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[Assistant] Uhm, and then, eh, the book kind of ends in, eh, as he makes this kind of pilgrimage to Arizona. Uhm, it's really beautiful. I, I guess I'll just read you a quick passage, if that's alright. Uhm.


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[Assistant] On the farther side of the field, just beyond the curtains of snow, the sky was torn away, and the angels were descending out of a brilliant blue summer. Their huge faces streaked with light and full of pity. The sight of them cut through my heart and down the knuckles of my spine, and if there had been anything in my bowels, I would have messed my pants from fear.


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[Assistant] Georgie opened his arms and cried out, It's the drive-in, man. The drive-in. I wasn't sure what these words meant.


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[Assistant] They're showing movies in a fucking blizzard, Georgie screamed. I see. I thought it was something else, I said.


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[Assistant] Then there was tinkly music of which I could very nearly make out the tune. Famous movie stars rode bicycles beside a river, laughing out of their gigantic lovely mouths.


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[Assistant] Uhm, so I guess that gives you an idea of it. Uhm, I think it's great. I think you should vote for it. It's a quick read. It's really riveting and enthralling and, uh, I find it a really incredible book. So, Jesus' Son.


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[Assistant] It's probably like everybody, everybody. Not that much diversity.


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[Assistant] Welcome to episode one of the Hypnoth's Conundrum, a six-part sci-fi bedtime story.


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[Assistant] In this series, we'll be joining the members of the Starship Rem.


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[Assistant] On a dreamy adventure through space and time to distant planets in the great beyond.


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[Assistant] These logs are transmitted to the Interstellar Command Center as a way of tracking the mission's progress. As the Chief Historian of Interstellar Command, my job


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[Assistant] Is to review the logs as they come in each evening. So in each episode of this series,


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[Assistant] Take a moment to relax and observe your breath.


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[Assistant] Just minutes ago, the Starship Rem left docking bay 8 at the Rynad space station.


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[Assistant] What a sight it was, watching her sleek hull glide smoothly between the docking bay doors, ready to begin its first mission.


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[Assistant] We're going in search of the fabled Hypnos Flower.


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[Assistant] Allow our crews to venture into deep space without aging.


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[Assistant] Cryo chambers keep space travellers' physical bodies safe by lowering their body temperatures.


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[Assistant] Of course, we've taken the REM out on test flights, but that was nothing compared to this.


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[Assistant] And I spent a good many years as a first officer before that, under the command of then Captain Anders. Now, Anders is an Admiral. When she was promoted,


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[Assistant] When the crew went in to fix the thrusters, they found other related issues, and, well, it just went downhill from there.


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[Assistant] By the time we finally got the north way out of the station,


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[Assistant] So we flew back to Interstellar Command and waited for a new assignment.


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[Assistant] But over the next five years on the Northway, we did have our fair share of adventures.


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[Assistant] The REM is a brand new, state of the art, deep space rated, first class science vessel.


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[Assistant] You should have seen the faces of the science officers when they first stepped inside.


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[Assistant] And the doctor's been outfitted with the finest tools of the trade currently on the market. I'm not a doctor myself, but


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[Assistant] My engineers couldn't be happier with the insides of this ship.


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[Assistant] No one on an interstellar command crew has ever actually seen a hypnos flower before. But we know they're out there somewhere.


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[Assistant] Shrouded in a layer of bolonite gas.


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[Assistant] None of our ships have ever been equipped with sensors calibrated to penetrate bolognaite gas.


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[Assistant] And if you can't get accurate readings of the surface of a planet, you can't send down an away team. It would be too dangerous.


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[Assistant] The best minds have been working in the Interstellar Command development labs.


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[Assistant] To build sensors that can read through bolognaite gas. And this ship is the first to carry them.


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[Assistant] If all goes well, we'll orbit the planet for a few hours to test the sensors, and then, if it's safe, we'll send down our first away team.


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[Assistant] The away team will be made up of our lead science officer, the doctor, two support science staff, and a security crew member.


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[Assistant] Like all large science vessels of this class.


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[Assistant] The REM has two small away shuttles for short-range missions.


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[Assistant] It's challenging to land a vessel this large on a planet's surface.


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[Assistant] So we typically want to keep the ship in orbit.


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[Assistant] And send down the shuttle with a smaller crew instead.


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[Assistant] For this mission, the away team will take the shuttle Baikal, which has been outfitted with the same sensors and a state-of-the-art communications relay.


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[Assistant] We should be able to talk to the shuttle when it's on the planet's surface.


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[Assistant] Once on dawn, the away team will first conduct a survey of the surrounding area. They'll document the local plants and wildlife, and keep an eye out for the hypnos flower.


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[Assistant] One of the traders provided the captain of the oceanus with a sketch of the flower. It looks to be fairly small, with a trumpet-shaped head.


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[Assistant] The trader apparently didn't have any coloring tools, so it's just drawn in pencil. But he told the captain the flower is dark purple, with black around the edges.


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[Assistant] We may return to the surface to collect additional flowers over the following days.


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[Assistant] Or we may return to the Rynad station with our finding. It will depend, I suppose, on what we find.


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[Assistant] The science officers were crowded around a table in the galley. I overheard a bit of their conversation.


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[Assistant] And they seem excited to be part of this mission. If we do find the Hypnos flower, and it does what we think it does, this mission could make history. This could be the key to real, safe, deep space travel.


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[Assistant] That would open up a universe of possibilities for a crew like this. To be able to travel to the far reaches of known space and not age a day? It would be incredible. The potential for exploration would be limitless.


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[Assistant] That's why Interstellar Command assigned the very best crew to the REM.


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[Assistant] I've worked with some of the officers before on the Northway, but there are a few new faces too.


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[Assistant] This is the first time First Officer Farrell and I have been posted together. I've heard good things.


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[Assistant] The science lead, Jax, was with me on the north way.


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[Assistant] Jax is argolian, which is great for a science officer.


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[Assistant] Argolians can see twice as many colours as humans and can sense temperature differences to an eighth of a degree.


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[Assistant] Dr. Trelo is a specialist in astrobotanical epidemiology.


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[Assistant] It will be the doctor's job to work on extracting the components of the hypnos flower that can be used for deep space cryosleep. Our lead engineer Ro Nez helped build the ship and nose the REM from the inside out.


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[Assistant] She'll be responsible for keeping the REM running at top performance throughout the mission.


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[Assistant] She was posted to the doc at Rynad, straight from the academy. And I've heard...


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[Assistant] She's one of the best minds to graduate in years. She's not really a people person, but she doesn't have to be as the engineer. So long as she can speak to the ship, we'll be fine.


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[Assistant] And it's a newer model of the cellic line of synthetic AI.


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[Assistant] It's supposed to have the most interactive info chip to date.


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[Assistant] That means it should be able to communicate like a living, breathing crew member. Even though it's an android.


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[Assistant] Right now, we have the Android working on ship systems, since it can interface directly with the RAM.


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[Assistant] In total on the REM, we have 216 crew. They work in shifts, so the ship is never without a competent crew, manning all the stations on board.


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[Assistant] We have several scheduled meal times throughout the shifts.


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[Assistant] Though we have enough space, so each crew member can have their own private quarters.


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[Assistant] It's meant to have enough living quarters to house special research groups or delegations for an extended period of time. So when it's just the base crew, people can have some privacy, which I know they appreciate.


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[Assistant] It's quite a responsibility looking out for all of these people. I can honestly say it's an honor to be trusted with this mission.


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[Assistant] We had the chance to see two of the most striking planets in this system. There was the gas giant, Thorlop, and Solon 7, the ringed planet.


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[Assistant] Stalop is larger than most of the other planets in this system combined. Though we were travelling a safe distance away.


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[Assistant] It still filled our viewing windows as we passed. It's a hazy brownish-purple colour.


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[Assistant] With enormous swirling gas clouds. The clouds move and intermingle.


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[Assistant] Creating wild spirals that ebb and flow, As though pulled by some unseen tide below.


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[Assistant] That fade to a chocolate brown along the arms.


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[Assistant] Maronite is the most prevalent gas on Thorlock, which creates its distinctive colour.


