Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Russell Nash on January 04, 2008, 09:38:28 AM
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EP139: Acephalous Dreams (http://escapepod.org/2008/01/04/ep139-acephalous-dreams/)
By Neal Asher (http://freespace.virgin.net/n.asher/).
Read by Stephen Eley.
“AI Geronamid has need of a subject for a scientific trial. This trial may kill you, in which case it would be considered completion of sentence. Should you survive, all charges against you will be dropped.”
“And the nature of this trial?”
“Cephalic implantation of Csorian node.”
“Okay, I agree, though I have no idea what Csorian node is.”
The Golem stood and as she did so the door slid open. Daes glanced up at the security eye in the corner of the cell and stood also. He thought, briefly, about escape, but knew he stood no chance. His companion might look like a teenage girl but he knew she was strong enough to rip him in half.
“You didn’t tell me. What’s a Csorian node?”
“If we knew that with any certainty we would not be carrying out this trial,” replied the Golem.
Rated R. Contains scenes of strong graphic violence and sexual assault.
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Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://media.libsyn.com/media/escapepod/EP139_AcephalousDreams.mp3)
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I really enjoyed this story, but I couldn't help thinking that the flashback rape sections was gratuitous, added for some sort of "shock" value rather than any thematic purpose. Yes, it added a bit to understanding Daes and his motivations for the murder, but it just didn't contribute that much that wasn't already established by the beginning of the story. This is especially the case since once things got going, Daes himself sort of got sidelined by his programming, so his past seemed to be less important anyway.
But other than that, really great story, set in an interesting world. I'll have to check out the novels set out in the same universe.
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This story had a lot of great ideas (if not entirely original), but I don't think the narrative was very compelling. While none of the ideas struck me as terribly original (except perhaps the archived minds,) they seemed fairly well thought out. I also liked the balance between exposition and action.
On a side note, how about that justice system of the future? I'm kind of curious what people thought about it. It certainly seemed to reject the proposition "to understand all is to forgive all." I really didn't Geronamid's treatment of Daes.
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Many EP stories have inspired me to track down the author and read more of their work. This story has produced the opposite effect. If this is "very typical" of Neal Ashers work as Steve said, I won't be running out to get it.
To be fair, I did not listen to most of it. I stopped after the first five minutes or so. It was a little too gruesome for my tastes, but beyond that I just don't care for the follow-the-killer-and-get-into-their-mind story. It's just not my idea of "having fun". (That's also why I stop watching certain episodes of Criminal Minds if the material gets too dark, although the acting is very good on that show). It's too bad; I may have liked to high tech elements of the story, but it wasn't worth wading through the rest of it in my opinion.
Once again, I would like to thank Steve for his content warnings. I thought I'd listen a bit despite the warning, but after I got the basic feel of the story, I opted out. After reading eytanz's comments, it sounds like I got out just in time.
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I'd have to listen to the story again to get this comment right --- but I don't think I will, mainly for the reasons already mentioned.
I found an interesting juxtaposition between the atheism of Daes (which I initially thought was 'Deus') and the near god like Geronamid. Geronamid is nearly all knowing (there was no question that Daes would be caught, and there was also the implication that the evil monk guy who sodomised Daes would have been caught if he were reported.) Hera the golem seemed very angelic. I was disappointed the story ended up going where it did, because I thought after the first ten minutes it would be some sort of commentary on the place of a religion in a highly technological society. I suppose that's just me, though. I'll just put it on the list of stories I want to write!
I wonder how the newly intelligent spiders will regard Daes in whatever mythology and/or religion they end up with?
Once the story finished, I was fairly happy with the result, although I did find Daes' transition from human to implanter of intelligent hive consciousness confusing. In print it may have been a bit better, because it's much easier to go back and read what happened. I figured it out eventually, but I don't like the feeling that I've missed something important.
Finally, I'll agree with the other posters and say that the head lopping and sodomy scenes were way too detailed. They could have been handled in a far less graphic way. In a few weeks when Steve covers the feedback for this story, the only thing I'm going to remember about it is the description of the evil dude drawing the infinity symbol on Daes. That disappoints me, because the scenes have tainted an otherwise good story.
Looking forward to next week!
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Btw, did anyone else feel that the story dated itself a bit by saying that the brains were "zipped"? It seems to me that the use of "zip" as a generic term for all archives is already fading a bit. I think that in 10 years or so no one will remember what a zip file is except computer science majors who care about compression algorithms.
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After listening to "The Veteran" on EP, I did track down and read a novel of Asher's, "Gridlinked". Lot's of very, very cool tech, near-omnipotent AI, disturbing human behavior with gruesome descriptions, all sorts of alien life - including a mysterious and extremely powerful alien life that appears to match or perhaps over-match the human-developed AI, and fast-paced action.
I've enjoyed his stories - not my typical reading but for me a fun change of pace. Thanks for another Asher story, Steve!
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I really, really enjoyed this story.
I got a little lost when the focus shifted from Daes' present to his molestation, but followed it pretty well otherwise.
I wonder how the newly intelligent spiders will regard Daes in whatever mythology and/or religion they end up with?
How so?
As I understood it the 'zipped' hive minds will stay as grains of picotech, passing from generation to generation, until their host organisms' brains are sufficiently evolved to handle the full Csorian intellect. At which time they would be unzipped, wipe out the preexisting consciousnesses, then go on breeding and dieing like any other civilization.
Finally, I'll agree with the other posters and say that the head lopping and sodomy scenes were way too detailed. They could have been handled in a far less graphic way. In a few weeks when Steve covers the feedback for this story, the only thing I'm going to remember about it is the description of the evil dude drawing the infinity symbol on Daes. That disappoints me, because the scenes have tainted an otherwise good story.
