Children of Time story
The book's plot involves a planet inhabited by evolved spiders uplifted by human scientists, and their later discovery by the last humans alive in the universe. The work plays off the contrast between the societal development of the spiders and the barbaric descent of the starship crew of the last humans.
15 total · 2 choice · 9 major · 4 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| cooperation vs. competition | choice | in the end the uplift virus was applied to humans to make them more empathic and all was bliss |
| war of mutual annihilation | choice | (old) mankind destroyed itself with war |
| artificial intelligence | major | Kern's ship was nearly sentient |
| biological weapons | major | one of the things that destroyed Earth; the spiders were masters at it |
| collectively intelligent beings | major | the ants had a sort of collective intelligence |
| cryogenic technology | major | people were frozen for hundreds of years at a time |
| desperation | major | the human remnant was desperate for a viable place to live |
| man vs. woman | major | amongst the spiders males struggled for rights in a reversal of recent mankind history |
| mind-computer merging | major | Kern's mind merged with the space ship she was in |
| the theory of evolution | major | A premise of the story was that humans "uplifted" the spiders, i.e., gave them a boost in order to accelerate their evolution towards intelligence. |