The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Becky Chambers' Galactic Commons is a civilization brimming with history and intrigue... what better way to explore it than through the eyes of this universe's endearing equivalent to blue collar workers? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The following episode of Approaching Lightspeed discusses details about the long way to a small angry planet's world that aren't necessarily readily apparent from the earliest pages of the book. And if the more astute observer is looking hard enough into things, I suppose there's a chance that you can extrapolate some minor plot details from the things I'm going to be discussing. But since plot isn't necessarily the main driving force behind this book, I feel a little more comfortable talking about it than usual. Just know that I'm going to be painting a broad picture of this book's world, but there's still a lot to experience in terms of the interpersonal relationships between our characters. So without further ado. Is there anything in the world better than a good sitcom? I mean, for me at least, there's nothing more comforting than falling in with a bunch of familiar faces as they contend with situations that, yes, while they may err on the surreal side at times, more often than not are very similar to situations that you or I would find ourselves in. You know, in the same way that Bruce Springsteen has crafted these sweeping epics about the lowly, average working class person, so too have sitcoms really glorified the mundane and showed the beauty in the normal. It's entertainment that, when done right, is very easy to relate to, and there's something very soothing in that. A lot of these Seinfeld-esque shows about nothing have a lot of connective tissue and similarities with our own shows about nothing. And I love it when non-sitcom stories can take that same relatability and place it into the greater context of its own tale. Yeah, I don't think a lot of people would consider thrillers like Mr. Robot or Breaking Bad and what have you to be, you know, comfort viewing, but there is something to be said about how those shows have protagonists that could just as easily be us if only we'd made a few different career choices or found a different place to live. Yes, they feature some very extraordinary circumstances that the average person is probably, hopefully, never going to go through, but it takes the time in showing the viewer that these people pay taxes and go to work just like you and I do. I mean, when's the last time we saw Lu Skywalker fill out a 1040 form, right? I mean that's part of the reason why I love the Expanse so much. I did a whole episode talking at great length about how I love the fact that the Expanse isn't necessarily driven by heroes as much as it's more a collection of different voices throughout the human strata that all lend their contributions to the story. Yes, a lot of those voices are louder than others, but there's never really a sense that any of these voices are above it all. It seems like everybody in the expanse is figuring out how to make money and make a living, and they're dealing with credit unions and insurance and you know companies and whatnot. The struggles in the expanse are that much more potent because just like with Breaking Bad and Mr. Robot and Mad Men, there's struggles that are being undergone by the layman and Christian Avicarella. It always felt like there was a seat at the table in the Rocinante's galley waiting for us. And for all the things that make science fiction the transcendent form of entertainment that it is, I think even I can acknowledge that one of the places the genre falls short a lot of the time is in character. By necessity almost. I mean, the authors and the writers are usually so focused on exploring these huge, like cosmos-shattering ideas and the science that goes into them, that character work sort of takes a backseat to everything. But every now and then you'll find a gem in science fiction that is focused deeply, intimately upon character development and the relationships between the people that we come to know and hopefully love over the course of a given show or movie or book. And recently I had the pleasure of experiencing one of those gems myself. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, which was written by Becky Chambers as part of her Wayfarer series, is a book where the plot is not necessarily unimportant, but it most definitely plays second fiddle to the character development. It receives a ton of comparisons to the show Firefly, and for good reason, Firefly is famous for the level of characterization it was able to give the main cast. The writers of the show did an amazing job of fleshing out these characters' backstories and showing us their core values and the things that they hold dear, as well as their motivations and goals, and they managed to do it in the span of 14 episodes and a movie, which is pretty impressive. They managed to squeeze more charm and personality out of the crew of the Serenity in just that short span of time than a lot of shows get to in their entire run. And just like the Long Way to Small Angry Planet, Plot was never the main focus of Firefly. It was definitely there and it was definitely important, but if ever there was a creative decision between a scene that would forward the plot and give exposition, or a scene that would help us better know the character, then the show was going to go with that character scene every time. And so too is it with Becky Chambers' book. And she manages to pull it off with more aliens, less studio interference, fewer lame laser sound effects on lever action shotguns, and fewer uncomfortable allegories to the American Civil War.

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I still love you, Firefly. If I ever get around to reading those books, I'll do an episode on you too.

