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 Post subject: alot of Q :p
PostPosted: Mon Sep 01, 2003 6:19 pm 
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hi all

some questions about the hyperion books. i'm sure I have forgotten some but I would like to know if some1 else has understand the books better than me:

What is the shrike?
What is he for? (book mentioned to attract empathy element, but later they say that theory is wrong :s)

Why, when and where is the consul murdered by Nemes?

All help is welcome <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: alot of Q :p
PostPosted: Wed Sep 03, 2003 5:46 am 
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Lady Scryer
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Welcome!!
I want to give you the best answers that I can, so will be back in about three days with some quotes...(that will be my day off of work, so I can sit down and find the exact quotations dealing with your questions.) Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: alot of Q :p
PostPosted: Sat Sep 06, 2003 1:46 pm 
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I haven't forgotten you, but real life has gotten in the way of my getting a chance to reread the key parts of the two Endymion books yet in order to give you the best possible answers to your questions. But I will get back to you on this as soon as I can. Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: alot of Q :p
PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 3:21 am 
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I still haven't forgotten you...I'm actually at work right now, tonight when I get home I have to stay up and pay the bills, I'm hoping to be able to dig for those quotes I want to use tomorrow night and get back with you soon thereafter. Thank you for your patience! I have been very busy since my kids got back into school, especially with them both playing sports, which seems to take up a lot of my weekend free time. All worth it, though!
Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: alot of Q :p
PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:26 pm 
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Master Pilot

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I'll have to research the Consul's death...cause I don't remember it re: Nemes. It's difficult to reveal the Shrike's creators and purpose with out spoiling. I'll try 2 help if duchess is having futher difficulties, but let's give her a few days... And now Danlo looked in that direction, too. He remembered that snowy owls mate in the darkest part of deep winter, and so along with this beautiful white bird perched in a tree a hundred feet away, he turned to face the sea as he watched and waited.

Ahira, Ahira, he called out silently to the sky. Ahira, Ahira<i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 9/13/03 4:12 pm
</i>


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 Post subject: Re: alot of Q :p
PostPosted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 4:49 pm 
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I do not know if it is a possible without spoiling...that is one of the things holding me up, actually -- trying to figure out how to bring in stuff from all four books plus the short story without providing huge spoilers for those people who might not have read all of them yet...

I will say this, though...the part that was mentioned about the Shrike being there to attract the compassion of humanity's god is NOT necessarily false...I see no reason why he cannot both attract (help set up the situation, so to speak) and then also become, later in the series, what he becomes to that being...

I'm sorry I'm not being more specific, but again, I am still trying to figure out how to deal with this without spoilers...it may be that in a day or so I will decide to be very explicit, and if I do, I will mark it very clearly as containing spoilers... Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: alot of Q :p
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 6:48 am 
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Ok, I am ready to start, but this is going to be an extremely long post, so I might not finish tonight...if not, I will return to type again tomorrow...and the next day, and however long it takes me
I am going to use some quotes from the books that deal with your questions, and insert bits of commentary...and the answers are a bit intertwined as are both the questions about the Shrike and the Consul...to me in answering one you also answer the other, as both are all mixed in with the Core...
Here we go...

THERE ARE SOME SERIOUS SPOILERS HERE! YOU ARE WARNED!!!!

We will begin in the book Fall of Hyperion with this exchange between the John Keats cybrid and Ummon of the Core:
quote:
-----------------------------------------------------------
I spend a long moment thinking.
-There are multiple futures?
[A lesser light asked Ummon//
Are there multiple futures>//
Ummon answered//
Does a dog have fleas>]
-But the one in which the UI becomes ascendant is a probable one?
[Yes]
-But there is also a probable future in which the UI comes into existence, but is thwarted by the human deity?
[It is comforting
that even the
stillborn
can think]
-You told Brawne that the human...conciousness - deity seems so silly - that this human Ultimate Intelligence was triune in nature?
[Intellect/
Empathy/
And the Void Which Binds]
-The Void Which Binds?...You mean Planck space and Planck time? Quantum reality?
[Careful/
Keats/
thinking may become a habit]
- And its the Empathy part of this trinity who's fled back in time to avoid the war with your UI?
[Correct]
Our UI and your UI have
sent back
the Shrike
to find him]
- Our UI! The human UI sent the Shrike also?
[It allowed it.]
Empathy is a
foreign and useless thing/
a veriform appendix of
the intellect//
But the human UI smells with it/
and we use pain to
drive him out of hiding/
thus the tree]
- Tree? The Shrike's tree of thorns?
[Of course]
[It broadcasts pain
across fatline and thin/
like a whistle in
a dog's ear\\
or a god's]
____________________________________________________

