31 KiB
[RT] Glimwarden, Chapter 11
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Author: u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow*
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Score: 40
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Created: 2016-08-13T07:03:21
Post:
Comments:
u/aeschenkarnos [+15] (4 hours later)
Ten stories is a huge building for a Renaissance-tech-level civilization. Even in our modern world a ten-story building in an isolated town of 1000 people would be weird. I'm sure you know that, and I'm sure there's some reason why it's there, just pointing it out.
Also, if every able-bodied adult male visits the Chancellor daily, that's maybe 150 visits a day. Do they form a continuous line?
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+9] Mouse Army (5 hours later)
Yeah thats a mindbogglingly, impossibly big building for a 1000 people village.
I mean, the Dome of Cologne stood unfinished for 300 years, total building time 700 or so, in a town of about ...40000 people, plus other parts of the country to get ressources from (no darklings).
If building size would scale with normal square/cube law we are looking at 150m vs 30m, eg factor 5^3=125. No way a town of that size under darkling restrictions should have been able to do that.
I notice I am confused.
u/foobanana [+4] (a day later)
I notice I am confused.
Is this a reference to Yudkowsky's rationalism stuff?
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+5] Mouse Army (a day later)
Yes. I am basically saying that I know of facts that stand in blatant disregard to my current best theories. The world looks different then it should!
Either the facts are wrong (and denying a cathedral is pretty hard) or my theories about the economies of buildings in small societies is wrong.
u/foobanana [+6] (a day later)
Couldn't the author be wrong? (Not saying they are, but curious as to why you omitted the possibility)
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+8] Mouse Army (2 days later)
You are absolutely correct! Most of the time in fiction this would be my main prior. Some handwaved phlebotnium or a healthy dose of narrativum.
However, we are on /r/rational, with author /u/alexanderwales, who I have learned to hold to higher standards. I fully expect him to have blueprints of the the cathedral, pages full of notes about building economies in medieval societies, and a computer model of the building process using magical power armour.
And I am only half joking.
u/Ninmesara [+1] (2 days later)
Maybe the 1000 people is the mistake (I'm pretty sure it is not the cathedral). Having more people (say, 10,000) would make it possible for Chloe to remain undetected for so long, I guess.
u/darkflagrance [+8] (12 hours later)
I would suspect it was built by an external power, either when the city was founded as a memorial or military outpost that happened to have a town grow around it, or when Langust was connected to more powerful polity when the means existed to link cities safely.
It is also possible that they had more mecha armor that could be used to carry the stones and perform the heavy lifting back then.
u/SometimesATroll [+4] (a day later)
It's also possible that some glimwarden with a stone-manipulating signature was also very religious and trained in architecture.
And some of the visits may have lasted less than a minute each, with the men of the town just checking in.
u/xamueljones [+14] My arch-enemy is entropy (12 hours later)
Quick question, did anyone notice that Chloe appears to be the same person as the girl from the previous chapter, Chloe Masters, who claims to be Melaine's relative? Just pointing it out if anyone didn't remember the details and didn't give chapter 10 a reread.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (a day later)
But then who is Ghost of Langust?
u/SometimesATroll [+7] (a day later)
Chloe. She left, took off the armor, and re-entered the town.
Possibly.
u/daydev [+13] (4 hours later)
she’d always found reading to be fairly boring
Philip better take Chloe into protective custody before Sander and Melanie burned the heretic.
u/redrach [+2] (15 hours later)
They're kindred spirits after all.
u/None [+11] (9 hours later)
[deleted]
u/rttf [+7] (12 hours later)
The sudden increase in theft would probably also be investigated.
u/TK17Studios [+10] Author of r!Animorphs: The Reckoning (18 hours later)
If noticed. In a town that small, priors are on "I lost some coins" and "Clotis miscounted the loaves again" moreso than on "somebody's stealing." I'd bet you could go more than a week before people even started to be suspicious, if you were careful about it.
u/yuridez [+3] (a day later)
In that small of a town, Chloe would stick out like a sore thumb, IMO.
