Maverick Falling (working title)

[Alias]

This is the first bit of this neat story I wrote about the end of the world.

[Lopez]

Wow, this story is almost as depressing as a D.ein story. ((If you've read some of his stuff, you'll see why; he has a certain way with depressing words.)) I mean, it's a GOOD sort of depressing. Er....

Also, I can't help thinking "Maverick=Dr. Wolf" I have no idea why.

MEANWHILE! Your story depicts a world that is dying. Then you have some people-like things. And you have some dragons. (The world after Dr. Wolf leaves???) So, "people" are struggling to survive in their day-by-day lives. They also make biblical references.

And...this line.

He turned away.  “In three years,” he said to no one, to everyone, “the world will end, and nobody will miss it.”

This line feels really meaningful, but It's a bit lost on me. Obviously, he's saying the line to no one because he's all alone in his tower. And, he's saying it to everyone because he speaks...truth? To...everyone?...and nobody will miss it because no one's there...?

Reminds me of D.ein's way of describing how God doesn't exist, or something.

I....look forward to the next part, and the revelation of what this is all about.

[Alias]

D.Ein?  Not sure what you mean.

Maverick actually is kind of a similar figure to Dr. Wolf, at least in the beginning, but by the time I start calling him Maverick there's very little of that person left in him.

If I had to explain that line, I'd say it's addressed to everyone but no one heard.

Next part is attached, a bit shorter than the first.  My vision of utopia is, in its own way, more depressing than my apocalypse.

[KaiAdin]

D.Ein is another Forum member here, he has a few post apocalyptic stories on the forum.

*anyway time to read part 2*

[Lopez]

As Kai said, D.ein was another one of the writers here. His writing style was kind of like, "The world is terrible and you should feel bad."

OH SNAP MAVERICK'S A SIMENONIAN.

See, I'm reading this author in English class called Simenon. He made short books, usually around 150 pages, that tried to depict the "naked human." He felt that in order to get at the true nature of a character, you had to remove all the trappings of life that supported them. Their friends, their abilities, their families, it all had to go in if you wanted to truly understand the chacter.

Maverick is also like this. What does he want?

“I don’t know.  Something new.  Something more than the same tired old play acted out over and over, only the props and the characters changing.” 

So that's what he intends to do. He's going to remove all the trappings of the world in order to reveal the "naked society." OH SNAP!!!

And he sees the kid steal from the other kid...it's the true form of society that most people try to ignore as they speed by.....and once the naked society is exposed, he will build it up again.

I wonder what Jonathan is going to do about all this?

[Alias]

O.O

Lopez you should get into literary criticism or something.  You are very good at this.  That is sort of off on a technicality but I can't really get into how without spoiling things.

[Virmir]

I've only read part one so far. Yes, very depressing and Ein-ish (check out some of his stuff further down the forums. )  Despite not liking stuff like this, it still manages to capture my attention with nice touches like the dragon living in a mini-mall.   I'll be checking out part 2 shortly.

[KaiAdin]

I just managed to read both parts on the train.. and I have to disagree *somewhat*...

Eins stories were bleaker and somewhat 'depopulated', in that they tended to not have many people in them at all (well except for the that Spondeskai story and the onw with the mad chemist). In the first part, Adam helps John (or was it the other way around) which is different as it shows theres still some good left in the world or whatever.. which I sorta never saw in Eins stuff.

 Also the fact from what I interpreted from Ein's stuff there never was a "Clean and shiny" Futuristic world in Eins stories. Here there was some amazing future that went terribly wrong or something especially with the children in the 2nd part...

ANywho Cool stuff!

[Alias]

No new part just yet, but the next segment should be longer.  Also, here is a song to go with the story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SedQcg-65a8

Don't take the parallels too far though.

[Alias]

Alright, finally got this.  Longer than the other segments because I decided that the second scene with the toy would be when I posted this again, and it took a bit longer than I'd though it would to get there.

[Lopez]

Hmmmmm....a little bit harder to unravel.

SO MUCH LIKE DR. WOLF. Seriously, they could very well be one and the same. It's like Maverick and Dr. Wolf are the same person, only in different situations. Both of them don't really like associating with human society too much.

Hm....when he said...

We no longer need to actually perform difficult, expensive experiments; we can simulate them on this machine and get the same results.”

It reminded me of this, found here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/11/ff_archimedes/.

It took Eddy and his team roughly two months to construct the virtual trial, but once they hit Return, the program completed the study in just one hour...Of the four principal findings of the study, Archimedes had predicted two exactly right, a third within the margin of error, and the fourth just below that. Rather than seven years, Eddy’s experiment had taken just a couple of months.... The results seemed to vindicate his vision for the future of medicine: faster, cheaper, broader clinical trials — all happening inside a machine.

Yup, that's right, Maverick. We're hot on your tail. We don't need to perform difficult, expensive clinical trials; we can simulate them on this machine and get the same results.

Back to the story, LOVE THIS LINE:

“The lost kind, I think.  Looking for a reason to leave.”

Maverick is a bit lost with his own invention. Why?

Anyway, I’ve been busy on a very promising project.  Thus far the ArtEng claims negligible senescence is impossible for organisms as complex as humans, given our genetic composition, but I’ve been tinkering and I suspect there may be an error in the underlying assumptions

He creates the perfect machine. Then what does he do with it? Oh, yeah, that's right, he decides to find flaws with it.

That's really all he can do at this point. Are machines like this going to eventually replace him?

Or will there always be something for him to fix?

Perhaps like the Rod?

“No,” Michael said, “I like it better this way.” 

We'll have to stay tuned. We'll be waiting for your next update!

[Alias]

Eh, you're a bit off track this time.  It's not so much about the machine, and don't overlook the scene with the suit guy.  For that matter, you could carefully re-read the very last part with the toy, see what you can get out of that.

[KaiAdin]

I guess you might be referring to marketing executives and other not so knowledgeable people using the machine to do unsustainable things and such? Possibly leading to that end of the world scenario and all that.

@Lopez: Interesting Wired article! But did you read the latter bits? there are concerns that the models and underlying assumptions in the machine are wrong (just as Alias mentioned in his story!) so yea.. there would always need to be someone like maverick to adjust or fix it.

[Virmir]

Blast it.  I went and downloaded part 2 without seeing the part 3 again. *facepaws*  Pretty cool so far!  It looks like this story may deal with the how and the why, which interests me a bit more than what comes after the apocalypse.

Will get to part 3 soon.

[Virmir]

Okay, read part 3 and am switching my level from "interested" to "impressed".    Keep up the great work!  At this point I'm liking this better than your werewolf story. Definitely looking forward to the next part.