Excerpts from Bruce Sterling's Swarm
"You are a young race and lay great stock by your own cleverness, " Swarm said. "As usual, you fail to see that intelligence is not a survival trait."Afriel wiped sweat from his face. "We've done well," he said. "We came to you, and peacefully. You didn't come to us."
"I refer to exactly that," Swarm said urbanely. "This urge to expand, to explore, to develop, is just what will make you extinct. You naively suppose that you can continue to feed your curiosity indefinitely. It is an old story, pursued by countless races before you. Within a thousand years perhaps a little longer your species will vanish."
"Intelligence is very much a two-edged sword, Captain-Doctor. It is useful only up to a point. It interferes with the business of living. Life, and intelligence, do not mix very well. They are not at all closely related, as you childishly assume."
"But you, then you are a rational being”"
"I am a tool, as I said." "When you began your pheromonal experiments, the chemical imbalance became apparent to the Queen. It triggered certain genetic patterns within her body, and I was reborn. Chemical sabotage is a problem that can best be dealt with by intelligence. I am a brain replete, you see, specially designed to be far more intelligent than any young race. Within three days I was fully self-conscious. Within five days I had deciphered these markings on my body. They are the genetically encoded history of my race within five days and two hours I recognized the problem at hand and knew what to do. I am now doing it. I am six days old."
"Technology, though I am capable of it, is painful to me. I am a genetic artifact; there are fail-safes within me that prevent me from taking over the Nest for my own uses. That would mean falling into the same trap of progress as other intelligent races."
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