Archie is welcome in the expanding universe

Ray Bradbury‘s prose is too dark and depressing. All he writes about are bad things happening to mankind, with no way out. I remember getting sad every single time I read his books, and I quit reading him completely as soon as I discovered Robert Heinlein. What a difference! Heinlein was a firebrand for the Age of Heroes. There is death, destruction and sorrow in his books too, but there is always a way out. Someone inevitably stands up against all odds, saving the day, with no regrets, no apologies, and no search for safe spaces.

Heinlein’s political positions are rather complicated, because he explores very different paradigms, which I often struggled to reconcile (compare Starship Troopers vs Double Star vs Friday). That was until I ran into an analysis of Heinlein’s political position swings over the years, where the author quite convincingly explained the twists and turns by the changes in the great Heinlein’s marital status.

One book that stood out as really bizarre was “Number of the Beast.” From my personal perspective, Heinlein outdid himself in that book by breaking all kinds of taboos. However, that book also introduced me to the concept of multi-dimensional universe par excellence. Heinlein postulated that not only do the physical worlds we consider “real” exist in multiple variations, but also that human mind is capable of creating new dimensions on its own – by writing a book, for example. Every book is immediately its own universe with all necessary attributes and living characters. The conclusion is that if equipped with proper technology, you can interact with those characters.

Which brings us to Pride Month. Inclusion is a big thing nowadays, ever expanding to yet another type of a difference to identify, acknowledge and celebrate. Following the trend is important.

So, I am extremely proud to introduce you to Archie:

Archie is different by both his sentience and his existential nature. According to Heinlein, his home is somewhere else, and he came to our dimensional plane only as a projection – a kind of undocumented immigrant passing through our space.

I first met Archie back in 2017. He was pretty shy, freshly painted by Omri Koresh, who is one of my favorite graphics designers (openly homosexual, but I like him not only because of that). As a true 21st century professional, Omri was seriously concerned about any accidental Scottish bonnet cultural appropriation misunderstandings, so to calm him down I had to check with some of my Glasgow-based friends – who overwhelmingly supported the concept.

From that moment, Archie became a great addition to the Senticore team. Always cheerful, always steady and alert. Always ready to help clean out some bugs in software or assist in designing a sophisticated Enterprise Service Bus architecture or even fly across the Atlantic to support an important customer presentation. When COVID-19 hit and global travel was halted, Archie’s inherent protection from all kinds of human viruses helped all of us at Senticore to maintain links to the outside world beyond emails and Zooms.

Arnie was instrumental in one of our most important projects of 2020 to design a legacy CAD conversion software for a well-known aerospace company, when he used his sophisticated single eye, powerful brain and ability to hover over large engineering drawings to pinpoint all kinds of geometry transformation issues. That contribution was universally acknowledged and applauded.

As they say, our differences make us stronger together. Thank you, Archie, for being with us the way you are, and I look forward to working with you for many more years to come.