I really enjoyed this story, but I couldn't help thinking that the flashback rape sections was gratuitous, added for some sort of "shock" value rather than any thematic purpose. Yes, it added a bit to understanding Daes and his motivations for the murder, but it just didn't contribute that much that wasn't already established by the beginning of the story. This is especially the case since once things got going, Daes himself sort of got sidelined by his programming, so his past seemed to be less important anyway.
I'm a little surprised by this. I thought that showing the unpleasant circumstances of his rape did an excellent job of demonstrating that his crime was legally but not morally criminal. It was in fact justifiable homicide. It could have been covered by "and something bad happened" but I don't think that would have conveyed the unfathomable anguish and shame that act bestowed upon him.
As for the head lopping, I thought it was rather tastefully done. Murder is awful, but the aftermath is worse and should never be understated. I think if more people were made aware of the mundane realities and ramifications of doing harm to others we'd be living in a better world.
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I really enjoyed this story, but I couldn't help thinking that the flashback rape sections was gratuitous, added for some sort of "shock" value rather than any thematic purpose. Yes, it added a bit to understanding Daes and his motivations for the murder, but it just didn't contribute that much that wasn't already established by the beginning of the story. This is especially the case since once things got going, Daes himself sort of got sidelined by his programming, so his past seemed to be less important anyway.
I'm a little surprised by this. I thought that showing the unpleasant circumstances of his rape did an excellent job of demonstrating that his crime was legally but not morally criminal. It was in fact justifiable homicide. It could have been covered by "and something bad happened" but I don't think that would have conveyed the unfathomable anguish and shame that act bestowed upon him.
Well, let me first state that I don't think it was a justifiable homicide. Revenge is not a sufficient moral justification for killing, as far as I am concerned. It made the murder more sympathetic, but not justifiable.
That said, my point wasn't that the rape should have been omitted. It's that it didn't need to be described in graphic detail. There are plenty of ways of telling us that a rape occured without showing it to us. And note that I don't generally object to explicit detail in such scenes, when they add something to the story. In this story, I felt it was the occurance of the rape that was important, not its details. I just didn't feel the way it was described did much except give me a mental image I didn't really want or need.
Or do you feel that rape by an authority figure in itself is not a justifiable cause for murder, but orchasterating group rape is? Or that adding (graphic) humiliation pushes it over some sort of moral line? That's implied by your post, but I find it hard to seriously think you meant it that way.
As for the head lopping, I thought it was rather tastefully done. Murder is awful, but the aftermath is worse and should never be understated. I think if more people were made aware of the mundane realities and ramifications of doing harm to others we'd be living in a better world.
The murder scene, I felt, was handled a lot better than the rape scene. It was brutal, but it made sense to me within the context of the story.
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I'm with Thaurismunths. I thought this was a great story. It put me in a rich, well-developed, fascinating world. It instilled a sense of wonder and awe in me, and that to me is the point of science fiction.
I really enjoyed this story, but I couldn't help thinking that the flashback rape sections was gratuitous, added for some sort of "shock" value rather than any thematic purpose. Yes, it added a bit to understanding Daes and his motivations for the murder, but it just didn't contribute that much that wasn't already established by the beginning of the story. This is especially the case since once things got going, Daes himself sort of got sidelined by his programming, so his past seemed to be less important anyway.
I'm a little surprised by this. I thought that showing the unpleasant circumstances of his rape did an excellent job of demonstrating that his crime was legally but not morally criminal. It was in fact justifiable homicide. It could have been covered by "and something bad happened" but I don't think that would have conveyed the unfathomable anguish and shame that act bestowed upon him.
Well, let me first state that I don't think it was a justifiable homicide. Revenge is not a sufficient moral justification for killing, as far as I am concerned. It made the murder more sympathetic, but not justifiable.
I guess I'm in between. I think the more subtle implication of the rape we got in the beginning of the story was sufficient to instill sympathy with Daes, but I don't think the gratuitous description of the rape later on was completely out of bounds. Now that I think of it, it could have been the Csorian implant bashing Daes's personality the same way it attacked Geronomid in it's initial contact.
The thing that DID bother me about the rape was that it reduced the character of the priest to one of two-dimensional evil. We go from the priest as an intentionally undeveloped character to a more developed but uninteresting one. Also, the scene transported me from the far future world I was enjoying to present day sensationalistic scandals. Science Fiction author is critical of religion. There's a new one.
I also didn't like the jabs at "arrogant humanity." I'm supposed to feel guilty because I didn't catch on that bugs were smarter than me?
But overall, I would like to vote in favor of more hard SF stories like this one. And if this is typical of Neal Asher, I'm going to look for more of his stuff. Thanks, Steve!
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I really enjoyed this story, but I couldn't help thinking that the flashback rape sections was gratuitous, added for some sort of "shock" value rather than any thematic purpose. Yes, it added a bit to understanding Daes and his motivations for the murder, but it just didn't contribute that much that wasn't already established by the beginning of the story. This is especially the case since once things got going, Daes himself sort of got sidelined by his programming, so his past seemed to be less important anyway.
I'm a little surprised by this. I thought that showing the unpleasant circumstances of his rape did an excellent job of demonstrating that his crime was legally but not morally criminal. It was in fact justifiable homicide. It could have been covered by "and something bad happened" but I don't think that would have conveyed the unfathomable anguish and shame that act bestowed upon him.
Well, let me first state that I don't think it was a justifiable homicide. Revenge is not a sufficient moral justification for killing, as far as I am concerned. It made the murder more sympathetic, but not justifiable.
I absolutely respect you and this opinion. We differ on our views of 'justifiable homicide' but I'm ok with that.
