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Leviathan Falls - spoilers tagged on first page only


Kalbear
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I'll play too. :D

On 12/14/2021 at 11:03 PM, Kalsandra said:

But then the Goths figure it out. They shoot the bullet at Ilus and it hits at least one Roman entity, and that causes all of their consciousnesses to tear themselves apart. Because their sense of self is largely quantum and photonic - a wave function across the galaxy of neuronic activity with no actual physical nerves to save it - when that consciousness EMP hits, there is no save file to restore. The entire mind is wiped out, the wave function collapsing and only multitudes of various symbiotic life carrying on as itself with no guiding mind to tell it what to do. Slugs, slime molds, jellyfish, all the types of life they adopted and interacted, all the different types of life forms as cells - completely cut off from a nervous system they didn't even know they had. Perhaps the Romans had the last desperate effort to shut off the gate system and close all the gates and prevent the Goths from doing more attacks, but it didn't matter. They were dead, a spasming of a muscle severed from its body, all chickens with heads cut off and never to be replaced.

Minor (?) quibble here, but the Romans tried shutting off the gates before building "tools that would stop them" according to Miller (page 488, chapter 47). Or at least that's how I read the passage.
And then Jim figures out that the Romans only shut down the gates, not the "slow zone."

I wondered a bit whether the Goths were individuals, but that's not clear. In chapter 48 (Alex), it says "one of the things had gone for her." But then I checked and at the end of chapter 45 (Naomi) they're described as "threads of living blackness, more solid and real than anything she'd ever seen." In chapter 47 (Jim), it says "From this perspective, the intrusion of the enemy on the Rocinante and on all the other vessels was a single thing. A deformation in the lines of force that kept the ring space from collapsing back into nothingness" and then "He was too small, and the pressure, the deformation, was coming from everywhere at once."
And from this I can conclude... nothing. :D
Because the Goths are made of some kind of pure energy and because they are (one way or the other) super-fast in "our" universe, they could either be a single entity, or a multitude of very well-coordinated individuals.

Another thing of interest (imho): partner pointed out that the way the Goths attacked was almost like taking samples. She thought the Goths weren't actually attacking. I disagree with her, but it's true they have an odd way of tearing holes in matter indiscriminately, as if they couldn't make the difference between organic matter (i.e. humans) and what they travel in (i.e. the ships). It's not exactly "fighting" as we know it. Or, to put it differently, it's more like tearing down a wall with a sledgehammer than shooting at it or using explosives. It seems they can't make the difference between humans and their tools...

The really odd bit is that, even though something "screams" when Jim fights against it, there's no way of knowing for sure whether the threads of darkness were the Goths themselves, a weapon linked to their consciousness, or a sentient weapon.
Otoh, given the fact that they seem unable to make the difference between different types of matter, I'd say that they don't have the concept of tools or weapons. So the threads were probably the Goth(s) themselves...

On 12/14/2021 at 11:03 PM, Kalsandra said:

Then the prisoner dilemma at Tecoma happens. Now, they have something new that occurs - a significantly painful event in some way, or at least an interesting one. They do the same basic thing they did with Sol and Ilus - another bullet somewhere in Tecoma. And that causes the most interesting thing to happen in 2 billion years. 

The gate network takes a blast so powerful that for a short period of time, the Goths can actually enter that space. They can clean that abscess of horrible universe, enter that space in a way they've never been able to. For the first time in 2 billions years, they have a glimmer of a cure, a cosmological chemotherapy that may finally work. They're able to reach out to ALL the systems on the gates and use their bullet on all of them.

For some reason I didn't read it the way you did.
I personally got the feeling that the Goths could always enter that space, but just weren't angry enough to do it again (for all we know, venturing in our material universe is super unpleasant/difficult for them).
I think my reading is confirmed in LF, because the Goths come back the moment Duarte dies.  So I think before Duarte takes control of the ring station, they could have attacked the slow zone at any time, but didn't, because they didn't see any point in doing that.

