Non Serviam

Stanislaw Lem, 1971

short_story

Quadrant Scores

Time Structure
LinearFractured
Pacing
Action-DrivenObservational
Threat Scale
IndividualSystemic
Protagonist Fate
VictoryAssimilation
Conflict Style
Western CombatKishōtenketsu
Price Type
PhysicalIdeological
Todorov's Stages
equilibrium
Description of the starting status quo.
disruption
The inciting incident or protocol failure.
recognition
When the protagonist realizes the disruption.
repair
The attempt to fix or survive it.
new equilibrium
The new, altered status quo.

Structural Analysis

1. Protocol Fiction Mapping (Summer of Protocols)#

  • Render a Rule:
  • Rehearse a Failure Mode:
  • Reveal a Human Insight:

2. Actantial Model (A.J. Greimas)#

  • Subject:
  • Object:
  • Sender (Destinator):
  • Receiver (Destinatee):
  • Helper:
  • Opponent:

3. Todorov's Equilibrium Model#

  • See YAML Frontmatter for stage breakdown.

4. The Freytag Pyramid#

  • Exposition:
  • Climax:

5. Propp's Morphology of the Folktale#

  • Applicable Narratemes:

6. Genette's Narrative Discourse#

  • Order / Duration / Focalization:

7. The Monomyth / Hero's Journey#

  • Subversions:

8. Dan Harmon's Story Circle#

  • The Take (The Price Paid):

9. Save the Cat! Beat Sheet#

  • Pacing Deviations:

10. Kishōtenketsu (Four-Act Structure)#

  • Applicability:

11. The Three-Act Structure#

  • Plot Points:

12. Lévi-Strauss's Binary Oppositions#

  • Primary Binary:
  • Secondary Binary:
  • The Mediator:

13. Cognitive Estrangement (Suvin / Shklovsky)#

  • The Familiar Concept:
  • The Estranging Mechanism:
  • The Cognitive Shift:

14. Bakhtin's Chronotope#

  • The Spatial Matrix:
  • The Temporal Flow:
  • The Point of Intersection:

15. Aristotelian Poetics#

  • Hamartia:
  • Peripeteia:
  • Anagnorisis:

16. Jungian Archetypal Analysis#

  • The Persona:
  • The Shadow:
  • The Anima/Animus:
  • The Trickster:

17. Genette's Transtextuality#

  • Intertextuality:
  • Paratextuality:
  • Metatextuality:

Characters9

Professor DobbCreator / Experimenter / Narrator (Afterword)

English personeticist at Oldport, author of Non Serviam, creator of the eight-dimensional personoid universum; advocates absolute nonintervention; confesses in the Afterword his omnipotence over personoids and his refusal to reveal himself to them.

ADAN 300Personoid philosopher / primary theodicy voice

Dominant personoid thinker in the 300th generation; constructs the game-theoretic refutation of Pascal's Wager and articulates the principle that temporal ethics is wholly independent of transcendental ethics.

ADAN
ADNAPersonoid interlocutor

Poses the question about how evil done to others should be viewed in light of ADAN's argument, advancing the ethical dimension of the dialogue.

NAADPersonoid interlocutor

Questions the implications of ADAN's position on God's existence and raises the possibility that God may not desire compelled belief.

EDAN 197Historical personoid thinker

Earlier-generation personoid who independently formulated a Pascal's Wager argument within personoid history, serving as the foil for ADAN 300's refutation.

Eino KaikkiReferenced philosopher

Finnish philosopher cited for calling personetics 'the cruelest science man ever created.'

Norbert WienerReferenced progenitor

Early cyberneticist cited as half-jokingly foreseeing personetics in God and Golem.

Sir Donald AckerReferenced authority

Quoted on the MIT development where 'inputs were shorted to outputs,' marking the critical threshold in personetics.

Dr. Ian CombayColleague

Suggested privately to Dobb that he reveal his existence to the personoids; Dobb refuses.