Escape Artists

Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Heradel on August 13, 2009, 09:58:35 PM

Title: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Heradel on August 13, 2009, 09:58:35 PM
EP211: Carthago Delenda Est (http://escapepod.org/2009/08/13/ep211-carthago-delenda-est/)

by Genevieve Valentine (http://www.genevievevalentine.com/)
Read by Kate Baker (http://anaedream.com/)

Story originally appeared in Federations (http://www.johnjosephadams.com/federations/).

Wren Hex-Yemenni woke early. They had to teach her everything from scratch, and there wasn’t time for her to learn anything new before she hit fifty and had to be expired.

“Watch it,” the other techs told me when I was starting out. “You don’t want a Hex on your hands.”

By then we were monitoring Wren Hepta-Yemenni. She fell into bed with Dorado ambassador 214, though I don’t know what he did to deserve it and she didn’t even seem sad when he expired. When they torched him she went over with the rest of the delegates, and they bowed or closed their eyes or pressed their tentacles to the floors of their glass cases, and afterwards they toasted him with champagne or liquid nitrogen.

Before we expired Hepta, later that year, she smiled at me. “Make sure Octa’s not ugly, okay? Just in case—for 215.”

Wren Octa-Yemenni hates him, so it’s not like it matters.

Rated PG for political machinations and waiting…

Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Listener on August 14, 2009, 06:02:26 PM
A great concept, but an extremely boring story, at least to me. I haven't read "Waiting for Godot" but my ex loved it, and she told me enough about it for me to think that this is at least somewhat similar -- everyone gets together and waits for something to happen... but Carthage won't come today. Perhaps tomorrow. I wish the story had been more interesting, or at least that more had happened in it.

The reading was very deadpan and didn't really help matters. Technically sound.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Praxis on August 14, 2009, 06:10:07 PM
I've just finished listening to this one - I know because my mp3 player stopped - and I realised I wasn't following the story or what was happening at all.

I think this needs a re-listen as it sounded interesting at the start.  Like Listener said, the delivery of the story didn't help me get into the story.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Boggled Coriander on August 15, 2009, 01:09:19 AM
I think I would have preferred this story in written form, since then I could have gone back to re-read bits near the beginning that didn't fully register the first time. 

As I was listening, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd zoned out or hadn't quite understood some crucial bit of background information. I don't think this is the fault of the author or the reader.  I'll probably give the whole thing another listen.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: gelee on August 16, 2009, 08:35:44 PM
I had a really hard time following this story for the first few minutes.  Stories like this usually work better if you start with something comprehensible, then move into the weird stuff, or show us what the characters are talking about, so we can see the weird for ourselves.  Throwing us into the deep end with no set up may seem dramatic and cool, but I nearly shut this one off.  When I finally got a handle on things, I thought the premise was fascinating.  I listened to the set up with rapt attention.  Then the story was over.
Um.  No.  This story seemed to have a lot going for it, but it was over before it really got started.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: kibitzer on August 17, 2009, 01:00:15 AM
Liked this one, though agreed it takes a few minutes to figure out what's going on. In fact, I felt a sense of loss at the end -- finished too suddenly, wanted to know more about what happened.

Well read.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: BrianDeacon on August 17, 2009, 05:08:57 PM
So y'all can be as lazy as I'd have liked to have been:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est

Not what I would have guessed for the meaning of Delenda.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: thomasowenm on August 17, 2009, 07:50:15 PM
I was lost on this one.  For what purpose would any planet or nation send thousands of volunteers into space without the slightest knowledge of the contents of a mysterious message from the other side of the universe?  The only inkling these "volunteers" had is that it is really really nice????  I just cannot buy it.  I did find though, that if I cast that aside it was interesting in concept. 

So y'all can be as lazy as I'd have liked to have been:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est

Not what I would have guessed for the meaning of Delenda.
Knowing this now, does change the view I get of the story, Maybe they were all just a load of useless bloody loonies and were set out like the Golgafrinchans in Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams. ;D
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Ocicat on August 17, 2009, 09:15:25 PM
This was a real slog.  I often enjoy being thrown in the deep end, without knowing the basics of the universe or what is going on.  But with this one I just never felt anything to connect to, or any reason to care... at all.

