The Embedding

EIGHTEEN

Memo to:

CHIEF OF STAFF, US ARMY

CHIEF OF STAFF, US AIR FORCE

CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS

COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS

CONSULTANT MEMBERS, US INTELLIGENCE BOARD

DIRECTOR, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS & SPACE ADMINISTRATION

Subject: WASHINGTON SPECIAL ACTION GROUP MEETING # 1 ON PROJECT “LEAPFROG”

13. …But beyond the technological and political desirability of acquiring this knowledge lies a whole psychological domain, which we might go so far as to characterize as a crisis in this planet’s Nöosphere (to borrow the theologian Teilhard de Chardin’s word for the zone of operation of the human mind).

This crisis has been looming over Mankind ever since the Neolithic Revolution first ushered in the germs of a technology that would transform the natural environment.

In a very meaningful sense, the crisis that we have reached in the late 20th Century is the logical outcome of technological civilization itself. Once the technological path is chosen, Man must elect to expand outwards by means of his technology—or else collapse. No steady-state is conceivable or desirable once expansion has begun. The steady-state may be dreamt of or fantasized about—but it is merely a pipe-dream which will not work in practice, and which would have disastrous cultural and psychological repercussions, if any sustained effort was made to make it work.

Technological and cultural de-escalation is no more possible than Devolution is biologically acceptable for a species. In the same way as biological evolution is an anti-entropic process, leading towards ever more complex states of physical organization, so technological culture (the culmination of a million years of evolution) involves an ongoing process of complexifìcation and expansion.

Nevertheless a critical point does occur in this growth process. This is the stage where there appear to be ‘no further worlds to conquer’—and where the side-effects of conquering the one world that is available appear to be producing an increasingly negative pay-off. At this stage a take-off to Stage Two technological culture has to occur—the stage of planetary and stellar exploration and expansion. Otherwise a disastrous and traumatic collapse must surely ensue.

The disillusionment with Project Apollo must be viewed in this light. Man has reached the Moon. Where is there to go now? The answer seems to be ‘nowhere that we can realistically hope for’.

The assault that has been gaining momentum for a decade now, of ecopolitical protest groups, implies a profoundly damaging psychological withdrawal from these delimited boundaries. It would terminate Stage One without ushering in Stage Two. The result could only be apathy and decay on a planet-wide scale—besides being politically contrary to what we conceive of, fundamentally, as our identity as a nation. (See Hudson Institute Papers HI-3812-P, The Perils of the Steady-State’; HI-3014-P, The End of the Neolithic Nöosphere: Implications for US Policy’.)

The alien visit is bound to hasten this process of disintegration and withdrawal disastrously, as the full implications of the haste, and indifference of the beings known as the Sp’thra to the finest ambitions of the human race, come to be more widely realized.

14. The exchange of six live brains, competent in six human languages, should thus seem to go ahead, with the overt aim of obtaining an improved form of planetary travel technology (together with some other data of primarily academic interest).

15. However, it must be strongly emphasized that although the donkey allows himself to be lured by a carrot, yet the human being is painfully aware (however tasty the carrot may be) that there is a field full of such carrots, elsewhere, in the control of a farmer. Were the human being in the place of the donkey, he would be well advised to remember how hard his kick is, and how unexpected, and to what good effect it can be delivered; and how essential to his psyche this act might be.

16. Attached are detailed action recommendations code-named ‘MULEKICK’; together with a summary of the key psychological features thought to underpin the Unidentified Flying Object phenomenon, codenamed ‘WELLES FARRAGO’.

‘WELLES FARRAGO’ also includes a summary of ways to manipulate religious and social hysteria as (a) Diversion from Undesirable Goals; (b) Shoring-up of Fragmenting Societies; together with a tie-in to the action recommendations detailed in ‘MULEKICK’. Adjustments have been graphed for a wide spread of cultural norms ranging from the Post-Industrial, late sensate culture of the United States, through the various Chaos, Crisis and Charisma cultures of underdeveloped nations (with special emphasis on Brazil and its neighbours).

17. In view of the exceptional sensitivity of both ‘MULEKICK’ and ‘WELLES FARRAGO’, access must be limited on a strict need-to-know basis.