That said, my point wasn't that the rape should have been omitted. It's that it didn't need to be described in graphic detail. There are plenty of ways of telling us that a rape occured without showing it to us. And note that I don't generally object to explicit detail in such scenes, when they add something to the story. In this story, I felt it was the occurance of the rape that was important, not its details. I just didn't feel the way it was described did much except give me a mental image I didn't really want or need.
Or do you feel that rape by an authority figure in itself is not a justifiable cause for murder, but orchasterating group rape is? Or that adding (graphic) humiliation pushes it over some sort of moral line? That's implied by your post, but I find it hard to seriously think you meant it that way.
I feel differently.
I think the details were important to morally justify Daes' actions and demonstrate that he was not a psychopath but the proper executioner for the mastermind of his degradation. And I think that was important because I don't believe the Geronamid homunculus was being honest with Daes when it said he was only chosen because of the time of his conviction. I think the Geronamid chose him because a less stable or more desperate prisoner might have tried harder to breach containment or not had as much will to live. That would have forced the Geronimid to destroy not only the prisoner, but the node as well, taking with it the entire Csorian civilization.
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I enjoyed this story, I think it had interesting notions of how predatory natures figure into questions of survival. It almost seems as if the main character wasn't chosen by accident, but the story seemed to spin it as if he was just what became available on short notice.
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I thought the story was good overall, however the murder and sodomy scenes were a little over the top. I don't agree that the detailed descriptions of said scenes were necessary.
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I liked it overall. It's good to have a story with a strong idea (even if it has been done before). The sodomy scenes were unnerving, but I think that was intentional. I also think it was important to touch on the humiliation involved to better understand why Daes did what he did. You can't really do that without going into some detail. Maybe it goes back to the old "show don't tell" argument. Sometimes the showing is unnerving.
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I am going to give this story a thumbs up, even though I have a couple of problems with it.
Starting with the problems. I am not sure why the POV's crime was important other than for a hook. I think we probably could started the story in the jail cell with the Golem telling him that his sentence has been commuted. Along the same lines I am not sure that the descriptions of his boyhood trauma were necessary. The sign of infinity made an interesting calling card, but I am not sure there was enough detail about why that was significant to the priest who did that to him. Maybe I am missing something but I am not sure why it was all that important. In short I don't think that Daes adds anything to the story.
The whole idea of an AI that controlled everything, obviously not new, seemed very plausible in this case, but I would have like to know more about it, how it came to be, what it did or does for the world, I think these things would have made for a better story than Daes. IMHO it might have been interesting start out with AI Geronamid and since the new intelligence reached out to him it could have been a two way communication from there as AI Geronamid, experienced what his test subject was experiencing.
I think the idea of resurrecting a dead race is a very good topic for stories. I like the fact that the AI found what it needed to do this and had decided to control it. As the new intelligence was trying to escape, it reminded me to Jurassic Park, and I thought that was the way the story was going to go. There could have been more information about the new /old race. As Daes leraned about them, or as I suggested above the AI Geronamid learned about them.
In the end what I believe we have here is a really good concept for a story that could be better put together. I would also suggest that there a lot more to this story that could be told, than is presented here. I found my self wanting for details, down any of the many roads that this story opened up. Maybe I should read the rest of the books in this universe and that would help.
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This story seemed to have two pretty good ideas, neither of which really had a chance to develop, and that really didn't have much to do with each other.
The first was the possibility of AI intervention in one of humanity's oldest problems -- one crime that begets another. As the story moved away from the opening murder and the main character described the inevitability of his capture, I thought that was where we were going. I really hoped the author had some insight into how (presumably) dispassionate machine intelligence could address crime, punishment, rehabilitation and related issues. I was even hoping we might see some interaction between the AI and the religion on those topics.
Unfortunately, it turned into nothing more than a setup for the "prisoner with one last chance" beginning to the second section. As another poster pointed out, we could have just as easily begun this section with the golem in the cell, hearing about the crime only in retrospect, if at all. The crime was no longer important to this part of the story, and certainly didn't justify the time and energy that went into the rather gruesome flashback.
The idea of resurrecting an extinct race from stored information was also an interesting idea, but it didn't really go anywhere, either. If we swallow the implausibility of a biological storage device that just powers up and works once its implanted in an alien species -- and I would be willing to do that, with a little more persuasion than was offered -- the story didn't deal with any of the major topics that arose.
Why did the AI, who was clearly motivated to protect humanity, resurrect the aliens in the first place? What is the alien's attitude toward humanity, once the initial possibility of inhabiting their bodies is closed off? What does this alien civilization plan to do with its new lease on life? How is humanity going to react to them? How is the AI going to react -- beyond its initial decision to resurrect them, but route them to an inferior host?
Give it two stars for some interesting ideas, but withold the rest for unanswered questions...
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I don't think the crime and humiliation of Daes should be so easily dismissed as irrelevant. Remember, the alien's first experience of humanity is through the eyes and memories of Daes, and while the future ramifications of this aren't explored in the current story, it is certainly implied that Daes' experiences have made an impression on the aliens. Also, if you take out Daes' story, then you have AI vs. alien, which could still make for an interesting story, but a relatively sterile one, and certainly not an Asher story.
The AI and golems are featured prominently in at least one of Asher's novels, and therefore IMO fuller explanations aren't necessary in this story. If he's left the reader with enough information to understand what happened but wanting to know more after a short story like this, then he's done his job.
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I don't think the crime and humiliation of Daes should be so easily dismissed as irrelevant. Remember, the alien's first experience of humanity is through the eyes and memories of Daes, and while the future ramifications of this aren't explored in the current story, it is certainly implied that Daes' experiences have made an impression on the aliens. Also, if you take out Daes' story, then you have AI vs. alien, which could still make for an interesting story, but a relatively sterile one, and certainly not an Asher story.
