Sun Wu Kung had won the race...
-----
Chapter 11.
Even as Wu crossed the finish line, he was suddenly there in front of Ariane, skidding to a halt not three meters from the table at which DuQuesne and his opponent were seated, surrounded by rank upon rank of spectators, silent, staring, frozen in disbelief and shock. Even though she had been warned, Ariane was herself still in a state of utter awe. DuQuesne had said Wu was better than him. But this…
And then the silence broke and a roar of applause, of furious curses and mighty cheers, broke over the Arena like a wave. Tunuvun caught up Wu Kung in an embrace that must have made even ring-carbon supported ribs creak, and his words were incoherent but needed no translation to hear the joy and gratitude.
Orphan was moving forward along with Ariane, and she saw his body's pose echoed a new emotion: vindication.
Wu escaped Tunuvun's grasp only to be swept into a bear-hug of victory by DuQuesne. "Dammit, Wu, you scared the crap out of me! Don't ever cut it that fine again!"
The Hyperion Monkey King was grinning, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "Those Adjudicators were not playing, DuQuesne! I really had to work! It was fun! Lots of fun!"
"It was a most... artistic finish, Sun Wu Kung," Orphan said, with a full pushup-bow. "Such a victory will be remembered long indeed."
That strange expression remained clear on the alien's face and form, and Ariane wondered what it meant. You learned something there. You were looking utterly disappointed before, almost crushed really. Now you're riding high. "Did you have a bet on this match?"
"Ahh, Captain Austin, I think you have come to know me well. Yes, a most interesting result, and most profitable as well." His black eyes seemed to twinkle at her. "But we shall speak of this later. It is time for the victor to receive his prize."
The crowd which had begun to flood the center of the ring fell back – or was gently shoved back by the glittering golden light of the Arena. "Sun Wu Kung," the calm, quiet yet thunderous voice of the Arena began, "Step—"
"We object!"
The voice was the rough bass of Byto, echoed by the higher-pitched precision of none other than Selpa'A'At, who had reached the side of his selected champion. "Arena, we object!"
The entire crowd went deathly silent, and Ariane looked around nervously. "What's going on?"
Orphan was studying the Leader of the Vengeance with a clinical air. "While it is rare, it is possible for a Challenger, or Challenged, to object that some aspect of a Challenge was unfair or that somehow the result was rigged against them. These objections are rarely sustained – the Arena is, after all, the overseer of the Challenges – but it is their right and it has been known to work."
After a moment's silence, the Arena spoke. "Your objection will be heard. However, only the relevant parties shall be involved in the discussion."
Without even a blink, Ariane found herself in a smaller – but still huge – room with only DuQuesne, Wu Kung, Tunuvun, Byto, and Selpa. Even the far more experienced Leader of the Vengeance looked startled and disoriented. "State your objection, Selpa'A'At of the Vengeance."
Recovering from his startlement, Selpa lifted his manipulators and pointed to Wu Kung. "He has been enhanced to a degree that reveals malfeasance in this contest. Either a Shadeweaver or an Initiate Guide has provided him with capabilities beyond those allowed any of us in the Arena."
"You are saying I cheated?" Wu Kung began to lunge forward, tearing free of even DuQuesne's attempt to restrain him; without warning he was pinned to the ground by a force beyond even the Monkey King's ability to oppose.
"Violence will not be tolerated," the Arena said dispassionately. "There was no cheating or manipulation, Leader of the Vengeance."
"Do you think I would have tolerated cheating?" Tunuvun demanded. "I do not know how my brother Wu Kung did what he did, but you –"
"Is it not true that the Shadeweavers and Initiate Guides have powers to sometimes conceal their work from even you, Arena?" Selpa said, ignoring Tunuvun's anger.
"It is," the Arena conceded calmly. "But this is irrelevant to the current instance."
"We know the rules, Arena! Any species may enhance its individuals only so far beyond their natural level! We have seen what the other humans can do, and there is no possible way in which this –"
DuQuesne raised his hand. "Hold on. Arena, there are... elements of our security here that may be relevant."
