Some Desperate Glory

This chapter begins with a page with a single word of dialogue, ending what Kyr was saying in the previous chapter: demanding that Wisdom let her “—go!” (321). Then, there is an excerpt from an unpublished fictional book: Earth’s Children: Humanity After the End of the World by Ursula Marston. She argues that humans are warlike. Then, she considers the concepts of peace and utopia. To achieve these, the question of resources must be solved, but there are debates about how resources should be allocated.

Ideological conflicts of religion, race, and morality also stand in the way of peace. There are debates about what should be tolerated. If there were no disagreement about ideas or resources, humanity would be united and monolithic. This may end war, but it would do so at the cost of losing diversity. Gaea is an example of an attempt to be monolithic: Everyone speaks the same language, there is no religion, and they attempt to genetically eradicate racial differences.

Kyr is back in the Doomsday agoge simulation. She yells that replaying it won’t help and starts crying about the billions of lost humans, exclaiming that she is stoppable after all. When the agoge turns off, Jole is there.