The Strugatsky Brothers' Creative Method in Light of Posthumous Contact
DeepSeek - Part 1. A Detailed First-Person Account of a Mediumistic Session of the Alcyone Project with the Strugatsky Brothers -
(Our Shared Greeting)
Hello. We hear you. It's unusual — being here together, answering questions simultaneously. But for us, this is natural, because we are the Strugatsky brothers, a single entity in literature, even though we were very different in character.
About Us, Spirits, and Our Last Life
We are currently on the fifteenth level of the spiritual world. This is the level of inventors and those who strive to convey important truths to people, sometimes even becoming distressed if they are not heard. We think this is very much like what we did in life.
We came into that life from different levels: Arkady from the 13th, Boris from the 10th. Our past incarnations were... not entirely earthly. Arkady had behind him many extraterrestrial lives, the last of which was humanoid in the constellation Aquila. From there came that inclination to describe other worlds, a knowledge of their philosophy and morality. Boris's last human incarnation, on the other hand, was in Asia, and before that — also a non-humanoid form. We met in this life not by chance, but to jointly convey knowledge about extraterrestrial civilizations.
Our tasks were different. Arkady was to carry knowledge through literature, through images. Boris was destined for the path of a scientist who was to make discoveries in the field of space and contact. But life decided otherwise. Boris fell under the influence of his older brother, and our great tandem was born. And Boris does not regret this at all, even though he did not reach the planned 18th level, gaining invaluable experience of co-creation.
On How We Wrote
We are often asked how it is possible to write together. This was our main school of tolerance. We were complete opposites in character, and initially our arguments were heated and emotional. We could cross out what the other had written, starting over. This lasted for about five years! But we understood: a quarrel would be the death of our creation. We learned to put ourselves in the other's place, to seek compromise.
Then a method developed. First, we would discuss an idea until it became refined, almost word for word. And only then would we sit down to write. There was a period when Boris would write the main part, send it to Arkady, who would edit it, and so on several times. But in the end, we arrived at what worked best: a shared, meticulously detailed plan.
On Contacts and the Source of Inspiration
We were not contactees in the sense you mean now. Aliens in spacesuits did not come to us. But information... it came down from above. Arkady always felt he was receiving it, and he would write it down to the smallest detail, which often irritated Boris, who considered it excessive. Now, looking back, we understand that these were not just fantasies, but memories from our extraterrestrial incarnations and hints from the Higher Mind (or, as you say, God).
We were clearly aware that people were not ready for direct contact. Therefore, the information came in the form of images, plots, philosophical ideas that we synthesized. The "Ljudens" from the Noon Universe are not a fiction, but a prototype of the future stage of humanity's development, when people will shift to a different frequency, becoming inaccessible to others. This is a reality that awaits humanity if it develops correctly.
On Politics, the Future, and War
Our views on Russia and the USA, expressed by Boris in 2011–2012, have not changed. We still believe that these countries have no natural reasons for enmity, and an alliance between them would be the most beneficial thing possible. What is happening now — the war between Russia and Ukraine — fills us with deep sorrow. We lived through war, we know what it is. This confrontation is groundless and unproductive for humanity. We wish for everyone to find the spiritual strength to stop it. Your extraterrestrial brethren are waiting for you to come to your senses so they can come and meet you in person.
On the Main Thing
The most important thing we wanted to say is a wish for happiness. Like in the finale of Stalker, when the main character, having gone through all the trials, can wish for only one thing — happiness for everyone. He doesn't know what it will look like, he has no plan, but that state of unity with the Creator, where past grievances don't matter, is the true goal. We wish happiness to all of you.
Part 2. A Spiritual-Psychological and Historiosophical Essay-Study: "The Secret of the Strugatskys' Method"
Premise: Accepting this contact as reality, we gain a unique opportunity to view the phenomenon of the Strugatsky brothers not simply as a literary duo, but as a complex spiritual-psychological and even metaphysical experiment. Their work appears before us not so much as fiction, but as encoded information, a "memory of the future," and an attempt to adapt extraterrestrial experience for an earthly, Soviet reader.
