warm Europa into more habitable conditions – at the cost of exterminating the Jovians, ocean-like creatures who swam through the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. The Jovians were judged too primitive, as due to their environment they had no hope of ever developing to become an advanced civilization. TMA-2 also apparently decided, in the early 21st century, that humanity was a failed species and that it was possibly necessary to destroy them. Apparently the TMA-2 Monolith was allowed to destroy primitive species at its own discretion, but needed the authorisation of a "superior" to destroy an advanced spaceflight-capable civilisation such as humanity. This "superior" was a Monolith located in a distant star system, but even the Monoliths were limited by the speed of light in their interstellar communications. Thus it took 450 years for the message sent by TMA-2 to reach its "superior", which then sent a message giving permission to destroy humanity, which took another 450 years to return to the Sol system in the year 3001. Due to the efforts of Frank Poole and the Europa team on Earth, the ascended Dave Bowman and AI HAL (now fused as one being "Halman" in the Monolith's computational matrix) were able to introduce a subtle computer virus into TMA-2 which destroyed it before it could render the human race extinct. The Firstborn did not appear to have abandoned all interest in the evolutionary experiments overseen by the ancient Monoliths. The Monoliths' communications are said to be limited by the speed of light, but Dave Bowman is sent on an interstellar journey at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Bowman is apparently transformed into the Star Child, not by the Monoliths, but by the Firstborn (both Kubrick and Clarke have similarly stated that Bowman was transformed by non-corporeal aliens, not the Monoliths). They also subsequently transform HAL in 2010, to give Bowman a companion. The epilogue to 3001: The Final Odyssey reveals that the Firstborn had been monitoring humanity's final confrontation with the Monoliths in the Sol system, but chose not to intervene, likely considering it a test of mankind's abilities - either they would find a way to stop the Monoliths and thus prove their worth, or fail and prove the Monoliths' point. Unlike the TMA-2 Monolith, whose judgment of humanity was based on its social progress by the year 2001, the Firstborn considered the more peaceful and responsible