The contrast between the Conductor’s reaction to the Collapse and Lodi’s reaction to it continues Destiny’s focus on how to overcome monumental grief in a manner that creates a brighter future. It has already said so much without really saying anything explicitly. (Grief inspired ramblings incoming)
There aren’t enough words to describe how much ruin the Witness has brought to the universe, let alone Sol during its Collapse. There is no recovering what was lost when it unleashed absolute hell onto the solar system, the effects of which the people in-universe will be feeling for who knows how long. It was an act most vile and the sorrow felt by those affected is unimaginable.
However, just because the Golden Age stolen from Sol cannot be recovered, doesn’t mean that the residents of Sol have no future, and I strongly believe that in Edge of Fate both Maya and Lodi are used to show how different people react to that prospect.
Maya directly experienced the Collapse and it took everything from her. Not only the world as she knew it and the fruits of her scientific pursuits, but the life she wanted to live with Chioma.
This grief eats away at Maya like a festering rot and it drives the Conductor to rash, inconsiderate actions because the present as-it-is has no value to her compared to the past as-it-was.
Her involvement with the Nine and the vex is all part of an attempt to use time to bring the Golden Age forward and the City Age with its guardians to the Collapse. At first consideration, there is clearly an ethical and logistical issue here, but I’m going to focus on her intentions to recover.
Maya can’t stop looking back because she cannot see any way forward for humanity in the state she’s in. Her pain is held onto so tightly and she refuses to accept anything that isn’t her “perfect moment” before her life with Chioma was taken from her by the Witness; it makes her blind to just how fortunate humanity is to have anything at all and that by defeating the Witness with our allies, we have the rare possibility to become more than we ever were.
The Conductor diminishes the value of present lives and people, comparing them to lead against the golden humans centuries ago, not entirely from internal bias for a technological age, but from grief.
There is no future she could ever imagine that would fulfill her like her past with Chioma. No matter how far humanity comes, no matter how much we progress, it’ll be nothing because she won’t have her Chioma.
Grief refuses to allow you to let go by keeping idealize memories at the forefront of your head. To grief, there is nothing quite like the past and there will never be anything more valuable than what you once had. The world and more is a fair price to pay for a chance to revisit the moment time is rapidly racing away from because grief is all about hindsight.
There is safety in memories, in an unmoving mental state you can return to time and time again when time and it’s cruelty is shifting under your feet like sand pulled by waves. Grief stings, but it is also sweet in its stagnancy; sweet enough for you to mindless indulge as it hardens around you like an amber prison.
We’ve learned from the last saga that darkness is related to memory retention, for better or for worse, and Maya’s interaction with the Veil has clearly left an impression on her. An obsession and commitment to memories can trap us in our pain, preventing us from growing and forgiving as we fear more suffering coming from the hard work needed to overcome our grief.
By dwelling on what she no longer has, by imprisoning herself in the Golden Age where her life is as perfect as her mind makes it, she’s blinding herself to what she has now.
And what she has now is considerably more than what Te’Qal in her echo was left with.
Humanity can rebuild itself. With the persistence and hope we’ve held onto since the Collapse, dreams held within innovation can be ours once more, this time with security from knives whetted over eons.
There is no hope for the Qugu. There is no future for Seht. There will never be dreams or safety for the countless who have been eradicated by the Witness and its forces.
What is lead to Maya would be gold for the Qugu.
Grief is telling Maya that there is nothing more valuable than what she once had, but she fails to realize that what she has now is beyond miraculous and worthy of the utmost devotion.
Devotion that Lodi has shown an interest in committing too.
Here we have a man ripped from all he has ever loved and informed that everything he could have ever loved was smoldered between thousands of fingertips, but instead of turning around and using his voice to beg for the past to return to him, he’s using his voice to speak of what can be learned from the past to better humanity’s current state.
He’s certainly grieving and the pain he’s feeling about his life all the way back in the 20th century will never be an easy thing to deal with, but he refuses to let being a slave to the past hold him back from being an asset to the future.
This line after he lists things he remembers from his life is incredibly profound, yet so simple. Remembering the past is not about preserving it exactly how it was, but taking it with you as time pushes you forward and letting it adapt with the reality you are faced with.
Lodi uses his knowledge as both a person from an age long gone and as a linguist to pass on his knowledge to City Age humans, hoping we will be able to teach it to others and build off of it. He thinks of the hundreds of cities, billions of people, thousands of cultures, and he says “we can have beyond that if we start working towards that”.
Dancing salsa and making ceviche is not what Maya thinks of when she thinks of what made humanity great, but it’s things like dancing salsa and making ceviche that makes humanity humanity. They have value because they meant something in the past and they can mean something again because Lodi has the courage to teach it to us.
Furthermore, he’s appreciative of what humanity still has in its current state and wants to learn from us, combining our knowledge to form a deeper, greater understanding than what we had previously.
Love is a wonderfully terrible thing that requires from us more than what we have. It’s changing, it’s grievous, it’s hard work. It requires us to let go, to love more than just the object of our affection. Love in memory is sweet and only asks what we have to give.
Maya loves Chioma, but to properly love her, she must let go. She must love humanity and its Sol system as Chioma sought to understand and explore it, even if it is a bitter reminder of everything she has lost.
Lodi loves his family, he always speaks about them and their influence on him; thus, he loves humanity and is willing to sacrifice his autonomy to protect it, even as memories of Ben and his parents torment him at night.
There’s a hand-weaved basket in my house that will forever remain unfinished. The practice of it has been forgotten in my family as there is no one left to teach it. I’ve sat where the weaver used to sit every day and used every ounce of my being to bring the memory of them to me, but as much as I thought day after day “they are still here. They just came inside with pieces of palm and they are in front of me making a new basket like they always have. They just asked if I prefer the stripped ribbon or the plain blue one. They asked if I think they could go shopping with it.” I cannot make it true.
What I can do is go back to their home and ask someone to teach me. I can find someone who keeps the practice alive and learn from them. I can teach it to someone else once I am proficient enough and hope that they may continue to pass it on to those who have yet to come.
I’m not going to dig my feet in the ground and keep looking back at the weaver at the table. I’ll never forget them and I’ll never stop missing how their own hands used to work meticulously at that table, but I refuse to let grief blind me to the fact that I have my own hands and a life of basket weaving ahead of me.
I’ll learn to weave as best as I can. I’ll weave things my weaver could have only imagined and I’ll make the real future better than any idealized past.
It would be so much easier to just have them back here with me, weaving like they always have. I wouldn’t have to worry of all the failed baskets I’m sure I’ll make, of all the waves of grief that’ll come crashing down on my grip. I wouldn’t have to worry if I’ll ever weave as good as they did or if the type of weaving our small island does will survive the coming decades. It would be so much easier to live in that perfect when rather than face the flawed now.
But I’ve let go of hoping that they’ll somehow come back because waiting for them to come strip the palms keeps me from appreciating how much their bark has grown back since my weaver’s been gone and using it to make a basket for my younger family member.
I love my weaver, always will, and thus I love their home, their legacy, their art, even when it leaves me raw and screaming.
Basket weaving and speaking Welsh might be dead just like Earth once was after the Collapse, but we can always rebuild them by promising to keep looking forward no matter how hard it is. We can chose to be Lodi, even when it is so tempting to remain as Maya is. The Last City of Earth can become the First City and we can grieve those before us all while cherishing those alongside us.
Lodi means a lot to me. He really does.
