Posted June 29, 2023
I'm working through way too slow, but I give you the summary as I'll read them. Join in if you can/want.
Blue
Ok, this is NOt the world of Planescape. Planescape is a world where magic is real, and thought shape reality. This on th eother hand is a post-apocalyptic technological world, resembling California Voodoo Dance, or Stanislav Lem's The Invincible with its nanobot-deserts.
Our protagonist is a meddler/technician/engineer (pick one), whose wife got infected by "The Iron Wind" while trying to explore the white spots of the maps, so when a stranger falls in from a legendary city, they pack up and start bringing back the body - the stranger soon died at arrivel.
After various adventures - some company lost - the do find Archopalasia, the mythical city, which is a self-supporting biom, where even the dead can be ... healed by machines. The concept is very similar to Larry Niven's A World Without Time.
Of course immediately the questiion arise: "Why God can't heal amputees", I mean all the machines with their miracles why can't regrow limbs is the can rise the dead?
turns out, things aren't all good in Archopalasia: the city is falling appart for the lack of maintenance, and that's the very reason the citizens lured our explorer here, to try to fix the things. They are waaay to accustomed and dependent of the city's technologies, so moving out is out of the question from the getgo, but the populus has no actual evil intentions, though they picked up some strange customs, because in a place where there comes no harm from killing someone, is there murder anymore?
Tinkerer Protagonist finds out the city is working on a wireless energy and information transmitting system, which discovery leads to them finding out, the citizens suffer from SG-1 Asgardian Clone Syndrome, namely sterility and clone-degeneration. Plus - after everyone is turned to a clone from the main group one way or another - turns out the city IS winding down for lack of maintenance, especialy lack of spare parts.
Adding to this, after figuring out they are "just clones", half of the already small remaining population decide to not use the Vivifier any longer, which results them literaly falling appart.
the solution is obvious: they should somehow recharge the energy-core, a 2001: Space Odyssey Black Monolith. But as it feeds on literal life-energy, that seems impossible.
Ficing the problems turning to be impossible, the only thing to do is, to leave the city. Problem is, the long-term citizens only have [life energy] to last for a couple of days, while traveling to safe distance takes more than 2 weeks. So the central machine has to be turned off. Some don't like this option - I trust you to see what happens to them, but I tell you, in the end all leave Archopalasia. Tinkerer-protagonist and his wife remain back to turn the energy off, cutting themselves from joning the others - but a macguffin they found on the road here turns out to be a teleportation-device, so who knows what fate awaist them.
Gold - As Blue and Gold are in the Legacy Edition, so they are behind a lower paywall, I'll continue with this. I have otherwise no idea if there is a supposed reading-order, or any connection between the stories whatsoever.
So, this is like half the length, and the writer's style is ... not very good.
The ... story is, that there are 2 warring tribes, always looting for more ancient weaponry, slowly grinding each other to oblivion. The protagonist tribe moves from the debated land to a dormant volcano, where they find an ancient city.
The city has some residents: "fire wight", though they are neither made of fire, nor are undead. But they are definitely not human, and figuring out communication is even questionable.
The protagonist-tribe has 2 leaders: a ~witch, and the tribe chieftain. The later is authocrat, warmongering bastard, wants weapons, and either kill the wights, or nlist them as soldiers. The ~witch is on the position to move on, and make this volcnao-city their new home.
The actual protagonist is a person who is "standing between the two" leaders, never siding one or the other, while always informing both what the other does. She isn't very active, or otherwise noticeable if you ask me, and I'm past 2/3 of this writing.
In the end the ~with does not get what she wants (some barely-explained mcguffon, the urigellerloin-or-what), the protagonist dies, the protagonist-tribe disappears in the sink of time.
The ... important part of this short story is, the ~with (nano) mentions some "tides", whatever they are. Hopefuly the concept is explained more in the more expensive tier's materials.
Indigo
We can declare there is no continuation/interloping of these stories, so stop worrying and love the bomb.
