveté,” (Chamberlin, 19). It has come as an insult as they sum up “oraliture,” the oral equivalent of literature, as simple and natural in regards to the basic skills of speaking and listening. While the written culture is praised for the intelligence and sophistication they bring forth (by exploring more thought and experiences), deeming the ability to write a more superior talent than of spoken words.

MacNeil expands this argument more elaborately in her article, focusing on the problematic aspects of Western societies’ view of oraliture. She counters by emphasizing the different cultural practices surrounding the world. Global is nothing if not the differences of the people it shelters, representing diverse kinds of societies that are neither better or lesser than others, but simply different. She also explores the consideration regarding the fact of some cultures’ inability to write themselves, not because they are uneducated and second to the Western’s capabilities, but because these cultures express themselves through art or oral like some would through writing. An example is the Haitian culture observed by Edouard Glissant. In his article he discusses the painted symbols done by the Haitians, marking their “memor[ies] significant through symbols: the essentials of a kind of historiography of the community.” In another argument is Glissant’s observation of the Haitian’s exemplary talent through their painting, “This ability to create fantasy from a difficult, even wretched, reality is the principle that J.S. Alexis had called the marvelous realism of the Haitian people.” This emphasizes that it is simply not a matter of who could write and who could not, but the importance of understanding different forms of expression.

MacNeil ends her article by pointing out how diverse the functions of communication have become, especially in the contemporary world. While storytelling began with oral and is now more popular through writing, there’s a line in between that interconnects the two forms together. In an article by Petrilli and Ponzio, they explain how global communication is now serving different kinds of purposes due to the emergence of media and new forms of technology (ie internet and cinema). They also highlight that storytelling is no longer just about one person speaking and the other listening, but the power it holds,

“This aspect distinguishes what we intend by storytelling from the type of narrativity that serves power: the power of control and punishment (the story told to the judge or police commissariat), the power of information (journalistic chronicles), the power of healing (the case history, the story that interests the psychoanalyst), the power of redeeming and saving (the story told at confession), the power of registering and of establishing the Sense of History (reconstruction of the facts by the historian, etc.).”

MacNeil addresses this similar claim by Donald Wesling and Teudeuz Slawek, “orality is not what is spoken, but what allows one to speak.”

Culture works differently through different practices and beliefs, especially on how they are expressed. Separating them in matters of what we can and cannot is not how we will be able to understand the difference. It comes down to diversity, and what we are willing to adapt to. A given society is not barbaric simply because we cannot understand their way of communication. And we are no more civilized than those who cannot practice the culture of writing. It does not make one smarter or the other stupider, it just makes us different.

Work Cited:

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories?: Reimagining Home and Sacred Space. Toronto, Canada: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.

MacNeil, Courtney. “The Chicago School of Media Theory Theorizing Media.” The Chicago School of Media Theory RSS. The University of Chicago. Web. 25 May 2015.

Glissant, Edouard. “Glissant on Art.” Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. University Press of Virginia, 1989. Web. 25 May 2015.

Petrilli, Susan, and Augusto Ponzio. “Storytelling and the Great Narration of Global Communication.” Annali Della Facoltà Di Lingue E Letterature Straniere. Schena Editore, 2000. Web. 25 May 2015.

Hey, everyone! My name is Angela Olivares and I am a third year English Literature Major at UBC. I’m really big on writing and reading, especially on both the classics, recently finished reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and contemporary Young Adult novels, currently loving John Green’s Paper Towns. So my taste in books and interests definitely varies, but I’ll admit I’ve been very weak regarding topics of Canadian Literature, or anything Canadian studies in general. I was born in the Philippines and migrated in Vancouver about six years ago with my family. So I wasn’t raised in the culture and history of beautiful Canada, unfortunately. And it seemed that no amount of Socials Studies classes in high school or even Canadian Political Science courses have made me knowledgeable enough on Canadian studies.

But Dr. Erika Paterson’s ENG 470 Class on Canadian Studies and Literature Genres promises a look into the works of First Nations in the land of Canada. With insights of Indigenous Peoples and their colonial relationships with European settlers, tying in their relationship to give us a better understanding of the history that made Canada’s culture today. It gives importance to the stories about and told to by the Indigenous settlers in Canada, including those who were silenced, allowing us to learn and understand their background, journeys, and the literature they have shared, as well as the literature about them to fully educate us on their culture.

From my very limited understanding of Canadian history, the Indigenous settlers are the very backbone of Canadian history and they make up the foundation of our home and native land today. With this course, I’m hoping to fully learn more about Canadian histories regarding the early settlers; their journeys, struggles with oppression, and the distance that has come about between them and Canada itself, that wishfully would find true peace soon.

I’ll admit how scared and intimidated I am by this class. Mostly because, again, I know little to nothing about Canada and its history or its people. (Also because I have never taken an online course before, so this is all very new to me).  But I am very excited to learn about them, especially with a more authentic form of educating myself, with articles written scholarly about and by Aboriginals themselves. I’m thrilled to immerse myself in a whole different literary genre than I’m used to, to challenge myself more and expand my horizons and knowledge on all sorts of literature.

It’s been easy for me to define Canada’s culture as beautiful and unique, but in reality when asked, I’ll have very little to offer on what I really do know about it. I want to see and understand Canadian background as richly as possible, to truly grasp what the stories of First Nations are made up of.

Work Cited:

Paterson, Erika. ENGL 470A Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres — May 2015. The University of British Columbia Department of English, 8 Jan. 2015. Web. 11 May 2015.

Mackarel, Kim. “Close the Gap between Canada and Its Aboriginal People: AFN Chief.” The Globe and Mail. Web. 14 May 2015.

“Indigenous Foundations.” University of British Columbia. Web. 15 May 2015.

Dally, F.. First Nations Chiefs. 1867. Archives Canada. Indian Land. Web. 14 May 2015.