Oracle is a science fiction novella by Greg Egan. It was originally published in Asimovs Science Fiction in July 2000. It can be read here
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Provides examples of:
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: Oracle is set in a world that diverged from ours around the early twentieth century, with a man named Robert Stoney being born in place of Alan Turing, who nevertheless enters the exact same field, and has the same sexual orientation. Because he was gay in a rather unenlightened time, he is treated about as badly as Turing was in Real Life, except that instead of being castrated and then killing himself, Stoney is subjected to what would have to have been considered cruel and unusual punishment even by the standards of the time, but this is what allows a time-traveler from the future to rescue him, and tell him about future technology. It is this future knowledge that Stoney exploits to come up with such things as an imager that is more effective than X-rays, but provides no risk of cancer, genetically modified crops that have a much higher yield than anything known, sustainable energy, and even the beginnings of strong A.I. (though Stoney admits that he isn't at that stage yet.)
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Hamilton finds it perfectly logical that Stoney is getting his inventions from demons, but when Stoney tells him that they came from a time traveler it only convinces him that Stoney is a liar. This serves to show the constraints on his reasoning that his dogmatism creates.
- Cure Your Gays: An alternate universe Alan Turing is locked in a punishingly cramped cage by the secret service in an attempt to cure him of his homosexuality. The No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Turing notices the Anviliciousness of the situation:Quint was silent for a moment, then he replied with a tone of thoughtful sympathy. "It's unnatural, isn't it? Living like this: bent over, twisted, day after day. Living in an unnatural way is always going to harm you. I'm glad you can finally see that."
Robert was tired; it took several seconds for the meaning to sink in. It was that crude, that obvious? They'd locked him in this cage, for all this time ... as a kind of ham-fisted metaphor for his crimes? - Evil Reactionary: Subverted. Jack Hamilton's Establishing Character Moment is taking pride at the fact that a Loony Fan of his fantasy novel appears to actually believe the setting is real, instead of being appalled at this like any sane author would be, because he considers the book to teach children about the importance of blind faith. He also makes arguments against "materialism" that are quite transparently full of logical holes, is convinced that Robert Stoney is a Satanist even after Stoney gives him almost undeniable proof of the contrary, and believes that science itself is of the Devil. However, as the story goes on, we find out that he is being brought to despair over his wife's terminal disease, and by the end, he comes off as pitiable.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: Played straight, albeit with the twist that the past time that the time traveler improves is no more distant that 1950s Britain. However, since the time traveler is implied to be from pretty far in the future, the native she helps out manages to invent technology that is incredibly advanced even by twenty-first century standards.
- Good Is Old-Fashioned: Subverted. This is very much not the case, as forward-thinkers like Stoney and Helen consistently come off as better than people like Hamilton, but the paragraphs in Hamilton's point of view consistently describe himself as against the fashion of materialism, implying that he believes the only reason educated people are starting to lose faith in God is not because there are no good arguments for religion and not because there is evidence against it, but because atheism is an exciting new trend.
- Hard on Soft Science: It's implied that Hamilton teaches English because he was too ignorant or fanatical to understand physics or mathematics. The rest of the Inklings-Expies are also implied to be obscurantists for the same reason.
- Hate Sink: Peter Quint. Unlike Jack Hamilton, who is a Tragic Villain who easily could have become Stoney's friend instead of his enemy, Quint is a sadist with state backing. He is so petty-minded and parochial that he assumes that anyone with a foreign name is either a fascist or communist, and is completely oblivious that he himself would fit in better in a totalitarian state than in a liberal democracy, because he enjoys torturing his prisoners. There is no intellectual discipline which he doesn't treat with the utmost scorn and contempt, and when Stoney suggests legalizing victimless crimes so that they can't be a national security risk, Quint is as offended as if Stoney had suggested legalizing treason—not out of any moral principle, but because if that were done, then Quint's job would no longer be necessary. If that were not enough, he is also a casual misogynist—the narration states that neither he nor anyone else in the civil service would find a smart and outspoken woman attractive. After Stoney escapes and has his name cleared, Quint pursues him like Inspector Javert, only to be effortlessly dispatched by Stoney and his lover. Ultimately, he serves as the perfect example of the kind of anti-intellectual bully that Egan assures us will no longer exist after The Singularity.
