The ansible represents the possibility of a genuinely civilized human race. When Commander Yung visits the human colony on World 41, he brings along an ansible, which is a transmitter that allows people to communicate instantaneously with other planets. Yung was supposed to deliver this ansible to another planet, but Mr. Lepennon and Mr. Or, emissaries to the newly-formed League of Worlds, decide to give it to the colony on World 41. They make this decision so that the government on Terra (Earth) will hold the humans on World 41 accountable for their actions. (The humans on World 41 have enslaved the planet’s native people, the Athsheans, something the League was not previously aware of because many of World 41’s reports have been censored.) The ansible thus represents the possibility of a reformed society in which humans are forced to treat the Athsheans with respect.
Despite the fact that the orders from the ansible are to free the Athsheans and adopt a policy of nonviolence (even though the Athsheans previously attacked the humans), Captain Don Davidson goes rogue and continues to secretly kill the Athshean people. This leads to another Athshean attack on a human camp, which inadvertently leads to the destruction of the ansible. The ansible’s destruction is symbolic: it implies that a civilized, nonviolent human race isn’t possible or enforceable within the context of colonialization. Even though the majority of humans agree not to harm the Athsheans after this attack, they can’t control Davidson, who continues to hunt Athsheans with a small group of men. The Athsheans must use violence against Davidson to force him to stop, as no human oversight will do this for them.
The Ansible Quotes in The Word for World is Forest
“No,” said the Cetian. “That’s done with. A colony like this had to believe what passing ships and outdated radio-messages told them. Now you don’t. You can verify. We are going to give you the ansible destined for Prestno. We have League authority to do so. Received, of course, by ansible. Your colony here is in a bad way. Worse than I thought from your reports. Your reports are very incomplete; censorship or stupidity have been at work. Now, however, you’ll have the ansible, and can talk with your Terran Administration; you can ask for orders, so you’ll know how to proceed. Given the profound changes that have been occurring in the organization of the Terran Government since we left there, I should recommend that you do so at once. There is no longer any excuse for acting on outdated orders; for ignorance; for irresponsible autonomy.”
That was the gist of all the messages actually, and any fool could tell that that wasn’t the Colonial Administration talking. They couldn’t have changed that much in thirty years. They were practical, realistic men who knew what life was like on frontier planets. It was clear, to anybody who hadn’t gone spla from geoshock, that the ‘ansible’ messages were phonies. They might be planted right in the machine, a whole set of answers to high-probability questions, computer run. The engineers said they could have spotted that; maybe so. In that case the thing did communicate instantaneously with another world. But that world wasn’t Earth. Not by a long long shot!
The townsfolk also knew that the 1200 slaves at Centralville had been freed soon after the Smith Camp massacre, and Lyubov agreed with the Colonel that the natives might take the second event to be a result of the first. That gave what Colonel Dongh would call ‘an erroneous impression,’ but it probably wasn’t important. What was important was that the slaves had been freed. Wrongs done could not be righted; but at least they were not still being done. They could start over: the natives without that painful, unanswerable wonder as to why the ‘yumens’ treated men like animals; and he without the burden of explanation and the gnawing of irremediable guilt.
The Ansible Symbol Timeline in The Word for World is Forest
