Posted by Entirely_Logical 4 years ago Report

I certainly agree that bittersweet is a good way to describe the way this story ends. The way Chastity was finally able to crack Dr. Aliloka's shell , and the personal turn that this took for him towards the end... Such a shame that she only had a week, but the damage was already done. Seeing how Shadurak's tragedy mirrored her own - and knowing that her presence, and her insistence was at least partially responsible for allowing him to find something to hold onto amid his grief gives the whole finale an air of melancholy.

“I never wanted to be a conqueror.”, Premier Lonovah will tell her student some time in the future; it's quite clear that her colleagues - Lady Thorovo chief among them, talking about stripping humanity of even the name of their species - do not agree. This does leave me with some questions, though, regarding Eanlians who are apparently sympathetic to what humanity has lost, particularly between characters like Lonovah, or the iguana that was introduced in Hunting Paradise. How common, then, is that sympathy, and is there any organization or movement willing to act on it?

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

Thanks for the comment! Rather than immediately answer the question directly, it makes sense to allow future works to illuminate the situation more. Attempting to answer it here would lead to even greater confusion. This novella is the start of something I think of as "The Admission Cycle", and as I add more works to it, it will answer questions far better than I could down here in the comment section. It's more enjoyable that way, anyhow!

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Posted by Marked 4 years ago Report

I made an audible gasp as Shadurak's pain was laid bare. I'm a sucker for conflicted predators who would choose hunger over the easy path.

And now I've finally encountered some places on Eanli where I would be quite perfectly content to make a home. Something clicked with me about the pastoral culture shown in Verria, and even more so in the tundra town of Unakia Yeda. I've always found your work spectacular in terms of presenting diverse cultures, both alien and familiar. Still, I'd always felt that Eanli wouldn't be a place I'd like to live, just based on some of the cultural ideas. Ahhhh but how nice it was to find my own little sect that would have a feel of a home to me, where predators and prey have something akin to friendship and respect. Oh yes, of course its still quite perverse, even exploitative, but there are many worse places to call home.

And yes, I would make it my home with no regard to myself being cast as a predator or prey. Either way would be a good life.

Enough about me though. I've very glad I had a chance to enjoy this novella, and I will be delighted for any more that will follow. I have many questions, but as you pointed out yourself, it's more fun to learn the answer in the works themselves.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

Thanks for the wonderful comment, as always. I fully expected that the culture of the Arctic in Eanli would be controversial, and I even braced myself for some flak on that particular topic. Thus far, everyone seems pretty contemplative about it instead. That's a pleasant little surprise for me!

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Posted by FirstOf71st 4 years ago Report

This was quite interesting. I suppose every fantasy world-builder gets the urge to write a "world tour" story eventually, and this work does the job well. It comes across fairly strong character-wise despite the constantly changing setting and cast in each locale.

As someone most interested in the macro-scale aspects of this strange world, I was pleased to see the various permutations of predator-prey societies you've imagined. The mutualistic culture of the Eanlian artic particularly captivated my attention - I feel I could read a whole mythos of stories in this setting and still be enthralled. You said in another comment that you were afraid this portrayal would be controversial, but I say from an evolutionary perspective, it makes perfect sense. In a harsh environment, intelligent predators and prey would be forced into a close-knit, symbiotic relationship for survival, and cultural behaviors and belief systems would then follow suit.

Honestly, it's the rest of Eanli that feels more dystopian on its face: caste systems, farming and husbandry of prey species, and social engineering of segregated prey environments. But as usual, you've done such a good job of humanizing these aspects through the characters (if you'll pardon the ironic wording) that they appear as perfectly legitimate, even beautiful, modes of civilization. Of course, having your human protagonist be the doomed survivor of a religious cult and nuclear Armageddon also helps to soften the blow. Humanity here is looking pretty dismal in comparison.

Other notes:
Your "fun tags" are some of the most creative I've seen, keep it up.

