scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/6xvor5.md

[RT][WIP] The Library Unpublished, Chapter 9

• Author: u/None *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/6xvor5/rtwip_the_library_unpublished_chapter_9/

• Score: 15

• Created: 2017-09-03T20:47:47

Post:

The biggest update so far has been posted. Enjoy.

Warning, spoilers for Chapter 9 from this point onward. Read the chapter before reading the rest of this post!

I'm even more interested in your opinions than usual. I'd love to know about the following:

• Which was the path you chose to travel first, and why did you choose it? Did you stay in character, did you try to optimize or was there another paradigm behind your decision?

• If you chose to read other paths as well, which one was your favourite? There are a number of extremely different endings, and I encourage you to try to find them :)

• Where there any options you wanted to choose that I did not offer you?

Chapter 10, the final chapter, will be uploaded next Sunday, as planned, and the corresponding reddit post will be a discussion thread for the complete work.

Thank you for reading!

Comments:

u/scruiser [+5] CYOA (an hour later)

Reached ending 30) first... Looped back to an early point because that ending was far to tantalizing. Has the narration character been brainwashed by a super intelligent AI or perhaps convinced their reality is fictional? I'll edit this post with the next ending I reach...

Edit... and ending 49 next. Ouch.

Edit... and 99) so its not an AI? Or it is an AI, but is claiming the library is supernatural as a lie to cover itself up? Still not too helpful. Funny that Mike realizes he might get brainwashed...

72. So Sein has broken partially out of his brainwashing, but not enough to leave the library, and he tricked Mike into reading the brainwashing book the library unpublished.

Well, I guess I'll avoid talking to the terminal at all then.

Partway through 20), its funny, I'm glad to hear that Sein is dead since that means I'll avoid ending 72).

And ending 82)... I'm going to start fresh now. At this point I've broken with trying to keep Mike in character and instead I'm trying to weedle out as much information as possible, even if Mike dies or gets brainwashed a few dozen more times.

71. So it is magic. Nice to have the confirmed, although apparently its the lethal uncontrollable Lovecraft or older darker fairytale magic that can't be safely munchkined.

Tried to take 36) just to see if I could squeeze out another hint, but I realized 36 doesn't even exist. Guess it is a true dead end of dead ends.

I jumped randomly till I found a narrative I hadn't read before, then traced it back up to 97).

At 18), if there was an option to kill or silence Sein I would take it... I imagine if I knew enough about each of these philosophers I could pick an option to silence him, but instead I'll try both.

And it seems interacting with Sein is a death trap either way. Welp, time to grasp absolute power.

In the middle of 57) And this just got meta... Mike already tried this once, but... with a guide to help him maybe it will actually work this time.

And, well, at least I know why the other endings ended as they did, with exploring the library indefinitely or joining the cultists.

And time to read linearly to catch any snippets I missed.

Final edit... don't think I missed anything. There is still the question of who the author (in-story is) and how the narrator (Mike) got his account to them. And the fact that I want more endings still...

Well... there is one weak spot in the narrative to attack at:

36. I woke up hungover and disoriented. It was raining outside. I wondered what... oh shoot, Sein was in the library and I needed to... I had already been to the library? My memory was a disoriented mess of fragments and I seemed to recall dying multiple times, being brainwashed by a cult, and obtaining near omnipotence at the expense of losing my ability/interest to return to ordinary reality. The most recent memory was accepting my own death in an attempt to avoid suffering. Worse yet, my thoughts felt off, as though they were being generated by a different source than usual. I checked the time and the date... had I not even left to rescue Sein yet? Well, assuming I wasn't insane, I think I knew the "winning" strategy, save for the fact that the chance of self-modifying would become addictive. The "winning" ending also seemed to have made a logical error... Sein had somehow been able to get text out the library so it wasn't true that I couldn't take anything out. I just needed to restrict what I wanted to take out to a single book bags worth. It would also help to write into existence a useful book to use ahead of time. I had just the idea... I could make a reddit post and get munchkining ideas for the best books to take out. The post's responses itself would be sufficient to write books into existence.

u/None [+3] (3 hours later)

Wow, you put quite a lot of effort into this. Awesome!

