Question City of Silence concept discussion

Malady wrote: It's also sort of like Groundhog... But, sort of not, 'cause it's obviously dream within a dream, and Groundhog Day repeats at day's end, while this one is at any startling point.

Ya... the similarities were more obvious when the movie was in recent pop culture memory and we were still a couple decades earlier in the evolution of sci-fi/fantasy.

As to making more of it and publishing it... nah. It works as a short story. Anything much longer would force it to get into more of a world building exercise of creating alternate worlds for Ray to hop to... a sort of variant on Sliders... and less about setting up enough alternates to define the character and then slip in the 'twist' scenario. I'd support a video short adaptation of it... but not an adaptation to novella... or gods forbid, a novel.

Sadly, one of the best things I wrote from that class is lost to history now. Prologue and first chapter of a novel sized idea called "The City of Silence" meant to be the first book in a series of them called "The Word and the Law". That got set on a virtual shelf to be worked on at some point when I had the time to work on a serious novel and I've just never gotten back to it. Futuristic sci-fi society, post collapse, masquerading as a fantasy novel... ie any technology suitably advanced would appear as magic.

Take one large continent and divide it equally between four kingdoms, each with a different government structure and general outlook but kept separate (and at peace) through the Law... magic that enforces certain aspects of life and prevents the deployment of military units outside a kingdoms borders. Civilian migration through the borders allows people to live under the laws they wish to... and keeps the leadership from deviating too much from just rule. As does the fact that the capitals and royal palaces of all four are found in the central city, surrounding a forbidden, uninhabited ancient city called "The City of Silence". Having all four royal families and the main political movers and shakers all in one central location lends itself to at least some cooperation... especially given that the swords which denote each King's power cannot be taken far from the City.
Every now and then someone tries to explore the City of Silence... a place in which anything spoken is instantly translated into the Word. The Word is the ancient language of power... or magic, if you prefer. Outside the City, some few mystics and magi use a few Words here or there to perform acts of power... the best of them studying in the Library... but inside the City, everything spoken... done in the Word. Few come out of the City, fewer still intact (most insane). But every now and then someone leaves. Alive. Remembering a Word or two. These are cared for by the Library, their Words added to the lexicons that only approved Guild members may study.

Rhar's story begins with a dream... a flashback/nightmare in which, as a small child, his father hands him a great sword and tells him to flee through a tunnel. When he reaches its end he is to cross to the far end of the first chamber and then say words that his father tells him to speak... "I am the Word and the Word is Law." And then, hearing fighting outside, the metal ring of swords striking each other, Rhar fled down the tunnel to do as he was told. When he spoke the words, a great noise came from behind him, throwing him crashing forward through a wall and into a strangely lit courtyard of statues. Temporarily deafened, badly battered, and seeing statues begin to move and come to life around him; Rhar flees down the streets until finally able to burst through huge doors into the streets of the outer city, where he collapses confused and mostly unresponsive like so many others who have risked the City of Silence.

As the story sets out... Rhar is now a young adult, a ward of the Library and an apprentice (and prodigy) of the Library. Unknown to anyone, he is also the only surviving member of the Ruby Kingdom's royal family.. a family whose palace home was destroyed by terrible lightning and explosions on the night he vaguely remembers for reasons no one knows. And now that he is free to do so... he hopes to find his family's killers and restore the Ruby Kingdom. There are, of course, trusty sidekicks and beautiful bar wenches and so forth. There's also swords, magic firebolts, particle beam weapons, nanotechnology, and a few other things that would be more than a little unexpected.

Well, the file with the prologue and the first 20-30 pages of it was lost. Like most things I've come up with over the years, they're still in my head yelling for writing time.

Ruby - the original name of the four regions/kingdoms are lost to most people... the current names are based on the gemstone in the pommel of their royal sword, the swords being the key to authority over everything in that region/kingdom.

