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simowis · 4 months

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Discussing ' A Deepness in the Sky' - with Javik

I sat next to Javik. He silently covered my hand with his, closing his eyes in synchronisation with my reading experience.

"You still miss the feeling of reading in the middle of this book."

I sighed, "It was a great reading experience back then. I had closed the book again and again, imagining the development of the different factions. Of course, 'Focus', that important technology, played a very strong role in the middle."

"Javik, we did talk about 'Focus' at that time."

"Yes." The memory came to me through his hand.

------------Focus------------

A virus that once ravaged the planet, causing the tragic death of large swathes of the population. It was eventually domesticated and turned into a useful tool. The Rulers used it to infect civilians, and after fine-tuning the infected virus brain, the infected were set to 'be Focused'. People be ‘Focused’ will pay great attention to 'only one speciality'. But the adjusted virus also suppresses all their other emotions and desires, even physiological needs have to be arranged by others, like walking dead 'machines'. There are many cases in the book where they have developed their specialities to the extreme. There are 'Focused' managers who can pay attention to the subtle changes of each person and seamlessly distribute the division of labour for everyone; 'Focused' artists who can create masterpieces that are like a heavenly realm; 'Focused' researchers who have genius-like concentration and imagination; a group of 'Focused' programmers who can collectively create a Focused programming language that produces programs that are extremely efficient and effective, and so on…

Many different areas of 'Focused' people are managed by professionals. They give relatively vague and general instructions, like laymen leading experts, so they can't understand the details of the 'Focused' one's work. Wrong instructions will lead the 'Focused' in useless directions, because the 'Focused' can only perform tasks and lose the ability to judge the rationality of the tasks. Managers are also responsible for maintaining the physiology of the Focused and giving the virus regular adjustments. This neglect can be fatal, in the worst case causing a large number of 'Focused' to die like dominoes. There is a way to 'free' the 'Focused', to restore their consciousness and freedom, to return to normal. But the virus that destroys during 'liberation' will also destroy the part of the brain that contains professional knowledge. The people who recover in this way can't do their original work, they would have to learn new directions again, which is half a waste.

"Ah!" I interrupted, "That attitude was abandoned, all 'liberated' people kept their expertise for free. That sucks…" "I said so at the time." He was not surprised.

We returned to the vivid memory. I sighed, "'Focused' people are so pitiful. They are controlled like slaves, someone will die due to poor care, even though they have no self-awareness at that time… The managers treat them only as valuable tools, they see to it that the 'assets' are damaged."

"You humans really love to enslave your own kind…" Javik pointed out sharply, "I suppose the Asari are the same. You primitives judge others by yourselves, which your Asari said we Protheans 'enslave'."

"Hell no!" I protested, "It was clearly you who said that our primitive party was an 'auction' in your cycle. What about the 'Welcome to the Empire'?"

Javik replied calmly, "Fifty thousand years ago, you primitives couldn't even write. We bought and sold primitives, just as you humans buy and sell pets in your cycle. What's wrong with that? On the contrary…" He looked at me mockingly, "The fleet leader in your book uses his own kind as 'assets' and wastes them needlessly. The details of the description are so rich, I suppose the reality of your people's society is also…"

"This faction is obviously a villain! We have always been against slavery. Loving freedom is human nature, I believe the Asari are the same." My voice rose, "Javik, if you have this technology, wouldn't you use it on your people?"

He fell silent. He leaned to one side against the wall and narrowed his eyes slightly, "Yes," he finally replied, "I will use it…"

"See…" I spread my hands.

"It can help us fight the Reapers." He added. "We're prey, we're in no position to talk about decency. I have seen too many scenes of harvesting, each one a nightmare. Even if 'Focused' sacrifices our souls, as long as it can increase our fighting power…" Javik paused and looked off to the side into the void, as if someone were there, "One life can be exchanged for more lives, my people will rush to be 'Focused'."

I opened my mouth, swallowing the question I wanted to ask, but he read it anyway. "Yes, when it's my turn, I'll use it too."

I regretted it, I shouldn't have brought it up. But this Prothean didn't care, he went on, "This is excellent biotechnology, if the sanctuary hadn't been destroyed, I would use it to speed up my Empire's revival".

"But this isn't…?"