So there's this message.  From some alien species, but different species seem to be pretty common.  The only thing that makes Carthage so special is some message they sent that's rumored to be cool.  So tons of races send out generation ships filled with clones, but still have babies, and everyone waits around for hundreds of years?  What's the holdup?  What are they hoping to accomplish?  Eh, you know what?  Never mind.

The reading was indeed very deadpan, but I'm not sure what else they could have done with this story.  In text, it might have all worked okay, but audio was just the wrong format for this one.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: koosie on August 17, 2009, 09:34:26 PM
I'll admit I'd got to about half-way through when I realised I didn't have a clue what was going on and it was time to start again and concentrate on it a bit harder. The exercise was worth it I thought as it was an intriguing glimpse into some future politics, religion and diplomacy with some nice little touches about how the different races respond. Perhaps slightly frustrating that the narrator wasn't party herself to what was really going on but sometimes less is more and there are hints at the way the situation will develop after the end of this story. I will listen to it again and possibly see it more clearly.  It made me think of Good news from the vatican by Robert Silverberg for some reason, possibly because of the AI, of whom we did not hear enough, one feels.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Praxis on August 17, 2009, 09:44:56 PM
I agree with thomasowenm:  if you take as read that there is some message that is simply so utterly inarguably unstoppably amazing that no person (or government, or species) could do anything but  stop fighting.......it is a very interesting story, and the setting - deep space and in contact with many other species - is pretty damn near perfect for this sort of 'waiting room' scenario that the characters are put through.

But.  It takes a biiiiig step to assume the premiss.  How would this knowledge about the essence of the message ever be able to be forceful enough without the actual content leeking out?

That in itself would be worth a short story to explain.

Actually, I think that is it (the reason why I didn't engage that well with this story): because the setting up of this situation is glossed over, it doesn't seem real that 'something' could be broadcast and every species (so far encountered) reacted in the same almost manic way.   Soooo, I didn't believe in the power of this message and it wasn't clear throughout the story whether it was real or whether it was all a fake designed to bring about change.
And neither option is resolved.

And, given the lack of explanation of the original carthage ship event, etc. etc. it wasn't really possible to imagine what either option would be like.

Meh.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: gregbillock on August 19, 2009, 06:28:37 AM
I think this story would have benefitted from some additional thought and detail put into whatever complex negotiations occupy a bunch of aliens sitting around for hundreds of years in big spaceships. What are they negotiating? Why? Has this meet-up become a kind of nexus of diplomacy? Apparently there are some threats to that status quo. What are they? As it is, I think the story asks too much of us.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Doom xombie on August 19, 2009, 04:48:14 PM
I generally listen to stories about 30 mins-hour before i sleep but I didn't last that long with this story. About 10-15 minutes in I found myself staring at my wall wondering whether it was off white or white. Not a very good sign for this story so I re listened later hoping it would be better. I managed to pay attention and wasn't all that thrilled. First, why did 10,000(?) people go some place because a message was beautiful? They didn't hear it or even have it described to them as anything but "beautiful." It makes me think of them as a cult more than anything. They wait for a messiah that forbids war and encourages free flow of knowlege... I've probably missed a bunch of details but that, for me, was gist of it.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: DKT on August 19, 2009, 05:23:44 PM
Huh. I'm really going to be a voice apart this time, I guess.

I absolutely loved this story. I thought it was well told (personally, I loved the way it just dropped me in there - it made me want to know what the hell was going on. Kate Baker's narration was subtle perfection. Great match-up between narrator and story this time, IMO.

I find myself very quickly becoming a fan of Genevieve Valentine's fiction. I saw her name pop up all over this past month with stories at Clarkesworld (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valentine_08_09/) and Strange Horizons (http://strangehorizons.com/2009/20090727/bespoke-f.shtml), in addition to all the blogging she does at Tor.com - it's been quite a month for her. But I think it's very well-earned. She puts a real sense of hummanity into these great SF concepts and makes them oh-so bittersweet. Listening to this made me want to grab the Federations anthology off the shelf, reread this one, and then go through all the rest of the stories in there.

The comparisons Listener made to Waiting for Godot are interesting. I agree with them, and yet, I think there's slightly more optimism to it here (although there's plenty of heartache, too). I mean, 400 years without war, 400 years of peace? That's pretty amazing, and it made me wonder even if Catharge never came, or was fabricated, it might still be worth it to believe.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Russell Nash on August 20, 2009, 07:05:46 AM
What he said.

