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.

[creepingcrud.livejournal.com]

I hope this isn't a dumb question, but what is the fifth chamber on a Pendorian heart actually for? What I mean is, does it feed the pulmonary or systemic circulation, or is there some additional pathway that blood takes through their hearts? I'm trying to conceptualize where a useful place to stick another chamber into a standard mammalian heart might be, and nothing is really coming to mind.

I'm still reading the story, but I figured I'd ask now in case it slips my mind later.

[(Anonymous)]

I was wondering that myself. I also remember a reference to Ken having a "nighttime pump" in the Journal Entry which covers the begining of the Ilerkin palace coup.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I saw a study a few years ago that showed that supplementing the heart with an additional external allowed the heart muscle to rest and heal at a phenomenal rate compared to its normal "operating" conditions. Some Pendorians take this a step further and have a powered external turbine pump that takes over blood flow duties while sleeping. It's pretty standard equipment by the 16th century.

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.

[creepingcrud.livejournal.com]

Well, clearly a second heart would be great, although designing the plumbing might be tricky. I imagine you'd either go to 2 lobes for the right lung to make room, or get kind of barrel-chested. Alternately, I guess the liver is bigger than it needs to be.

My point is that I don't see where the 5th chamber goes in a 5-chambered heart. As I understand it, 4 chambered heart is a big step forward from 2 chambers (your standard fish heart) as far as efficiency goes, because while the ventricles are contracting, the atria are filling with blood which they then actively pump into the ventricles before the next ventricular contraction. Currently, the mammalian heart consists of two channels running through the same organ. Right atrium draws deoxygenated blood from the venae cavae while the right ventricle is contracting, then contracts to push the blood into the right ventricle, which then contracts to pump the blood into the pulmonary arteries, through the lungs, and back via pulmonary veins to the left atrium, which pushes blood to the left ventricle, which feeds the aorta (and the rest of the body) oxygenated blood. So, if you are adding a 5th chamber, does the plumbing change entirely, and if not, from where does the chamber draw blood, and where does it pump into? If you really mean a bionic pump of some sort that would function to supplement or replace the pumping of the biological heart, calling that a 5th chamber doesn't seem like ideal terminology.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I think you're thinking to hard about the image. The "fifth chamber" is a muscle-reinforced band over the major aorta leading down to the pelvis. Not all pendorians have the turbine installed. For those that do, the turbine is off and blood flows through it without interruption during the daytime, and at night supplements the bloodflow to let the heart rest. Sleeping Pendorians with this installation don't have a pulse-- which can be a little creepy.

[creepingcrud.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Ok. I'm still not thrilled with the terminology, but otherwise it seems fairly plausible. I can't help but think you'd want two of them, though, especially compared to having only one, and that one in the descending aorta. Pressure in the veins that return blood from the systemic circulation is so much lower than arterial pressure that I would not want to depend on it to push blood through the lungs, head and upper extremities. If you put one in the pulmonary trunk and the other on the ascending aorta (presumably before the left subclavian branches off), that'd probably assure adequate circulation.

[zacs-pet.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to be a spelling Nazi(alright, I do.), but the proper spelling for the Adirondack lake mentioned in the beginning is Raquette Lake. It's a beautiful place to go camping.

And as usual, the story was wonderful.

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.

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. Any relation with that "turbine heart" to similar concept of Rix Cyborg "hearts" from Scott Westerfeldt's _The Risen Empire_, where it was used to stealth user from heartbeat sensors?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

There is a relation, yes. When I read that chapter of The Risen Empire my reaction was "Ha! We read the same science blogs!" There were a whole bunch of articles (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03332/244872.stm) on the subject called "Ventricular Assists" about five years ago, and I was most amused to see that Scott had come to the same reaction I had: "No heartbeat and constant blood pressure? How cool! How scifi!"

Honest and Fragile

[(Anonymous)]

I am glad to see you continue the story thread of Honest Desires with Response, Question, and now A Fragile Dream. I always liked Honest Desires, and wished there would be more of it.

In Honest Response I think I know which author's stories you are referring to about robots with command buttons.

At the beginning of Honest Question I saw the word "aher". Since I never find typos in your work, is this an honorific that I haven't picked up on before?

In A Fragile Dream I really have enjoyed the story of Isabelle Mannheim. I had wondered if we'd be seeing her story any time soon, or if her survival on computer disks was just to embellish the previous story. Now I know.

One question on Linia ap Ffanci. Does the ap stand for artificial person? Musko doesn't have that same middle part to her name.

Also, these stories are the last ones in your timeline so far before The Last Journal Entry, which was writing long ago. Have you ever felt that The Last Journal Entry needs to be revised with so much written since it was completed that precedes it?

Sorry for all the questions. I hate to take away from your writing time.

Re: Honest and Fragile

[elfs.livejournal.com]

No, it's a typo. I am really scrupulous about proofreading my work, but they still get through. I've found two since.

"Ap" means that it's not her familial name, but that she's chosen to take it to honor Misuko. It's a cultural thing from Misuko's homeworld, but even there it's falling into disuse as time goes by.

There are a lot of stories to come, and sometimes I feel like retconning the work or tossing out The Last Journal Entry, but I desist.

Re: Honest and Fragile

[(Anonymous)]

There are a lot of stories to come, and sometimes I feel like retconning the work or tossing out The Last Journal Entry, but I desist.

Well, you could at least add a few more digits to the date... it doesn't have anywhere nearly enough! :)

Though I generally loathe retcons, a retcon of TLJE is something I would heartily endorse.