Author Topic: EP312: Night Bird Soaring  (Read 23751 times)

raetsel

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 116
    • MCL & Me
Reply #25 on: October 10, 2011, 04:54:04 PM
Really great thread many interesting ideas.

I guess I hadn't considered the option that the gods were real, though with the AI coming back from the future thing I guess this drew me down the avenue of the gods not being real, and pandered to my atheism of course.

Reading unblinking's explanations of things also made me think replace "Aztec gods" with the word "Skynet" and you have a whole other story.  ;D



Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #26 on: October 10, 2011, 05:14:40 PM
Reading unblinking's explanations of things also made me think replace "Aztec gods" with the word "Skynet" and you have a whole other story.  ;D

Very true, very true!  That reminds me of a story by the awesome Phillip K. Dick wherein people have to send people to a god to ask the god a question that they think the god will not be able to answer. If question fails to stump the computer, the person never returns, but it's all part of a bargain with this god.  But in the end, it turns out that the god is a machine with a huge database of knowledge, while the people do not have a great deal of knowledge, so they try to stump it with questions about the sun and other things they consider more or less intangible and the computer knows all the answers.  And when they fail to stump the computer, the computer drops them in an acid bath which breaks their bodies down to provide energy for the computer to continue running until the next cycle of questioners.

Have I mentioned that I love PKD stories?



Scattercat

  • Caution:
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 4904
  • Amateur wordsmith
    • Mirrorshards
Reply #27 on: October 10, 2011, 06:01:42 PM
@Unblinking

The thing is, read literally, the ending implies that T. was destined to die for the gods, and nothing he did could change that.  He thought he had escaped, but he couldn't, because the gods required him to be sacrificed.  Thus, when he didn't go to the knife willingly, they blew him out the airlock and into the atmosphere.  However, if we take as a given that the gods' will is supreme and no one can escape the fate laid out for them, then the whole "changing history" thing makes even less sense than usual, since the gods could just have given the Aztecs a leg up in the first place and didn't even need to go down the wrong leg in the Trousers of Time in the first place.  (Ignoring the whole paradox that traveling back in time to fix a problem removes the impetus for going back to fix the problem.)

I mean, I liked the story, but I really do hate time travel.  I'm okay with a little bit of "You Cannot Escape Fate," but when the whole story is ABOUT someone changing not just their fate but the fate of the whole world, the usual "But nothing he did mattered because he was Fated" ending meshes really terribly.

However, hallucinations from oxygen deprivation are definitely within the realm not just of the plausible but the probable, so that's what I'm going with.  Bah humbug.



ElectricPaladin

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1005
  • Holy Robot
    • Burning Zeppelin Experience
Reply #28 on: October 10, 2011, 06:51:22 PM
Night bird soaring in the black of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life...
You were only waiting for the sacrifice to die


*Ahem*

I actually didn't like this story too much. The flaw that bugged me was small at first, but it grew and grew until I was left with a completely bad taste in my literary mouth. Specifically, I thought that the fantastic "spec fic" elements were misplaced. This could have been, simply, an excellent alternate-history story about the one boy growing up amidst a troubled, gradually secularizing people. The whole "nano-AI from the future" thing, while terribly neat, seemed a bit unnecessary.

In fact, it diluted the main premise of the story - an Aztec civilization surviving to (roughly) the modern day. If you're going to write alternate history, write alternate history! Don't ass-backwards it by providing a science-fictiony explanation, unless you're going to make that the focus of your story.

So, in short, I felt like this was a great idea, but the execution was lacking. I would have preferred a more straight up character drama set in a fascinating alternate world to a story that diluted the alternate history with superfluous science-fictiony elements.

The one thing I will say is that I loved the conclusion. Was it a hallucination? Were the gods really real? Who knows! It was great, and added a slightly upbeat (sort of) spin to an otherwise pretty bleak ending.

Captain of the Burning Zeppelin Experience.

Help my kids get the educational supplies they need at my Donor's Choose page.


Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #29 on: October 11, 2011, 01:37:06 PM
@Unblinking

The thing is, read literally, the ending implies that T. was destined to die for the gods, and nothing he did could change that.  He thought he had escaped, but he couldn't, because the gods required him to be sacrificed.  Thus, when he didn't go to the knife willingly, they blew him out the airlock and into the atmosphere.  However, if we take as a given that the gods' will is supreme and no one can escape the fate laid out for them, then the whole "changing history" thing makes even less sense than usual, since the gods could just have given the Aztecs a leg up in the first place and didn't even need to go down the wrong leg in the Trousers of Time in the first place. 

