12 KiB
City of Angles Finale (Ch. 25 complete)
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Author: u/VorpalAuroch Life before Death*
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Score: 12
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Created: 2014-09-27T07:33:23
Post:
Comments:
u/Riddle-Tom_Riddle [+3] (8 hours later)
Holy shit it's done?!
I have to catch up. brb speedreading.
u/VorpalAuroch [+3] Life before Death (12 hours later)
Yeah, I did the same. Read the last 5 chapters at a stretch. I am pretty satisfied with it.
u/Riddle-Tom_Riddle [+2] (12 hours later)
I restarted at the beginning of book three.
....I've been getting things done today, surprisingly, and I've only gotten through to chapter 020.
019 was very emotional.
u/nefrman [+1] (2 days later)
Edit: I feel like this first post came off a bit too critical, so let me clarify beforehand that I indeed enjoyed this story as a whole (otherwise I would hardly have made it to the last chapter!) and consider it worthy for /r/rational's analysis and nitpicking ;). Moreover, some of the points are from prior to the most recent edit of "Exit Interview". That being said:
The last few chapters get tantalizingly close to rational and rationalist, but never quite make it.
The Angles have the perfect weapon to stop the City in their tracks. With a single Word, a small group manages to liberate the Greasemonkey without firing a shot, in an action spectacularly shown (albeit with a few uncomfortable moments toward the end) to everyone on TV. Against the ruthless enemy with superior firepower who clearly doesn't care about rules of engagement, they then proceed to... use the obvious target as a base. Seriously, did anybody not see where that would lead?
At the cost of no more than printed paper, the strategy should have gone viral, not just in a single street. Instead, it was apparently defeated overnight by the threat of censorship. Riiiight.
A place that can become whatever one wants it to be sounds wonderful, very close to taking full advantage of the properties of the dream they are living in. While they were at it, they should probably have wished up an automated defense system to take some of the strain off Echo. A field wherein weaponry wouldn't work? Even some strong walls would not have exactly been out of place there, though perhaps in a more City-like form like an impenetrable glass maze. They weren't exactly constrained by real physics, after all. Maybe the aspects were still a little limited by their internal logic, but did none of the refugees have the bright idea after they'd been scared out of their homes by the Citadel?
Bedlam rightfully saw it as a travesty when the stadium and all its potentiality were destroyed, so it also puzzles me that she'd be satisfied with Peneplope's eventual resolution, which was apparently... to do nothing. Maybe "nudge" some people once in a while. That's the happy ending? Having seen the closest-thing-to-a-utopia they'd been able to create with the dream logic, and the heartbreaking loss that resulted from its destruction, I would not have been satisfied until I could recreate it for everyone.
u/VorpalAuroch [+2] Life before Death (2 days later)
I don't think we actually see the eventual resolution here. I get the impression that the final epilogues are a few days afterward, and that it will probably take Lucid and friends a lot longer to get used to being a coherent triple entity. And that their priority is going to be fixing other dreams before they come back to their home (which they're all reasonably happy with as it is, even if it isn't perfect).
It reminded me somewhat of the ending of Anathem. A lot is finished, and more is going to start, but it's a place where a chapter of the main character's life was over, and everything after it, while inextricably connected, is a different story.
u/StefanGagne [+2] City of Angles Municipal Government (3 days later)
Hi there, author here. I understand your disappointment and that's fine, obviously not everybody will dig my story. But I'd like to clear up one factual thing.
Bedlam, Penelope, or Echo cannot simply wave-wave-poof and re-create the stadium. It took thousands of people working in tandem to create it in the first place. Echo may have initiated that incident, but it took a massive and communal effort to make it happen.
Ultimately it's not gods that shape the City, but the people who live there; the goal was to get them to a state where they COULD accept the dream and create things like the stadium. That's where the nudges come into play, because mankind has to choose for itself. Best they can do is remove the roadblocks of misdirected fear, despair, and hate which block the way to a rationally chosen future.
You might enjoy the vol//003 book which will be published later this year, which includes an epilogue story that deals directly with the fallout of the stadium and what will become of these ideals.
u/nefrman [+2] (4 days later)
Hi there! Thank you for reading & replying, I admit I didn't expect that! Mind you, I could not have read through the whole story without enjoying it a decent amount, so thank you for that as well.
