@Mark Y.

The time has come, after hearing so many good things about it, to play Primordia. Well, downloading from GOG, I discovered that you have written a novella accompanying Primordia, and couldn't help to start reading it immediately.

The story arc is brilliant and the time jumps perfectly lead the reader to grasp the growing scope. McIlven's heroics express exceptionally well the mind of a people who wish for atonement.

As good as it is, I realize now how much superior a medium the Meres are. Even if you go fully linear, the way the story and art blends cannot be touched by a pdf.

Kudos for researching and characterizing the logic of robots. Not many writers can do that much better, though the late Iain M. Banks' Excession comes to mind.

I see that your writing of Inifere was not so much characterizing madness, but rather a way of describing a different way of interfacing with reality, similar to how the robots of Fallen have a different way of interpreting their world. But I will maintain that embracing madness in a world out of balance is the way to feel secure in your search for the truth. Autonomous 8 gains in the end because it changed, and McIlven's heroics are so much beyond a normal approach that sanity appears overrated. You have to question it continuously to arrive at the solutions required.

I am looking forward to discover Primordia!

Yes. Between the the world-as-it-is and the world-as-it-should-be is the world-how-you-perceive-it. If there is no disconnect, your roles are defined and you can live freely like a bird in its natural environment.

If your perceptions do not match the reality, sanity is a poor guide to judge the merit of your actions, it is like a cage. If you embrace madness — or should I say rather ditch the pretense of sanity — the map is redrawn and you can question everything. Eventually you realize that the only way to gain freedom is the truth.

Your protagonists know that. Inifere, McIlven and Autonomous 8 in the end.
- I read this the first time we met. It is still as great as the first time I read it.

Your aunt Virginia knew about this disconnect, obviously. If I interpret her work correctly, she was critical about how people always shove the reality away. People perceive it as sane to raise kids, enjoy themselves, and help themselves to all kinds of things the world has on offer. But at the same time their actions sustain and empower a system that is anything but human, whether it is using the threat of nuclear holocaust as a tool or being oblivious to the wholesale destruction of what sustains life in a never-ending cycle of greed.

People know of this disconnect, surely. The human being, technically any creative intelligence, has the remarkable skill to adapt. But its true power will only be unlocked if you question your sanity and embrace the gulf between the world-as-it-is and the world-as-it-should-be.

No amount of adjusting your perspective will do, it will only happen if you learn to change yourself.

Now to Primordia!