B00BPJL400 EBOK Read Free

culture had become more primitive and barbarous than any contributing component part.) In both instances, Doms and feral pigs, this is not evolution, but reversion to a previously realized form—if the pigs of this world and the last will forgive the comparison.
    Imagine, however, the influence an insistent environmental imperative might have on a midrange intellect that perceives a requirement for profound adaptation on a subconscious level but cannot make the essential intellectual leap to achieve it by intuitive creativity. In other words, is it possible for a species to wish strongly enough that it can fly, for example, while lacking the intellect to recognize a fully formed desire to do so, that it might accelerate a physical adaptation? A less intelligent creature might plod along to eventual extinction. Greater intelligence might find a way around the need to fly—or construct an artificial means of doing so. But what of the species that wants to fly so badly, to escape danger or reach inaccessible food sources, that it tries for generations in spite of a physical inability? Might not an ineffectual leap eventually be combined with flapping arms? Might not, let us say, already somewhat feathery Grik-like creatures with superior plumage gain more height and duration of suspension, thereby achieving social acclaim, and be rewarded with breeding opportunities? Would not such societal encouragement result in more rapid, physical evolution than is possible for species without similar intelligence or incentive?
    Warfare accelerates technological development. This is a fact observed even in the Dominion, where literacy was repressed to an almost Grik-like extent. The instinct to survive stimulates creativity like no other force. Might this not be seen as artificially accelerated intellectual evolution?
    Once, in a moment of despair, I proclaimed the Grik the logical evolutionary masters of this world. That analysis was based on their physical perfection; hyperspecialized to kill, and what I imagined then as their almost antlike discipline and disregard of self. I was wrong. I now believe the Lemurians, with no assistance from us at all, should have eventually prevailed. It might have taken a thousand years, but their creative lethality would have surpassed the physical lethality of the Grik, whose very specialized physiology would have become a disadvantage.
    All Grik-like forms evolved as apex physical predators, but the very attributes that make them so deadly with tooth and claw make it difficult for them to use, build, or even imagine the increasingly sophisticated weapons Lemurians could have made—eventually—to kill them. Sadly, however, just as the destroyermen of USS
Walker
and others came to aid the Lemurians, some Japanese survivors of
Amagi
aided the Grik. Not only did this accelerate the confrontation, but it created a technological parity that would never have existed otherwise, in my opinion. Perhaps I am mistaken again. The Grik are obviously capable of intellectual evolution, and if my notion of societally accelerated physical evolution has any merit at all, I suppose they could have found a way.
    Ultimately however, technology can take you only so far—at least until your ability to apply it catches up. I’m often reminded of the battle at Isandlwana during the late Zulu wars—where all the bravery and technological advantage in the world could not prevail over sheer numbers, determination . . . and sharp objects.
    —Courtney Bradford,
The Worlds I’ve Wondered
University of New Glasgow Press, 1956

CHAPTER
    1
    ////// Maa-ni-la Navy Yard
Fil-pin Lands
March 9, 1944
    L ieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy, High Chief of the Amer-i-caan Clan, Supreme Commander (by acclamation) of All Forces United Beneath (or Beside) the Banner of the Trees, and Captain of the old Asiatic Fleet four-stacker destroyer USS
Walker
(DD-163), loved baseball. He loved football too, and just about any team sport, as a matter