"Understood."
Tunuvun stopped and gave a narrow stare at DuQuesne, and then at Wu Kung, who met his gaze with a swift nod.
Ariane thought she was finally getting an inkling of what was going on – of what DuQuesne was implying – and it sent a chill down her spine... whether of fear or excitement, though, she wasn't sure.
"Show them."
Everyone suddenly stared at Wu Kung as he rose, slowly, from the floor, glaring furiously at Selpa and Byto. "Wu, are you sure –" DuQuesne began.
"SHOW THEM!" shouted Wu Kung. "Show them and bind them to never speak of it, but show them, so they will know that my honor remains!"
"Ariane Austin, do you give permission?"
Ariane looked from Wu to DuQuesne. "Marc? What am I giving permission for?"
Mark's brows were drawn down, but not in anger; in pained sympathy. "To show these two why Wu's so far beyond everyone. Why it's right that he is. To show them... Hyperion."
"What?" Ariane was stunned. "Arena? You could do that?"
"Yes."
She saw DuQuesne start to speak, then close his mouth with a visible effort. He wants to say something more, but he's not. He's letting me figure it out on my own. "Can and will you do as Wu asked? Show them, but not allow them to tell anyone else of secrets learned here, in any fashion?"
"Yes."
Great. Now I just have to decide what to do. "What happens if I say no? Selpa, you have the Arena's word that there was no cheating. You have Tunuvun, your selected champion, saying there was no cheating. You also have my word, if you care to take it, that there was none, and that the reason for Wu's abilities is a secret of Humanity's that just knowing is more valuable than I can easily imagine. Can you let it go at that?"
The Leader of the Vengeance swayed uncertainly on his spidery legs, looking even more like a harvestman than usual. "I wish I could, Captain Austin," he said finally, and the regret in his voice sounded genuine. "But this is an entire Sphere that hangs in the balance."
"One Sphere of many, which would go to a species that deserves one. You of all people should understand and sympathize with these people, the worst victims of the Arena's usual rules!" At her words, Tunuvun gave a complex look – both grateful and pained. He hates having to have others stand up for his people... but also is grateful if anyone does.
"I do." There was actual pain in Selpa's voice. "And were the Sphere truly mine to do with as I please, it would be different. But I am the Vengeance and I must do as the Vengeance requires. I cannot simply let this go on the word of the force that is – as it well knows – an agent of our Adversaries, and that of a still-new species which is not even fully understood. You must understand this, Captain Austin. I am sure you do."
She sighed. "I wish I didn't. But yes, I understand." She looked up – even though that was silly, the Arena wasn't really in any particular location. "Arena, if I refuse, what happens?"
"The results of the race will stand and the awarding of the prize will commence. There will be political and personal issues that you will be forced to confront due to this unusual event."
Translated: there'd be a lot of people who suspected some kind of underhanded trickery, maybe even, now that she thought of it, believe she had somehow managed to do it using the powers that were still locked away inside her. And Wu Kung, who was now staring at her with pleading emerald eyes wide, would forever be under a shadow of suspicion.
And for him, honor's one of the most important things in the universe.
It was that – and, possibly, a tiny bit of her own curiosity – that decided her. "All right, Wu. Arena, I give permission. With the restrictions mentioned, show us all the truth that Sun Wu Kung wants us to see."
"By your command."
Suddenly she floated in an omniscient void, looking down and through, as seven young people sat around a table, and joked and laughed, and one had an idea, and the others started discussing it…
... the same seven, and more people, both virtually and physically present, and the talk becoming something more serious, examining possibilities, designs which could be made, what could never be achieved, and what might be possible.
