EP144: Friction

[sirana]

Latecomer here, so I don't have much to add. Liked the story very much.

[VBurn]

Better late then never.  This definetly goes in my undefined list of top 10 EP episodes.  I think there are about 15 or so in my top 10. 

[ClintMemo]

Another late replier:

Very well written story - (about ideas - yea!)

[qwints]

I absolutely loved this story. My only nitpick would be the pacing felt a little slow, but I think that was kind of the point.

[Loz]

Was anyone else thinking of the end of 'So Long And Thanks For All The Fish' towards the end of this story?

I was half expecting Gruen to write something like "If you've made it this far, you've obviously not understood the entire thing. Go back and start again!".

I always like sci-fi stories with near infinite Artifacts in them, Iain M. Banks 'The Bridge' springs to mind. Like some others, I would have liked a little more detail about Gruen's race and why there was this concern with 'friction', but otherwise, very nicely done.

[Rigger]

Anyone else think it is a bit odd that most of the discussion revolving around, perhaps one of the more poignant escape pod episodes, was about poop?

[eytanz]

Anyone else think it is a bit odd that most of the discussion revolving around, perhaps one of the more poignant escape pod episodes, was about poop?

I wouldn't say "most" - it was 10 or so posts out of a thread that has over 50 posts right now. Which is why the poop discussion is still in this thread rather than being split to its own inglorious thread.

But no, I don't think it's odd. The alien's physical processes was a big part of this story, and once the question of poop arose then the poignancy of the story could no longer protect the thread...

[JoeFitz]

My favourite EP since Tk'Tk'Tk. Thanks!

[Windup]

The fragility of Gruen's people didn't bother me.  The Economist recently ran an article http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10423439an article about how species subject to high levels of predation typically don't do a very good job with repairs -- that's believed to be one reason that they age faster.  Small animals often have short lives not because of some sort of size-related metabolic rate, but because they're generally more likely to get eaten than large animals.  If you're likely to become lunch before you get the payoff of longer reproductive life good repair work creates, your genes spread more widely if you put more effort into replicating copies than keeping the current copy in good condition. 

So I just assumed that somewhere in the evolutionary backdrop of Gruen's people, they got munched on a lot. 

However, I want to know if I was the only person who kept thinking this "world" was going to turn out to be a parking lot?  When he kept talking about the "black undersand" and the "oily pool" in which the daughter's body was preserved, I was really convinced that Gruen was going to turn out to be an escaped toy from a post-armageddon Wal-Mart or something.  I'm glad it didn't happen -- I think it was a much stronger story as written -- but I did go there for quite a while, and I was wondering if it was just me.

[DDog]

Windup: I didn't think of that, but I can see where that impression would come from. The wall of the Masters would be the curb around the parking lot.

[Windup]

Windup: I didn't think of that, but I can see where that impression would come from. The wall of the Masters would be the curb around the parking lot.

Yup, my thought exactly -- the wall would turn out to be the curb.

Like I said, though: A much better story for not having gone that route.

[wakela]

I was really worried that Gruen's final message was going to be "all we are is dust in the wind," and I considered swerving into oncoming traffic to keep myself from hearing it.  Glad I didn't.

Nitpick: I can't believe that the they didn't already know what the sand was made of.  Especially since the snailies did know, and the two races communicated enough that there wasn't much of a language barrier.

But this was a great story.  Did I here Steve mention that he thought most of us wouldn't like it?  Why?

[qwints]

Nitpick: I can't believe that the they didn't already know what the sand was made of.  Especially since the snailies did know, and the two races communicated enough that there wasn't much of a language barrier.

I don't know, the main race seemed to disparage the snailies enough not to learn from them

[wakela]

Nitpick: I can't believe that the they didn't already know what the sand was made of.  Especially since the snailies did know, and the two races communicated enough that there wasn't much of a language barrier.