Now this volume (again) has a tribe settling for a new location - but these want to stay, so that's fine.
Another element connecting it to the previous story is the Aeon Priests, who at this moment don't seem to be an actual church with doctrines and dogmas, but something like the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout: tech-hoarding group, which is present in society, but kinda not part of it, only its own thing. Though unlike the ~witch from before, these are absolutely humanists in the strickt sense, and not the broad sense like the ~witch was.
The basic setup is, something attacked a settlement or two in the area, of which they don't have many to start with.
Turns out, this pre-globalised world works exactly like ours: the neighbouring city-states are expansionist to the detriment of all the others, even if this grinds them thin - and it does, as this is a post-nuclear war situation.
Not that any of them started the attacks though, this just means, they won't help our protagonists.
The only gorup that offers help is the single mutant city, where some frog-people live. Sounds this was somewhat inspired by to Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988).
While the action-scenes are quite ok, the flashbacks of flashbacks structure meakes this feel frangmented. On the other hand, there is a theme running here about the difference of intent and action.
The mutants give the settlers a device that can make their plants grow again. They give clear instructions, amongst them being: do not mess with the device.
The techno-priest of course did, because of science, because of doubt, because just what she is - doesn't matter, problem she caused. She chose to meddle when the situation was to decide between curetain death and uncertain death. Does intent even matter with such consequences?
For the last 3 chapters, ca. 30 pages things get more exciting, but I think what holds this back the most is, it is too preoccupied with the worldbuilding to focus on the story.
In the end it turns out, they released some world-annihilating threat, but at least there is a self-destruct mechnism. Well, it actualy is the central power-obelisk of the mutant city, which makes the city possible by having a Gate open to an ocean, and when it is turned off, flood will wipe off the Earf from everyone, both human and mutant. But in the face of Total Annihilation (great game by the way), this is "For The Greater Good", as they said in Hot Fuzz (great movie).
BUT in a final twist it turns out this whole scenario might even had been fake, the whole or the endgame of it, hinting it was orchestrated by the mutant the seemingly-protagonist is in telepathic connection with, who now plays body-snatcher so to say, and who knows how many other mutant managed to do the same, so in the end, they'll take over the world, #IlluminatiConfirmed
The Red Hand
Here we have an established, long-standing society - which is living is a vertical tunnel digged into the Earth, some reverse-skyscraper with like 150 story into the deep? What's this, Total Recal Remake?
That aside, we have 3 castes (maybe races, who knows): the poor (our POV), the armed forces (let's face it, in a dictatorship, like Trump, or Viktor Orban or whatever police and military have no clear distinction), and the super-rich.
Some poor sill believes in elections, and appeal-papers, but some are ready for revolution/armed conflict.
By style and just fluency this is the second best reading until now, but to be honest, this feels like it was laying in some drawer of a decent writer, and got beaten up to fit the Numenera-setting.
For that, some elements are simply not even explained. I bet those words that mean I guess animal-like beings would mean more if you're familiar with the setting (or played the game), and the general concept do come across, but still, this doesn't stand that well on its own. For some technical terms I suggest reading Blue first anyway, that at least explains what a "nano" is (kind of engineer).
Now the story goe slike this: one day there's a raid, an innocent bystander dies, the rebels hijack this, and make some graffiti, what goes viral, which draws public executions, which are open and public and emphacised killings, not just the ruling class' careless everyday attitude, so halfway through the story we already have an armed rebellion.
The problem is - this has nothing to do with numenera, nothing at all. With the absolute minimum effort this story can be adopted into any setting.
Which wouldn't be too bad of a problem in an anthology for an established setting, but this is supposed to be an introductary material (locked behind paywall, nontheless) showing you around this world. Thus it should be unique, and campaign-specific. What this is not. And that's a failure.
So the end of it is, the rebel leader goes full dictator, and it is such obvious this crap was written as some jew-nazi-whatever WW2 fanfic. It's that bad, at the end some Nil-rebel starting to poaint not a Refd Fist, but a Heart, because SYMBOLISM.
