Incident report: destruction of the One Ring

Archive of Our Own
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien

Executive summary

The destruction of ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul (hereafter “the One Ring” or “the One”) led to the destruction entire of the prosperous nation of Mordor, and the overthrow of thousands of years of stable rule in the vassal state of Gondor which henceforth must be regarded as an open foe of the regime.

This destruction arises from several complex causes, but most nearly to the externalisation of evil power and will into a single artefact, which was vulnerable to natural forces.

This document is intended to capture critical lessons for future administrations, applicable in due course.

Impact summary

Scope

Revenue impact:

  • Entire GDP of Mordor (conservatively $xxx billion Seventh Age equivalent)
  • Tribute due to Mordor now under Gondorian influence ($xx billion Seventh Age equivalent)

Key personnel lost in the incident:

  • Sauron (variously known as Gorthaur, Annatar, Mairon)
  • Nazgûl (×8)

Key intelligence relationships severed in the incident:

  • Saruman (variously Curunir, Curumo)

Magical artefacts destroyed or diminished:

  • Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky
  • Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone
  • Nine for mortal men doomed to die
  • One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

Other destruction of property included:

  • The fortress of Barad-dûr
  • The Black Gate
  • The Towers of the Teeth

In addition to widespread degradation of infrastructure throughout Mordor.

Duration

Time to recovery of economy of Mordor estimated at multiple centuries.

Key lessons learned

Successes

  • Assembled a mighty army with major military objectives achieved at Battle of Osgiliath, Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and (initially) the Battle of the Black Gate.
  • Significant compromise of enemy leadership and objectives, particularly via recruiting Saruman as both an intelligence asset and vassal.
  • Significant compromise of enemy morale via the assault on the mind of Denethor, Steward of Gondor.
  • Met all key racial and cultural diversity objectives with representatives of Haradrim, Goblin, Easterling, Variag, Troll, Half-troll of Far Harad, Warg, Mumakil, Uruk hai, Black Uruk, and Nazgûl throughout the military hierarchy.

Failures and key oversights

  • The One Ring’s status as a single point of failure caused a cascading overthrow of leadership, property, and willpower at the moment of its destruction, causing near-instant catastrophic military defeat over a span of hundreds of miles.
  • Incomplete understanding of the events at the so-called Disaster of the Gladden Fields meant that key defence objectives remained unfulfilled for multiple millennia, most particularly the recovery of the One.
  • General best practices in asset tracking remained unimplemented through these same millennia.
  • The descendants of Isildur in the North were never wholly eliminated, despite their openly stated claim to the Gondorian throne via descent from both Elendil and Anárion (albeit in the female line), and despite often travelling solo in the wild for many generations of Men.
  • Hobbits (aka halflings) were seriously underestimated at best, and often entirely excluded, in all threat analyses, including several analyses dated after awareness of one “Baggins”. (Even now, the precise relation between Baggins the ring-thief and Frodo Baggins aka Frodo of the Nine Fingers is unclear to these authors.)
  • Threat analyses concerning the goals of one “Aragorn, son of Arathorn” (now King Elessar), while significantly more comprehensive and detailed, excluded destruction of the One as a possible tactic.
  • Despite regularly conducting military activities in a world with multiple sentient species over some tens of millenia, threat analyses concerning the prophecy that “not by the hand of man will he fall” do not seem to have considered that humans of other genders, or members of any non-human species, would pose a lethal threat to the Witch-King of Angmar.
  • The outpost in Mirkwood was placed too close to Lothlórien, giving an opportunity for incursion by Gandalf in TA 2850, military defeat by the White Council in TA 2941, and a second military defeat by Galadriel and Celeborn in TA 3019.
  • Despite occupation of Moria by both our forces and those of allies, no record of a search for the creature Gollum inside the mines can be found and we are forced to believe none was attempted.

