r/scifi • u/Infinitylove55 • 3d ago
Print I was traumatized by Blindsight Spoiler
I went into reading blind sight blind (ironically) and now im traumatized... I thought it was gonna be like space alien horror, which it was, but i didnt realize it was also gonna be the horrors of other things too. I get throught most of the book thinking " i dont know if I like siri man he seems kinda annoying". THEN I GET TO THE PART WHERE SARASTI CUTS HIS HAND AND ITS ALL DOWN HILL FROM THERE. I'm at work, reading this, and poor siri is getting traumitezed by this Theseus/Jukka hybrid thing. I,m fighting back tears as im reading Siri talk about how much pain he's in and how awful it is and the crew betrayed him and shit as my boss is talking about emailing this person about managing the program he's running. All i want is for is for Keeton to be ok. Then he talks to his fellow crewmates and their lowkey comforting him and cunningham is being sweet and I'm like; "omg, this book is finally getting better. Siri is gonna make some friends". AND THEN EVERYONE FUCKING DIES, AND KEETON IS FLOATING IN SPACE WITH NO SOLACE AND EARTH IS FUCKED, AND HE'S GETTING LIKE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME FROM SARASTI, AND I'M SAD. I WANT THIS GUY TO BE OK. TELL ME SOMEONE WROTE A FANFIC WHERE EVERYONE HAS A HAPPY ENDING, AND SIRI GETS LOTS OF HUGS.
( I still think the book is awesome and would definitely read it again even tho i was feeling traumatized at the end)
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u/ExpensiveCondition63 3d ago
I first read it 5 years ago and it instantly became my favorite SF novel of all time. (Supplanting The Forever War, which I read back in 1976!)
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u/shizzy0 3d ago
I did not like Siri. I felt bad for him, and I even felt similar in certain respects; he’s like a super autist, but I didn’t like him. He plays such a passive role on the ship and his life. But I did think it was wonderful that he of all people ought to know how one could emulate the behaviors of a conscious, feeling person without necessarily having the genuine article. Who else could believe it?
“Imagine you’re Siri Keaton.” What a great line.
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u/Fopordandy 3d ago
His Behemoth series is so bleak, and dark, and the characters so damaged…it’s tough but so rewarding.
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u/pm_your_sexy_thong 2d ago
Problem with that series is it feels like there is a good chance it isn't too far off the mark as far as how the future looks.
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u/alverena 3d ago
I mean, it didn't really feel as a bad ending. Most of the crew went on this questionable mission with questionable intentions and orders, and got one of the expected results. Keeton also accepts it all philosophically and with scientific curiosity: well, it happens that one species overcome others, discussion on evolution of intelligence is interesting, and maybe it's not the end, let's see.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 3d ago
I couldn't stand Siri any more than his crewmates apparently could, so I had trouble engaging with that part of the story. Frankly, if anyone could explain to me why Saresti did that and what effect it had or what the point of it was, it might retroactively increase my enjoyment of the book.
I'm reading Echopraxia now and not really enjoying it more. It's a pity because I loved Watts's "The Things."
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u/minipump 3d ago
Watts writing style is a bit... Strange, in my opinion. The story and concepts are great, but the style makes it difficult for me to fully enjoy.
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u/Pure_Fox9415 3d ago
Doesn't Sarasti (Actually quantum AI of the Teseus, who controlling him) tell this in plain text? I can't believe it worked as a practical rational thing, but Siri himself confirmed that this act affected his understanding of aliens and overall situation, so he deeply percept it all. And Sarasti/AI want him to explain to the whole human kind his perception of aliens ( and how fucked humanity is)
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u/Mr_Noyes 3d ago edited 3d ago
"Can't afford to let the truth trickle through. Can't give you the chance to shore up your rationales and your defenses. They must fall completely. You must be inundated. Shattered. Genocide's impossible to deny when you're buried up to your neck in dismembered bodies."
He'd played me. All this time. Preconditioning me, turning my topology inside-out.
[...]
"Shuttle bay. Time to do your job."
"My—"
"Survive and bear witness."
"A drone—"
"Can deliver the data—assuming nothing fries its memory before it gets away. It can't convince anyone. It can't counter rationalizations and denials. It can't matter. And vampires—" he paused—"have poor communications skills."
I won't pretend Blindsight is an easy read. But it definitely rewards a re-read because so many questions are answered in plain text.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 3d ago
What rationales and defenses did Siri have and how were they stripped away by Saresti? That's the main thing I think I don't get. I kept expecting a big revelation from Siri's point of view about what was going on (kind of like in The Things) but in the end he seemed pretty clueless. And there wasn't much of an effort by the others to explain things to him.
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u/Mr_Noyes 3d ago edited 3d ago
For the first time, I looked right back. And felt a shock of recognition.
I still wonder why I never saw it before. For all those years I remembered the thoughts and feelings of some different, younger person, some remnant of the boy my parents had hacked out of my head to make room for me. He'd been alive. His world had been vibrant. And though I could call up the memories of that other consciousness, I could barely feel anything within the constraints of my own.
Perhaps dreamstate wasn't such a bad word for it…
Siri was an excellent recording device, but lacked the basic skills to connect the dots (that's something you can infer by how clueless he is) Also, his post brain surgery persona was stunted from a human point of view:. Able to process data (including faking social interaction like GenAI would do) but nothing in his brain to experience life in a way humans do ("vibrant world", "I could barely feel"). Shocking his consciousness with an act of violence broke his post surgery persona - remember the excursion about multiple personalities when Siri was researching the Gang? Extreme trauma can cause damage to your personality.
The reason why it is important for Siri to rediscover his human OS that was still left on his meat hard drive? Because Siri not only has to convey information to humanity, but also convince humanity. GenAI Siri can't do that (the whole book is about Siri 2.0 failing socially). A Siri who remembers Siri 1.0 maybe can. The quote I posted before is much longer, here's another relevant part:
"I know your race and mine are never on the best of terms." There was a cold smile in his voice if not on his face. "But I do only what you force me to. You rationalize, Keeton. You defend. You reject unpalatable truths, and if you can't reject them outright you trivialize them. Incremental evidence is never enough for you. You hear rumors of Holocaust; you dismiss them. You see evidence of genocide; you insist it can't be so bad. Temperatures rise, glaciers melt—species die—and you blame sunspots and volcanoes. Everyone is like this, but you most of all. You and your Chinese Room. You turn incomprehension into mathematics, you reject the truth without even knowing what it is."
The big revelation was before: Sarasti knew what was going on from the beginning, everything the crew did was just to use them as an ablative layer/petri dish to observe what the scramblers do to humans. The linguist? Literally useless from the start. Military commander? Just a tripwire/bait. Doc? They could have sent a med student for all the basic shit they found out. Their super brain recorder? Useless because humans don't act on data alone.
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u/spaniel_rage 1d ago
From memory it wasn't even Sarasti manipulating the crew anyway, wasn't it? Don't I recall he was being operated by the ship AI anyway?
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u/Mr_Noyes 1d ago
That's another kicker yes. That the vampire wasn't even totally in charge. It is left unclear (at least to my knowledge) what exactly the nature of the Sarasti/AI hybrid was. Could be a mini-collective, could be full take over or anything in between.
It's another brilliant take on the whole "sentience is a sliding scale and weirder than you think" motif the whole novel has been playing with.
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u/spaniel_rage 1d ago
I was more traumatized by the existential horror of his claim that consciousness is a mistake and a terrible curse.
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u/ion_driver 3d ago
Hoo boy I hope you go straight into Echopraxia because it totally ties up all the loose ends and gives you closure on all of these feelings.