True enough. But there's a big difference between a character going through humiliation and giving us the details to such a graphic degree. I'm not saying that the rape should have been eliminated completely. I'm saying that A - Rape by an authority figure is bad enough. I don't think the humiliation actually added anything to how bad Daes's experience actually was. There is a sense in which this story seems to think we have been desensetized to rape, that it's not shocking enough on its own, and it condones that desensitization. I find that worrisome. But - more importantly for my actual critique of the story - B - "show, don't tell" is not a hard and fast rule. There are ways of telling that don't mute the importance of an event, and times when it's better to do so.
Look, I liked this story. A lot. And I see why it made sense for things to happen like they did. I just don't understand why things had to be told the way they do. It may be important thematically for Daes to go through the rape and humiliation. I can't see why it benefitted the story for the listener to witness it.
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True enough. But there's a big difference between a character going through humiliation and giving us the details to such a graphic degree. I'm not saying that the rape should have been eliminated completely. I'm saying that A - Rape by an authority figure is bad enough. I don't think the humiliation actually added anything to how bad Daes's experience actually was. There is a sense in which this story seems to think we have been desensetized to rape, that it's not shocking enough on its own, and it condones that desensitization. I find that worrisome. But - more importantly for my actual critique of the story - B - "show, don't tell" is not a hard and fast rule. There are ways of telling that don't mute the importance of an event, and times when it's better to do so.
My only thought on this is that there are times that it is better to leave it up to the readers imagination. My thoughts from before stand, I think that the story could have been told almost completely with out Daes, but being that it is not I don't think all the details were necessary. It as you said it just contributes to the desensitization of violent crime in general.
Some times as a writer, you want the reader to feel what the character is feeling and the, the cold of a winter day, the heat of the sun baking their skin, the feel of the spider crawling up the back of their neck, but when it does not add anything to the story, no matter how well written, no matter how much the author likes it, no matter how graphic it is, it should be cut. I know there is a debate about if these event added enough to this story to warrant their being there, so just to add my voice to that. I found myself being distracted while I listened to the rest of the story, by these details.
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My comments have mostly already been made. In short, I think the story was interesting, especially the stuff on the planet with Daes trying to break into Geronamid, and the Golem part was kind of interesting, but the story itself... well, I think it had some of the same problems I had with "The Veteran".
Also, it seems as though Asher has to start his shorts with a violent scene. I understand it can catapult a reader into a story and keep him/her interested, but if you do something too often, it becomes a cliche.
I give it 65% thumbs up.
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My biggest problem with the story was structural. The beheading scene basically happens twice and I think that is unnecessary. I think there were better options in terms of narrative structure to tell this tale. It is getting a lot of feedback about how repulsive the story is, but I feel there is a larger picture being missed.
To me, the sodomy scene is as symbolic as everything else that happens. The story is a kind of brutal scifi meditation on power. By the end, I kept thinking of this Tool piece that begins with a preacher praying for the lives of the carrots.
And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber.
And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself.
And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest.
And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil.
One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear.
And terror possesed me then.
And I begged,
"Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"
And the angel said unto me,
"These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots!
You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust."
And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared,
"Hear me now, I have seen the light!
They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul!
Damn you!
Let the rabbits wear glasses!
Save our brothers!"
Can I get an amen?
Can I get a hallelujah?
Thank you Jesus.
*sheep and farm animal sounds*
This is necessary.
Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on........
-Tool, Disgustipated, from the album Undertow
I guess the point of the story, to me, and in its most banal form is that sentient beings screw each other, eat each other, kill each other. That's what we do, and the cycle is infinite. Even once they reach the planet and the MC is implanted with the alien consciousness, the immediate consequence is a supreme power struggle over which vast powerful overmind is going to screw whom.
Things I find interesting:
~The only female in the story is an idealized, impenetrable robot sliver of an AI named for an ancient hearth godess.
~The repetition of the infinity symbol, in blood and chiton pigment ties the whole thing together. It is not just a symbol of infinity, but also of the cyclic nature of life.
~Either way, the MC is disintegrated. The slivers of the AI (robot and ship) are disposable.
Though individuals believe their reasons and experiences are primary, we are really just information packets carrying on the brutal struggle of existence.
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~The only female in the story is an idealized, impenetrable robot sliver of an AI named for an ancient hearth godess.
Nope. There's also the alien going through a difficult birth process nearby. Who soon becomes impregnated in a different way.
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-Tool, Disgustipated, from the album Undertow
You iz my new hero.
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Nope. There's also the alien going through a difficult birth process nearby. Who soon becomes impregnated in a different way.
Good catch on both counts.
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Finally getting around to commenting on this. It's late, so I'll just hit a couple of high points.
The characterization of Daes was nicely done, and I thought the rape and murder scenes were both handled very well. These brutal acts were the fulcrums about which the character's motivation and circumstance turned and needed to have as strong an impact on the reader as possible for the sake of the story. I understand that reading such things isn't to anyone's taste, but without them you get a very different story. I very much liked the imagery, and found the speculation on lost races fascinating even if a little far-fetched. I'm not overly familiar with the "Polity" universe, but Asher did a nice job of introducing enough of it for the story to stand on its own.
I had a bit of an issue with the nature of Daes' punishment. If the proper treatment of a rapist is to adjust his brain to make him not a rapist, why would the same not be done for a muderer? It seems that Daes could be "fixed" just as easilly, if not more so, and the only purpose of his execution would be retribution. If this society sees retribution as a legitimate function of punishment then how do we explain a system that would readjust the rapist's brain rather than punish him? It felt to me like an inconsistency. As another aside, I'm not sure why Geronimid couldn't have built some kind of biological construct to house the node. It seems well within the capabilities we saw from the AI.