Yeah, I didn't buy this either, especially considering the way the world works and people leaving/visiting is extremely uncommon. From the way it was described, Langust sounds more like a town of 30000 than 1000.
u/RMcD94 [+10] (5 hours later)
Also good Glimwarden candidates are children and people with dwarfism.
Give a baby a heart and it's going to be whizzing around.
To be honest given the beneficial regenerative properties of the bind giving newborns a heart would probably massively reduce infant mortality rates. Same with giving birthing mothers one just for the birth.
u/darkflagrance [+7] (12 hours later)
And this is how we get Neo Genesis Evangelion.
u/None [+5] (23 hours later)
[deleted]
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+3] Mouse Army (a day later)
Or you know, just breed for the leptosomic type? Or select? Theres enough of us nearly-underweight-by-normal-standarts around for that to be feasible.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+4] Mouse Army (5 hours later)
Good thought. But that does destroy the whole "mandatory milita for Illuminated" disincentive to eat a couple of hearts on the side, which is good for the current power structure.
u/RMcD94 [+6] (6 hours later)
Yeah you can't have the Auxiliary if everyone had a heart to get through the most dangerous points of their life.
But Auxiliary's seem pretty worthless defensive wise anyway so... Might as well just teach all kids how to use the bind in school.
Edit: Another benefit of giving everyone a heart is that you can find the best signature, some are obviously going to be better than others. Then get the best signature person to actually be a glimwarden.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+4] Mouse Army (7 hours later)
Obviously the Auxiliary isnt about defense but about power control for the glimwardens.
Re: your edit: I'd dispute the point that the best signature makes the best leader. Leadership needs a great deal of diverse skills, and while "power in battle" is certainly useful for a leader (for morale reasons) its not really important.
u/RMcD94 [+4] (7 hours later)
That's true, I meant best signature in regards to fighting darklings but you're right that that ignores that they don't really need that much help to fight darklings so picking for "ability to fight darklings" isn't that relevant even if that would seem to on the surface to be the purpose of their job.
u/daydev [+1] (5 hours later)
Also good Glimwarden candidates are children
Except it wouldn't be very enlightened to draft children into the armed forces, and the benefit is suggested to be pretty marginal.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (6 hours later)
Except it wouldn't be very enlightened to draft children into the armed forces,
Lack of ageism sounds more enlightened to me ;)
the benefit is suggested to be pretty marginal.
Uh, if there are towns where they literally draft petite women only as glimwardens then I think someone half the size may not be that marginal. Still, if one heart on a 6ft male means they can move 1x faster a kid who weighs 1/4 as much as an errand boy is moving 4x faster? Hardly marginal.
Later you could start getting into a situation where you deliberately stunt people's growths or try to select people for Dwarfism since the bind can make up for health deficiencies.
u/daydev [+6] (6 hours later)
Lack of ageism sounds more enlightened to me
Is it ageism to postulate that a child can't give consent for certain things until a certain age? I mean, we can quarrel about what exactly that age is, but surely there's some limit.
Uh, if there are towns where they literally draft petite women only as glimwardens then I think someone half the size may not be that marginal.
And there are towns which manage perfectly fine with more egalitarian policies (Light's Hollow) or even chauvinistic policies (Langust). The text suggests that more "backwards" towns don't do this because "evil patriarchy", but considering that glimlight is power I actually think it's more egalitarian to have equal opportunity glimwardens (like in Light's Hollow). Like in the real world strictly speaking men are better suited to be soldiers physiologically (on average), but we want integrated militaries anyway. So I get the impression that the POV character's perspective may be distorted and the size advantage (even if real strictly speaking) is just an excuse for sexist policies. It's clearly not an overwhelming advantage, considering there was no indication that women were significantly more effective during the battle for Healer’s Lantern.
u/RMcD94 [+0] (7 hours later)
Is it ageism to postulate that a child can't give consent for certain things until a certain age? I mean, we can quarrel about what exactly that age is, but surely there's some limit.