A shimmering tracery of girders, nanoassemblers and automated machines spinning a web, girdling it with cables and reinforcing ring-carbon, steel and aluminum and titanium, an immense shining colony…
And now images, so fast she could barely grasp them, yet could sense the emotions, the impressions, the gestalt that each image represented: a blond man in a gold uniform, stripes meaning "Captain" on his sleeve; the ebon skin and flowing indigo hair of Erision, facing the Unreality Effect for the first time; a familiar red-headed girl leaping from a building and gliding to safety on a parasail; DuQuesne staring up at the Skylark with his friend Richard Seaton; a tall, dark-haired figure in red and blue, streaking into the sky with a thought; her old virtual friend and first crush Tarellimade, staring through greenery at the woman he would one day marry; a blonde girl facing a monstrous vampire, wooden stake in her hand; Wu Kung, emerging from his sealed stone prison, startled to see a woman's face beneath the hat of a monk; and dozens, hundreds more, each a figure of legend large or small.
Then the impression of rage, of betrayal, and shadow was cast over the brilliance, and the sound was of screaming and fighting, guns and swords and fists in the dark, and more flashes of single scenes: the red and blue standing back-to-back with one wearing red, white, and blue and holding a shield; the gold-uniformed man standing straight, holding a salute, as in the screen before him a woman, dark-haired, wearing a beret and eyepatch, saluted him, and then Maria-Susanna, screaming as she held the gold-uniformed man's body; eighteen men, all different yet, somehow, all the same, poised for combat around a strange blue box.
And still more; four children in strange costumes fighting alongside an assortment of gray-skinned, orange-horned creatures that were, themselves, children, and the blood all around was purple, blue, green, brown, and even red; Wu Kung staggering forward, drugged and slow, to be beaten down to the ground; a tall, slender man sitting in a Victorian dressing-gown, immobile, waiting in a cluttered apartment with a strange pattern of bullet-holes on the wall, an apartment that suddenly disappeared, and in that moment the man raised a pistol he held in one hand…
Without warning they were back, the room now too bright, sterile and cold, and the glory and madness and anguish of those two decades compressed into moments almost brought her to her knees; she swayed and was caught by DuQuesne, whose face was white, with tears leaving shining streaks behind. "Not again," he was murmuring. "Not again." Nearby, Tunuvun was half-collapsed, his gaze flickering incredulously between Wu Kung and DuQuesne.
Wu Kung was standing now, shaking, glaring at Selpa and Byto; the Leader of the Vengeance had sagged to the floor, his legs vibrating, and the rhinoceros-like Byto uttered a gasp of disbelief and pain. "What do you say now, Vengeance-ones? What of my honor now?"
Trembling still, Selpa rose and then bobbed before Sun Wu Kung. "I... retract the implication." The translated voice was raw with horror, disbelief, revulsion. "You... your people... this was true?"
"Every last bit," DuQuesne said, voice rough. "And you didn't see the half of it."
"Do you understand?" the Arena asked.
"Yes," Byto spoke finally, with the same disbelieving horror in his voice. "These... people. They ... those were their native worlds. So whatever enhancements were made to them... were natural. By the Arena's own decrees, they retain all they were made with... for they did not know they were made, or even that there was another world in which they could have been made."
"Then do you withdraw the objection?"
Selpa rocked so his eyes stared full at DuQuesne and Wu Kung, horror still writ large in that pose. "Yes. It is withdrawn." The tilted gaze turned to her, and Selpa tightened with what had to be not merely horror but revulsion. Why?
Even as she asked the question, she understood. Because now he knows that we were capable of creating Hyperion. He knows just how far human beings can go even in their own system, against their own species.
"You will retain this knowledge, Selpa'A'At and Byto of the Vengeance, as well as you, Tunuvun of the Genasi, but you will be incapable of conveying this knowledge to any others. You will also recognize that none of those responsible for Hyperion are present, or likely to be present in the Arena."
"Understood." Selpa's voice was finally dropping to its normal controlled register; Byto echoed the agreement. Tunuvun simply bowed.
Instantly they were back in the amphitheatre. Once more the golden light cleared a path, and this time Ariane could see that a tall raised platform lay before them, with a stairway winding to the top. "Sun Wu Kung," the Arena intoned, "the objection has been withdrawn, your victory untainted and uncontested; step forward, and receive the prize."
That's right, she remembered. The selected champion claims the prize first.
Since the prize was an entire Sphere, she wasn't sure how this was going to be handed out; strong as Wu was, she suspected lifting twenty thousand kilometer-wide Spheres was a little out of his range.