This is the first statement we get as to the purpose of the Shrike -- to cause enough pain so that it will attract the Empathy -- love for others-- part of the Human God...
and we also are told that the Shrike might in this instance serve TWO masters -- both gods!!! We are also told that at THIS instant in time, the machine God is the more likely one to win...

Now we skip a few pages ahead in the same book to an exchange in the very far future between Kassad and the woman he knows as Moneta:
____________________________________________________
He looked around. "It all leads to this, doesn't it?"
"Yes," said Moneta.
Kassad turned to stare at the army of Shrikes across the valley. "Is this a war? A few thousand against a few thousand?"
"A war," said Moneta. "A few thousand against a few thousand on ten million worlds."
Kassad closed his eyes and nodded. The skinsuit served as sutures, field dressings, and ultramorph injector for him, but the pain and weakness from terrible wounds could not be kept at bay for much longer. "Ten million worlds," he said and opened his eyes. "A final battle, then?"
"Yes."
"And the winner claims the Tombs?"
Moneta glanced at the Valley."The winner determines whether the Shrike already entombed there goes alone to pave the way for others..." She nodded toward the army of Shrikes. "Or whether humankind has a say in our past and future."
"I don't understand," said Kassad, his voice tight, "but soldiers rarely understand the political situation." He leaned forward, kissed the surprised Moneta, and removed her red scarf. "I love you," he said as he tied the bit of cloth to the barrel of his assault rifle. Telltales showed that half his pulse charge and ammunition remained.
Fedmahn Kassad strode forward five paces, turned his back on the Shrike, raised his arms to the people, still silent on the hillside, and shouted, "For liberty!"
____________________________________________________

From this we learn that the fate of humanity, and the mastery of the Shrike, lies in the far far future...and at least partially in the hands of Kassad...

Now we move on to the book Endymion, which takes place soem 300 odd years after the events of Fall of Hyperion. Here is the first hint we get of what has happened to the Consul in a conversation between Raul Endymion and the Ship:
____________________________________________________

"Who was your...ah...previous passenger?" I asked.
There was a hint of a pause. "The gentleman was generally known as the Consul," said the ship at last. "He had been a diplomat for the Hegemony for most of his life."
It was my turn to hesitate before speaking. It occurred to me that perhaps the "execution" in Port Romance had only scrambled my neurons to the point where I thought I was living in one of Grandam's epic poems.
"What happened to the Consul?" I asked.
"He died," said the ship. There may have been the slightest undertone of regret in the voice.
"How?" I asked. At the end of the old poet's Cantos, after the Fall of the WorldWeb, the Hegemony Consul had taken a ship back to the Web. This ship? "Where did he die?" I added. According to the Cantos, the ship the Hegemony Consul had left Hyperion in had been infused with the persona of the second John Keats cybrid.
"I can't remember where the Consul died," said the ship. "I only rememebr that he died, and that I returned here. I presume there was some programming of that directive in my command banks at the time."
"Do you have a name?" I asked, mildly curious as to whether I was speaking to the AI persona of John Keats.
"No," said the ship. "Only ship. Again there came something more pause than simple silence. "although I do seem to recall that I had a name at one point."
"Was it John?" I asked. "Or Johnny?"
"It may have been," said the ship. "The details are cloudy."
"Why is that?" I said. "Is your memory malfunctioning?"
"No, not at all," said the ship. "As far as I can deduce, there was some traumatic event about two hundred standard years ago which deleted certain memories, but since then my memory and other faculties have been flawless."
"But you don't remember the event? The trauma?"
"No," said the ship, cheerily enough. "I believe that it occurred at about the same time that the Consul died and I returned to Hyperion, but I am not certain."
____________________________________________________

From this we learn that something -- probably a bad something -- has happened to the Consul -- and to his ship! And where has the John Keats persona gone?

