If one day, your pet began to speak and ask for the same benefits as people, how would you react?
How to deal with not only pets, but all kinds of domestic animals and wild animals have thoughts and require agreements with humans to divide the territory?
If the delicious steak on your plate comes from a thoughtful, talking cow, can you still eat it?
All of these assumptions have become a reality in the science fiction novel "Awakening", which explores how we can get along with various animals after their awakening, if animals have thoughts and can express them in words.
The author, Jean-Baptiste de Panafe, is a French professor of biology and a renowned author who has published more than 70 books and won several French literary awards, and his works are closely related to his own profession, covering the environment and ecology, marine life, animal evolution, etc.
In the three novels in the series Awakening, he continues to use the strengths of the biology profession to explore the possibility of animals evolving in an unexpected awakening and coexisting peacefully with humans, presenting an incredible and thought-provoking scene.
An accident that awakens the animal.
Laura, a 25-year-old girl who is a biology researcher who specializes in genetic repair, is studying the effects of a genetic combination substance she calls "mind craftsman" on mice, and no one expected that the mice injected with "mind craftsman" began to wake up, taking advantage of Laura's time to answer the phone and escape from the laboratory, causing an uproar in the animal kingdom.
In fact, the mouse itself had just escaped from the experimental building, when it was bitten off by a cat and broke its neck, and its life was whimpering, but the blood in his corpse became the source of a series of animal awakenings.
After the cat bites the mouse, it finds that the mouse does not taste good, so it leaves it and walks away, and the body of the mouse is eaten by a crow, a dog and a mouse.
After a few days they all woke up, and more and more animals began to awaken due to their bites and fights with other animals, breeding, and so on.
The awakened rats no longer went on a rampage when preying, but were organized and planned, thus reducing casualties and growing rapidly, and the small crows hatched by the first awakened crows even formed an army of crows when they grew up, which seriously interfered with flights, causing airports in European countries to close, and even drones could not reconnoiter in the air.
The awakened bears confront humans and demand the division of their own territory. After awakening, the relationship between pets and their families has also changed dramatically...
Everything has changed.
Once the process of awakening is initiated, no one can reverse it.
Due to the massive awakening of the animals, the Wolf Company, a multinational group specializing in the meat farming and trading, began to panic, and their business was seriously damaged, and jefferson, the head of the group, was very dissatisfied, and he summoned his subordinates to investigate the origin of the animal awakening, and finally found Laura.
So they kidnaps Laura and asks her to develop a retroviral vaccine as soon as possible, so that the awakened animals can return to their original chaotic state.
Laura was also deeply distressed, not knowing whether the animal awakening she had triggered was good or bad, and in what direction it would go. Watching the wild animals slowly begin to awaken, she also had worries and fears in her heart, but she could not bear to let the animals that were already conscious, thinking, and able to talk and communicate with people with the help of translators return to a state of ignorance.
She had spent some days with several of her awakened pets, and she was impressed by the warmth and wisdom of the animals, and as she evaded Jefferson's bodyguards, the animals did their best to help her, and she felt that it might not be so bad to awaken the animals.
So at first she tried her best to delay, and then under pressure, she had to start developing a new vaccine, although there was some progress, but as she heard the news of the awakening of more and more animals such as black bears, wolves, raccoons, seagulls, etc., she gradually realized that once the evolution of nature was turned on, it was irreversible, although by chance, she was the one who opened the animal awakening button, but once the gears of awakening turned, she could not go against the trend.
The difference between man and animal is not at all in form.
The book is first and foremost about environmental protection, and after the awakening of wild animals, they have made complaints about human deforestation and animal hunting, and the animals in zoos are angry that they are forced to lose their freedom, and some animals are also waiting for opportunities to take revenge on humans, such as crows destroying the aviation system, and gorillas almost destroying nuclear power plants.
The author is using this imaginary scene to call on people not to over-harvest nature and kill animals indiscriminately. But beyond the intention of calling for environmental protection, there is more profound thinking.
The human and animal sentient beings depicted in the book also let us see that the essential difference between humans and animals is not in what kind of skin they wear, whether they will think or communicate in fluent language, but in their inner perseverance and choice.
For example, a group of young people centered on Laura in the book fully respect every life, and they actively develop translators to promote animal and human communication, help different animal populations reach a peaceful consensus, assist in the great migration of animals to establish an animal republic, and so on.
And in any critical moment, they can stick to the principle of life first, and there is a scene that I am particularly impressed with:
Laura is almost shot and killed by Jefferson's assistant Leopard Hui, but fortunately one of Leopard Hui's colleagues has not lost his humanity, and after he knocks Leopard Hui unconscious, he wants to take Laura to leave quickly, but Laura insists that she can't leave Leopard Hui alone, because she is afraid that the wolves who have been chasing them before Leopard Hui wake up will arrive first and eat Leopard Hui.
She knew that Leopard Hui would still find an opportunity to kill her when she woke up, but she just couldn't ignore a life without foreseeing the danger, and she had the same attitude towards people and animals.
In contrast, not to mention the self-interested number one villain Jefferson and his assistant Leopard Hui, there is also a member of the "Respect for Nature and Animals Alliance" Sengraer, who is committed to improving the treatment of farm animals, but without blinking an eye, betrays Laura's hiding place and helps Jefferson capture Laura to develop anti-awakening substances.
The same is true in the fauna, including animals like Charlie the Raven, Adam the Chimpanzee, and Bingo the Pet Dog, who do not hesitate to sabotage in order to satisfy their dictatorial desires, as well as animals like Montaigne the parrot and Rohan the black bear.
In particular, the bear leader, Rohan, was once provoked by Laura's brother Gabriel's panic shooting, but he was able to get rid of the animal's instinct to fight back, quickly calm down, follow the advice of these human friends, peacefully negotiate with humans and wolves to solve territorial problems, and escort these human friends to their destinations.
Seeing this, who can say that these animals are inferior to humans, they are obviously more human than many people, more radiant than humanity.
In "Awakening", the animals finally establish their own animal republic and want to coexist peacefully with humans, of course, the author Jean Battist de Panafe also admits through the characters in the book that there are still many problems to be solved. But exploring a way of living in harmony with nature is not the duty of the author alone, but the responsibility of all of us.
In a planet with so many species and so limited natural resources, taking into account the needs of each species is an extremely complex matter that requires each of us to participate, brainstorm and actively plan for a common future between man and nature.
【More wonderful】For children aged 8-15, the list of books is complete in finance, commerce, literature and history, and mathematics to enhance their comprehensive ability
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