The main promise of the Church of Assimilation is that we are all part of the same thing…we’re all estranged pieces of a greater entity.  This entity is called the Old Ones, or more benignly, the mother swarm.  Assimilationists believe that the purpose of life is to reconnect with the mother swarm.  Their public gatherings are called awakenings.  At these awakenings, believers are placed in an assimilator booth and literally deconstructed…disassembled into their constituent atoms.  The atoms are then held in containment to be offered up to the mother swarm when the Old Ones finally arrive…said to be in the year 2155. 

Assimilation struggles with one great question: does assimilating mean just enhancing our minds and bodies as is, inserting bots and swarms to take over or develop or enhance new capabilities in our more or less original bodies?

Or does Assimilation mean ‘deconstruction?’  Breaking down the human body form into its constituent atoms and rebuilding it as a multi-configuration swarm, able to look and act like humans (as angels) but also able to act and look like other beings and structures as well.

Enhancement vs. Reconfiguration…this is the great divide in Assimilationist thinking.   Assimilationism is a variant of Transhumanism.

Here are some pros and cons of each:

	Enhancement	Re-configuration
1	It’s easier to add new features and capabilities	New features are integrated into primary entity rather than being ‘bolted on’
2	Human society and civilization is designed to accommodate humans with two legs, two arms, one head…normal is single-config.	Single-config design restricts what is possible to a new being; multi-config is better
3	New features and capabilities expand what it means to be human while keeping a (tenuous) link to our historical past and pedigree	Historical pedigree and design is old and creaky. Needs re-work.  Lots of junk in our DNA (so we think), because evolution isn’t efficient
4	New stuff enables humans to go places they couldn’t go before…space, other planets, deep sea, etc	There are at least 3 billion years’ worth of experience with multi-config lifeforms…i.e. rapidly mutating viruses, etc.
5	Keeps evolution in the driver’s seat but helps it along; understands that it’s not wise to screw around with 3 billion years of experience	Multi-config lifeforms are more resilient, able to adapt to environmental change better.  Can thrive in greater variety of environments
6	Better able to confront and resist the Old Ones	Closer to presumed nature of the Old Ones; better able to integrate
7	Individual unit of life is valued (We say an individual human being is alive, not that his brain or pancreas is alive)	Individual unit is only a part of greater entity; true intelligence and capability is vested in larger entity
8	Individual human beings are collections of cells and organs in mutual cooperation anyway	Level of cooperation and collaboration greater with swarm organization of life units.  Diseased or damaged or non-functioning units are disassembled
9	Minimal structure required to maintain life (and avoid ‘death) is more complex.  Threshold for life-nonlife is higher and more easily breached	No real threshold for ‘death’.  As long as swarm can gather and communicate and maintain minimal structure, it is effectively immortal.  Minimal structure is very minimal, potentially a single nanobotic device with enough memory to assemble a new swarm config
10	Replicates more slowly; viability of single-config status essential to life	Can replicate new structures faster
11	Our role in the Universe is to fulfill our natural destiny as dictated by evolution and the original design and not tinker with the innards	Can go anywhere nanobotic devices can go, basically anywhere in the universe where a few clustered atoms and molecules can go (inside solid structures, etc)
12	Control of our evolutionary destiny lies with evolution, helped along with a few enhancements	Our role in the Universe is to fulfill our destiny as dictated by the original design…the Old Ones who seeded primordial lifeforms that became ancient viruses and whose genome lies at the heart of every ANAD-derived nanobot.
13		Control of our evolutionary destiny lies with us; we are descended from ancestors of the Old Ones and are destined to join with them again.

 

Doc II and Doc III, swarms which appear in many stories in the Tales of the Quantum Corps (originally created by Dr. Irwin Frost as simulacrums to represent him after he died) always wanted Johnny Winger to take the deconstructionist approach…to let himself be disassembled and reconstructed as a swarm being, able to assume multiple forms, yet also able to ‘resemble’ the original Johnny Winger.  In other words, Doc II wanted Johnny to become an angel.

Needless to say, Winger isn’t too thrilled by this.  Nor is Dana Tallant, his wife.  Would a reassembled angel Johnny Winger be the same as the original, even if the new config is nearly flawless?    Are James Kirk and Spock the same beings after being transported back and forth in Star Trek?

These are just some of the philosophical questions and conundrums that people face in the Tales of the Quantum Corps.

The next post will come in May 2015.