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But the long way to a small angry planet is very much its own beast, and one of the advantages that a book has over, say, a certain series that lasted a single season and a movie, is that the book has more opportunity and more time to better flesh out its world. It's better able to give more context behind these character motivations and interactions. And because budget is obviously not an issue when you're typing up a document in Microsoft Word or whatever, you can go as crazy as you want with it. Whereas television shows, especially science fiction shows from a couple decades ago, needed to make do with the ingenuity of prop and set designers. Where the original Star Trek series needed to dress up a puppy and call it an alien, a book can simply just describe that alien in detail and move on. So, the Wayfarer series sees the human race as newcomers to this collection or alliance of alien races known as the Galactic Commons. We learned that humanity was kind of losing the battle against climate change on Earth and things were going to hell very quickly. All of the rich and opuent folks decided to get into spaceships and fly to Mars where they would settle and build their whole new society while their old homeworld died behind them. Not content to simply be left behind to choke and die by all the rich people, the folks that remained on Earth decided to disassemble their cities and build their own great fleet, and they launched it for the interstellar vacuum between star systems. These two factions, the Solons on Mars and the Exodans who left on the Exodus fleet, were all that remained of humanity. And the Exodan fleet traveled and traveled and traveled aimlessly until a scout craft by an alien race known as the Aluans happened upon it. And the rest, as they say, is history. Humanity was inducted into the Galactic Commons, of which the Aluans were one of the three founding members, and forces from the Galactic Commons came to the Soul System to start rebuilding the devastated Earth. At the time of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, the Galactic Commons have built this huge artificial ring station around the Earth, which they use as their headquarters for their rehabilitation efforts. During their long separation, the Solons and the Exodens have developed their very distinct cultures, but now that they are both members of the Galactic Commons, there's been a sort of cultural exchange slash reunion happening between the two peoples. And for a long time these two factions hated each other. I mean, understandably so. I mean, the Solons totally did just leave the Excitons to die. But where things stand now, tensions have been kind of simmering down for the past couple decades. And something akin to understanding is slowly beginning to bloom within the two human civilizations. And since then, humanity has sort of spread throughout the Galactic Commons territory. We've been allowed to flourish on many different worlds alongside other aliens that have had histories just as storied as our own. We're kind of seen as this endearing, if not slightly annoying and immature new child in this great galactic family. At least that's the, you know, happy-go-lucky idealized version of the story. There's plenty of racism, or as it's referred to in the book, speciesism within the Galactic Commons, but it feels like no one race has much of a leg to stand on, because any critique they direct towards another species is probably something that they themselves are guilty of. Every member race of the Galactic Commons has had their own growing pains and dramas, even if some of them would like to behave as if they don't. Everybody is every bit as messed up as everybody else, and a good example of this is the Harmagian people. The Harmagians are a very economically inclined and wealthy race. They're traditionally seen as business people and traders. Part of this image, no doubt, is fueled by their rather unimposing appearance. They're these blob-looking mollusk creatures that move very slowly and gracelessly. They often need technology to assist them with basic tasks. The Hermagians are among the three founding races of the Galactic Commons, the other two being the previously mentioned Aluans and the Andriscs. Each of these races represents a sort of pillar in the Galactic Commons, where the Aluans are their military might and the Andriscs are their diplomatic wing, the Harmagians can be seen as kind of the brains behind their economy. But the thing is, the infrastructural backbone of the Galactic Commons was built upon this massive empire that the Harmagians used to control. It's said that a good portion of the galaxy was once under their sway, and they conquered species and planets and solar systems left and right. In fact, humanity as it existed when the Galactic Commons first found it would have been ripe for the picking for the Harmagian conquests. Numerous races languished under the Harmagians' rule, and it was only after a huge war with the Aluans, and the subsequent negotiations that were spearheaded by the Andrisks, that the Galactic Commons was born from the ashes. No matter how many elitist individuals within the elder races of the Galactic Commons thumbed their nose at humanity's savage ways, the fact is the Galactic Commons itself would not exist had it not been for the widespread enslavement and genocide that was carried out by one of their three major founders. An advanced and interconnected community of races probably would have sprung into being at some point, but it really can't be denied that it wouldn't have happened anywhere near as fast as it did had it not been for all the blood that was spilled by the Harmagian conquests. It's not exactly as if war is a thing of the past for the Galactic Commons either. War is very common throughout the galaxy, and while it might not be this ubiquitous, widespread reality that it is in a lot of more grim-dark settings, it hasn't exactly been driven out of existence either. The Galactic Commons doesn't have any one specific enemy and aren't waging any sort of large-scale war, but that doesn't mean that member races aren't fighting wars or that conflict isn't taking place within their spheres of influence. For example, you have a particularly nasty war which is being fought between the Aluans and this race of spider-like creatures