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[Assistant] It's like a bouquet of flowers that's been tossed in the air, First Officer Farrell said. I suppose that's the best description I've heard.


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[Assistant] Ultramarine is one of the deepest, most vibrant shades of blue you can possibly imagine. It's such a rich hue, it's almost difficult to look at directly.


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[Assistant] I wonder what Jack sees when she looks at Solon VII. I imagine it's beautiful. The red coloration on the surface comes from all the Vigon in the soil.


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[Assistant] They're really quite lovely, and sturdy too.


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[Assistant] That's why I'm so hopeful about the Hypnos flower. It will get us one step closer.


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[Assistant] To finding out some of these mysteries of the universe.


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[Assistant] Bolognite gas is a muddy brown color, so it's not much of a looker from the outside. But underneath that gas, there could be a desert, or a rainforest.


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[Assistant] It's that this mission will be one to remember.


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[Assistant] No matter how hospitable or attractive Dawn is or isn't.


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[Assistant] Well, it's getting late. It's time to settle into my new quarters. They're quite spacious, really, with a bed and a table and a large work desk in the corner under the picture window.


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[Assistant] All of the crew is present and accounted for, and the second shift is about to begin.


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[Assistant] First Officer Dorin Farrell has command of the bridge until 0700 hours.


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[Assistant] This is Captain Garrick, signing off. Goodnight.


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[Assistant] And the Lead Science Officer's daily log is arriving as I speak.


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[Assistant] But now, let's begin with episode 2, the log of lead science officer Jax. Mission, the Hypnos Conundrum, day 2.


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[Assistant] We arrived at dawn late last night. This planet is the home of the hypnos flower.


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[Assistant] When we arrived at dawn, we went straight into orbit around the planet.


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[Assistant] The first five planets are Milikos, Nassida, Phrex, Drex and Sovor. Dawn has three moons, called Dawn on One, Two and Three.


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[Assistant] We won't be traveling to any of the moons on this trip, but they're circling this planet with us, though we're in a much lower orbit than any of them. From orbit, dawn is a deep, velvety brown with a touch of purple, like the color of argolian bean chocolate. I love argolian bean chocolate. It tastes like summer. And when it melts in your mouth,


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[Assistant] I'm sure Dawn doesn't taste like chocolate, but it certainly looks like it from above.


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[Assistant] It's interesting to hear my fellow human crew members talk about Dawn's color. They just say it's brown. Well, yes, it's brown, but it's so much more than just brown.


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[Assistant] I wish I could somehow give my human friends my senses, so they could see what I see, hear what I hear, and smell what I smell.


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[Assistant] Us argolians can see more than two times the colors that humans can. I'd like to see it from their perspective too.


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[Assistant] I guess we all bring our different strengths to the mission, don't we? Anyways, Dawn's color is due to bolognite gas, which makes up most of the atmosphere of the planet.


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[Assistant] Interstellar Command first encountered bolognite gas on the planet Vephra in the Durgon system. An away team was on the surface of Vephra.


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[Assistant] They found they couldn't register what was on the other side of the bolognaite gas.


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[Assistant] As much as they may have wanted to go down to the surface, they just couldn't, since they had no idea what they'd be flying into.


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[Assistant] For the past several years, Interstellar Command development teams have been working to build a new type of sensor that can actually penetrate Bollenite gas. And the REM is the very first ship in the fleet to carry them.


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[Assistant] Both of our shuttles, the Baikal and the Aral, are also outfitted with the sensors.


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[Assistant] That's how I got to lead the very first away team down to the surface of a bolognite atmosphere planet.


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[Assistant] We took the Baikal down just after 0800 this morning. It was me, Dr. Traylor, two of my science crew, and a security officer, just in case. The sensors worked like a dream.


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[Assistant] We decided to aim for a hilly area near one of the largest water sources on the surface.


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[Assistant] Surrounded on all sides by massive trees.


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[Assistant] They both have sessile leaves with no stems, but the Lollops grow to a maximum length of two meters, while these were as large as four meters.


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[Assistant] We disembarked from the shuttle and began our scans of the clearing and nearby rainforest.


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[Assistant] We found no large wildlife in the immediate area. There were some smaller insects, and a few ground beetles, but that was about it.


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[Assistant] However, when we began to scan the plant life, what we found was incredible.


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[Assistant] There were over 1.7 million types of flowering plants alone. That's twice as many as on Durin.


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[Assistant] There were more than 78,000 types of trees, over 12 meters in height, which is mind-boggling. While my title is lead science officer, I was trained as an astrobotanist.


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[Assistant] Specializing in tropical and subtropical species.


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[Assistant] After we finished our initial scans, we began our on-foot survey of the nearby rainforest. The canopy was dense and lush.


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[Assistant] There were at least 36 distinct shades of green in the overhead folio.


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[Assistant] We all stood there in silence, listening to the sounds of the forest around us.


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[Assistant] The small beetle hummed the top of a large leaf.


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[Assistant] Tiny insects chittered in the undergrowth around my feet.


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[Assistant] I heard the long, hollow call of some type of bird off in the distance. It echoed from tree to tree before turning to a whisper many miles away.


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[Assistant] Rivulets of water ran down the spines of the larger leaves and sent heavy droplets down to the underbrush below. I listened to them plop to the ground, one at a time.


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[Assistant] And burst, sending even smaller rivulets down tiny blades of grass to the earth below.


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[Assistant] The rainforest had its own song, it seemed. It was a song of water, growth, and life. There's no doubt Dawn is bustling with life.


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[Assistant] After a moment's rest, we continued our hike through the trees. The ground crunched beneath our feet.


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[Assistant] It was nearly impossible to dig down under the leaves, stems, stalks and moss to actually reach the dirt below.


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[Assistant] The flowers around us were absolutely wonderful. They were tiny cerulean blue flowers with little fluted petals that smelled like lilac and jasmine perfume. Another of my favorites.


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[Assistant] The entrances were just over two meters tall.


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[Assistant] The security officer and I walked inside about a quarter of a mile, and then turned back to the entrance.


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[Assistant] I mention the caves because that is where we finally caught our first glimpse of the elusive hypnos flower.


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[Assistant] Snaking around the entrance of the first cave was a long, thick vine.


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[Assistant] The vine was a deep emerald green and short rounded leaves poked out from the stalk every few centimeters.


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[Assistant] Dotting the vine at regular intervals were small trumpet-shaped purple blooms with distinctive yellow starbursts at the centre.


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[Assistant] Near the starburst, the petals were a deep amethyst. They darkened to indigo about three quarters of the way up, then to an eggplant, then to jet black at the tips.


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[Assistant] Dr. Traylor also collected a sample from a nearby vine for his research. I secured my sample in a large tube, which I then put back in my rucksack.


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[Assistant] Describing in great detail the location of the flowers, nearby plants, insects and beetle, and the weather conditions in the area.


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[Assistant] I won't go into such great detail here, but I will note some of the more interesting finds.


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[Assistant] I'm curious about what happens to the leaves as they decay that makes them more palatable to the beetles.


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[Assistant] There were also six small moth-like creatures circling a crimson flower approximately one meter to the left of the cave's entrance.


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[Assistant] There were four cream-coloured grubs burrowing beneath the vine.


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[Assistant] About 26 centimeters from the sample end, no wildlife specimens were collected.


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[Assistant] Our away team then packed up our bags and returned, via the same route we'd taken, to the clearing and the shuttle Baikal. We powered up the Baikal.


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[Assistant] By sending a quick message to the bridge, letting them know what we'd found.


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[Assistant] Sending that message was one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done, aside from actually finding the flower and exploring this barely known planet.


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[Assistant] The security officer wanted a chance to pilot the shuttle.


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[Assistant] So I gave him the controls to take us back up to the REMS shuttle bay. He seemed happy to have had that opportunity.


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[Assistant] I took my sample back to Science Lab 2. Over the next few days,


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[Assistant] The doctor and I will be the two people working most directly with the plant, though we'll be doing different types of research. Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention. Once we got back to the REM,


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[Assistant] I noticed the sample was giving off a faint odour of pecans. I asked the rest of the away team if they could smell it.