I read that as the AI arranging matters so that the kid would die in an "accident", not divine intervention.  He's made a promise to sacrifice this kid, and he does so, but in this way the kid also gets to fulfill his dream of astronautics.

You make a fair point that if fate as designed by the gods is inevitable, then going back to change the past is foolhardy, but I didn't see the gods' design as inevitable.



Scattercat

  • Caution:
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 4904
  • Amateur wordsmith
    • Mirrorshards
Reply #30 on: October 11, 2011, 10:04:33 PM
I didn't get the sense of the AI arranging his death at all.  His death seems purely accidental, in the sense of being mere physical chance and not some kind of plot.  I'm not talking about him dying; I'm talking about him seeing the god squatting on top of the space station.



Dave

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 128
    • I Can Bend Minds With My Spoon
Reply #31 on: October 11, 2011, 10:50:31 PM
Enjoyed this one quite a bit. It kept me guessing about the narrator's fate. I was sad that things ended the way they did for him. I assumed his wife was going to get injured and he'd end up using the nanites to save her, but no, just a random stupid space accident. Space is the most unforgiving environment there is, after all.

If the Aztecs had risen to a global power, I'm not sure they'd have come up with all the same advances in technology we did- they may well have had different cultural priorities or ideals. But the conceit is still pretty cool.

And just for the record, I don't think the gods had anything to do with anything in this story.

-Dave (aka Nev the Deranged)


Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #32 on: October 12, 2011, 02:03:16 PM
I didn't get the sense of the AI arranging his death at all.  His death seems purely accidental, in the sense of being mere physical chance and not some kind of plot.  I'm not talking about him dying; I'm talking about him seeing the god squatting on top of the space station.

If I were the AI, I would strive to make it appear to be purely accidental as well--after all, someone else is being killed in the kid's place, in what is apparently an empty sacrifice.  He is superintelligent and the head of the world, he could arranged some weak bolts combined with an air pressure burst to arrange something like this.



matweller

  • EA Staff
  • *****
  • Posts: 678
Reply #33 on: October 12, 2011, 02:46:49 PM
I didn't get the sense of the AI arranging his death at all.  His death seems purely accidental, in the sense of being mere physical chance and not some kind of plot.  I'm not talking about him dying; I'm talking about him seeing the god squatting on top of the space station.

If I were the AI, I would strive to make it appear to be purely accidental as well--after all, someone else is being killed in the kid's place, in what is apparently an empty sacrifice.  He is superintelligent and the head of the world, he could arranged some weak bolts combined with an air pressure burst to arrange something like this.

Yes, but he would also have to have power to make Totyoalli take unnecessary risks with his tether to give that plan a significant chance.

I agree, I don't think there was any outside influence. I think the point was that in the end, rather than die meaningfully for something he didn't believe, he died pointlessly for something he did.

...which, maybe, happens more often in real life than we would really like to think about.



CryptoMe

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1146
Reply #34 on: October 14, 2011, 01:39:57 AM
Lots of interesting little tidbits. My favourite was the concept that this society pushed themselves into space because of their desire to reach the gods. Now, if only we could sell that concept to religious folks in this reality...  :D



SF.Fangirl

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 145
Reply #35 on: October 16, 2011, 12:30:03 AM
One thing that did strike me though was if the Reverend Speaker was essentially an AI from the future why did he persist in carrying out all the blood sacrifices? Did he believe in the Gods? Or was he just using it to maintain power and control of the Empire?

I am with T.  The gods don't exist.  However the people who programmed the nanite AI and sent it back in time to change history did believe in the gods and the Mayan religion.  Hence the AI is following their instructions and fulfilling his mission by maintaining their culture/religion as he encountered it 700 years ago.

I did think the ending with T's death was well foreshadowed.  The description of the actions leading to his death draggged simply because it was pretty obvious he was going to die from the moment he started the repair and each sentence just gave more details up the manner of his death without adding anything to the story.