No the limit has nothing to do with age and everything to do with brain development, example if I freeze a baby, and then unfreeze them after they are 20 years old, they can now consent?
So yes that definitely qualifies as ageism. Plus even if consent was 100% correlated with age, it would still be ageism since it's discrimination based on age.
Anyway even if you assume no one can consent to anything for 10 years we already force them to do hundreds of things for greater societal good (like attending education, eating food, wearing clothes, etc) as well as brainwashing them into whatever ideology we desire. Forcing them to eat a heart is equivalent to vaccinating them.
And there are towns which manage perfectly fine with more egalitarian policies (Light's Hollow) or even chauvinistic policies (Langust).
Uh, yes I didn't know the standard we were holding against was "surviving".
The text suggests that more "backwards" towns don't do this because "evil patriarchy",
That doesn't make sense, if women are better glimwardens and glimwardens are clearly the source of power then cultural history put women in the role of men in our world.
What's a man going to do when he can eat the same number of hearts as a woman yet she is more powerful (or equally powerful but far faster).
I actually think it's more egalitarian to have equal opportunity glimwardens (like in Light's Hollow).
Yes... obviously it is more equal between genders to have both genders in glimwarden roles...
Like in the real world strictly speaking men are better suited to be soldiers physiologically (on average), but we want integrated militaries anyway.
Yes and no doubt men's adapted psychologically has developed over all of human history, I haven't heard of female chimpanzee's suffering from PTSD for example. So in a world where females are fighting early they would get the psychological adaptions (though since they'd be on the X chromosome there's no reason why they might not also apply to men).
Of course it may also be the case that men were psychologically adapted for becoming glimwardens when darklings started existing and so the pressure is actually for men to be smaller rather than women more capable.
Also individuals have different psychological suitability for military roles, and some women are better adapted to military roles than some men. Yet again it's a correlation not an absolute.
So I get the impression that the POV character's perspective may be distorted and the size advantage (even if real strictly speaking) is just an excuse for sexist policies.
I am running on the assumption that the character who uses the bind understands how it works and since she has actual examples of towns who not only have women but explicitly only the most petite.
It's clearly not an overwhelming advantage, considering there was no indication that women were significantly more effective during the battle for Healer’s Lantern.
Well for a start I'm pretty sure number of hearts eaten still matters more. So not seeing women performing better isn't any indication of anything. What you'd except to see is women with the same number of hearts consumed performing better than equivalent men. And you'd have to see this over a large sample size as to discount individual variation. And really the point isn't that women are better, but that lighter people are better. It may be likely that all the glimmanden are heavier than any glimwomenden but that's just statistics. I don't think we have a description of every glimwarden so we don't know their mass.
Power = Heart
Speed = Heart/Mass
Now the important information is what factor is on mass, if it's square root of mass, then yeah it's not that big deal, if it's squared then it's more of a deal, etc.
Good thing we have a main character who can test this by the addition of people/boulders, fasting, or removing clothes etc.
u/daydev [+3] (7 hours later)
Forcing them to eat a heart is equivalent to vaccinating them.
If your remove the conscription of everyone who taken a heart, then yes, no problem, vaccinate all you want, but I objected to your original claim that children would make for good glimwardens. Glimwarden service is for life, and it involves a lot of danger. So if you suggest to make children into glimwardens, it's not equivalent of vaccination, it's equivalent to drafting children into air force pilots because we can load more bombs or get better operational range that way.
That doesn't make sense, if women are better glimwardens and glimwardens are clearly the source of power then cultural history put women in the role of men in our world.
But this is not the case, it presented such as only most "enlightened" towns are able to overcome chauvinistic considerations and make glimawardens women only. Which supports my claim that from what we are shown the size advantage is pretty marginal (it's easily outweighed by cultural prejudices).
