Song of the Universe by Jason Maxwell

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Robert_Moriyama
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Re: Song of the Universe by Jason Maxwell

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

On the first point, my impression was that Mother's consciousness was truly decentralized. All her billions of caretaking and educational duties could therefore receive the same small slivers of her attention as they usually did, even while her attention focused outward. Her 'journey' to the heliopause and beyond was somewhat metaphorical, like 'moving' through cyberspace, although in this case, Mother's infrastructure is cyberspace ...<br><br>On the second point ... Jason confessed that this is almost a prologue to a longer work. Whether we will see more of it here (maybe as additional short stories or as a serial?) or elsewhere will be up to Jason.<br><br>Robert M.
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Re: Song of the Universe by Jason Maxwell

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...Incidentally, unless that same consciousness is darting about all over the system, it's rather amazing that all the planets are seemingly aligned in a straight line towards (T)HOS. The astrologists of the time must be going wild ;)

- Wishbone
<br><br>To say nothing of the tides!  Wouldn't a planetary alignment like that bring the astrological predictions of the apocalypse out in full Chicken Little mode?<br><br>But seriously, folk, Mother may have been taking the scenic route, moving a packet of code embodying her 'soul' back and forth across the solar system to make use of the most robust and powerful relay stations (presumably located on the surfaces of planets or major moons and asteroids).  Or moving as a spherical wavefront of information exchanges, in which case she would 'encounter' the planets in order of increasing distance from the sun (those that were not on the other side of the sun relative to Earth, anyway), whether they were aligned or not.<br><br>Damn, I CAN come up with a semi-rational excuse for ANYTHING.  Of course, Jason might have a better one.<br><br>Robert M.
Last edited by Robert_Moriyama on January 10, 2006, 11:47:43 AM, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Song of the Universe by Jason Maxwell

Post by tim_c_taylor »

I liked it.<br><br>Best part was the ending. We came to a point where Mother becomes interventionist but we are not told what happens next. The words of the story stopped, but the story continued in my head because I was wondering what followed. <br><br>I mean that in a good way. I didn't feel the author had finished mid-sentence because he ran out of ideas, but because he had completed a story of genesis. That's good short story telling in my book. <br><br>I also got a little confused about the FTL thing. I had assumed with a distributed intelligence over large distances that this was what Mother was using. It doesn't have to be so. A distributed intelligence restricted to speed-of-light communication is much more interesting. I agree, though, that Jason should consider making this point a little clearer.<br><br>Tim
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Re: Song of the Universe by Jason Maxwell

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

...
I also got a little confused about the FTL thing. I had assumed with a distributed intelligence over large distances that this was what Mother was using. It doesn't have to be so. A distributed intelligence restricted to speed-of-light communication is much more interesting. I agree, though, that Jason should consider making this point a little clearer.

Tim
<br><br>I think the "FTL" reference may have been my fault. During the editing process, it seemed to me that for Mother's sentience to be as all-encompassing and ubiquitous as it appeared to be, she needed to be SIMULTANEOUSLY aware of all the myriad splinters of herself -- implying instantaneous or near-instantaneous exchange of information. Of course, if the splinters (my way of thinking about this, not necessarily Jason's) are each sentient, albeit at a less-complex level, then they only need to exchange occasional updates (like bees in a hive, each operating independently and 'updating' each other when they meet -- or the parasitic mind-controlling slugs in the Heinlein classic "The Puppet Masters".<br><br>Ah, well. If we all agreed on how things should be, only one person would ever have to write about any given subject. And what fun would that be?<br><br>Robert M.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

Jack London (1876-1916)
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