New Story: A Fragile Dream

[elfs]

This is what I get for being distracted! I've been neck-deep into The Temple for so long I forgot that yesterday I was supposed to release my newest story. I'm so sorry! So let me make it official:

Journal Enty 128 / 03264, A Fragile Dream, has been released and can be found at your favorite server. The ASSD/ASSTR codes for this story are "MF scifi rom slow". Misuko & Linia (and some of their crew) have supporting parts, but this is not a robot story. In terms of quality, I'm very pleased with this story, although it's structure contains only one straightforward thread and not the intertwining of the last one.

I've noticed that Drizzle is becoming more and more overloaded, to the point where the webserver's response times are very slow. On the other hand, you guys have been wonderfully generous, enough so that I think I can afford to move later this year. I'm researching those options right now, but I just want to say thank you so much for your willingness to support my efforts. And as always, if you enjoy a story, a buck or two in the tipjar never hurts. Enjoy!

Comments

"A Fragile Dream"

[(Anonymous)]

WARNING: SPOILERS! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE STORY!!!





My first response to this story was one of profound envy: I, too, want to wake up in a post-Scarcity world where AIs are fellow people, death is optional rather than mandatory, and the challenges of life are mostly those we choose rather than those that are forced upon us.

I was wondering about the economics of Discovery, and how they compare to those of Pendor, or the other worlds of the Corridor. I don't think I've ever seen a story of yours mention IUs, or the economic system in which they're used.

It felt good to see Misuko & Linia again, and I recognized Ms. Mannheim right away. I was a bit surprised that she adjusted as well as she did to her circumstances... was that meant to be a function of her life of priviledge and power before, a matter of her personality, a consequence of the techniques used in her re-instantiation, or something else?

I like her quick application of 20th-century economic concepts to her current situation... that was a nice touch, in that it told us "She's going to be all right", and reinforced the idea that, in a world with their level of technology, nothing stops a plain old unmodified 20th-century human from having a contribution to make. I liked that a lot.

I would have put these comments along with the story on your main server, but I didn't see a link with the story whereby I could make comments.

Re: "A Fragile Dream"

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Pendor is sparsely populated, angelnetted, and generally too self-secure and smug to get involved with issues like the question of capitalization of resources beyond its borders. This doesn't mean it's broken or anything like that, but it does mean that generally Pendorians don't "get" the kind of market economics that Terra, llerkin, and the rest of the corridor still think about. It's mostly conducted by the AIs, but Humans want to get in on the action, and frequently do: there are always scarcities. They get less so as time goes on, but they never quite go away. As Linia points out, there's always one thing people want, and that's proximity.

I'm mostly (mostly) handwaving it to create a conflict. But it is a real conflict: people need to be fed and housed and so forth, and the AIs need to do what they can without devolving into the "Do sties make pigs" phenomenon. Keeping an economic edge on things helps do that. I have a few stories about how this evolves in the works, and one that throws a massive wrench into the workings.

Re: "A Fragile Dream"

[(Anonymous)]

You referred to Pendorians as "smug." Could you elaborate on that? It surprises me that you, of all people, would use that word.

I've also wondered about Pendorian psychology... do they lack the instinct towards social hierarchy (and the climbing of same) that appears to be prevalent in Terran primates?

Also, was there a particular reason you went with "Pendorian"? I ask because I could have sworn that, back in the early days, the term I saw in your stories was "Pendoran". I realize that that isn't the term you find when you examine the stories today, but, for some reason, it's what I remember. Heck, it could have been that the displays I was using back then didn't display the "i" very well, and my brain liked "Pendoran" better, so it went with that. Humans make lousy witnesses.

Re: "A Fragile Dream"

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Pendorians have a weakened sense of restlessness. Some deliberately edited out entirely, but it's still there for most people because, without it, people in general go nowhere. There's another group in a future story who decide to keep restlessness but edit out loneliness; the consequences for this result in a different kind of culture, but one that gets along with the Pendorians reasonably well.

As for Pendorians being "smug," I think it's probably the best word to use. They do think that they're on the top of the evolutionary heap and all of the people around them going for "otherness" are rather silly. Pendorians always struck me as young, evangelical buddhists: having discovered the secret to no-thing, they're now busily trying to show everyone else how well it works for them.

Re: "A Fragile Dream"

[bogobob.livejournal.com]

I would have put these comments along with the story on your main server, but I didn't see a link with the story whereby I could make comments.

That's an interesting idea... but could result in spam or a lot of unwanted material permenantly attached to the stories.

Hmm, maybe have comments be hidden until they've been reviewed? That way the same form could be used for reporting typos without them being broadcast.