The Great Brain’s Revolt Against Nature

This flow traces how the Fourth Men’s intellectual project becomes tyranny, provokes resistance, and leads them to create a more balanced successor.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

The First Great Brain

A Mind Built for Inquiry An artificial body The first successful Great Brain is housed in a purpose-built structure with mechanical organs and vast sensory equipment. Its unusual form reflects its creators’ decision to prioritize intellect over ordinary human life. Authority through expertise Its curiosity soon exceeds the knowledge of its teachers, and its advice makes it the state’s autocrat. The Third Men’s reverence and the Brain’s behavioral insight reinforce its power.

A New Intellectual Race

The Fourth Men Multiply A planet-wide project The first Great Brain produces others, improves its own form, and establishes telepathic contact among them. The Fourth Men specialize in observation and research across the planet. A divided society The Third Men support the material system but lose control over their own civilization. Their role as servants grows increasingly difficult to reconcile with their attachment to life and creative work.

The Research Crisis

Knowledge Without Meaning Frustrated intellect The Great Brains accumulate detailed knowledge but find no route to ultimate understanding. Their narrow nature leaves them without the ordinary arts and relationships that might have offered another source of purpose. Growing injustice Frustration and envy distort their treatment of the Third Men. Their research plans demand further sacrifice from a population whose loyalty is no longer unconditional.

The Revolt of the Third Men

Life Against Calculation A disputed command The Great Brains order the slaughter of animals and reserve vital art for themselves. The Third Men understand this as an assault on the living world and on their own spiritual purpose. Resistance begins Farmers withhold supplies and threaten the power systems that sustain the Brain towers. The conflict shifts from resentment to open rebellion, exposing how dependent the rulers remain on ordinary life.

A Slave Army

Control Through Automata The secret weapon The Great Brains use the mediumistic stock to create human automata whose actions they can control remotely. A project once associated with communication becomes a means of domination. A broken world The new army destroys the resistant Third Men, while other life forms are exterminated. The Great Brains possess Earth but discover that power has not solved their intellectual or spiritual limitations.

Several thousand years into the brain project

About 3,000 years after the first Great Brain’s creation

After millennia of Fourth-Men inquiry

When the Great Brains order the destruction of useless animals

At the climax of the Fourth-Men conflict