I have been typing for a really long time, and need a break, so...




Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi  at: 9/12/03 9:11 am
</i>


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 Post subject: none
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 6:03 pm 
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I am very greatful for all your help duches of malfi, this is a forum with very nice people Ive just read the posts and will w8 for others. danlo u also said that there are four books and a 'short story'. what u mean with this, does it continue the story of hyperion, never found it in our library. If u like books, an english country is better i suppose, translating takes years

david <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: none
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 6:11 pm 
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There are four books in the Hyperion series.
Hyperion
Fall of Hyperion
Endymion
Rise of Endymion
and a novella called Orphans of the Helix, which is set AFTER the events in Rise of Endymion. It is in two different short story collections, and one of our members says that he has it in a computer file and can email it to interested people.
Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: alot of Q :p
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 6:32 pm 
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Ready to get going again.

One more quote about the ship from Endymion:
____________________________________________________

He nodded and folded his arms. "Renaissance Vector was one of the most important worlds of the Hegemony. Extremely Earth-like on the Solmev Scale, it was settled by some of the early seed ships and was completely urbanized by the time of the Fall. It was famous for its universities, its medical centers - most Poulsen treatments were administered there for the Web citizens who could afford it - its baroque architecture - especially beautiful in its mountain fortress, Keep Enable - and its industrial output. Most of the FORCE space craft were manufactured there. In fact, this spacecraft must have been built there - it was a product of the Mitsubishi-Havcek complex."
"Really?" said the ship's voice. "If I knew that, the data must have been lost. How interesting."
Aenea and I exchanged worried glances for the dozenth time on this voyage. A ship that couldn't remember its past or its point of origin did not inspire confidence during the complexities of interstellar flight...
____________________________________________________

Again, it is obvious that something dreadful must have happened to the ship, its master, and possibly to the Keats persona who was once known to have occupied it...


Our first meeting with the Shrike in Endymion takes place at the Time Tombs, when he accompanies Aenea at the end of her journey through time. He seems to be there to help her, as he provides all of the distraction that the waiting Pax army can handle...but he refuses to listen to her orders and pleas, and causes her so much distress that she is still weeping about his actions, days later...
During the journey of Aenea, Raul, and Bettik through the old worlds of what was once the Hegemony, he shows up every now and then. He doesn't seem to do much when he does, he just...appears. it always seemed to me that he was just checking up on them...this of course, changes drastically on God's Grove, but I will address that seperately in a moment.

Here is one of the Shrike's early appearances...the threesome are on a jungle world with the hurt ship. Raul and Aenea have been out on the hawking mat scouting when they learn that the Shrike has not only appeared on the beach, but on the ship itself...
____________________________________________________
"It's on the beach?" I said.
"It was a moment ago, when I went up to carry another lod out," came A. Bettik's voice.
"Then it was in the Hawking-drive accumulator ring,: said the ship.
"What?" I said. "Thre's no entrance to that part of the ship - " I stopped before I made a total idiot of myself. "Where is it now?" I said.
"We are not sure," said A. Bettik. "I am going out onto the hull now and will be taking one of the radios. The ship will relay my voice to you."
"Wait....," I began.
"M. Endymion," interrupted the android, "rather than urging you to rush back here, I called to suggest that you and M. Aenea...ah...extend your sight-seeing for a bit until the ship and I receive an indication of our...ah...visitor's intentions."
This made sense to me. Here I was charged with protecting this girl, and when what might well be the deadliest killing machine in the galaxy appears, what do I do but rush her toward the danger? I was being a bit of an @#%$ this long day. I reached for the flight threads to slow us and bank us back to the east.
Aenea's small hand intercepted mine. "No," she said "We'll go back."
I was shaking my head. "That thing is..."
"That thing can go anywhere it pleases," said the girl. Her eyes and tone were deadly serious. "If it wanted me...or you...it would appear right here on the mat with us."
The thought made me look around.
"Let's go back," said Aenea.
I sighed and turned back upriver, slowing the mat just a bit as I did so. Pulling the plasma rifle from my back and swinging the stock out to lock it, I said, "I don't get it. Is there any record of that monster ever leaving Hyperion?"
"I don't think so," said the girl. She was leaning so that her face was against my back trying to stay out of the windblast as the deflection field lessened.
"So...what's happening? Is it following you?"
"That seems logical." Her voice was muffled as she spoke into the cotton of my shirt.
"Why?" I said.
Aenea pushed away so strongly that I began to reach for her instinctively to keep her from tumbling off the back of the mat. She shrugged away from my hand. "Raul, I don't really know the answers to these questions yet, all right? I didn't know if the thing would leave Hyperion. I certainly didn't want it to. Believe me."
"I do," I said.
____________________________________________________
This is also where the ship gets a mass reading on the Shrike. It is almost three meters tall and weighs 1.06 metric tons. A. Bettik suggests that perhaps the Shrike can vary its mass as required...