I'm sorry to say that the omission of 36) was a simple mistake on my part. I was under some time pressure while posting and messed that section up during editing. I'm sorry to say that your version of 36) is now officially non-canon :/

Let me say a few words about some of your more interesting conclusions.

So it is magic.

If you're trying to explain everything with one narrative, that explanation will necessarily have to be extremely powerful. Magic is the most powerful explanation presented here.

At the same time, can you be sure that explaining everything with one narrative is the correct approach? Consider 53) and 96). The only difference in m1k's actions is that in one of those, he doubts sein's intentions, while in the other, he doesn't, and that somehow immediately results in his capture in one ending, but not in the other. There seem to be more differences between the endings than could be explained by m1k's choices. sein's audio log was self-contradictory as well, and maybe the way the plot in Chapter 9 is fractured at the decision points allows for entirely different worldbuilding.

if I knew enough about each of these philosophers

Another editing hiccup, thank you for spotting it. Replaced their names with more informative statements in the style of the other branches, as was originally intended.

it seems interacting with Sein is a death trap

Almost everything is. In fact, the only "happy" endings in Chapter 9 are those in which I decided to stop writing at a high point instead of drawing everything to its (inevitably terrible) conclusion. Well, that part isn't actually written down in Chapter 9, so you're still free to believe that sein and m1k actually win the Library's internal war after 72).

the fact that I want more endings still...

I don't disagree. A more labyrinthine Chapter 9 would have been great, but at some point, I had reached my limits and further writing just wasn't possible.

Thank you for reading.

u/Charlie___ [+4] (9 hours later)

The facts might not be the same in different branches.

u/vakusdrake [+6] (3 hours later)

Don't remember which path I followed first though I can say with unlimited choices I would most certainly go down a route sort of like 57 the moment I got into the library, in fact I was thinking of that much earlier in the story. Of course as scruiser pointed out 57 is actually if anything a suboptimal munchkin because we know information can be brought out of the library.
So my plan would conjuring a book explaining exactly the limits of the library, but either way I imagine things would probably go basically the same way either way. The books can conjure electronic bits to some degree as was used to make seins flashing book so I might just create a book with some self replicating nanobots preloaded with a friendly GAI that activated once I'd defined it into existence. Or alternatively I might define into existence a book which altered my thinking in some miniscule way that would rapidly lead through the butterfly effect to those previous nanobots being assembled in my body.
Or in the worst case scenario I would define a book which would give me PtV towards achieving my goals. Which I would then use to come up with the best conceivable book to bring out of the library in order to direct myself if the PtV wore off outside. Though likely there would be little to do except keep myself safe as the seed GAI I'd put on my phone escaped once I left the library.

u/None [+3] (3 hours later)

we know information can be brought out of the library

Indeed. I re-read 57 and wonder where I created the impression that smuggling information out of the library wasn't possible. If you could point me to whatever made you think that, I'd be interested. It's very likely that I've just forgotten the relevant section, but it might be that I wrote something that was easily misinterpreted.

Let me offer my two cents on your munchkinning ideas. Keep in mind that I'm just the author, as well as rather fallible, and while Word of God is a thing, I can be reasoned with :)

self-replicating nanobots

I don't think the library as defined in path 57 would allow that. In any case, self-replicating nanobots are absurdly dangerous, and unless you're extremely sure that you have everything under complete control, only to be used as the very last resort. No one wants Grey Goo. Considering that m1k knows almost nothing about the way the Library works, I don't think he should risk that.

a book which altered my thinking in some miniscule way that would rapidly lead through the butterfly effect

And that's extremely dangerous. If you're instating mental changes with the intent to cause a butterfly effect, you're walking a thin line because the very nature of the butterfly effect is that it is unpredictable and chaotic. Some side effect of those propagating changes might erase your identity (and thereby your utility function, similar to what happens to m1k in 57). That's some high-risk munchkinning, though far safer than the nanobots.

I would define a book which would give me PtV

In 57, m1k only modified himself in ways that gave him realistic mental abilities, like speed reading or rationality. PtV (which is a Worm reference, for those few of you who don't know what we are talking about) requires precognition, which seems a bit too supernatural. m1k theorises that more supernatural phenomena might be available deeper inside the Library, but this is not actually confirmed in the text.