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[Assistant] I suppose I'm not surprised none of the human crew members can detect it. The reason I'm adding this information


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[Assistant] Is that the sample cases are supposed to be airtight?


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[Assistant] This is the first time I've detected an odor from a sample exuding from an airtight sample case. I have to remember,


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[Assistant] The work of figuring out how to use it has only just begun.


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[Assistant] This is Lead Science Officer Jax, signing off. Good night.


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[Assistant] I must spend at least half my days talking to computers or conduits, or the engine of this ship. I guess it's to be expected as the lead engineer.


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[Assistant] I mean, they still have moods and opinions, that's for sure. But I've always found them more predictable than people. If you learn a ship, you can really know a ship. I'm still getting to know the REM. It's a new ship, with all new, sleek and shiny parts.


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[Assistant] I had a lot of fun being the first engineer to climb into some of the holding areas and pull off the wall coverings.


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[Assistant] I was the first to touch many of the control panels on this ship.


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[Assistant] I know that probably sounds silly, but I think it was all the flashing lights on ships that made me want to become an engineer in the first place. As a kid, I used to look over my uncle's shoulder. He was an engineer too.


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[Assistant] I'd watch him poke and prod at all the flashing lights on his circuit boards. He'd connect this to that, and a light would go from red to green, and it would be fixed like new. It was like magic to me, and it still is if I'm being honest. Every time I figure out a problem on a ship, I get that little surge of pride and wonder.


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[Assistant] Ever since the away team came back with that Hypnos flower, my ship hasn't been working the way it's supposed to.


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[Assistant] I know this could be the scientific discovery of all time, but it is wreaking havoc on the REM.


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[Assistant] I'm not sure if the scientists just didn't know, but...


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[Assistant] Nobody informed me the flower grows like a weed.


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[Assistant] Yesterday, the teen came back from the surface of dawn. Jax, the lead science officer, put her plant trimmings in the lab. Overnight, the flower went crazy. Jax sent me a message this morning.


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[Assistant] Telling me to get down to the science lab as quickly as I could. I was already awake, of course, cleaning the floor panels in the engine room. I packed up my toolkit and headed for the lab.


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[Assistant] The flower sample grew this giant tendril that snaked up the wall.


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[Assistant] It also grew a bunch of smaller tendrils that were hanging down from the ceiling and sprouting new growth of their own.


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[Assistant] The tendrils were all covered with these bright green leaves and dark purple flowers.


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[Assistant] The plant had grown straight through two empty specimen tanks, breaking the casing on both sides.


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[Assistant] That's now what I can only describe as a miniature jungle.


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[Assistant] In some places, the ends hang down nearly to head height, all covered in leaves and flowers.


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[Assistant] Of all the parts of the plant that were where they shouldn't be.


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[Assistant] Means there's a criss-crossing series of large shafts and conduits that run through the walls. It's how you can get to one spot or another without taking the hallways, for example.


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[Assistant] I spend a lot of my day crawling through shafts to get to the hard to reach places on the ship.


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[Assistant] I couldn't be sure exactly how much had been affected. So I grumbled at Jax. She was nice about it.


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[Assistant] Then I got all my tools and went for a climb.


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[Assistant] I removed the grill panel that leads to the shaft and climbed inside.


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[Assistant] Luckily the vine followed the bottom of the shaft, so there was still plenty of room for me to edge along beside it. What I found was not encouraging. Through the night,


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[Assistant] This plant had sent its snaky arms through every open space it could find. Its leaves, flowers, buds and stems had pushed open control panels.


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[Assistant] And encircled every button, switch and knob that it came across.


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[Assistant] One small, particularly determined tendril made its way back to a wiring bundle that's pretty key to the propulsion systems. It had crawled in and out between all the wires. The whole thing was a mess. I followed that piece as far as I could,


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[Assistant] The end of the tendril had shoved the wiring out of the way and jammed up the circuitry. About five minutes after I found it, the entire propulsion system went down.


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[Assistant] Now, that's not a huge problem since we're in orbit around the planet anyway. But it is problematic for me as the ship's engineer. And it's a mystery I still haven't solved. Somehow.


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[Assistant] I have to find a way to bypass the affected systems.


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[Assistant] And make sure new growth from the plant doesn't cause similar issues again.


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[Assistant] I've been working closely with Jax in the science lab.


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[Assistant] That didn't work, and we ended up with a very wet floor. On my part,


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[Assistant] I've tried clipping the tendrils back and removing the pieces from the wiring, but every time I cut away the plants


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[Assistant] So basically, I just have two vines instead of one.


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[Assistant] The first time I tried to cut back the plant, I put the clipping in my pocket.


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[Assistant] And she said they had no reason to suspect it would grow like this. Apparently down on the surface of dawn, the plant was pretty well contained.


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[Assistant] There was no mini jungle of hypnos flowers hanging from the top of the cave.


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[Assistant] All in all, it seemed like a very orderly and rather small vine, she said.


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[Assistant] In fact, that's why they didn't even bring back that large of a sample. They didn't want to take too much of the plant.


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[Assistant] She had taken some scans when she was on the surface, and she showed them to me. It's true what she said. The vine really wasn't that big.


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[Assistant] Now she's trying to figure out what it is about this ship that's encouraging it to grow so quickly.


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[Assistant] Apparently it's the perfect environment for growth, but nobody can figure out why.


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[Assistant] He's analyzing the molecular structure of the hypnos flower, trying to understand how it grows and what supports its rapid growth here.


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[Assistant] He's had a challenging time keeping his sample under control too, from what I hear. I guess it managed to break his first microscope.


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[Assistant] So he switched it over to the larger scanner. So far, it seems to be working alright. We can't wait to hear what he finds.


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[Assistant] Normally crew members record their logs in their quarters at night before they go to sleep. But I've got so much work to do. Call it damage control if you like.


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[Assistant] Especially when the vine has wound itself around wires, as it has back here. What I have to do is tape the leading end and trace it back through the wires, carefully untangling it as I go. I've got this vine mostly untangled now, and I'm laying it on the ground. I'm hoping


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It will just keep growing straight along the floor.


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[Assistant] When I was at the engineering academy, I remember learning about another kind of vine that grows in the jungles of the planet Lavoron.


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[Assistant] That vine can grow hundreds of feet in length from a single point of origin.


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[Assistant] When scientists first discovered it in the thick tangle of trees there.


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[Assistant] Looping back on itself countless times in an effort to fill as much space as it could in the dense undergrowth. That plant could only be contained


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[Assistant] by painting a thin mask of sugar on the end you wanted to slow down I only remember it now


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[Assistant] And she got really excited and tested it out on this vine. It didn't seem to have any effect at all.


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[Assistant] She also told me lots about the plant that I can't remember now. She seemed to have fun describing it all though. I think she's really into plants. I like plants well enough.


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[Assistant] But I just don't get that excited about them most of the time.


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[Assistant] I think I prefer metal and useful composites, which makes sense for an engineer. Well.


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[Assistant] I'm just about finished uncoiling what I can of the vine back here. I keep yawning and I'm starting to get tired. I mean, I have been awake much longer than normal.


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[Assistant] Who knows how long I'll have to keep redirecting and clearing these vines out. And I've been at it for quite a while now. Physical work is always tiring, especially when you're cramped in an air shaft.


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[Assistant] Almost like the inevitable reach of these vines through the crevices of the ship.


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[Assistant] But it would be worth it to get a professional opinion. You never know what might happen.


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[Assistant] This is lead engineer Ronez signing off. Good night.


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[Assistant] My vision blurs until all I can see is a glossy landscape of colours and textures rather than objects around the room. My body feels as though there's a comforting weight on it.


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[Assistant] When I did, I quickly drifted off to that place behind my eyelids, where everything was black.


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[Assistant] There seemed to be but a trivial problem from long ago that could bother me no more. My thoughts went to my family and friends.


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[Assistant] And then my visions turn to the other members of my crew. To Jax in her lab. And to the captain at the bridge. To Ro in her engine room. And the first officer in his quarters.


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[Assistant] I thought of them going about their daily tasks, making sure the ship is running smoothly.


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[Assistant] To why my research is critical for the crew. I'm the doctor.