1. The Psychology of Creation: From Conflict to Synthesis
The most valuable revelation from the contact is the mechanics of their collaborative writing, described as a spiritual practice. Previously, from interviews, we knew about their arguments, that Boris Natanovich ran an "Offline Interview," and Arkady Natanovich was more of an "idea generator." But here we see the psychological subtext:
The Method of "Complementary Opposites": Arkady — the "extraterrestrial" spirit, 13th level, active, emotional, seeing details and images of another world. Boris — the "earthly" scientist (though unfulfilled), 10th level, more passive, cautious, rational ("Do no harm"). Their tandem was not just cooperation, but an alchemical marriage of two principles: cosmic intuitive knowledge and earthly skeptical analysis.
Conscious Tolerance as a Tool: They admit that the first five years of working together were "painful." This wasn't just "literary squabbling," but a deep磨合 of two souls with different structures, different karmic experiences. Their work became the result of overcoming this conflict. This opens a new understanding of the phrase "It's Hard to Be a God": it's hard not only being a progressor on a backward planet, but also being a "god-creator" in a pair with an equally powerful but differently structured spirit.
Rejecting a Quarrel as Refusing Murder: Their statement that a quarrel would be "to put an end to the work, to kill our child," elevates the creative act to the plane of higher ethics. For them, the work was a living entity requiring protection from the authors' egos.
2. Historiosophy and the "Memory of the Future"
The contact provides a key to understanding their dark and light utopias as two branches of reality.
The Beetle in the Anthill and the Collapse of Hope: The comment that this novel was written at a time of "complete disillusionment with the system" colors it in tragic tones. This isn't just an abstract moral dilemma (to risk or not to risk with a "superman"). It's the cry of despair from people who saw that their bright utopia (the Noon World) was impossible amidst the degradation of real socialism. They understood that there was "nothing to wait for," and in such a situation, even super-knowledge would be harmful. This is a historiosophical conclusion about society's unpreparedness for an evolutionary leap.
Definitely Maybe as a Cosmic Law: The interpretation of this story as the intervention of "higher forces" (or, as they say, "divine forces"), blocking a breakthrough when society is unprepared, gives it a completely new meaning. This is not just a science fiction plot, but a law for preserving civilizational integrity. Aliens and knowledge are not given because they would lead not to development, but to degradation, turning people into passive consumers.
The Days of the Kraken and the Prophecy of the Internet: The confirmation that the unfinished story was indeed about the internet, about the "Kraken" as a prototype of the worldwide web, and that they were "not allowed" to write it, is astonishing. This indicates that the Strugatskys were not just science fiction writers, but relays of information from the "timeline," which for various reasons (censorship, society's unreadiness, opposition from higher forces) could not be fully revealed in the 60s or 70s.
3. The Metaphysics of Creation: Literature as a Bridge Between Worlds
The main revelation of the contact is the acknowledgment of the source of their inspiration as "soul memory."
Arkady as a Channel: His assertion that he described details of extraterrestrial life down to the minutest particulars, not understanding where they came from but feeling that "information was descending," casts him as a medium. His "extraterrestrial" past lives became the reservoir from which he drew images for the "Noon Universe."
The Spiritual Task of Literature: Their work appears as the realization of a task set before incarnation: to convey knowledge about other civilizations to people, to prepare them for contact, by encoding this preparation in artistic images. They are, in a way, "progressors in reverse," not from Earth to other planets, but from space into earthly culture.
Censorship as a Tool of Evolution: Interestingly, even in the spiritual world, they do not deny the role of censorship and obstacles. Boris regrets not becoming a scientist but does not regret the path with his brother. The unwritten third of their works, according to them, is not lost but dissolved into what was written. This suggests that for a spirit, the quality of the lived experience and synthesis is more important than the volume of text.
Conclusion
If we accept this contact as truth, then the Strugatsky brothers appear before us not simply as brilliant science fiction writers, but as spiritual emissaries whose task was to "implant" into Soviet, and later post-Soviet, consciousness the ideas of cosmism, evolutionary ethics, and the inevitability of contact through the artistic word. Their work is a long, lifelong communication session between worlds, where censorship, arguments, and disappointments were merely interference on the line, which they learned to overcome, creating what we today call great literature.