In any case, thank you for munchkinning! Check out u/scruiser's comment in the Saturday Munchkinning Thread; maybe someone will post more ideas there.

u/scruiser [+4] CYOA (4 hours later)

Indeed. I re-read 57 and wonder where I created the impression that smuggling information out of the library wasn't possible. If you could point me to whatever made you think that, I'd be interested. It's very likely that I've just forgotten the relevant section, but it might be that I wrote something that was easily misinterpreted.

It doesn't imply any information, just the more improbably self-modification. The exact quote:

It seemed most likely that for whatever reason, people lost whatever they gained inside the library as they left it

Of course, given how far gone m1k is at this point, it might just be them rationalizing in order to go deeper into the library.

u/None [+2] (11 hours later)

The exact quote:

That makes sense. For that statement, m1k at least had weak evidence; he had never seen anyone with miraculously improved mental abilities like his. Of course, that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and I agree with you that his conclusion has a touch of rationalisation to it.

u/Noumero [+3] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (20 hours later)

erase your identity (and thereby your utility function, similar to what happens to m1k in 57).

Wait, it happened? I read it as Mike making a weighted choice aided by his newfound nearly-perfect rationality, fully aware of everything he is doing every step of the way. He wasn't exactly a social butterfly beforehand, and given an unlimited source of tailor-made books that also granted him ever-increasing power... I considered it in-character enough for him to decide to abandon outside world in favour of exploring the library. Was there actual manipulations going on?

^((You'll give a Shrug of God, won't you.)^)

u/None [+3] (22 hours later)

(You'll give a Shrug of God, won't you.)

Aww, you know me too well. And it's true: the text supports both your interpretation and mine. The fact that he decided to abandon the outside world completely was something I do not consider to be part of his previous character; while m1k has few friends, he is loyal to them, and disappearing without leaving a message for Cio seems out of character, especially since he could have instructed _sein_ to convey that message at almost no cost to himself. He almost forgot to rescue _sein_, even!

Of course, if you interpret him as a paranoid shut-in, his decision to abandon those who care about him might seem more reasonable :)

u/vakusdrake [+2] (6 hours later)

I don't think the library as defined in path 57 would allow that. In any case, self-replicating nanobots are absurdly dangerous, and unless you're extremely sure that you have everything under complete control, only to be used as the very last resort. No one wants Grey Goo. Considering that m1k knows almost nothing about the way the Library works, I don't think he should risk that.

I don't actually think things are anywhere as risky here as you think, the nanobots are preloaded with FAI so they aren't going to do anything I would consider unacceptable.

And that's extremely dangerous. If you're instating mental changes with the intent to cause a butterfly effect, you're walking a thin line because the very nature of the butterfly effect is that it is unpredictable and chaotic. Some side effect of those propagating changes might erase your identity (and thereby your utility function, similar to what happens to m1k in 57). That's some high-risk munchkinning, though far safer than the nanobots.

See again it's just a matter of the fact that you can explicitly define how it is that the book actually works (within the specified limits) that eliminates any potential issues. So since the book can have knowledge of basically everything, you can just define it such that it uses what little tangible influence it can directly via you reading it to lead to whatever is desired.
Just say that it's effects on your mind aren't something "past you" would consider noticeable and simply say that they effects caused on the outside world are of the sort that "past you" wanted. Then just let it steer you into the unlikely path wherein due to random chance some proteins in your body randomly assemble into the previously mentioned nanobots carrying a friendly GAI within the next few seconds, after all it has a non-zero probability.

To rephrase things, this basically gives you a probability pump of unlimited power. Whose instructions only have to be as specific as the descriptions in a story.
As for precognition being supernatural it's no more supernatural than the ability to grant knowledge of the present events without having to directly causally interact with them in order to get that info. Plus after all there's always relativistic reference frames wherein anything that happens in your future has already happened anyway, so you would need to dispute relativity in order for the present to hold that sort of special status.

u/None [+2] (11 hours later)

Of course, your ability to define a book precisely allows you to circumvent some of the immediate risk, if you assume that the precise definition is followed exactly. I don't think m1k has enough confidence into that, at this point, to risk a Grey Goo scenario.

