Second Variety

"Second Variety"
Philip Dick

"'How did you happen to have a bomb like that?'  Tasso Shrugged.  'We designed it.  You shouldn't underestimate our technology, Major.  Without such a bomb you and I would no longer exist.'" -page 244

This quote is one of many ironic tidbits throughout the piece that seem to make up the artists main point.  Like most short stories, sometimes you can feel the twist coming before it happens.  From the very beginning, you can tell Hendricks harbors some disdain for the claws.  He speaks negatively of the underground factories, describing the claws as "coming like flies" and even stating they may have been better off without them.  The ironic portion enters with the line "If we hadn't invented them, we would have".  The overall theme of this story, as with many post apocalyptic tales, is mankind's undoing by his own hand.  The internal conflict within man leads to competition and extensive weaponization.  This quote is repeated because of its importance.  The thought "if we didn't they would have" is one of mankind largest flaws.  This innate skepticism and mistrust coupled with morale detachment and self justification leads mankind down a dark path, in which even the worst atrocities can be rationalized as necessary, even ethical actions.  The author's critique of this flaw is made clear in his storyline.  I admit, I did not foresee David as being an enemy robot.  However, once that twist was unveiled it was easy to see in which way the story would head.

However there are some discrepancies in the author's ideals.  Hendricks is far more conscientious than the general mankind and the claws.  When Klaus kills Rudi, Hendricks is levelheaded and understanding, contrasted with Tasso who would rather punish Klaus.  Although we learn later they are both mechanical, the Hendricks is still our protagonist, contrary to the fact that all of this is mankind's fault.  The Story "August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury purposefully has no human characters, to make mankind's downfall seem more deserved.  In "Second Variety", we hope that mankind triumphs over the apocalypse through our protagonist Hendricks.  There is an intriguing argument, however, when Hendricks first reaches the Russian base.  He comments on the possible evolution of the claws, and although Rudi deems them incapable of such things, Hendricks cites their already astounding progress.  This idea comes full circle at the end when Hendricks comments on the bomb the claws made, and how their already learning how to destroy each other.  In this way, they are evolving just as mankind did, and the general idea is that they will meet the same fate.