"The Pacifist" is a

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1956 in ''

Fantastic Universe ''Fantastic Universe'' was a U.S. science fiction magazine which began publishing in the 1950s. It ran for 69 issues, from June 1953 to March 1960, under two different publishers. It was part of the explosion of science fiction magazine publishi ...

''. It appears in his collection of "science fiction tall tales," ''

Tales from the White Hart ''Tales from the White Hart'' is a collection of short stories by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, in the "club tales" style. Thirteen of the fifteen stories originally appeared across a number of different publications; some had n ...

''. "The Pacifist" describes the construction of a

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

in a "cavern in

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

". The computer's designer, nicknamed "Dr.

Milquetoast Caspar Milquetoast was a popular American cartoon character created by H. T. Webster. The term “milquetoast” has since come to be used for a meek or timid person. Milquetoast may also refer to: *Dr. Milquetoast, a character in " The Pacifis ...

" by the story-within-a-story's narrator, works under the harsh supervision of a military General. By way of revenge, Dr. Milquetoast programs the computer so that it will answer purely theoretical or mathematical questions put to it, but when asked to solve a military problem, responds by insulting the General using phrases industriously prepared by the programmer. Frustration mounts as the General realizes that because the computer is aware of every known historical military battle, it is capable of recognizing such scenarios even when couched in purely mathematical terms.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pacifist, The Short stories by Arthur C. Clarke 1956 short stories Works originally published in Fantastic Universe Kentucky in fiction Tales from the White Hart