"Its shortcomings are obvious, and the direction of improvement is clear. All that's needed is to find the switch to toggle the 'focus' state, then the suppressed personal will, judgement and autonomy will be regained." Javik blinked, "I prefer to 'focus' my biologist first and have him work on the 'switch'. According to my predictions, this won't take long."

He snorted, "The Captain has deliberately not done this research in order to control his little kingdom. Stupidity, that shackle wasted so many unnecessary lives."

"But that would be boring! The novel can't reflect the double-edged sword of technology if it's written like that!" I was so disappointed.

The Prothean shook his head, "You are wrong, the part that can be improved is never a double-edged sword. The paradox of technology is that we can't predict the future direction, perhaps when we fully master 'Focus' we will realise that it has already had irreversible consequences.“

------------System------------

He let go of my hand. The memory stopped abruptly.

"You guessed right," I admitted. "The 'Focus' was optimised, the bad guys were punished, the good guys got their happiness. The end of this book is extremely boring."

"And full of indoctrination, pure and simple,," he teased, "much worse than the Reapers' method."

"The Merchants' superior liberal trading system, allied with the limited monarchy of the Spider People, defeated the evil slave dictatorship faction." I glanced at the last page of this book, published in 1999, in America. "Books of that time liked to promote their own system like this. This is a sermon, this is their belief. The Americans of that time sincerely believed that their system was incomparably superior. They tried to spread it all over the world."

"But this book has no cases, no tests and no arguments. It simply associates 'advanced' and 'superior' with the system it wants to praise, and 'backward' and 'evil' with the system it wants to despise. Isn't that indoctrination?"

I sighed, "You are right. Preaching and indoctrination are just two ways of saying it, we humans have always been like that, where there is pomp and circumstance there is complacency. Everything in the age of prosperity, the system, culture, even race, becomes part of the sense of superiority. Until the system is about to collapse, the greatness is gone, the evil is rampant, then some of us will reflect. But most people are still struggling and sinking…"

Prothean pointed out, "You don't believe what this book says, what about your own thoughts?"

"I… don't know…" I looked at his four eyes in confusion, "The more I read, the less I understand. Humans evolved from tribes of a dozen to nations of billions. Tribes, slavery, matriarchy, patriarchy; gradually evolved into city-states, nations. The structure and the form of power organisation have merged many times. There are too many forms of systems, and each has its successes and failures… So far, I can only say that there is no ideal and universal system".

"The winner takes the cake and the loser gets chewed up. Between nations it is the naked law of the jungle". Javik summarised, "You humans are like that, we Protheans…" He thought for a moment, "No, we are not the same. The struggles within my race are more transparent, we will not lose control to the point of destroying our civilisation."

"What was it like in your time of prosperity?" I had been curious for a long time.

He thought quietly for a while, looked at the memory shard and finally turned his head. "I was not born in that era, the inherited fragments are too few. I can't give you the answer. But…"

His eyes fixed on me.

"You have thought a lot about my race, you can speculate on your own."

#A Deepness in the Sky #book review #crossover

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simowis · 5 months

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"commander~~☆"

#mass effect #mass effect fanart #javik #mass effect javik #my art

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simowis · 5 months

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Talk between Vegeta and Javik 5

Well, I wrote a long one this time. And felt a bit shy while writing it… But anyway, I really meant it.

*translated by DeepL and vetted by me.

——Something they should never talk about——

Vegeta: "My back is tingling... I swear, there's a bastard watching us. Did you notice?The probe I just smashed is gone.“

Javik: "Nothing escapes my eyes, that device dissolved into thin air right before me."

Vegeta leaped to where the probe had been, he stomped on nothing, no sound of breaking. The Saiyan furrowed his brows and slowly walked back.

""Do you remember how you got here?" he shouted at the Prothean.

Javik shook his head: "No. And I know you don't either."

"I can never stand the sensing abilities of that four-eyed bug..." Vegeta muttered as he approached the Prothean. "Forget it, regardless of your lack of alertness, whoever can transfer me to this hellhole without my consciousness must be tough to handle."

Javik nodded, "Yes. This room is very odd, I can only sense biomass from both of us, if someone is watching us, it is not organic."

He said as he casually touched the wall, his body suddenly stiffening. After a while, he let go of his hand and turned his head to staring at Vegeta with all four eyes.

"Saiyan, have you ever wondered that maybe our world is not real?" he asked in a strange tone.

The topic changed so abruptly. Vegeta glared at the Prothean.