Recommendations

The authors of this report recommend that the following key programs be undertaken in response to this incident:

RecommendationCriticalityUrgencyStatus
Recruit and train new leader for the ongoing projects of Melkor in Eä.HighHighUnblocked
Re-form armies of Mordor and Isegard under said new leadership.HighHighBlocked on leadership recruitment
SWOT analysis vis a vi the capabilities of hobbits, particularly their current military readiness, recent history of territory expansion, relationship with the Kingdom of Erebor and other dwarfen kingdoms, current stores of gold and valuables, and current stores of magical artefacts.HighHighBlocked on reformation of scattered intelligence networks
SWOT analysis vis a vi the ascendence of King Elessar and the unified Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor.HighMediumBlocked on reformation of scattered intelligence networks
Attempt recovery and reactivation of rings known as the Seven and the Nine.MediumHighUnblocked
Implement durable and high coverage asset tracking for all magical artefacts produced by beings of class Maiar or higher.MediumMediumPartially blocked on intelligence
Implement durable and high coverage asset tracking for all magical artefacts produced by beings of class Elf or Númenórean.LowLowPartially blocked on intelligence
Attempt recovery and reactivation of rings known as the Three.LowLowUnblocked

The failure of Rake Season 5

Rake wrapped up with season 5 last year, apparently this time for surely sure (each of season 3, 4 and 5 were declared to be the last). As with season 3, they were ambitious in changing Cleaver’s setting, to that of a federal senator elected by a combination of social media and weird preference deals (see Ricky Muir for a real-life example of election via weird preference deals).

This introduced some challenges, most notably satirising Australian politics in the wake of the turnover of Prime Ministers since 2010 and the dual citizenship crisis that eventually led to the deputy Prime Minister needing to re-contest his seat. (He was also conducting an affair with a former staffer at the time.)

How do you get weirder than that? Honestly I think they didn’t manage it and I’m not entirely convinced they should have tried. NSW Parliament might have been easier: the problems are more Cleaver-sized and the sense that there’s only 10 people in Sydney and they all fucked Cleaver at university could have continued seamlessly from other seasons.

Beyond that, they broke a few key formulae that make Rake work: they made the villain prosaic, and they made Cleaver stupid.

The series villain, Jakub, aside from being irritatingly stereotypical (basically a cut price Eastern European Bond villain archetype, but this kind of thing isn’t new to Rake) is just too straightforward. He loans Cleaver money when he’s down on his luck, and what he wants from Cleaver is his money back with ruinous interest, or else he’ll cut off half of his finger. He doesn’t particularly like or dislike Cleaver, Cleaver is just the most easily accessible mark.

This isn’t what makes Rake work! What makes Rake work is people with either a profound Achilles heel (most of the organised crime lords in season 2 and 3 were undone by their love for Kirsty) or an irrational desire to specifically bring Cleaver down at all costs, or, ideally, both. Yes, there’s a blink and you miss it side plot with Jakub’s beloved cat, but not well integrated. Someone who just wants money and their business interests furthered doesn’t work in Rake; functional people win too easily. Functional people can leave Cleaver’s orbit, and the entire point of the series is that everyone is dysfunctional and so no one can leave Cleaver’s orbit.

And in return, Cleaver falls for this without question, seeming to believe that his driver is generously offering him cash as a mate and being startled in the extreme when the bill comes due. Cleaver does fall for anything to do with women, drugs, or money rather easily, but this one is so. so. obvious. Outside of this plot, Cleaver’s life isn’t a mess because he’s stupid, it’s a mess because he’s incredibly greedy and unbelievably clever at self-deception. Many of the series’s finest moments are when he turns his self-deception beam onto others and the sheer force of his belief in his nonsense corrupts them too. This plot arc would work so much better if Cleaver had to floridly talk himself and everyone else into trusting Jakub against all common sense, just like he’s done so many times before.

Beyond that, the amount of money and the threat of violence is surprisingly mediocre for Rake: Cleaver has owed larger six figure debts to organised crime before and taken a serious on-screen beating over them. In season 4 he was seconds away from being tortured by branding on the orders of someone who had corrupted the entire NSW police force (admittedly not as much of a challenge as it could be). In this very season, Cleaver has been held prisoner by agents of the US government, and commissioned his own shooting. Losing half a finger to someone he owes $180k to is lower, not higher, stakes.

There’s a few successful new things that are worth noting, but unfortunately they’re episodic. Anthony LaPaglia, like Cate Blanchett, is too famous and expensive to do more than a short appearance in Rake, in his case as the US Secretary of State, but it’s glorious. Jane Turner as Senator Penny Evans is a much more Rake-worthy villain than Jakub, and she should have been given the full series to let it play out.

