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evolutionary-orders
The classification of life into four stages: plants as energy-binders, animals as space-binders, men as time-binders, and demons as possibility-binders.
1 chapter across 1 book
The Big Time (1958)Fritz Leiber Jr.
Chapter 16 THE POSSIBILITY-BINDERS
In this chapter, the narrator reflects on the aftermath of recent conflicts and interpersonal tensions among a group trapped in the Change World, revealing complex relationships and mistrust. Illy, an alien octopoid, communicates telepathically to explain a profound evolutionary concept: the existence of four orders of life culminating in 'possibility-binders' or Demons, who transcend time and space by binding all possibilities, framing the ongoing Change War as an evolutionary dialectic rather than mere conflict.