Rogue

Time has passed and now Royal Jelly is commercially available. Even though great fear towards the aliens remains, a new economy strives on them. But in this act, the people have forgotten that the aliens were once the predators and not the prey. The story picks up with a routine alien harvest quest. A team goes into a hive and collects a life sample for a buyer to study. Weapons have improved to allow and protect against the acid blood, so the collect goes without a hitch. Pilot Joyce takes the task of delivering the captured alien to a research facility in space.Upon arriving, a brief stay is required to repair the ship. At the station she meets Mr. John Kray who is an up and coming scientist. He warns her to get out of this space in so far in deep space. After turmoil begins, the two go into hiding. The director of the facility, Kleist, has been up to some dark secrets and played a role in the ship delay after delivering the alien. He planed to use the marines escorting the alien as lab rats and host. Through tricks and commands he gets a party killed by the aliens on board to advance his "construction" of an alpha male alien. Note that before the alien hives are controlled by a single Queen, and the drones have no "gender" but can become a queen to fill the role. Kleist dreamed of making a alpha male that could control the queen and the other aliens, but at the same time have more reason so that it will obey humans. He succeeded in making this alien king and finds, much to the the joy of one of the marines, that the king alien does not kill on instinct. In fact, the king spared the life of the frightened marine. Kleist attempts to introduce the king to the hive, but instead they start fighting and the king kill all the normal aliens. On their death the Queen alien issues a challenge (the queen can sense the loss of her own, and thus made a piercing cry from deep within the research facility). The king broke out of his holding cell and began searching for the queen, laying waste to all in his path. During this time, Joyce and Kray attempt to seek past the guards now taking the remaining marines into custody. Before their escape, Joyce rescues her friend Jason from from the path of the king alien now on the loose. Finally the king alien reaches the queen, with Kleist following behind to see the king dominate over the queen. Yet the queen is stronger and begins to win. Kleist runs up as if he could do any damage only to be mutilated by the queen after her victory. With his dying move he activates a sound bomb. This is a device made at emits at such a high frequency to cripple the aliens, yet people cannot hear.  Luckily, the sound bomb gives Joyce and company just enough time to escape to an escape pod and survive, while the rest of the station turns into yet another alien hive.

Analysis:
This story shows the acts of a mad scientist who believed he could be god. Kleist sacrificed people to make his ends but in the end sought his own demise. In modern times today people fear these types of scientist, which explains the fear and debates surrounding stem cell research and cloning. Some see this type of research as dangerous to mankind if used the wrong way while other might see it ethically wrong to attempt to be God by creating life. Kleist found out the hard way that nature finds a way to overcome any created limits upon it. This is the same as modern day virus and bacteria that have modified over time to withstand current medicines. But i believe the main question this story poses to the reader is how much is too much scientific research? When is it needed?
The author might have seen that anything that tried to take Gods role (or simply the natural order of the universe) away was too far. This involved all the problems that went wrong. Robotic humans once again turned on humans due to programs from an evil mastermind. The created king alien could not remain bound yet lost in the end to the natural order of things. All through the facility, technology failed at critical times resulting in loss of life (events planed by Kleist to collect his victims).
Yet there is another idea that comes through this story. Perhaps it not the research that is bad. The attempt to be God is not evil, but it is the pride and human shortcomings that is. Kleist was the man that turned machines and research to bite man in the rear, and end the end cost him his life. But if a good man was to use the knowledge much different results might have transpired. Kleist main reason for his death was he ran to fight a queen alien with the believe that his created alien could not lose. This is pride. This pride brought him to ruin. Joyce and Kray were not prideful of their acts as people and thus in the end survived the dooms day events.
Note that is story is not saying that humans are all bad. Yes Kleist fail to human desires,  but Joyce, Kray, and Jason have redeem qualities of trust. Even though humans might naturally fall, with the help of others they can be lifted up and be good. Humans are best when together, not alone.