Now to shift gears a bit...to Rhadamanth Nemes. She comes into the story when she is assigned to Father de Soya's group, which is assigned to capture Aenea. She is introduced as a soldier with special training, but we soon learn that she is soemthing much more ominous...and she seems to have much-more than human powers...
We first see her in action when she murders a harmless and kind old priest who had aided Aenea and Raul. She then butchers 23 equally harmless people...and then jacks herself into a farcaster portal to learn where Aenea and Raul have gone. She prepares herself to pursue them to God's Grove...

Aenea feels the senseless murders somehow, and knows that they are being followed by a merciless monster while they are the Muslim world of Qon-Riyadh -- a world, like the Jewish world Hebron, which has been abandoned somehow of all human life, with no signs of what has happened to the people...and even as Aenea somehow knows of the monster trailing them, the Shrike once again joins them...
This quote begins as Raul tries to calm Aenea from her terrible fever nightmare, right after Raul has seen the reappearance of the Shrike...
____________________________________________________
"No, it's not {all right}, " said the girl. "Ah, God, Raul. I asked him to come with me. That last night. Did you know that I asked him to come along? He said no - "
"Who said no?" I asked. "The Shrike?" A Bettik came up behind me. Outside, the red sand chafed at the windows and sliding door.
"No, no, no, said Aenea. Her cheeks wer moist, although whether it was from tears or her fever breaking, I did not know. "Father Glaucus," she said, her voice almost lost under the wind noise. "That last night...I asked Father Glaucus to come with us. I shouldn't have asked him, Raul...it was not part of my....my dreams...but I did ask, and if I asked, I should have insisted..."
"It's all right," I said, pushing a damp tendril of hair off her brow. "Father Glaucus is all right."
"No, he's not," said the girl, and moaned softly. "He's dead. The thing that's chasing us killed him. Him and all the Chitchatuk."
I looked at the monitor board again. It still showed improvement from the fever, despite her ravings. I looked at A. Bettik, but the android was staring intently at the child.
"You mean the Shrike killed them?" I said.
"No, not the Shrike," she said softly, and laid her wrist against her lips. "At least I don't think so. No, it wasn't the Shrike." Suddenly she gripped my hand in both of hers. "Raul, do you love me?"
I could only stare a moment. Then, not withdrawing my hand, I said, " Sure, kiddo. I mean..."
Aenea seemed to really look at me then for the first time since she had come awake and called my name. "No, stop," she said. She laughed softly. "I'm sorry. I came unglued in time for a minute. Of course you don't love me. I forgot when we were...who we were to each other now."
"No, its all right," I said, not understanding. I patted her hand. "I do care for you, kiddo. So does A. Bettik, and we're going to - "
"Hush," said Aenea. She freed her hand and set one finger against my lips. "Hush. I was lost for a moment. I thought we were...us. The way we're going to..."She lay back deeper in the pillows and sighed. "My God, its the night before God's Grove. Our last night traveling..."
I was not sure if she was making sense yet. I waited.
A Bettik said ," M. Aenea, is God's Grove our next destination on the river?"
"I guess so," said the girl, sounding more like the child I knew. "Yes. I don't know. It all fades..." She sat up again. "It's not the Shrike chasing us, you know. It's the Pax."
"Of course it's the Pax," I said, trying to get her to make contact with reality. "They've been after us since..."
Aenea was shaking her head adamanatly. her hair hung in damp tendrils. "No," she said softly but very firmly. "The Pax is after us because the Core tells it we're dangerous to them."