I was beginning to wonder about the Eanlian interspecies sexual compatibility, so thanks for partially addressing that in part 1. I imagine this flexibility has something to do with why Ealians describe human DNA as "simplistic and crude."

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 4 years ago Report

Thanks again for all your wonderful comments. I like seeing how people engage with these and it seems like the setting itself is everyone's favorite character!

One of the major motifs I wanted to work with was an Alice in Wonderland theme. This is the entry to a sort of alien invasion series, but a very strange one. Even the Earth is strange in the story, as Chastity's background illustrates: intentionally poisoned American Southwest, knock-off designer disease bio-weapons, religious warfare in public view, the compartmentalization of economic classes, the resurgence of slavery... oh, whoops, this story didn't show some of those. Better delete this part of the comment ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H

Around this time of year, I notice that the chocolatiers putting out 'sampler packs' in heart-shaped boxes for some reason. This story is a way to give the reader a sampler pack of Eanli, to get a sense of what exactly we're dealing with. Some of these places are based on, or perhaps stolen from other works. Verria is based mostly upon the classic Hunting Hours stories that BizzareBlue writes (often in collaboration with others). Aphernia is based on the combination of things from Randomness, but also informed several other places and details about Eanli. Just like those boxes of chocolates, there's much more out there. As Chastity observed, she could spend a full human life exploring Eanli, and it would never be depleted of places and things to discover. Life is the adventure, right?

Regarding Eanlians and the origin of baby Eanlians, it's pretty similar to Earth. Hybrids do not happen without the help of a group of ethically compromised genetic engineers. There are some edge cases, such as a careless lion and tiger creating some half-lion, half-tiger cubs. That's a tragic outcome, but most cases where such pairings are possible are perfectly fine. Two people of related finch species may have offspring that are both species, and they would grow up with little persecution. A gazelle and a jaguar, however, cannot have a child through natural means, and neither can an owl and a turtle produce a horde of ridiculous owl-turtle things. That said, inter-species romance is perfectly acceptable throughout most of modern Eanli -- within certain constraints. A predator/prey romantic relationship is quite taboo to predators.

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Posted by NothingSyndromicAboutIt 4 years ago Report

Wow this was a scary story. Couldn't sleep after reading it. The way the coyote offhandedly talks about enslaving the Earth was pure evil! I think you might have the most sadistic predators on the site! Though Chastity doesn't seem too bright so I'm not surprised she just stood there and took it lol

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Posted by Entirely_Logical 4 years ago Report

Can we really describe his words as evil, though? Between this and The Perfect Student, humanity at this point of the continuity doesn't exactly have the best picture painted of itself, considering the mass extinction events and the constant socio-political strife.

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Posted by NothingSyndromicAboutIt 4 years ago Report

it's certainly better than whatever these predators have planned

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Posted by TestAccountPleaseIgnore 3 years ago Report

And, the other half.

I see Bergmann's rule applies to Eanli as it does to Earth, and why Eufenris is the way she is; her birthplace arguably values prey life more than Verria. Oh, sure, they get eaten, but, if I had to guess, fewer people, proportionately speaking, are dying than in Verria, which is the best-case scenario.

If Chastity is one of your best-written characters, Unakia Yeda is one of your best-written settings. Just a snapshot of better predator/prey relations from hundreds of years ago, chilling away in the Eanlian north. It'll never really change, will it? Even as everyone else spreads off-planet, Unakia Yeda will continue to do its own little thing, regardless of how amazing or nightmarish (both) Eanlian civilization on the outside gets. It makes sense from a realpolitik standpoint, too - they live in a sparsely-populated, freezing wasteland with no strategic value, meaning they're not going to get conquered.

There's something almost creepily existential about them. They're the Svalbard Seed Vault of medieval Eanli civilization.