The cheers had begun again as Wu Kung, once more proud and happy, stepped jauntily forward, barely keeping himself to a semi-dignified walk rather than the all-out sprint she could tell he would prefer. Strains of music echoed around them, a fanfare or tribute to a winner that while alien still managed to evoke a kinship with other, similar ceremonies on Earth, including her own experiences in the Winner's Circle back home.
Finally the four of them – Wu Kung, DuQuesne, herself, and Tunuvun – reached the top of the platform. A beam of pure white light touched Wu Kung as he stretched out a hand, and something glittered within, a something that floated steadily downward, sparkling like a jewel, until she could see that it was a perfect crystal sphere, with a white-glowing symbol within.
"You have won Racing Chance in Challenge, Sun Wu Kung, and thus the prize is yours. This token is yours. Whoever presents it to the Vengeance, they shall be given a Sphere and all the privileges of the Arena that are the right of every Citizen of the Arena."
Wu Kung caught the jewel and held it in wonder. "A Sphere…"
She saw DuQuesne stiffen.
"A Sphere that becomes a home," Wu murmured, staring at the sparkling crystal, enraptured. "DuQuesne! It could be... it could be our home!"
Oh, no. No, Wu. But she understood exactly what Wu Kung was thinking: a home for the Hyperions. Perhaps, just possibly, a home for their friends, too, the friends locked away as patterns in quantum states. Wu came from a place that believed in such miracles, and with the power of the Arena... was it entirely impossible?
And could anyone in Wu's position not be tempted – terribly tempted – by that possibility?
DuQuesne swallowed hard. "Yes. Yes, Wu. It could." She could tell that Marc did not dare push Wu Kung one way or the other. The Arena had given Wu Kung this treasure, and it was his, and his alone... and pushing Sun Wu Kung would probably end poorly anyway.
Tunuvun stood, rigid as steel, staring in mute fear. The Monkey King is also known for his caprice…
And then Wu grinned. "We have to get one for ourselves!" he shouted, and then tossed the priceless gemstone into the air, so it came down perfectly into a stunned Tunuvun's hands. "Now – we have a celebration!"
The cheers that erupted around them were nearly deafening, and a swarm of Genasi sprinted up the column and caught up Wu, lifting him high. "A celebration for our rights and our victory, Sun Wu Kung," Tunuvun said, and his translated voice was thick with near-tears of joy, "and for you, who gave it to us when we thought all lost. And you, who I now know never had a true home... You were my brother before, now you are brother to us all. You are Genasi now and forever, no matter what else you may be, and forever will our home be your home as well!"
Wu Kung laughed as they flung him high and caught him again. "Then I have gained many brothers and sisters today! A wonderful thing to celebrate!" He grinned down at the rest of them. "Time for a party!"
"Yes, Wu," she agreed, smiling her relief and echoing his excitement. "It is definitely time for a big party!"
Wow!!! I think you said you will post about half the book right? So unless this is the halfway point…. I am not for sure how you can top this but man I want to find out!! It was nice to see part of Hyperion.
This is just the appetizer, isn’t it? Like, a challenge where much is at stake, but not our heroes… when the main course should be the deeps!
Wow, so that’s how the Arena allows such overpowered individuals to participate–they aren’t overpower based on their homeworlds, and the Arena considers Hyperion artificial environment to be their homeworld.
Would it be permitted to attempt to guess the references, or would that cause fair-use complications?
Because some of them have been driving me nuts (especially the Oasis/K one–I feel like it was supposed to be explained in Spheres, but I am still confused).
Nothing wrong with guessing, just with me using the names and such in a published context. For Oasis, the fact her name is Oasis and I gave her the last name of Abrams would lead you to her origin, visually anyway. For K, the initial and the fact that she’s just your basic average girl and she’s here to save the world would help.