Way I read it, the Goths were actually highly logical creatures. Or yes, as @Ser Scot A Ellison says, maybe the "slow zone" just wasn't that big a deal for them.
They tried shooting a "bullet" after the Magnetar fires, and that didn't work. Then, after Tecoma, they clean the slow zone, and that kind of works: for some time the traffic diminishes.
But when the traffic comes back, they don't wipe the slow zone again. They could, but they know it won't be a permanent fix. So they try other stuff instead.
And then Duarte attacks them, and they go on a war footing, so that they're ready to "invade" the moment Duarte dies.

One thing I find remarkable here, is that it's obvious to me that the Goths never attacked gratuitously. Or, to put it differently, they didn't try the same thing twice. If something failed to solve their problem definitely, they moved on to something else.

One other thing (since I really don't have anything better to do right now): I think the "bullet" is just a portal/doorway. IIRC Elvi goes through it, right? So I think the "bullet" is just the remnant of a tear between the two universes. And something goes through that portal, something that worked on the Romans, but not on humans.

It's very clear to me that the last bullet was fired on the Romans' homeworld, which was still the "epicenter" of their consciousness. But I dunno if Ilus was that homeworld. Could be, because the entire planet was full of tunnels and structures, right? Not to mention the moons as defensive structures. I guess that's what you'd expect from the Romans' homeworld. Also, there was an ocean. With slugs in it.
It's a bit convenient that humanity found the homeworld that quickly, and that Holden happened to take some protomolecule there though. But otoh, I don't remember it being mentioned that another comparable planet was found, right? That surprised me a little, too. I expected several other planets to look like Ilus...

Ah, one last thing... How many bullets were shot at humanity already? I don't remember more than one bullet being fired, right?
That's actually a bit odd. I think it's quite clear that the Goths fired several bullets at the Romans until they found the homeworld. So it's a bit odd that, after their first bullet failed against humanity, they didn't fire a few more bullets in the hope of finding the homeworld again. Instead they switched to other means rather quickly...
So that would mean... they knew it failed, which means they were able to use the bullet/tear to ascertain its effects.
It's something I actually expected in LF: I thought that humanity would study these void bullets to see if they could use it to communicate... Or even travel to the other universe. But I guess the portal closed on its own after some time, so even though the Goths could use to spy on our universe (briefly for us, but could be a long time for them), by the time humanity tried to do it it was too late...
 

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Obviously sheer speculation… but what do you think the weapons to be used against the Goths were?  I didn’t get the impression that Duarte was in position to use them yet since he said he needed to convert the human race first.

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We don't know much, but Jim is described as "pushing" and Miller compares it to a dam. A "unified" humanity can hold the "structure of the rings" that's like a "construction mech." So it's some sort of dam, that applies pressure on the other universe through a form of thought, and draws energy from it thanks to that pressure. The pressure has to be relatively uniform (many minds/"hands" with a unified purpose), or the energy flows around the "dam" like water. But once it is in place, it seems to be able to use the energy of the other universe against it, like a "judo move." This amounts to neutralizing any attempt to invade our universe, and since the Goth(s) themselves are probably made of energy, may very well destroy them in the process. At the very least, it no doubt slows them down by taking away their energy, "like a turbine slows down the wind just a little."
Of course, we don't know what impact it has exactly, but siphoning energy from the other universe, a "source of unimaginable energy," is probably very destructive. The closest analogy I can come up with if someone managed to take the gravity from our universe and use it as energy in theirs. We're not even made of gravity, and that would still wreak havoc on an indescribable scale. So I guess when Duarte or Jim "push," they pretty much create an apocalypse on the other side.
To nuance a bit, I would still assume this apocalyptic attack is localized. Creating the "slow zone" must have required insane amounts of energy, and I doubt the pressure is applied on the entirety of the other universe. It's described as a "bubble blown into the holes in the spectrum," so I guess it's about the "jellyfish" somehow turning their weird collective consciousness into a form (Photonic wave?) that can create a bubble toward/in the other universe (?). The bubble would be temporary without the "construction mech" to hold it in place.
Minor point: in a "dream," Duarte says the Romans weren't able to "effectively use certain tools," so somehow humanity can "push" harder than the Romans could. So the Romans could "think" the bubble and then the "construction mech" (and use other (much faster) lifeforms to create the structure), but their collective mind was not strong enough to keep pushing (they couldn't "push" on the dam/bubble for very long). We don't know what the long-term effects of the "merging" would have on humanity after all (Wouldn't individual memories slowly fade? We're at least certain there would be no new individual experiences) ; perhaps the jellyfish also suffered unpleasant effects if they tried fighting the Goth(s) like that, so they tried other weapons instead, but were destroyed before they came up with anything. Jim realizes it's best to just end the war by collapsing the bubble.