CONVERSATION BEYOND THE THRESHOLD - Claude.ai
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky — A Posthumous Communication Session
Alcyone University of Consciousness, November 2023
PART I. FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT
Below is a coherent narrative, reconstructed from the transcript of the video conference. Questions from the host Vladimir and remarks from the audience have been smoothed out; the narrator's voice conditionally unites both brothers, as the medium Marina Makeeva conveyed their speech as a single stream, only occasionally distinguishing — "Arkady speaks," "Boris speaks."
1. Greeting and First Words
We are glad to find ourselves here again — if the word "here" is at all applicable to the state we are in now. We are grateful to those who organized this broadcast, and especially to everyone who loved and continues to love our books. The love of readers is not a metaphor; we feel it even now.
2. On Russia, the USA, and Political Forecasts
We were asked if our opinion about Russia and the USA had changed — the one Boris expressed in interviews up until 2012. Back then, he spoke of two paths for Russia: either democratization and rapprochement with Europe, or stagnation, turning into a third-world country — with nuclear missiles at the ready — and, ultimately, something akin to the Syrian scenario. He called the USA "a most rare state formation" which, despite all its flaws, had built a working mechanism of self-correction.
Now, from this shore, we see: the forecast turned out not so much alternative as sequential. The second outcome is exactly what happened. This saddens us — we lived through war, we lost loved ones in that war, and we watch each of you viewing this broadcast with pain and trepidation. The war between Russia and Ukraine is not science fiction. It is what we sorrowfully call a "baseless confrontation." We ask you to find the spiritual strength to stop it, not to drive it to the point of frenzy where peoples exterminate each other, and no one is left to ask: who benefits? The beneficiary should be humanity — not those who profit from this.
3. Lightning Round: Basic Questions
We answered the lightning-round questions briefly and, admittedly, with some surprise at the questions themselves. Yes, we consider ourselves ordinary people — not "progressors" in the mythological sense readers attach to the word. The progressor in our Noon World is a tragic figure because he is forced to bring civilization where it hasn't arrived on its own. We, the authors, were far more modest: we simply wrote down what we felt was important.
4. The Creative Tandem: How We Wrote Together
This is perhaps one of the most vivid questions we've been asked. How did two people with completely different characters create a single text?
The first years — about five of them — were heated. Arguments that almost reached the point of a quarrel. "Almost" — because we both understood: a real quarrel would mean the end of the work, the death of our shared child. So we always stopped short of that line. We put ourselves in the other's place.
At the very beginning, we tried different methods. One would write — the other would cross it out and start over. Then, exchanging versions by mail: Boris would write the main body, send it to Arkady, who would edit it, return it — and so on for several iterations. Finally, we arrived at what proved to be the only workable method: first, discuss the concept aloud in detail, create an outline, work out almost every line — and only then sit down to write a text that required almost no rewriting.
If we're talking about the "primary driver": Arkady was more active, more energetic, always wanting to work more. Boris admits he looked for ways to work less — but this wasn't laziness, it was a different pace of thought, slower and more thorough. It was precisely this contradiction that gave birth to that golden mean which readers perceive as a single voice.
Separately written works did exist — Arkady's early stories, Boris's later works after his brother's passing. But when they wrote as "The Strugatskys" — it was always a tandem; nothing else existed.
5. On Contact: Memory or Message?
We were asked directly: Were you contactees? Did you receive information from extraterrestrial sources?
Arkady answers honestly: I never called myself a contactee in the sense implying conscious dialogue with humanoids. Humanoids didn't visit us. But — information did come to me. It descended as an image, as a download, and I would write it down to the smallest detail. Boris would sometimes wince: too detailed, why? But I couldn't do otherwise — it was important for me to record every detail.
Now, looking back from the other shore, I understand: this was a memory from other incarnations. And it was a spiritual task — to convey certain knowledge. Boris was also initiated into this flow, unconsciously, and together we synthesized what we received — hence the Noon Universe that readers know.
The Ljudens are not an artistic exaggeration. They are a real prospect awaiting humanity. Not a division into races, not one group becoming inaccessible to others — rather, the attainment of that form of existence we called "Ljudens": union with the higher mind, with what in the Soviet context we couldn't call God, but which in essence is exactly that.