“I met him once, during a big gathering. He was fine. Well-behaved, I suppose. He was four years younger than me. Shadurak’s brow twitched. “How… old were you? Fourteen.”
I am beginning to concur - just slightly - with several Eanlian predators in regards to the idea that humanity was a mistake.

Dris: The goat from Dris can be taken one of two ways, I think. Either he's simply being a boorish asshole, or he's trying to justify his own lack of freedom to himself by claiming that anyone he sees traveling in from outside Dris is enslaved/food/enslaved food, and that he's the only one who's truly free. Sour grapes, you know. And then, there are the carved reliefs, apparently from Dasacian (Dascadian?) visitors a long time ago. The more I read about Dasaci, the more uncanny it seems.

In regards to Thorovo's idea of renaming humanity...well, I can imagine other predator rulers looking at Thorovo sideways, slightly wide-eyed, and cringing slightly when they think she isn't looking. Out of curiosity, did you, as a writer, actually think about what that name would have been? Actually, how'd the predators come up with "Gardenia"? Did they just name it after the flower? Was it by some kind of world/worlds-government-level vote?

Oh, and - again, for you as a writer - what's up with Shadurak? I mean, I know he lost his family in a similar sort of unstoppable way to how Chastity did, and the two clearly connected in some way, but I can't really tell what's running through his head towards the end. Maybe it has something to do with fighting for human habitation rights, rather than...whatever Thorovo wants?

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 3 years ago Report

I'm glad you enjoyed this little story! Glancing over it with fresh eyes, it could stand some editing, but I'm proud of the characters and the plot.

Regarding the arctic cultures, people really respond to them! I'm relieved by this, because they're close to my heart for a few reasons. I wondered if people were going to find them boring in contrast with other parts of the setting. This is very fortunate, as I have, right now, a short novel that's heavily steeped in both the very same arctic group here, as well as Ghynlina. I'm fortunate to have a very skilled pre-reader help me with the editing, so it'll have WAY less weird mistakes than usual. :)

I don't think Eanlian predators consider humanity any kind of mistake, although they're going to have a predisposition to criticality of extant human cultures. The questions that Thorovo trying to answer are, "Can humans live in a culture that's mostly defined by non-human agents?" "Can humans thrive in shared civilization?" "Can humans co-exist amiably with other prey?"

Dris has her own vibrant and distinct collection of cultures. Why, it's practically a whole world unto itself! Contact and exchange with "outside" cultures is a normal and very historical thing for many of them. Dasaci is a relatively well-known quantity among the coastal areas, and those with central waterways, rather than a mysterious and distant land. Dasaci and those Dris cultures have long participated in an exchange of language, ideas, trade, and some technology. If something in Dris 'rhymes' with something in Dasaci, it is probably because it is a Dris execution of something with a Dasacian source, directly or indirectly. The next time, though, is it really Dasacian at that point? (We could ask an anthropologist, but we don't have all day, so let's not.)

Out of curiosity, did you, as a writer, actually think about what that name would have been? Actually, how'd the predators come up with "Gardenia"? Did they just name it after the flower? Was it by some kind of world/worlds-government-level vote?
1. They probably had several already, to fit into existing systems of classifications. I don't know what those are. To be fair, it's not terribly important. A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet. (In my case, actually, would smell like coffee, at the moment.)
2 & 3. That's Complicated! Messy, even. It's a flower-bearing tree, a little one, very commonly cultivated for gardens, but exasperatingly, confusingly named after a Dr. Garden??? But, that's the English-language name, surely it can't get more perplexing and serendipitous when Eanli-language gets involved. Right...?
4. See above, but after a point, the name stuck.

Oh, and - again, for you as a writer - what's up with Shadurak?
So, I gotta be mindful of the fact that these comments appear right under the story in some gallery views on this site. (If you're reading this under those circumstances, hello, yes, this is about YOU! Mild spoilers ahead!) I will say that Chastity is forcing Shadurak to finally confront some stuff, due to great many commonalities they share. It's the emotional core that's moving this entire story, really. It's a story about two people coming to terms with loss.