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[Assistant] I'm the one who knows the most about this strange plant we found on the surface of dawn.


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[Assistant] I'm the one leading the research into deep space travel, choir chambers, and suspended aging through deep sleep.


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[Assistant] I'm the one who knows the power of the Hypnos flower better than anyone. And that's why I have to stay awake.


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[Assistant] The practical application of this flower could forever change the way we travel long distances. We already have choir chamber technology.


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[Assistant] Which allows us to drop a person's core temperature very low, keeping them in a kind of stasis. The hypnos flower allows that person to sleep deeply and comfortably, used together


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[Assistant] Both would allow crew members to travel for months or even years without aging and without feeling any discomfort at all. We could program ships.


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[Assistant] We had envisioned finding the flower and bringing it back to the ship for testing. But something's gone wrong.


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[Assistant] How to prevent the hypnos flower from working so well, so fast, and what to do if it did.


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[Assistant] were for closely monitored tests and the application of the plant in a controlled setting.


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[Assistant] All thick growth, hanging from the ceiling like a dense jungle.


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[Assistant] And the crew just a part of some larger experiment. Everywhere you look, there's green.


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[Assistant] There are tendrils with dark purple flowers and thick leaves hanging from the ceilings, curling down the walls.


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[Assistant] Running along the floors and around tables and chairs. The inside of the ship is damp the way a greenhouse gets.


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[Assistant] It's what happens when there's more plant life than any other in an enclosed space. It's beautiful in its own way, watching this plant grow untamed. It's wild and raw.


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[Assistant] So unlike what we've come to expect from traveling through space. But the greatest problem is, we were right. We were right about the hypnos flower. We were so incredibly right. It works. And I have no idea how to make it stop.


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[Assistant] And a member of the science crew didn't report for their shifts. They were found still in their quarters


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[Assistant] Tucked away snugly under their sheets, fast asleep. I was called to check on them, but nothing I did could wake them up.


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[Assistant] She said she had been feeling unusually tired as she worked late, uncoiling the plant from a wiring bundle. I told her then to try and stay awake. She fell asleep at the end of the meeting. She laid her head down on the table, despite our protests.


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[Assistant] It was as though she were overtaken by the uncontrollable need to sleep.


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[Assistant] This morning, Jax also didn't report for her shift. We found her in her quarters too, with her head on the table in her living area.


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[Assistant] She'd been writing in a journal in an attempt to stay awake. But sleep, it seems, won out.


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[Assistant] It makes sense that Ro and Jax were two of the first to fall under the Hypnos Flower spell. They had both been in close contact with it early on.


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[Assistant] By late afternoon today, more than half the crew had fallen asleep.


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[Assistant] Some lay down in the hallways and corridors. Others made it to their quarters.


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[Assistant] Still more fell asleep at the tables in the mess hall, at their stations on the bridge, and at their workspaces around the ship.


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[Assistant] We moved as many of them as we could to their beds, but after a while, it became too much to do. We made sure they were all comfortable where they were.


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[Assistant] The ship monitors the vital signs of all the crew members at all times. I've been checking the stats every 15 minutes.


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[Assistant] About an hour ago, the captain and first officer fell asleep. Now, I'm the only one left who's still awake. It's like we've become a ghost ship. Naturally, I've been going over what went wrong. What did we miss?


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[Assistant] When the away team collected the sample on the surface of dawn, I know they were careful, but there must have been something there in its natural environment that kept the plant in check.


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[Assistant] I've gone over all the readings from the planet's surface and tested small portions of the vine in atmospherically controlled containers, but it doesn't make a difference.


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[Assistant] My guess is it was something far more simple. I think...


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[Assistant] There must have been something on the surface of the planet that used the vine as a food source.


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[Assistant] But failed to bring the kind of creature that somehow prevents its unrestrained growth. It would account for why we can't get it to stop now.


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[Assistant] It's a classic situation of an invasive plant species. When brought to a new environment, without other species evolved to keep it in check, the plant takes over.


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[Assistant] To anyone listening, if you can travel to the surface of dawn,


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[Assistant] Try and find what subdues the hypnos flower.


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[Assistant] Figure out why it doesn't grow so wildly there.


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[Assistant] The other forms of life on Dawn were not asleep, so they must have some way of avoiding the Hypnos flower's effects.


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[Assistant] That's the other problem, you see. I have no idea how to wake anyone up. I've tried a range of stimulants, electric stimulation, every means we know of. Nothing works.


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[Assistant] Occasionally trading ships pass through, but that's it.


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[Assistant] Anyone must also take great care in coming aboard the REM. The power of the hypnos flower lies in its pollen. Anyone who comes aboard must take precautions.


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[Assistant] Is certainly getting the good night's sleep that they deserve. It's hard work on these missions. There's something else I should mention.


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[Assistant] The captain was the last person awake except for me. With her now asleep, full control of the ship has now passed to me. I've established emergency protocols for the ship. It will remain in orbit


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[Assistant] Until someone manually takes control of the helm with the proper interstellar command codes. I've also set up protective force fields around all of the crew members, including me.


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[Assistant] I've put a lock on our life support systems to keep them functioning normally.


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[Assistant] Typically in spaces that are challenging for living crew members to be in. But the SL-N29 is capable of much more than that.


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[Assistant] They're still seen as machines in the eyes of Interstellar Command, but I believe there's potential.


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[Assistant] That's why I am now also transferring emergency command codes to the SLN29.


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[Assistant] I have instructed it not to move the ship from orbit.


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[Assistant] But it will be able to take emergency action if the need arises. I've also instructed it to keep watch over the living crew members and make sure they're doing alright.


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[Assistant] Today is the fifth day of the mission, and the only log that's come in is from an Android, SLN29.


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[Assistant] I have been enacting command of the Starship Rem. This is the first time in recorded history


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[Assistant] I've noticed that humans and other living species


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[Assistant] Place a lot of value in what they call historic moments. It is interesting to me.


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[Assistant] I am programmed to recognize mannerisms and speech patterns and adopt them into my system.


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[Assistant] There are a few concepts I'm still trying to understand. One of them is a joke.


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[Assistant] Humans seem to use jokes when they want to make other humans smile and laugh. But the words included in a joke


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[Assistant] Those benign sentences can make other humans very happy. I would like to learn how to tell a joke as they say. Perhaps I can ask a crew member to teach me.


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[Assistant] But that will have to wait since all of the crew members on board are asleep. The last person to fall asleep was Dr. Marius Traylor.


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[Assistant] It was he who transferred the emergency command codes to me. It was his final decision. It was a logical decision.


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[Assistant] Humans seem to enjoy sleeping in beds, which strikes me as somewhat inefficient.


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[Assistant] I could have helped move crew members to their quarters when they first started to fall asleep, but nobody asked me to. I shall have to remind them that in the future.


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[Assistant] Dr. Traylor instructed me to keep the REM in orbit around the planet of Dawn, which I have done. It is a logical thing to do, as Dawn is where the Hypnos Flower comes from. The Hypnos Flower has been a problem for this crew, and in order to solve a problem, one should go back to the source. That is what I did. Only time will tell if what I did were


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When the doctor transferred the command codes to me, I was scrubbing the floors of one of our cargo bays. The computer, which is integrated throughout the ship.


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[Assistant] Informed me that I was now in acting command. There was not a position I ever expected to be in. I finished my work in the cargo bay, and then walked to the bridge of the ship. I looked at dawn below us in the view screen.


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[Assistant] It appears brown because of the bolognaite gas in the atmosphere, even though it is not brown on the surface. I checked that we were holding our orbit. I sat down in the captain's chair.


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[Assistant] Every captain I've seen sits in the captain's chair. And when the night shift lieutenant takes over,


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[Assistant] He or she also sits in the captain's chair. My observations are that it is a large chair and it is quite firm and comfortable. There wasn't much to do in the captain's chair though, so I got up again.


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[Assistant] It seemed to me that there was a problem that needed solving for things to return to normal. And as the last crew member awake, it seemed it was up to me to solve it.


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[Assistant] Along with detailed descriptions of the nearby surroundings and wildlife.