Bugger off.
Silver
Blue
Ok, this is NOt the world of Planescape. Planescape is a world where magic is real, and thought shape reality. This on th eother hand is a post-apocalyptic technological world, resembling California Voodoo Dance, or Stanislav Lem's The Invincible with its nanobot-deserts.
Our protagonist is a meddler/technician/engineer (pick one), whose wife got infected by "The Iron Wind" while trying to explore the white spots of the maps, so when a stranger falls in from a legendary city, they pack up and start bringing back the body - the stranger soon died at arrivel.
After various adventures - some company lost - the do find Archopalasia, the mythical city, which is a self-supporting biom, where even the dead can be ... healed by machines. The concept is very similar to Larry Niven's A World Without Time.
Of course immediately the questiion arise: "Why God can't heal amputees", I mean all the machines with their miracles why can't regrow limbs is the can rise the dead?
turns out, things aren't all good in Archopalasia: the city is falling appart for the lack of maintenance, and that's the very reason the citizens lured our explorer here, to try to fix the things. They are waaay to accustomed and dependent of the city's technologies, so moving out is out of the question from the getgo, but the populus has no actual evil intentions, though they picked up some strange customs, because in a place where there comes no harm from killing someone, is there murder anymore?
Tinkerer Protagonist finds out the city is working on a wireless energy and information transmitting system, which discovery leads to them finding out, the citizens suffer from SG-1 Asgardian Clone Syndrome, namely sterility and clone-degeneration. Plus - after everyone is turned to a clone from the main group one way or another - turns out the city IS winding down for lack of maintenance, especialy lack of spare parts.
Adding to this, after figuring out they are "just clones", half of the already small remaining population decide to not use the Vivifier any longer, which results them literaly falling appart.
the solution is obvious: they should somehow recharge the energy-core, a 2001: Space Odyssey Black Monolith. But as it feeds on literal life-energy, that seems impossible.
Ficing the problems turning to be impossible, the only thing to do is, to leave the city. Problem is, the long-term citizens only have [life energy] to last for a couple of days, while traveling to safe distance takes more than 2 weeks. So the central machine has to be turned off. Some don't like this option - I trust you to see what happens to them, but I tell you, in the end all leave Archopalasia. Tinkerer-protagonist and his wife remain back to turn the energy off, cutting themselves from joning the others - but a macguffin they found on the road here turns out to be a teleportation-device, so who knows what fate awaist them.
Gold - As Blue and Gold are in the Legacy Edition, so they are behind a lower paywall, I'll continue with this. I have otherwise no idea if there is a supposed reading-order, or any connection between the stories whatsoever.
So, this is like half the length, and the writer's style is ... not very good.
The ... story is, that there are 2 warring tribes, always looting for more ancient weaponry, slowly grinding each other to oblivion. The protagonist tribe moves from the debated land to a dormant volcano, where they find an ancient city.
The city has some residents: "fire wight", though they are neither made of fire, nor are undead. But they are definitely not human, and figuring out communication is even questionable.
The protagonist-tribe has 2 leaders: a ~witch, and the tribe chieftain. The later is authocrat, warmongering bastard, wants weapons, and either kill the wights, or nlist them as soldiers. The ~witch is on the position to move on, and make this volcnao-city their new home.
The actual protagonist is a person who is "standing between the two" leaders, never siding one or the other, while always informing both what the other does. She isn't very active, or otherwise noticeable if you ask me, and I'm past 2/3 of this writing.
In the end the ~with does not get what she wants (some barely-explained mcguffon, the urigellerloin-or-what), the protagonist dies, the protagonist-tribe disappears in the sink of time.
The ... important part of this short story is, the ~with (nano) mentions some "tides", whatever they are. Hopefuly the concept is explained more in the more expensive tier's materials.
Indigo
We can declare there is no continuation/interloping of these stories, so stop worrying and love the bomb.
Now this volume (again) has a tribe settling for a new location - but these want to stay, so that's fine.
