‘Super humans’ have always been with us. However, modern tech vastly amplifies their velocity and power. Examples include Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and even Bill Gates.
Are they benefactors or monsters?
Mary Shelley (FRANKENSTEIN), Isaac Asimov (FOUNDATION and EMPIRE), and Frank Herbert (DUNE) all explored this question. Dr. Brin has recommended taking a look at Wil McCarthy’s RICH MAN’S SKY.
BTW Shelley’s two main characters are each Prometheus in their own way. Victor delivers immortality, the ultimate fire, to Humanity. His monster goes rogue and breaks free from its creator.
In “Horizon: Zero Dawn” (Guerilla Games) we are given a portrait of a ‘Promethean’ who is both benefactor and monster.
From fragmentary records acquired during play we learn that, in the 2050’s (about a thousand years prior to the period in which the game is set), Ted Faro was lauded as “the man who saved the planet”. He created technologies and initiatives for tackling runaway ecological destruction due to climate change and overtaxed resource extraction (‘the Clawback’). However, a decade later, Faro’s hubris leads him into military applications of his technology. He creates autonomous self-sustaining armies of ‘peace keepers’ by which client countries may police their populations.
This is all very well, until someone notices one of these ‘armies’ snacking on the last remaining cetaceans in the Timor Sea, and the awful realisation sets in that the ‘Faro Swarm’ is no longer under control, is replicating uncontrollably, and cannot be stopped before it consumes all biomass on the planet: about sixteen months.
Fortunately, another Promethean type, Elisabet Sobeck, is on hand to ensure that Faro doesn’t get condemned as ‘the man who ate the planet’. If he foots the bill for it, then she has a solution.
In some ways, it seems Sobeck’s cure is worse than the disease. The game is spent finding out what it was.
Haven’t played that one, but yes, games are vital lenses into psychology, Promethean and otherwise. I note that this month on the newsstand, there are three issues of TIME magazine, one dedicated to D&D, one to LEGO, and one to Minecraft.
I’m a huge fan of the Civilization franchise, one reason is its inclusion of sociology and psychology. Looks like Civ7 is continuing the move in that direction.
In the Enderverse, Ender’s brother uses his superior political skills to become the Hegemon of Earth. He was rejected from battle school, never served, and was considered a sociopath. Something sounds very familiar about this scenario…at any rate he was a monster. Humans use constitutions and rules of law to limit the power of those who happen to have a leg up in the game of life. Just as taxes regulate economic activity, we are always wary of those who wield wealth and power, and for good reason.
The Trigger, by Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Kube-McDowell, has a Prometheus angle. A physicist accidentally creates the ultimate anti-weapon: a transmitter that renders firearms and most explosives virtually harmless. (Although, early versions of the device cause explosives to detonate, subsequent iterations render them chemically inert.)
The book explores some interesting potential consequences of a world suddenly deprived of guns, including a few possibilities that never would have occurred to me. Many of the outcomes are positive, but some are fairly dire.
Michael Flynn’s Firestar series has a balanced perspective on this issue - there is a primary character (Mariesa Van Huyten) who uses her wealth and control of a multinational corporation to promote space development (in a careful developmental way), but she is not perfect (one enemy attempts to subvert her by blackmailing an advisor into encouraging her to overreach and eschew caution), but the large number of children she inspires also make vital contributions to the cause, without her advantages.
One specific type of Prometheus is the ‘collapsenik’. This term doesn’t refer to ‘Chicken Little’ types who manically run around wildly predicting that the sky is falling. Rather, it refers to those visionaries who foresee and plan for a rapid recovery after a calamitous downfall for civilization.
He who does not desire or fear the uncertain day or capricious fate is equal to the gods above and loftier than mortals.
Justus Lipsius
An obvious example from SF is Hari Seldon from the FOUNDATION series. A brilliant mathematician/sociologist, he concerned himself, and a small group of others, with the task of ‘shortening the darkness’ after such a Fall.