In some ways, it seems incredible to think that Destination: Void was written shortly after Dune; its style and its handling of the subject matter seem to indicate that it was written earlier and published after Dune had been published. However, Destination: Void does share with Dune an interest in human consciousness, its nature and its limits, although this is the primary—the only—focus of Destination: Void, whereas it is simply a part of Dune. It is only fair to point out that, in spite of its weaknesses, this novel does raise a number of interesting points and questions, and the process of building an artificial, or man-made, consciousness does have its interest.
It can be said that the nature of consciousness is explored from two directions in this novel, through the personal interactions of the characters and through the building of the Ox, also involving the concepts which guide their construction activities; these two directions do, of course, converge in the telling of the story. The interactions between the four members of the crew are particularly interesting because of what they show about the society which sent them on this mission and about its attitudes toward human beings. In the first place, there are 3,006 humans aboard the ship Earthling heading, supposedly, toward Tau Ceti to settle one of its planets; of this number, six are an umbilicus crew to take the ship out of the solar system, after which they would join the others in hibernation. Even while they are awake, but especially after they go into hibernation, the functioning of the ship is the responsibility of the Organic Mental Core (OMC), which is a human brain taken from a child who would otherwise have had no chance to live and exclusively trained for the job of running the ship. Although it is obvious which course this society took in this matter, the question of the morality of the choice is briefly raised and both sides indicated, but readers are left to their own judgments in the matter; in brief, it is a question of the fact of preserving life versus the quality of living that life is preserved for. This is complicated by the fact that by the time the Earthling is just over a quarter of the way across the solar system, its OMC and its two back-ups have gone insane, each in a shorter time than it took the one before it; not only do they go insane, however, but it also appears that Moonbase was aware that this might happen, for it did, after all, send three of them.
In semi-opposition to the OMCs, the colonists and the umbilicus crew are Doppelgangers, grown from cells of people remaining back on Earth; in addition, these cells were taken from people who were brilliant but in some way criminal. The umbilicus crew and its back-ups are the best people available, chosen for their particular abilities but also because of the potential relationships between them; although it is never said, it would almost seem that personality types were chosen and then trained for the jobs that must be done. Thus, Raja Flattery is the psychiatrist-chaplain, with a smattering of knowledge in other areas; this combination seems to have been chosen for three reasons: to have someone capable of creatively handling the tensions of the crew, to provide psychological information when it is needed for the project, and to goad John Bickel along the paths he needs to go. Flattery does these quite well, but he also reveals the battle in the human mind between faith and skepticism, as well as showing a definite streak of mysticism. In addition, it is he who is the prime enunciator of the “Frankenstein fear,” the fear of moving into areas humans should stay out of, though each of the four echoes this at some time; in doing so, he seems to be the spokesman for the Control Center on Moonbase, who in turn seems to speak for the mass of humanity, then and now.
Prudence Weygand is trained in medicine, ecology, and computer math, all of which are valuable in the project, as is her facility with tools; she is also extremely compassionate, but that is linked with her sex drive, which must be suppressed. Like Flattery, she has been primed to goad Bickel when necessary, but she also serves the same function for Flattery, mocking him when he becomes too pompous and keeping him alert.
John Bickel is the focal point of the group; he is aggressive, creative, brilliant, subtle, and explosive. If the mission is to have any success at all, it is Bickel who will both lead the way and make it happen. The goading that Raj and Prue do is partly to push him in particular directions and partly to put obstacles in his way so that he will overcome them in frustration. It is interesting that the society feels the need to create a situation like this; it means either that they have a precise knowledge of how people work best or that they care only for results, no matter what it takes to achieve them.
In this company, Gerrill Timberlake is almost a nonentity; he is the life-systems engineer and is also very capable in electronics. Although Bickel is not primed in the same way Flattery and Weygand are, he nevertheless serves as a goad to Timberlake, who does very fine work under Bickel’s direction and even develops new ideas and directions.
In a way similar to this psychological manipulation of the personal interactions of the crew, so Moonbase Control has manipulated their entire life aboard the Earthling. That is, they have built in programmed emergencies to keep the crew alert, and they have withheld a great deal of information from the crew. For example, they have provided three OMCs but have given the crew no indications of the possibility that an OMC might break down and no code for reporting such an event. It is postulated in the book that this breakdown is known and that its possibility (probability) is exploited to force the crew into a situation where they must produce or die, all of which speaks of a rather cold-blooded, but practical, approach to the matter. Although there are many other matters which Moonbase Control has concealed from the crew, two of them are particularly worth mentioning. First, they deliberately keep Bickel from pursuing his ideas while he is in training, apparently to make sure that he uses them on the ship. Second, they do not show the full linkage system in the computer in the schematics, presumably because they know that the full computer network is necessary for a result and that some part of the crew would prevent such a tie-in if it were to be done as part of an experiment. In addition to all this, the voyage of the Earthling has been arranged so that the ship can never return to Earth. The management involved does not present a very pretty picture of a society; nevertheless, it does achieve results, although they are not precisely the ones desired.