And really the point isn't that women are better, but that lighter people are better.
Yes, that's why I'm suspicious of "women only" being presented as enlightened. A policy strictly focused on efficiency would operate on physiological limits (must be this small to apply), and I suppose that would create a natural state of the majority of glimwardens being women, but probably not exclusively. EDIT: So it looks like they have women only policy first, and then they select small women for efficiency. Like in the real world in the countries that have men only conscription they then select men on the small side for tank crews. Sexism comes first, efficiency second.
Now the important information is what factor is on mass, if it's square root of mass, then yeah it's not that big deal, if it's squared then it's more of a deal, etc.
I'm pretty sure it's linear, because, you know, F = ma.
u/RMcD94 [+2] (7 hours later)
If your remove the conscription of everyone who taken a heart, then yes, no problem, vaccinate all you want, but I objected to your original claim that children would make for good glimwardens.
Well yes I thought I made that comment in this subchain, the auxiliary is pretty worthless.
Glimwarden service is for life, and it involves a lot of danger.
Yes well a scenario where literally everyone in the town has some form of the bind isn't going to have the same set up for Glimwardens.
So if you suggest to make children into glimwardens, it's not equivalent of vaccination, it's equivalent to drafting children into air force pilots because we can load more bombs or get better operational range that way.
Well once they're older giving them hearts is less efficient, but sure I would draft children to be airforce pilots anyway if it meant not dying to darklings.
But this is not the case, it presented such as only most "enlightened" towns are able to overcome chauvinistic considerations and make glimawardens women only.
Well see you thought the character was biased in their understanding of their powers but I thought they were biased in their description of things. From the characters mindset I'm not surprised they think a town where women are in charge are enlightened, but then she might think men being slaves to women are also enlightened.
Which supports my claim that from what we are shown the size advantage is pretty marginal (it's easily outweighed by cultural prejudices).
I think not that the size advantage is marginal, but that glimwarden power is actually irrelevant. So the size advantage might make for a huge combat difference, but by and large glimwardens don't need to be more powerful from what we've seen and been exposed to.
Edit: I guess that's what you were saying and I just misunderstood, so I agree.
This was brought up in another comment chain, people aren't selected because they are best at fighting the darkling, they're selected because they are the best at filling the cultural role of being a glimwarden. What I was doing was overestimating how much of a threat darklings really are, there isn't as much pressure from darklings as I thought.
That is even if a 40kg person could take down 5 Darklings for ever 1 an 80kg person could it doesn't matter because Darklings aren't the issues that Glimwardens face (by and large). Glimwardens always win darkling and the times when they don't isn't often enough to be the overwhelming selective pressure.
Yes, that's why I'm suspicious of "women only" being presented as enlightened. A policy strictly focused on efficiency would operate on physiological limits (must be this small to apply), and I suppose that would create a natural state of the majority of glimwardens being women, but probably not exclusively.
I agree.
I'm pretty sure it's linear, because, you know, F = ma.
So then we can suppose that a person is half as lighter accelarates twice as fast, that doesn't mean "marginal" to me in a combat scenario (though again this seems actually irrelevant). So my question then is does human propulsion matter at all when moving under the bind? If Ussain Bolt and and equivalent weight person took 100 hearts and used the bind to run, would Ussain run faster or at the same speed?
u/daydev [+2] (8 hours later)
Well yes I thought I made that comment in this subchain, the auxiliary is pretty worthless.
But your said
Also good Glimwarden candidates are children
I agree that it could make for more effective glimwarden force if everyone is given a heart to discover the best signatures. And many other things could be done better. But as said in different places, it seems clear that the civilization is secure enough that glimwardens and politicians can play power games. There is no desperation to fight for every little scrap of efficiency, ethics be damned.
So my question then is does human propulsion matter at all when moving under the bind?