I really liked this one.  I wanted to figure it out.  I wanted to know more about this universe.  What was it like before?  Could the message be a fake to stop war?  Do they ever stop waiting?  Does someone et so pissed off he fires a shot?  If so, how do the other races respond?  I wanted more, more, more.  I want more stories in this universe.

I thought the reading fit.  There was no great excitement in the story and the reader didn't try to make you feel there was.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: eytanz on August 20, 2009, 07:07:55 AM
I was away for the past few days, and while I could check the forums on my cellphone I don't like posting from its small keyboard; which means, in this case, that between the last time I read the forums and now I had sort of formulated a post in my head about this story. Only now I discover that DKT had made it for me, so let me just briefly echo him -

Loved the story, not despite it's subtlety and confusing beginning, but because of these aspects. This was not a story about alien contact, it was a story of how hope can bring people together, and how different people (in this case, represented by different species) deal with hope and faith in different ways. I thought it was marvelously written and wonderfully read.

(edit: not only did DKT get to say what I wanted while I was away, Russell ended up agreeing with him while I was writing my post. I can't do anything first today ;) )
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: izzardfan on August 20, 2009, 07:13:58 AM
What they said.   ;)

I admit, it was easier to understand what was going on at the beginning because I'd read the post (http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=2759.msg49925#msg49925) that goes with the sound file first, which immediately clued me in with the Hex/Hepta/Octa terms.  I'd like to read the text of this eventually.  The reading was excellent, though.  I just wished the story hadn't had to end so soon.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Boggled Coriander on August 20, 2009, 01:04:27 PM
Okay, I have to give it a re-listen now.  My brain totally didn't process Hex, Hepta, and Octa as meaning six, seven, and eight.  (I feel dumb.)
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: gelee on August 20, 2009, 01:14:35 PM
I wanted more, more, more.

Precisely the problem.  Once I had the premise figured out, I was really hooked into the story.  And then it was over.
More, please.  I mean this as both a compliment and a criticism, I suppose.  I was really wondering what was going on with the embassies, what the message was all about.  The story had me completely hooked, then ended so abruptly that the story felt unfinished.  In retrospect, this might have been intentional, to demonstrate the incomplete and arbitrarily terminated life of the Octa clone.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Talia on August 21, 2009, 01:57:18 AM
Anyone else read the one idiot "race".. i forget the name, but the one with the guy who kept saying stupid things, and it was implied they were stockpiling weapons - as meant to be humans, or a parallel? :)

I liked this though I too am not sure what was going on. There was something beautiful about it even in its complexity.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: gelee on August 21, 2009, 02:42:36 AM
Anyone else read the one idiot "race".. i forget the name, but the one with the guy who kept saying stupid things, and it was implied they were stockpiling weapons - as meant to be humans, or a parallel? :)
Good point. I remember getting the same impression. I also remember wondering if there was anything to indicate that the narrator was, in fact, human. 
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: the_true_morg on August 21, 2009, 04:01:39 AM
more build up the the universe less getting lost...in space.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Doom xombie on August 21, 2009, 02:47:52 PM
I didn't know where to ask this but what happened to escape pod classic?
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Anarkey on August 21, 2009, 04:59:06 PM
I seem to have heard a completely different story than everyone else here ('cept DKT, maybe?)  because the story I heard was really great, full of thinky bits just like I like my stories.  Perhaps it's my love for what's implied over what's stated.  So sad for all of you who got the lame story instead of the good one, but hang around and you'll get the story you love which makes me grit my teeth and go hunting for the eyes which have rolled out of my head. 
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Cerebrilith on August 22, 2009, 09:51:23 AM
Okay story.  It would have been nice to have some more conflict or action.  Perhaps something more with the race that was stockpiling weapons and someone working against them or seeing their bad ideas spread.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Talia on August 22, 2009, 03:10:23 PM
Okay story.  It would have been nice to have some more conflict or action.  Perhaps something more with the race that was stockpiling weapons and someone working against them or seeing their bad ideas spread.

I have to disagree. I'm pretty sure either of those things would have destroyed or damaged the point of the story, which mainly seemed to be having this idyllic, wonderful thing, held afar, kept everyone at peace - barely. But having it actually arrive, it seemed, the implication was could herald disaster, as the one "bad" race (I still think of them as "humans..") seemed ready to spaz out.