- Hero of Another Story: The university student who coaches Hamilton for his debate with Stoney. We never find out anything about him or even learn his name, but if it weren't for him, the entire debate would have been a farce, and public opinion could very well have turned against Stoney's science advocacy.
- Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Justified; the people of Helen's time desperately want to prevent the atrocities of the totalitarian dictatorships of the twentieth century, but are currently unable to do so, as the nature of their time-travel-enabling Applied Phlebotinum means that any change to an event of that magnitude would affect all timelines which had a Second World War, thereby causing a Temporal Paradox. Helen does say though, that the researchers from her time are trying to figure out a way to avoid this problem, suggesting that the situation is not permanent.
- Idiot Ball: The alternate timeline version of Hamilton at the end does such a poor job at convincing his past self to join him that one has to wonder if, subconsciously, he didn't want it to happen at all. He ought to know better than anybody the depths of Hamilton's fanaticism, and thus, not talk about their plan in a way that would make him think demons are responsible, but he does it anyway.
- Meaningful Name: Oracle features a Captain Ersatz of C. S. Lewis as the main antagonist, and alludes to his fictional works, with the Narnia counterpart being called "Nescia", which is most likely derived from "nescience", that is to say, willful ignorance. Oracle is anything but subtle.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Any historical figure who would be important to the plot gets replaced, though less important figures are name-dropped without alteration. Specifically, Robert Stoney replaces Alan Turing, and Jack Hamilton replaces C. S. Lewis. At least in Stoney's case, there is some
Fridge Brilliance about it, since Helen couldn't save Turing himself, because it would quite possibly negate her timeline, but a Captain Ersatz of him is perfectly fine. - Obligatory Swearing: A C.S. Lewis expy dropping F-bombs. Strange, as one would think that would be the sort of linguistic degeneration that he as an expert in English Literature would deplore. And of course, they serve to make him seem unreasonable.
- Save Both Worlds: What Helen's ultimate goal is implied to be, by getting people to combine with Alternate Universe versions of themselves, in an attempt to produce an optimal time line. A Gainax Ending ensues.
- Take That!: By the second half, the story has shifted from a “save Alan Turing” plot to a Take That against C. S. Lewis in general and That Hideous Strength in particular. The Lewis expy becomes the antagonist because he assumes Stoney’s goals are the same as the N. I. C. E., and the final scene can be considered The Moral Substitute to Lewis’s belief that all who are in Hell choose it—on his deathbed, Hamilton is visited by himself from a parallel universe where Stoney successfully enlightened the human race and conquered death, and the alternate Hamilton gives the current one the chance to be saved, by merging with him, but says this can’t be done against his will. Hamilton, however, assumes this is The Final Temptation and refuses, throwing away his only chance at salvation. In fact, the portrayal of people like Lewis is just as negative as the portrayals of atheists and secularists in Lewis’s own fiction, excepting a few Fox News Liberals, so it has to be intentional.
- Unknown Character: Before the Hamilton-Stoney debate, a nameless university student meets with Hamilton and coaches him about Gödel's incompleteness theorem and other (then-)modern philosophy that would bolster his argument that artificial intelligence will never be possible, of which Hamilton, being a professor of English, is entirely ignorant. Though unbeknownst to either, they are wrong because Helen is an AI from the future, this coaching is what allows Hamilton to debate Stoney on equal footing.
- Windmill Crusader: Jack Hamilton is convinced that Robert Stoney has made a contract with Satan and that this is the source of his newfound scientific advancements. This leads him to oppose Stoney every way he can, including trying to disprove his whole philosophy on national television, all while assuming that Stoney's assurances to the contrary are lies. Even at the end of the story, after he lost the debate and is visited by an emissary from the benevolent future Stoney's efforts produced, he still thinks that the man is a tool of the devil.
- Worthy Opponent: Despite their previous history, Stoney actually considers Hamilton this after their televised debate, as Hamilton is actually able to make a cogent argument, relatively free of Logical Fallacies, (instead of the typical creationist fare) which references actual mathematicians and scientists, rather than the medieval philosophers that Stoney was expecting.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Hamilton believes that he is his world's version of Elwin Ransom, bravely fighting against the Satanic materialists who scheme to bring about Hell on Earth. This being a Greg Egan story, in reality he is a fundamentalist loon, tilting at windmills while his nemesis has invented scientific wonders entirely through the scientific method, with no demonic help whatever, and doesn't even believe the supernatural exists.