Also, any definition of a book is somewhat imprecise. You cannot cover all corner cases in a finite text, which opens the possibility of the library going full "asshole Genie" on you, twisting your words into something that might be technically true, but still not what you had actually wanted. (This possibility will be stated more explicitly in Chapter 10.)

And as for precognition, I'm not an expert on relativity, but I was of the opinion that information is generally held not to be transmittable from the future, as a law of physics. Doesn't that mean that getting that information from those reference frames to ours would have to be a bit of a problem, and we haven't seen the Library break an actual law of physics yet, have we? Its improbable amount of information about the present is explainable in a number of less physics-breaking ways^1, at least in the non-magic endings.

---

1 Surveillance nanobots, spying cultists, sheer dumb luck which may not hold for the next book...

u/vakusdrake [+2] (12 hours later)

Ok when it comes to issues of specificity as was my point before the nature of how you describe things really circumvents that if you can phrase things half competently. As I said before you can basically rely on specifying that the outcome fits the criterion past you (so no room for mind control) has for what counts as a desirable outcome. There's no real worry about edge cases here because either an outcome is something you would have considered acceptable or it isn't.
Also on an unrelated note when dealing with asshole genies it's a good idea to use a somewhat similar plan for specifying your wishes.

And as for precognition, I'm not an expert on relativity, but I was of the opinion that information is generally held not to be transmittable from the future, as a law of physics. Doesn't that mean that getting that information from those reference frames to ours would have to be a bit of a problem, and we haven't seen the Library break an actual law of physics yet, have we? Its improbable amount of information about the present is explainable in a number of less physics-breaking ways1, at least in the non-magic endings.

The issue here is I don't think you get that the books must fundamentally violate physics there's just no getting around that. As maxwell's demon illustrates (well actually there is formal information theory but most people will only maybe know about maxwell's demon) information and energy are interchangeable and connected. So getting information or doing computation without interfering with the relevant system and expending thermodynamic work is, well a violation of thermodynamics that could be used to get free energy with the right setup.

So once you accept the fact that the books fundamentally don't get information through the proper channels anyway there's no reason to privilege the present over the future given that: One there's nothing different about the past and future except in relative terms, and two that by picking the right "present" to get information about you could arrange things to see into the future given FTL information transfer.
Plus given how present events determine future one's you don't even really need future events to get things to work anyway. The only hitch in exploiting the butterfly effect might be truly random events which are only issues in the copenhagen interpretation. Even then you can use statistical effects and slightly more time to make up for things just like people do when dealing with actual real life chaos theory.

u/Noumero [+2] Self-Appointed Court Statistician (20 hours later)

As I said before you can basically rely on specifying that the outcome fits the criterion past you (so no room for mind control) has for what counts as a desirable outcome

No room for mind-control; yes room for definitions-hacking. Can you define "past" and "you" and "acceptable" and "consider" in such a way that a superintelligent being won't be able to find a loophole that would allow it to screw you over anyway? Say, "past you" — did you mean your brain, or your body? Maybe your hand? It's a part of you. Or your sense of hunger? It's a part of your mind. Or, say, the you of N years ago, when you were in a really bad mood and unconsciously wanted the world to be destroyed? Those are the ideas a near-baseline human came up with after a few minutes of thinking.

Frankly, the only way to control malevolent superintelligent wish-granting beings is to mathematically bind them. Any open-ended wish, any self-referential complex cleverness is by its nature exploitable, and your opponent could exploit it better than you.

u/vakusdrake [+1] (a day later)

No room for mind-control; yes room for definitions-hacking. Can you define "past" and "you" and "acceptable" and "consider" in such a way that a superintelligent being won't be able to find a loophole that would allow it to screw you over anyway? Say, "past you" — did you mean your brain, or your body? Maybe your hand? It's a part of you. Or your sense of hunger? It's a part of your mind. Or, say, the you of N years ago, when you were in a really bad mood and unconsciously wanted the world to be destroyed? Those are the ideas a near-baseline human came up with after a few minutes of thinking.

