Humans & Machines

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“You see us as machines.
But if you really want to understand how we work,
you’re going to have to dig a little deeper.”
— Kai-125

Have you ever stopped to think whether humans, you specifically, have complete self-determination? Or are we just pre-programmed to follow precisely how we were prenatally built, constructed by our parents, and their parents, and all of our prior biogenetics from our ancestral genealogy? Are we not all byproducts of our past generations? Why do all of us have certain traits and not others? Why do we have particular preferences and tendencies for some life-experiences and less so or none for others?

Does that not suggest a prearranged blueprint handed down to you from many who came before you? Did you have a choice of various blueprints before birth? Of course not. Whether we like it or not we get the hand dealt to us.

Perhaps I should’ve entitled this post Humans or Machines. Maybe I’ll change that later after further thought and introspection.

Petty Officer, First Class Kai-125

Lately I find myself engrossed in a new military sci-fi series on Paramount+ called Halo. I was drawn-in right from the first episode, “Contact,” and haven’t been able to stop watching ever since. Why do I find the series fascinating, compelling, and profoundly aligned with real life, this non-fictional life we live right now?

It asks the same existential questions I asked above about each of us, about human nature, and whether or not humans are capable of saving ourselves… from ourselves. The series also asks Can we unite as humans, as one species, and save ourselves from other lethally aggressive alien species or cosmic forces?

Master Chief-117: What I can see on the ground may not reflect the entirety of the situation.
Kwan Ha: What does that mean?
Master Chief-117: Sometimes, others know things I do not.
Kwan Ha: It ever occur to you that it might work the other way around?
Master Chief-117: Then you question everything?
Kwan Ha: And someone told you that’s bad? [pause] (somewhat resigned, she exhales, answering her own question) …Of course they did.

halo episode 1 “contact,” season one
Kwan challenges Master Chief-117’s purpose in life

Watching this first episode and this particular scene really struck a chord with me. It reminded me of how so many people both around me today and those from my past, live or have lived their lives according to how others think of them or want from them. It could be parents, family, bosses, friends, or even a theoretical ideology or religious belief system, a political leader(?) that dictates how lives will be lived. Is that not a machine rather than a free human?

Dr. Catherine Halsey, Chief Scientist of the UNSC and founder of the Spartan-II Project begun decades earlier the next improved evolutionary step beyond antiquated human military soldiering. Otherwise, the human race was not going to win the war against a far superior alien enemy. Therefore, in order for her Spartan project to be a guaranteed success against a winning enemy—known as the Covenant—with better weapons and soldiers than any humans, Halsey had to commit several immoral, deceptive, and unethical acts upon human children and their families in order to rescue all of humanity and its fragile, hopeless future. This was how Halsey justified her heinous actions: sacrificing a few for the greater good of all.

Dr. Catherine Halsey founder of the Orion and Spartan-II projects

Putting further twists and conflicted reasoning into these existential dilemmas is Captain Jacob Keyes, ex-husband of Dr. Halsey and the father of their one daughter, Dr. Miranda Keyes, Deputy UNSC Scientist under Halsey, her mother. Talk about familial tensions wound super tight, all stirred into the uncertain future of humanity, it doesn’t get more thick and riveting than that! For example, when Miranda discovers that the UNSC will execute the teenage rebel Kwan, she confronts her father:

Dr. Miranda Keyes: [referring to Kwan] We’re murdering a teenage girl. And I’m complicit.
Capt. Jacob Keyes: We’re in a war, Miranda. The future of humanity…
Dr. Miranda Keyes: What’s the point in saving humanity if we’re going to give up our own?
Capt. Jacob Keyes: Sometimes you have to make hard choices to get good results.
Dr. Miranda Keyes: Now who’s sounding like Halsey?

halo episode 1 “contact,” season one
Dr. Miranda Keyes (left, daughter) and Capt. Jacob Keyes (right, father)

As I got into episode two, three, and four, I couldn’t help but compare the Spartan-II soldiers (Silver Team) to specific groups of actual humans and ideologies the United States possess today. Although these fictional badass, undefeated soldiers had superhuman characteristics along with unwavering resilience for mission success—“Failure is not an option” mantra—even if it means death to achieve it, first and foremost they obey every order given to them from their superiors to the tee and without question. Sound familiar? Dr. Halsey also implanted into Spartans an augmentation pellet in their lower spinal cord at a pubescent age. The device increased their physical mass and height to approximately 7-feet by adult age giving them highly advanced exoskeleton physiques required to slaughter and defeat Covenant aliens.