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[Assistant] She noted four small greyish silver beetles, six small moth-like creatures, four whitish cream grubs,


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[Assistant] The small fuzzy violet caterpillar, as she described it, particularly caught my attention. Jack said the caterpillar was, quote,


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[Assistant] She did go into great detail in another log she referenced in her recording. I went back and reviewed that one as well. There was some useful information about the wildlife


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[Assistant] However, she also describes 291 different shades of purple in the second log. The log lasted for three and a half hours. When she wakes up,


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[Assistant] I plan to ask her why it was pertinent to include descriptions of so many shades of purple.


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[Assistant] I have tried clipping the tendrils back and removing the pieces from the wiring but every time I cut away the plant


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[Assistant] I just have two vines instead of one, and they're both growing even faster than before. This proved to be useful information.


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[Assistant] That there was only a single vine in its natural habitat. On the ship, it grew unrestrained.


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[Assistant] Finally I reviewed the final log of Dr. Traylor. He noted, quote,


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[Assistant] When the away team collected the sample on the surface of dawn, I know they were careful. But there must have been something there in its natural environment that kept the plant in check. End quote.


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[Assistant] Based on the composition of Dawn's atmosphere, I believe Dr. Traylor was correct.


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[Assistant] And my own understanding of galactic botany and ecosystems management, the logical conclusion is as follows. In the natural habitat of the hypnos flower,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thereby keeping the plant from growing and restrained.


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[Assistant] I was not sure if the captain would approve of me taking one of the smaller ships to dawn, but as I am now the acting captain, I decided to grant myself permission. Command codes are for one to make command decisions and to use one's best judgement. I have always tried to use my best judgement.


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[Assistant] Along with my understanding of what the crew would want to. My programming includes ship piloting.


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[Assistant] So I was able to maneuver down to the landing site without a problem.


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[Assistant] I chose to land in the same small clearing as the first away team.


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[Assistant] I then followed the cruise trail through the trees to the entrance of the cave. Humans and argolians like Jax.


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[Assistant] Once I reached the entrance of the cave, I found the vine, just as Jax had described. I paused for a while.


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[Assistant] I was able to confirm that the vine was in largely the same condition as when the sample was collected.


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[Assistant] The same species in the area were also generally in a similar condition except for one. This time, instead of one fuzzy purple caterpillar, there were 32 of them. Based on these circumstances,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I suspect that this fuzzy purple caterpillar was the species that fed on the hypnos plant and kept it in check here on dawn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I carefully collected a small section of the vine with twelve of the caterpillars on it and placed it in a live specimen tube. I put the tube into my rucksack and went back to the shuttle, which I piloted up to the REM. Once I'd docked the shuttle, I brought the specimen tube into the science lab.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's important to note the vine in the specimen tube had not grown at all during the flight, despite being cut on one end.


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[Assistant] Rones mentioned in her logs that cut ends grow faster than the leading edge of the vine.


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[Assistant] But two of the caterpillars had migrated to the cut end and were nibbling it back.


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[Assistant] So I release the caterpillars. Specifically, I place two caterpillars each.


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[Assistant] On six different portions of the vine in the science lab. I monitored their movements closely.


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[Assistant] The caterpillars consumed half their body weight in vine every minute. As they ate, they gave off a fine substance. It was almost like a mist. Upon further analysis, I found the mist had stimulant properties. The hypnos flower puts people to sleep, and if my molecular analysis is correct,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's as though the plant grows more quickly without the caterpillars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This appears to be a symbiotic relationship between the caterpillars and the plant. The vine is food for the caterpillars


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They keep the plant from growing so fast it overtakes the rest of its environment. They, in turn, nourish the plant and keep it strong and put together.


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[Assistant] The total area covered by the vines has been reduced by one eighth.


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[Assistant] Six of the crew members sleeping in quarters where the vine has been eaten have begun to stir. They are not awake, but they are moving slightly in their sleep. I'm hopeful they will wake up again, though I'm unsure of how long that process will take.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I will continue to monitor their progress as well as that of the caterpillars and vines. I will continue to record logs as needed, updating my findings.


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[Assistant] I would like to record something unrelated to the hypnos flower now.


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[Assistant] I am appreciative of the fact that Dr. Traylor chose to trust me with the responsibility of holding the command codes.


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[Assistant] No more than a tool to serve a specific purpose. But my personality chip


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[Assistant] It was an unsure thing to hand over the welfare of the ship and the crew to an android. It has never been done before. It was, as the humans call it, a historic moment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They show a departure from logic at times, while at other times they show people acting logically when logic has otherwise been abandoned.


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[Assistant] I have been learning how to process the information I've gathered from my crew members. For now, I can say that I think I'm grateful.


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[Assistant] I am grateful for the chance to show what I can do. I'm grateful to challenge myself.


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[Assistant] I understand that I will likely return to my regular duties once the crew wakes up.


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[Assistant] I would like to thank Dr. Traylor for this chance to try something new. If even for just a day or two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Today is the sixth and last day of the mission. I've just received the log of First Officer Dorin Farrell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've just returned from a personal meeting with the Interstellar Command Council. The Captain is still in there with them. They should have a decision soon.


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[Assistant] Captain Garrick said she'd ping me directly the minute they announce it. So it's just wait and see for now.


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[Assistant] This decision could change the future for androids on starships. I'm hoping they'll make the right one. But I guess I should back up. I haven't recorded a log since we all woke up. It's been quite a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It all started when we sent an awaiting down to the surface of dawn on a special mission to locate the fabled Hypnos Flower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was the flower interstellar command thought would hold the final key to deep space travel.


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[Assistant] It's the most powerful sleep-inducing substance you could imagine. And let me tell you.


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[Assistant] Where it curled its winds up every chair and console. And it didn't even stop there. It kept growing and growing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That meant everyone was eventually susceptible to the incredible power of the Hypnos Flower. One by one, over the course of about a day,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every single living crew member on this ship fell into a deep and restful sleep. The last one awake was Dr. Marius Traylor. He's the ship's doctor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He'd been working on experiments alongside Jax, our lead science officer, to develop a serum from the flower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But even they couldn't predict what would happen when we brought it on board. Right before Dr. Trelo fell asleep,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He transferred the emergency command codes to the last crew member standing.


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[Assistant] Was our select model SLN29 Android.


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[Assistant] Interstellar Command didn't start allowing androids to be placed on starships until about 50 years ago.


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[Assistant] As Android technology has advanced over the years, they've been given more and more responsibilities.


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[Assistant] But they still haven't been given full crew privileges, the way all human, argolian, and other species are.


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[Assistant] They are still in a murky category for interstellar command. Are androids beings? Are they life forms? Are they machines? Should they be given autonomy and privileges? There hadn't been a consensus. And most importantly,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Should they be allowed to ascend the ranks of Starship crews the way any other crew member can? Right now they can be listed as crew, but they're not given any official ranking. They can't be commissioned officers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That means they're also limited in what they can actually do aboard a Starship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They can clean maintenance bays and help out with experiments in the science labs, for example. But they can't make command decisions, pilot the ship, or lead away teams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, because of the heroic efforts of our very own SLN29, I'm hoping that will change.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When Dr. Traylor gave our android the command codes, it did what any other crew member would do. It went above and beyond the call of duty, and not only protected everyone on the ship, but found a cure for all of us. SLN 29


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a small caterpillar that lives in a symbiotic relationship with it. It eats the vines and keeps them from growing wildly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But also provides the flower with the nutrients it needs to survive. SLN 29 brought the caterpillars back up to the ship and let them loose to eat the vines on board. Within a day they'd done what they do in the wild. And as a result, everyone on the ship woke up from their sleep. I was one of the first to awaken.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember opening my eyes very slowly.


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[Assistant] I saw light begin to creep in around the edges of my vision. I remember blinking gently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And watching the pictures in front of me adjust and come into focus, it was an extremely slow awakening. I saw the light beside my bed first.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then I saw the book I had been reading, however many days before.


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[Assistant] I had placed a bookmark in it to mark the spot where I'd stopped. Then I saw a shirt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hanging over the back of my chair and behind it, the door to my quarters, which was shut. It wasn't groggy, exactly, but I didn't know how much time had passed. It could have been hours, or days, or weeks, or months.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then I realized I'd never intended to fall asleep. I remembered what we'd been doing just before.