And the guy was dying from lack of oxygen and had an hallucination of one of his gods before death.  With someone so steeped in religion even if he didn't believe, its an obvious hallucination to have at death.



Devoted135

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1252
Reply #36 on: October 16, 2011, 12:55:29 AM
Overall, I enjoyed this story for what it was. The end really threw me off because I was assuming that the gods didn't actually exist, but I'm happy to write it off as a simple hallucination. My strongest impression was how it was pretty incredible what they accomplished in such a short time, and wow am I slacking!



matweller

  • EA Staff
  • *****
  • Posts: 678
Reply #37 on: October 17, 2011, 12:46:12 PM
One thing that did strike me though was if the Reverend Speaker was essentially an AI from the future why did he persist in carrying out all the blood sacrifices? Did he believe in the Gods? Or was he just using it to maintain power and control of the Empire?

I am with T.  The gods don't exist.  However the people who programmed the nanite AI and sent it back in time to change history did believe in the gods and the Mayan religion.  Hence the AI is following their instructions and fulfilling his mission by maintaining their culture/religion as he encountered it 700 years ago.

I would guess, though, that the future folk didn't believe in the gods themselves but knew knew the people would be more easily controlled if they lived under a constant threat. Which may be proof that the AI was sent back by a near-future US government...



Gamercow

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 654
Reply #38 on: October 17, 2011, 02:40:40 PM
I enjoyed this story by the end, but did not enjoy the first quarter to third as I was listening to it.  The reason for this is that it seemed like it was going to be a "See how much I know about the Aztecs!  Look how cool they were!  They were the awesomest civilization ever!  We'd be living in such a cool world if the Europeans hadn't destroyed them!"  story.  But, as it went on, the characters gained some character, and i found myself enjoying it.  I thought the way the MC lost his tether to the station a bit trite, but I did like the twist with the god at the end, a little "You may not believe in the gods, but they don't need you to believe in them" nod.

The cow says "Mooooooooo"


mbrennan

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 210
Reply #39 on: October 19, 2011, 08:33:55 AM
Here's the problem I have with this story -- and one I've seen in a couple of other "what if X culture were the dominant culture in an alternate present/future technological civilization" alternate history stories.  In many points in its past the cultures that became the modern dominant Western-European-derived civilization, some pretty nasty, dark, inhumane shit has been the norm.  However, when we extrapolate Aztecs or Mongols or whoever else into modern technological societies, we tend to assume they hold on to whatever "savage" traditions we remember them best for (and note that we remember the "savage" traditions largely because those are the features of those cultures that Western explorers wrote down and made the biggest deal of).  By the same logic, we should be still hanging petty thieves, burning witches, and employing trial by ordeal, even if in some snappy new high-tech way.  To argue otherwise is to make a pretty chauvinistic claim that it's some inherent superiority of the Western European culture that means we can get beyond our brutal history while nobody else can.  I tend to think that that progress of humanity is far more a side-effect of a more interdependent, organized society than of some inherent tendency of individual cultures (this video goes a pretty good way towards why I think this).

This is a very good point.  I tend to let it slide because I like seeing pre-colonial culture extrapolated to the future as if colonialism had never happened, and I also like seeing religion included in science fiction rather than brushed off as something we're obviously going to outgrow -- quite apart from the metaphysical question of theism vs. atheism, I think the religious impulse is pretty thoroughly ingrained in the human psyche -- so I appreciate seeing those kinds of details incorporated into a space-faring society.  Watering them down to the local equivalent of modern American secularism would weaken the effect.  But it's true that having futuristic Aztecs still practicing human sacrifice is pretty much like having futuristic Westerners still burning witches at the stake, and unless your setting is one where the necessity of sacrifice IS incontrovertibly true, that's a problematic assumption to make.

Having said that -- I like Mesoamerican SF (or fantasy), so I did, in general, like this story.  I agree that the end dragged out too much, though, and the time-traveling nanite AI was maybe not the best choice, when straight-up alternate history could have done the job.  It satisfied a gripe I almost had, which was that this story could (until that point) have been told without any science fictional element whatsoever, but it introduced a variety of other problems, as various people here have pointed out.

(BTW, props to the reader for tackling all the Nahuatl names.  And if Escape Artists ever needs a female reader for a similar story, I volunteer my services; I won't claim my pronunciation is perfect, but I have enough familiarity with both Mayan and Aztec terminology that I don't run screaming from names like Piltzintecuhtli.  And I've read a few stories for Podcastle already.)