Edited by Rippounet
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I really like Kal's conception of it, particularly the idea that the Romans were actually burning systems for non fatal attacks that weren't actually working because I agree it seems like the final bullet killed the entire civilization in one hit. With what we're shown of how it ultimately works, that approach should always have been non local so it being other attacks makes sense.

Personally I think the closest analogy for the Goths attacks is actually more akin to an immune system response than a war. It fits into what I feel is one of the wider theme of some conflicts being between parties who don't even realize the other is "people". We had the analogy of the Romans building a road over an ant hill with no actual malice for the humans they didn't know existed. I think the Goths viewing the whole thing as a sort of cosmic cancer, it is a growth in the lining of their universe after all, and systematically trying their equivalents of cosmic chemo works better for me than realizing there are entities on the other side of it. Taken with the indiscriminate "sampling" that doesn't distinguish between people and ships they're basically taking a biopsy.

Also liking the idea that the effect of leeching energy from their universe, which I'd been thinking of as increasing entropy, could do something equivalent to fucking with their gravity. It's essentially changing the fundamental laws of physics in their universe - quite similar to what they do to us.

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Here's how I viewed things. The gate network is a bubble of our universe, that the Romans managed to create and place in the Goths universe. This allowed the Romans to create shortcuts all throughout our universe. This is why nothing ever returns from going beyond the gate network; you're quite literally going beyond the bubble and into the Goths universe. The network required an insane amount of power, which was being drained from the Goth's universe. This was very painful for them, but not unmanageable at first. Once the Romans started over using the gate network the pain became too much and the Goths started looking for ways to deal with it. From the Goths point of view, I don't think they view the Romans and humans as sentient creatures and more like a virus, that they need to purge from their universe.

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On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:

I'll play too. :D

Minor (?) quibble here, but the Romans tried shutting off the gates before building "tools that would stop them" according to Miller (page 488, chapter 47). Or at least that's how I read the passage.
And then Jim figures out that the Romans only shut down the gates, not the "slow zone."

IMO, they tried destroying individual gates, not the whole gate system. Remember at the start of Abbadon's gate how all the gates were just closed at that point. That's what I was referring to. 

On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:

Because the Goths are made of some kind of pure energy and because they are (one way or the other) super-fast in "our" universe, they could either be a single entity, or a multitude of very well-coordinated individuals.

Or they're not actually entities in the classic sense and are simply a property of the universe, though I don't really think that.

On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:

Another thing of interest (imho): partner pointed out that the way the Goths attacked was almost like taking samples. She thought the Goths weren't actually attacking. I disagree with her, but it's true they have an odd way of tearing holes in matter indiscriminately, as if they couldn't make the difference between organic matter (i.e. humans) and what they travel in (i.e. the ships). It's not exactly "fighting" as we know it. Or, to put it differently, it's more like tearing down a wall with a sledgehammer than shooting at it or using explosives. It seems they can't make the difference between humans and their tools...

The really odd bit is that, even though something "screams" when Jim fights against it, there's no way of knowing for sure whether the threads of darkness were the Goths themselves, a weapon linked to their consciousness, or a sentient weapon.
Otoh, given the fact that they seem unable to make the difference between different types of matter, I'd say that they don't have the concept of tools or weapons. So the threads were probably the Goth(s) themselves...

I don't think they had any inkling of what a human was or what animals were or anything like that. To them, the 'offending' part was simply the actual matter behavior of our universe in its entirety. 

My viewpoint was that they were not attacking so much as erasing. If you paint something in MSPaint and take the eraser function it's pretty similar to my headcanon - just big long strokes wiping out whole sections of things and not really caring about individual pixels, leaving indiscriminately my stick figure and my stick spaceship behind.