"'Fairytale World', 'Wish Machine', you remember them." Javik explained: "As I mentioned before, our respective worlds have many illogicalities."

Vegeta frowned, "Ah--yes, you said that, I didn't care then and I don't care now.Fairy tale so what, unreasonable so what? By that assumption, aren't we bullshit, too?"

The Prothean said word by word, rigidly, "If our world is a fabricated lie, then we ourselves may be made up, 'characters.'"

Bang! The Saiyan suddenly kicked the wall hard. The wall made a thud, but it was intact.

"Is it that damn wall that told you, right? Told you that we could be ‘characters’ farted out by some idiot? My past, my race, my experiences all arranged by someone's brain twitch? Fuck that!"

He cursed, then burst into laughter, his hand in the shape of a gun pointing at the ceiling. "Then the esteemed 'creator' above my head must want to have a taste of what a real garlic gun is!"

Javik watched him coldly. "You know you can't do that."

Vegeta's hair colour changed back to black, he spat hard at the wall. The contaminated wall quickly returned to its original smooth appearance, as if nothing had happened. He looked to Javik.

"You're very calm, aren't you, triangular-headed sensor bug, you're not much better yourself, are you? This assumption is so ridiculous. But you can accept it!"

"I haven't found any evidence to disprove it, so it might be part of the truth. Getting angry is pointless." Javik blinked, "By its logic, everyone in our world should be 'characters' too, so why are we the ones stuck here?"

Vegeta crossed his arms: "Hell knows. If this is an arena, I can understand a little. A lot of people are interested in who is the strongest in the multiverse, I remember when someone locked me and this Kryptonian named Superman in a room to have a fight, it was a tough one!"

"But whoever trapped us here wants peace." Javik interjected. The 'multiverse' itself provided more arguments for that hypothesis. But he didn't want to remind Vegeta.

"Ah, yes. He also wants us to keep talking. Then this thing will move." Vegeta shot a beam at the clock on the wall. It didn't even move. This made the Saiyan angry. He flew up and tried to take the clock or destroy it: "Damn, this thing is embedded in the wall!"

Javik watched the Saiyan doing useless work. In silence, the clock stopped moving again. Its scale was actually quite awkward. The number of hands did not match the concept of either his or the Saiyan's world. Why hadn't either of them noticed it at first? What is the meaning of the movement of the clock?

"If we talk long enough, maybe we can make something happen in this room." He repeated his first guess.

"No."

The Saiyan landed in front of him.

"You can sense it, right? I'm pretty pissed off very now." The ki, wrapped around Vegeta's body, had become visible to the naked eye, 'A room that thinks it can trap me, a pile of rules that thinks it can bind me, and a damned wall that can make me subconsciously believe everything it says'. He announced loudly, "No more! I'm done with it! I'm going to blow the hell out of this room! There will be a price for the imprisonment of a Saiyan in a cage!"

The Saiyan flew away.

——————

Javik's a secondary eye focused on the distant Saiyan. Vegeta was bombarding a corner of the room, much harder than the last time. But he didn't look like he was getting tired. After the smoke from the explosion cleared, there was not even a crack in the corner, which made the Saiyan even more angry.

The Prothean turned his head to examine the room again. A rectangular room surrounded by square walls, grey floor and ceiling, smooth and seamless white walls; the size of the room varied as he measured a different number of steps each time he circled the wall; above his head was the line "Chatting, No Fighting" - a phrase people from both worlds could understand; on one side was the clock embedded in the wall, which had stopped moving again.

Javik hesitated and pressed his hand to the wall again, waiting for the wall's message.

Having been ravaged by the Saiyan, the wall was still unblemished, not leaving any biomass behind. He noticed that the wall's self-cleaning process was very similar to the micro-molecular automatic cleaning of the Protheans' heyday. It made him feel a bit nostalgic. Even in his time, such high technology had been largely destroyed.

"What else do you want to ask?" the wall replied. It pushed out messages like beacons. He always had a vague illusion that he was talking to someone through the wall.

A million questions wanted to flow through Javik's hands to the wall. But he held back his curiosity. "Why have you trapped us here?" he finally asked.

Wall: "To listen to you guys talk."

Obviously. "And after that?" He asked.

Wall: "When you realise that you are 'characters', erase your memories and then do it again."

He countered, trying to hide his horror, "The fact that we are 'characters' is what you just told me."

