Not Final
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Not Final is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, originally published in the October 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, and included in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov. It is a prequel to "Victory Unintentional", although not a robot story, and one of the few stories by Asimov to postulate non-human intelligences in the Solar system.
Earth colonists on Ganymede, the largest satellite of Jupiter, have discovered the existence of intelligent life on the planet's surface. They manage to establish communication with the Jovians by means of a "radio-click" code, and exchange scientific information. When the Jovians realise that the Humans are not like them, they break off communication with a threat to leave the surface and attack what they see as inferior beings. Scientists on Ganymede discover that the Jovians can only leave the surface if they utilise force-field technology, and experimentally determine that said technology cannot be made practical - therefore the Jovians will be unable to threaten them. Meanwhile a ship piloted by two technicians is headed for Ganymede. The conversation between the two reveals that this ship utilizes force-field technology in an ingenious way, which the scientists on Ganymede have not thought of. The ending line, "I imagine they'll be rather pleased [with the applicability of the new technology]" is ironic since the reader knows that this is precisely the reverse of what we know the scientists' (and the rest of the human race) reaction to the news will be, since this implies that the Jovians will eventually be able to overcome the technical difficulties and emerge from their home planet to wage war on humanity. The story illustrates a tension between the theoretical ("Scientific") attitude and the practical ("Technical") one, exemplified by the prominent scientist claiming that his theory shows the force-field technology to be impossible "and that's final! Final!", and mirrored by the technician's account of his methods, and by the story's title.
| The Early Asimov |
| The Callistan Menace | Ring Around the Sun | The Magnificent Possession | Trends | The Weapon Too Dreadful to Use | Black Friar of the Flame | Half-Breed | The Secret Sense | Homo Sol | Half-Breeds on Venus | The Imaginary | Heredity | History | Christmas on Ganymede | The Little Man on the Subway | The Hazing | Super-Neutron | Not Final | Legal Rites | Time Pussy | Author! Author! | Death Sentence | Blind Alley | No Connection | The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline | The Red Queen's Race | Mother Earth |