On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:

For some reason I didn't read it the way you did.
I personally got the feeling that the Goths could always enter that space, but just weren't angry enough to do it again (for all we know, venturing in our material universe is super unpleasant/difficult for them).

I don't think that really follows personally. The only time they were able to enter the ring space that we know of was after it had taken the hit from Tecoma. And they definitely did bump up their game as far as killing things when Duarte sent the bombship through. 

My feeling is that the station was acting on standby and doing a vaguely okay job of keeping things out. Then Duarte took over and removed the automatic tools that were keeping the space around forever. But that meant when Duarte left, the station wasn't on standby, so there was nothing operating the mind tool that was used to keep the bubble going. 

On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:


I think my reading is confirmed in LF, because the Goths come back the moment Duarte dies.  So I think before Duarte takes control of the ring station, they could have attacked the slow zone at any time, but didn't, because they didn't see any point in doing that.

The goths come back the moment that Duarte dies - but also remember that Jim allows the space to be wiped out by them later, too. That definitely didn't happen before, and it's definitely something that the Goths seem to want. 

On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:


But when the traffic comes back, they don't wipe the slow zone again. They could, but they know it won't be a permanent fix. So they try other stuff instead.

I don't think that's accurate. After Tecoma they start trying other things to fuck with people. And there was a bit of traffic but nothing horrifying - IIRC at that point Laconia was telling everyone 'no traffic, don't do shit'. 

And that proceeded to get worse and worse in terms of trying things. 

On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:


One thing I find remarkable here, is that it's obvious to me that the Goths never attacked gratuitously. Or, to put it differently, they didn't try the same thing twice. If something failed to solve their problem definitely, they moved on to something else.

I don't know that that's true. We really don't know what they tried in Tecoma. We have a pretty good idea that what they did to the Magnetar was exactly what they did to Ilus. 

On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:

One other thing (since I really don't have anything better to do right now): I think the "bullet" is just a portal/doorway. IIRC Elvi goes through it, right? So I think the "bullet" is just the remnant of a tear between the two universes. And something goes through that portal, something that worked on the Romans, but not on humans.

It's very clear to me that the last bullet was fired on the Romans' homeworld, which was still the "epicenter" of their consciousness. But I dunno if Ilus was that homeworld. Could be, because the entire planet was full of tunnels and structures, right? Not to mention the moons as defensive structures. I guess that's what you'd expect from the Romans' homeworld. Also, there was an ocean. With slugs in it.
It's a bit convenient that humanity found the homeworld that quickly, and that Holden happened to take some protomolecule there though. But otoh, I don't remember it being mentioned that another comparable planet was found, right? That surprised me a little, too. I expected several other planets to look like Ilus...

I really don't think that was the homeworld, and given the alocal photonic nature of the Roman consciousness I don't think that it's necessary for it to be, either. I also think that given how the attacks happen in LF that the Goths didn't think that either. It might be required that there exist something Roman-y to be on Ilus to effectively transmit that attack, but even that might not be needed. 

Laconia was filled with tons of tunnels too, after all, and we know from Tanaka's dialog that many of the Roman planets had underground transit systems similar to Ilus. 

But yes, it's super convenient that Ilus happened to have one of these bullets. I would have expected more of them throughout the systems, at least somewhere. 

I guess that's the other possibility - that there were other bullets in all the other systems, and humans didn't find them. It wasn't exactly easy to find the bullet in Ilus, and it required Millercule to tell Holden where to go and activate a private transport system to get there. It might just have been that those bullets were everywhere and we never saw them. Given how the bullets only affected the consciousness in one system at a time (until the Tecoma thing), and the bullets later only affected cosmological constants in a given system at a time, it kind of makes sense that there are bullets all over the place and are just super super hard to find. 

 

On 12/15/2021 at 3:32 PM, Rippounet said:

Ah, one last thing... How many bullets were shot at humanity already? I don't remember more than one bullet being fired, right?

Not sure what you mean by "already". 

We only know of the one fired in Sol. I think prior to the events in TW that's the only one that happens that we know of. 

 

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7 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

My viewpoint was that they were not attacking so much as erasing. If you paint something in MSPaint and take the eraser function it's pretty similar to my headcanon - just big long strokes wiping out whole sections of things and not really caring about individual pixels, leaving indiscriminately my stick figure and my stick spaceship behind.