The point of the entire project and of all the manipulation undertaken by Moonbase Control is the creation of an artificial consciousness that is not inimical to humanity and that can in some way be controlled by humans. These last two conditions are built in because several earlier attempts turned apparently rogue, killing people and disappearing; it is for this reason that this crew is sent far into space and that dual-destruct mechanisms are built into the ship. All of the manipulations discussed earlier are designed to point people toward creation of this artificial consciousness, to make it necessary for them to do so if they are to survive. In their pursuit of this goal, several interesting points about consciousness are made.
Perhaps the most interesting, and most basic, idea that is advanced is the field theory idea of consciousness. There are three elements necessary to the field theory: a person who perceives something, the object that the person perceives, and the relationship between the person and the object; it is this relationship which, according to the novel, is primarily responsible for the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, for the interaction is contained in neither of the parts separately. In fact, however, the field theory implies even more than this because, through memory, consciousness includes relationships between many sets of person-object interactions through many levels. Beyond this, however, introspection, sensing, feeling, and thinking are ruled out as being physiological functions, and awareness as such is declared to be insufficient. It is interesting to note that, in the midst of their attempts to define consciousness, Bickel points out that even if something cannot be defined, it can be reproduced; while his specific reference is to consciousness, this idea has application across the field of science. However, they do know a number of things about consciousness and field theory that they incorporate into their construct. For example, they suggest that a certain amount of complexity in the network of connections in the field is necessary before consciousness can be achieved. In fact, the point is made that, relatively speaking, human beings do not have sufficient complexity to be fully aware, but it is possible to build something with enough complexity to handle much more data and many more relationships. Nevertheless, the flow of sensory data is so great that some means of sorting it all out is necessary. First of all, then, they postulate a threshold effect, a tuning in of data that is in some way significant or relevant or related to previous data; this may be more or less selective, depending on circumstances at any given time. In fact, the ability to select data is a basic element in their definition of consciousness. Second, they postulate the idea that, even with the threshold effect, a stepping-down process must take place. That is, masses of sensory data are brought into the system and, through a series of steps, are brought down to fewer and fewer discrete signals until we perceive an image. In this process, matching data reinforce each other while the weaker or non-matching data are eliminated or made secondary; however, sufficient discrimination remains so that similarity or dissimilarity to previous experience can be judged. Third, they postulate that consciousness needs a goal, something to give direction to its processes, and that it needs sensory, emotional, and mental data to respond to and to regulate. The sensory and mental responses are not particularly difficult to build into their construct, but building an emotional response into a technological device poses some problems; Bickel proposes the black box–white box transfer effect and finally, in effect, hooks himself into the system and transfers his experiences and his approaches to them into it. An unexpected side effect that the experiential and emotional indices of all the crew, awake or in hibernation, are also experienced by their construct. Fourth, they recognize that synergy must occur, that there must be some means for unconscious energy transfer from one area to another. Finally, implicit in all this is the idea that consciousness cannot be determined, that free will is necessary before consciousness can arise.
In addition to these factors that they consciously develop, there are two points which they do not consider but which are necessary if consciousness is achieved. The first is provided, although they have not concluded it; that is, before consciousness can be achieved, some kind of symbol manipulator is essential. This is provided by the AAT, the Accept-And-Translate board for taking messages from Earth and sending them back. The second element that is accidentally provided is the destruct mechanism, armed when Moonbase Control orders the mission totally aborted; thus, the possibility of an ending is provided, as is a background against which life can be measured and evaluated. By building these elements into their construct, they do create consciousness, but one which has far more awareness, far more data, and far more ability to see relationships than humanity; the novel ends with this consciousness demanding worship.
Two flaws of Destination: Void are those usually involved in gadget science fiction. When the emphasis is on building a device and on the ideas involved in it, story and character values tend to fall by the wayside. Thus, although we leam a number of things about the characters, these are related totally to their function in the project, and they come across as rather lifeless. Furthermore, since the events of the story are nearly all steps in the creation of the artificial consciousness, readers who are not excited about this concept have nothing else to hold onto. However, the ideas and themes with which Herbert works, although more could have been done with them, are not seriously flawed. We do, for example, learn quite a bit about the society which frames the particular situation in the novel. Furthermore, although not all schools of psychological thought would agree, the points which Herbert makes about consciousness would be accepted as valid by others. Thus, if readers are interested in these things, they will very likely derive some measure of enjoyment from this book.