Cold Equations, the No-Win Scenario, and the United States

[Demeter]

"The Cold Equations" is a science fiction short story by Tom Godwin, first published in Astounding Magazine in 1954. In 1970, the Science Fiction Writers of America selected it as one of the best science fiction short stories published before 1965, and it was therefore included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964.

Summary

The story takes place entirely aboard an Emergency Dispatch Ship (EDS) headed for the frontier planet Woden with a load of desperately needed medical supplies. The pilot, Barton, discovers a stowaway: an eighteen-year-old girl. By law, all EDS stowaways are to be jettisoned because EDS vessels carry no more fuel than is absolutely necessary to land safely at their destination. The girl, Marilyn, merely wants to see her brother, Gerry, and is not aware of the law. When boarding the EDS, Marilyn sees the "UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT!" sign, but thinks she will simply have to pay a fine if she is caught. Barton explains that her presence dooms the mission and will result in the deaths of the colonists. After exhausting all other options (such as calling the mothership, The Stardust), he is forced to eject her into space.

The story, first published in the August 1954 issue of Astounding, has been widely anthologized and even dramatized. It is in the form of a cautionary tale, which commonly has three parts. First, a cautionary tale presents a restraint or restriction, in which something is said to be taboo, dangerous, or forbidden. The story's fifth paragraph sets up the first part by including a quotation from "Paragraph L, Section 8, of Interstellar Regulations: Any stowaway discovered in an EDS shall be jettisoned immediately following discovery." Second, the story introduces a hero figure who disregards—wittingly or unwittingly—the restriction. Readers of "The Cold Equations" learn that Marilyn has not seen her beloved brother for ten years, and because she has not traveled before, she is unaware that "the laws of the space frontier must, of necessity, be as hard and relentless as the environment that gave them birth." The third part of a cautionary tale consists of the transgressor coming to a tragic end. In "The Cold Equations," Marilyn realizes that nothing can be done to save her. She accepts her fate and is ejected into space.

Critic Gary Westfahl has said that because the premise depends upon systems that were built without enough margin for error, the story is good physics, but lousy engineering. Writer Don Sakers's short story "The Cold Solution"(Analog, 1991), which debunks the premise, received the 1992 Analog Analytical Laboratory award as the readers' favorite Analog short story of 1991.

However, the context in which the story was published bears on its premise. Science fiction was still a fairly young field, and was still working free from its roots in pulp fiction. In the story, the girl addresses the distinction, contrasting the frontier she had imagined, which was "a lot of fun; an exciting adventure, like in the three-D shows" and the frontier she discovered, where the danger was real and proved fatal. The story recognized that if space travel ever did come about, then sometimes there would be little margin of error, and fatalities would happen.

Another trend to which "The Cold Equations" is a reaction is the science fiction sub-genre of the puzzle story, where impending disaster is prevented when one of the characters works out an ingenious application of scientific principles, thereby saving the day. Though pleasing to fans, these stories were seen by those outside science fiction as evidence that the genre was all about escapism. By echoing the conventions of the puzzle story, but focusing on the fates of characters trapped by the puzzle instead of the machinations of solving the puzzle, the story showed critics that science fiction would not always be about "lesser" subjects than other literature.

The story was shaped by Astounding editor John W. Campbell, who sent "Cold Equations" back to Godwin three times before he got the version he wanted, because "Godwin kept coming up with ingenious ways to save the girl!"

---http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations

This is the reality that engineers, parents, and those true statesmen preach to so little effect--sometimes you push the limits of possibility so far, there is no way out. Someone must pay for an unfixable error.

This is the "No-Win Scenario” beloved of Star Trek, and rejected by that ultimate hero, James T. Kirk, who usually found an ingenious escape clause to save the day...

But in real life, you'd have to be pretty sheltered not to have faced a no-win scenario of your own. Whether it's an incurable illness, collapse of a marriage, a family, a community, a job, a business, an industry, or even a country, no-win scenarios put an end to people's stability, comfort, or life every day. If one is an unlucky person, the situation developed through no fault of the victim. If he is an ignorant, arrogant, "exceptionalist" type, he probably caused the catastrophe by himself, by ignoring the "keep out" signs and the economics and physics of the course of action, the counsel of wiser heads, etc., and more likely than not, that exceptionalist also inflicted that no-win scenario on a whole lot of unlucky nearest and dearest.

As Spock in “Star Trek” says, it is how we deal with the no-win scenario that determines our character and our ultimate success or failure in life.

Too many people on this planet, too many of them in this nation, are trapped in denial, which if maintained long enough, guarantees that a challenging situation becomes a no-win situation.

The purpose of society itself is to maintain a database of history and technology used to evaluate and ameliorate problems, to avoid or at least mitigate "no-win" scenarios for the people in the community. Before there was any useful history or technology, there was religion, a poor substitute for real solutions.

Those who would destroy society destroy its historical database first, then its technological database (infrastructure), gut it for resources, and then abandon it. We must fight these pirates, whenever and wherever they arise: Egypt, Israel, China, the United States, anywhere. And we must avoid the Religion Trap, thinking that we are powerless, that it is God's will, that we are being punished for something besides ignorance, stupidity and laziness....and that PRAYER will save us, if we only pray long enough, hard enough, and purely enough...

[Fuddnik]

1. Kick and Rec!

For a good look at the ignorant, arrogant, exceptionalist class, take a peek at Congress.

[Uncle Joe]

2. That's a good post Demeter, there have been many times

when trying to enlighten my fellow co-workers and friends about the looming catastrophe building from global warming climate change, that they cite the end days of Bible prophecy.

The only thing I can do to reach them is to argue the point of no one knowing when the end days will come and how we're supposed to be good stewards and take care of God's Creation.

I don't believe there is any other way to communicate such an urgent message to them.

Thanks for the thread, Demeter.

[Demeter]

3. My pleasure, Uncle Joe!

he likes it, he really likes it!!!

[DemReadingDU]

4. afternoon kick