I like your image. :P

Reminds me of Stephen King's Langoliers...

7 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

I don't think that really follows personally. The only time they were able to enter the ring space that we know of was after it had taken the hit from Tecoma. And they definitely did bump up their game as far as killing things when Duarte sent the bombship through. 

My feeling is that the station was acting on standby and doing a vaguely okay job of keeping things out. Then Duarte took over and removed the automatic tools that were keeping the space around forever. But that meant when Duarte left, the station wasn't on standby, so there was nothing operating the mind tool that was used to keep the bubble going.

Hmmm... That works.

Interesting. Your view of the Goth(s) as "mechanically" defending their universe works just as well as my view of them playing the "tit for tat" game.

Not sure there's a way to decide one way or the other... The books may allow for different readings...

7 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

The goths come back the moment that Duarte dies - but also remember that Jim allows the space to be wiped out by them later, too. That definitely didn't happen before, and it's definitely something that the Goths seem to want.

My reading is that they just weren't pissed enough to wipe out the slow zone again. They knew it wouldn't work (as in, destroy humanity for good), so they directed their resources elsewhere.

But Duarte going on the offensive made them super pissed. As soon as that offensive stopped, they went all-out, no longer purely logical, but determined to hurt.
 

7 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

I don't think that's accurate. After Tecoma they start trying other things to fuck with people. And there was a bit of traffic but nothing horrifying - IIRC at that point Laconia was telling everyone 'no traffic, don't do shit'. 

And that proceeded to get worse and worse in terms of trying things.

I'm not sure there's anything in the books that can tell use whether the Goth(s) didn't attack the slow zone again because they wouldn't or because they couldn't...

7 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

I guess that's the other possibility - that there were other bullets in all the other systems, and humans didn't find them. It wasn't exactly easy to find the bullet in Ilus, and it required Millercule to tell Holden where to go and activate a private transport system to get there. It might just have been that those bullets were everywhere and we never saw them. Given how the bullets only affected the consciousness in one system at a time (until the Tecoma thing), and the bullets later only affected cosmological constants in a given system at a time, it kind of makes sense that there are bullets all over the place and are just super super hard to find.

Good point.

7 minutes ago, Kalsandra said:

We only know of the one fired in Sol. I think prior to the events in TW that's the only one that happens that we know of.

Right. So, as I said, it seems the Goth(s) quickly figured out firing more bullets at humanity wasn't doing to do much good.

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The way I viewed the void bullets was, every time the Goths shut off human minds in a system, it was the firing of a bullet. However galaxies are rather huge places, so finding them is no easy task for humanity. The first bullet shot at humanity, was when the Tempest fired it's primary weapon, so the Goths probably fired it at that ship directly. The others seemed to be more random attacks and could be in any part of the galaxies they were fired at. It's also interesting to note, that the Goths were not effected by the Tempest firing it's weapon in the slow zone. I wonder if that bubble of space blocked them from feeling it's use.

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15 minutes ago, sifth said:

The way I viewed the void bullets was, every time the Goths shut off human minds in a system, it was the firing of a bullet. However galaxies are rather huge places, so finding them is no easy task for humanity. The first bullet shot at humanity, was when the Tempest fired it's primary weapon, so the Goths probably fired it at that ship directly. The others seemed to be more random attacks and could be in any part of the galaxies they were fired at.

Damn, you're right, this makes way more sense.

 

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2 hours ago, sifth said:

The way I viewed the void bullets was, every time the Goths shut off human minds in a system, it was the firing of a bullet. However galaxies are rather huge places, so finding them is no easy task for humanity. The first bullet shot at humanity, was when the Tempest fired it's primary weapon, so the Goths probably fired it at that ship directly. The others seemed to be more random attacks and could be in any part of the galaxies they were fired at. It's also interesting to note, that the Goths were not effected by the Tempest firing it's weapon in the slow zone. I wonder if that bubble of space blocked them from feeling it's use.