I don't know, the main race seemed to disparage the snailies enough not to learn from them

Yeah, I thought of that, too.  But I'm not sure if this is supported by the story or an assumption that when you have two races they must not like each other, one of them must feel superior, and the other must be more noble.  The story may very well support it, I don't remember.  Maybe the author wrote the story with this assumption in mind, so it ended up in the "penumbra" of the story without being explicitly stated.  But I remember getting that vibe that the sandies and snailies didn't like each other, then I wondered why I was feeling that and couldn't come up with a good reason.

Plus they did have a common language that both of them "spoke" fluently. 

[eytanz]

Plus they did have a common language that both of them "spoke" fluently. 

The story did imply that Guren could speak the language because he was a scholar. It's likely that most people of his race had no ability to use this language.

Remember, the two races communicate and move in very different speeds; Guren was chosen specifically because he was the slowest moving of his race, and it is clear he was also one of the most patient. And you must also account for the difference in perception - for the snails, it was probably incredibly obvious that the sand was made of the other people. They probably never realized the other people did not know. And Guren's race never knew there was anything worth investigating.

I think the situation is sort of like me and my next door neighbours - I don't dislike them, I just don't really know them. I see them occasionally if we happen to leave the house at the same time, but I don't say much beyond a polite hello, nor do they. I also know they are of East Asian extract, probably Korean or Chinese. I certainly wouldn't start a conversation with them in order to point out that they are Asian; I figure that they know it, and even if they somehow didn't, why should they hear it from me? And if they are not aware of this fact, I doubt they'll ever bother asking me what ethnicity they are.

This is not a matter of dislike or superiority - I feel neither towards them, and I doubt they feel either towards me. It's a matter of ambivalence. Just because I see someone on an occasional basis and I am perfectly capable of communicating with them doesn't mean I have any interest in doing so or vice versa.

[ajames]

I remember it being said in the story that the two species rarely communicated as each had nothing the other wanted.  It wasn't so much a matter of not liking one another, as having nothing in common.  Gruen 'spoke' the sign language fluently because he studied it at length from the writings of one of the masters, who had studied the zithers.

Of course, one could still ask how the master would not have learned that he and his people were made of sand if the zithers knew it and he studied them, and I think it is a great stretch to think that someone would be a fluent communicator in any sign language after just reading about it.  But this story had so much to offer I didn't dwell on these points.

[darth_schmoo]

This one is definitely in my top 8.3% of Escape Pod stories.  The story had a certain quiet elegance to it that I really enjoyed, and it gave me a lot of mental grist.

One thing I spent a lot of time thinking about was the use of all the knowledge Gruin was gaining.  Not that I'm against abstract intellectual pursuits.  But we tend to assume that such a life of disciplined, self-depriving scholarship would tend to ennoble the scholar.  Yet Gruin had a very difficult time choosing to help another sentient being, and would only do it when he calculated that doing so would further his own aims.

I like that the author played the story out that way, rather than conforming to my lazy expectations.  It was a better story for having raised the questions.  But it seems like a full understanding of the Masters' teachings would have convinced him that the knowledge had to be applied to become truly meaningful.

Even towards the end, he still seemed to let the specifics of his goals undermine its higher aims.  Otherwise he could have skipped the writings of Gassbaggus the Pontificatory (#110).

Again:  Top 8.3%!  Excellent story.  I look forward with great anticipation towards the release of Friction 2: Grind With a Vengeance.

[Nobilis]

But it seems like a full understanding of the Masters' teachings would have convinced him that the knowledge had to be applied to become truly meaningful.

Hm.  After my own dealings with the Academic world, I'd be inclined to believe the opposite; the more he delved into scholarship, the more he would feel it was valuable in its own right and more disdainful of anything else.

[CGFxColONeill]

Nitpick: I can't believe that the they didn't already know what the sand was made of.  Especially since the snailies did know, and the two races communicated enough that there wasn't much of a language barrier.

western did say something about not being able to catch up w/ any of the ones that were not reading the wall right?

[Listener]

But it seems like a full understanding of the Masters' teachings would have convinced him that the knowledge had to be applied to become truly meaningful.

Hm.  After my own dealings with the Academic world, I'd be inclined to believe the opposite; the more he delved into scholarship, the more he would feel it was valuable in its own right and more disdainful of anything else.