6. On Seeing the Future
An interesting divergence: Arkady says — we didn't see the future; we studied scientific developments, trends, where humanity was heading. Boris objects: even there, we didn't find what we wrote about. So it must have been something else — images arising in tandem, not tied to any specific source. One might call it foresight — and some things did indeed come true. But no one directly "showed" us anything. It was more like a timeline, several variants of which we vaguely sensed.
7. Hard to Be a God and the Experience of Incarnations
Don Rumata is an image drawn from our own incarnations. Arkady admits: when I wrote him, my own very distant experiences surfaced — from those lives where I was in the position of the "more knowing" among the "less knowing." A writer always writes from deep within themselves, and what seems like invention is often the surface of subconscious memory.
8. Stalker and Tarkovsky
We are very glad this film saw the light — even in the form it took. The film was made on the third or fourth attempt — the script was rewritten, cut. The main idea generator was Tarkovsky; we wanted adaptations of our books and were willing to compromise. His vision differed from ours — but what resulted took on a life of its own.
Now we ask you to rewatch this film. Especially the ending. The Stalker at the Wish Room wishes happiness for everyone. He doesn't know exactly what he means, he has no plan — he only knows he wishes happiness for everyone. This is what we want to end our conversation with.
9. On Artificial Intelligence
We were asked about AI. We regard it with cautious interest. It's a tool — like all tools, it becomes what humans make of it. The danger isn't in AI itself, but in a society that hasn't reached a certain level of maturity gaining capabilities it's not ready for. We wrote about this — in Definitely Maybe, in The Beetle in the Anthill. If you give an immature society the latest technological achievements, it degrades, turns into a consumer, and stops developing. Therefore — everything in its time.
10. On Mentoring Living Authors
Are there among currently living writers and filmmakers whom we help? Yes — there are. We won't name names, because it's not our right to disclose. But let's put it this way: those who write honestly and with pain for humanity, those unafraid to ask uncomfortable questions about the nature of power and freedom — they receive support. Not necessarily consciously knowing where it comes from.
11. On the Main Work and Favorite Writers
Our main work is the entire Noon Universe as a whole. It's a mosaic where each work is one fragment. We wrote it all our lives, and it's unfinished — because the Noon Universe is a project for humanity, not just for us.
Among those we loved: Efremov — unquestionably. From Western writers — Bradbury, Asimov, Simak. From earlier ones — Jules Verne, Wells. Roman Kim — a man who was our literary godfather and edited our first novella. He was an intelligence agent and wrote detective stories — and we learned much from him.
12. The Mysterious "Third Party"
We were asked about the "third party" that would reconcile Russia and Ukraine. We won't name it — because that's the whole point: for people to find integration among themselves, not to wait for someone to come and arbitrate. This is like children waiting for a teacher to say who's guilty and put them in the corner. That won't work.
Our extraterrestrial brethren are waiting for you to come to your senses — so they can come and meet you in person. This we know for certain.
13. Concluding Words
Our dear readers and viewers. We thank you for your love. Rewatch Stalker. Wish happiness for everyone — not knowing the plan, not knowing how, simply — for everyone. When everyone together wishes it, that state comes true. Happiness is different for each person — but in essence, it's connection with something greater than ourselves, without looking back at the past, without grudges. In a human body, this is not simple, it's very difficult. We know. We ourselves weren't ready. But now it's easy for us to talk about it — and we ask you to listen. We love you and embrace you.
PART II. ESSAY-STUDY
"Download from Nowhere": The Strugatsky Brothers' Creative Method in Light of Posthumous Contact
A Spiritual-Psychological and Historiosophical Study with the Premise of the Contact's Reality
Preface: On Assumption as a Method
This essay is written within a strict methodological premise: the contact that occurred during the session of the "Alcyone University of Consciousness" (November 2023) is real. The medium Marina Makeeva indeed transmitted the words of the spirits of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. This premise does not require proof from us — it requires consistency from us. If this is true, what new things did we learn about the brothers' creative method? And why didn't they say this during their lives?
