The Sirian Experiments - Doris Lessing

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I will mention one project, which lasted more than 10,000 years, involved nearly the whole of Southern Continent II, employed millions of our technicians from every part of our Empire, and which had no contact at all with, nor influence upon, our spying missions into the north, or Ambien I’s attempts with the captured natives.

      The paradoxical Sirian situation already mentioned had not improved: on all the older and long-established Colonized Planets were millions who had no employment nor hope of any, who knew that their deaths (which we of course did not hasten in any way whatsoever) would be a relief and a lessening of a burden on us all, and who were too softened and enfeebled by affluence for any but the easiest work, who had come to crave even the physical labour they believed to be beneath them – but who, when offered it, were not able to do it. For there was a period when we of the Colonial Service did in fact do our best to use these noisy and complaining hordes where we could on large-scale development projects. It was a failure. While demanding ‘any kind of work, no matter how rough’ – most vociferously and tiresomely – when they were in fact put to this type of work their ingrained beliefs in their own superiority, their weakness of will, their self-indulgence, caused them very soon to slacken, or to manifest a large range of psychosomatic problems.

      For a period of about 8,000 years, we had vast encampments all over Southern Continent II, where physical work graded to easy preliminary stages was created for these people, in order to fit them for the real work elsewhere on the newly acquired and still undeveloped planets that we were ‘opening up’ – to use our term for the early phases of our colonization. Our problem was that we did not want to disturb the ecological balance of Rohanda more than we had to. We did not want to destroy vegetation or animals. Nor to engage in plans that would scar or mar the earth. We had plenty of other planets whose natural endowments were suitable; but only one whose endowments were so lavish, fertile, beautiful. The food for these millions of apprentice colonists was easily supplied by S.C. I – whose agricultural stations remained successful beyond anything we had hoped for. But to supply them work without upsetting their environments was a different matter. It was, it had to be – invented. As each new contingent of, sometimes, many hundreds of thousands arrived from this or that planet, flown in by our giant transport craft, they were set to make their own housing and amenity buildings by using premade building materials. But this task did not take them long. And while so easy, involving very little real labour, they were already complaining that they were ‘demeaned’ and ‘degraded’. Yet each one was a volunteer, and had had explained to them that their sojourn on Rohanda was temporary, and for training purposes only.

      I will make here an observation that was formed in that time and which I have seen no reason since to modify. It is that if a race or stock or species has once become enfeebled by soft living and a belief that it is owed easy living, then while physically such individuals may later adapt to a vigorous use of themselves, mentally this is almost impossible except for a very few of the more flexible. Self-pity will be their disease – a disease of the will, not of the flesh.

      Once their settlements and camps were set up and operating, the real problem began.

      The training work we created for them was of two kinds. One involved the local animals. Using varieties of deer, we bred adaptations of them, thus enabling our volunteers to become used to ideas relating to eugenics, which we used so extensively everywhere in our Empire, and also taught them how to choose and use animals for food and heavy labour. Of course the animals of Rohanda were all strange to these volunteers who had come from so many different planets, and the novelty assisted us in the task of keeping alive their interest and enthusiasm, for they became bored and indifferent very quickly: they all needed constant stimulus. We also set them to classifying and recording the species of plant life – this meant that they had to keep on their feet out of doors. They were sent off on long investigative trips, under careful supervision so that they would do no damage to the environment. But while this could not be described as hard work, it was too hard for most of them. So went our diagnoses at the time, and these were of course true. But I wondered then, and wonder now, if part of their lack of enthusiasm was due, quite simply, to knowing that this was work already done – for of course they had to know this. Although they were told – again – that this was preparatory training for their real endeavours to come on other planets, they did not have the appetite for it. Continually demanding that they be put to work on ‘the real thing’ at once, complaining that they were being undervalued by us, because of these ‘easy and piffling’ tasks, they failed to make use of the real opportunities they were being offered to accustom themselves to harder. They were quite unreliable, shiftless, and, in the end, unproductive.

      They were returned to their own planet after all had been given a fair chance to show if they could match their actions with their demands. But we did not want to exacerbate their already poisonous discontent and therefore tried to soften this rejection of them in various ways, by saying that ‘real’ work would be found for them later, and so on. On the whole it was felt that these attempts had not only been failures but worse: for when these millions found themselves back on their home planets, their complaints and discontents fomented uprisings and uproar of every sort, which were already quite enough of a threat. Our military strength had to be increased at a time when we believed that we could look forward to rapidly rising prosperity due to a welcome dismantling of our armies. Some of the more discontented planets became, for a time, not much more than vast prison camps. And yet I can say that every possible effort was made by us to alleviate the tragic situation of these unfortunates, the victims of our technical genius.

      In the meantime an, alas, only too familiar situation continued: while these useless millions degenerated, we still needed vigorous and intelligent stock for hard labour on the planets that the same technical prowess was opening up.

      What we had to do was to take from those planets recently settled species that still retained their native vigour, and were uncorrupted by soft living – as you can imagine, we were being extremely careful how we introduced our luxuries and our ease to these newcomers to our Empire – and after suitable training, use them to develop the new ones. We would choose from these planets stocks and species that seemed suitable, and train them not on their home ground but somewhere else. Rohanda was tried for a while, the empty settlements and stations of the failed experiment being put to use. The work given these more vigorous stocks was much harder than that given to the enfeebled ones. It was necessary to preserve a balance between retaining an ability for physical labour, while developing capacities for initiative and enterprise. What we did was to tell them they were to explore possibilities of developing fauna and plant life, without damaging their surroundings. The results were most gratifying and useful.

      I remember a trip I made with some of my staff from end to end of Southern Continent II during this period, using a small fleet of our liaison craft. Flying north to south and up the coasts, and crossing the continent back and forth, it was over magnificent wooded terrain with vast peaceful rivers. But everywhere this sylvan paradise, populated by herds of peaceful animals, showed the settlements of the successful experiment. We landed day after day, week after week, among these representatives of species from our numerous colonies, all so different, yet of course all basically of the same level of evolution – for it is only when a species had got to its hind legs and started to use its hands that it can make the real advances we look for and foster. Furred and unfurred, with long pelts and short, with fells and tufts of hair on their backs and shoulders leaving their fronts bare, black of skin and brown, their faces flat and snouted and heavy-browed and with no brow ridges, jutting-chinned and chinless, hairless and naked, naked but with leaves or bits of skin around their loins, slow of movement and quick, apt to learn and not capable of anything but beast work … to travel thus from place to place was really an inventory or summing up of the recent developments of our Empire. This trip was pleasurable, and gave us relief from the disappointment of our recent failure with the northern captives.

      All these species – some of them new ones to me; all these animals, and none of them incapable of adaptation, were nevertheless, when matched in our minds with what we were being told of the Canopean experiments up north and the amazing, the incredible evolution of the indigenous native species, fell so short that the two achievements could not be compared. We knew this. We discussed it and thought about it.

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