Discussion

1. The Ship: Confronting vs. Scary

At the beginning of the story, the ship looks scary. It is rather a manipulative despot than a loving parent. For example, the ship Diaspora 32 sets destinations about where to move in search of a planet for colonization. During their journey, they managed to discover more than 70 planets that were, in their opinion, suitable for colonization. However, the ship commanded, “Not suitable for colonization: we must keep looking” (Domingo, 2011, p. 150), making others obey.

It was clear that they needed the one who would be superior over them, like the ship was. Although Rhina Solomon never accepted the ship’s monotheistic religion, she always believed in something more superior than all of them. “Man will always need something superior to himself, in which to believe blindly; […], in which he can trust and which will watch out for him from inaccessible heights” (Domingo, 2011, p. 152). These passages are all about care, as people trust and believe those who take care about them. The ship in this story resembles the God to a certain degree, who always takes care and rules wisely. Up to the end of the story, the character of the Diaspora 32, changes to a comforting and even more caring.

2. Rollers’ Habitat

In the short story by Santos, the author leads the readers along with the Ship and its colonizing team to the planet called Earth Two. On its surface, some creatures live. They inhabit planet in the “small groups of insects resembling something between ants and spiders, which made strange geometric webs” among the branches of the trees (Domingo, 2011). Their golden puffy fur is rather scary for colonizers, who are trying to fight with them.

We know where the rollers live only by a small author’s description. As colonizers identify, insects live in the foothills of a mountain, hidden from the view. However, if it is required, they are ready to defend their planet from colonizers. Knowing that the Earth Two is inhabited, colonizers are upset that it will be required to try hard to fight with them. They know perfectly that this task is dangerous, and they may spend the rest of life attempting to find out how to conquer them. Rollers will not give up easily. Only by the end of this short-story, it will be clear that there was even no current need to fight with rollers to conquer this land as ship was the “Promised Land” himself.

3. The Ship at the End

The character of the ship is developing immensely throughout this story. In the beginning, we see one as a despotic figure who commands and orders when choosing destination. When the team finds a planet, he reports that it is not suitable for colonization, and then they choose another, and again the Ship reports about unsuitability. It looks like that Diaspora 32 will never get what they need – another planet for humans to live. Finally, they reach the final destination, when the Ship reaches the ground of the Earth Two. Humans find out that this planet is inhabited by small groups of insects called rollers. They live in the hills near the mountains, and it seems it will be not that easy to conquer them.

Now we see that the Ship changes his mind, and his character develops to the more serious nature. He finally concludes, “There is no world: I am the world. We don’t need to seek any destiny: I am the destiny. You can live eternally in me. Everything is in me…” (Domingo, 2011, p. 178). They took their journey lasting of more than 700 years to understand that the ship was their comforting, loving, and caring Promised Land.

4. Technology and Our Future

Domingo Santos (2011) asserts, “Everything is interrelated; everything affects everything else” (p. 185). This statement is related to both positive and negative aspects of the impacts of the human civilization on surrounding. In particular, technology created by people affects nature and world in both good and bad ways. It is not clear how it would be measured which technology would have positive or negative impact on development of the world.

On the one hand, communication technologies, if used in a proper way, would have positive impact on the relations between people, and thus would enhance development of human civilization. On the other hand, weapons designed for conquering and killing individuals would make the modern world degrade.

The story with Diaspora 32 impacts the readers’ understanding of the issue. They can realize that humans have no right to conquer other lands, even if they have no more places to live. Other planets do not belong to humans, and they should take efforts and chances to save Earth One rather than conquer Earth Two. The Ship commands and rules, and finally he calls himself the Promised Land in order to lead the team in the right way, preventing them from fighting for land with others.

Robotic technologies will also contribute much in future research experiences. For instance, recently in Japan, a “robot that can interact with humans on an emotional level” using “facial recognition technology” was created (“Meet Pepper,” 2014). Such robotic creatures can “recognize and respond to emotion and make expressions of their own” (Hanson, 2009). Other researchers think that 3-D virtual environments may open even more opportunities for people who are interested in creative technologies (Nova, 2014). In any case, development of robotic technologies will open the way to better communication between people with the help of machines.