"The Core?" I said. "But it's...ever since the Fall it's been..."
"Alive and dangerous," said Aenea. "After Gladstone and the others destroyed the farcaster system that provided the Core with its neural net, it retreated...but it never went far, Raul. Can't you see that?"
"No," I said. "I can't. Where has it been if it didn't go far?"
"The Pax," the girl said simply. "My father - his persona in Mother's Schron loop - explained it to me before I was born. The Core waited until the Church began to be revitalized under Paul Dure...Pope Teilhard 1. Dure was a good man, Raul. My mother and Uncle Martin knew him. He carried two cruciforms...his own and Father Lenar Hoyt's. But Hoyt was ...weak."
I patted her wrist. 'But what does this have to do with -"
"Listen!" said the girl, pulling her arm back. "Anything can happen tomorrow on God's Grove. I can die. We can all die. The future is never written...only penciled in. If I die and you survive, I want you to explain to Uncle Martin...to whoever will listen..."
"You are not going to die, Aenea -"
"Just listen!" pleaded the girl. There were tears in her eyes again.
I nodded and listened. Even the wind howl seemed to abate.
"Teilhard was murdered in his ninth year. My father predicted it. I don't know if it was by TechnoCore agents...they use cybrids...or just Vatican politics, but when Lenar Hoyt was resurrected from their shared cruciforms, the Core acted. it was the Core that provided the technology of allowing the cruciform to revive humans without the sexlessness or idiocy visited on the Bikura tribe on Hyperion..."
"But how?" I said. "How could the TechniCore AIs know how to use the cruciform symbiote?" I saw the answer even before she spoke.
"They created the cruciforms," said Aenea. Not the current Core, but the UI they create in the future. It sent the things back in time on Hyperion just as it did the Time Tombs. tested the parasite on the lost tribe...the Bikura...saw the problems..."
"Little problems," I said, "Like resurrection destroying reproductive organs and intelligence."
"Yes," said Aenea. She took my hand again. " The Core was able to correct those problems with their technology. Technology they gave to the Church under its new Pope...Lenar Hoyt, Julius VI."
I began to understand. "A Faustian bargain..."I said.
"The Faustian bargain," said the girl. "All the church had to do to gain the universe was sell its soul."
"And thus the Pax Protectorate was born," A. Bettik said softly. "Political power through the barrel of a parasite."
"It's the Core that's after us...after me," continues the child. "I'm a threat to them, not just the church."
I shook my head slowly. "How are you a threat to the Core? You're one child..."
"One child who was in touch with a renegade cybrid persona before I was born," she whispered. " My father was loose, Raul. Not just in the datasphere or the megasphere...but in the metasphere. Loose in the wider psychocerbernet that even the Core is terrified of..."
"Lions and tigers and bears," muttered A. Bettik.
"Exactly," said Aenea. "When my father's persona penetrated the Core megasphere, he asked the AI, Ummon, what the Core was afraid of. They said that they didn't range further in the metasphere because it was full of lions and tigers and bears."
"I don't get it, kiddo," I said. "I'm lost."
She leaned forward and squeeezed my hand.Her breath on my cheek was warm and sweet. "Raul, you know Uncle Martin's Cantos. What happened to the Earth?"
"Old Earth?" I said stupidly. "In the Cantos the AI Ummon said that the three elements of the TechnoCore were at war...We talked about this."
"Tell me again."