“You have been called upon to serve. You will be trained – and you will become the best [I] can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies.”

— dr. catherine halsey, to the spartan-II recruits

For me, Halsey reminds me of all our history’s past authoritarian, self-consumed megalomaniacs of the world. Remind you of one we have today in the United States? In other words, the end always justifies the means, even if it is unconstitutional and blatantly illegal. Getting the picture?

Discussing the work of Dr. Halsey and her Spartan-II’s and Halsey’s obsessive complete control over their ultimate purpose to first serve her, then second to serve humans:

Dr. Miranda Keyes: Dr. Halsey designed everything to her specifications. When her creations behave in unexpected ways, she get’s uncomfortable.
Kai-125: Well, what does it mean to behave in unexpected ways?
Dr. Miranda Keyes: Like a human I suppose.

Dr. Miranda Keyes: To Dr. Halsey, human beings are messy, irrational, chaotic. They make decisions based on emotion, passion. Halsey is different. She sees the world as a set of data to be optimized, regardless of the short-term pain or sacrifice. Next to this level of dedication, the rest of us ultimately fall short. And when people let her down, Dr. Halsey has a way of cutting them out of her life.

halo episode 4 “homecoming,” season one

Both Master Chief-117 (John) and Kai-125 have cut out their augmentation pellets in order to know and understand better who they are as well as to better decipher who Dr. Halsey is to them and whether she truly is their “protector” and confidant. These are the first signs of Spartans questioning their superior’s motives. To this point, Miranda says to Kai-125:

Dr. Miranda Keyes: Kai, your act of rebellion could just be a glitch. But if I know Dr. Halsey, she doesn’t tolerate glitches.

halo episode 4 “homecoming,” season one
Halo Season 1 Key art featuring L-R Yerin Ha as Kwan Ha, Natascha McElhone as Halsey, Bokeem Woodbine as Soren, Pablo Schreiber as Master Chief, Kate Kennedy as Kai, Natasha Culzac as Riz and Bentley Kalu as Vannak. Photo Credit: Paramout+

Or in our real time conditions today in America, with a rising cult-mentality and blind, unflinching loyalty to the cult leader, if a soldier steps out of line or questions, or criticizes the supreme leader, that dissident or dissidents are quickly attacked, cut out of his/her life and future plans. They are “fired,” replaced for more obedient more loyal subjects/soldiers. Why are so many (poorly?) evolved humans susceptible to this sort of brainwashing? Dr. Halsey gives a few possible answers below. When Master Chief-117 confronts Halsey about lying to him and all Spartans, he demands why:

Dr. Catherine Halsey: Nothing I say to you will make any sense until the benefits are manifest. I just have to accept that you will hate me. I was planning the future.
Master Chief-117: Whose future? Not mine.
Dr. Catherine Halsey: Nor mine. The future of our species. Natural evolution is failing us. Human beings are still hardwired for conflict and selfishness, John. I knew years ago that if we were going to survive, we needed a force. A force that would intervene, that could prevent conflict before it started. So, I created the Spartans, a group who would protect us from ourselves.

halo episode 6 “Solace,” season one

“Protect us from ourselves.” And humans “are still hardwired for conflict and selfishness.” Well, that is certainly true about the human race over its entire existence on Earth. Dr. Halsey is extremely intelligent and accurately observant regarding basic human nature. This cannot in the least, however, be said about America’s current cult leader and apparent 2024 Republican candidate for presidential re-election. This is one glaring difference between the Halo character Halsey and the real-time Orange Orangutan.

Nevertheless, here is another spot-on observation by Dr. Halsey based on her experience regarding human nature and our species’ progress by the 26th-century:

Dr. Catherine Halsey: We are on a journey. We are born, we live, and we die according to the rules of blind and unguided evolution. As a result, our species is simply not equipped to survive what comes next. It is time for us to take control of our evolution, to push past our narrow ignorance and venture out into the wide unknown, where we will discover our true potential. I suspect the Halo will provide the key.