I think you're really overstating the problems here because the level of specificity you'd need to deal with asshole genies or AI alignment is far greater than what you can get away with by literary standards. Simply say that the book's outcomes are such that 5 minutes before writing it into existence, you would have considered the outcome acceptable. So any outcome you don't consider acceptable just can't be caused simply because of how you specify things, "you" being vague isn't much of an issue here because it's understood what it is you mean by that implicitly, otherwise no book you could write that wasn't a total mathematical description of a world state from first principles wouldn't work anyway.
Sure you could come up with ways you could get screwed over if the book was somehow actively malevolent in how it interpreted things, but based on everything in the story it seems to interpret things as any sensible reader would, so it's not going to use a frame of reference wherein 5 minutes is long enough that you would still have been an infant despite that being a technically "valid" interpretation.
The reason this sort of exploit works is because the description you are giving is actually staggeringly complicated. However nearly all of the complexity is hidden as part of the expected knowledge and mind structure of the reader at least in the parts of the library we see.

Similarly you could make things work by coming up with a fictional backstory for your books that involves them being created by certain benevolent agents. Then you can reasonably be assured things will work by simply stating those agents are inerrant and describing them enough to be sure of their trustworthiness and having them start out as human at some point in their fictional past and having them interact with humans for more sureness of friendliness.
Sure if the interpretation of the text could be actively malevolent and convoluted, those agents might be evil and all the thoughts described in the text could be purely coincidental and unrelated to their actual personality. However it's reasonable to expect that not to be the case since every canonical example seems to function under the standard of how any reasonable human like mind would interpret the text.

u/scruiser [+2] CYOA (3 hours later)

Or in the worst case scenario I would define a book which would give me PtV towards achieving my goals.

Given the nature of the library and the outcomes we observed, I strongly suspect this would result in you recursively self-modifying into someone that would keep exploring the library deeper and deeper. The nanobots sound almost safe in comparison.

u/PurposefulZephyr [+6] (4 hours later)

Thorough this adventure I started with actions I would take, cautiously and curiously approaching the ending 30).

After reaching my first ending I decided to map out this... cocoon, as computer!Librarian at 39) would refer to it. From what I've seen there were only 3 paths you could reach through more than one road (20),39)80)). There were also 3 general outcomes- die, join the Library, or join _ sein _.

As far favorites go I'll take the full on godly descent of 57) and frankly silly bromance of 96).

"Sein does mean 'to be' in German. It also means 'his'."

54. is completely disconnected from any other. That and the missing 36) would suggest this is an incomplete index.

So basically, assuming that the choices we can make in those snippets are not dependent on... snippets available in this chapter, it would mean that there are other paths Mike could have taken before chapter 9. Those paths could perhaps lead to the missing pieces, as well as roads leading to the ending 54).

Honestly, if anything, I would like to see more of the disconnected, nonsensical paths that go from nowhere to nowhere, to truly drive point of "this is meta-fuckery of the highest order".

As the shadows danced around the bookshelf, painting red leather black and casting embossed gold letters in sharp relief, I realized, for the first time, what the library lacked. Some quality I lacked the words for, a metaphysical spine, was missing, and as a result, the library suddenly felt flat and lifeless.

I have to say- this was quite absorbing and interesting adventure. I can't wait to see how will chapter 10 resolve this convoluted story.

u/None [+3] (11 hours later)

Thank you for reading! The "bromance", as you call it, was meant as a nod to The Northern Caves. While I didn't want it to be as explicit, I knew I wanted to get a similar ending in there.

Also, "godly descent" is a nice way to put it. Is it merely a descent into the Library or a descent into madness? Is m1k diminished by his ascension? Questions that will remain unanswered, but your term evokes them in a nice way :)

I would like to see more of the disconnected, nonsensical path

Have you read House of Leaves? That book does something similar. It contains a chapter about labyrinths which is in itself a labyrinth; footnotes lead you through the pages in all directions. Some footnotes cannot be reached by reading normally, and some footnote marks are actually dead ends, because the footnotes don't exist.