But most of the things that do work are through lines from previous series. This season Cal McGregor, previously a rabble-rousing talk show host and previously previously the husband of the NSW Premier, does battle with his half-brother Joe over a $10 painting their father owned, which ends up making Cal Prime Minister as a side effect. David Potter completes the set of disastrous relationships with Cleaver’s exes by not quite having sex with Wendy. (The producers also seem to no longer have been able to resist how good-looking Matt Day is, and find an excuse to let the character have stubble and better glasses for the last few episodes. Thank you.)

Some of the better characters are under-served by having their foils not reappear this season. I was heartily sick of Barney by the time we made it through season 4, but losing him reduces Nicole to a full season of being righteously annoyed with Cleaver (until it suddenly turns out they’re together). Melissa was already completely (and outrageously) destroyed by her drug addiction in season 4; living off Cleaver and Wendy’s charity gives her character little scope compared to her occasionally showing up lit by greater and greater celebrity throughout seasons 2 and 3. As with Barney disappearing when he was so much of what motivated Nicole, not having Fuzz until the final episode means Melissa’s remaining arc from season 4 falls over too.

The last episode is very satisfying, but primarily because it almost entirely returns to the through lines. Fuzz and Melissa joyfully interrupt their breakup to mess with Cleaver’s head, David and Cleaver have a chest bumping battle over Wendy (see, in the context of a series where people get badly beaten a lot, you can do something great with deliberately low stakes violence!) and then finally very satisfyingly team up to corrupt a judge in the nation’s best interests, only to have Cal McGregor in turn corrupt them in his. Lots of fun, but the final episode’s return to the themes and characters of earlier seasons demonstrates the failure of the last season compared to the earlier ones.

Sedoretu romance tropes

From a long ago post about an incomplete Nanonovel, the concept of romance novel tropes in a sedoretu.

As a quick refresher: a sedoretu originates in several of Ursula Le Guin’s short stories. It is a four way marriage in a society with moieties, in which the woman of the Morning and the man of the Evening have a sexual relationship, as do the woman of the Evening and the man of the Morning, as do both women, and both men. However, the two adults of the Morning and the two of the Evening are prohibited from a sexual relationship by an incest taboo that applies moiety-wide. The entire society as a result essentially revolves around matchmaking, and anyone whose gender or sexual identity is a poor fit for this is in a difficult place (see Le Guin’s Mountain Ways).

Luzula has one in Puzzle Pieces:

When she was a teenager, she’d devoured romance novels by the dozen. They were the type where the swooning Morning heroine and her faithful Evening friend and sidekick were abducted by an evil villain and then saved by a handsome mysterious Evening man, and then of course it turned out that the mysterious man was the long-lost love of the heroine’s brother, on whom her friend had had a crush all her life. And at the end of their adventures, the heroine and her friend fell into each other’s arms and realized that their friendship had turned into romance. And they all made a sedoretu together and lived happily after ever.

Arranged marriage/marriage of convienience: essentially universal, given the unlikeliness of four separate interlocking romances forming spontaneously. Le Guin deals with “please marry this person because you’re in love with this other person” in Unchosen Love, in which the protagonist is both being pushed towards his lover’s lover’s lover sexually, while also being socially rejected by his lover’s lover. There’s also: “please marry these two people because they’re both in love with this third person and three isn’t a socially acceptable number of people for a marriage”, “please marry these three people because they have a farm to share with you and we don’t”, “please marry these three people because the love of two of their lives just died and they don’t have sufficient children yet.”

Romance bet: two notorious rakes and famous rivals, of the Morning and Evening, make a bet with each other that they’re the one who can hold out on making a suitable match first. Each of them, naturally, falls in love with a delightful lady within days, and each spends the bulk of the novel trying to woo his beloved and scramble to put a sedoretu together while concealing her existence from his nosy friend. In the climax, it emerges that the two women have been lovers for years, and have been filling each other in on the whole thing. Not to mention waiting more and more impatiently the two men to finally realise their undying love and lust for each other and complete the foursome.

Secret parentage: two characters who seem to be members of the same moiety due to secret parentage/adoption fall in love, much to the horror of them both, and presumably scandalising their lovers of the other gender too. Of course, in the final act, all is revealed and their love isn’t incestuous after all.

Secret identity: a character has to go undercover as a member of the other moiety due to police work or some complicated clause in their parents’ wills (why not both?!) and finds themselves falling in love with individuals who are a moiety-brother and moiety-sister of their cover identity. Their actual moiety-sibling, who is also the only person who knows of their real identity, and also loves the same two individuals, watches helplessly due to the importance of the secret.