Much has been lost, and there will surely be more sacrifices to come. But I believe our species will soon spread its wings and soar to new heights, that we will rewrite what it means to be human. That we will achieve transcendence.

halo episode 9 “transcendence,” season one

But will we? Are we really capable of Renaissance and Enlightenment 2.0, the next huge step in human evolution over the next 1 to 5 to 10-years? Is the United States capable despite the growing deterioration and dismantling of our democratic institutions and our pillars of higher education-expertise these last 10-20 years? How is it possible to insure a Golden Age will arrive when so many Americans or humans choose to be simple “Spartans,” or automatons, for the sake of a tyrannical leader and his or her ideology of hate, violence, prejudices, and racism? I wonder.

Aside from our bleak reality in the U.S. today, I am looking forward to Season 2 of Halo streaming on Paramount+ this February 8th. If it is anything as enjoyable as Season 1, then it will provide plenty of further existential questions, dilemmas, and realizations about our human species and whether or not we truly are capable of “saving ourselves from ourselves” or if we are merely machines destined for extinction. One thing is certain, however. There is no supreme deity or one human that is going to do it for us or rescue us. It is in our collective hands and our hands alone to do it together.

Bring on Season 2. Can’t wait.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

The Professor’s Convatorium © 2023 by Professor Taboo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

41 thoughts on “Humans & Machines”

  1. Oi!!! Aren’t you supposed to say spoiler alert or something?
    I see from a quick Google search this is based on the video game.
    I know on the Big Bang Theory the guys play this on Wednesday night so now I have a little context.
    It isn’t on Netflix.
    Maybe it streams on another platform?

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  4. PHEW!! This was most definitely a looooong one! But I am curious about something. You provided several “quotes” by the folks in the movie … how did you do that? Is there a script floating around somewhere on the internet? Do you have a photographic memory? Did you play the scene again and again, furiously writing what was said?

    Outside of that (and the length!), it was an interesting post — along with the “comparisons.” 😉

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    • Hehehe. 🤭 Oooh, come on Nan. It wasn’t THAT long and wordy! 😉

      Yes, there are a few websites that have the Halo TV series transcript. That’s where I found them, or at least the bits/scenes I wanted for this post and the comparisons to real-life here in the United States and its current political climate.

      You should give the TV series a whirl. You MIGHT just be surprised, at least from the angle of my comparisons to the modern MAGA and GOP.

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      • I don’t subscribe to Paramount+ and at this point in time prefer not to … so I’ll take your word for it. Besides, although I love (certain) Sci-Fi movies, I don’t think this is one I would savor overall. Thus, I will read, absorb, and enjoy your comparisons to the crap that’s taking place in the current political scene. 😊

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            • Hmmm, interesting. My Google search did list all those platforms. Puzzling. As I just told Ark, it’s all usually sales & marketing tricks to get into your wallet and bank account.

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            • Speaking of getting into your wallet … what’s frustrating is even when you PAY for a particular platform so you can watch certain movies, you STILL have to put up with commercials!!! So yes, it’s all about $$$$$!!

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            • Oh dear Satan & his/her minions Nan! Couldn’t share your frustration any more intensely as you on this American capitalism model! 😡 I’ve often ranted that we American consumers are now paying for EVERYTHING to live, and our basic needs cost too much already! Perfect example? Air! We now pay for even the air we breath!

              Just open a bag of chips. The bag is only and always half full! The rest is air! 🤬 And as our climate continues to change, for the worse, soon the middle- and lower-classes of the U.S. will barely be able to afford to PAY for clean air to breath. Mark my words. 🤦‍♂️

              Yes, anytime I/we MUST endure commercials, I immediately mute them and/or change the channel to a music channel, for approx. 1-1.5 mins, then change it back. I absolutely REFUSE to “serve” corporate America or be insulted by corporate America. Never!

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  5. Sorry, PT, but I could only read a few paragraphs into your post before I got,,, how to describe the feeling… bored with the concept all aliens would be warmongers wanting to beat Earth at its favourite human pastime –war.

    I have been a Science Fiction fan most of my life since I wandered into the adult section of the library and left the building with a number of SF titles. But in all those intervening years, my least favourite theme was that aliens have to be warlike. Not true. Once again we are projecting our all-too-human negative tendencies onto who knows what kind of other beings might be in this universe — if any.