"Ummon told the Keats persona...your father...that the Volatiles wanted to destroy humanity. The Stables...his group...wanted to save it. They faked the black-hole destruction of Old Earth and spirited it away to either the Magellenic Clouds or the Hercules Cluster. The Ultimates, the third group, didn't give a damn what happened to Old Earth or humanity as long as their Ultimate Intelligence project came to fruition."
Aenea waited.
"And the church agrees with what everyone else believes," I continues somewhat lamely. "That Old Earth was swallowed by the black hole and died when it was supposed to have died."
"Which version do you believe, Raul?"
I took a breath. "I don't know, I said. "I'd like Old Earth to still exist, I guess, but somehow it doesn't seem to be that important."
"What if there is a third possibility?" said Aenea.
The glass doors suddenly rattled and shook. I put my hand on the plasma pistol, half expecting the Shrike to be scratching at the glass. Only the desert wind howled there. "A third possiblity?" I said.
"Ummon lied," said Aenea. "The AI lied to my father. No elements of the Core moved the Earth...not the Stables, not the Volatiles, not the Ultimates."
"So it was destroyed," I said.
"No," said Aenea. "My father did not understand then. He did later. Old Earth was moved to the Magellenic Clouds, all right, but not by any element of the Core. They didn't have the technology or the energy resources or that level of control of the Void Which Binds. The Core can't even travel to the Magellenic Cloud. Its too far...unimaginably distant."
"Who, then." I said. "Who stole Old Earth?"
Aenea laid back on the pillows. "I don't now. I don't think the Core knows, either. But they don't want us to know - and they're terrified that we'll find out."
A. Bettik stepped closer. 'So its not the Core that is activating the farcasters on our voyage?"
"No," said Aenea.
"WIll we find out who is?" I said.
"if we live," said Aenea. "if we live." Her eyes looked tired now, not feverish. "They'll be waiting for us tomorrow, Raul. And I don't mean that priest-captain and his men. Someone...something from the Core will be waiting for us."
"The thing you think killed Father Glaucus, Cuchiat, and the others," I said.
"Yes."
"Is this some sort of vision?" I asked. "To know about Father Glaucus, I mean."
"Not a vision," said the girl with an empty voice. "Just a memory from the future. A certain memory."
I looked out at the diminishing storm. "We can stay here," I said. "We can get a skimmer or an EMV that works, fly to the northern hemisphere, and hide in Ali or one of the bigger cities that the guidebook talks about. We don't have to play their game and go through that farcaster portal tomorrow."
"Yes," said Aenea. "we do."
I started to protest and then remained silent. After a while I said, " And where does the Shrike come in?"
"I don't know," said the girl. "It depends on who sent it this time. Or it could be acting on its own. I don't know."
"On its own?" I said. "I thought it was just a machine."
"Oh, no" said Aenea. "Not just a machine."
I rubbed my cheek. "I don't understand. It could be a friend?"
"Never a friend," said the girl. She sat up and put her hand on my cheek where I had rubbed it a second before, "I'm sorry, Raul, I don't mean to talk in circles. It's just that I don't know. Nothing's written. Everything's fluid. And when I do get a glimpse of things shifting, it's like watching a beautiful sand painting in the second before the wind gets it..."
____________________________________________________
We learn here a lot about Nemes...that she is probably some sort of super-cybrid, serving the parts of the Core who want to exterminate humankind. We also learn that the Keats persona was greatly feared by the Core...as is Aenea herself... not to mention learning that the Shrike has a will of his own -- that he is NOT just a mindless machine or sevant oof the Core...