Yeah, the energy never left their space, so they didn't give a fuck.  It's the taking of energy from their universe to ours that pisses them off. *

*er, causes / triggers them to respond 

Edited by 1066 Larry
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  • 2 weeks later...

https://booknest.eu/reviews/charles/2351-leviathansfall

4.5/5

LEVIATHAN FALLS is the final installment of the Expanse series and an overall satisfying one. We've been through the Rocinante's adventures past numerous events like the Protomolecule, Ringates, devastation of Earth at the hands of Marco Inaros, and then the rise of Laconia. We finally get a resolution to the plot of the Goths, though, and dealing with a foe that is so far above humanity that they wiped out a race who was already millions of years more advanced than mankind.

The premise is that the human race is suffering large numbers of losses from a mysterious extra-dimensional force that is destroying them in an attempt to stop all portal network travel. They cannot or won't communicate with humanity and mankind is not really doing much to try on their end. Laconian dictator, Duarte, has awakened from his coma but the creature that has emerged is not necessarily the man who went under.

The Rocinante crew is also on the run, a state they're familiar with, as they have managed to free Holden from Laconian imprisonment as well as get away with Theresa Duarte. Unfortunately, their knock-out blow against Laconia has failed. The Laconians are still the most powerful force in the human star systems and they are continuing to dominate humanity's thousand colonies.

Because Duarte is basically a ghost trying to become a god (and thus off camera for the majority of the book), the majority of the tension comes from Colonel Tanaka who is determined to hunt down the Rocinante crew. She is an exceptionally talented and skilled officer who is, nevertheless, completely loyal to the Laconian ideal. She develops a pathological hatred of James Holden during their first encounter and becomes their personal Boba Fett for the rest of the book.

I've never been a huge fan of the protomolecule elements of the story over the social critique and conflict among nations. In a very real way, the Goths and protomolecule elements have always been like the White Walkers in A Song of Ice and Fire for me. Which is to say they're a major part of the setting but not what I read it for. I would have much preferred continuing the war against Laconia and its embodying of humanity's worst impulses to authoritarianism and militarism but the story was never going to end there.

The story focuses a lot on the nature of the Goths, the nature of the protomolecule race, and also how humanity might have to evolve itself in order to use the protomolecule race's technology. Sadly, there's not much character development of the Goths and I was really hoping someone would try to communicate with them. The Expanse takes the view that aliens are going to be, well, alien, and the idea of being able to interact is something that requires absolutely breathtakingly weird circumstances. It requires several miracles to interact with the protomolecule machinery "spirits" and the Goths are an order of magnitude weirder than they are.

I would have appreciated a little more insight into the fates of several characters in the series, particularly Filip Inaros/Nagata but I feel like the book overall stuck to the landing. We get conclusive endings to a number of the characters and all the major plotlines are finished. One character ends up in a position I never thought he would and if he becomes the guiding principle for humanity, well, God help us all.

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I finished a couple days ago and have been thinking a lot about the ending (loved it). Something that I've been turning over in my head: epilogue aside, do you think humanity is - on scale - better off having found and utilized the protomolecule with all that came with it, or would it have been better if they'd never found it at all? 

I like the idea that humanity had 1300 chances to do better, but it was also 1300 chances to do worse as well, alongside all the tragedy that came along with the protomolecule - experiments, new weapons, new wars, inability to sustain life on some systems. 

I'm torn. 

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20 hours ago, Underfoot said:

I finished a couple days ago and have been thinking a lot about the ending (loved it). Something that I've been turning over in my head: epilogue aside, do you think humanity is - on scale - better off having found and utilized the protomolecule with all that came with it, or would it have been better if they'd never found it at all? 

I like the idea that humanity had 1300 chances to do better, but it was also 1300 chances to do worse as well, alongside all the tragedy that came along with the protomolecule - experiments, new weapons, new wars, inability to sustain life on some systems. 

I'm torn. 

I think this is the best answer:

Holden would say yes.

Miller would say no.

Duarte would say hell no.

Amos would just shrug and go, "It is what it is."

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20 hours ago, Underfoot said:

I finished a couple days ago and have been thinking a lot about the ending (loved it). Something that I've been turning over in my head: epilogue aside, do you think humanity is - on scale - better off having found and utilized the protomolecule with all that came with it, or would it have been better if they'd never found it at all? 

