The Plant is People?
Semiosis follows a group of interstellar colonists as they adapt to their new environment. The format is very Foundation-esque, because the timelines jump through each section. However, rather than jumping from hundreds of years, it’s just a couple decades or so.
What I appreciate about science fiction is that in addition to the character and world development, universal concepts are played with. The creative focus doesn’t lie with dialogue and interactions, but with systems. Semiosis breaks down our understanding of evolutionary adaptation and intelligence through the introduction of intelligent plant life.
Spoiler Alert!
New Beginnings
Our group of interstellar colonists land on a new planet teeming with life. Previous scans show that it’s mainly flora and fauna without any signs of intelligent life. Like anyone in a dangerous unknown environment, they play it safe and learn what they can and cannot do. The botanist of the group has performed studies on a variety of fruit and found that one particular species was safe to eat. This was a big win, because their attempts at farming has been stuffed by other local species.
A group of gathers scouted a bit farther from where the group was camped in search of food. They find their precious edible fruit and bring it back. Only after sampling some of it themselves. I hope you can see where this is going. Those gatherers did not make the trip back, due to a case of they’re not alive.
After researching the deadly fruit, it was discovered that two batches were exactly the same species, however the newer batch contained a poisonous component.
How could the same species of plant bear fruit with different chemical components?
The poison was a result of the plant being threatened by the colonist’s attempt to farm. They were taking precious resources from the plant and it decided to fight back. The other “friendly” plant, used a different tactic. Rather than being aggressive, it provided sweet fruit under the knowledge that the colonist’s will help it grow. These plants had behaviors!
The colonists ended up pitting these two tribes against each other and fed their ally. This completely shifted their idea of life on this new world. The plants have adapted the ability to rapidly change their biochemistry in order to thrive.
Time
This is very similar to what plants have done on Earth. Fruit was developed so that animals would disperse seeds. Toxins developed to deter predators.
The main difference, it the amount of time that it takes to make these changes.
Currently, evolution is a gradual process that promotes the development of traits and behaviors that are beneficial to the survival and reproduction of that particular species. In Semiosis, plants have taken this adaptation and figuratively ran away with it. This was most likely the result of the lack of motion available to plants. Animals are able to move around while plants are relatively stationary. Rather than creating behaviors that involve motion, their behaviors involve chemistry. Which is way cooler. Now the fruit bearing plants could be seen as farm animals with relatively minimal intelligence. Their motivation was solely based on survival. These plants didn’t have the capacity to consider social or intellectual motivations.
The one that could though, oh boy.
The Plant is People?
Over the course of generations, the interstellar travelers had adapted to their environment. Their bones became dense and their stature short to accommodate the increase in gravity. They had a variety of species under their control through their understanding of plant psychology. Until they discovered one plant, a bamboo specifically, that showed an incredible amount of intelligence compared to the other species they’ve interacted with.
This bamboo was basically a human in plant form. It had the ability of internal dialogue, understand concepts like math, and had some form of emotion (mainly pity for these animal creatures).
What’s even more impressive, or scary, was it’s understanding of biochemistry. Rather than providing a single fruit as a bargaining tool. It could create multiple varieties of flowers and fruit for communication and consumption.
This thing, made flowers to communicate the idea of duality, flowers that could communicate threat through smell, fruit that increased intelligence, fruit that cured disease.
The Botanical Mind
The most interesting thing that I found about this bamboo were the chapters that put us inside its mind. You get the impression that the plant believes it’s superior to humans. It contemplates how the humans were trained by their native plants. It’s incredibly impressive for an animal to understand mathematics, biology, and chemistry.
The sense of rationality and disregard for morality indicates that this plant is really just a machine. A robot almost. But since this plant is also so human-like, where is that line drawn between organic machine and person?
Personally, I don’t think there’s a difference. We really are organic computers that have adapted to perceive specific sets of stimuli from our environment to make to make decisions that will promote our survival and reproduction. Weird to say it like that, but I think being able to understand ourselves and motivations on a fundamental level will help us improve in all areas of life.
Closing Thoughts
Semiosis by Sue Burke is an interesting novel that plays with our understanding of biology and intelligence. While the characters and plot were average in my opinion, the shining point was the concept of intelligent plant life. If you’re a science fiction junkie like myself, you’d appreciate this book for its novel ideas.
Hey! If you enjoyed this article hold down the 👏 button. If you’ve got any science fiction recommendations for me, please let me know in the comments below! Have a good one!