Heh.  I'm writing a story right now about, among other things, a professor, and I find myself remembering my own forays into academia.  You are remarkably on point.

The difference, I think, is that Gruen was doing something with a specific purpose:  read ALL the masters' teachings to have an epiphany and share it with the world.  Many academics who have become stultified in their positions (did I use that word right?) are more interested in maintaining tenure and publishing their work than coming to the end of their line of research and starting something new.

(I was a researcher for a short time.)

[eytanz]

But it seems like a full understanding of the Masters' teachings would have convinced him that the knowledge had to be applied to become truly meaningful.

Hm.  After my own dealings with the Academic world, I'd be inclined to believe the opposite; the more he delved into scholarship, the more he would feel it was valuable in its own right and more disdainful of anything else.

Heh.  I'm writing a story right now about, among other things, a professor, and I find myself remembering my own forays into academia.  You are remarkably on point.

The difference, I think, is that Gruen was doing something with a specific purpose:  read ALL the masters' teachings to have an epiphany and share it with the world.  Many academics who have become stultified in their positions (did I use that word right?) are more interested in maintaining tenure and publishing their work than coming to the end of their line of research and starting something new.

See, I don't think you're right. I don't think Gruen started out planning to get an epiphany and share it with the world. I think he started out trying to read the masters aiming for a purely personal enlightenment and then ended up with an epiphany that he could share.

[Listener]

But it seems like a full understanding of the Masters' teachings would have convinced him that the knowledge had to be applied to become truly meaningful.

Hm.  After my own dealings with the Academic world, I'd be inclined to believe the opposite; the more he delved into scholarship, the more he would feel it was valuable in its own right and more disdainful of anything else.

Heh.  I'm writing a story right now about, among other things, a professor, and I find myself remembering my own forays into academia.  You are remarkably on point.

The difference, I think, is that Gruen was doing something with a specific purpose:  read ALL the masters' teachings to have an epiphany and share it with the world.  Many academics who have become stultified in their positions (did I use that word right?) are more interested in maintaining tenure and publishing their work than coming to the end of their line of research and starting something new.

See, I don't think you're right. I don't think Gruen started out planning to get an epiphany and share it with the world. I think he started out trying to read the masters aiming for a purely personal enlightenment and then ended up with an epiphany that he could share.

I can see your viewpoint.  It's been a few weeks; all this discussion might have changed what I originally thought.  But from what I remember, I don't think it was necessarily for personal enlightenment that he planned to read all the teachings, it was to say "I read all the masters' teachings, what have you done with YOUR allottment of friction?"  At least, in the beginning.

[MattArnold]

"Friction" reminded me of the experience of listening to podcasts. I have a lifetime of audio to get through. As I walked through a grocery store listening to "Friction", I was worried that someone would try to communicate with me as the slither tried to do with Gruen. Then I'd have to take my earphones off, put them back on, and go through the lengthy process of unlocking my audio player, rewinding, and using the hair-trigger touch sensitive interface without skipping to the start or end of the episode and losing my place. Thank the Masters for automated grocery checkout systems.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

"Friction" reminded me of the experience of listening to podcasts. I have a lifetime of audio to get through. As I walked through a grocery store listening to "Friction", I was worried that someone would try to communicate with me as the slither tried to do with Gruen. Then I'd have to take my earphones off, put them back on, and go through the lengthy process of unlocking my audio player, rewinding, and using the hair-trigger touch sensitive interface without skipping to the start or end of the episode and losing my place. Thank the Masters for automated grocery checkout systems.

Ha, ha!  Yes, you could certainly "wear your ears off" trying to communicate with others... time better spent absorbing the wisdom of the podMasters! 

[KMITA]

Great story overall. My wife and I really enjoyed it and found it very heart-warming. I deal day in and day out with teaching stubborn people that remind me of Gruen. Concentrating on a single task without ever wondering if there is a beter way or a more meaningful way. Today I had to teach a 30 year old man to use the internet!