"The kind of classic fifties-era first-contact story that Jonathan Swift
might have written, if Jonathan Swift had had a background in game
theory."
-- (Hugo nominee) Peter Watts, "In Praise of Baby-Eating"
Three Worlds Collide is a story I wrote to illustrate some points on naturalistic metaethics and diverse other issues of rational conduct. It grew, as such things do, into a small novella. On publication, it proved widely popular and widely criticized. Be warned that the story, as it wrote itself, ended up containing some profanity and PG-13 content.
- The Baby-Eating Aliens
- War and/or Peace
- The Super Happy People
- Interlude with the Confessor
- Three Worlds Decide
- Normal Ending
- True Ending
- Atonement
PDF version here.
The story is more of a way of toying with the subjective nature of morality. The takeaway of the story is not whether or not baby-eating is right or wrong - an objective answer to this question is impossible - but of the difficulties that arise during the interactions of moral agents with incompatible values.
Human conflicts between nations have been about conflicts of interest, political conflicts within nations are often about conflicts of values...but what happens when someones moral values are fundamentally alien to your own?