Monolith (Space Odyssey) fused as one being "Halman" in the Monolith's computational matrix) were able to introduce a computer virus into TMA-2 which destroyed it before it could render the human race extinct. The Firstborn did not appear to have abandoned all interest in the evolutionary experiments overseen by the ancient Monoliths. Given that the Monoliths' communications are said to be limited by the speed of light, but Dave Bowman is sent on an interstellar journey at the end of "2001: A Space Odyssey", and Bowman is apparently transformed into the Star Child, not by the Monoliths, but by the Firstborn (both Kubrick
Interpretations of 2001: A Space Odyssey that much older life forms have taken? They may have progressed from biological species, which are fragile shells for the mind at best, into immortal machine entities—and then, over innumerable eons, they could emerge from the chrysalis of matter transformed into beings of pure energy and spirit. Their potentialities would be limitless and their intelligence ungraspable by humans. In the same interview, he also blames the poor critical reaction to "2001" as follows: Perhaps there is a certain element of the lumpen literati that is so dogmatically atheist and materialist and Earth-bound that it finds the grandeur of space and