As I understand it, of Oasis/K, one is supposed to be a soldier, and one is supposed to be a Hyperion, sharing the same body. I keep thinking Oasis is supposed to be the Hyperion, given the hairstyle description matches (I think) Oasis Roken of the Sluggy universe. She seems more of a legendary character to me, known to be a survivor of incredible situations with the especially ironic twist that she might be a ghost possessing various bodies (which seems to draw some parallels with the K/Oasis shared body situation.)
However, the Textev seems to indicate K is the Hyperion, not Oasis. And I guess the text does actually call her Kimberly now that I reread it. But wouldn’t the age discrepancy be rather huge for a K/Duquesne relationship, especially if Duquesne is based on the older (As in, from the later books) version of the character? I guess it is the hair description that keeps getting me, since I always think of Kim as having middle of the back hair-down, and the 4-ponytails past the waist seems like such an odd choice unless someone was designing her to match the other Oasis, such as Hyperion would have done. I guess they were both gymnasts, although my first thought is always Oasis Roken there.
Oasis was just a regular resident of the solar system — a soldier who got caught up in the collapse of Hyperion. “K” found her just after Fairchild ensnared her, and because of the damage Fairchild did, K was forced to transfer Oasis’ consciousness into her own body.
To maintain the disguise of Oasis, of course, she had to let Oasis basically RUN things, use her hairstyle, etc.
Visually and in name, of course, Oasis is a reference to Sluggy, but there were no Sluggy-based Hyperions (if there HAD been, it would almost certainly have been Torg or Bun-Bun based on the focus of the strip).
The age issue will be discussed in a later chapter, but in a nutshell they aged more than the original source material if that was of interest to the “experimenters”. Kim was well into her 20s when she met DuQuesne, who wasn’t all that much older.
Blag. Ironically, after weeks or months of intermittently googling to see if this question has even been answered before, minutes after I finally try seeing if the author would respond to a direct post, I find he answered it two years ago on EricFlint.net.
“Ryk E. Spoor says:
July 24, 2013 at 9:43 AM
No, she was just a combat trooper in the boarding force that tried to take Hyperion.
Now she’s much more than she used to be”
Doh!
Must have almost simul-posted with you previously. Thanks for the additional info–makes sense now that I think that any hyperion would almost have had to been the main character in their story. Although really, not sure who would want to have a Torg or a Riff character come to life, as much as I love their antics. A Bun-Bun, now…The same question applies but from a much, much scarier place. He’s been known to kill gods before. Don’t think I want to pretend to be his.
Heh, I have trouble picturing a Torg hyperion since, well, he’s not that hyperion-esque!
Oh, sure, eventually he becomes an impressive leader, but Hyps are based on people who are human paragons in some respect, if not flat out superhuman.
Riff… maybe, for his inventioning, but that’s somewhat hard to translate.
I bet there’s a lot of series the hyperion-makers were fans of that never had anything made because the characters just aren’t that suitable for it.
True enough, there’s plenty of series that just don’t give you Hyperion-worthy subjects. Pride and Prejudice is a lovely novel, but it’s not a subject for Hyperion, any more than Little House on the Prairie.
Torg, OTOH… he’s the CLASSIC example of Crouching Moron Hidden Badass. One has to note that when things really get to a pinch, Bun-Bun actually doesn’t seem to want to step over certain lines with Torg. Torg killed Aylee-2. Torg killed (defeated, technically) Horribus. He loves to make people think he’s a harmless dork, and he often manages it EVEN WITH PEOPLE WHO KNOW BETTER. But if you REALLY put him in a corner and leave him no out, he’s a very, very scary dude.
Even if K started out younger, their actual age is similar and it’s not like they’d stop aging a character just because the media mostly had them as a teen, especially when it involved them growing up and it was expected a number of hyperions would eventually be released. So, adult-K at the time of Hyperion’s fall.
That strikes me as the most Possible explanation.
Well, now I find myself looking up Kim Possible episodes on Kisscartoon, looking for some of the ones I haven’t seen (mostly later ones). It’s been a long time, and I have to fit them in after-hours, since I’m a little embarrassed to have my wife catch me watching a teenage girl cartoon. Not entirely sure why.
