The Atlantis Gene

The Toba Protocol, Konrad Kane’s devious master plan to genetically engineer the human race through lethal attrition, is based on a sole, unsubstantiated assumption: that the Atlanteans are malevolent and will wipe out humanity the moment they emerge from their hibernation tubes. This assumption is partly based on evolutionary history. Once Homo Sapiens developed a cognitive advantage over their hominoid brothers, they killed them off in a fit of self-defensive paranoia, at least according to the story. Kane wonders why a superior species like the Atlanteans would not see humans as a threat and systematically eradicate them, just like humans did to their own “inferior” relatives. Kane’s assumption that any superior race would inevitably squash lesser races is both logically flawed and based in his own psychological mindset.

Riddle’s choice to make Kane a German foreshadows Hitler’s plan to forge an Aryan Herrenrasse (master race) through a systematic program of sterilization, eugenics, and genocide. What enabled Hitler—and Kane—is fear, fear of an unseen enemy: contaminated bloodlines and cultural dilution in Hitler’s case, or, in Kane’s case, fear of extinction. Kane cannot imagine a scenario in which the Atlanteans are benevolent, and therefore, he seeks to create a master race of his own, one in which a select few are immune to the Atlantean Bell. Viewing the Bell as specifically an offensive tool of war is another unfounded assumption. Perhaps the Bell has another function altogether, and humanity’s vulnerability to its effects are simply an unfortunate side effect.

When Sloane takes over the administration of the Toba Protocol, he implements even more deadly technology—namely, two nuclear warheads to destroy the Atlanteans in a single blast and eliminate the threat forever. Both Sloane and Kane are victims of paranoia and their limited imaginations. As malevolent characters, they assume others have the same, singular motivations. Evil, the narrative suggests, can only see evil in others and then react accordingly. While the novel ends with the Atlanteans still slumbering in their hibernation tubes and their true nature still a mystery, confronting an alien species with force rather than diplomacy is counterproductive and yet distinctly human.

Somehow, in the aftermath of the Toba Catastrophe, Homo Sapiens survived and flourished while other hominoid subspecies died out. Humanity’s “Great Leap Forward,” the sudden evolutionary advancement in cognition that enabled language, art, and communal cooperation, gave Homo Sapiens a distinct advantage over its less fortunate brethren. Whether that Great Leap Forward happened because of the beneficence of a superior race or a genetic mutation is speculation, but one thing is clear: Humanity’s cognitive advantage had both positive and negative aspects.

On one hand, humans’ superior brains made possible sophisticated communication skills, advanced toolmaking abilities, and uniquely human capacity for art and self-reflection. These skills allowed humans to develop agriculture, build sprawling civilizations, and create art. On the other hand, their superior brainpower enabled the development of more efficient ways to kill: “Tools became much more finely crafted […] which allowed the development of deadlier weapons. Group hunting methods became more efficient” (Wells, Spencer. “The Great Leap.” The Guardian. 2 July 2003). Paradoxically, both these tendencies—creativity and destruction—coexist. Qian likens humanity to “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (230): the good and the bad struggling for dominance within the human psyche.

The trend continues. Humans have nurtured their creative impulses over the last tens of thousands of years through the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the digital age, Shakespeare, and the vast canon of music and literature. Conversely, humans have become ever more efficient at subjugating and destroying themselves through colonialism, slavery, immense nuclear arsenals, and two world wars. The creative and destructive sides of the human aspect have co-existed since Homo Sapiens evolved into the sublimely creative yet highly efficient killing machines we are today. Humans are a paradoxical species. The same evolutionary leap that gave humans the insight to craft spears out of bone—and, later, out of iron—also gave them the advantage of killing more prey more easily. From there, it became a short leap from killing animals for food to killing other humans for territory. Whether this appetite for destruction evolved naturally as a necessary concomitant of the creative impulse, or if it was a double-edged gift from an alien race (as posited in the opening scenes of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey), humankind’s contradictory nature has given rise to both Warner’s breakthrough medical research and Sloane’s diabolical plan for global genocide.