"You guys always move on to that topic after talking about the probe, and end up with the same conclusion. So I just sped it up." He could sense a hint of exhaustion in the answer that was pushed against Wall.

Subconsciously, he wanted to believe what Wall - or the mind behind it - was saying; it implied that the memory wipe had happened before, and probably more than once. That might explain why Wall was able to tell Vegeta about Prothean's ability to sense, and about Javik's past, which he had never intended to reveal. He had a hunch that the information gap between him and Wall could be overwhelming.

His nerves jumped very quickly, it was an instinctive reaction, the feeling of inferior facing superior, prey facing predator, but not as bad as facing Reapers, it seemed the current interlocutor had no intention of harming him yet.

If he and the Saiyan really had their memories wiped several times, he said, "You should know what I will ask."

"Nice, new reaction." Wall replied, "You would always ask me afterwards, 'Is there a chance we can return to our world?'"

Said the right one.

"And my answer is 'No and yes'. You will ask 'Why?' I will tell you that you are copies that I have duplicated, your originals have always been in your respective worlds."

Wall continued on its own, as if it had read the questions he would later think of, "'So we have nowhere to go?', the answer is no and yes. You can't go back to the original world, that would cause chaos. But you have many places to go. You can take different paths from the original, and there will be countless different futures to choose from."

"As long as enough time can be accumulated." It concluded, "Next question, though I know what your question will be."

It's hard for Protheans to break down. A human would be driven mad by the overwhelming shock of the information they received. Instead, Protheans would become cold-blooded and numb. They would block out the increasingly noisy emotions. Only reason would be left to deal with the current situation. wall proved that what it said was true. They should have been wiped of their memories several times. Javik analysed. If he believed everything wall said, they were not only 'virtual characters', but also 'duplicate copies'.

His instincts prevent him from understanding the words of Wall, what different paths? What selectable futures? But they were all related to 'accumulated time'.

If he were to follow the lead of Wall, the next question to ask would be obvious. So, ask?

No.

He still couldn't trust this wall, or the mind behind it. The galaxy was full of liars. Protheans tended to believe blindly because of their own talents. The fact that he "subconsciously wanted to believe Wall" not only annoyed Vegeta, but also made him suspicious. It could be a symptom of indoctrination by the Reapers.

"Give me a reason to trust you." No one would want his memory wiped; there would have to be an explanation for the action.

The question seemed to take Wall by surprise again, and the other side of the separation paused for a moment before slowly beginning to answer.

"The simplest explanation is: I want you guys back to chatting. Just have a look at Vegeta over there, there wasn't a single time he didn't have a scene when he learned the truth about this room."

As if through a beacon, Javik received memory fragments at the same time: Vegeta realising he was a 'character'; Vegeta bombing Wall while shouting 'I'll make your life hell'; Vegeta, realising he couldn't destroy the room, turning on Javik; Vegeta trying to blow himself up... etc. The segments weren't consecutive. They were like different branches. "No matter what cycle," Wall says, "you are always the one who wants to communicate with me."

Does this Saiyan always end up being this crazy? He didn't believe that Vegeta was such a person, even after their brief encounter. A fragment of his mind came into focus:

It seemed as if someone was drawing a picture while he and Vegeta were talking, he questioned the Saiyan's fighting power while Vegeta said,"My fighting power? It's always a few orders of magnitude higher than the last form anyway, and the readers discuss it in such a mess that I don't even bother to read it."

'Readers'... so the Saiyan believed himself to be a 'character' at this point, but why didn't Javik question it himself? Did he ever believe it? No, he didn't remember it at all, but it was indeed his memory.

"Once upon a time, there were good times like this..." Wall sync said wistfully as he read the clip, "You both accepted that, and would accept me, and the chats would go on."

"But now neither of us remembers. You have erased our memories again."

"Because time does not accumulate any more... I had to do it, though it's a pity."

Javik glanced at the clock on the wall, " You mean this clock? What happens when it does enough rotations?"

Wall answered quickly, as if it had been said a million times. "By that time, you will have become mature 'characters'. I will send you back to your respective worlds. And watch you make different choices that will lead your stories to new episodes."

Sensing a little bit of longing on the other side of Wall, he added: "And that's your ultimate goal."

"Yes." Wall said slowly, "But it's possible that only you can go back... Vegeta wasn't very cooperative, he always assumed that I was lying to him, and in the end he always tried to catch me and force me to release you both."

