Aurora (Alastair Reynolds)

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Aurora is a science fiction - novel of the Welsh author Alastair Reynolds . The English original The Prefect was published in 2007 , and the German translation was published a year later. The book belongs to the Revelation Space cycle , but its content is independent of the other works. The action spans several days in the year 2427 and takes place in a glitter ribbon .

action

Prefect Tom Dreyfus has taken on the task of looking for those responsible for the destruction of Ruskin-Sartorius and thus those guilty of the deaths of over 900 people. The obvious impression that this habitat was willfully destroyed by the Synthetic Drive of the light ship, accompanied by shadows , raises more questions than answers. Research leads to the names of two famous residents of the glittering ribbon : Phillip Lascaille and Aurora Nerval-Lermontov - but both have died for decades.

After Dreyfus' colleague Tahlia Ng played updates on the voting processors on several habitats, they suddenly switch off the connection to abstraction , which leads to fear and panic in the population. This is compounded when servomotors - machines that do everyday work for people - begin to turn against citizens.

Soon Aurora , which has survived as an alpha copy in the form of an artificial consciousness, confesses to the attempt to take power over the entire glitter ribbon and gives the people an ultimatum. An unequal fight breaks out. But Dreyfus dares the alliance with a way of life that was believed to be dead and that had terrified people years ago: the watchmaker .

subjects

The predominant theme of this novel is the political dualism egalitarian - elitist : Dreyfus defends the basic rights of all citizens of the glittering ribbon while his opponents restrict them. Whether this can be justified by wanting to achieve something good for the general public is discussed in several situations.

As in other works by Reynolds, the mixing of natural and artificial intelligence is discussed. This is done, for example, through the digital networking of citizens using abstraction . In extreme cases, this makes physical presence so negligible for some people that they have large parts of their bodies amputated for economic reasons. Furthermore, the question is raised as to whether the artificial copy of the mental states of a person has personality rights and is considered a living individual if their behavior cannot be distinguished from the original. For this purpose, artificial intelligences are divided into alpha, beta and gamma intelligences based on their full value .

The tinsel designs Reynolds as unusually liberal society. The individual habitats resemble city-states and are allowed to implement any system - from anarchy to tyranny. The only condition is that the right to vote of all citizens of the glitter ribbon remains unrestricted.

expenditure