House of Leaves was a big inspiration for The Library Unpublished, as you might have noticed :)

u/PurposefulZephyr [+4] (13 hours later)

I'll have to confess- I didn't read it at all.

However, I think I'll give it a try. I sounds like an even bigger, more meta-layered journey, and those are certainly fun. :D

u/None [+2] (22 hours later)

I'm always interested in opinions on House of Leaves, as it might well be my favourite book of all time. I'd love it if you could tell me yours once you finish it :)

u/PurposefulZephyr [+3] (23 hours later)

To paraphrase from another story:

Quest Accepted: Autumn Residence - vi_fi asked you to give an opinion on a certain odd book. Read it and come back with your impressions of it.

u/None [+2] (23 hours later)

Now I'm really looking forward to your review. Popcultural references are awesome (and so is Worth the Candle) :)

u/PurposefulZephyr [+1] (23 hours later)

That could take a while though, as I have to have it shipped overseas.

One of the many wonders of not living in America. :D

u/None [+2] (23 hours later)

Huh! That's weird. Here in Germany, getting it via Amazon wasn't a problem. Depending on where you live, a local bookstore might also be able to get it within a few days, at no postage expense to you; they have a borderline magical system of distribution.

u/PurposefulZephyr [+2] (a day later)

Poland must be a muggle-only zone then. :(

Normally a digital version would suffice, but apparently House of Leaves is suited for reading the physical copy?

u/None [+3] (a day later)

Yes, House of Leaves should be read in a physical version. This book has tons of little quirks which just don't translate to an ebook. For example, the cover is too small, which means that the book is bigger on the inside!

I've got a solution for your problem. Make an account on amazon.de and use this link to buy the book. Shipping from Germany to Poland should be far quicker than overseas.

By now, I've got accounts on amazon.com, amazon.de and amazon.co.uk, because sometimes the prices on another site are cheaper even when postage is taken into account.

If that doesn't work for whatever reason, send me a private message here on reddit, and we'll find some kind of solution. If necessary, I'll buy the book and ship it to you personally :)

u/PurposefulZephyr [+1] (a day later)

There's a German Amazon.

It's 6 times faster in delivery.

You learn something new every day.

u/None [+2] (a day later)

There's no Polish Amazon.

People in Poland buy their books on Amazon.com, thereby having to endure overseas shipping for every little thing.

You learn something new every day :(

For your information, many other European countries also have their own Amazon sites, like France or the UK, and I really thought that was just how it was for everyone.

u/scruiser [+2] CYOA (6 hours later)

54. is completely disconnected from any other.

Good catch! I had missed this isolated section.

u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)

Ignored the paths and simply read linearly.

u/None [+2] (3 hours later)

A bold strategy! I take it you don't care for choose your own adventure books, then. In that case, thank you even more for taking the time to read this chapter :)

u/Escapement [+3] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (5 hours later)

I ended at 57 first. I chose by the old stand-by CYOA method that has always failed me eventually in every CYOA - namely, always choose the highest number choice first, knowing that it doesn't really matter because I will be going back and exploring all other branches. And then reading through linearly to look for ectopic sections.

I liked many of the endings, but 57 stood out as honestly one of them more interesting as well, so I am not sad I got it first.

I really like the CYOA format here.

The various choices read a lot like Antichamber's various signs in terms of 'vague life suggestion with immediate applicability which sounds super deep on casual inspection because of phrasing'. I like the aesthetic.

u/None [+1] (11 hours later)

Ahh, Antichamber. I never played that game, but watched someone else play it for a while. I think that way of experiencing it made it even more mind-screwy than it usually is.

Congratulations on reaching 57 first. It seems to be almost everyone's favourite :)

u/Charlie___ [+3] (9 hours later)

Reached 82 first, via "Humans are innately evil." That branch didn't go how I wanted, so I went back and followed the "Humans are innately good" branch next. Then I went back and read ad libitum, eventually finishing everything. 54 was a nice touch, but 57 was my favorite.

u/None [+1] (11 hours later)

This is what I would have expected from a typical reader of this sub: 57 is the munchkin ending, after all.

