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A human ship sets out to check anomalous supernova only to come across two alien species with what later turns out to be morally wrong set of values, totally incompatible with human ones. The fate of the two less technologically advanced species is stake, as the aliens make a move to start negotiations…

The book is a page-turner, extremely to-the-point and jam-packed with science lingo – the Prisoner`s dilemma, market-based decision-making system etc. That is understandable, as the human species, according to Yudkowsky, became the ultimate rationalists. Confronted with an ethical dilemma, though, they turn out to be savages, and so are the Superhappies, the alien race with faster thinking and better technology.

Even though the story is tricky, the ultimate conclusion is bizzarely primitive: the future course of events is shaped by a more powerful species. Period. Despite extensive layers of advanced technology and intellectual dexterity, it all comes down to who has more power to force their domination, albeit with a tint of compromise, on another.

The Drama Triangle is a psychological term describing a situation in which there are three roles: the persecutor, the victim and the rescuer. Yudkovsky`s story, if analysed using this lens, is a struggle over who is the rescuer of the poor alien children, and is an excellent illustration how unwanted interference by the rescuer leads to devastating consequences.

My other sad conclusion after reading this compelling, but eerie piece of writing is that we as human beings are so bitterly far from having the capacity to accept the concept of otherness in reality , that we can`t even fictionalize it.