The deliberately placed idea

[RedBlue]

This line from chapter 31 caught my eye:

Quote

Then, as if placed there deliberately from outside, an idea struck her.

It’s referring to Yumi’s idea to stack the ‘souls’ of rocks and have Painter copy what she’s doing. This leads to them summoning a spirit which gives them an instruction: destroy the machine.

I doubt this is a poetic way to say that Yumi felt like the idea came from nowhere. It seems much more literal than that — someone or something essentially told Yumi what to do in order to summon a spirit.

My first thought is that the spirits themselves are contacting Yumi here. They understand the situation, and are acting to free themselves. But if they can communicate like this, why don’t they just tell Yumi what they want her to do? Why use the roundabout method of having her summon one of them?

Is some other person or thing influencing Yumi here? Who could it be?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

7 hours ago, RedBlue said:

Is some other person or thing influencing Yumi here? Who could it be?

Hoid to free himself and the indirect way of communication is a result of him being in a degraded state of mind.

[i’m in the details]

It could also be a rather large chunk of virtuosity that is still kicking around. Or maybe remnants of their cognitive shadow still present in the system. We know that Yumi is particularly connected to it.