My bigger problem is that I'm not quite certain what the story was about. It looked as if it would be about the nature of crime, punishment, and retribution in this world, but that thread seemed to be tossed aside to focus on the conflict between Geronimid and the Saurans. It could have been the story of one man being a helpless cog in struggles greater than himself in that Daes was violated first by the priest, next by Geronimid, and finally by the Saurans. If so, I'd think we should have seen more focus on how it felt for Daes to lose himself to the Saurian node and shared his horror at this final violation. I also see the resurrection of an ancient race as a needlessly baroque manner of making that point. Reading the story I didn't quite feel that and am not sure it's really what was intended, but I'm at a loss to come up with a better answer. IN the end it felt to me like a story that, for all the things that happened, wasn't really about anything.
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I had a bit of an issue with the nature of Daes' punishment. If the proper treatment of a rapist is to adjust his brain to make him not a rapist, why would the same not be done for a muderer? It seems that Daes could be "fixed" just as easilly, if not more so, and the only purpose of his execution would be retribution. If this society sees retribution as a legitimate function of punishment then how do we explain a system that would readjust the rapist's brain rather than punish him? It felt to me like an inconsistency.
I had the same problem. I suppose you could argue "deterrence," but that, too, would seem to apply to the rapist as well. One thing that I did think of was that maybe Daes' earlier refusal to have his misanthropy "adjusted" made him more culpable in the AI-run justice system. Having chosen to be "defective," he now had to bear the responsibility for remaining that way -- an "assumed risk" sort of situation. Though that was never made explicit.
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I had a bit of an issue with the nature of Daes' punishment. If the proper treatment of a rapist is to adjust his brain to make him not a rapist, why would the same not be done for a muderer? It seems that Daes could be "fixed" just as easilly, if not more so, and the only purpose of his execution would be retribution. If this society sees retribution as a legitimate function of punishment then how do we explain a system that would readjust the rapist's brain rather than punish him? It felt to me like an inconsistency.
I had the same problem. I suppose you could argue "deterrence," but that, too, would seem to apply to the rapist as well. One thing that I did think of was that maybe Daes' earlier refusal to have his misanthropy "adjusted" made him more culpable in the AI-run justice system. Having chosen to be "defective," he now had to bear the responsibility for remaining that way -- an "assumed risk" sort of situation. Though that was never made explicit.
The story seems to have hinted at this, but you could have made exactly the same argument about the rapist. He could have had his pedophilia and tendency to abuse power adjusted away rather than rape young boys. It just felt like a slightly sloppy bit of thinking because we needed a death-row convict for the story to work.
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I had a bit of an issue with the nature of Daes' punishment. If the proper treatment of a rapist is to adjust his brain to make him not a rapist, why would the same not be done for a muderer? It seems that Daes could be "fixed" just as easilly, if not more so, and the only purpose of his execution would be retribution. If this society sees retribution as a legitimate function of punishment then how do we explain a system that would readjust the rapist's brain rather than punish him? It felt to me like an inconsistency.
I had the same problem. I suppose you could argue "deterrence," but that, too, would seem to apply to the rapist as well. One thing that I did think of was that maybe Daes' earlier refusal to have his misanthropy "adjusted" made him more culpable in the AI-run justice system. Having chosen to be "defective," he now had to bear the responsibility for remaining that way -- an "assumed risk" sort of situation. Though that was never made explicit.
The story seems to have hinted at this, but you could have made exactly the same argument about the rapist. He could have had his pedophilia and tendency to abuse power adjusted away rather than rape young boys. It just felt like a slightly sloppy bit of thinking because we needed a death-row convict for the story to work.
I had the impression that Daes was somehow made aware of his problem and had formally refused to have it fixed, though I couldn't swear to that without listening to the whole story again. Whereas the priest apparently kept his pedophelia to himself.
Since the AI can apparently read a human memory flawlessly, there's no danger of a false accusation. The AI can see the act from both the perpetrator's point of view and the victim's, and apparently has ways to resolve the variances caused by different minds observing the same act. Imaigine how that would affect both civil and criminal law. One of many interesting questions closed off by the story's need for a death-row inmate.
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I had a bit of an issue with the nature of Daes' punishment. If the proper treatment of a rapist is to adjust his brain to make him not a rapist, why would the same not be done for a muderer? It seems that Daes could be "fixed" just as easilly, if not more so, and the only purpose of his execution would be retribution. If this society sees retribution as a legitimate function of punishment then how do we explain a system that would readjust the rapist's brain rather than punish him? It felt to me like an inconsistency.
I believe it was for the same reason we have a death penalty: Some society believes can be rehabilitated, or at the very least their crimes are not worthy of a capital punishment. Others have committed crimes too heinius to be given the chance for rehabilitation, or have proven themselves incapable of rehabilitation. With out getting in to too much speculation about the AI's abilities I believe that Daes was being executed as punishment for his crime rather than because of Geronimid's inability to adjust his personality.
As another aside, I'm not sure why Geronimid couldn't have built some kind of biological construct to house the node. It seems well within the capabilities we saw from the AI.
It was never mentioned that Geronimid could create advanced biological organisms. The cyborg was just a cyborg, not a manufactured human. The AI could have created a computer body for the node to inhabit but it was pretty explicitly stated that Geronimid had every intention of stunting the Csorian's progress so that humans would be on equal footing when the species encountered one another.
