Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => CCP Public Library => Topic started by: Ciarente on 25 Mar 2013, 06:23
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Here (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/After_the_Fall_%28Chronicle%29)
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[spoiler]But then who was body? D:[/spoiler]
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Added a spoiler tag for you!
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Interesting chronicle. I like it.
Although I kind of share the confusion. Must re-read when I'm at home. :O
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I think, based on the chronicle language and while attempting to not give spoilers, the last sentence refers to his own people.
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[spoiler]But then who was body? D:[/spoiler]
I think Art's certainly right about who they were. Why? Here's my take on the answer to that question:
[spoiler]I think the narrator was Dexter Morgan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_(TV_series)) transposed to an internet spaceship game. In my reading of it, the repeated references to 'the garden' sounded like both metaphor and euphemism - I think his first reference to it was as something that 'needed absolute attention' and, in the end, lost out to raising his family (which required the same). ::shrug:: Will have to read it again and see if this impression sticks.[/spoiler]
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[spoiler]Yeah. I didn't see any mention of the guards carting away the vandals, which led me to figure that they were the bodies, myself.[/spoiler]
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[spoiler]
I offered the guards all the herbs and vegetables they wanted, and they declined with polite amusement. They told me they would spread the word that I and my garden weren't to be touched, and if that either were harmed in any fashion, there'd be a scouring. I thanked them profusely. They left me after a while, carting off the miscreants and promising to keep an eye out for my dog.
[/spoiler]
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[spoiler]
I offered the guards all the herbs and vegetables they wanted, and they declined with polite amusement. They told me they would spread the word that I and my garden weren't to be touched, and if that either were harmed in any fashion, there'd be a scouring. I thanked them profusely. They left me after a while, carting off the miscreants and promising to keep an eye out for my dog.
[/spoiler]
Okay, I'm clearly not as awake as I thought I was. Missed that. xD
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[spoiler]I think one, at least, was his wife.[/spoiler]
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I must really not be awake because I read it straight and didn't see any hidden meanings. Someone want to point out where they think some of these are?
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(http://l.wigflip.com/UpUehKax/roflbot.jpg)
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I might be brain-farting but I'm really not seeing the 'hidden' things here?
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[spoiler]The vegetables would be the corpses of the gallente offenders. Not sure myself but it's a possibility. The mention of "bodies" at the end triggered a lot of alarms for me. Of course the bodies could just be the work of the Caldari guards too, burried amongst the vegetables...[/spoiler]
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I read it as the Gallentean version of Wild Earth (http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Wild_Earth_(Chronicle)). :)
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Abraxas own spoilers https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2790891#post2790891 (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2790891#post2790891)
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Yup, that's what I had imagined. Dexter in Caldari Prime. XD
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My addled pea-brain dislikes stories with this amount of metaphor / unreliable narrator.
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I'm not a big fan of Abraxas in general...too much "hey, look at this dark/gritty/weird thing! oh...and it might have something to do with Eve," too little world building for my tastes.
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Came expecting a Sansha chronicle, not entirely sure I left without one...
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The presto-change-o at the end really wasn't required IMO, but over all it was pretty decent in so far as it is an occupation story.
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These kind of stories are the ones I appreciate. I usually prefer the world impacting ones actually doing more world building and having a bigger impact (like for example the last one on the Tribal Assembly), but I also like the ones about the life of average people.
However I am not fond at all of over cryptic for the sake of being cryptic ones, but I guess we must have some to satisfy every taste.
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I'm not a big fan of Abraxas in general.. too much "hey, look at this dark/gritty/weird thing! oh...and it might have something to do with Eve," too little world building for my tastes.
I disagree with this - I think it's a matter of scope.
With this chronicle, at least, he's perhaps not done anything on a large or epic scale. Through the character of the narrator he has, however, provided subtle detail and nuance on some of what it is to be Gallente. The idea of it all being a face or a mask, for instance - something convenient to wear when times are good and something that's equally convenient to discard at other times. The possibility of what might happen when all the lip service given to the wonders of 'personal liberty' is stripped back, allowing the "infrastructure of daily life" to fall away and the resulting "anger and ennui" that becomes "emblematic" of disenfranchised Gallente in their ghettos and simultaneously a "fertile breeding ground for darkness" that we all suspect exists behind the Federation's glamourous surface appeal.
For me it echoed, at times, some of the themes in - and indeed some of the setting of - Conrad's Heart of Darkness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_darkness).
I also thought his characterisation of the provist Caldari was quite good. He did his best to make them more than jack-booted space nazis which is something we've seen many calls for recently and the subtle care he took in doing it was quite precise. They were "ruthlessly efficient", smart enough to understand that once the obvious dissidents were removed simple things like relocating Gallente to make living conditions more tightly localised was not only beneficial to that efficiency it also eventually helped to erode the Gallente ideals and weaken their character. Smart enough too to see what the garden was really about even as the captive Gallente looked past it and - if the narrator was left to his devices - how that could also benefit the efficiency of the Caldari's means of maintaining order.
I think your statement gives Abraxas too little credit. In my opinion, he understands that the building of worlds is achieved not only with the major people and events that are its bricks but also with the mortar that holds them in place which by necessity in EVE should be dark, gritty and weird enough to make us just a little uncomfortable.
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I disagree with this - I think it's a matter of scope.
With this chronicle, at least, he's perhaps not done anything on a large or epic scale. Through the character of the narrator he has, however, provided subtle detail and nuance on some of what it is to be Gallente. The idea of it all being a face or a mask, for instance - something convenient to wear when times are good and something that's equally convenient to discard at other times. The possibility of what might happen when all the lip service given to the wonders of 'personal liberty' is stripped back, allowing the "infrastructure of daily life" to fall away and the resulting "anger and ennui" that becomes "emblematic" of disenfranchised Gallente in their ghettos and simultaneously a "fertile breeding ground for darkness" that we all suspect exists behind the Federation's glamourous surface appeal.