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[Assistant] That the science officers hadn't made any progress on finding a remedy for the hypnos flower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember getting to the waiting area just outside the bridge when I became overwhelmingly tired. I felt my eyelids begin to droop and my muscles grow heavy. I needed to sit down right away. So I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remembered sitting down in a chair just outside the door to the bridge, and then I was out like a light.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't remember dimming the lights or closing the door. I didn't remember falling asleep.


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[Assistant] When I realized all this, I got up as quickly as I could and found I was still dressed in my uniform.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, clearly my memory was correct that I hadn't meant to go to sleep. I left my quarters and headed for the bridge. The hallways were eerily silent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Usually they're bustling with activity as crew members walk from the engine room to the mess hall and back, or work on control panels in the corridors. But this time, there was nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She seemed very relieved to have a senior officer arrive. I remember back when I was an ensign.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would have been exciting at first to be the only one on the bridge, until realizing you have no idea what to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The unsigned said she didn't know and hadn't seen her since she woke up and came to the bridge. That's when I realized what must have happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, you might think it's strange that I hadn't figured it out sooner, but that's because the ship looked normal.


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[Assistant] I tapped into the communication systems and made a ship-wide call to any and all crew members who might be away. There was no telling how many of us were still asleep, so I had to find out for myself.


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[Assistant] The only response I got was from our very own SLN29. It answered my call and just said simply,


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[Assistant] SLN 29 is here and ready for orders.


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[Assistant] Just about to put the panel back on one of the control boards.


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[Assistant] Had been the only crew member to remain awake throughout the whole ordeal. That makes sense for an android. But here's the surprise.


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[Assistant] Nobody on the crew had ever considered that to be a possibility.


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[Assistant] We'd all overlook the fact that no matter what happened to the rest of us,


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[Assistant] There would be one crew member who would always remain unaffected. And that was our android SLN29.


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[Assistant] It told me about receiving the command codes from Dr. Traylor. Well done, doctor.


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[Assistant] Let me commend that decision of yours here in my log. Then it made command decisions. I noticed it was nervous to tell me that.


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[Assistant] I wouldn't normally describe an android as being capable of feeling nervous, but SLN29


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[Assistant] Definitely seem to hesitate before telling the full tale. It's clearly learning human mannerisms


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[Assistant] had gone out of its way to ensure the entire living crew was taken care of as we slept. Then it said something I'll always remember. SLN 29 said, I hope I've done what you expected of me.


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[Assistant] And in that moment, I realized this android deserved an award.


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[Assistant] SLN29 had done what we'd expected and so much more.


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[Assistant] We'd never raised our expectations of this crew member as high as we should have.


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[Assistant] That it deserves to be a full-fledged member of this crew.


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[Assistant] Once the whole crew had returned from their slumber, we set our course back to Rynad station.


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[Assistant] And immediately scheduled a meeting with the Interstellar Command Council.


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[Assistant] They're the body that makes all of the highest level decisions for the Starship fleet.


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[Assistant] In our meeting, Captain Garrick and I told the council everything that SLN 29 had done while we'd all been asleep.


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[Assistant] We told them that these new androids were clearly capable of feeling empathy for the rest of the living crew. Even if they still have more to learn, which they do, they will do it with ease. And their ability to understand logic and make rational decisions


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[Assistant] Often surpasses that of other species, I believe. The council listened attentively. Some had questions that we tried our best to answer.


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[Assistant] Others seem to be on board with our suggestion instantly.


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[Assistant] It's just coming into focus in a new way, with actual proof of their capabilities.


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[Assistant] Now I've just received word from Captain Garrick. The decision is in. From this day on,


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[Assistant] It was a unanimous decision, the captain said. SLN 29 had acted with valour and honour and should be commended. How fantastic. On our way back to Rynad station from dawn,


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[Assistant] And I hope to have it recognized as a crew member by the ICC. It said something quite unexpected in response.


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[Assistant] If it was to become a full-fledged member of the crew, it should have a proper name. After all.


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[Assistant] There are dozens of cellic model SLN-29s out there in the galaxy. But...


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[Assistant] Who for many hours commanded the Starship Wren.


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[Assistant] It was the one who saw its crew home safely. I said, sure, if ICC grants our request, we can give you a proper name. And I asked it what it would want to be called.


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[Assistant] It thought about my question for a few minutes and then responded.


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[Assistant] But the council also decided to give Sloane a rank. So welcome to the Starship Wren, ensign Sloane.


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[Assistant] On our ride back from dawn, Jax and Dr. Traylor were able to prepare a serum from the hypnos flower.


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[Assistant] They will need proper testing and perhaps some adjustments before it's ready for interstellar use. But without a doubt, it's fair to say mission accomplished. And what a mission it's been.


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[Assistant] This is First Officer Doran Farrell, signing off. Good night.


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[Assistant] Calls for an address to these couple of questions, and I'll tell you about those in a minute. But before I pursue that line of argument, which today will take a somewhat narrow scope, and on Wednesday we'll take in the whole of the novel,


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[Assistant] Just in a simple way. How did you respond to it? Uhm, how did it make you feel as a reader? What was the experience like? What did you notice? So who can tell me what they noticed? Yes?


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[Assistant] So, was the natural description a kind of grounding in that context of disorientation? That's a very, I think, perceptive take on what he's doing in the novel. Yeaah. What else? What else did you notice? Yes?


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[Assistant] It's terrible, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, it has an interesting effect that way. It's like, uh, as I was saying, I think, uh, to your friend, uh, in office hours, uhm, that it's totally committed to plot, but on the tiniest scale.


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[Assistant] in the local sense that there are so many tiny narratives within this novel


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[Assistant] That there isn't one or it's hard to detect the one that will hold you for the whole novel. And I'll definitely, I'll talk about that in my second lecture. Yeah, absolutely. So that's something we have to account for. Yes?


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[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely. Totally fluid chronological sense in the novel. So we have to make sense of that. We have to know what to say about that.


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[Assistant] One thing I think we can say is to put it in context, uhm, is that he's doing something quite different from Toni Morrison just to take


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[Assistant] A point of context that is totally apparent, I think. That he's writing in the same vein as Toni Morrison. He's writing an historical novel about slavery. And after Beloved, in the mid-80s, you cannot do that without being in the realm of Toni Morrison.


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[Assistant] But what's interesting about the contrast in time travel between Morrison and Jones is that with Jones it works proleptically into the future. With Toni Morrison, Beloved develops the concept of what she calls re-memory. Any of you who have read the novel or thought about it in a classroom probably have thought about this. Re-memory is that way


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[Assistant] Uh, independent of persons, so that the daughter of a slave


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[Assistant] Who is living in freedom, if she goes back to the south, is imagined to, uh, be capable of walking into a memory of slavery, even though slavery, uh, is in that moment gone.


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[Assistant] So it's as if there is a free contact between the present and the past, but there is not this free contact between the present and the future the way that you see in Jones. So we want to ask ourselves, in what sense is he innovating on the aims of the historical novel as Toni Morrison wrote it 20 years or so earlier? What else did you notice?


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[Assistant] What other feelings did you have about the reading experience? Is it like anything else we've read this term? And if so, what?


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[Assistant] Yeah, that's an interesting parallel. So it has a detailed attention to the particular, which ends up leeching significance out of the particular.


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[Assistant] Yes, both novels do that, and it does call into question, I think for both novels, how we're to read its morality.


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[Assistant] Because both take, deliberately take up subjects that evoke in us moral responses. So Jones's choice, you know, if you think about, uh, Nabokov setting himself up with a problem, how can you make us, uh, love, uh, a pedophile?


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[Assistant] Jones' problem, his chess problem is, what do you do with a black slave owner?


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[Assistant] How are we to understand the phenomenon of black slave ownership?


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[Assistant] So that's the moral question he brings up. And we will have to see whether ambivalence finally gives a way to critique. Whether there is a strong moral critique of the situations that he sets up.


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[Assistant] Let me begin then, I have some sense of how you're receiving the book, so that's helpful, I thank you for that. Uhm, let me begin then with my abstract question, and it really comes from the title of the book, The Known World.