ElectricPaladin

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1005
  • Holy Robot
    • Burning Zeppelin Experience
Reply #40 on: October 19, 2011, 01:24:56 PM
Here's the problem I have with this story -- and one I've seen in a couple of other "what if X culture were the dominant culture in an alternate present/future technological civilization" alternate history stories.  In many points in its past the cultures that became the modern dominant Western-European-derived civilization, some pretty nasty, dark, inhumane shit has been the norm.  However, when we extrapolate Aztecs or Mongols or whoever else into modern technological societies, we tend to assume they hold on to whatever "savage" traditions we remember them best for (and note that we remember the "savage" traditions largely because those are the features of those cultures that Western explorers wrote down and made the biggest deal of).  By the same logic, we should be still hanging petty thieves, burning witches, and employing trial by ordeal, even if in some snappy new high-tech way.  To argue otherwise is to make a pretty chauvinistic claim that it's some inherent superiority of the Western European culture that means we can get beyond our brutal history while nobody else can.  I tend to think that that progress of humanity is far more a side-effect of a more interdependent, organized society than of some inherent tendency of individual cultures (this video goes a pretty good way towards why I think this).

Why can't I find your original post, Boldie?

This is a very good point, and it was bugging me, too. While it's true that modern cultures retain a weird mix of their ancient customs, both bloody and benevolent, it does seem true that these kinds of stories tend to stress the violent and inhuman aspects. It's frankly kind of racist. "If those dirty Aztecs had survived they'd have invented such a bad culture - good thing the Europeans got rid of them!" Then, include a few themes about the beauty and majesty of their culture to make it "ambiguous." In the end, however, you still have a story that a (white) reader can experience, then pat himself on the back, assured of the superiority of the world as it is over the world as it might have been. I wonder if this would have bugged me harder and faster if I'd been of Central American descent.

What did occur to me immediately - though I forgot to mention it in my last post - is that the author had to include a time-travel element to explain the dominance of Central American cultures. That seemed extremely patronizing. "Let's tell a fantasy story about how the Aztecs came to be a dominant power in the space age... but we can't just what-if it. We have to make it magic. There's no other way those poor bastards could have managed it."

Captain of the Burning Zeppelin Experience.

Help my kids get the educational supplies they need at my Donor's Choose page.


Rachel Udin

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 13
Reply #41 on: October 19, 2011, 02:28:12 PM
Here's the problem I have with this story -- and one I've seen in a couple of other "what if X culture were the dominant culture in an alternate present/future technological civilization" alternate history stories.  In many points in its past the cultures that became the modern dominant Western-European-derived civilization, some pretty nasty, dark, inhumane shit has been the norm.  However, when we extrapolate Aztecs or Mongols or whoever else into modern technological societies, we tend to assume they hold on to whatever "savage" traditions we remember them best for (and note that we remember the "savage" traditions largely because those are the features of those cultures that Western explorers wrote down and made the biggest deal of).  By the same logic, we should be still hanging petty thieves, burning witches, and employing trial by ordeal, even if in some snappy new high-tech way.  To argue otherwise is to make a pretty chauvinistic claim that it's some inherent superiority of the Western European culture that means we can get beyond our brutal history while nobody else can.  I tend to think that that progress of humanity is far more a side-effect of a more interdependent, organized society than of some inherent tendency of individual cultures (this video goes a pretty good way towards why I think this).

Why can't I find your original post, Boldie?

This is a very good point, and it was bugging me, too. While it's true that modern cultures retain a weird mix of their ancient customs, both bloody and benevolent, it does seem true that these kinds of stories tend to stress the violent and inhuman aspects. It's frankly kind of racist. "If those dirty Aztecs had survived they'd have invented such a bad culture - good thing the Europeans got rid of them!" Then, include a few themes about the beauty and majesty of their culture to make it "ambiguous." In the end, however, you still have a story that a (white) reader can experience, then pat himself on the back, assured of the superiority of the world as it is over the world as it might have been. I wonder if this would have bugged me harder and faster if I'd been of Central American descent.

