You'll See the Quintans

Fiasco, a bitter and tragic novel of humankind's lost innocence, is in many ways a fitting culmination of Lem's career. Disconcerted by our growing potential for waging mass–destructive wars on an unprecedented—because planet–threatening—scale, Lem had long been contemplating the odds that our civilization will not extinguish itself in the course of the third millennium. Now, linking the carnage sown on an alien planet to the self–destructive potential dormant in our species, he warns that an accidental wrinkle in the global political–military balance of power can escalate into an all–out devastation, whether on the faraway Quinta or on the familiar Tertia: the Earth.

In a symbolic moment a third into the book, the protagonist Mark Tempe finds himself looking in a mirror, only to murmur, “You'll see the Quintans” (110). Lem's aliens are, indeed, only an allegorical reflection of ourselves. This only adds poignancy to the tragic conclusion in which the planet to which the astronauts have travelled for so long across space and time ends up blasted by their super–weapons. By that time, proclamations of neutrality aside, the Earth's emissaries allowed themselves to be drawn into a strategic cul–de–sac of the local Cold War. The only role left for them to play is that of military dictators who overrule the wishes of the Quintans to be left alone.

Much like in Eden or The Invincible, the sparsely drawn allmale astronauts collectively embody the spirit of our united and enlightened future. Technologically seemingly omnipotent, ready to embrace their cosmic brothers in intelligence, they arrive on Quinta armed with the noblest intentions. But none of their rational calculations and game–theoretical strategizing can get them past the white noise spilling from communication channels, past the threat of stealth weapons systems, and past the Quintans’ indelibly alien character.

As the Earthmen find themselves under attack and as the other side stubbornly refuses to follow the script of enlightened encounter between cosmic brothers in arms, disaster is only a matter of time. Amidst pious moralizing, Hermes unleashes a series of ever more destructive shows of force to coerce Quintans into yielding to the astronauts’ more and more belligerent demands for direct contact.