Holt wrote:]Did they really think their misguided species could ever win against the Amnion? Did they actually imagine that an ideal police force - backed by an ideal budget, of course - could protect them from Amnion imperialism? They were wrong. Oh, in the short term human production methods gave them the advantage. But over the long haul that would prove to be an illusion. Amnion genetic imperatives were steadier and more relentless than almost any amount of human political will. The aliens would study human production, human tissue, human decisions, and grow stronger. The process might take years or decades: it might even take centuries. The Amnion didn't care. The moment humankind's determination wavered, the whole life-form would be swept out of existence.
Holt wrote:His species as it stood didn't deserve to survive: that was the crucial point. Therefore humankind had to change. They had to learn from the Amnion as much as the Amnion learned from them.
They had to become capable of what the Amnion could do.
Force-growing infants.
Imprinting minds.
Practical immortality.
The Amnion had it already. They passed their peculiar consciousness undisturbed from one generation to the next. Their bodies had become tools, organic artifacts, to be shaped, used and discarded as necessary: when one suffered damage, grew old, or died, they simply imprinted themselves upon another. For that reason their ultimate victory over humankind was inevitable. There was no limit to how much they could learn - or how long they could wait.
But if human beings acquired the same capability - if they developed the skill to pass their minds from one inadequate, mortal body to the next - if Holt could prolong his own life indefinitely - Ah, then the nature of the real contest would be altered. Then humankind's innate talents for treachery and mass production would enable them to overwhelm their genetic enemies. And Hold would lead humanity into a limitless future.
Death would never be able to touch him.
What is the best well to beat the Amnion? We know that they will never stop in seeking to destroy, or rather, turn us into one of them; So how can we go about beating them?Hashi wrote:]Frankly, I took offense myself. Every fiber of my being is
outraged by such simple-minded foolhardiness. And yet I am
forced to concede that the Amnion might indeed "get the mes-
sage." A bloodthirsty honesty can hardly serve humanity's
future less well than did the Dragon's policy of monomaniacal
manipulation.
Is what Holt says true? "In the short term human production methods gave them the advantage. But over the long haul that would prove to be an illusion."
This question also has relevane to a previous topic I have made recently. How can you hurt the Amnion the most? If they are a hive-mind species, then all you have to do, is simply kill the queen, and they are all dead. But if you believe, as I do, that they are not a hive-mind; but rather they act because that is the way they are genetically coded to act.
The opposing hypothesis held that the Amnion were driven, not by a collective intelligence or hive mind, but by the essential coding of the nucleotides which comprised their RNA. They have no human-like abstract concepts for the same reason that they have no human-like pronouns: they needed none. Their imperialism was genetic in content as well as in form; in inspiration as well as in effect. Commandments analogous to the human lust for reproduction impelled their actions. They were unified and moved by impulses at once more profound, more global and more imaginable than the directive of some impossibly distant - as well as impossible homogeneous - 'queen'
If this is true, then it wouldn't matter how badly you hurt, or crush them, they would go on existing until they were extinct. Which, within the contents of the story, would be in pratical terms impossible, because the human characters in the story know near to nothing about Forbidden Space, where every single station is, or even where the Amnion planet is, or if there are any Amnion ships; so the reality of the situation at hand would make it impossible to truly eradicate the entire Amnion race from the galaxy.Adherents of the genetic imperative theory argued that no surgical strike anywhere in forbidden space could have a meaningful impact on the threat which the Amnion presented. The motley and multifarious pageant of life in the galaxy would never be safe until every single Amnion was stricken from existence.
How then, do we stop them? How can humankind beat the Amnion?
Is Holt right in his belief that his is the only way to deal with the Amnion? Is the only possible way to beat the Amnion is to get the same capabilities as them?
If this is true, then Warden did wrong by bringing down Holt Fasner. Oh, morally, he did excellently; the 'right' thing; but he could well have doomed humankind at the same time. Holt was the only character we knew who saw the realities of how hard it would be to win a war against the Amnion.
Or is Min right? by keeping what Hashi aptly called a 'bloodthirsty honesty', in regards to the Amnion? But in truth, how can this help humankind, because if the Amnion took no action, then they would be left to learn and grow unchecked; and by the time humankind decided to do take action against the Amnion, it could well be too late.
Or is the answer a completely different one from any Holt and Min had? Do any of you have any that might serve humanity better within the story?
... I'm not sure I agree, nor do I understand where SRD's story leads us to believe that the Amnion cannot be defeated. It's vaugue, yes, (just the way i like it 