What did occur to me immediately - though I forgot to mention it in my last post - is that the author had to include a time-travel element to explain the dominance of Central American cultures. That seemed extremely patronizing. "Let's tell a fantasy story about how the Aztecs came to be a dominant power in the space age... but we can't just what-if it. We have to make it magic. There's no other way those poor bastards could have managed it."

Both of those parts irked me and I couldn't figure out why... but this nicely sums it up.

Other than that, I like the attempt at doing multicultural sci-fi. Maybe be nice to get an alternate reality sci-fi set in another culture that is written from someone of that culture? Just a thought.



Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #42 on: October 19, 2011, 04:11:20 PM
What did occur to me immediately - though I forgot to mention it in my last post - is that the author had to include a time-travel element to explain the dominance of Central American cultures. That seemed extremely patronizing. "Let's tell a fantasy story about how the Aztecs came to be a dominant power in the space age... but we can't just what-if it. We have to make it magic. There's no other way those poor bastards could have managed it."

If you're interested in alt-history with Aztecs as a major part of a modern culture that doesn't depend on time travel to make it happen, you might be interested in Joshua Reynolds's "Strange Affair" stories, 3 of which have been podcast on the Dunesteef.  It's not space-age, but maybe it'll be of interest anyway:

The Strange Affair of the Artisan's Heart
http://dunesteef.com/2009/11/16/page-47-the-strange-affair-of-the-artisans-heart-by-joshua-reynolds/

The Strange Affair of the Skull at the Window
http://dunesteef.com/2010/03/14/page-96-the-strange-affair-of-the-skull-at-the-window-by-joshua-reynolds/

The Strange Affair of the Sundered Man
http://dunesteef.com/2011/08/17/episode-109-the-strange-affair-of-the-sundered-man-by-joshua-reynolds/



ElectricPaladin

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1005
  • Holy Robot
    • Burning Zeppelin Experience
Reply #43 on: October 19, 2011, 04:17:33 PM
Here's the problem I have with this story -- and one I've seen in a couple of other "what if X culture were the dominant culture in an alternate present/future technological civilization" alternate history stories.  In many points in its past the cultures that became the modern dominant Western-European-derived civilization, some pretty nasty, dark, inhumane shit has been the norm.  However, when we extrapolate Aztecs or Mongols or whoever else into modern technological societies, we tend to assume they hold on to whatever "savage" traditions we remember them best for (and note that we remember the "savage" traditions largely because those are the features of those cultures that Western explorers wrote down and made the biggest deal of).  By the same logic, we should be still hanging petty thieves, burning witches, and employing trial by ordeal, even if in some snappy new high-tech way.  To argue otherwise is to make a pretty chauvinistic claim that it's some inherent superiority of the Western European culture that means we can get beyond our brutal history while nobody else can.  I tend to think that that progress of humanity is far more a side-effect of a more interdependent, organized society than of some inherent tendency of individual cultures (this video goes a pretty good way towards why I think this).

Why can't I find your original post, Boldie?

This is a very good point, and it was bugging me, too. While it's true that modern cultures retain a weird mix of their ancient customs, both bloody and benevolent, it does seem true that these kinds of stories tend to stress the violent and inhuman aspects. It's frankly kind of racist. "If those dirty Aztecs had survived they'd have invented such a bad culture - good thing the Europeans got rid of them!" Then, include a few themes about the beauty and majesty of their culture to make it "ambiguous." In the end, however, you still have a story that a (white) reader can experience, then pat himself on the back, assured of the superiority of the world as it is over the world as it might have been. I wonder if this would have bugged me harder and faster if I'd been of Central American descent.

What did occur to me immediately - though I forgot to mention it in my last post - is that the author had to include a time-travel element to explain the dominance of Central American cultures. That seemed extremely patronizing. "Let's tell a fantasy story about how the Aztecs came to be a dominant power in the space age... but we can't just what-if it. We have to make it magic. There's no other way those poor bastards could have managed it."

Both of those parts irked me and I couldn't figure out why... but this nicely sums it up.

Other than that, I like the attempt at doing multicultural sci-fi. Maybe be nice to get an alternate reality sci-fi set in another culture that is written from someone of that culture? Just a thought.

Have you seen the comments that the Damascus Steampunk story got? You and I think it would be nice... a lot of other people here, not so much, it seems.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2011, 04:24:51 PM by ElectricPaladin »

Captain of the Burning Zeppelin Experience.

