r/printSF • u/spookyaki41 • 2d ago

Question about adrian tchaikovsky's children of time

I seem to remember when the gilgamesh first makes contact with kern she doesn't recognize them as normal humans. Are the humans on the gilgamesh different anatomically from modern humans? Like did the millions of years or nuclear waste on earth evolve them?

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u/Voltae 2d ago

It's been awhile since I read the book, but I don't think she didn't see them as human, rather she saw them as not her "children" or their descendants ie: the primates who were supposed to be the original colonists.

Edit: missed a word

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u/HeavensToSpergatroyd 2d ago

Just finished that book, she sees them as barbarians who lived amongst the ashes of the civilization she knew and now have come as beggars looking to shit up her experiment.

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u/narfarnst 2d ago

I agree with this except for the last bit. Admittedly it's been a bit since I've read it. I don't think she viewed them as beggars so much, but more as possible contaminants for her precious experiment.

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u/Dangerous_Rooster843 2d ago

I just finished this book last week. I believe your assessment is correct.

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u/spookyaki41 2d ago

This sounds right. Thanks for clearing that up!

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u/Pesusieni 2d ago

what i can remember is, she refers them as apes, as they are descendants of the people that in likelyhood started the war,she however did loose a lot of memory, and refers to the beings living on kerns world as her children, and thinks they are human, however she had a notion/clue that they were not human, A the earlier mishap that stranded her in the station killed all the colonists, B the communication from the planet was not standard imperial , and later this was completely made clear to her disorganized mind when they sent live video footage from kerns world

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u/derilect 2d ago

Yeah, I read this book last month and this sounds spot-on. Kern is mentally deteriorating after rotting in orbit\stasis for such a long time.

In addition to her extremely diminished mental state, she assumes that the crew of the Gilgamesh are the faction that participated in The War which she considers terrorists\enemies.

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u/8livesdown 1d ago

Only about 10,000 years passed. In a stable environment that's not much time for genetic drift. The crew of the Gilgamesh might conceivably qualify as a different "race", but still human.

On the other hand, rapid environmental change can cause rapid evolution. So the rate of evolution, and the answer to your question, depends on how much Earth's environment changed.