34 - Glimpsing The Future

image [https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcEMbzuPqBT6bGGpIObS4QVit8qIuHQjTtECZpCjPqRHnaQjjoLlK9PWrp_dL24dNtmG1S1jgC4TQ3CAIk2iMk00n_uyFFTUTFG0-BrB4_A8s0zKcjBZ7aStBYQGpt0dpaY8vZDatgCDPdZSL5g5lfCPPw?key=sk5mDY0KVwUOhjZyNn8dwA]

For some bizarre reason, "Jurassic" in this slide seems to be identified with… a giraffe?

The exposure of the endorsement team to a newly-hatched Dakotaraptor is an invaluable moment, from a historian's perspective. This value transcends beyond the immediate practical considerations surrounding the visit: it's a harbinger of what was to come.

To better illustrate this point, it's worth considering an anecdote first reported by Henry Wu, years after the fact.

In his official autobiography, Wu claims that the successful birth, and its spectacular timing, put Hammond in a good mood, which made the rest of the investigation much less fraught than he personally feared at the time.

Wu's argument is that Hammond was an entertainer at heart. As such, he derived unparalleled joy from the opportunity to witness the endorsement team's first reaction to the birth of a living, breathing dinosaur.

There is no doubt that Wu's words are consistent with Hammond's generally accepted temperament. There's only one problem: Wu was not actually present at this scene. Together with Muldoon and Harding, he was in a conference room in the visitors' centre that morning, impatiently wondering where the endorsement team wa

Moreover, the official documentation recounting the investigative process does not suggest Hammond was in a good mood at all.

Whether this is a case of deliberate embellishment, or the standard memory inconsistency that can be expected with any autobiography, (1) this version of the anecdote - Hammond's alleged, childish delight - is the one that gets included in most works on the subject, critically and without extra verification. (2)

There is no way to corroborate this with currently available sources, simply because Oak's documentation - the primary source of detailed information on the entire visit - skipped summarily over the immediate aftermath of the hatching.

Yet, Wu's anecdote, while not literally true, is informative in and of itself. Pop history tropes tend to form for a reason, and it's usually one worth investigating.

In this particular case, the likely explanation is that this moment functioned as a microcosmic version of the impact Jurassic Park would have on the wider world in the future.

Just consider the personalities involved. Rodriguez was a palaeontologist by profession, and there was no way to make her feel more out of her depth, and at the same time professionally exhilarated, than what was happening right in front of her.

For example, the hatchling was clearly feathered, an absolutely shocking development for a palaeontologist in 1988, back when even the most daring predictions about non-scaly integument would at most place a few tentative, ornamental feathers on a very limited number of dinosaur genera.

For Rodriguez, it was an entire set of scientific hypotheses about dinosaurian biology, physiology, behaviour and evolution, being rewritten on the fly, right in front of her eyes. InGen's endeavour would alter the palaeontological profession forever.

And it wouldn't stop there. Joger, as seasoned and experienced a wildlife biologist as the endorsement team could have realistically included at the time, found himself confronted with a precocial - rather than altricial - chick with a combination of (from a Linnean perspective) reptilian and avian characteristics.

Throw in Crane, former military officer, and Oak, who'd consulted for mega-projects beyond counting, and the picture begins to come into focus.

The endorsement team - stacked as it was with top notch credentials and expertise - was witnessing an event so surreal, that it was pushing them to the absolute limits of their professional understanding, and beyond.

The seductive pull of the unknown, the sense of scientific and technical wonder, the promise of profits, were all present. Maybe more importantly, the multidisciplinary impact of Jurassic Park was never before clearer than at this very moment. (3)

Organisation, operations, finance, engineering, biomedical sciences, etiology, palaeontology, and more. Jurassic Park was still incredibly secretive, and yet its problems and peculiarities already intersected an incredible array of professions, backgrounds, and technical specialisations.

Jurassic Park has sometimes been called an avatar of contemporary, global capitalism, and this is a good encapsulation of why that idea has gained so much traction. (4)

For all its symbolic and foretelling power, however, Hammond's operation with the Dakotaraptor was more immediately concerned with hijacking the narrative of the investigation.

It was just the first step in his careful choreography for the day.