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Posted by TestAccountPleaseIgnore 3 years ago Report

I don't think Eanlian predators consider humanity any kind of mistake
Thank you for clearing that up, but that was kind of easy to mis-interpret. Generally, predators seemingly correlate more predator control of a society with increased...functionality, or good-ness, or being right, or whatever people value in a society. As such, a society with no ​predators would presumably be unthinkable - like a functional family with 0 parents. To be fair, they (as you said elsewhere) were surprised to find Earth, and not subatomic particles, and perhaps a predator-less society wasn't surprising in comparison, but old cultural mores clearly die VERY hard. Moreover, human society having broken down would presumably reinforce that belief - up until this explanation, I figured they saw human society as a self-destructive aberration that had to be wiped out lest it harm humans more, and the renaming-planets (and potentially species) thing simply added to that - if they're willing to go that far, it seemed, they're willing to do anything.

Of course, I meant it partially jokingly, because, holy shit, child marriage. I can certainly see why the predators are "critical" of that, at least...

The questions that Thorovo trying to answer are, "Can humans live in a culture that's mostly defined by non-human agents?" "Can humans thrive in shared civilization?" "Can humans co-exist amiably with other prey?"
Renaming humanity answers 0 such questions, except "does she either genuinely confuse or purposefully conflate her own self-interest and whims with the best interests of others, including other predators?", to which the answer is, from my perspective, yes. I recognize one of the themes you're writing about in later periods in your setting is "predators learning to stop being selfish and start being compassionate". Thorovo appears to be all the former and none of the latter, and therefore is essentially a personification of what needs to be overcome on the wider scale for that theme to push forward. Am I misreading her?

As for Dasaci, it being closer to Dris, and via water, makes more sense - like, they didn't walk across a continent to carve strange reliefs of unknown meaning into a cliff. Dasaci is still weird, though. Something about whatever the Chelash are, as well as the super-advanced tech.

As for Shadurak, I'm glad that this gave him a bit of resolve in regards to trying to change the future of Earth - not saying more, we don't need more spoilers. On the wider scale, it's good to see predators have, at the very least, ideological disagreements with one another - if they were all one, big happy family, that’d be rather boring, and it wouldn't make sense, either - there's a difference between the solidarity they evidently have and them simply going along with what another predator says because they have the same diet and anatomical features.

All in all, thanks for clearing this up a bit.

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Posted by ObsidianSnake 3 years ago Report

In the closing epilogue of this story, Thorovo is shown confirming that she had a change of heart over a few things after scrutinizing the events in this story. All the quotation breaks were thus revealed to be responses to the queries from her (or her aides). She's not changing it all at once, but such things take time.

Also, and this isn't a spoiler or anything, but she can party. You wouldn't think so, from how stuffy she is while "on the clock", but it's true.

Spooky Dasacian tech. Yeah, their culture moved on its own tempo, a very steady one. They never once had a major societal collapse, not even once. Because they're historically culturally independent and geographically isolated, they've found and built upon their own ways of doing things. This has led their technology being inexplicably designed from an foreign perspective. They're also always ahead of the rest of Eanli in very specific fields. They do get overtaken now and then, but the structure of Eanlian society means that they're always continuing development on everything, despite a lack of emphasis on breakthroughs or innovation.

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Posted by TestAccountPleaseIgnore 3 years ago Report

All the quotation breaks were thus revealed to be responses to the queries from her (or her aides) Well, I didn't know that; that puts things into more context. I figured she had kind of shut herself in a bubble, and that all the quotation breaks were unrelated to her.

Also, and this isn't a spoiler or anything, but she can party.
I am beginning to sense a theme with Aphernians.

This has led their technology being inexplicably designed from an foreign perspective That would explain Kelriot's not-telepathy.

These comments really help contextualize things.

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