known as the Rosk. You have the Grum, which aren't Galactic Commons members per se, but the members of their species live on Galactic Commons worlds, who have fought wars amongst themselves that were so devastating that it reduced their entire species-wide population to what is believed to be under 300 individuals. You have the various wars that were fought amongst the Quellen, which are these lobster-like aliens that kind of blows the lid off of a lot of the more unsavory aspects of the Galactic Commons' culture. The Quen have a very troubled history with things like eugenics and cloning, and millions have died due to the various conflicts that have been fought over these things. As a result, the Quen are, understandably, extremely wary of these kinds of practices. They've outlawed cloning wholesale, and clones are not considered to be deserving of the same rights as any other sentient being may be. A clone in Quellen's space can be hunted down and imprisoned just for the crime of existing. And the thing is, the Galactic Commons lets it happen. In fact, the Galactic Commons' own laws don't look too kindly upon clones, even if they're not going to persecute them as readily and with as much fervor as the Quellen would. And the same goes for artificial intelligences too. AIs are everywhere in the Galactic Commons society. I mean they run spaceships and heavy machinery and they work as assistants and receptionists. And very often they're programmed with sentience so that they have every bit the capacity to feel and dream and experience emotion as any sentient being would. But because of the Galactic Commons' general distrust of artificial intelligence, AIs might not experience lives that are of as high a quality as a general Galactic Commons citizen would simply because of all of the constraints that are placed upon them. For example, it's not even legal for an AI to possess a free roaming body. They're always incorporated into the greater machine that they are serving as sort of the interface for. The point I'm trying to make with all this is that even though the Galactic Commons is generally well-meaning and enlightened, if you're not a legally recognized citizen, which AIs and clones and non-member species are not, you're not going to enjoy the same level of privilege as a citizen would. You are treated as second class in basically every way you can be. There are scenes in which AIs will be very surprised or even suspicious of some of our characters treating them with any basic modicum of respect, because the general Galactic Commons populace usually just passes them by or extracts some labor out of them and then moves on with their day. And make no mistake, humanity has wasted no time in making themselves very much at home in these civilizational vices that the Galactic Commons perpetuates. Most notably perhaps being in the sale of extremely destructive or otherwise very cruel weapons to the various sides in these wars. But perhaps the most controversial policy decision the Galactic Commons has made thus far has been in their overtures to an alien race known as the Toremi. The Terremi are very inscrutable people who fly in these sort of nomadic fleets that circle around the Galactic Core. The Galactic Core has historically been very much inaccessible to the Galactic Commons because of the various territorial claims by Toremi clans. The fuel source that makes the Galactic Commons tick is this substance called Ambi, and it can only be found in little pittances throughout the galaxy, but in the Galactic Core it is plentiful. And the Galactic Commons is interested in inducting the Toremi as a member species so that they can access the Ambi that is present in their home. The reasons behind an alliance like that are dubious enough as it is, and there's an added wrinkle that the Toremi are almost incomprehensible to the people of the more mainstream parts of the galaxy. The Toremi believe that the universe is following a certain pattern and that all life should adhere itself to this pattern. And they react extremely violently to anything that they perceive to be diverting from this pattern. They're all about consensus and harmony, but when that consensus and harmony is not reached, things get out of hand very fast. In fact, there's a particularly insane anecdote that is mentioned in the story that a delegation of Harmodians witnessed a bunch of Turemi tearing each other apart because they couldn't agree on whether the Harmodians were even sentient. For their entire evolutionary history until very recently, the Teremi have been divided biologically into two sexes, but recently parthogenetic individuals have been cropping up, Turemi who are capable of giving birth to offspring without any kind of sexual reproduction. As you might imagine, this is a completely out of left field development that doesn't have any place in the general Turemi patterns. And as a result of the various clans having no idea what to make of it or how to handle it, it set the entire race into this killing frenzy that's been going on for the past couple decades. If the Galactic Corps wasn't a dangerous place before because of the Turemi claims on the area, it's now an absolute death trap because of all the Teremi ships that are constantly killing each other. The citizens of the Galactic Commons do not trust the Taremi clans, and for good reason, and yet the Galactic Commons government is trying to bring them into the fold to better access the resources they control. The Galactic Commons is built upon this backbone of wormholes. The member races are not very comfortable with researching faster-than-light technology, and they opt instead to punch these small localized holes into space-time in order to connect the various sections of the Galactic Commons' territory. It's very precise and very dangerous work, and it's certainly not without its risks to space-time, but those risks are way tamer and way more localized than the pure unadulterated middle finger breaking the light speed barrier is to the laws of physics. Punching your way out of our reality and into a murkier, more unknowable reality, and navigating that insanity to get to somewhere else within our own is something that sounds very easy to screw up and has devastating effects if you do. You could quite literally blink yourself and your whole ship out of existence. And this is why the ships of the Galactic