Ex Libris: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Sorry folks if I've been out of it. Too many things on my plate as I try to swim the flooded streets of rainy Metro Manila. *sniff*

Seriously, just a short post: I had a huge revelation as I was reading about infernokrusher rebellion from various blogs (like here and here).

Specifically, I was perusing through the comments section of writer and editor David Moles' journal when-- during the discussion, someone brought up Mary Doria Russell's, The Sparrow.

Russell's book, of course, is a near-future 'soft' science fiction tale wherein humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life from a planet known as Rakhat. While the United Nations endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the struggling Vatican-- specifically, the Society of Jesus-- organizes an eight-person scientific expedition on its own. Of course, this is a tragedy so everything comes crashing down in flames (figuratively) for the characters.

Being a 'soft' science fiction, the paleoanthropology-trained Russell fudges the physics a bit and concentrates on the sociological aspects of the story. I must admit that it was the philosophical and religious questions raised by Russell's main character, a Jesuit priest named Emilio Sandoz, that hit me hard: questions of free will, fate and God.

However, into my reading of the story, I completely missed another side of the story, which this comment by spec-fic writer, Benjamin Rosenbaum, threshed up:

Actually, Jed, that was one of my favorite things about the Sparrow. It offered a model of alien contact which has a long history in the real world, but is rarely seen in SF, and justified it very soundly. The model is the Vatican's model at its best -- as seen in, say, the movie The Mission and in Fathers And Crows. It's the "dive in, be guided by faith, offer everything you have, engage completely, trust in divine wisdom" model. The whole point is that the Sparrow's crew got there first because they *didn't* deliberate and consider, they didn't try to maintain critical distance, they didn't try and figure out what would be prudent. They beat the anthropologists, militarists, politicos, and xenocultural conservationalists precisely because their model -- the Vatican's tried and true model -- is immediate, total, unhesitating engagement. What happens to the protagonist is not a regrettable result of bad planning -- it's an intended, inevitable consequence of this kind of exploration. Whether he knows it or not, he's sent as a sacrifice, a martyr.

Ah. Coming from a country that was colonized heavily through the sword and the cross, I should have seen that coming. And should have known better.

At least I can take consolation in what the wise man on the mountain once said, "If one wants to swim in the deep, one must wade in the shallows first."

*shakes head*