    In my mind, no species would be able to reach interstellar space travel without being able to work as one to achieve such a state. Do you (or anyone else really think if we humans ever cross to other stars we will do it as Americans, Russians, and Iranians, etc.? In our own planetary system this might happen, but to be able to travel between stars I cannot see us succeeding while retaining our warlike approach to existence. If we take war into space we will have to be the stupidest species to ever exist!

    Rant over. Sort of.

    Are we the product of our ancestors, our autority figures, our upbringing? Some of us probably are, but predestination? Exactly who would be designing that destiny? I may not be unique in this world, though I often feel like I am out of step with my fellow humans, but the thing is, I do not want to be in step with most of you. Humans are sorry excuses for supposedly intelligent beings. We believe the unbelievable, we act against our own best interests, and we care too much about ourselves individually to be able to be successful at saving our own planet, the only home we have! Who the hell would predestine us to such a ridiculous life?

    I take my cues from evolution, it is completely haphazard. It leads us to more failures than successes. If we were predestined, why would we be wasting time on things that are not going to work? We wouldn’t. Yet Nature tries all kinds of things that in retrospect never had a chance of working. (Nature not being a thinking planning entity, but rather just a word to describe what we see as the course of life.) How many successes has evolution really produced? Cockroaches, crocodiles, and some fish and other creatures of the sea. The rest of us are living on borrowed time — unless we come to our senses and work together with each other and with every other species living on Earth. And this we will never do if life goes as it is right now. For example, I can only use myself, for I am the only living being I know well enough about to be able to have an intelligent conversation.

    Whatever my ancestors, especially at least one of my parents, were like, I am nothing like them. Whatever my authority figures were like, I am nothing like them either. Whatever my society is like, I have little use for it. I do as I please, live as I please, believe what I please, and act as I please. I look at this world as only I can see it, and I live by my own rules. If anyone or anything designed me to live the life I have led, they certainly did an amazing job. Not because I am special in any way, but because I live what John Lennon asked the world to do in his song Imagine. And I am not a figment of anyone’s imagination. Especially my own.

    My apologies for my reactions, but I have had discussions like this a number of times in my life, and I guess your question was just one too many. I’m really not angry with you, though it might sound like it, but I am giving you my answer to the thought that the future history of the Cosmos is already planned. Because if one thing is predestined, then all things are predestined — and if one thing is not predestined, then nothing is predestined. ‘Nuff said!

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        • It’s all good my friend. I actually DO appreciate, very much, raw (blunt?) honesty. I find it refreshing these days. Besides, I much rather prefer your candor than nauseating sugar-coated ‘tell me what I wanna hear‘ stuff. 😉

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          • As I said, indirectly, I reprogrammed myself, if I was ever programmed at all. But that still directs me to believe in free will, because if I can overcome my programming, so can everyone else.

            I was brought up to be a victim, first of my male parent, and then of every bully in the world. They fought over who got to bully me in school. Nobody bullies me anymore, and I don’t use my fists to stop them! And along the way I learned who I really am, deep down inside, where few people are willing to look.

            You in your own way are a lot like me, or I, like you, however you want to say that. We do what we want, but in very nice ways.

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    • rawgod, it sounds as if you have a serious beef (gripe) with writers Kyle Killen and Steven Kane. And perhaps also executive producers Stephen Spielberg, Kiki Wolfkill, Frank O’Connor, Bonnie Ross, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank, Otto Bathurst, Tobie Leslie, and Scott Pennington. 😉

      I knew you were not angry at me—I didn’t write or produce the TV series. I merely enjoy it as a viewer and a big fan of thought-provoking existential dilemmas and questions the series tackles. They are questions very worthy of humans today asking and giving deserved, earnest thought. THAT’S what I love about Halo, the TV series. 🙂

      Thank you kindly for sharing your thoughts and opinions on the storyline, vehement as they are. You certainly present other questions and angles most of the audience would NEVER consider, especially since Halo’s fanbase averages 17–26 yrs old.

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    • No, haven’t noticed that Arnold.

      …if other planets are inhabited they’re too far away to do us any good.

      Eh, maybe. Maybe not. I can’t spell out the long-term future or predict it. Why? As Kai-125 and Dr. Miranda Keyes discussed:

      Kai-125: Well, what does it mean to behave in unexpected ways?
      Dr. Miranda Keyes: Like a human I suppose.

      It’s humans that make this existence impossibly random and unpredictable. I guess that is as it should be. 🙂

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