Comments | pozorvlak: Thoughts on Sam Hughes' Fine Structure

pozorvlak

Thoughts on Sam Hughes' Fine Structure

Feb 26, 2008 14:10

I've been reading some science fiction written by a guy called Sam Hughes1, and posted on his website Things of Interest. Most recently, I've been reading his Ed stories, about Sam and his (fictional) genius flatmate Ed, who builds battlemechs in their basement and saves the world from annihilation on a regular basis, and to whom Sam plays a sort ( Read more... )

fine structure, books, links, science, sf

Comments 25

necaris February 27 2008, 13:27:02 UTC

I've just lost half a morning to it. I love the ending to this. It's a whole new arena of (fascinating) time-wasting ;-)

I had a theory I was going to chime in with, but several intriguing alternatives have popped into my head. Hmmm. This guy is clearly an absolute genius, though, and I can't wait for the remainder either...

pozorvlak February 27 2008, 13:43:00 UTC

I had a theory I was going to chime in with, but several intriguing alternatives have popped into my head.
Oh? Do share! :-)

I emailed Sam with a link to this page, and he's given me some more questions to chew on. So there'll probably be a followup post in a day or two...

necaris February 28 2008, 10:29:48 UTC

Well, my theory basically involved a long-range causal loop -- the A-Layer's creators are a consortium of time-traveling Powers from both Earth and Eden who have figured out The Secrets Of The Universe, and are going back in time and Powering up random people to ensure that they are eventually Born. They're messing with the teleportation project because it's dangerously close to time travel and they don't want n00bs screwing up their timeline; the A-Layer's message is there to help boost technology along for the same reasons, to ensure that time-travel and FTL do come about.

Eden was colonized by Earthlings FTL-traveling a long distance into their own past, but once the consortium's local representatives (Calrus and Poole?) realized what had happened and "came out" to the colonists, the society fragmented, fought, and Crashed. They're still working on building a stable society that won't crash when they reveal themselves.

Anyway, I don't pretend that's anything more than wild, elaborate, and inconsistent speculation -- my choice of ( ... )

dustywidecki October 9 2008, 17:30:31 UTC

Actually just giving a different name to this Super Being really does not make much difference, they believe in GOD, and all they need is just a little fine tuning.

Hmmm . . . sdjsdj February 27 2008, 14:27:17 UTC

My guess is that the FTL (and/or time) travel element means that the story to be included is Valuable Humans In Transit.
The Crashes? Well, the start of The Big Idea could mean it's a vengeful/long-term benevolent semi-omnipotent, empowered by the A-Layer, trying to avert nuclear war.
Where did the A-Layer come from, though? Its connection with humanity suggests that time travel could be involved, I suppose . . . No idea. How long am I going to spend trying to figure this out?!

Re: Hmmm . . . pozorvlak February 27 2008, 14:39:27 UTC

My guess is that the FTL (and/or time) travel element means that the story to be included is Valuable Humans In Transit.
He does write a lot about time travel, so that might make sense. Currently, though, there's no sign of nanotech or a catastrophe quite that devastating, so I don't think I agree.

Well, the start of The Big Idea could mean it's a vengeful/long-term benevolent semi-omnipotent, empowered by the A-Layer, trying to avert nuclear war.
And sealed in the Antarctic monolithic dome, perhaps?

Re: Hmmm . . . sdjsdj February 27 2008, 16:05:18 UTC

Ooh, good idea!

From the parallel plotting, I'd guess that the Crash events are happening on Eden, and everything else on Earth; on second thoughts, Valuable Humans In Transit doesn't quite fit with either of the strands so far - the technological background doesn't match either setting, and the catastrophic event doesn't sound like a Crash or a berserk member of the Line.
In fact . . . Back to the drawing board.:)

Re: Hmmm . . . pozorvlak February 27 2008, 16:09:30 UTC

I'd guess that the Crash events are happening on Eden

That thought had occurred to me, but there are an awful lot of Earthlike place-names used in the Crash stories - Eurasia, China, Sicily, Greenland, Antarctica. Of course, the Edenites could have used Earth names for their landmasses, in the same way that there are towns called London, Glasgow, Truro etc in North America.

Thread 6

necaris February 28 2008, 18:15:01 UTC

Just FYI, I'd lost the link to this and the Fine Structure site itself ... so I typed it into Google and lo! it's the first search result for "sam hughes fine structure". Nice!

Notice that: anonymous February 28 2008, 22:22:18 UTC

I've been watching his site for a while (I found it via the How To Destroy The Earth) and I noticed that lightning caused the teleporters to mess up. Notice also the lightning causing the Powers?

Re: Notice that: pozorvlak February 29 2008, 00:16:24 UTC

Yes, very good point! Though I don't think Poole can be a member of the Line. But maybe lightning is a general side-effect of interference by the Superbeings From The Future (or whatever they are).

noreenewyji July 11 2008, 04:37:49 UTC

His novels tell us to fear science while his essays, speeches, and interviews suggest the opposite.

No clue here anonymous March 1 2008, 09:11:26 UTC

Frankly, my mind was blown when FTiS, The Astronomer's Loss, and Crushed Underground were retro-incorporated. Reading your ideas, though, I wonder if the Astronomer's Loss isn't supposed to have taken place literally, but rather as a metaphor for the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens having decided to cause Crashes after we fucked up the first time. Still doesn't explain the various supers, though.

Re: No clue here pozorvlak March 1 2008, 13:56:01 UTC

Mine too! Good idea about TAL's metaphoricity... because other stories clearly show that humanity does travel to other stars, invent FTL travel, and so on.