Rather than the conference room where Hammond's lieutenants were waiting, it was the cafeteria that he had in mind as the next destination. Still under construction, it had been rushedly prepared to welcome the endorsement team with flair.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Hammond's own personal chef had been flown in on the premises ahead of time, and in his plans, the lunch would be accompanied by a glossy presentation he'd asked the marketing team to put together.

A copy of this presentation survives today. It detailed the radiant future and endless possibilities of a functional Jurassic Park, touching on as diverse a set of topics as possible future rides, likely locations for future parks, educational days for schools, in-house PhD for palaeontologists and biologists, and more. (5)

As far as Hammond was concerned, this lunch would have further set the tone, allowing him more time to play the gracious host, and sufficiently massage the endorsement team's initial impression of the venture, before the inevitable conversation on Morales' death would have to take place.

But it was not to be. It was at this juncture that the first, undeniable challenge to Hammond's choreography for the opening day of the investigation, finally reared its head.

While expressing gratitude for the offered lunch, Oak suggested, politely but firmly, that perhaps a briefing was in order, first.

And just like that, the bluff was called, and the coreography came to an abrupt stop.

Thanks to the asymmetry of information and nomination, as well as experience and self-confidence, Oak was uniquely poised to be the one who could interject without being rebuffed. Realistically, he was the only alternative centre of gravity available for the rest of the endorsement team.

Joger and Crane had been hired on the recommendation of Hammond's lieutenants. Rodriguez had been hand-picked by Hammond himself. Oak was, technically, the only member of the endorsement team whose appointment was truly independent of the park's management.

All it took was that single sentence to drive home the point that the lawyers had done their homework correctly, when tapping Oak as their pick for the team.

Jurassic Park had been developed in near-total secrecy, and the investors did not have a good understanding of what the park's operations (and risks) actually consisted of. That made it all the harder to appoint neutral assessors who could be trusted to stand up to Hammond.

When choosing Oak, they reached out to a man whose reputation had been extensively documented in the past, and whose experience in stressful investigations was second to none.

Mercurial as he was, Hammond was not stupid, and knew that for the time being, the only realistic option was to play along. Correspondingly, lunch was postponed, and the team made its way into the conference room in the visitors' centre. (6)

Footnotes:

(1) There's more than one way to explain inconsistencies in autobiographical accounts from historical figures. Sometimes, the people in question are just lying. But human memory is notoriously unreliable, and more concerned with internal narrative consistency - the construction of our identity - than with actual, accurate and objective recollection. So sometimes the memory being cited is just unintentionally wrong.

This point often comes up with the autobiographical apologias written by German generals who survived WW2. It was fun to transpose it in the context of B&A. After all, many years pass between this investigation, and Wu's official account of what happened.

(2) Something else that I've frequently encountered when it comes to WW2 myths. Their most annoying quality is their self-propagatory power.

By the way, this little anecdotal debate is also a gentle reminder of something that the story established from the very beginning: Wu's future inside InGen is very much as an establishment, status quo figure, even if he's currently at loggerheads with Hammond. Start out as an arsonist, end up as a firefighter, all that.

(3) It was very important to me to strongly drive this point home. While taking place earlier in time, a working, functioning Jurassic Park is not dissimilar from smartphones and social media in the impact it would have on the world. What I mean by that is that you have a central point where technology, innovation, venture capital, and massive professional and social impact, all collide together to form a shockwave. While it is not a perfect analogue to the digital revolution, I really do think it's a useful point of comparison and departure. Professions are being created, transformed, and challenged even before the park is finished or is home to a single adult dinosaur specimen.

(4) And in terms of narratives, they write themselves. Consider that this investigation is about the death of a local Costa Rican labourer, and that Nublar is stolen indigenous land, and imagine looking back at this entire affair from an alt-2024 perspective. Jurassic Park, in the right story context, really has the potential to embody the best and worst of modern capitalism to contemporary observers, I think.

(5) In the movie, you can see one such presentation being reeled out while the characters have lunch with Chilean sea bass. Another innocuous detail from the story that can be recontextualised in a grittier take.

(6) I know this chapter ends somewhat abruptly, but don't worry. Chapter 35 is almost finished, and it should be out tomorrow.