Another element connecting it to the previous story is the Aeon Priests, who at this moment don't seem to be an actual church with doctrines and dogmas, but something like the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout: tech-hoarding group, which is present in society, but kinda not part of it, only its own thing. Though unlike the ~witch from before, these are absolutely humanists in the strickt sense, and not the broad sense like the ~witch was.
The basic setup is, something attacked a settlement or two in the area, of which they don't have many to start with.
Turns out, this pre-globalised world works exactly like ours: the neighbouring city-states are expansionist to the detriment of all the others, even if this grinds them thin - and it does, as this is a post-nuclear war situation.
Not that any of them started the attacks though, this just means, they won't help our protagonists.
The only gorup that offers help is the single mutant city, where some frog-people live. Sounds this was somewhat inspired by to Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988).
While the action-scenes are quite ok, the flashbacks of flashbacks structure meakes this feel frangmented. On the other hand, there is a theme running here about the difference of intent and action.
The mutants give the settlers a device that can make their plants grow again. They give clear instructions, amongst them being: do not mess with the device.
The techno-priest of course did, because of science, because of doubt, because just what she is - doesn't matter, problem she caused. She chose to meddle when the situation was to decide between curetain death and uncertain death. Does intent even matter with such consequences?
For the last 3 chapters, ca. 30 pages things get more exciting, but I think what holds this back the most is, it is too preoccupied with the worldbuilding to focus on the story.
In the end it turns out, they released some world-annihilating threat, but at least there is a self-destruct mechnism. Well, it actualy is the central power-obelisk of the mutant city, which makes the city possible by having a Gate open to an ocean, and when it is turned off, flood will wipe off the Earf from everyone, both human and mutant. But in the face of Total Annihilation (great game by the way), this is "For The Greater Good", as they said in Hot Fuzz (great movie).
BUT in a final twist it turns out this whole scenario might even had been fake, the whole or the endgame of it, hinting it was orchestrated by the mutant the seemingly-protagonist is in telepathic connection with, who now plays body-snatcher so to say, and who knows how many other mutant managed to do the same, so in the end, they'll take over the world, #IlluminatiConfirmed
The Red Hand
Here we have an established, long-standing society - which is living is a vertical tunnel digged into the Earth, some reverse-skyscraper with like 150 story into the deep? What's this, Total Recal Remake?
That aside, we have 3 castes (maybe races, who knows): the poor (our POV), the armed forces (let's face it, in a dictatorship, like Trump, or Viktor Orban or whatever police and military have no clear distinction), and the super-rich.
Some poor sill believes in elections, and appeal-papers, but some are ready for revolution/armed conflict.
By style and just fluency this is the second best reading until now, but to be honest, this feels like it was laying in some drawer of a decent writer, and got beaten up to fit the Numenera-setting.
For that, some elements are simply not even explained. I bet those words that mean I guess animal-like beings would mean more if you're familiar with the setting (or played the game), and the general concept do come across, but still, this doesn't stand that well on its own. For some technical terms I suggest reading Blue first anyway, that at least explains what a "nano" is (kind of engineer).
Now the story goe slike this: one day there's a raid, an innocent bystander dies, the rebels hijack this, and make some graffiti, what goes viral, which draws public executions, which are open and public and emphacised killings, not just the ruling class' careless everyday attitude, so halfway through the story we already have an armed rebellion.
The problem is - this has nothing to do with numenera, nothing at all. With the absolute minimum effort this story can be adopted into any setting.
Which wouldn't be too bad of a problem in an anthology for an established setting, but this is supposed to be an introductary material (locked behind paywall, nontheless) showing you around this world. Thus it should be unique, and campaign-specific. What this is not. And that's a failure.
So the end of it is, the rebel leader goes full dictator, and it is such obvious this crap was written as some jew-nazi-whatever WW2 fanfic. It's that bad, at the end some Nil-rebel starting to poaint not a Refd Fist, but a Heart, because SYMBOLISM.
Bugger off.
Silver
Post edited August 28, 2023 by twillight