As far as a bit of lore that explains how this layout and such happened? Humanity survived the fall from advanced civilization and the near destruction of the world mostly by escaping off world (those who could) in stasis ships (no FTL, so in most cases it would be hundreds of years before they arrived to start offworld colonies). They left behind those who didn't want to or couldn't for some reason leave... along with some few who felt it appropriate to try to fix what they'd done - scientists and engineers. These few left behind built several domed cities large enough to protect and sustain the remainder of humanity, as long as they were careful with population, for a couple thousand years... and were designed as control centers from which they could release nanotech clouds into the various regions around their cities to repair the environment, reseed the ecosystem (with the original creatures where appropriate if DNA was available, or with unique created creatures to fill the same niche if not).

Over the centuries, tasks were simplified to word commands... the Word. A spoken command system that the nanotech clouds and control systems. After a long time, the dome came down. By this point, few still considered themselves scientists or technicians. The ones in charge of specific goals had either automated the process or taught their children enough to carry on their work, which mostly involved teaching them enough of the Word to keep processes running. The nanotech clouds primarily moved away the city, continuing to repair the ecosystem... the air having mostly been cleaned up and the weather systems being relatively controlled still. This meant that the density of the nanoclouds IN the city were reduced. This required the administrators to create the swords... basically a handy interface that meant they could use the Word whether there were enough nanites in the vicinity or not.

The administrators also used the Word and their authority over what remained of the recovery project priorities to establish the Law... a legal system that gave authority and protection to their own control over the four project regions. As the administration already ran things and few people were willing to venture out of the city even with the dome down, this didn't really have any impact on people. By the time it did, it was ancient history and tradition.

While the reclamation of the world is still in progress... even on the continent of the four Kingdoms... most of the four regions have viable ecosystems and only a few dangerous areas where it is unsafe for humans to spend time. Knowledge of nanotechnology is gone along with any understanding that humanity was once 'more advanced' that it is now. Knowledge of the Word is generally restricted to use by the Mages of the Guild, centered in the Library. The old city, the part that contained the control systems for the nanotechnology, is still active... but silent, waiting for masters to command it with the Word... so desperate for orders and direction by the humanity it is meant to aid and protect that when a human does come into its domain, nanotech is used to bridge the language centers of its mind to give it the ability to use the command language.

Of course... unknowing humans speaking the language of gods are like boys with a genie's lamp put in their hands. Few survive it, and fewer still get what they actually want.

How long did this civilization collapse take? If it was a managed affair, why not keep educating and stuff?

Several thousand years between the exodus and the fall of the Ruby Kingdom. About a third of that, the city renamed domed... and mostly, practical needs were taken care of. There basically was no need to teach the bulk of the people anything. Resources were available, they had shelter and food. There were some basic maintenance requirements which could be handled at common stations throughout the city, with some basic phrases authorizing the system to run diagnostics and do repairs. No one really knew how anything worked at that point. Even today in our level of tech, the average person doesn't know how most of the technology they use daily works except on a very general level. And the people who stuck around instead of getting on colony ships were not teachers... they weren't even the types of scientists and engineers who were at the top levels of technology... those people got recruited fast and hard for the 'sponsored' (read corporation controlled) colonies.

These were mainly people who were eco-types. They were tech savvy enough to be able to work out how to design and work out habitats and ecosystem repair with the aid of the computers and resources that they could afford to set up. But they didn't have ideal population planning. They mainly had people too stubborn to leave. The government didn't stick around, so there was no real plan for education. Schooling is challenging to require when you don't need more than basic understanding to survive within the domed city. So knowledge of technology became a facet of family. The administration class held on to the knowledge the longest... and still had a fairly good basis of understanding on how to 'use' the systems when the dome came down... but the rest of the population was almost completely reliant on the city for survival. And it took generations of the dome being down before explorers and a few first groups left the city to settle 'outside' and worked out more or less lost crafts... woodworking, farming, forging, etc. By the time most of the regions were available for settling, the general knowledge base of the populace was more or less pre-Rennaissance. The city had started to fail in its functions... authorizations and repair phrases were either lost or were now in possession of people who no longer lived in the city and would not function even if they were being used as 'rites'. The Library was established, to store practical knowledge and the Guild to do the same thing with the Word. The Guild took responsibility for trying to keep the city working... but their numbers never grew very high and by the end of the second millenium, not much of the city still functioned. Only the City of Silence remained intact and functioning, its rites mandated by Law and performed seasonally by the Kings.