I'm starting to wear out...this is getting to be a huge post, and I've yet to get into the events on God's Grove or Rise of Endymion...I am going to take a break now...when I return, God's Grove...

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi  at: 9/12/03 12:07 pm
</i>


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 Post subject: a lot of Q :p
PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 2:13 pm 
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Pilot

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he can always mail it to me :p david_debruyne@hotmail.com <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: a lot of Q :p
PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 10:16 pm 
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Master Pilot

Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2002 2:23 am
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My gods! What an opus!--we all relieve stress in our own ways! WOW!!!! And now Danlo looked in that direction, too. He remembered that snowy owls mate in the darkest part of deep winter, and so along with this beautiful white bird perched in a tree a hundred feet away, he turned to face the sea as he watched and waited.

Ahira, Ahira, he called out silently to the sky. Ahira, Ahira<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: a lot of Q :p
PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2003 11:02 pm 
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Lady Scryer
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Location: Michigan, USA
I am only about halfway done. I took my kids to see their friends play football last night, and they both had soccer games today. I am whipped, and will get back to this on Monday, most likely... Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: a lot of Q :p
PostPosted: Tue Sep 16, 2003 5:02 am 
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Lady Scryer
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Location: Michigan, USA
now on to God's Grove...

Nemes has boobytrapped the river with what could best be described as razor sharp wire...she wishes to kill Aenea and bring back her head as the proof of it.
The threesome, Raul, Aenea, and A. Bettik are travelling on their raft down the river and all hell breaks loose...
A. Bettik is hurt and maimed by the wire...Raul is frantic with worry over Aenea, they are desperately trying to save A. Bettik's life -- and the Shrike is exploding out of the water, popping in and out everywhere around them...and then Nemes comes for Aenea's head...

here are some rather unpleasant bits and pices of Nemes's thoughts...

Quote:The next act, she thought, had been a farce. She had watched the flailing around in the river, the awkward rescue of the artificial man - artificial man minus one artificial arm, she amended - and then, with some interest, the odd appearance of the Shrike. She had known the Shrike was around, of course, since the displacement tremors of its movement through the contimuum were not that different from the portal's opening. She had even shifted to fast time to watch it wade into the river and play bogeyman for the humans. It bemused her: what was the obsolete creature doing? Keeping the hukans out of her earwig trap or just herding them back toward her, like a good little sheepdog? Nemes knew tha tthe answer depended upon which powers had sent the bladed monstrosity o n this mission int he first place.

Nemes comes on to harvest Aenea's head, though Raul bravely attempts to protect her...but Aenea will have another protector this day...

Quote:Nemes swings her arm, expecting to feel nothing as the edge slices through muscle and vertabrae, and is shocked by the violent contact. She looks down. The sharpened edge of her phase-shifted hand is in the grip of two sets of fingerblades. her forearm is gripped by two otehr scalpel-sharp hands. The bulk of the Shrike presses close, the blades on the lower body almost in the girl's frozen face. The creature's eyes are bright red. Nemes is momentarily startled and sseriously irritated, but not alarmed. She rips her hand away and jumps back. The tableau is exactly as it had been a second before - river in freeze time, Raul Endymion's empty hand outstretched as if pressing the firing stud on the little laser, the android dying o nthe ground with medpack lights frozen in midblink - only the girl is now overshadowed by the huge bulk of the Shrike. Nemes smiles beneath her chrome mask. She had been concentrating on the girl's nack and not noticed the clumsy thing coming up on her in fast time. That is a mistake she will not make again. "You want her?" says Nemes. "have you also been sent to kill her? Be my guest...as long as I get the head." The Shrike pulls its arms back and steps around the child, its thorns and knee blades missing her eyes by less than a centimeter. Legs apart, the Shrike stands between Nemes and Aenea.

one of the greatest battles in science fiction then breaks out

here is another of Nemes's thoughts during the battle:
Quote:She wants to destroy it - her blood is up, as humans used to say - but she is still calm enough to know that this is not her purpose. She has only to distract it or disable it to the point that she can decapitate the human child. The the Shrike will be irrelevant forever. Perhaps Nemes and her kind will keep it in a zoo to hunt it when they are bored.

besides being a kickass part of the book, these passages show that not even the agents of the Core know whom the Shrike is serving...at least up till this point of the series...


next up: Rise of Endymion


Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: a lot of Q :p
PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2003 4:47 am 
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Lady Scryer
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Location: Michigan, USA
I hope to get going on this again in the next day or two -- I haven't forgotten about you, have just been busy. Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
****Tavern Wench of DOGMA, the Defenders of George Martin's Art****<i></i>


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