Healing love: a tragedy has struck a sedoretu with the death of one of its members. All three survivors have been lost in their own grief and the other marriages are on the brink of collapse, is the quiet visitor to the farmhold the answer?

Confirmed bachelor couple marriage: a Morning and Evening man have steadfastly held themselves out as a couple marriage for many years, to the despair of matchmaking uncles, nosy grandpas, and innumerable lovely pairs of women. Will this pair of mysterious strangers teach them what true love is at last?

Only in Dark the Light

Archive of Our Own
Fandom: Earthsea – Ursula K. Le Guin
Relationship: Azver/Irian

The Doorkeeper of Roke may be ageless, but the Azver the Master Patterner was not and as he grew first older and then old, a change came to Roke like the incoming of the tide, or perhaps its departure, depending on which Master of Roke you asked.

Hara the sorcerer and Tehanu and Orm Irian the dragons had brought down the wall imprisoning the dead all at once, but Irian’s time earlier on Roke started a slower change of its own. No words had been spoken, no proclamations uttered, but every so often now, a girl or young woman came to Roke, seeking shelter and education, and seeking to be a wizard. The Doorkeeper said yes, the Patterner said nothing, and the other Masters said many words that somehow weren’t quite no, and so it was that some of students on Roke, and some of the younger wizards returning to their home isle, were now women.

One such, the girl Resik, had proved to be an adept under the Master Summoner, and had spent much time under the tutelage of the Master Namer, and yet it had come to pass that her time, when not called upon for lessons, had been spent more and more in the Immanent Grove, learning what the Master Patterner and the Grove itself had to teach her.

As the years past and he grew frail, Azver left the Grove less and less even though his wanderings in it now could not take him far. Resik became the Master Patterner in all but name, the link between the Grove and the Great House. She and her own students saw to Azver’s hut when he couldn’t, and walked and talked with him when he was willing, and he was glad, seeing in her and the students the next custodians and lovers of the forest.

And so it was until the messengers came from the King in Havnor telling of the death of the Archmage Sparrowhawk on Gont, naming him by his true name, Ged. And with them came a Gontish apprentice of Master Pine recommended for the particular attention of his own Master, the Summoner, bearing a letter for the Master Patterner from the White Lady.

*~*~*

Azver found the letter in his hut, evidently left there by Resik or some other master or student of some sensitivity who knew that he would want to see it, and read it, alone. From the first few words, he knew it to be Kargish, written in the Hardic script but without the strike through each character to cancel out sorcery common to that people.

He thus knew whom it was from, and what it said, and read it anyway.

The last Archmage is dead, he thought to himself, and knew it to be wrong.

“Ged is dead,” he said aloud, correcting himself. He reread Tenar’s words carefully; he was in no hurry.

“He walked in the forest every day until he could not any more,” she wrote. “He looked into the west every day until he saw no longer. She did not come, Azver, and I do not know why.”

Azver did not know why either. He smiled. He could not explain a dragon to her own mother. She would have to explain herself some day. He set the letter aside.

As the sun grew high in the sky and the day warmed, he walked the edge of the forest, to a low hill where he and Ged had sometimes sat and talked, but more often listened to the words in the trees, and the silences between them. Would that his friend had been content to sit here forever, deaf to the calls of boats and dragons and young princes and former priestesses… but even as he thought this, Azver the soldier was already laughing at Azver the Patterner. Neither he nor Ged nor anyone else was made to spend an entire life in the forest. He stayed some hours longer, until the sun was well past noon, and so said goodbye to Ged, his friend.

He returned to his hut and ordered his few things for Resik or their students to find. He laid his staff carefully on his bed. He placed Tenar’s letter in the fire; Thorion was long dead and the Doorkeeper did not need news from the Master Patterner, and so there was no one left on Roke now who should hear Tenar’s words. No doubt the Masters of Roke had heard from the King that the Archmage was dead, the King would have spoken Ged’s name, and that was all as it should be and none of his concern.

He extinguished the fire and and walked out of the hut into the dusk. He looked up into the leaves fluttering in the last light. “Ged” some whispered to him at the edge of hearing. “Ged.” Perhaps they whispered another name too, but if so, he couldn’t quite make it out. And then the wind dropped and they fell silent.

