Distant Signals

In the story Distant Signal, a man from space comes down to Hollywood because his people want a show to continue running that has stopped being on the air for quite some time. The man comes down and finds out that the show that his people were interested in was canceled and he tries to tell the director that It should continue airing. He goes there and he fixes everything so that the show can air even though the director was not happy about putting it back on the air. After the man tells the director that his people are interested in the show the director changes his mind about cancelling and continues airing. This knowledge about knowing that someone Is wanting a goal to be perceived affects one’s future because they will continue with that goal and, in this case, will succeed with it.

speech sounds

Speech Sounds is about a futuristic society that has no law enforcement and is like a dystopia. This answers the essential question because the main characters live in a world where they always have to stay alert because danger can be found everywhere they go. They have the knowledge that danger exist everywhere and they are required to defend themselves. This knowledge affects their future because they know how things in their world work and they have the ability to stay safe instead of being killed in the streets.

Topics and Themes

Topics & Themes: Speech Sounds

TOPICS: The topics in Speech Sounds by Octavia Butler are Illness, Isolation, and death.

THEME: The theme that Speech Sounds by Octavia Butler most expresses is loss.

Topics & Themes: Distant Signals

TOPICS: The topics in Distant Signals by Andrew Weiner are success, passion, and revival.

THEME: The theme that Distant Signals by Andrew Weiner most expresses is determination.

Essential Question

Speech Sounds~

The essential question in this story is answered in many ways. The knowledge that the illness has truck the country has affected the future as the inhabitants slowly started to lose their speech capability and their literacy altogether. Also the knowledge that some people have gone mad with jealousy of others that can speak and are hunting down them down has made everyone in this society far more cautious around other people. The essential question is answered by the amount of restraint and caution that people show each other once they gain knowledge that could bring about their demise.

Distant Signals~

The essential question is answered when the "young man" shows his motives for "reviving" a supposedly very bad film. This is not well received with other people who don''t want to invest in something that they are not sure of. Another cause for concern in the story is the man's actor choice of Vance Maccabory. The people know that given his past history of constant binging on the job that he is a very inadequate person to work with. This answers the question by showing that knowledge about people can greatly affect the future in both productivity and emotional ways.

Schrödinger’s Plague

The Schrödinger’s plague is about a group quantum physicist that accidentally releases a virus into the world. The release this virus into the world and they use the theory of Schrödinger’s cat to find out the possibility of humans being affected by the virus. This answers the essential question, the knowledge that they have about quantum physics and the disease that they have released. This gives them the advantage of knowing how to defeat the disease. Another thing that they have that also affects their knowledge is the idea of Schrodinger’s cat. They won’t exactly know how the virus would react to people because it has never been observed when introduced to an environment full of people.

Quotes

1. "We know so little about whole affair-but theres no doubt in my mind we should hang it over to the police." (477) They have little knowledge of the affair going on, Carl thinks they should just hand it over to the police. This will affect the future of the experiment.

2."They've killed Marty and destroyed the lab building to wipe out all traces of the experiment, so that no one will know it ever took place." (484) The people had knowledge about the ex

3. "We have to find the complete list of symptoms- besides headache, sweaty palms, backache, pains behind the eyes." (484) They do not have the knowledge about what the symptoms are, thus affecting whether it will work in the future.

Topics and Themes

One topic is uncertainty and how this affects the human brain when the future is not clear. There is also a general air of fear and suspense amongst the scientists as the virus is released and they don't know if they have it or not. This is where the knowledge about the virus itself can come into the play about their future. One theme is the willingness to give your life for the things you are dedicated to.

Frozen Journey

the Frozen Journey is about a man who is going on a ten year. Victor is switching from consciousness and unconsciousness. He can't tell the difference between the two and all of the information that feeds into his mind starts to confuse him.

The theme of the story is reality and fiction. There is a big difference between the two and when someone gets confused to the point that they can not tell the difference between the two they get hopelessly confused and it affects their minds completely. The reason he can't interpret the memories is because he wasn't there to experience them and he can't seem to understand them unless he is experiencing them.

Quotes

Private War of Private Jacob~

"Crazy old Melford would be down on his hunkers next to you and give you a couple friendly punches and josh around and flash those white teeth until you were about to scream or run but instead you wound up saying: yeah gonna be a good one, Sarge" (301)

This quote shows Jacob's knowledge of Melford's disposition and it also explains Jacobs trepidation in explaining his true feelings about war to Melford.

''Look happy, Jacob' Sergeant Melford was always all smile and bounce before a battle. During a battle too. He smiled at the tanglewire and beamed at his men while they picked their way through"

This shows the relationship between Melford and his soldiers, and how their knowledge of Melford affects their efficiency on the battlefield.

"The stricken men began to stir and few of the most hardly wobbled to their hands and knees . Jacob threw back his head and laughed and laughed"

The knowledge that he will now become just like Melford has given him the strength to be cheerful, and the knowledge to become what he now has to become.

Frozen Journey~

"This is a very neurotic person, the ship realized. I am having an awful lot of trouble finding happy memories. There is too much fear in him and too much guilt. He has buried it all, and yet it is still there, worrying him like a dog worrying a rag."

The ship realizes that Victor has so much negativity stored inside him and now the ship has knowledge about the psyche about this kind of person. With this knowledge, the ship is now effectively able to asses what to do with this kind of person.

"He relaxed but he was terribly frightened. Theoretically, he should have gone under, into the the successful cryonic suspension, then awakened a moment later at his star of destination."

This tells us a lot about Victor and his psyche. This shows that he is initially afraid of everything because of past memories that made him this way.

"The ship understood it. The ship had been carefully monitoring Victor Kemming's brain wave patterns, and the ship knew that something had gone wrong."

This shows that the past knowledge that the ship obtained from previous encounters from this kind of brain waves helps the ship understand humans better.

Private war of Private Jacob

This story is about a military private named Jacob who is in a desert like place fighting off an enemy much like a common war. He and his fellow soldiers fight of the enemy and some of them get injured but the one who seems to not get hit at all is sergeant Melford. Melford doesn’t do anything to fight of the enemy, never gets injured, and he laughs during battle. When Melford is killed during battle his personality gets downloaded into Jacob and he becomes exactly like him.

One of the topics of the story is teamwork. In the story the army all join together in battle and they all fight through the rough terrain and the enemy together and they don’t give up. They all stay together and they know when to do what. An example of this is when they are in the desert. They know what speed and how rough it is but they work together to prevent getting burnt in the heat.

The topic is that people in a higher ranking won’t do as much work as the people in lower ranks. In the story Jacob doesn’t like the fact that Melford doesn’t do much but laugh and yell orders in the battles while the soldiers do all of the work. When Melford gets killed and his ranking gets transferred to Jacob he doesn’t do anything but laugh while his soldiers are wounded. He probably would have done different if he wasn’t promoted.

Essential Question

How does knowledge affect our future?

Frozen Journey

In this book it switches back and forth between conscious and subconscious so it is some what hard to follow. Victor was not able to realize that Martine was arriving to the planet LR4, was his first time in 10 years. This affected his future because he was not able to see his long lost friend.  The knowledge the ship was feeding him made him have no future and lead a fake life.

The Private war of Private Jacobs

In this book private Jacob is using his helmet to help him fight. It gives him knowledge that her otherwise wouldn't have had otherwise. This knowledge helps him fight better thus affecting his future. When his NCO is destroyed, the computer back in the base just upgrades his system to Sergeant status.