Children of Time, #3
Children of Memory
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Contents
12.6 Miranda
Overview
Miranda learns that Landfall was never a real settlement but an alien engine’s simulated extrapolation from the doomed Enkidu colonists. Refusing to treat the simulated people as disposable, Miranda argues that Liff and the others deserve moral consideration equal to copied, uploaded, or reconstructed minds.
With help from Gothi and Gethli, Miranda proposes extracting Liff first and letting her speak for the world that never physically existed. The chapter shifts the story from discovery to ethical rescue, while Miranda’s meeting with the original Miranda affirms that the copy has grown into a distinct and courageous self.
Summary
Miranda and Kern-minor confront Kern-major’s confirmation that Landfall never existed. Nobody from the Enkidu reached Imir’s surface alive; Holt, the ark, the shuttle, and the later colony were copied by the alien engine into a simulation that extrapolated centuries of history from an initial state.
Miranda reasons that the engine does not merely record events but speculates, rerunning a highly controlled thought experiment in which Landfall always rises and fails. Miranda’s own intrusion, along with Kern and the birds, changed the variables and destabilized the loop, suggesting to Miranda that the engine may have been trying to find a way for the colony to survive.
Kern-major dismisses Landfall’s inhabitants as unreal, but Miranda argues that fidelity, agency, and self-awareness make them people. Kern-minor supports the challenge by noting that Miranda, Kern, uploaded minds, and copied intelligences also exist through transfer, replication, and reconstruction, making any strict boundary of reality ethically suspect.
Miranda consults Gothi and Gethli, who confirm that no copy of her remains disrupting the simulation and help her form a plan. Landfall has returned to its original stable, doomed loop from Holt to Liff, and Miranda decides that if the simulated people are trapped in repeated suffering, she has a duty to intervene.
Miranda presents her proposal to the fleet and faces intense objections about logistics, ethics, and identity: saving one generation would alter or erase others, while saving the colony as a whole may be impossible. Miranda proposes a minimum intervention: extract Liff’s simulated mind into a blank body, explain the truth, and let Liff become an ambassador from the simulation who can help decide what should happen next.
After Miranda’s argument begins to sway the virtual assembly, the original Miranda visits her aboard the Skipper. The older Miranda praises the copy’s courage and says the retrieved Miranda has become the version of herself she wished she could be, leading the two to embrace as family despite their strange shared identity.
Who Appears
- Mirandaretrieved copy who argues Landfall’s simulated people are real and proposes rescuing Liff.
- Kern-minorembodied splinter of Kern who helps analyze the simulation and challenges reality boundaries.
- Kern-majorlarger Kern intelligence who confirms Landfall never existed and opposes Miranda’s ethical claims.
- Gothi and Gethlipaired corvid investigators who map the simulation and help Miranda design her plan.
- Liffsimulated final child of Landfall whom Miranda wants to extract as an ambassador.
- Holtdead Enkidu colonist whose copied starting state anchors the simulation’s earliest phase.
- Original Mirandaaging source identity who visits her copy and praises her courage and growth.