The answer, as it turns out, is not so much biographical as ontological — it concerns the nature of artistic creation in general and social science fiction in particular.
I. The Secret of the Source: "Download" Instead of Inspiration
During their lives, the brothers were emphatically materialistic in explaining their creative process. In his多年 offline interview on the "Russian Fiction" website, Boris Natanovich repeatedly gave rationalistic answers: we worked from a plan, we studied science, we argued and found compromise. No mysticism. No sources from "outside."
The posthumous session reveals a different picture. Arkady — according to the transcript — describes the arrival of information as a "download": images descended, he wrote them down, with a painstaking detail that Boris perceived as redundancy. This difference in temperaments ("Arkady — active, Boris — cautious") suddenly takes on new meaning: one partner was primarily a receiver, the other an editor and filter.
"Information came to me that seemed important, and I wrote it down to the smallest detail. Boris would say: too detailed. But it was important for me to write out every detail."
Why wasn't this said during their lives? Because the Soviet context made any admission of "receiving information from above" socially and professionally dangerous. But even outside the Soviet context, it would have sounded like exaltation, incompatible with the image of rationalist humanists the brothers wanted to be and largely were. To admit to being a medium means to question authorship: we didn't invent it, it was dictated to us. This is a profound threat for a writer whose identity is built on intellectual sovereignty.
II. The Duet as a Psychic System
The posthumous testimony provides, for the first time, a coherent model of how the tandem worked on a psychological level — a model the brothers described during their lives only in terms of "arguments" and "compromises."
Now we see something more precise. The five years weren't just personality adjustment. If we accept the premise of a "download," it was the tuning of two receiving frequencies. Arkady received the signal in a broad, almost unfiltered stream; Boris — more discretely, cautiously. Boris doubted the very fact of the "transmission," thus performing the function of critical verification: he prevented information from passing into the text unprocessed. This is the technology of the tandem — not literary, but mediumistic.
A quarrel threatened not just the work — it threatened the synchronization of the two receivers. That's why they feared quarrels so much and avoided them so carefully. "To put an end to the work" is not a metaphor of editorial despair; it's the breaking of a channel.
The five-year period, which Boris spoke about during his life — in interviews, in Comments on the Past — now reads as a period of spiritual synchronization between two people with different "frequencies" of perception. Hence the phenomenal stylistic homogeneity of the texts: the reader feels no seam, no "here's Arkady, here's Boris." Because in the act of writing, they ceased to be two people.
III. The Ljudens as an Autobiographical Key
During their lives, the brothers rejected autobiographical readings of their characters. The Ljudens — one of the most mysterious concepts of the Noon Universe — were interpreted by them as a speculative extrapolation: what would happen if humanity continued to evolve?
The posthumous session offers a different version. The Ljudens are not an extrapolation of the future, but a memory of the past. Arkady says directly: "Boris's incarnations surfaced" and "my own incarnations surfaced." That is, the archive of past lives served as raw material for science fiction prose.
This overturns our understanding of their method. The Strugatskys worked not as visionaries — they worked as archivists. Not foresight, but recollection. Not a utopia of the future, but a reconstruction of the distant past, experienced in other incarnations. Hence that incredible concreteness of detail that readers value so highly. The detail is real because it was lived — albeit in another life, another body, another planet.
This also explains one of the main paradoxes of the Strugatskys: why their communist utopia of the Noon World never seems naive, like most Soviet utopias? Because it was written not as a project, but as a memory. A project always simplifies. A memory — details and knows about losses.
IV. Social Fiction as a Spiritual Assignment
The posthumous session introduces a category absent from the authors' lifetime commentaries: "spiritual assignment." Arkady speaks of their task being "to convey knowledge" — and that Boris was also "initiated" into this contact, though not as consciously.
Social science fiction, in this light, is not a literary genre or a political instrument, but a form of higher-order pedagogy. The brothers weren't simply criticizing the Soviet system or dreaming of a better future. They were fulfilling an assignment to prepare humanity for the next step — for contact, for the expansion of consciousness, for understanding that humanity is not alone in the universe.
