Altered Carbon

The songspire tree symbolizes humanity’s altered relationship with time, which is fostered by the technology that allows consciousness to be transferred, thereby essentially eradicating death. Kovacs first sees the tree when Miriam takes him on a tour of Suntouch House. When he notices it, she explains that the tree’s fame comes not only from its size, smell, and sounds, but also from its unnatural age. She says: “[T]hey grow to be a hundred meters tall, sometimes as wide as this house at the root […]. From the erosion patterns, we think that most of them are at least ten thousand years old. This one might only have been around since the foundation of the Roman Empire” (25). Initially, Miriam presents it as an ancient artifact, saying that the trees, like the one in front of them, can be older than much of known human history. However, she puts this specific tree’s age in perspective by saying it is only as old as the Roman Empire, which itself is thousands of years old. This comparison and her nonchalant attitude toward the tree’s age echoes how the Bancrofts and other Meths see time. They live for hundreds of years, witnessing major changes to their societies and planets while remaining stationary and unmoved by history, much like the tree itself.