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Thanks Hazimel [and eytanz] for making me realize there is more to this story than I got on the first listen. I remembered the golem's name as Hera, so I obviously missed the impregnable Hestia/birthing spider angle. I finally got around to looking up acephalous, too, which is Greek for "headless", and an acephalous society is one without hierarchies or leaders.
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All in all a solid little story with interesting ideas, but I didn't really like the way things turned out.
I was really hooked with the plot of the convicted getting "a new life" (even though it is in no way a new concept) and the implication of the world (theocracy and AIs and such), but the part that played out on the lonely planet fell flat for me.
I generally like my characters to be entrenched in (or at least relating to) their society, so a story on a quarantined planet is a difficult sell. And both powerful AIs and Alien minds are incredibly difficult to do right. In this story they didn't feel that much different from the human protagonist and that makes it weak in my view.
Also, Geronimid lands a shuttle on planet when he before was afraid to establish a direct comlink? Not really plausible.
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All in all a solid little story with interesting ideas, but I didn't really like the way things turned out.
I was really hooked with the plot of the convicted getting "a new life" (even though it is in no way a new concept) and the implication of the world (theocracy and AIs and such), but the part that played out on the lonely planet fell flat for me.
Good point. It also didn't help that the actual resolution won't come for ten thousand years or so. I think that part of the problem that space opera faces is that it's easy to lose the kind of human scale in which we can identify with the protagonist and his relationship with the world around him.
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Also, Geronimid lands a shuttle on planet when he before was afraid to establish a direct comlink? Not really plausible.
I don't remember this part. When did he land a shuttle?
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At the end, to collect his golem.
I think the reasoning is that the aliens were too primitive to control the picotech to the degree where they could be a threat.
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At the end, to collect his golem.
I think the reasoning is that the aliens were too primitive to control the picotech to the degree where they could be a threat.
Oh, yes. That's when she saw the spider with Daes' mark on it.
I believe you're right. The Csorians had already chosen their host species and were no longer a threat to the AI systems.
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Yet again I liked the story.
And reading this made be think about it in different ways; and pick up on things I did not the first time.
When the issue is pointed out to him, and that it would have been fixed; I took him saying that he had decided not go get himself 'fixed' to be an admission of culpability for anything that it may cause. Almost like the police saying threats have been made against your life... and you do nothing about it and reject the help you are offered; then after something happens you decide to sue the police for not stopping it. No; you refused the help when it was brought up for you.
I think it is the same in this story. It was noticed a lot earlier in his life; he just chose not to get it fixed. That is how they can jusfity execution; it was pre meditated to an extrene degree, he didn't try to stop it, showed no remorse for his crime and so on.
As for the AI's abilities well they never are explored; so we can't specilate on them. I doubt they can create life to the degree that would be required for the alien hive.
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Great story. The last two weeks' have been two of the best that Escape Pod has run, for my tastes.
There are details of Polity society that I think answer some of the questions people have about elements of the plot -- they were hinted at in the story but were easy to miss in audio.
Although the Polity is really big, you won't be able to lose yourself in it if you're on the run. All travel off-planet goes through the runcibles (teleportation devices) and is controlled by the AIs. (Try to take any contraband through a runcible and the AI will simply edit it out of the transfer: you will end up at your destination but the contraband won't.) After committing a serious crime, you're stuck on the planet you're on. And so much of daily life is mediated by AIs that you'd have to camp out in the woods to avoid detection. It's not intended to be a police state, but the pervasive AI involvement has near-total surveillance as a side-effect.
I imagine that this makes premeditated murder extremely rare. Most people premeditating murder will look at the 100% chance of being caught and think again. Most human-on-human deaths are probably accidental or crimes of passion. Destruction of the priest's head may also have been important in landing Deas with a death sentence -- I can't remember how well resurrection/reconstruction works in the Polity but the story certainly made quite a big deal of dropping the head into the volcano. It may be that death is only given for "murder with no possibility of resurrection".
As such, I concur with Thaurismunths that Daes was not chosen by Geronamid at random. I've got no idea how big a sector is, but presumably a Sector AI is looking after many billions of humans, so death sentences for crimes of passion may indeed be churned out every minute. But a cold-blooded killer with the moral sense to know that what he's doing is wrong, and the common sense to know that he'll be caught afterwards, with the deep sense of grievance to go through with it anyway? That's probably not something that passes through the courts every day.
And this is why it seems quite important to me that we see both the abuse and the revenge in unflinching detail. If the author waves it away with a line like "Daes was on death row for murdering the bully who'd abused him as a boy", the reader understands that there was a run-of-the-mill murder and the character has a de rigeur unhappy childhood. But the reader needs to be more emotionally involved, to know the details that make this abuse personal and the murder unique. We need to feel that Daes didn't overreact to the rape, and that he wasn't insane or overcome with rage when he killed. This murderer is special.
At least, that's my strong impression from the way the story was structured. What I haven't quite been able to figure out is why Geronamid needed someone like Daes. The two obvious choices are that it's something in the way Daes's personality would inform/constrain the Csorians' reactions in dealing with Geronamid, or something in the way that he would influence their multi-thousand-year exile on the planet. If there are clues in the text, I missed them. Shame, I'll just have to listen again. ;)
Also, Geronimid lands a shuttle on planet when he before was afraid to establish a direct comlink? Not really plausible.
I'm not sure that it was afraid. As the Csorians understood quickly enough, simply introducing an extra link in the chain didn't prevent Geronamid from having to make contact with the infected link at some point. It doesn't work very well as a firewall. I think the elaborate setup was a bluff to see how aggressively the Csorians would fight to subvert the AI: a way of giving them enough rope to hang themselves with. Asher's AIs tend to be devious like that, and never let on everything that they know.