I think the point was to have little conflict - its the hope of the future dream (wow that makes little sense) that keeps the conflict at bay.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: novamoonlight on August 22, 2009, 04:11:37 PM
I just listened to this a day or so ago, and I found it intriguing.

There wasn't a lot of action, and an awful lot of waiting, but I was left with the impression that there was so much more going on that we never saw.  Part of that, I think, is getting the perspective of the tech who was outside of what was really going on, but I don't think that was the only reason.  A large part of it is the short fiction aspect of it, because it feels almost as though you could spread out the details to novel (or novella) form, and still not get all of what's going on.

400 years without war, with all the varying dynamics that were going on.  That had to be some message, and it seemed almost as though the message loomed larger exactly because even they didn't even know what it was.

This was a universe I think I could fall into and come out still trying to process all the intricacies of it.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Brave Space Monkey on August 22, 2009, 09:54:46 PM
I really liked this story. I felt is was a "trailer" for novel...  I'd really like an expanded addition. But Maybe the real things wouldn't live up to the hype in my mind. Such is the way of life...


As for the complaint of lack of action... It was traded in for tension. If this story was a movie it would have kept me at the edge of my seat and my heart racing. Unlike the modern action movie, which are now just loud and stupid...

Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Cerebrilith on August 23, 2009, 08:34:45 AM
I don't think I could get excited by a movie in which a bunch of people waited for something that never happened.  Sounds like a video tape of the waiting room from the worst doctor's office ever.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: wakela on August 26, 2009, 12:39:20 AM
I didn't deliberately stop listening to this story.  But I got home and had to shut the iPod off.  When I left the next day I didn't have it in me to pick this one up again.  I like being thrown in the deep end, and the idea sounds pretty interesting, but the dull, cynical, world-weary, and slightly bitchy and gossipy tone really put me off.  I understand that someone sitting in space for 400 year might feel this way, but I doesn't mean I want to feel this way. 
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: r4diation on August 26, 2009, 04:26:24 PM
I was pretty lukewarm on this story. As other commenters stated, the inital section of the story was very confusing. And ultimately, the ending and the message that, despite the apprehension of Cathage's arrival, everyone was better off without them, was rather predictable.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Corydon on August 29, 2009, 04:45:56 PM
This was a good story for me to read on returning to EP after a month or so.  I liked the glimpse into a political future, and I like the theme of hope overcoming war and differences.  A strange little story, but I enjoyed it.

I don't, however, get the relevance of the title quotation to the story.  The only way I can understand it is as ironic: a reference to a genocidal conflict in a story about planets setting aside war to wait for the future?  Or did I miss something?
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: natashafairweather on September 02, 2009, 08:35:49 PM
I loved this one. I listened to it the day it came out and haven't stopped thinking about it since. I'm really interested in the idea of waiting - in "The Dreaming Wind," waiting for something unwanted but expected drives everyone crazy, but in this story, waiting for some great unknown forces everyone to be nice to each other. The peacetime in this story would be way too kumbaya if it weren't for the completely realistic hidden conflicts and petty selfishness broiling just beneath the surface.  Really well done, although yes - it was hard to understand at first. Like many, I had to listen to the first five or ten minutes twice.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Planish on October 01, 2009, 04:53:55 AM
I thought the reading fit.  There was no great excitement in the story and the reader didn't try to make you feel there was.
Whut he said. That part, at least, worked for me. She sounded like the character was just marking time along with everybody else. I liked the reading.

This was a real slog.  I often enjoy being thrown in the deep end, without knowing the basics of the universe or what is going on.  But with this one I just never felt anything to connect to, or any reason to care... at all.
Yup. I almost skipped it after 15 minutes or so, but I like to give the author a chance. I rewound to the beginning again and stuck it out until the end, but it didn't help.
It was like watching an unfamiliar daytime soap opera, and starting 17 minutes into the 48 episode of the 23 season. Compound that with (me) not being able to figure out whether the various proper nouns were referring to characters, species, or planets, or what.

