What are your ships? (Tbh of what little activity there is on here it seems fairly uniform which kinda surprises me)
How do you think Incarceron was conceptualized? Why did it go through? It seems to me, when you stop and think about it, it all seems really sketchy. Like, they put all the war criminals in an artificially constructed utopia. Bad idea for two reasons: one, even if we give the benefit of the doubt and say that only a slightly larger fraction of the people imprisoned were prone to violence, etc. than the common populace, you still have a population scarred by war and not only that but a population that lost. Two, these people are being overseen by a few “elite,” who, however educated and benevolent they may be, there is still a huge risk for a power imbalance here. The attitude toward the Sapients Inside by the time the story starts is actually kind of fascinating to me; I would have expected them to become elitist in effort to survive. Furthermore, utopian communities have been tried again and again throughout history, and they never work. I find it hard to believe that someone high up wouldn’t have known this. Which means that the severe class distinctions and the secrets within the government have been present from the very beginning. Incarceron was never humane–it was just made to look like it would be so people wouldn’t get upset.
From there it’s entirely possible to argue that Incarceron was never meant to last. After all, if it just slowly ran out of power and died, no one in the Realm would really care. The legend would live on, as it did before, and the Warden would pretend to still have a job (which is pretty close to what is going on anyway.)
And on that note, how was the Realm established? Assuming the world was in some vaguely similar state to our world when the Years of Rage occurred, it would be insane to establish such a rigid caste system so quickly, even if technology was all but lost. Surely people must have rebelled against it? How were they pacified? Were they killed?
What exactly are the Sapients? Obviously they’re educated, but how are they chosen beyond that? Are they some kind of Jedi kind of thing (well, they are anyway) where certain people are chosen from an early age? Is it purely an occupation? Are there limitations on their lifestyle, or do they merely gain from their skills and knowledge?
Could Incarceron work in theory? In particular I’m talking about the issue of matter cycling. Animals and people are found to be more and more made of metal, but why? If Incarceron is a closed system, all the matter within must be recycled, which means that Incarceron is not putting it’s organic waste to good use. The issue does arise, however, of where the energy comes from in the first place. Where does organic matter come from?
(Also the whole thing about how exactly halfmen come about is pretty weird to think about I mean that means that robots are being constructed in the womb)
And what about the technology in the Realm? Are the poor aware of it? What stops any uprisings? If we follow this logic, the Realm seems very much like a totalitarian dictatorship.
Also, not a question but a very passionate statement: it is NOT THE VICTORIAN AGE PEOPLE. IT’S SOMEWHERE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. (which is actually much harder for a lot of people to romanticize which I find interesting)
What kind of enneagrams are we looking at here?
Is Jared actually dead? Is Jared actually Sapphique? Did Sapphique exist? What exactly was Sapphique? How exactly did Jared know what to do at the end of Sapphique? How exactly did him being in control solve all the problems in Incarceron (e.g. the matter cycling above?)
Man that was a lot. Pretty sure there’s more, but that’s a good start.
What is this discourse you speak of
What isn’t this discourse I speak of