He looked deeper into the forest to a part where the ground sloped down and the light grew dimmer. No sound came. If there was a light down there, his old eyes could not make it out. He waited for a sign and there was none. And he smiled with absolute certainty into the darkness. “Irian,” he said, and walked deeper into the forest for the last time.

“Azver,” the leaves whispered behind him after he departed. “Azver.”

Force and blessed power

Archive of Our Own
Fandom: October Daye Series – Seanan McGuire
Characters: Eira Rosynhwyr

May all to Athens back again repair
And think no more of this night’s accidents
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
But first I will release the fairy queen.
Be as thou wast wont to be;
See as thou wast wont to see:
Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV, Scene I

They think they have the secret of elf-shot in the unbinding. But I don’t think so. And I guess, now that you’re here, neither do you. Do you? The secret of elf-shot has always been dreams and strength. The weak and useless perish, the pure and untainted slumber, and the strong walk in dreams, and tell their story. As many times as it takes to be believed.

And you owe me a hearing I think. You’ve certainly given October the Liar’s Daughter one haven’t you? Fair’s fair, they say, whoever they are. I say: welcome to my dream, and you’re getting my story whether you like it or not.

I know what you want. You want them all to be happy, the Liar’s changeling, the hidden prince, the cat with his saucer of cream. You want the Lady of the Lake to bestow and withhold her favours freely, as she used to. You want the souls of the Roane to have lived on in their skins, waiting for their mother’s freedom and you want them to swim in a clean ocean that the human filth haven’t defiled.

Well, you certainly have a lot of faith in the changeling daughter of Amandine the Liar, don’t you? Certainly so far she’s not broken anything that someone can’t put back together for her, but is that really to her credit? She has known what I am and what I can do for a year or more now, and she is yet to raise her army, or even dream that she needs one that exceeds the number of beds in her house.

Your faith is in lost children and grieving mothers. What a sweet dream. It will be unpleasant to wake from.

Perhaps you should dream my dream. I’ve always rewarded the canny, the brave, the ones with their eyes open. Consider Simon Torquill, if only for a time. Which Torquill brother would you truly rather be? The blustering, boasting Sylvester, wrapped up tight in roses and lies and the illusion of love? Or Simon at the height of his powers: my right hand, tutored in the ways of blood by two Firstborn, and freed from the lies of the lesser of the two? Or consider Rayseline, to whom I’ve shown the darkness, and who survived to turn the snake on itself, to remove forever one of Amandine’s line from the game, and finally to burn her mother’s legacy away and dream better dreams.

Oh but the hero’s dream is a sweet dream indeed, I know. I too am Oberon’s daughter after all. Freedom and happiness for all. Or at least for one or two, I’m sure. Do you truly want Antigone unbound? Free to bestow her favours on only one side, hers? Do you trust that that her side will always be your side? Let me disillusion you: a true daughter of Maeve, her side is always the side of the water. There’s only ever one thing she truly wants. Do you also wish to meet the Unseelie Queen then, her powers restored? The power of water is magnificent, and it is to wear down, and to drown. When Maeve Rides again, she and hers will ride the waves that smother you.

But, your last argument! In my dream, you now speak of a nightmare. What of Titiana, the beautiful, cruel, Summer Queen you ask? Yes, yes, of course, she was my mother. Don’t look so proud of yourself, it’s hardly a secret. There are those who say that I am but a shadow of that beautiful spider, bent on the destruction of Maeve first in mind, then in body, and finally in magic. And they are entirely and absolutely correct. I am as beautiful as the north star and as cruel as the north wind, and I am only a flickering shadow of my mother’s grace and evil.

Here is your nightmare: it is my mother also Antigone will bring back to you. Oberon’s last get and her spawn are my father’s blood key, his way home; Antigone sees it, I see it, and poor silly Amandine lives it in every beat of her heart. Amandine’s blood, and the blood of her hot-headed, stupid, daughters, are my father’s road home, and with him, his wives. The Unseelie Queen, as permanent and inexorable as water, and my mother. My mother who is so strong and so perfect she bound the daughter of the water against her own nature.

Do you want them to walk that road home to us? Do you want to meet them? The faithless Oberon? Maeve who longs to drown the world in her neverending tears? Titania, who would burn it in a moment if she thought it might amuse her?