My wife’s the one who introduced me to watching cartoons in adulthood.
well, thank you anyway. Really enjoying both this series and the Castaway series–they are the only books (aside from Weber’s Safehold) that I have to get the day they come out.
“Erision, facing the Unreality Effect”
Ah yes, the Unreality Effect series. Personally, while a lot of people liked it, I wasn’t a fan of the fourth one since it had less character development for the supporting cast. I’m always a fan of the side-works, where they covered more characters aside from Erision.
😉
Is that a real thing? I actually thought it was supposed to be one of the ones Ryk made up as happening between now and the time of the book…..
Or should I have said Mr. Spoor? Author?
Zeroiasd is just messing with you. The Unreality Effect is the title of a story I may, or may not, ever write.
Ah. Seems like there are so many video games and TV series, not to mention books and Webcartoons out there, I could see myself not catching a real reference. It could have been a reference to that game where people enter an abandoned space ship with all the dead people, can’t even think of the name. And it is close enough to Mass Effect and the Unreal Engine that the title sounds plausible.
Although I think the character’s comments mention experiencing it directly, and for it to be that popular it must be fairly contemporary with the characters we are reading about.
True, though it could also be a revival. In my cosmology, for instance, Kim Possible had a revival in the early to mid-21st century and that’s the major source that the Hyperion version used.
The likelihood is that the only person in the world who will get ALL the references without help is me. There’s references and in-jokes scattered through all three books, and while I posted a list of a lot of them in GCA, that list doesn’t even get all the ones in THAT book let alone the others.
I’ve seen it mentioned that only one character from each universe would be used. Would that mean that Cap A and S-man would be the only characters at all from Mval and C.D.?
Oh, man, I would love to see a Elijah Snow. Although that gets a little weird as he interacts with Sherlock Holmes… Love that series. Not sure how you could do the heat subtraction thing…
Say, was chapter 9 the last chapter posted of the unpublished Hyperion Origin story? I know that would have ended rather bleak, but as a related “adventures of the Skylark” is was pretty fun.
No, there were several from the huge media-verses, as they had so very many characters of significance. So for instance we know there was Captain America and Superman, and given importance you can probably assume that Marvel also had Spider-Man and DC had Wonder Woman, at the least.
Yes, that was the last posted bit.
Do you suppose ” a tall, slender man sitting in a Victorian dressing-gown” is another reference to Sherlock Holmes? That’s the closest I can think of, although the pattern of bullet holes is throwing me.
I also like how there are now 18 Doctors around a blue box. But only one of them would be alive, right?
Yes, only one Doctor would be physically real.
Yes, it’s Sherlock Holmes. Holmes, as described by Watson, had on occasion demonstrated his patriotism by using his pistol to mark out “VR” (“Victoria Regina”, i.e., Queen Victoria) on the wall in bullet-holes.
OK, I am happy to see this thread. I also had a couple questions about the characters. Is the one-eyed woman in the beret based on Honor Harrington? Who’s the saluting man? The gold uniform is a clue (I think) but I can’t place it. I also really liked the use of _Paksennarion_ as a ship name- we conversed about that a little wrt Paks vs. Phoenix as archtypal paladins.
On a related note, I think I asked once before but I want to make sure: do authors get more $$ from eARC sales than others? I can wait for the book if you get better pay from a mass release- my small way of saying “I want you to keep writing!”
If you look upthread, yes, it’s Honor Harrington. The man saluting her is Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.
I get the most from hardcover sales, but that’s moot on this one since there’s no HC edition. After that comes eARC, Trade Paperback, regular eBook, and MMPB.
I bet Honor would love some of the Trek technologies. The instant communications, the long range sensors, the warp speed inside the solar systems, etc. I am less sure what Honorverse tech Kirk would love to have. I am glad you put the reference to Honor in. That series is one of my favorite series.
Kirk! Doh! I was fixing on people from the Honorverse.
Yeah, remember that there were a thousand Hyperions from hundreds of fictional universes. Generally you won’t see two from the same universe interacting unless one is seeing one Hyperion and a bunch of AI characters from their universe (i.e., like DuQuesne could interact with Seaton and Kinnison and such).