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many layers to this story and there's some good comments.
i've been imagining the religious discussions that take place in spider society after a couple thousand years of picotech accelerated evolution.
evo spider: look, we don't need any mysterious forces. there are perfectly natural explanations for our existence.
id spider: you're telling me that the delicate balance of our silk glands were created by accident? without intelligent design?
evo spider: i'm saying that there's no reason to believe that they were created at all, only emerged. what would be the purpose of creating us and then leaving us alone?
id spider: we are being judged! there comes a time of great reckoning when the creator will make himself known and those who are found worthy will be raised up to sit beside him while others are left behind.
evo spider: ...
ironically, the critically minded approach the complexity needed by picotech more rapidly. with the ultimate reward being your consciousness snuffed out and replaced with an alien intelligence.
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ironically, the critically minded approach the complexity needed by picotech more rapidly. with the ultimate reward being your consciousness snuffed out and replaced with an alien intelligence.
I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. It's not the individuals will suddenly get their personality replaced when they get "smart enough". Rather, it'll probably be that when baby spiders will be born that have the necessary mental capacity, they will be born with the imprinted personality. So it's not so much that the reward is "you get your conciousness snuffed out" but more that if you're smart enough and find an equally smart mate, you're likely to have bizzare alien kids.
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aye eytanz, i was a little trite.
but i definitely got the impression that the picotech was designed to recreate the society as a whole. it needed enough bodies of sufficient complexity to do it all at once but only had the two at hand; so it set about to create those bodies at which point it would reactivate its initial directive.
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So it's not so much that the reward is "you get your conciousness snuffed out" but more that if you're smart enough and find an equally smart mate, you're likely to have bizzare alien kids.
Heck, "bizzare alien kids" is the near-universal fate of human parents, "smart enough" or not!! :o
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I imagine that this makes premeditated murder extremely rare. Most people premeditating murder will look at the 100% chance of being caught and think again. Most human-on-human deaths are probably accidental or crimes of passion. Destruction of the priest's head may also have been important in landing Deas with a death sentence -- I can't remember how well resurrection/reconstruction works in the Polity but the story certainly made quite a big deal of dropping the head into the volcano. It may be that death is only given for "murder with no possibility of resurrection".
As such, I concur with Thaurismunths that Daes was not chosen by Geronamid at random. I've got no idea how big a sector is, but presumably a Sector AI is looking after many billions of humans, so death sentences for crimes of passion may indeed be churned out every minute. But a cold-blooded killer with the moral sense to know that what he's doing is wrong, and the common sense to know that he'll be caught afterwards, with the deep sense of grievance to go through with it anyway? That's probably not something that passes through the courts every day.
And this is why it seems quite important to me that we see both the abuse and the revenge in unflinching detail. If the author waves it away with a line like "Daes was on death row for murdering the bully who'd abused him as a boy", the reader understands that there was a run-of-the-mill murder and the character has a de rigeur unhappy childhood. But the reader needs to be more emotionally involved, to know the details that make this abuse personal and the murder unique. We need to feel that Daes didn't overreact to the rape, and that he wasn't insane or overcome with rage when he killed. This murderer is special.
Actually, if the story had drilled in on that set of questions, and the AI's role in the justice system, I think it could have been a great story. It's just that the author let all that drop, for no apparent reason, and moved on to a largely-disconnected story of the archived alien intelligences. That left me very disatisfied with the story.
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All in all a solid little story with interesting ideas, but I didn't really like the way things turned out.
I was really hooked with the plot of the convicted getting "a new life" (even though it is in no way a new concept) and the implication of the world (theocracy and AIs and such), but the part that played out on the lonely planet fell flat for me.
Good point. It also didn't help that the actual resolution won't come for ten thousand years or so. I think that part of the problem that space opera faces is that it's easy to lose the kind of human scale in which we can identify with the protagonist and his relationship with the world around him.
Need a good example of this. Try reading the Dune series. Read Brian Herbert first and then his father (reading them in time order.) and wonder what the heck happened everyone you read nearly ten thousand pages about.
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My favorite part of this story was the use of "picotech" instead of the ubiquitous nanotechnology. The rest didn't really grab me. Elements of cool things that weren't developed in favor of instead doing "character" development that still left all four of them flat.
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I really enjoyed this story, but I couldn't help thinking that the flashback rape sections was gratuitous, added for some sort of "shock" value rather than any thematic purpose. Yes, it added a bit to understanding Daes and his motivations for the murder, but it just didn't contribute that much that wasn't already established by the beginning of the story. This is especially the case since once things got going, Daes himself sort of got sidelined by his programming, so his past seemed to be less important anyway.
But other than that, really great story, set in an interesting world. I'll have to check out the novels set out in the same universe.
This is what I would have said, had you not already done so.
The first time I started listening, I turned the story off at that point, and almost didn't finish it. It took me a good week to decide I was curious enough about the end to start at the end of the rape scene and go forward, hoping that it wouldn't get that bad again.
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I loved the aliens and AI aspect of the story - two races with their own champions fighting to survive.
The entire character, plot and history tied in with the Daes character didn't fit with the other elements. Maybe I missed something, but I failed to see how the sexual violence or even Daes as a criminal on death row added anything to the story. It didn't make me care for him, it didn't add poignancy or irony to the story. Daes was just some sucker who got caught up in machinations greater than himself - and his back story seemed to push ugly tendrils into an otherwise tight story.
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I loved the aliens and AI aspect of the story - two races with their own champions fighting to survive.
The entire character, plot and history tied in with the Daes character didn't fit with the other elements. Maybe I missed something, but I failed to see how the sexual violence or even Daes as a criminal on death row added anything to the story. It didn't make me care for him, it didn't add poignancy or irony to the story. Daes was just some sucker who got caught up in machinations greater than himself - and his back story seemed to push ugly tendrils into an otherwise tight story.
