Essay Questions

What is the special significance of the term “purge” to characterize the erasure of memories and the execution of people?

The erasure of memories of actual human history implemented by the Collective through their manipulation of the Downloadable Cognizance process is created for the purposes of indoctrination and re-education. A familiar common term used to describe the purpose is brainwashing. Indoctrination, re-education, and brainwashing techniques came to the fore in the 20th century with the revelations that millions of citizens in despotic nations like the Soviet Union and China had been forced into situations in which subversive thinking than counter to the prevailing ideology was attempted to be quite literally reinvented. Needless to say, these attempts failed at least as often as they succeeded. Those who failed to have their mind altered would therefore remain a threat to the powers in charge. This threat would often then be countered by what came to be known as purges. This became the term for widespread changes in an educational discipline or a particular career path in which all those who failed to adhere to the party line were stripped of their positions and associated benefits. The term purge became synonymous with the real-life analogues of the extreme conformist philosophy espoused in the book by the Collective. By labeling the erasure of memories and executions as purging, the fictional story introduces a very strong connection to actual history.

In what way does the repetition of the phrase “I am here to serve the Collective” resonate with the divisive political atmosphere in America around the beginning of the 2020’s?

The novel was published in 2021, at what was then the height of the most divisive political state of America since the Civil War. “I am here to serve the Collective” is repeated several times throughout the book as a signature greeting of sorts. The phrase reveals the extent to which the Collective requires absolute fidelity to their ideology and agenda. At the same time, the constant repetition also has a much more sinister but subtle purpose that exploits a peculiar weakness among many humans. If one hears the same thing asserted enough times, it has a way of becoming perceived as the truth. Even Petra, who is in active opposition to the Collective, repeats the phrase despite not believing it and thus turning the assertion into a lie. In the time period in which the book was being prepared for publication, the repetition of a lie about the results of a national election was similarly repeated often enough and by enough different sources that an even greater percentage of the minority of the population believed the lie to be true than had believed it four years earlier. The entire narrative and thematic structure of the novel is in part an exploration of the power that comes with being able to manipulate memories and history which made its appearance in 2021 particularly relevant.

How does the name of the planet Sagan connect to the overarching significance of storytelling driving the narrative?

The full title of the book translates into English as “the last storyteller.” The climax of the story turns on the abilities of the narrator, Petra, as a storyteller. As the only passenger on the spaceship who was neither purged of her memories or purged herself, she retains the actual history of humanity. She conveys these to those whose memories have been purged and altered in the form of stories of myth and folklore. Eventually, this storytelling stimulates the memories buried deep within the unconscious mind of her listeners and they begin to recollect the stories as memories. The intense connection between storytelling, history, and understanding is subtly manifested by the decision to name the distant planet the earthlings set off Sagan. This name is in honor of Carl Sagan, an astronomer noted for making the mysteries of his discipline more accessible to the general public. He accomplished this through multiple books, but primarily for writing the PBS series Cosmos which remains one of the most-watched series in the history of that TV network. Much like Petra does in the book, Sagan wraps scientific truths around interesting stories to make the concepts more interesting.