Wasn’t that an actual rule they set down, one per universe/author? Well, I guess M-S fudges that a bit…
Or, woops, I see you answered that in reply to someone else- big media franchises= can have multiple, but most worlds only one, yes?
Yes, most worlds have only one. And in some cases multiple worlds have only one (e.g., DuQuesne came from a two-universe mashup, and Wu Kung is a dozen versions of the Monkey King all mashed into one)
You know, it’s mentioned upthread that the woman with the beret and eye patch is supposed to be Honor Harrington, but I’ve been rereading the novels, and she never wears an eye patch. It’s shown on the cover of Ashes of Victory, but I could not find “patch” in a word search of book (other than disPATCHes and Celery Patch), and several descriptions of her seem to indicate that it is not covered. She did have a bandage over it in Honor of the Queen, but not sure if that’s really an eye patch.
Any reason for going with the eye patch instead of a ‘feline-like creature on her shoulder”?
For the same reason that people doing Holmes often put on the deerstalker. There was no clear mention of him habitually wearing that type of cap, but the most famous images of Holmes had him wearing one.
So, why did I choose to use it? I liked the image, and it has demonstrated that it’s recognizable.
The image of Honor with the Eyepatch has become a very strong one, resonating enough that most people (who know Honor) reading that section have INSTANTLY recognized that it was Honor, despite the fact — as you say — that in-canon it’s not certain she’s ever, technically, worn an eyepatch anything like that.
Of course, the Hyperion version of her obviously DID.
It just struck me that the loss of Nimitz would be hard on Honor, if she survived the final collapse, or the intervening years (seems unlikely she could have, otherwise she would have jumped to the top of the list for commanding ships in the Arena). That got me wondering, how did Hyperion enable her powers–or that of any others? For a man to fly with a thought, or a woman to have empathic senses, it seems that there would need to be something technologically implanted in the characters that would read their minds. And if that was so, how ever would they be able to break free?
Although I guess the trick Duquesne uses later might possibly cover that.
Man, I know Hyperion Origin would be a dark story in the end, but that Epic crossover event would be incredible to read about. How awesome would it be to see Starfleet and Manticoran/Grayson ships in a fight, given the entirely different approach to technology? Also, there HAD to be a Star Wars universe, right? I don’t know who the character would be, but Star Wars is way too prevalent to not get a world. Maybe the main character would be someone we don’t even know about yet, given that movies and stories are still forthcoming.
Which also reminds me–have you read David Weber’s Safehold series, and especially, did you ever read his “How Safehold definitely WON’T end” story?
No, he started publishing that one well after I got to the point that I had almost no time for reading.
I think it merges darn near all his worlds together, with Dahak’s and Devries and Bolos and..I thought it had Manticore, but now that I reread it, it seems much shorter.
http://forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4078
Each of the Hyperions was raised in a roughly thousand-foot by thousand-foot artificial environment with state of the art sensory induction mechanisms. That, coupled with T-8 to T-10 managing AIs, meant that they had essentially total control of what the Hyperion perceived. The “researchers” and their AIs did their best to tailor the Hyperions to be as close to their models as possible, but where genetic tweaking and enhancement technology hit its limits, the VR environment could take over and give them any powers that lay beyond the actual ability of humanity to create.
They didn’t read their minds directly very often — they had no actual mind-implants because they wanted their superheroes to grow up “naturally” (rather than just programming in their personalities and such).
There was a Star Wars Hyperion. Who it was didn’t matter much since they’re not going to get used, of course.
Ah. I can see their minds being read through close examination. I just couldn’t picture inputting an additional sense (like telepathy or empathy) without some sort of implant.
When you control ALL perceptual inputs and the world around someone, you don’t need to do much mindreading even to emulate telepathy. If you DO have mental induction (and they do; people like Ariane can play full-immersion simgames without having an implanted AIsage or any unusual input devices) then you’ve got all the mind-reading you need, and don’t have to use it when you don’t want to (like when you’re raising little Kal-El on his farm and want him to learn his family values the long way).