The quote is as follows:
The bind had many functions, but two of the most important were to enhance the physical strength of the user and to propel the user across the field of battle. The first function was muscle agnostic; a person grew more powerful in relation to how much bind they had, regardless of their physical strength without the bind. For the second function, size was a detriment, because the bind required to move the body around increased with mass.
So it seems that glimlight is the great equalizer, and a spherical glimwarden in vacuum would be able to achieve acceleration linearly dependent on their mass, both on muscle power (leaving aside the question how one could propel oneself in vacuum on muscle power) and on pure glimlight propulsion (pulling against the luminiferous aether I suppose). This probably does not translate into anything near linear advantage in battle. And another question is what is the glimlight coefficient, i.e. how much additional hearts a glimwarden must take to achieve the same acceleration with the excess mass of 1 kg.
u/RMcD94 [+2] (8 hours later)
Also good Glimwarden candidates are children
Well yes, it was a flippant comment regarding the smaller women information, but I meant in terms of combat capability. As I said I've realized that that combat capability isn't even the main factor of a Glimwarden. Also I didn't mean in terms of Auxillary either, I meant giving them 1000 hearts or however many it was something similar to Ender's Game.
But as said in different places, it seems clear that the civilization is secure enough that glimwardens and politicians can play power games. There is no desperation to fight for every little scrap of efficiency, ethics be damned.
Yes that's something I had neglected to consider.
So it seems that glimlight is the great equalizer, and a spherical glimwarden in vacuum would be able to achieve acceleration linearly dependent on their mass, both on muscle power (leaving aside the question how one could propel oneself in vacuum on muscle power) and on pure glimlight propulsion (pulling against the luminiferous aether I suppose).
Yes I agree
This probably does not translate into anything near linear advantage in battle.
Indeed for a start of physical propulsion matters at all look at the fastest runners in the world, most of them are not light petite women. Having more powerful muscles (and therefore being heavier) may make more of an impact than the bind moving you. That is if we suppose acceleration = muscle strength*bind power + bind power/muscle mass then the relation between muscle strength mass is more important. If an 1 extra muscle strength costs less than 1 kg then in this simple equation with no coefficients it would be better to be heavier.
And yes hearts comes into it too if children are worse at fighting then their heart collection rate might not overcome that their more efficient heart/power increase. And since darklings seem to be infinite it seems the fattest (weight) and weakest (muscle strength) of people who is sufficiently skilled could outpower (by outcollecting and making up for efficiency loss) an idiotic but light child.
u/daydev [+2] (9 hours later)
And yes hearts comes into it too if children are worse at fighting then their heart collection rate might not overcome that their more efficient heart/power increase.
Another thing to consider, 1000 hearts doesn't necessarily guaratee 100% risk free heart gathering. It's not obvious that an average kid could be expected to gather even 1000 hearts to "earn their keep" before dying. And then it would be the question of exact advantage the lower mass gives a kid compared to their reduced general capabilities to figure out at which point it's best to give them the hearts and set them off on the darklings. It you wanted to go "make everyone a glimwarden" route maybe it would make the most sense to give everyone 1000 hearts when they come of age and expect them to repay the debt to society within 10 years, you know, like student loan from hell. It all depends on specific numbers.
u/RMcD94 [+2] (11 hours later)
Well from African child soldier armies I would say I would expect children to be reasonably capable, especially since in this case they are at a disadvantage as opposed to in the real world. Since at the end of the day they would be able to run away from any combat I imagine there's some age far below 15 or whatever you class as adulthood where it is reasonable for them to be able to at least collect 1k.
But yes it is very much a numbers game.
Part of the purpose of giving everyone hearts when they're younger, not necessarily the full 1000 is to lower the deathrate which was very high at that age in this time period.
u/BoilingLeadBath [+2] (12 hours later)
Given that:
At least in this region, there seems to be a lack of intellectual thought directed towards the problem of "how does the power of the bind make a glimwarden", including among the glimwardens themselves.