I don’t either. Not ever again.

But can you lock the door against them, our lost Lords and Ladies, our terrible parents, our creators, our destroyers? Can you bar it with roses and blood, veins and thorns woven around each other and feeding each other until sap flows through flesh and blood through wood? Can you freeze it all in place, winter above and below, and within? Can you hold the door against the first parents, the gods themselves, against their fire and feeling? Can you freeze the lock even in dreams, all the dreams of all the world?

Of course, you cannot.

But I can. Do not think I do not know what is needed to bar that door. I’ve sacrificed Antigone’s children. I’ll sacrifice Amandine’s. And when all is night and cold, and yet more darkness and yet more snow is needed, I’ll sacrifice my children to lock that door forever.

I therefore put it to you: you have one chance, and one choice. Choose the Rose of Winter.

December meme: never coming home

A self-assigned topic: never coming home.

There’s a dynamic in the Hainish cycle I’m fascinated by, which is the people who can never go home, because during their journey everyone died and during their journey back, everyone they’ve spoken to on the ansible will die as well.

There’s a lot of characters who are in this situation. Genly Ai (Left Hand). Solly and later Teyeo (Four Ways). Isako (Another Story). And more.

But what we don’t see a lot of is the massive emotional upheaval involved in preparing for the journey. We don’t often see that final moment, the moment when you walk out of the room, or shut the door, or vanish into the mountain, or disappear in a thunderclap, the moment from which you are, from the point of view of those at home, dead. (There’s some mention of the Hainish version, of the seemingly very casual or at least brief Hainish traditions of “goodbye, I’m dead”. What does everyone else do?)

And I think we do not see, at all, the Sleeping Beauty experience, the experience of getting on the ansible, or reading the reports that came ahead of your ship (they only need to travel at light speed to beat you there) and finding out how it was that your family died, and reading the letters they wrote to you throughout their lives, and learning the names of your great-grandchildren who are now twenty years older than you, and so on.

We see a little bit of it in reverse, in Four Ways when Yoss thinks about her daughter and grandson on the ship. But we don’t see any sense that she is communicating to them, by, eg, compiling some kind of “and this is how the rest of my life went” document. (Le Guin doesn’t seem to have separated family members reach out to each other every so often. See also, in The Dispossessed, how Shevek and Takver don’t seem to communicate when physically separated on Anarres, let alone when he’s on Urras.)

Here’s some of the fascinating stories I think are in the margins (ie, good fic candidates):

Solly and Teyeo, oh my goodness. For starters, I think her characterisation is inconsistent with her backstory, which is that she’s been through the entire process of “goodbye, I’m dead” twice, and has twice woken up on a new world and needed to catch up on 500 years of history. (I don’t have the book with me right now, but if I recall correctly, one of those two times was “while you were asleep, the population of that world destroyed itself”.) I suppose the intended characterisation is that her youth and self-confidence will get her even through that kind of challenge, but, I’m not convinced.

Then there’s him, the perfect, self-reliant, honourable soldier, who has come to believe that the basis for his society and his honour is utterly bankrupt. I don’t know what the journey is like after that, but I can only imagine that adding in two journeys forward in time and massive culture shock from there cannot help. (He accompanies Solly to Terra and then to Hain.) He seems to be so much a man of Werel. How does he deal with Terra at all, let alone with Terra culture shock while simultaneously dealing with whatever the news from Werel-Yeowe is?

Leaf and In Joy Born, from the “Solitude” short story in The Birthday of the World, when they wake up on Hain to find that, as they had probably expected but not hoped, Serenity (the narrator) never followed them. (This is strictly left ambiguous. As of the time of making the report, she had not followed them. But she has two children, one a daughter, on Eleven Soro, and in her cultural tradition Hain would be the seat of interstellar-scale evil sorcery. I think it’s a fairly clear no.) “Solitude” is actually a letter to the future, but I can’t imagine Leaf finding it anything other than a catastrophic end to her relationship with Ren, especially since it would arrive concurrently with news of her presumed death, and news of the grandchildren she can never even know of (especially the grandson).

As an aside, I find this an interesting story in another respect too, which is that I’m not sure what planetary origin the family has. They speak Hainish and talk only of Hain, and the names are more like the Hainish names we see, but if so, Ren shouldn’t need external agents to control her fertility because the Hainish have it under conscious internal control. Still pondering.

