- Tibor: I’m sure the Machine can also be restarted by other people.
- Scarlet: How would you know that?
- Scarlet: I need to be prepared if only I can turn the Machine back on!
- Tibor: On the one hand, I understand you, but on the other, that sounds rather haughty.
- Scarlet: Maybe it does… But every hero needs a flaw! Mine is arrogance!
- Tibor: Where did you get that from?
- Scarlet: Abel’s book “The Thousand Traps of Tabitha Tello”.
- Tibor: You’re a big fan of Abel, huh?
- Scarlet: Yeah! He’s my hero!
- Tibor: What’s his flaw then?
- Scarlet: I don’t know. But I’m sure he has one.
A Sky Full of Stars 009
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13 thoughts on “A Sky Full of Stars 009”
BlackDragonSlayer
Maybe Abel was a liar. Just because the machine is real doesn’t mean it does what you think it does… the planet going up in a giant fireball is a form of eternal summer, after all.
Mersharr
I was about to say, maybe his flaw is dishonesty.
Crystalgate
Abel is a children’s book author and it’s highly unlikely that he knows about the reality of the machine. He most likely did what other story tellers often do, they take a known story and then put their own spin to it. Stories are effectively never 100% original and a good author usually has to somehow alter a story, make it more exiting or something, to appeal to a large audience. There is not a question of whether or not he’s honest, the question is what inspired his story.
While stories are never 100% original, an author can write a new story that borrows say 15% of the elements from one already existing story, 10% from a second story, 10% from a third story and so on with a percent being his own ideas from scratch as well, meaning there is no single story that the new story is heavily influenced by. If that’s the case, then trying to find the eternal machine by trying to track down the origin of the story will probably lead to a dead end. If however “Princess Elodie and the Silver Dragon” is heavily based on another story that the author just put his own spin to to make it far more appealing an marketable, then Scarlett could in theory get a clue to work with by tracing the stories backwards.
hkmaly
Maybe Princess Elodie is the “unique spin”. I can see a series of stories happening to Princess Elodie, each based on some previous story with different original hero.
Crystalgate
I think Tibor is identifying Scarlets seal towards finding the eternal machine as a coping mechanism and while he’s supporting it to allow Scarlet to cope, he is probably also hoping that eventually wounds will heal with time and that she won’t need the machine of eternal summer quest anymore and will instead move on to something else. Obviously, she will stick to it at least during early adulthood. The fact that she seemingly saw the machine with her own eyes does help. I’m very curious what really happened as it feels like there are elements missing.
John C.
Obviously other people can start the Machine: if it had ever worked in the past, someone other than Scarlet had operated it.
Dilandu
Assuming it wasn’t automatic to start with. Since someone bothered to install climate control device into the planet, we could safely assume that the planet was terraformed from marginally habitable state.
Crystalgate
We don’t know if the planet has climate control devices. All we have is that Scarlet presumable saw a machine which looks like a machine illustrated in a children’s book. It is a good theory though and I think a fairly likely one. I don’t think we can assume that though.
John C.
Whatever kind of machine it is, and whether or not it was automatic, someone had to start it, at least for the very first time, and it wasn’t Scarlet.
Old Brit
People are currently installing climate control (carbon capture) machines on our planet. It’s not to upgrade the planet, but to stop it degrading further.
Obviously on Scarlet’s planet, the machine stopped working, and the climate went wrong.
Dilandu
The planet doesn’t seems to be habitable in first place. Only two plant species edible for animals and sapients? That’s not how ecosystem works. Much more probable that the planet was initially lifeless iceball (like Earth in its early eras) and was terraformed into somewhat-habitable.
P.S. And the problem here is cooling, not overheating. So if anything, they need carbon-RELEASERS, not carbon-scrubbers to warm the planet up.
hkmaly
It’s possible Scarlett is reincarnation of whoever started the machine first time.
Old Brit
Yes, because this is a declining civilization. Old tech stays in use until it fails irreparably. Kitchen equipment is easy to keep going.
Characters
Ariana Carolus Athamas Baako Bolin Clara Graybold Cyril Darius Leyh Elwin Flammt Evelina Ferrus Gale Nenawa Gavin Carolus Iona Jehona Shardyk Julius Mirkning Kala Silverspring Kenan Orege King Protos Lauro Levon Goldwood Leyton Wayt Ludis Graybold Luitpold Marik Marton Princess Elodie Raymond Reto Mirkning Reva Rodar Rosetta Greenleaf Scarlet Carolus Severin Silvana Mirkning Tibor Frey Vidal Viola Vreni Xaver Yerim Zach Ilkin