Not to mention we finally get to know how the situation really was down in Caldari Prime. Which is probably an important thing many people can RP around if they can find a way to justify that knowledge now that the blockade is gone.
I also thought his characterisation of the provist Caldari was quite good. He did his best to make them more than jack-booted space nazis which is something we've seen many calls for recently and the subtle care he took in doing it was quite precise. They were "ruthlessly efficient", smart enough to understand that once the obvious dissidents were removed simple things like relocating Gallente to make living conditions more tightly localised was not only beneficial to that efficiency it also eventually helped to erode the Gallente ideals and weaken their character. Smart enough too to see what the garden was really about even as the captive Gallente looked past it and - if the narrator was left to his devices - how that could also benefit the efficiency of the Caldari's means of maintaining order.
I disagree with you on this. I do believe the characterization of the Caldari is very cool, but then I do like bad guys (like you hadn't imagined by me playing Amarr). And the whole process sounds completely like the Nazi Germany: segregation into walled ghettos, taking people that could be dangerous, destructuring of the social web put under pressure, etc. All with a bit of modern day Israel too.
So I think he does portray them as space nazis clearly, he just does so in an interesting and nice way.
I think your statement gives Abraxas too little credit. In my opinion, he understands that the building of worlds is achieved not only with the major people and events that are its bricks but also with the mortar that holds them in place which by necessity in EVE should be dark, gritty and weird enough to make us just a little uncomfortable.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. It's better to tell a story that ilustrates some aspects of the universe than to make a wall of text to describe it directly. And I love those walls of text too.
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I think there's enough meat to a story about planetary occupation, ghetoization, cultural public vs private, giant exploding spaceships, without needing to throw in serial killer monkey wrench as well.
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I think there's enough meat to a story about planetary occupation, ghetoization, cultural public vs private, giant exploding spaceships, without needing to throw in serial killer monkey wrench as well.
Yeah, I think that's what wrankles me the most.
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So I think he does portray them as space nazis clearly, he just does so in an interesting and nice way.
You've represented what I was trying to say better than I did. :) They're still space nazis, they're just not the caricatures of space nazis we've grown accustomed to?
I think there's enough meat to a story about planetary occupation, ghetoization, cultural public vs private, giant exploding spaceships, without needing to throw in serial killer monkey wrench as well.
I think he may have used that as a tool to highlight some of the differences between the Caldari and Gallente mindsets.
The Caldari with their focus, quiet methodology and ruthless efficiency knew the narrator - literally - for what he was. And didn't care because it wasn't affecting their bottom line.
The Gallente, on the other hand, lost in impotent anger and despair for the lack of anything substantial to centre their world view on (beyond 'Yay, freedom!') completely failed to see the real monster in their midst. Because for the Feds it's about masks and how you wear them.
It was only when the hope of a return to 'normal' was on the horizon, when the Caldari 'monsters' had been driven off that the narrator felt the Gallente survivors might develop their own suspicions.
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Ruthless yes, efficient, not so much.
Would have been a lot more efficient to actually try to make the locals happy, on the long run. It's actually how they treated the locals that put them in that situation. However it proves the point of the narrator.
Efficient in a short run provist way, sure, though.
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You've represented what I was trying to say better than I did. :) They're still space nazis, they're just not the caricatures of space nazis we've grown accustomed to?
Yep, then I wholeheartedly agree.
I think he may have used that as a tool to highlight some of the differences between the Caldari and Gallente mindsets.
The Caldari with their focus, quiet methodology and ruthless efficiency knew the narrator - literally - for what he was. And didn't care because it wasn't affecting their bottom line.
The Gallente, on the other hand, lost in impotent anger and despair for the lack of anything substantial to centre their world view on (beyond 'Yay, freedom!') completely failed to see the real monster in their midst. Because for the Feds it's about masks and how you wear them.
It was only when the hope of a return to 'normal' was on the horizon, when the Caldari 'monsters' had been driven off that the narrator felt the Gallente survivors might develop their own suspicions.
And agree a lot with this whole as well, hadn't seen so deep into it, but it makes perfect sense.
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I think he may have used that as a tool to highlight some of the differences between the Caldari and Gallente mindsets.
The Caldari with their focus, quiet methodology and ruthless efficiency knew the narrator - literally - for what he was. And didn't care because it wasn't affecting their bottom line.
The Gallente, on the other hand, lost in impotent anger and despair for the lack of anything substantial to centre their world view on (beyond 'Yay, freedom!') completely failed to see the real monster in their midst. Because for the Feds it's about masks and how you wear them.
It was only when the hope of a return to 'normal' was on the horizon, when the Caldari 'monsters' had been driven off that the narrator felt the Gallente survivors might develop their own suspicions.
But that isn't the case.
The houses next to him stay empty. The narrator implies that it was easy for him to keep them that way, even when the Caldari are cramming people together. We can infer that he's just killing them, but it's not impossible that people were just keeping away from him. Several times, he's harassed by people throwing trash and junk at his house. People deliberately separate him from his dog. Several people try to expose him, and take shovels to dig up the bodies, but are thwarted by the Caldari.
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I think the Caldari took his dog.
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Interesting, I hadn't considered that. Why?
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Are you saying what was the motive for the Caldari taking his dog or why I think the Caldari took the dog?
I think the Caldari took the dog based on the statement that the dog returned when the Caldari had gone.
I think the Caldari took the dog in order to co-opt who defended the old-man/garden.
I also didn't read it as he was a serial killer, but a collaborator whose garden was being used to cover-up a shallow grave for those killed by the Caldari for crimes or such. But maybe I didn't understand the reference as well.