The culture is poised on the brink to enter an age of Industrialization... but this is resisted by the Guild and the Kings, who have stories of the dangers of technological advancement. It is likely to happen even without their approval because the populace is generally 'curious' again. And there are enough mysteries in their old stories, about the city... especially about the Word and the City of Silence... to make people curious and seek to invent and create.

But yes... time scale... pretty long. Long enough, in fact, that the idea for the second book was for one of the colonies to send ships back to find the old homeworld, that colony having now recovered to and exceeded the original world's tech levels, possibly formed a star empire with one or more of the other colonies, solved the FTL problem and so on.

They couldn't just make more nanites and control tech?

Oh, they could. But in the domed city, they were at very high densities just for protective reasons. Once the dome was down, most of the clouds were deployed to continue repairing the ecosystem. More could be made, but doing so would consume exotic materials needed and not really have a significant benefit... most didn't NEED to be in constant communication with the technology... and those few who did, had alternative means. Those families responsible for city maint went to the 'altar to perform their rites'... or, went to the interface system where there would be an active cloud of nanites to hear the command Words necessary to run the regular diagnostics and such.

The main computers can and do regularly generate more nanoclouds to deply into needed places. after all, the original clouds were focused on keeping the domed city alive and safe, and to begin the recovery process in the world outside. For a long time, most of those were working on the air and oceans. A LOT of nanites. But with the basic filtering done and work started on kickstarting the natural filtering systems in the oceans, then it was about creating usable land and viable sustained ecosystems... and that really only had to work fast enough to stay ahead of any population migration out of the city. THAT continent finished except for long term projects (like things with 2k yr half life decay... even rushed by advanced technology, that stuff takes time) ... but there's an entire world out there to repair. So in the 'now' of the stories, a lot of the nanoclouds that are in use are on other continents, working away at rebuilding ecosystems.

What's the tech level at story's start?

visibly... pre-Renaissance, with some 'rare' Victorian or even 20th century luxuries as a result of use of the Word or still functioning technology. None of which is really understood, just known to work if you do the right things/say the right Words.

So, the old city's run by an AI?

Not exactly. Extremely powerful computers with the ability to run things on their own to a degree no longer understood by humanity? Yes. Sentient? Maybe... certainly eccentric, given that they occasionally seem to advance an agenda that is not dictated by the 'operators'. But not completely free willed... the Law, the Project, dictates of the Kings/operators... all supersede and in some cases are required for even some of the more basic operations of the system. Thus most of the 'outer' city, no longer capable of functioning automatically to support and sustain the inhabitants. Sure, most of the materials are strong enough to still survive... but they no longer auto-repair. Food production is only still available in a few places outside the palaces. Even the 'fey lighting' only works in parts of the city still, because no one knows how to maintain it anymore... and the computer is not permitted to just do it itself.

Ya, I think you'll find that the number of loops in my short story is probably pretty similar to most television shows/movies. After the first couple in Groundhog day, for example, they stopped showing the full 'loop', you just got individual scenes of where he changed from day to day. or later, where he learned something new. After all, if it takes you five minutes to play out the basic scene... waking up, wandering through the house, noticing the one or three things different then going 'elsewhere' and seeing more results of the change... just the basic awareness of the problem of three or four cycles has used up a third to half of your total episode time.

And you have to save one 'full cycle' for the final loop through time where things then go forward. What I've got, turned into television? probably about 30 minutes of show right now. Add in commercial breaks and its probably only a little short of a full show.


Btw... I think its bizarre that I split off the topic of the stuff about my The City of Silence but both the convergence topic AND this one basically died when I split them. I'm starting to wonder if splitting the thread broke the forums

Most of them on this side... not as much on the other conversation... which is why I split them, so the other conversation could continue without this side discussion (which was going to end anyway) getting in the way of it.