My disappointments were from a rational/rationalist stance (not strictly a problem, many decent stories like Canon!Harry Potter aren't rational, but consider the subreddit). Naturally, someone like myself who enjoys Rational!Harry's plots to
dominateoptimize the world can't help but be slightly disappointed with Penelope having the power of a goddess and being satisfied doing little or nothing with it.Now, perhaps I have the wrong impression, but it seems to me that the aspects can duplicate the stadium event (possibly for the entire city) if they actually wanted to. They still have
ElIndigo with them, Lucid has the power to install city-wide speakers, and we know Miranda kept copies of some Metadream-enhancing music (albeit the Blue-Eyed Plague ones with bad side-effects). In the best case scenario, Echo or the Department of Safety also kept copies of the Memorial Stadium background music (which, having no lyrics, would've been safer than the BEP song) allowing for exact duplication. In the worst case scenario, at least try filtering out the lyrics in the BEP music and, uh, test on a terminally ill volunteer, I suppose, to see whether it can be used as background music for an Optimistic!Indigo song.Admittedly, that's speculative, and Lucid may or may not be on board considering Penelope's misguided optimism about humans accomplishing things on their own.
About my "Exit Interview" concerns: those strike harder because it seems to me that the revived Seventh Street Gang (and allies) have to be holding the idiot ball to use the Greasemonkey as their base; they have to fear retaliation, and long-range bombardment is a thing. One way this might be fixed is to, in fact, not have them use the Greasemonkey as a base (Jonny was just there to drink out his sorrows). Rather, their sanctuary was decentralized over many of the buildings of Seventh Street, with hidden supply caches and resistance members blending in with the populace, never meeting in the same place twice. Gosh darn it, thinks Commander Yates, who at that point simply orders the Citadel to firebomb all of Seventh Street. HOLY SHIT, says the reader, as well as the Angles who by now have overcome their fear of going outside, hastily making sure there aren't any (as of yet not quite viral enough) Words painted anywhere around their neighborhoods. This gets rid of the idiot ball while making the failure of the Word more realistic - maybe scorched earth censorship can work after all.
u/StefanGagne [+1] City of Angles Municipal Government (4 days later)
I think the difference point here is when you state that Penelope's optimism regarding humanity is misguided.
One of the ongoing themes of the work is optimism, that once the roadblocks of doubt and fear are removed -- ones which cause people to look inward and choose selfish and defensive motivations instead of sensible and community-minded motivations -- people will choose wisely.
This is why Echo choosing to euthanize people for their own good is flawed, and why Bedlam converting people to Picassos for their own good is flawed. Lucid, on the other hand, presents the third option... but allows people to CHOOSE it rather than have it chosen for them. And inevitably, they do, once they're clear of misconceptions.
At risk of spoiling, the upcoming epilogue chapter concerns people re-discovering the tools they need to re-create the stadium, and both how they deal with that discovery and how society reacts to it. But it has to be humanity leading the charge, not the aspects. They have to choose the Lucid path.
I'll admit I don't know if this is rational or rationalist. I feel it's humanist, but whether it meats any other -ist is another matter. When I started these stories, honestly, I didn't know this subreddit existed. I simply wrote what I felt needed to be written. If rational folks enjoy it, that's great; if not, that's okay too.
If you like, I'd be happy to PM you a link to the bonus story. It's retail-only but if it'd help you understand the series better, I'm okay with that. I mean, it's just a few bucks of a lost sale, and I have a good day job. S'cool.
Regarding the Greasemonkey, I'll admit this is a bit of a fault with it, but my justification is the overwhelming sense of victorious pride the rebels felt. With the Word, they felt invincible, and made a symbolic stand on recaptured ground. Unfortunately practical reality set in a day or so later. No doubt other resistance pockets still exist, and the Word still exists, but it's not enough to win the day. Again, this is an ongoing theme of the series; you don't overcome a foe through strength of arms, you overcome a foe by understanding their flaws and dealing with them with cleverness.
u/nefrman [+2] (5 days later)
Hey, thanks very much for that offer! I'd be happy to accept it, as long as it's not a bother to you (please don't trouble yourself on my account).
I think City of Angles is pretty darn close to Rational (having many of the traits listed in the sidebar), aside from the Seventh Street Gang's Greasemonkey decision that was a bit glaring. Rationalist is a little... different (if you haven't read it yet, I'd wholeheartedly recommend the trope-namer Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality), and arguably includes an moral imperative toward transhumanism that conflicts with Penelope's ideals. One reason why this is an imperative, rather than something Penelope can simply wait around for humans to get right, can be found in The Fable of the Dragon Tyrant: Spoilers about the main idea
It may not be a perfect fit to City of Angles as written, but a Rationalist!Penelope would probably
That's my take on it, at least.
Again, thank you for your generous offer, and for the story as a whole!