** 2021 #19: Path Dependency **
The problem with understanding civilization is that our small sample. There was only one Athens or one Rome, who’s to say what westerns civilization would have been without those past beacons?
Emergency skin is the story of such a path dependency, one planet that took the road of Sparta, and the other that of Athens. The encounter plays out as one would expect, with the shock of post-modernity-humanity weighing heavily on the Spartan outsiders, particularly our unnamed protagonist. Neo-Athenians (earthlings) are depicted in unabashedly optimistic colors. The focus of the story is not on the sins of earth, but on the potential of what we can become. In this way Emergency Skin is a story of pure optimism, and a quick reminder of what humanity could accomplish, contrasted with the typical ruts civilization gets stuck in.