I think I would have preferred this story in written form, since then I could have gone back to re-read bits near the beginning that didn't fully register the first time. 
Methinks you have the right of it, although just going back a few lines at a time would probably do it.
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: ancawonka on November 18, 2009, 11:19:41 PM
I listened to this story for the second time last night, and it definitely made more sense.  I really love the narrator's "voice" - slightly bored, but also totally committed to this journey started by her grandparents (?).  The reading was just perfect, especially as you could tell the different characters apart and their inflection was well-done.   

This isn't really an action story, as some posters have already mentioned.  It's a great character piece, full of dramatic tension and things to think about afterward. 

Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Scattercat on November 19, 2009, 06:04:23 AM
I listened to this fairly recently, having worked my way through the archives at a gradual pace.  (Almost caught up!)  I have to just say, given the relatively middling response, that I loved this story. 

I am, as those who've paid enough attention to me to register my comments as something besides random forum noise, exceedingly fond of strong theme and layered meanings, and this story delivered in spades.  On the surface, a slightly confusing glimpse of alien politics and a series of amusing answers to the question, "How do you send a diplomat to the future?"  Beneath that, however, was a fascinating examination of the nature of anticipation and, I think, religious faith.  The diplomats, with all their varying approaches and attitudes and means, all shared faith in the idea of Carthage - that "too beautiful" message whose half-understood power brought them all to the place - and strove in their various ways to be ready for it when it came.  The echoes of Christian anticipation of the Second Coming were very loud, in my opinion, right down to the half-vocalized idea that the whole POINT of the Second Coming is that it doesn't come, but is always ABOUT to come.  The important thing, as in this story, is to attempt to be ready for it, to aim for perfecting yourself.  The desire and actions to improve is the true purpose, not the nebulous future paradise.

The alien diplomats all conform to the seemingly arbitrary rules - with varying levels of literalism in the interpretation, ranging from embracing the spirit of cooperation to communicating only the bare minimum information required.  When everyone acts in good faith, however, great strides of diplomacy and understanding can take place.  (I'm hardly surprised at the idea that Carthage became a hub of diplomacy; a gathering of high-level representatives in an enforced peace and required to share information freely?  It's like Babylon 5...)

I was particularly entranced by the hints of growing danger in the near future, as the waiting grows stale and the hidden weapons are amassed.  The title hints obliquely at what might come, when Carthage fails to arrive for long enough and at last someone "loses faith" and violates the laws.  (Alternately: The title refers itself to the idea of Carthage, suggesting that this sort of heavy-handed, artificial manipulation of entire races and belief systems "for their own good" is inevitably unstable and will self-destruct.)  Perhaps the attackers will even interpret their doctrine to suit, believing that Carthage called everyone there for the sole purpose of enabling the Noble Warriors to defeat their enemies in a single fell swoop...  (On the other hand, the story does leave open the idea that things can still be salvaged.  I like the sensation of closing the story just before the powder keg explodes and leaving it to the reader to picture the outcomes.)

Basically, I could write an entire scholarly paper on the title alone, and I like that in a story.  Five out of five shredded armchairs for this one!
Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Unblinking on April 28, 2010, 05:05:09 PM
I try to give every story 15 minutes, and I didn't get any further with this.

Starting a story in media res can be really effective, but I spent most of that 15 minutes just trying to figure out what the hell the narrator was talking about.  I can enjoy a story that challenges me to keep up with it, but this one started out a mile ahead and was thumbing it's nose at me as I tried to catch up.

By the end of that 15 minutes I started getting a picture of what was going on, with the different races, some of them populated mostly by clones, hanging around to find out what this big mysterious message was.  Clone races tend to drop my interest level because the characters are so homogenous and this was no exception.  I got the impression that the rest of the story would be about just sitting around and waiting for something to happen, and it sounds like I was right on that count.  That's not my idea of compelling.

I didn't care for the title, mostly because I'd never heard the phrase.  Maybe I would've liked it better if I'd read it at a computer where I could look it up on the net, but I was listening during my commute so that wasn't an option.

Title: Re: EP211: Carthago Delenda Est
Post by: Adam Grey on April 29, 2010, 07:43:53 PM
Most likely my favorite podcast. Why? First off, I love the feeling of being dropped into and immersed in a new reality. Second, the complex emotions - how would you respond to the clone of your lover? Third, because of the Godot-type questions the story begs.

What is the "Carthage" in your life?

Regards,
Adam