Thank you for reading :)

u/Charlie___ [+1] (20 hours later)

Well, I didn't like the choices that led him there (I only found it by reading linearly), and I certainly don't think it was a happy ending, but it was the most fun to read :)

u/rhaps0dy4 [+3] (a day later)

I reached ending 71) first. I just tried to do what I would have done to find _sein_ and get out of the library. Unfortunately I failed :(

Then I read the all the other endings, retracing to the most recent fork and taking the one that I would have taken first.

If the OP had not warned me about "Read the chapter before reading the rest of this post!", then I would have taken care to note down or remember my thoughts while reading. As it is, I don't remember if there were "any options you wanted to choose that I did not offer you". I believe the OP contains no spoilers.

Finally, I think my favourite ending is 96). I don't want m1k to end badly, including 30), and the other non-bad ending 72) isn't really an ending, and it seems to be hinted that _sein_ will turn traitor.

I nearly always get bad endings when choosing my own adventure...

u/None [+3] (a day later)

I believe the OP contains no spoilers

Well, beside the fact that the chapter follows the choose your own adventure structure, but in principle, you are correct. I may have been overzealous.

I nearly always get bad endings when choosing my own adventure...

At least in this case, I can assure you that this was not a result of your choices. It's just that almost all endings were bad.

You seem to sincerely want for my characters to be happy, and I'm sorry that I cannot provide that :(

u/adad64 [+3] Chaos Legion (a day later)

I ended up in 30) and enjoyed it quite a lot. I'm still going through the other endings. It would be fairly simple to add 30) (click me!) on the link and id="option_30" in the h6 in the story heading.

Edit: Actually that was a lot easier than I thought since you had everything be consistent with -> #) and

#)

so a simple regex replace worked perfectly. I have an HTML file with the chapter that has clickable links that seem to work and should be allowed by AO3, can I send that over to you?

Edit2: My second readthrough left me on 57) which was very satisfying :) Nothing quite like Meta-Munchkining as an ending!

u/None [+2] (a day later)

Thank you for your kind words!

I sent you a personal message already, but I'll try to rephrase the most important points here for other people who stumble on this comment. The reason I didn't use links in the html wasn't because I didn't know how to do it (at least not primarily) but because Cio didn't. Therefore, to implement links, I have to consider the impact on the story. I may still do it, but I'll take a few hours to think about it.

u/696e6372656469626c65 [+2] I think, therefore I am pretentious. (7 hours later)

If I may ask: what's the deal with 54)? No other segment connects to it, which indicates that either (a) the author made a clerical error, (b) we're meant to infer the existence of additional segments that exist "out there in the universe" but (for whatever reason) weren't included, or (c) segment 54) is actually not a part of the same story as the rest of the segments, and exists on a different level of (meta)reality entirely.

u/None [+3] (11 hours later)

Good question! In this case, I didn't make a clerical error. I'm not entirely sure what the canonical interpretation of 54) is, but b) has some merit. After all, the choices shown here cannot possibly cover the full spectrum of real choices a person could have in that situation.

That's one interpretation. c) is also an option. Consider what m1k does here; he burns books. If he is the author, not the narrator, placing this segment in there, but making it unreachable, could be his way of making a statement, namely, that burning books is something he cannot conceive of ever doing.

There are multiple options here, and given that The Library Unpublished is a book within a book itself, a tale that Cio posted on a fictional ao3, I'd like to refrain from calling one of those interpretations canonical.

u/rhaps0dy4 [+2] (a day later)

atomar composition

atomic composition! :)

u/None [+1] (a day later)

Thank you. Sometimes, it's terribly obvious that I'm not a native speaker :)

(I'll try to get more proofreaders for my next big work, I swear...)

u/cryptologicalMystic [+2] (30 days later)

My first reaction to the CYOA was something along the lines of "oh shit I'm going to lose my place". I ended up opening a Notepad file and going through all the paths via a method that basically boiled down to the equivalent of always turning right in a maze. At some point I started labeling the various endings as I got to them; I'll post them here when I get the chance if you're interested.

u/None [+1] (30 days later)

I'm certainly interested! Hadn't really expected for new readers to stumble onto this after so much time :)

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