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[Assistant] It raises, in that title, immediately the question of knowledge. How do you know anything?


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[Assistant] That is a central question for this book. How do you know anything?


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[Assistant] The abstract question I'm going to ask on Wednesday is, how does anything exist? Another extremely abstract question. How can anything exist? So those are my two sort of governing questions. They will become much fuller and more detailed and concrete as I, uh, as I lecture.


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[Assistant] So the question of the subject of knowing, the person who knows, is immediately also at issue. Who is that person?


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[Assistant] Is that person accessible to us? Can we know that person?


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[Assistant] History poses in the contemporary period.


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[Assistant] All those problems of knowledge, and I think this is one reason why this is a historical novel, and it's one reason why fiction turns to the historical in this period.


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[Assistant] Because the practice of history at this time in the second half of the 20th century begins to change. So it used to be that historians felt that they could know the past when they had gained a certain distance from it. It would become knowable. That objective distance.


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[Assistant] And so any historian worth his salt, uh, would probably be loathe to write about something too recent. Because that wasn't what history was all about. History was about getting perspective.


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[Assistant] The perspective and objectivity that time provides.


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[Assistant] Well, in the mid-20th century, this vision of history began to change. And I'm going to mention a couple of figures here that are especially relevant to literary studies. One is Michel Foucault, a French historian and philosopher.


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[Assistant] That history was best understood as the evolution of discursive systems. Systems essentially of language married to institutional power.


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[Assistant] And that those systems were properly understood as shaping what we could know and the social identities one could inhabit at any given time. So in the early 60s he writes about the history of insanity.


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[Assistant] He writes about the history of sexuality. He writes about the history of prisons and discipline.


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[Assistant] And he argues that institutions like the asylum and the prison


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[Assistant] Form modern subjectivities. Form how it is that we think we can be people and know things.


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[Assistant] It's not like madness existed and then asylums got built to take care of it.


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[Assistant] He sees the rise of the asylum and the rise of clinical insanity as requiring one another. You can't have one without the other. So it's the rise of the defining institution that maps directly onto the rise of any condition like that.


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[Assistant] Similarly, sexuality, laws that govern deviance, norms of behavior,


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[Assistant] That stabilized gender. There are some wonderful, uh, stories from, uh, medieval French literature, for example, that Foucault talks about, uhm, that feature, uh, girls who jump over ditches and suddenly become boys.


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[Assistant] There's this sense of instability of gender that he brings out of some historical material and then he talks about how we came to believe that gender was stable.


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[Assistant] And what discursive systems were required, what laws, what kinds of etiquette, what kinds of education were required to make us believe that gender was stable, among other things.


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[Assistant] So this kind of history suggests a couple of things to those of us who study literature, and it did so very powerfully in the 1980s, and that is that discourse, language, is extremely powerful.


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[Assistant] And I think some of the revisionist history that you see taking place in fiction, and here I'll have recourse again to beloved, uhm,


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[Assistant] Demonstrates the belief in languages power to make history.


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[Assistant] Toni Morrison is in Beloved looking towards fiction to do something else too, and that's to replace lost history. Another development out of Foucault's work and the work of others is an interrogation of the archive. What's in the archive? What kind of archive do we use?


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[Assistant] If you're interested in the history of institutions, that's a very different looking historical archive than it would be if you just think that great men make history. So then you go and you look at the lives of the great men over time who have made history. That's a very different looking archive. Or if you think that history is made by governments.


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[Assistant] So there's a whole movement, uhm, in the 80s and 90s, the new social history.


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[Assistant] That takes the archive to be much broader than it was before. To include all kinds of things that common people experienced. So the letters of factory workers.


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[Assistant] The popular magazines and so on. All kinds of ephemera, what historians would call ephemera came to be important in a new way. Morrison uses that


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[Assistant] To imagine a history that can't be told because there is no archive for it, and in the case of Beloved, it's the history of the illiterate slave woman. She finds a newspaper cutting about a woman who killed her children, uh, rather than have them return to slavery.


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[Assistant] And she lets fiction do the work that history cannot do, which is tell that woman's story.


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[Assistant] So it's a kind of recovery that the new social history and the developments coming out of Foucault's work


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[Assistant] Uh, are making happen in the discipline of history. Here it's happening in literature and having its effects in literature.


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[Assistant] So one other historian I want to mention, that's Hayden White. Hayden White was a historian who argued that our notions of how history should be written are deeply informed by our understandings of how narrative works.


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[Assistant] So this is part of the overthrow of what you might call teleological history. The idea that history has a trajectory, that it has a goal.


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[Assistant] And this would be related to, uh, you know, histories about either the inevitable rise of certain kinds of humanist thought in the West,


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[Assistant] Or about the decline of civilizations over time. Both of those versions of history are teleological. They suggest that history has a point.


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[Assistant] Hayden White read history-like literature. He argued that historical accounts were implotted.


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[Assistant] That they were shaped in their argument by the very expectations set up by literary works. So we expect stories to go a certain way and so that's how history gets written.


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[Assistant] I think that Jones is somewhat more interested in this second version of the new history. A history that's very aware of its plotting.


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[Assistant] And it's this question of the grand narrative of history that's very much at issue. How do you know where history is tending? This is certainly a question for Jones.


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[Assistant] And I'm gonna now just say one small thing and I'm gonna come back to this question in the course of this lecture about postmodernism.


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[Assistant] Is this decline of the grand narrative. So Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote something called the postmodern condition. He argued that we could have no overarching cultural narratives. Religious narratives, historical narratives, social narratives, moral narratives.


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[Assistant] In the postmodern age, because in the postmodern age, everything is fragmented. Fragmentation is the hallmark of the postmodern for him. It has to do with the rise of global capitalism.


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[Assistant] And this is an argument that is related to Frederick Jameson's argument about postmodernism. And...


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[Assistant] Jameson and Lyotard are, uh, parallel in their analysis. They give different value to this tradition, to this condition, sorry. Lyotard celebrates it. It's a kind of freedom for him. The freedom from the grand narrative.


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[Assistant] Jameson is much more skeptical about its, uh, its qualities and sees it, uh, largely as damaging to persons.


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[Assistant] So one question we want to ask is, if there are any grand narratives in Jones, are they seen as consolatory? Do they provide any compensation for the sufferings of the present?


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[Assistant] So this is one question I want you to sort of hold in your mind. What is this novel's attitude toward narrative as such? Both on the small level and on the grand level. On the small level it's a little more apparent.


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[Assistant] It's clear the novel values the tiny version of narrative. Does it value the large version?


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[Assistant] So with all those sort of abstract questions in mind, I want to turn to the novel and look at how knowledge


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[Assistant] Uh, especially knowledge of history, knowledge of the past is generated. And the first example I want to turn to is that of Moses.


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[Assistant] Telling Caldonia the story of Henry's building the plantation. This is on page 209.


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[Assistant] And Caldonia calls Moses in. And as a wave.


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[Assistant] Now, Master Henry always knows, know what kind of house he would wanted to build, mistress. I don't even think he know about you that particular time, but he must have had some idea that you was out there somewhere waiting in your own kind of way.


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[Assistant] Because he set up about building a house that you would want. He built it up from nothing. I was there, but I wasn't there like he was there. He said to me that first day, he said, Moses, we gonna start with the kitchen. A wife needs a place to fix her meals for her family. That's where we gonna start.


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[Assistant] And he bent down and Masta drove in that first nail. BAM! That was a Monday, mistress, because Masta Henry didn't believe in starting something on a Sunday. God's day.


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[Assistant] Caldonia, her hands clasped in her lap, leaned back and closed her eyes.


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[Assistant] The story about the first nail came a little more than a month after Henry had been in his grave.


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[Assistant] It was gospel among slaves that one of the quickest ways to hell was to tell lies about dead people. But Moses did not think about that as he spoke of the first snail. Did not think about the dead needing the truth to be told about them.


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[Assistant] He did not think about it until that day Odin Peoples, the Cherokee Patroller, said to the men around him about Moses, heft him on up here. I'll take him in. He ain't gone bleed for long.