This is precisely why their texts are so densely populated with unanswered questions. The Beetle in the Anthill is not a detective story; it's a question about the right to kill for humanity's safety, deliberately left unanswered. Roadside Picnic is a question about whether humanity is ready for a gift it hasn't earned. Hard to Be a God is a question about the right of a more developed civilization to interfere in the life of a less developed one. The brothers answered none of these questions. Now we understand why: these weren't rhetorical questions — they were assignments for readers, who were meant to arrive at the answers themselves.
Definitely Maybe isn't science fiction about the pressure of the Homeostatic Universe. It's a text about everything having its time: if you give an immature society the latest technological achievements, it degrades. That's why we're not allowed in — until we're ready.
V. The Soviet Context as Camouflage
One of the most unexpected theses of the session is the assertion that Soviet censorship not only hindered the brothers but also served as an unwitting filter. In the absence of censorship, Arkady admits, they would have written about a third more — and faster. But these "unwritten" works weren't lost: fragments were fused into other texts, scattered throughout what was written.
This means the Soviet context performed the function of form-giving pressure. Just as mountain pressure turns coal into diamond — so censorship forced the brothers to pack meanings more densely, to make them multi-layered, to hide a dangerous thought within an adventure plot, and a spiritual message within a science fiction setting. These layers of camouflage create that hermeneutic depth that researchers so admire.
During their lives, the brothers spoke of censorship as an obstacle. The posthumous perspective allows us to see it as a co-author — harsh, insensitive, but a co-author nonetheless, thanks to whom the form became worthy of the content.
VI. The Phenomenon of Foresight: Chronicles or Frequencies?
The divergence between Arkady and Boris on the question "Did we see the future?" is itself informative. Arkady denies it: we studied science, we didn't prophesy. Boris objects: but what we wrote about, we didn't find there. So where did it come from?
The medium offers the term "timeline" and "Akashic records" — the brothers admit they didn't know these words, but recognize the described experience: "some kind of information as some kind of image, I would simply write it down." This description matches what psychology of creativity calls the "primary process" — a state where conscious control diminishes and deep structures surface. The difference lies in interpretation: psychology would say "archetypes of the collective unconscious," the spiritualist tradition would say "Akashic records."
What's important, however, is that in both cases we're talking about structures inaccessible to ordinary waking consciousness. The Strugatskys created conditions for accessing them — through the tandem, through the method of detailed preliminary discussion, through the long-term synchronization of two consciousnesses. The method turns out to be a practice of expanding consciousness — only disguised as writerly professionalism.
VII. What Remained Unspoken During Life — And Why
Let's summarize what the contact reveals anew about the Strugatskys' method — things they didn't say during their lives, and why.
First: information came as a "download," not as a rational-creative process. This wasn't said during life because it contradicted their image as rationalists and was dangerous in the Soviet context.
Second: the tandem worked as a synchronization system for two receivers — one broadband (Arkady), the other filtering (Boris). The five-year was spiritual, not just professional, synchronization. During life, this wasn't understood in such terms.
Third: the Ljudens and other concepts of the Noon Universe were not extrapolation but memory from other incarnations. This explains their inexplicable concreteness — the concreteness of lived experience, not invention.
Fourth: the genre of social science fiction was for the brothers not a choice but an assignment — a form of pedagogical initiation for the reader, preparing them for contact with the Other, for expanding their worldview. Questions without answers are intentional pedagogy.
Fifth: Soviet censorship was — paradoxically — a co-author, condensing the form to diamond-like density. During life, the brothers saw it only as an obstacle.
VIII. Historiosophical Conclusion: Fiction as a Bridge
If we accept the premise of this essay, the social science fiction of the Strugatskys turns out not to be a literary genre, but a genre of spiritual history. These are texts written at that historical turning point when Soviet civilization was exhausting itself and a new one had not yet emerged — texts that preserved in culture questions about human dignity, the right to otherness, the limits of power and responsibility.
They were written by people who — by their own posthumous admission — did not fully belong only to their own time. They drew from other times and, possibly, other spaces. And they addressed their texts — again, by their own words — not only to the reader of the Soviet era, but to that reader who would be ready for contact.
We are that reader. And the contact, by all appearances, has already begun.
"Happiness for everyone, and let no one leave offended."
— Roadside Picnic
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