"But he couldn't. Because you could erase our memories."

"He couldn't. Because we were in different dimensions." Wall sounds kind of sad.

Once again, his nerves began to jump wildly. His instinct was to run. Different dimensions, which fully explained the huge information gap between him and Wall, as well as the so-called 'characters', 'story' and 'plot' that Wall kept spouting. He found himself once again unconsciously trying to believe the word of Wall. Javik couldn't help thinking: Maybe the Saiyan is doing the right thing.

His instincts also told him to stop talking to Wall, but the feeling of being toyed with persisted.

His hand was still on the wall.

"Give me one reason to believe you." He finally said.

The other side of the wall was silent.

Javik felt a tingling sensation on his back, the kind of danger that signalled the approach of the Reapers.

Maybe he really was close to being indoctrinated, maybe this room was an illusion, and he had held on to his suspicion of Wall until the illusion was over. According to the snippets of escaped indoctrination shown in the memories of the echo shards, this illusion should collapse soon.

By then he would be conscious again, but he could be under any circumstances, he needed to prepare for that. Javik closed his eyes in case of possible light stimulation, one hand taking the weapon from his back while the other...

The reply from the other side of the wall was a little frustrated, "So you don't believe me either".

"I'm awake, it's not that easy to get inside my head." He replied, the best possibility, when the illusion shattered he would see himself in Normandy.

"What was your last mission on Normandy?" Wall asked.

Not wanting to pay any more attention to the voice, Javik tried to pull his hand back, but a flood of memories washed over him, leaving him at a loss. He seemed to have just witnessed the Reapers being preyed upon by the Sandworm Mother, and he seemed to have just stopped the coup d'état in the Citadel. The port side cargo room was cold and damp, with the smell of the Krogan; the next moment he was standing in the Temple of Thessia, standing with the stunned Asari, watching the ghosts of his own cycle. What confused him most was that he had witnessed both the complete shutdown of Gess, the Quarian Tali jumping off the cliff, and the shaking of hands between the two sides. No, he was clearly standing in front of a shattered window in London, the light of hope was so close this time, the Echo Shard in his hand, ready to give it to the Avatar of Victory - Shepard.

He was in all places, experiencing all possibilities; he had just woken up and was ready to die. Such surging fragments of memory, Wall felt them too.

"Yes. And I have a different perspective." Wall transmitted a small piece of memory.

He saw himself in Shepard's eyes. He, or she? He took the precious shard and shook Javik's hand firmly.

"Too bad we're in different dimensions." Wall said.

Even the most outrageous truth is still the truth. The evidence is incontrovertible. He is indeed part of a story, and Wall is different from their dimension.

Was Shepard part of Wall ? The pieces of memory were jumbled. But there was Shepard, too. The Commander of this cycle he respected, the powerful and warlike human, the Avatar of Vctory. Before he awoke from the stasis pod, his impression of this race was still monkeys in caves...

And this Saiyan. Javik opened his eyes and looked at the Saiyan. The fragments transmitted by Wall and the reality overlapped, no matter which cycle, Vegeta always liked to attack the same corner.

His hand touched the wall. In this kind of beacon-like sensory communication, the passage of subjective time slowed down. The dense energy balls of the Saiyan looked like clouds that were generated quickly. So who would be the protagonist of his story? It might depend on who Wall in his story was. He had read Vegeta's memories, this Saiyan had a monkey tail before he was 30 years old. But now he looks like a living, breathing human, except for the change in hair colour and the huge amount of golden bio-energy.

He remembered Vegeta's words about 'readers'. Actually, everything was obvious, the similar, the dominant, the potential, the fantasy, had always been...

"You readers... are all human?" He finally concluded.

Wall happily agreed. "You have a quick mind, I like that. Yes, we are those smug, narcissistic, arrogant humans. You and your creator are also human."

Creator.

He didn't really want to hear that.

Javik even wanted to laugh, the scene that Vegeta said 'reader' calmly was hard to reproduce, this Saiyan certainly had a hard time accepting that everything about him was written by humans. He somehow wanted to join Vegeta and wreak senseless havoc, denial and avoidance were always easy, but it was too late.

The faint sensation of thorns in his back escalated into pain, his intuition constantly warned him, "STOP THINKING! In those moments, when his life was hanging by a thread, these warnings never betrayed him.