I like the idea that humanity had 1300 chances to do better, but it was also 1300 chances to do worse as well, alongside all the tragedy that came along with the protomolecule - experiments, new weapons, new wars, inability to sustain life on some systems. 

I'm torn. 

I think perhaps not in the short term but maybe in the long term? I think without the expansion to other star systems there was a serious risk of humanity wiping itself out given how much antagonism there was between the different factions and how fragile the planets were to attacks such as the one we saw in the series. That risk is significantly reduced with multiple apparently viable colonies which at least initially don't have any contact with each other.

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Just finished this, got it for Christmas! Not much to say about the wider scope stuff with the Romans and Goths other than that I found it a satisfying conclusion. I wondered how the guys would pull that off but they did it really well.

On Kit's chapters, I think folks have missed the role those are playing in the narrative. They're not there to provide an explanation of why Alex leaves at the end, that's largely ancillary. They're there to provide an emotional grounding to the big conflict between Duarte and the gang. Kit and his family are the argument against Duarte: characters whose biggest concerns are making a career choice and thinking about how that will impact on their family and their child's health and whether the baby is keeping the neighbours awake. That they happen to be related to one of the main characters provides an emotional resonance that would otherwise be hard to achieve. At the same time, they're not familiar characters like Prax or Filip who have been part of the bigger picture, so they're more representative of the ordinary humanity that Duarte is going to remove.

(One of the biggest moments for me in the book is when the Preiss goes Dutchman and for a minute I was thinking they were really going to kill off Alex's son, daughter-in-law and grandchild and have him be partly, unknowingly responsible for that and wow, that would have been a major emotional move. Even as it is, Alex must have found out about that afterwards and that would have given him a few sleepless nights...)

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I understood the purpose of Kit's chapters. Especially using him as a PoV of getting erased by the goths and then Duarte saving them. I just felt they weren't particularly interesting and dragged down the narrative speed and flow. 

I suspect we could have had just two parts with him - the lighthouse and the keeper chapter where they almost die, and the aftermath where they are seeing how other thoughts intrude and thinking about how they've created Alia of the knife as their child. 

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On 1/1/2022 at 9:47 PM, Underfoot said:

I finished a couple days ago and have been thinking a lot about the ending (loved it). Something that I've been turning over in my head: epilogue aside, do you think humanity is - on scale - better off having found and utilized the protomolecule with all that came with it, or would it have been better if they'd never found it at all? 

I like the idea that humanity had 1300 chances to do better, but it was also 1300 chances to do worse as well, alongside all the tragedy that came along with the protomolecule - experiments, new weapons, new wars, inability to sustain life on some systems. 

I'm torn. 

Yes, almost certainly better.  1300 minus the unsustainable systems is still roughly 10-50 conservatively systems that are sustainable, compared to everything in the Sol basket.  I don't see how the counter argument holds, especially if it's more like 100-500, as the vast majority of gate systems had more habitability than the Belt.

You could make a counter argument maybe that the Navoo colonizes a nearby system, and humanity spreads out via generation ships, but though I havent run numbers on exponential growth in that scenario, the gates surely increased surviabiliyt and growth potential.

Though I wonder, the voluntary extinction people would probably feel the same regardless of 1000 more worlds.  Doesnt change the math in the longer run.

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5 hours ago, Kalsandra said:

I understood the purpose of Kit's chapters. Especially using him as a PoV of getting erased by the goths and then Duarte saving them. I just felt they weren't particularly interesting and dragged down the narrative speed and flow. 

I suspect we could have had just two parts with him - the lighthouse and the keeper chapter where they almost die, and the aftermath where they are seeing how other thoughts intrude and thinking about how they've created Alia of the knife as their child. 

I'm not sure you really understand the purpose of Kit's chapters if you think it could have been accomplished with those two chapters.

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11 hours ago, mormont said:

I'm not sure you really understand the purpose of Kit's chapters if you think it could have been accomplished with those two chapters.

I disagree. I don't think we needed to spend a ton of time on it and the point and purpose can be made without a whole ton of exposition. 

Removing them also solves or at least helps another problem, which is that the first half of the book kind of drags a bit. 

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