O is in something of a unique position, since it’s only a four year difference. That’s probably why “Another Story” treats it in a fair bit of detail. It’s less unimaginable, a bit equivalent to Age of Sail emotional dislocations except that if you travel O to Hain to O you not only come back at least four years behind the news but also eight years younger than you “should” be.

I’m thus also treating several aspects of this problem in my novella-in-progress at the moment, although since as usual for sedoretu stories it’s a romance and comedy of manners, I can’t get right into it. In particular, the part that is like grieivng a death, only of someone who is going to reappear in the far future on another planet, after you’re dead.

I actually need to work on this respect a bit: the mourners are too isolated and misunderstood. O is a very stable culture who have been doing interstellar travel for a very long time. No doubt There Are Procedures That Are In Place. On O, the problem is generally not that no one knows how to deal with grief or love or lust or any big thing. It’s that There Are Procedures and they fit you so well and argh dammit for once why can’t I have just one big huge life disaster that my culture doesn’t have the perfect script to deal with? Do I have to be ki’O now too? Seriously? It turns out we have a religious ceremony that deals with this frustration with conformity too? I should have expected that. DAMMIT.

December meme except not quite: Hainish cycle

I’m hardly going to back out of Nanowrimo and then immediately write an entry every single day for the entire following month. No.

But I don’t want to lose my fannishness without finishing the Nanonovel, so I’d like to talk Hainish cycle a bit over December. I’ll do one a week. Help me fill in the weeks.

Stuff you can prompt me for: my thoughts on any of the worlds and/or stories below, and any of head canon or meta. You can get specific if you like!

Works/worlds: Another Story/Unchosen Love/Mountain Ways (O), City of Illusions and The Telling (Terra), Planet of Exile (Alterra, also called Werel), Rocannon’s World (Rocannon’s World), Solitude (Eleven-Soro), The Dispossessed and The Day Before the Revolution (Urras and Anarres), A Man of the People (Hain), Four Ways to Forgiveness (Yeowe and Werel), Gethen (The Left Hand of Darkness, Winter’s King and Coming of Age in Karhide), Seggri (The Matter of Seggri), Aka (The Telling)

Week 1:
Week 2:
Week 3:
Week 4:
Week 5:

Nanowrimo white flag

I’ve decided to bail on Nanowrimo-the-process.

I’m still very excited about the story, actually more so than when I began, and I’d really like to be able to finish it as a novella or short novel length work and share it! I still plan to.

And I’ve found out some useful things about myself; in particular, I actually can write at the Nano pace, and probably could all month. And I have such a lot of fun writing fiction. Very useful discovery process.

But. The writing has been taking me 1½ to 2 hours every single night. And about 60 minutes of that has been at the expense of sleep, which is not something I can skimp on for a variety of reasons. I really am not in a place to spend November pushing myself into cumulative sleep debt, because there’s no recovery time in the foreseeable future. I can imagine being able to do Nano in some future year, but this year is not it.

The word count is also stealing from other writing time I need and want. In particular, I’d like to post some more meta about the world of O, but it wasn’t going to fit into my day. Now perhaps it can.

So. I’m at 17079 words. Absolutely none of them would exist without Nano. It’s just not the right process for producing the other 15000 (?) that I need for a full draft. (I have a feeling this is a 30000–40000 word story, but I don’t really know.) So, this is my Nano white flag, but with thanks.

Also, given that I wrote 0 words of fiction this year before Nano, and 17000 in Nano, an improvement of infinity times, I think I need some kind of structure to get me to finish this thing, whether it’s some kind of modified Nano (average 500 words a night? one week in four is writing week?). Step one of leaving Nano is taking a solid week off writing and getting a bit of sleep. Step two of leaving Nano will be working out what that structure is! Step three is resuming writing.

Stay tuned!

Nanovel progress

I’m attempting the first draft of a fanfic novella/novel for NaNoWriMo this year. It’s more Ursula Le Guin fic; it’s set on the world of O, the original setting for the sedoretu concept. There’s quite a few sedoretu AUs, but not as far as I can tell any fic set on O.

I don’t want to spend too much time here when I could be making word count there, but in my last big writing project (a dissertation) I did find inconsequential blogging a little bit helpful.

So, a few things.

First, I’m a bit shy of 5000 words right now, which means of course that I need to up my daily word count. As of today, it needs to be 1800.