Commons employ navigators more specifically, these navigators called cyanat pears. The cyanats are creatures who, when they reach a certain age, inject themselves with this kind of virus known as the Whisperer, which transforms them into a cyanat pear. The Whisperer causes a cyanat to stop seeing itself as one single individual, but rather two, and this is implied to be because the virus may or may not be sentient in its own right. The virus allows the cyanat pair to see the sort of patterns and pathways that exist within this underlying layer of reality, which the Galactic Commons uses to build their wormholes. Without the Cyanet pairs and their ability to make sense of all this crazy interdimensional nonsense, the Galactic Commons would never have been able to build this network of wormholes that they rely so heavily upon. As for the Cyanet pears themselves, they seem to hold the Whisperer in a very reverential light. They and their entire society apply a huge amount of religious significance to the virus, and this may simply be because the virus is taking over its hosts' minds, but the thing is nobody in the Galactic Commons knows enough about the Whisperer to say for sure, because the Cyanets just simply don't let anybody research or replicate it for themselves. Despite the fact that the Whisperer shortens a Cyanet pair's lifespan by a significant amount, they're extremely defensive about keeping its secrets and would never even entertain the notion of purging themselves of the virus, even if it is to save their own lives. There is super alien presence in a universe where multi-species crews and workplaces are already pretty much the norm. And that's another really entertaining aspect of this book too. We don't only get to see things from human perspectives, we also have characters that hail from the Andrisc and the Grum peoples. And it's really fun seeing everybody react to and embrace one another's differences. You have characters that, you know, talk about how humans have such a terrible sense of smell and that how they envy that humans can find themselves in certain environments without having to wear rebreathers to keep all of the odors out. And then there's other parts where you get to watch our protagonists who lived a kind of sheltered life amongst the soulens on Mars, have her mind blown by the various anecdotes about Andrisk family dynamics or the way that Grums transition gender as they go through the different phases of their lives. You know, all of these scary and unknowable and unintelligible alien creatures that we typically see in science fiction are extremely fascinating in their own right, but there's really just something to be said about just not to sound like a cliche, but just how human all of these aliens are. But not so human that the things that make them unique don't shine through in their own way. It's always neat to see stories that have progressed past the confusing, you know, contact stages of these relationships, and actually show various characters of different species just coexisting with one another. It's kind of a nice hopeful look of what our own world can be. It all scratches that part of your brain that yearns for cultural exchange or life stories that are outside of your typical experience. The construction of all these wormholes that make up the Galactic Commons transportation network is seen as this sort of quaint blue-collar job. And that's where our hero ship, the Wayfarer, comes in. But even calling it a hero ship implies that this is a ship that's crewed by trained killers or mavericks, and that's simply not the case. It's as comfy and wholesome a cast of characters as you can probably get in science fiction while still being super entertaining. But in any case, the crew of the Wayfarer, which is led by Captain Ashby Santoso, makes an honest living building wormholes that connect the various sections of Galactic Commons territory. And it is they who receive the job to travel to Turemi Space and punch a wormhole from there to Galactic Commons space in order to finally cement this alliance that they're trying to build. This contract is a huge make or break moment for Captain Ashby, and if the crew completes it, they stand to make millions. And speaking of this crew, like I said, it's not comprised of, you know, badasses or anything. Take our protagonist, for example. Rosemary Harper isn't hired onto the Wayfarer as any kind of muscle or security or gunner or anything like that. By the way, the Wayfarer not only isn't armed, but Captain Ashby actually explicitly prohibits guns from being brought aboard his ship, no questions asked. Anyway, Rosemary's not muscle or security or anything like that, but she's hired on as a clerk. She's there to keep the records of Ashby's operations straight so that they can satisfy the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Galactic Commons. She basically represents the captain's olive branch to the Galactic Commons, saying, Hey, listen, I am a law-abiding citizen. I'm a good, upstanding, hard worker who keeps his paperwork nice and tidy and organized. Please give me more legitimate work. And, as evidenced by this job to connect to Remy and Common Space, that's exactly what happens. Yes, these people have their own dramas and histories and backstories, but none of them are there to fight the power or take down the Galactic Commons or circumvent its laws or seek vengeance against the Harmagians or anything like that. They're all just there to do their job and to hopefully do it alongside people they like or perhaps even love. This isn't a story of, you know, huge bombastic plot developments and crazy action set pieces or or galaxy shattering paradigm shifts. It's all a lot simpler than that. It's all a lot less stressful than all that. Most of the stories I've covered on this podcast thus far have all been kind of dark and dramatic, but this book is so much more wholesome and easygoing than all that. You know, hanging out with Rosemary and Sisyx and Ashby gives me the same feeling as I would have after watching a good episode of Scrubs. There's a lot of universe to explore, and there's a lot of wider context behind everything, just like in real life. But when you get right down to it, the story really is just a nice zoomed in snapshot of a bunch of people getting to know each other as they make their long way to a small, angry planet.