Agreed, but I found Daes's story the more interesting of the two. Here's a damaged, broken human being lashing out against someone he once saw as an authority figure despite the fact that he knows he'll be caught and executed without a chance of escape or even redemption. The story of the AI and the Csorians (I think that's how it's spelled) was just too big to have any real emotional resonance with me. As things stood, the resolution won't happen for tens of millenia. It's just too remote for me to really feel engaged, and the AI was too superpowerful and remote to be anything but a driver of the plot.
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I loved the aliens and AI aspect of the story - two races with their own champions fighting to survive.
The entire character, plot and history tied in with the Daes character didn't fit with the other elements. Maybe I missed something, but I failed to see how the sexual violence or even Daes as a criminal on death row added anything to the story. It didn't make me care for him, it didn't add poignancy or irony to the story. Daes was just some sucker who got caught up in machinations greater than himself - and his back story seemed to push ugly tendrils into an otherwise tight story.
Agreed, but I found Daes's story the more interesting of the two. Here's a damaged, broken human being lashing out against someone he once saw as an authority figure despite the fact that he knows he'll be caught and executed without a chance of escape or even redemption. The story of the AI and the Csorians (I think that's how it's spelled) was just too big to have any real emotional resonance with me. As things stood, the resolution won't happen for tens of millenia. It's just too remote for me to really feel engaged, and the AI was too superpowerful and remote to be anything but a driver of the plot.
As I read your reply, it occurred to me that maybe the idea was to contrast two vastly different machinations against each other? We see the short hot flare of Daes life and story be the seed that got taken over and obliterated by the much larger plot of AI and the Csorians.
Either way, I guess my interest in the story was the opposite to yours. :)
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This story completely blew me away. Fantastic.
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(My apologies for coming late and bringing my own novel... I hope some of you gain something from this mini-thesis paper):
I enjoyed this story, I think it had interesting notions of how predatory natures figure into questions of survival. It almost seems as if the main character wasn't chosen by accident, but the story seemed to spin it as if he was just what became available on short notice.
I agree; in fact, I think the whole story revolves around the morality of depredation. Those who said they didn't see why the brutal descriptions were necessary to the story may have missed this point. The rapist priest was a predator, and as Hera said in the grav car, if Daes had turned him in, he could have been "adjusted" not to be that way. There were several references to the need for the Csorian node to convert candidate species into predators for what sounded like practical reasons, and to answer eytanz's earlier comment:
And I see why it made sense for things to happen like they did. I just don't understand why things had to be told the way they do.
... I felt the portrayal of the rape in detail was meant to force us to draw parallels between what was done to young Daes by Anton, and what was done to convict Daes by the Csorian, all with Geronamid as the nearly-but-not-quite omnipotent "protector" above all, there to intercede where possible on behalf of the underdog.
Touching on the idea of "justifiable homicide", questions of guilt and innocence, predator and prey, are always more complicated than simple cause and effect. There is a distinct chain in this story; the unspoken cause of Anton's predatory behavior (logic of the internal universe of the story tells me there has to BE a cause) ... leading to Daes' all-consuming plan for revenge that hinged on being the predator (remember, he was counting on forfeiting his life as part of the natural course of things, even though he had legal recourse) ... which led to Geronamid's selection of him as host for the Csorian node ... which was necessary (from Geronamid's point of view) to draw out the "zipped" civilization and divert it from conquest of humanity into the directed evolution of the spider creatures. Note the significance of Daes being consumed by THAT depredation, just as he was consumed by Anton's earlier offenses.
In that light, the descriptions of the rape and the murder were necessary to show that morality of an act has more to do with POV and the circumstances than with any hard and fast rule of "right and wrong". When you start sliding up the scale from unjustified depravity (the rape) through "justified homicide" (which eytanz and Thaurismunths aptly illustrated is almost a matter of personal preference) to the "natural urge to survive" of the Csorian civilization.
I wonder, even though Hera kept saying it was all an accident of timing, whether Geronamid was looking for someone like Daes, who had survived a previous invasive trauma and stayed sane enough to avoid detection by the System. That kind of calculation is another example of cold, predatory logic.
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I reckon this story was just great. It really captured my imagination and took me to another world. Well done.
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Unfortunately, it turned into nothing more than a setup for the "prisoner with one last chance" beginning to the second section. As another poster pointed out, we could have just as easily begun this section with the golem in the cell, hearing about the crime only in retrospect, if at all. The crime was no longer important to this part of the story, and certainly didn't justify the time and energy that went into the rather gruesome flashback.
This summed up most of my feelings quite nicely. The gruesome beginning and gruesome flashback seemed to have little to do with the plot except to justify to the reader why they could get away with a "prisoner's last chance" plot.
The murder scene was the worst scene to start the story with, immediately dropping almost all chance of me actually relating to the protagonist. At best it was a shock scene to get my attention with cheap gore and at worst. And the rape information was withheld until later why? By the time it arrived it was too little too late and just came off as an apology for the opening scene "Oh yeah, sorry about misleading you back then. He totally had a reason for doing what he did. But my shock scene opening wouldn't have been effective if I'd revealed that then". The fact that this vital information was withheld for so long was nothing more than a ploy by the author but I hates it when a protagonist withholds vital information from me in this way--it just screams plot device instead of helping me sympathize as much as I can.
For me the interesting part was the AI interaction and the information stored in the race of insects until they evolved the capability of making use of the stored information. That part was still cool, but I just felt it was drowned out by the backstory that ended up having little to do with the SF story.