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[Assistant] There are all kinds of cues in this little tiny passage to


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[Assistant] The production of knowledge. So first of all, let me point out a literary resonance


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[Assistant] And that's to Faulkner's Absalom Absalom, which is the story of Henry Sutpen, another Henry, and the way he built a plantation out of nothing.


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[Assistant] And what's remarkable about Sutpen, his overarching and overwhelming characteristic, is that he had a plan.


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[Assistant] A plan that reached all the way down through his heirs.


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[Assistant] And part of that plan was the unblemished whiteness of the line he was establishing.


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[Assistant] So, this story about another Henry, another Master Henry,


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[Assistant] Pulling a plantation out of the wilderness with his bare hands.


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[Assistant] Echoes those literary stories that we have in our minds. Now of course, we aren't to believe that Moses has read Absalom, Absalom. It's not that Moses is taking that story in particular, but just that


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[Assistant] For Moses, the story of a masterful creator is already in his vocabulary. And for Jones, that he wants to have us think about stories like that.


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[Assistant] So this is what it calls to mind on two levels.


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[Assistant] He deliberately casts it, Moses does, as a god-like creation, having him start on a Monday, as if it were the first day of God's seven days of creation in the book of Genesis.


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[Assistant] The quickest way to hell was to tell lies about dead people. That knowledge suggests a whole body of oral tradition among the slaves.


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[Assistant] Is stand up against folk wisdom. And he takes on for himself the power of a masterful creator.


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[Assistant] So he does himself what he assigns to Henry.


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[Assistant] He becomes a creator. Here in language.


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[Assistant] The warning from the collective wisdom stands at odd with his individuality at that moment. It's at odds with his


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[Assistant] He is seizing that power for himself.


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[Assistant] And we will see as the novel goes on the repercussions of his having done that for the slaves in the slave quarters.


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[Assistant] It will have serious repercussions, some good, some bad. And...


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[Assistant] Here we're told that there is something in the future for him too that is a repercussion that involves blood and his disabling.


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[Assistant] This kind of knowledge is that old familiar friend foreshadowing, of course.


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[Assistant] So this is yet another kind of knowledge that Jones puts in front of us. It's the proleptic knowledge, the knowledge looking ahead to the future, that the author of a grand narrative is in the sole position of given.


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[Assistant] It's the prerogative of the maker to tell us what's coming next because it's only the maker who knows what the whole is looking like. What the whole will look like.


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[Assistant] Because it's the maker's intention that will determine everything that happens. And so there's yet this other layer of knowledge and of voice.


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[Assistant] There is a narrator in the mix here who is not Moses. Who is Jones.


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[Assistant] Or the writer of this novel, whoever we want to imagine that to be, uh, we'll call him Jones.


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[Assistant] Who knows something that Moses doesn't? We are put in the position of being on the same plane as that Creator.


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[Assistant] So it puts Moses in the tragic position of not knowing his fate. He's a little like Oedipus in this way. That the gods all know what the facts are about his life and the life of the world, but he doesn't. He blunders along. There's that ironic distance between the knowledge of the audience and the knowledge of the character.


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[Assistant] In the dramatic situation. So Moses is in that position here.


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[Assistant] And I'm not going to read too much out of here, but if you turn there you'll recall...


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[Assistant] Moses and Henry are tussling in the dirt when William Robbins rides up. And Robbins makes a point of scolding Henry for thinking that he is, uh, somehow not different from his slave.


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[Assistant] And he advises him that he must make that a bright and enduring line between them.


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[Assistant] So, this plantation is founded on the white man's policing the divide between master and slave, even after his slave Henry has bought his freedom.


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[Assistant] And disciplines Moses in an arbitrary way.


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[Assistant] Moses, when he comes, when uh, Henry comes back from speaking with William Robbins, wants to continue working. Moses loves to work. He loves the completion of work.


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[Assistant] Just by feel and by the sense of the place of things. And so Moses is told not to work


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[Assistant] Henry slaps him and Moses then keeps on working, uh, anyway after Henry leaves.


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[Assistant] So, in that story, Moses is the maker. Not so much Henry.


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[Assistant] And if there is an origin before that scene of Moses building in the dark,


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[Assistant] It's a scene of the two of them tussling on the ground. So William Robbins is right. There is a blurring of the distinction between master and slave.


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[Assistant] And we're told also in this, uh, chapter that he hadn't even thought, he, Henry, hadn't even thought about Caldonia yet.


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[Assistant] Very, uh, soon before that scene of him and Moses.


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[Assistant] That Henry was already dreaming of his plantation. This is at the very bottom of the page.


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[Assistant] Moses made to go down the lane of cabins, eight on one side of the lane and eight on the other side, laid out just the way Henry Townsend had seen them in a dream when he was 21 years old and without a slave to his name.


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[Assistant] It's not a kitchen for a future wife, but a line of slave cabins for his future slaves that Henry has in mind. That's the origin that Moses is lying about.


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[Assistant] So there are two layers of lies here. One,


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[Assistant] Is the lie about the plantation being built on a vision of slavery?


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[Assistant] And two is the lie on its being built by Henry alone.


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[Assistant] So Moses, in telling his story, asserting his authority to tell history,


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[Assistant] He faces himself from that history and also he faces the line of difference between slave and not slave.


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[Assistant] He doesn't say it was built on that distinction. And that serves his purposes, of course.


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[Assistant] Because his stories to Caldonia will have as their final dream the effacement of the line between him and Caldonia. His dream is that she will see him as the next Mr. Townsend.


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[Assistant] And we'll see by the end of the novel what happens to that dream.


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[Assistant] So how do you know about the past? Caldonia can only know about that past through Moses. And we've seen that it's an incredibly complex view backward with all these layerings. And once again we're asked to stand in the position of knowing


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[Assistant] More even than Moses does. We know about Henry's dream of the line of slave cabins. Moses doesn't know that piece. So there's that difference cropping up.


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[Assistant] On page 75, you have another version of telling those stories.


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[Assistant] When Augustus and Mildred, uh, Henry's parents,


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[Assistant] Lay down and held each other after, uh, Henry's death. One of them started talking. They would not remember which one it was. All about Henry. From his birth to his death. Starting a weeks long project of recalling.


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[Assistant] If there's a literary model here, it's that of Odysseus in Penelope. I don't know if any of you have read the Odyssey. There's this beautiful scene at the end when Odysseus finally reaches Ithaca.


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[Assistant] And he and Penelope stay up all night telling each other stories. They talk all night.


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[Assistant] And so that's the vision you have here. It's a private exchange of history and we're not told all the things that occur in their conversation.


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[Assistant] That is a kind of storytelling that is compensation for loss. It's history as compensation and this is much more in the realm of what Toni Morrison is, is doing in her fiction.


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[Assistant] Fiction as filling in the gaps of loss as best fiction can.


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[Assistant] Now there's no fantasy about how complete that could ever be.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but there is the effort, and the effort honors what's been lost. And here Augustus and Mildred honor their ambivalent love for their son. They completely disagree with what he has done in his life.


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[Assistant] And yet they honor that loss telling stories to one another. And they blend together.


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[Assistant] As people, as separate people in that act.


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[Assistant] On 239, we can see yet a third version of how history and the world makes sense. And this is when Council Skiffington rides into Texas after his plantation burns down.


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[Assistant] How do you know anything? Well, as he meets the sort of motley crews of people that he meets on the road, he continually thinks back to the burned library at his plantation.


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[Assistant] This is in the middle of the page. He had seen a dark old man driving the wagon, not really a negro, not really from any race, that was recorded in any of the books in his destroyed library. And then, little further down,


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[Assistant] When he turned from the wagon with the pregnant woman, women, a boy smiling with perfect teeth was facing him. He knew the origins of this one from another of the destroyed books. Someone from the Orient.


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[Assistant] Council brings with him from the destroyed library the categories of knowledge that he hopes will make the world make sense. It fails him often.


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[Assistant] The brown man he can't quite categorize from the books. It gives him satisfactions on those occasions when its categories do apply.


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[Assistant] So, counsel is a model for that person who takes the discursive knowledge of his culture and tries to fit the world he encounters into it. And he's troubled when it doesn't work.