Fair Enough: Difference between revisions
From Swarm Cycle Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
(Create page, create content -ZM) |
m (minor clarification -ZM) |
||
| Line 18: | Line 18: | ||
* We have starships, multiple colonies, warships and soldiers and moon bases and we have been fighting for several years, but the protagonist is the first person to think of putting _military_ bases on the moon. With weapons! | * We have starships, multiple colonies, warships and soldiers and moon bases and we have been fighting for several years, but the protagonist is the first person to think of putting _military_ bases on the moon. With weapons! | ||
* He and his women are being put onto a colony ship where they will be assigned a 'pod' to live in. Once it is decided where they should go, they will be sent there. One of the Swarm Cycle's major canon principles is that transportation is a huge bottleneck, there are never enough transports to take people to the colonies. Transports arrive in Earthat space, get loaded as quickly as possible, and are off again to deliver their load to whatever colony they are assigned to. No transport ship will hang around in Moon orbit for any length of time while the clerks try to decide where to send someone. We have AIs, but we don't have planning offices and computer programs and databases to take care of this? | * He and his women are being put onto a colony ship where they will be assigned a 'pod' to live in. Once it is decided where they should go, they will be sent there. One of the Swarm Cycle's major canon principles is that transportation is a huge bottleneck, there are never enough transports to take people to the colonies. Transports arrive in Earthat space, get loaded as quickly as possible, and are off again to deliver their load to whatever colony they are assigned to. No transport ship will hang around in Moon orbit for any length of time while the clerks try to decide where to send someone. We have AIs, but we don't have planning offices and computer programs and databases to take care of this? | ||
* The Swarm Cycle is set 'in the near future'. One dolt is accused of having been picked up using someone else's card, and is confused by the concept of 'DNA'. Not everyone is a genetic researcher, but someone speaking English like an educated native and not even having heard of 'DNA' seems a bit too far. Perhaps if this story was written in the 1940's, 'in the near future' could well have educated first-world people who have never heard of 'DNA', but not a story written in 2025 and set 'in the near future'. | * The Swarm Cycle is set 'in the near future'. One dolt is accused of having been picked up using someone else's card, and is confused by the concept of 'DNA'. Not everyone is a genetic researcher, but someone speaking English like an educated native and not even having heard of 'DNA' seems a bit too far. Perhaps if this story was written in the 1940's, 'in the near future' could well have educated first-world people who have never heard of 'DNA', but not a story written in 2025 -when genetic research and even engineering are common- and set 'in the near future'. | ||
* The AI serves as prosecutor, judge and jury during a trial, with the story's protagonist -the same day he is picked up- sticking his nose in to redirect the verdict. Are there no other more-experienced humans available to participate in this trial? Further, once the verdict is announced, the AI starts giving orders to human guards. Who's in charge, here? | * The AI serves as prosecutor, judge and jury during a trial, with the story's protagonist -the same day he is picked up- sticking his nose in to redirect the verdict. Are there no other more-experienced humans available to participate in this trial? Further, once the verdict is announced, the AI starts giving orders to human guards. Who's in charge, here? | ||
* CAP fraud is a capital crime in the Confederacy. Honest mistakes are possible, but someone knowingly committing fraud is executed. They are NOT sent back down to Earth to apologize to the man whose card they stole, to learn from their mistakes and try again later. The Confederacy prevents recidivism by execution. Again, this is a light romp across the Swarm Cycle and the author may have wanted to avoid writing about violence, but there's no need to even include this scene in the story if you're going to get it wrong. | * CAP fraud is a capital crime in the Confederacy. Honest mistakes are possible, but someone knowingly committing fraud is executed. They are NOT sent back down to Earth to apologize to the man whose card they stole, to learn from their mistakes and try again later. The Confederacy prevents recidivism by execution. Again, this is a light romp across the Swarm Cycle and the author may have wanted to avoid writing about violence, but there's no need to even include this scene in the story if you're going to get it wrong. | ||
Latest revision as of 05:52, 5 June 2025
Fair Enough
by: Gordon Johnson
Synopsis: A comedy of errors when a young man who does not want to be a soldier gets picked up without even a CAP card, along with a bunch of women who agreed that going with him was their safest option. Imagine the all-round shock on pickup arrival.