Help my kids get the educational supplies they need at my Donor's Choose page.


ElectricPaladin

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1005
  • Holy Robot
    • Burning Zeppelin Experience
Reply #44 on: October 19, 2011, 04:25:26 PM
What did occur to me immediately - though I forgot to mention it in my last post - is that the author had to include a time-travel element to explain the dominance of Central American cultures. That seemed extremely patronizing. "Let's tell a fantasy story about how the Aztecs came to be a dominant power in the space age... but we can't just what-if it. We have to make it magic. There's no other way those poor bastards could have managed it."

If you're interested in alt-history with Aztecs as a major part of a modern culture that doesn't depend on time travel to make it happen, you might be interested in Joshua Reynolds's "Strange Affair" stories, 3 of which have been podcast on the Dunesteef.  It's not space-age, but maybe it'll be of interest anyway:

The Strange Affair of the Artisan's Heart
http://dunesteef.com/2009/11/16/page-47-the-strange-affair-of-the-artisans-heart-by-joshua-reynolds/

The Strange Affair of the Skull at the Window
http://dunesteef.com/2010/03/14/page-96-the-strange-affair-of-the-skull-at-the-window-by-joshua-reynolds/

The Strange Affair of the Sundered Man
http://dunesteef.com/2011/08/17/episode-109-the-strange-affair-of-the-sundered-man-by-joshua-reynolds/

Are you kidding me? I LOVE those stories. They're the best.

Captain of the Burning Zeppelin Experience.

Help my kids get the educational supplies they need at my Donor's Choose page.


Corcoran

  • Palmer
  • **
  • Posts: 30
    • My shop-page (Only in German)
Reply #45 on: October 20, 2011, 04:28:21 PM
Very good built alternate history for a short story



InfiniteMonkey

  • Lochage
  • *****
  • Posts: 483
  • Clearly, I need more typewriters....
Reply #46 on: October 21, 2011, 08:27:34 PM
I'm gonna love the hell out of any story that has the Aztecs "win", though it was an interesting choice on the author's part to make them unsympathetic. Or at least not terribly sympathetic. I agree that "nanotech from the future is kind of a copout (deus ex machina? deus est machina???  :) ) and I was annoyed by the god popping up at the end. Actually, I was more annoyed by our protagonist's "ironic destiny" being so very clearly telegraphed.

And while I think that the point about ancient cultures not evolving their moral outlooks in alt-history is a very good point, I would point out that we're only marginally better. Whether or not you agree with our policies in health care, social welfare, or the death penalty, many countries around the world see them as barbaric, and yet we are still one of the dominant powers in the world.

(or, if you prefer, China's policies on free speech, the environment, and criminal justice).



Rain

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 178
Reply #47 on: October 29, 2011, 08:49:31 AM
I enjoyed this one, was an interesting world. One thing that made me wonder is that the main character towards the end is regretting not using the dagger with the nanobots, but as i understood it they could only really heal minor damage and things that happened with old age, i dont think they could have helped someone falling through the atmosphere of a planet



ElectricPaladin

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1005
  • Holy Robot
    • Burning Zeppelin Experience
Reply #48 on: October 29, 2011, 04:31:44 PM
I enjoyed this one, was an interesting world. One thing that made me wonder is that the main character towards the end is regretting not using the dagger with the nanobots, but as i understood it they could only really heal minor damage and things that happened with old age, i dont think they could have helped someone falling through the atmosphere of a planet

No, they were going to be able to retrieve his body before he hit Venus. It was the asphyxiation that was going to get him.

Captain of the Burning Zeppelin Experience.

Help my kids get the educational supplies they need at my Donor's Choose page.


ancawonka

  • Palmer
  • **
  • Posts: 47
Reply #49 on: October 30, 2011, 09:01:39 PM
Just listened to this story.  It's not specifically spelled out in the story, but it seems to me that the snake-ai "took over" the body of the emperor by injecting some nanites.  But what happened to the snake that got sent back in time?  I thought perhaps the AI came back and not only created an immortal emperor but also the blood-hungry gods - everything the people needed to stay in line and take over the world.

If Totyuali had licked the blood, would he maintain his personality and gain all of the memories of the emperor, or would he be taken over by the nanites?