Harvest Part II

Trapped on the alien home world, nightfall quickly approaches, as so the aliens. Luckily, the three (Gill the synth, Dr. Mayakovsky, and Julian) have a special device that releases an alien pheromone to stay “invisible” to the aliens. This device was tested on Mac, the dog, earlier and worked. The problem is it only last for three hours. Gill request for rescue, but with the military ship Lancelot in orbit the help will not arrive in time. Therefore, Dr. Mayakovsky suggests going straight through the hive to find Norbert, the robotic alien, and follow his trail to the abandoned ship he cleared out. And so they run through, all the while Dr. Mayakovsky fighting the urge to take the Royal Jelly of his to enter his traced state of bliss, but he refuses in order that he can stay with Julian. They device works, the alien walk right beside the team but do nothing to them. Finally Dr. Mayakovsky finds Norbert, who is badly beaten up but still slightly functional.  And the discover was at a good moment, for the devices soon run out and the aliens begin to swarm. Norbert once again sacrifices himself to stop the majority while the team runs to the abandoned ship just outside. They make it but at grave cost: Gill loses an arm (but being a syth it is not much a problem), Julian is burned by the acid blood, and the Lancelot is landing.  Dr. Mayakovsky has a plan. Fighting his own urge, he gives a small amount of Royal Jelly to Julian to ease her pain, and then he reprograms Gills. The Captain Potter of the Lancelot demands that the team surrender the ship to him. Not wanting to start a fight yet, Dr. Mayakovsky plays innocent and request medical aid. The military men march towards the ship, but the alien horde stops the advance. Now Captain Potter is furious and Dr. Mayakovsky has the advantage. He sends Gill, since he is a syth programmed to not harm humans, to negotiate. The aliens do not attack for Gill is infused with Royal Jelly now making him smell like one of their own. Captain Potter refused to make a negation, all he wants is the Royal Jelly stored on board the their ship. With no further talk to be made, Dr. Mayakovsky commands Gill to execute his final orders. Within Gills wrist is a trigger for a bomb stored inside him. His explosion breaches the haul and the perimeter force field. Without a second delay the aliens take advantage and swarm in. But hope has not yet arrived. The aliens have also begun to breach Dr. Mayakovsky’s ship and Julian is still injured. He takes Julian in his arms and promises to escape his world together with her this time. Together embrace and drink the Royal Jelly, sending them to the state of bliss. All the while the aliens bust in and take their life. But alien do not always kill right away, some they keep alive for breeding host. And so all the while they are in their trace, a baby alien comes to live inside them.

Analysis:

From the beginning, Dr. Mayakovsky sought the Royal Jelly escape the world into a moment of bliss. But in the end, what he really wanted was to be in the embrace of the woman he loved and to be with her. He was no longer afraid of death. In addition, in his reprogramming of Gill, Gill awakes to some minor human emotions as well, such as love. Gill’s sacrifice was his own decision, not a forced command, in order to protect Julian.  The tricked work so well because Captain Potter believed that human emotions could only be found in humans, not machines, nor that they could have free will. Technology and science claim to understand the world, but consistently new things are being discovered.  First, the alien robot could not match the scent of the alien hive, even though all science said it would. Second, Gill “awoke” to emotions and free will (syth are not permitted to let a human come to harm). While these are sci-fi, they reflect the reality of the world. Science is always changing and trying to prove or disprove things. What do you believe in when everything you thought you knew is now a lie?

Another point you can see from this story is the personification of Consequentialist, Perfectionist, and Deontological viewpoints of ethics.  Gill can be seen as the Consequentialist, at least in the beginning. For a syth, he is governed by the three rules of robotics: do not harm a human or allow a human to become harmed, it must obey all commands unless in conflict with first, it must protect its existence unless conflict with previous laws. Because of this, a syth looks for the best for the most good. If anyone has to die, Gill wants to least death. When Dr. Mayakovsky plans to go into the hive, Gill follows only because the storm and potential of waiting in the open is slimmer than going through the hive. His plans are rational and goal-oriented: save and protect his human master. Dr. Mayakovsky plays the role of the Deontological view. His focus is inter-personal relationships. He reprograms Gil to be free from the laws and have free will because everyone should be free to choice. His goals were universal; he wanted to live and be happy (which he did thanks to the Royal Jelly) and wished this upon his robotic creations which he considered his own family. Julian can be seen as the Perfectionist. Her original mission in coming to Dr. Mayakovsky was to find a reliable source of obtaining Royal Jelly. She trained herself daily in avoiding and escaping from Norbert, which also dueled as allowing him to learn the nature of the aliens.  This can be evidence of her strife to perfect herself to the best that she could be, and to be a hero in the world by returning with Royal Jelly. Her goal in this world is a worthy cause, the plagues of mankind have grown stronger and the Royal Jelly can help people be happy, or save lives, or other various uses when applied to science. In the end, no theory is better than the other, as seen that each person dies in his or her own noble way. Gill dies saving the most important people to him, and Dr. Mayakovsky and Julian die in a loving embrace in bliss.