2. Websearch: Space Odyssey
https://www.clarkefoundation.org/
https://www.wired.com/2015/08/amazingly-accurate-futurism-2001-space-odyssey/
2001: A Space Odyssey Trailer
2010: Odyssey 2 Final scene
____________
Arthur C. Clarke
2010: Space Odyssey 2
51
The Great Game
Now the long wait was ending. On yet another world, intelligence had been
born and was escaping from its planetary cradle. An ancient experiment was about
to reach its climax.
Those who had begun that experiment, so long ago, had not been men - or even
remotely human. But they were flesh and blood, and when they looked out across
the deeps of space, they had felt awe, and wonder, and loneliness. As soon as
they possessed the power, they set forth for the stars. In their explorations,
they encountered life in many forms and watched the workings of evolution on a
thousand worlds. They saw how often the first faint sparks of intelligence
flickered and died in the cosmic night.
And because, in all the Galaxy, they had found nothing more precious than
Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields
of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped.
And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed.
The great dinosaurs had long since perished when the survey ship entered the
Solar System after a voyage that had already lasted a thousand years. It swept
past the frozen outer planets, paused briefly above the deserts of dying Mars,
and presently looked down on Earth.
Spread out beneath them, the explorers saw a world swarming with life. For
years they studied, collected, catalogued. When they had learned all they could,
they began to modify. They tinkered with the destinies of many species on land
and in the ocean. But which of their experiments would succeed, they could not
know for at least a million years.
They were patient, but they were not yet immortal. So much remained to do in
this universe of a hundred billion suns, and other worlds were calling. So they
set out once more into the abyss, knowing that they would never come this way
again.
Nor was there any need. The servants they had left behind would do the rest.
On Earth the glaciers came and went, while above them the changeless Moon
still carried its secret. With a yet slower rhythm than the polar ice, the tides
of civilization ebbed and flowed across the Galaxy. Strange and beautiful and
terrible empires rose and fell, and passed on their knowledge to their
successors. Earth was not forgotten, but another visit would serve little
purpose. It was one of a million silent worlds, few of which would ever speak.
And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The
first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood;
as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move.
First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining
new homes of metal and plastic.
In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They
were spaceships.
But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In their ceaseless
experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space
itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light.
They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of
matter.
Into pure energy, therefore, they presently transformed themselves; and on a
thousand worlds the empty shells they had discarded twitched for a while in a
mindless dance of death, then crumbled into rust.
They were lords of the Galaxy, and beyond the reach of time. They could rove
at will among the stars and sink like a subtle mist through the very interstices
of space. But despite their godlike powers, they had not wholly forgotten their
origin in the warm slime of a vanished sea.
And they still watched over the experiments their ancestors had started, so
long ago.
52
Ignition
........
It is not true that astronomical events always require astronomical periods
of time. The final collapse of a star before the fragments rebound in a
supernova explosion can take only a second; by comparison, the metamorphosis of
Jupiter was almost a leisurely affair.
Even so, it was several minutes before Sasha was able to believe his eyes.
He had been making a routine telescopic examination of the planet - as if any
observation could now be called routine! - when it started to drift out of the
field of view. For a moment, he thought that the instrument's stabilization was
faulty; then he realized, with a shock that jolted his entire concept of the
universe, that Jupiter itself was moving, not the telescope. The evidence stared
him in the face; he could also see two of the smaller moons - and they were
quite motionless.
He switched to a lower magnification, so that he could see the entire disk
of the planet, now a leprous, mottled grey. After a few more minutes of
incredulity, he saw what was really happening; but he could still scarcely
believe it.
Jupiter was not moving from its immemorial orbit, but it was doing something
almost as impossible. It was shrinking - so swiftly that its edge was creeping
across the field even as he focused upon it. At the same time the planet was
brightening, from its dull grey to a pearly white. Surely, it was more brilliant
than it had ever been in the long years that Man had observed it; the reflected
light of the Sun could not possibly - At that moment, Sasha suddenly realized
what was happening, though not why, and sounded the general alarm.
When Floyd reached the observation lounge, less than thirty seconds later,
his first impression was of the blinding glare pouring through the windows,
painting ovals of light on the walls. They were so dazzling that he had to avert
his eyes; not even the Sun could produce such brilliance.
Floyd was so astonished that for a moment he did not associate the glare
with Jupiter; the first thought that flashed through his mind was: Supernova! He
dismissed that explanation almost as soon as it occurred to him; even the Sun's
next-door neighbour, Alpha Centauri, could not have matched the awesome display
in any conceivable explosion
The light suddenly dimmed; Sasha had operated the external sun shields. Now
it was possible to look directly at the source, and to see that it was a mere
pinpoint - just another star, showing no dimensions at all. This could have
nothing to do with Jupiter; when Floyd had looked at the planet only a few
minutes ago, it had been four times larger than the distant, shrunken sun.
It was well that Sasha had lowered the shields. A moment later, that tiny
star exploded - so that even through the dark filters it was impossible to watch
with the naked eye. But the final orgasm of light lasted only a brief fraction
of a second; then Jupiter - or what had been Jupiter - was expanding once again.
It continued to expand, until it was far larger than it had been before the
transformation. Soon the sphere of light was fading rapidly, down to merely
solar brilliance; and presently Floyd could see that it was actually a hollow
shell, for the central star was still clearly visible at its heart.
He did a quick mental calculation. The ship was more than one light-minute
from Jupiter, yet that expanding shell - now turning into a bright-edged ring already
covered a quarter of the sky. That meant it was coming toward them at My
God! - nearly half the speed of light. Within minutes, it would engulf the
ship.
