- Yerim: What’s the point of this?
- Tibor: I may deserve death. But not what Marik will do to me if you confiscate the Shards.
- Tibor: At least I was able to save the girl. The first and last time this fox was good for anything.
- Tibor: Go ahead, shoot me!
- Yerim: Fine. But not inside here with the girl.
- Scarlet: No, don’t shoot him! I’ll forgive him. If he helps me to get back to the Machine and turn it on again!
- Tibor and Yerim: Machine?
- Scarlet: The Machine of Eternal Summer!
- Yerim: I… don’t understand.
- Tibor: Me neither.
- Scarlet: There’s a secret passageway in our cellar that leads to the Machine of Eternal Summer!
- Tibor and Yerim: ???
The Machine of Eternal Summer 037
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11 thoughts on “The Machine of Eternal Summer 037”
Vicious Sand
“That’s called a Boiler Room, girlie.”
While Scarlet is right, she’s got bigger problems. Of course, if the multiple substation theory is correct, then it’s possible that the Machine is known to some people, they just don’t know how to turn it on. If the people of Lavel (the leaders of the people, the people are following orders) are dumb enough to go to war with each other, then it’s just as possible that some substations may have been destroyed- or turned into King Butthead’s personal sauna.
So she’s not pressing charges… because of a fairy tale? If Tibbles has half the brain he’s supposed to have, he should jump at that chance. Wars are often great sources of money, or at least semi-abandoned goods.
tsath
Fox, you are about to sign up for Trouble
Crystalgate
It won’t be more dangerous than execution I think.
Manabi
Taking care of/raising a child as strong-willed as Scarlet probably _will_ be more dangerous than execution. At least the pain’s over with quickly when you’re executed. Admittedly most of the pain is emotional—seeing them cry over things, feeling bad when sick and you can’t do anything to help, etc. Scarlet is likely to wear Tibor out on a daily basis just keeping up with her, though.
Seeing them turn into wonderful adults makes up for it, but Tibor clearly has no clue what he’s getting himself into. It should help him get his act together.
Werwolfe
“I found it by talking to my dolly!”
Ugh, I’d been hoping for a story where, for once, ingenuous gibberish isn’t made to triumph over sanity by storytelling contrivances.
Crystalgate
I’m having a hard time seeing the general accept the whole miracle machine in Scarlet’s cellar deal. Unless Novil is pulling a bait and switch with Tibor, he’s not going to go trough with the execution either. I do wonder what will happen now.
I also wonder what’s up with the machine in cellar deal. It seems way too contrived for it to be in Scarlet’s cellar, but also a copout for it to just Scarlet dreaming. I will also note that if there is a machine that looks like the miracle machine in the book, it does not mean the physical machine has the same function it has in the book.
Dolly
So fare … nothing made sense.
Let’s wait and see what happens after the time Jump!
Graybeard
On thinking about it, it almost makes sense if the Grondan attack is for (at least partially) the purpose of finding the Machine. Suppose they know, or at least believe, that it’s out there somewhere in the area, but don’t know exactly where. So they send Special Forces units out, many detachments of small numbers each, to scour the countryside, and part of this detachment “finds” the Carolus farm, without knowing that it’s hiding what they’re looking for. So how does Tibor fit? Simple: the Carolus farm is successful, most aren’t — which may be because the Machine is there. Is the Machine’s location “contrived”? No. If it exists, it has to be _somewhere_.
As for the general’s actions, yes, that part is “contrived” — unless the general is also aware that the Machine is real and incredibly significant, but he doesn’t, or didn’t, know where it is either. This is credible, although the presence of a general officer commanding a small fort out in the boonies is less so. Reduce his rank to Major or thereabouts, and peel a few years off him, and the setting is less contrived — yet — than in many stories like this.
I’m still in wait-and-see mode here, but the more I think about what has happened so far, the less contrived it feels to me.
Tadrix
Really depends on the size of the garrison. Around 100 men (so the size of a company)? That’d be a captain (many leaders used to be just “captains”). Around 1000 men (so the size of a regiment)? That’d be a colonel (the captain of captains). (Roughly 200 would mean a major in command of a cavalry squadron, roughly 500 would mean a lt. colonel in command of a battalion, several thousand would mean a brigadier, and it’s generals upwards of that; this place admittedly looks smaller than even a brigade would be defending though.) That said, we have no idea of their customs (tactics seem to be post-industrial) and rank definitions. Maybe every detachment operating separately from the others (so without immediate supervision) is commanded by a general now.
Kitty
Wait, don’t spontaneously execute the petty thief who saved the little girl after all, she said not to and that’s how our military justice system works here in the Land of People Who Take Orders From Little Girls But Execute Petty Criminals For Saving Them.
Crystalgate
Robbing people with a firearm is not a petty crime. Let’s also wait and see what the general does.
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