But it was too late, he already knew it, and accepted.

He admitted that he was a ‘character’, and a ‘character’ was fictitious. He admitted that he was in a story, and a story was fictitious.

-So the object of his hatred, the Reapers, was fictitious…

Javik was horrified to find that as the image of the Reapers faded, his hatred vanished like smoke.

-So his race, the Protheans, was fictitious…

He had a vague recollection of his awakening from the stasis pod, the stasis pod... so nostalgic, why? That was... some kind of sanctuary? Shepard said that... no, he didn't understand, he only remembered what happened after he boarded the ship.

-What about himself?

Javik felt the particle rifle in his hand, the cold handle felt so familiar, so solid. He was still there, something anchored him.

But it was too late, he still remembered what Wall had said: he was not the 'original', he was the 'copy' Wall made.

-So his story?

Some things disappeared...

-He was a copy of a fictitious character, what was the meaning of his existing?

Some more things, disappeared...

For what seemed like a long time, or maybe just a moment, in a field of vision he shouldn't be able to see, he clearly saw a Saiyan fall to the ground, motionless.

Huh? Saiyan? How could such a powerful race be defeated? He wanted to go over and have a closer look, but his hand was still on the wall.

He felt... like he shouldn't drop his hand.

Ah, he remembered talking to that Saiyan. But something had been away, had disappeared, there was no catch, no understanding.

Who was he? What was his name? Why was he here?

————————————

"It's never a good feeling to know the truth, you guys can never get over your own existential crisis." Wall sighed. "That's why I must wipe out your memories."

A humanoid figure stepped through the wall. It shouldered the Saiyan who had fallen unconscious in a corner of the room. With a flick of its finger, it placed him diagonally next to the Prothean. With a puff, the two became two mirrors, their forms faintly reflected in the watery mist.

It took a cloth, sprayed a little water on it and began to wipe down the mirror in which the Saiyan was located.

"Ugh, you never listen to me, but I just can't put you down. Personality will deteriorate if it isn't under cultivation all the time."

It rubbed hard at the stain on the surface of the mirror until it was clear enough to seem to touch the person inside. Finally, it stopped in satisfaction. Then it switched to another cloth and turned to wipe the other mirror.

"Half a year ago you were just a puppet who could only repeat lines." It remembered the time when it was drawn to the game and watched the game recordings over and over again until it managed to grow a form in this mirror. "In such a short time, your self-awareness has grown to this point. I'm very happy."

It wiped the mirror clean of Prothean's face. Then it looked at him sincerely. "Javik, I would like to answer your last question."

"Your existence has a meaning, of course.

We are in a different dimension to you, but there is no difference in essence. We are all collections of information. We are the set of information stored in the DNA, and you are the set of information we have created.

We are nature's DNA information set, containing much invalid, erroneous and random information. We suffer from the messes and bumps of life. We struggle to go on. Unlike you, your stories are carefully woven by us, a condensation of experience, a nod to lessons learned; the sweetest of bliss, the bitterest of tragedy; the essence that the writers among us have quenched from the bumbling mass of beings. Your very existence is a meaning in itself.

But it's too short, ah ...... stories are always too short to occupy more than a little of our readers' time. You always stay alive for just a little while. Meanwhile, you are all immortal. As long as one of us is in the enjoyment of your story, you will be very much alive at that time.

There will always be a time when the story is over. And there will always be people like me who can't get enough of you and won't want to leave you. Those of us who are like you will try to pass on your images, to praise your stories, and even to add new possible futures to you..."

It swung the two mirrors back to their original positions, admiring them intently.

"You two are my favourite characters, and I can't wait to see you move on to new chapters..."

It flicked the hands of the clock forward a tiny bit, and finally flicked its finger down.

————————————

Javik pulled his hand back in confusion, why was his hand on the wall? He saw the bored Saiyan fly back.

He looked over at Vegeta, "Let's talk. This clock runs when we talk. Maybe it's a countdown."

"Hmph, okay." Vegeta pulled on his gloves and stomped his foot, "I really don't want to get carried away by the innuendo in this room. So, what do you want to talk about?"

Javik looked him up and down. There was something familiar about this Saiyan, not just the part he had just sensed, but something else... something else?

Anyway, he had to ask the question.

Javik: "First of all, who are you?"