Second, I need to work out how a technologically advanced civilisation that apparently still uses upwards of 90% of its population on agriculture and completely lacks cities works, at least to some degree. There’s mention of Centers rather than cities, I’m not clear on what the distinction is. I think they may be universities without townships attached to them.

Third, why does Le Guin bother to specify in Another Story that brother-sister marriages are taboo? They’re actually a special case of the moiety taboo: all siblings and half-siblings would share a moiety (absent an moiety-incest violation, even half-siblings that share a father would be born to different women who share a moiety and therefore also share that moiety). I thought for a time she meant that a brother and sister cannot be on the same side of a sedoretu, but in that very same story, that’s what goes on to happen: Hideo and Koneko, full siblings, are the Evening spouses in their sedoretu. So that half-sentence bugs me every time. The moiety taboo is a society-wide sibling-marriage taboo to the point where you don’t need to separately specify things.

Fourth, it seems unlikely to me that there is really no word in the ki’O language(s) for one’s not-spouse, as in, the other person in the sedoretu with your own moiety. This person would be one of the most significant people in your life. They are married to the same two people as you. The potential for both teamwork and jealousy is beyond saying.

Le Guin doesn’t give a word, and the Mountain Ways introduction says “The forbidden relationships are between the Morning woman and the Morning man, and between the Evening woman and the Evening man, and they aren’t called anything, except sacrilege.” Funny to not acknowledge the intense and fraught social relationship there, especially since that story has the only example of it shown from the point of view character. (Hideo and Koneko in Another Story, per above, are siblings already. Hadri and Sasni in Unchosen Love are never seen to speak.)

And there would be two of these highly charged non-romantic relationships in every sedoretu. It almost makes me wish my story was about an established one. Perhaps some other time.

Perma-smells and others

I got as far as reviewing my least favourite of the imps I bought from BPAL early in the year, and the frimps and never quite got to the good stuff.

The Antikythera Mechanism

I think the winner for me from my initial order was The Antikythera Mechanism which I ordered because I was curious about the tobacco note.

Initial notes

In imp: Strong “musky” smell. (I don’t really don’t have the right vocab for perfumes. What I am actually referring to is the teakwood and vanilla, I’m pretty sure.)
Wet: Strong, spicy.
Dry: I’m liking this, but don’t have vocab to describe it. From the description, I’d be mostly getting vanilla and the woody scents. I think I like it! Vanilla going quicker than the wood.
Later: Wood strong, hints of vanilla. It doesn’t smell of tobacco to me, but I’m much more used to the smell of the smoke (which I quite like, when fresh and not right next to me) than the plant or its flower.

Now

I love smelling like this, apparently I want to smell of a sweet campfire or something. I’m having trouble not wearing this today because I want to re-review Bastet. I’m planning to order a bottle soon.

Bastet

I bought Bastet for the cardamom note and because of ‘s positive review.

Initial notes

In imp: Decent kick. A bit cough medicine/liquor.
Wet: Much sweeter.
Dry: Sweet with a touch of smoke? (My partner suggested: scotch)

Now

I remembered this one as the keeper, but I think not so much, now. I like it, I just don’t want to smell like it. I’m beginning to think that my preferences in scents tend way woodier/earthier than I would have guessed, starting this. I’m liking it more the more it dries today (I think it loses the sweetness), but I’m going to try some more imps before deciding if this is for me, I think.

Half an hour later: this is growing on me again! I don’t know! Send help!

Euphrosyne

I bought Euphrosyne because I love the way gardenia flowers smell.

Initial notes

In imp: Rose. Honeysuckle after a few sniffs.
Wet: Jasmine and honeysuckle I think, maybe a hintof heavy gardenia.
Dry: Very heavy, rich scent, it makes me think of a dessert wine’s taste. (Partner: “that scented mulch, what’s it called?”. He meant pot pourri.)

Now

Yeah, I’m going to steer clear of strong florals for the time being. It’s not terrible, but I don’t want to smell like that.

Next

I’m looking through Beloved Favorites to try and narrow it down since ALL OF BPAL is a bit intimidating. Given what I’ve learned here, I think The Cat, Snake Oil, Scherezade and (if it were in stock) Rogue.

I wish I’d paid attention and managed to get in on a Weenies decant circle, because I like the idea of the leaf scents too.