Sex Contents: Minimal Sex
Genre: Science Fiction
Tags: mt/ft, mt/Fa, Reluctant, Heterosexual, Polygamy/Polyamory
Size: 73KB | 13,928 words
Posted: 2025-05-18
Setting: Aberdeenshire in Scotland, then one of the Moonbases.
Timeline: It would have to be fairly early in the timeline, as the MC has heard of CAP cards but isn't interested in getting one.
Status: Available on StoriesOnLine.net at [[1]]
Canon issues: Non-canon. Not to be used as a canon reference. This story was written as a fantasy, a light romp, by someone who has read a couple of Swarm Cycle stories but has not yet grasped the concept of 'canon', things that fit in the story's universe. The main character is a 17-year-old supergenius with 8.5 CAP who acts like he is 10 or 11. All around him are dolts who cannot think for themselves. He repeatedly points out obvious things that have never occurred to anyone else. This would have worked well if it was the first "Swarm Cycle" story written, as then _it_ would have been taken as 'canon' and all subsequent stories would follow its lead. However, it was written 20 years and 350+ stories into the Cycle, and completely ignores 'canon' as established by those previous stories. Examples(*) include:
- Canon says that, in the UK, CAP testing was mandatory for all people past their 14th birthday from the initial release of information about the Confederacy's war with the Sa'arm in Year 2 until the rise of the "Earth First" government when it suddenly became prohibited until that government was removed, at which point it became required again. At no time in the UK was a CAP card something that a schoolboy who eschewed a social life in favor of internet-based education could have 'heard of but not be interested in getting'.
- We have starships, multiple colonies, warships and soldiers and moon bases and we have been fighting for several years, but the protagonist is the first person to think of putting _military_ bases on the moon. With weapons!
- He and his women are being put onto a colony ship where they will be assigned a 'pod' to live in. Once it is decided where they should go, they will be sent there. One of the Swarm Cycle's major canon principles is that transportation is a huge bottleneck, there are never enough transports to take people to the colonies. Transports arrive in Earthat space, get loaded as quickly as possible, and are off again to deliver their load to whatever colony they are assigned to. No transport ship will hang around in Moon orbit for any length of time while the clerks try to decide where to send someone. We have AIs, but we don't have planning offices and computer programs and databases to take care of this?
- The Swarm Cycle is set 'in the near future'. One dolt is accused of having been picked up using someone else's card, and is confused by the concept of 'DNA'. Not everyone is a genetic researcher, but someone speaking English like an educated native and not even having heard of 'DNA' seems a bit too far. Perhaps if this story was written in the 1940's, 'in the near future' could well have educated first-world people who have never heard of 'DNA', but not a story written in 2025 -when genetic research and even engineering are common- and set 'in the near future'.
- The AI serves as prosecutor, judge and jury during a trial, with the story's protagonist -the same day he is picked up- sticking his nose in to redirect the verdict. Are there no other more-experienced humans available to participate in this trial? Further, once the verdict is announced, the AI starts giving orders to human guards. Who's in charge, here?
- CAP fraud is a capital crime in the Confederacy. Honest mistakes are possible, but someone knowingly committing fraud is executed. They are NOT sent back down to Earth to apologize to the man whose card they stole, to learn from their mistakes and try again later. The Confederacy prevents recidivism by execution. Again, this is a light romp across the Swarm Cycle and the author may have wanted to avoid writing about violence, but there's no need to even include this scene in the story if you're going to get it wrong.
- The protagonist gets to teach the AI about a unique human concept it has never run across before called 'twins'. And we let this thing run med-tubes to modify humans, with that level of biological data?
- The AIs do not consider the concubines as having any intrinsic value, being mere interchangeable commodities until the protagonist talks to it. This might make sense, if the story was set in the early years of the Diaspora.
- The protagonist invents remotely-operated weapons and thinks up various ways to disrupt Sa'arm operations. Because none of the dolts who went before him were smart enough to think of them.
(* The author was given feedback by at least two different sources about these issues before publication, but chose to leave the story as-is. -ZM)
(Someday this will be a navigation template. It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links. Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))