The times when the efficacy of the glimwardens is truly important are rare and not conducive to reasoned observation - IE, the fall of a town when it's lantern(s) fail - so there may not be many outside observers who could comment on the effect of body size.
Our world's history, where segregation lead to these sort of... market inefficiencies... despite the fact that competition/survival was often of great concern.
...then it is reasonable to think that a segregated glimwarden force could persist as a cultural thing.
...pure evolution is very slow and uncertain, after all, and the darklings (and perhaps the bind) have been around for a short enough time that artifacts (see: radios) of the previous era are still around...
u/RMcD94 [+1] (13 hours later)
For sure, that's a good summary, however I would say the nature of isolation of each community would mean we would see more variations (than reality where no village could be that independent and culturally isolated) and therefore more competition and it should be reasonable to think that a successful shift to a superior protection force should be reflected by the higher odds of survival of that place.
Though as you say in 2) may be low enough where it's not relevant. After all not only does it have to be better it has to be so much more successful as to be replacing all the towns around it (after they fail).
u/stale2000 [+1] (7 days later)
Desperate times call for desperate measures. We are talking about medieval societies of people that are in a perpetual war with demons. Concerns about child labor may very well be secondary.
u/foobanana [+1] (a day later)
Lack of ageism sounds more enlightened to me ;)
Plus even if consent was 100% correlated with age, it would still be ageism since it's discrimination based on age.
Out of context most people would agree with your first sentence since its generally used when people discriminate based on age without good reason, i.e. silicon valley preferring young workers to middle aged for "culture fit".
Your second sentence uses a different definition of ageism which most wouldn't agree with since there are often excellent reasons to discriminate based on age, e.g. 1 year olds are not allowed to be doctors, say. In other words, as you define it what you say is true. But your definition of ageism makes it a rather useless concept.
You are (perhaps unintentionally) performing a bait-and-switch.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
Your second sentence uses a different definition of ageism which most wouldn't agree with since there are often excellent reasons to discriminate based on age, e.g. 1 year olds are not allowed to be doctors
No, people who aren't trained aren't allowed to be Doctors.
That's a bait and switch.
u/foobanana [+1] (a day later)
No, people who aren't trained aren't allowed to be Doctors.
Yes, the doctors was a poor example - my bad.
But by your own logic, "people who can't provide informed consent aren't allowed to be soldiers" wouldn't be ageism?
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
Yes, that wouldn't be ageism.
u/foobanana [+1] (a day later)
Also apologies for the use of bait and switch, it was uncalled for - I don't usually comment and its easy for me to forget about the tone I'm conveying.
u/RMcD94 [+1] (a day later)
I was not bothered
u/foobanana [+5] (a day later)
The darklings arriving just as she left seems a bit contrived. Unless it was caused by the theft of the armour somehow?
u/Ninmesara [+5] (2 days later)
An attack apparently happens when a lantern stops working. Maybe the lantern is somehow connected to the armor? Maybe the use of the armor drains the supply of hearts from the lantern or something. Or it might just be a coincidence.
u/stale2000 [+1] (7 days later)
My working theory is that someone noticed the armor was gone, and launched an attack, either opportunistically, or as retaliation. Perhaps those girls living in the house ALSO know how to hide the bind.
u/XerxesPraelor [+2] (13 hours later)
And I was wrong.
u/natron88 [+2] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (2 days later)
I predict the red armor does include a spirit, but it's not the spirit of Langust.
If it had a spirit, it would likely have had the spirit before Chloe put it on. You are certainly less likely to be correct.
u/foobanana [+2] (a day later)
"Her thoughts turned tawdry for ..."
Is tawdry the right word there?
u/natron88 [+3] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (2 days later)
showy but cheap and of poor quality
sordid or unpleasant
It might fit the second meaning.
u/NoYouTryAnother [+1] (2 days later)
Read the latest Glimwarden within a few minutes of it coming out two days ago, and just realized I'm still excited about the last chapter. I'm glad to see by the large number of comments here that I'm probably not the only one.