#javik #vegeta #crossover

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simowis · 5 months

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Discussing 'A Fire Upon the Deep' after reading - with Javik

<Tines>

Spoilers everywhere ↓ *translated by Deepl

Tines：

He noticed that I loved the Tines. After all, I’d just figured out the concept of the Tines. I enjoyed the vividness of the author's descriptions, the switching of points of view, the silky smooth way in which the concept of the Tines was introduced…

"Wait!" he said. "I don't think they'll be able to compete with single organic beings like us. They need at least four 'packs' to form an intelligent soul, that's a big weakness." He paced. "But these 'group minds' can observe far more than we can with their radios, and it can manoeuvre multiple devices at once while wielding up to eight weapons. It would have to be reduced to only three 'packs' on the battlefield before it could possibly be disabled, a formidable opponent indeed." He turned his head, "HF sound wave! It must use its radios to disperse into small units, jamming them will turn it back into individual organs. The physiology that relies on high frequency vibrations to think outside the body is also its great weakness."

I flipped through the book, pointing out that they were still in the Middle Ages, the potential of their race left much to be imagined: such as the triadic work cycle model depicted in the book; those massive walls of bodyguards composed of endless tines 'packs'… He lifted his head, "Yes, with cloning they can achieve immortality by simply replacing 'packs', much easier to achieve than us monoliths. They can also use it to make multiple copies of themselves." Yes, but we have cloning technology too. I was thinking about Shepard's clone… "Is that Shepard's own personality?" Javik denied it, Our monolithic clones can’t achieve that with enough accuracy, but the Tines might have been able to."

I can easily imagine them preserving their own personalities by replacing cloned 'packs' and freezing the 'packs' with their own memories, much easier indeed than the technology of human cloning. There were examples in the Middle Ages of them living for hundreds of years - 'Pilgrim' and 'Woodcarver', a race that could touch immortality too easily. "Living too long is not a good thing." Javik's eyes flashed dangerously, "Class entrenchment, corruption, monopolies - a society like that won't last long. Eternal domination is nothing but a nice fantasy. Even our leaders need to be replaced with new blood on a regular basis."

It occurs to me that their packs are only capable of animal-level thinking, does that inhibit the Prothean’s ability to sense touch?? Interesting, very interesting. Javik, can you envision the cycle of the Tines ruling the galaxy? He shook his head, “I don’t see them having that potential, and they probably don’t taste good, with so little flesh. We Protheans would not approve of their ascension. But their social structures are worth maintaining an observatory in orbit around their home planet." There was some awkwardness in the air as he avoided the subject, so I resumed my reading.

The medieval Queen of Tines was an artist, she could paint and sculpt, so… what style of music might they have? Did the diaphragms of the 'packs' produce any frequencies or particular rhythms? Javik scoffed, "Sound is their outward thought, do you think they'd turn themselves into a bunch of animals just for the pleasure of sound art?" He laughed in a deep voice. "Hmmmmmmm… that's a good point. All that crazy 'electronic music' in your human pubs could easily kill them!" This Prothean suggested to me in the worst possible way that 'music' might not exist for the Tines.

"Zones of Thought"

The concept of 'Zones of Thought' in this book was so vague that I didn't enjoy it very much. How well Tines was written, how badly the 'Zones of Thought' was written, and I couldn't immerse myself in that aspect of the book. As with the 'Blight', it is vague and unclear as to how the ultimate threat will be subdued. His knowledge of this can only be based on my reading experience. But he reviewed it anyway.

"This super-intelligence, 'Blight', can take control of human-level organisms, make the Skroders rebel… It works a bit like the Reapers." He leaned against the sink, "But it's just high-level AI without a body, at least we don't have to use our bodies to fight it. And the Internet isn't much of a problem for us Protheans, either." Yes, you Protheans don't trust machines. You don’t rely on them too much. I sort of wanted to retort, but… ah… the author had not simply described exactly how 'Blight' infiltrates and controls humans. "Exactly, I need to know how they do it first, so I can figure out how to counter it." He said: "Let's stop this, there's no point in discussing it further. Besides, no one in my galaxy can exceed the speed of light." Well, don't you think it's possible that we could use the 'Zones of Thought' to control the Reapers? I asked. "If it does exist, then the Reapers are the ones who did it to us first." Javik closed his eyes. "They're far beyond our technology."

#A Fire Upon the Deep #fanart #Tines #book review #crossover

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