Long term future of Canticle

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Somebody has to do the part of Jasnah Kholin and ask the brutal questions. I let the chorus speak:

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"But others," another said, pressing against the glass, "must be given to the sun. This is the sun's land."

"Do this not," the first said, "and shades will overrun the world. Such a small planet. They will take everything. They would rip and destroy you."

Can you just dismiss that? They were Threnodites and understood their own kind. They presumably did the math.

In other words: Has Nomad doomed Canticle with his humanity? Will they all die in a plague of shades in a few decades?

[Pandora's shard]

This could be the sequence of events:

1) The populations across the equator living zone unify, as unified as they can be, while living independently, and share information, leading to some great years of peace and prosperity

2) Some people die, and they turn into shades, which are uncontained. The leaders notice this (offcourse they already know), and then, decide that, only those people who are almost about to die will be given to the sun, so that, they don't form shades and destroy this population. 

3) coming to this conclusion and then, following this path may be one of the next big revolutions on the planets. 

4) Slowly, the super charged battery number increases, and so, also increases the power level of the planet Canticle on the cosmere level. 

5) More people from other planets come to share the gift and trade, but offcourse Scadrians are already here. 

6) Thus, this planet as well gets blown into the cosmere wide "Great war of the Shards".

[GudThymes he/him]

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In other words: Has Nomad doomed Canticle with his humanity? Will they all die in a plague of shades in a few decades? 

I don't think so. Since they've needed the sunhearts as power sources they've needed to sacrifice people to continuously renew their flight from the "sun". I think recharging just removes that necessity and they can still find a solution for the shades if they start overwhelming the Reliquaries. 

[+robardin he/him]

4 minutes ago, GudThymes said:

I don't think so. Since they've needed the sunhearts as power sources they've needed to sacrifice people to continuously renew their flight from the "sun". I think recharging just removes that necessity and they can still find a solution for the shades if they start overwhelming the Reliquaries. 

Would the sunlight of Canticle not burn away a shade of Threnody (or a Threnodite descendant)?

[therunner he/him]

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

In other words: Has Nomad doomed Canticle with his humanity? Will they all die in a plague of shades in a few decades?

No probably not.

All Nomad did was inform them that sacrificing people so that they can survive was not necessary. So they no longer have to kill people to power their society.

But they are aware of this warning, and a new custom can be formed where people are given to the sun as a form of euthanasia. Still not ideal, but it prevents shades becoming an issue.

Alternatively, the fact that Rebeke claims to have seen her brother within the Chorus implies that shades of people who die outside of sun are drawn to Chorus to be contained. So it is entirely possible that creation of Chorus eliminated the need for sacrifice as means of prevention of shades overrun. In this case, people of Canticle don't have to die by sun at all.

[GudThymes he/him]

38 minutes ago, robardin said:

Would the sunlight of Canticle not burn away a shade of Threnody (or a Threnodite descendant)?

I would assume so, but since it is an assumption I didn't want to claim as such. Though, there is also the weird situation with Rebeke's brother - unconfirmed but if we believe her then his shade somehow made it from the battlefield at the beginning into the Reliquary. So they likely wouldn't be destroyed by the sun until the Reliquaries fail. 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

All Nomad did was inform them that sacrificing people so that they can survive was not necessary. So they no longer have to kill people to power their society.

Unfortunately that is not right. Sunhearts will be lost due to recharging them. Sunhearts will be destroyed or lost in accidents. And eventually they'll want to build new ships.

They'll burn fewer people, but burn they will.

2 hours ago, therunner said:

But they are aware of this warning, and a new custom can be formed where people are given to the sun as a form of euthanasia. Still not ideal, but it prevents shades becoming an issue.

Small consolation.

2 hours ago, therunner said:

Alternatively, the fact that Rebeke claims to have seen her brother within the Chorus implies that shades of people who die outside of sun are drawn to Chorus to be contained. So it is entirely possible that creation of Chorus eliminated the need for sacrifice as means of prevention of shades overrun. In this case, people of Canticle don't have to die by sun at all.

The first generation knew that, but still felt a need to send people into the Sun.

The much worse possibility is that the containment vessels will fail if they have to hold too many shades.

[therunner he/him]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Unfortunately that is not right. Sunhearts will be lost due to recharging them. Sunhearts will be destroyed or lost in accidents. And eventually they'll want to build new ships.

Why would they be lost due to recharging them? Did I miss some implication?
Destroyed or lost I grant you.

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

They'll burn fewer people, but burn they will.

Small consolation.

People die anyway. If they can die in such a way that it helps their civilization, and they do it of their own will, I don't see that as bad.
You can give them anesthesia, so it will be painless.

No different from any other euthanasia we practice here on this very planet, except this will create some use.

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

The first generation knew that, but still felt a need to send people into the Sun.

And we don't know why.
Perhaps Chorus changed over time, or perhaps Chorus was not yet constructed and the containment technology was only discovered after they already started feeding people to sun.

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

The much worse possibility is that the containment vessels will fail if they have to hold too many shades.

They can build more.

Edited October 3, 2023 by therunner

[+Oltux72 he/him]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

Why would they be lost due to recharging them? Did I miss some implication?

They find them by celestial navigation. After leaving them exposed in an environment full of frenzied geological activity and after passage through a gigantic storm they are supposed to find them again. This will not work in all cases. Some of them will end up inside a mountain for example.

2 hours ago, therunner said:

And we don't know why.

Perhaps Chorus changed over time, or perhaps Chorus was not yet constructed and the containment technology was only discovered after they already started feeding people to sun.

They can build more.

I would go out on a limb and state that the chorus is based on Threnodite technology. They do not have the population density to conduct fundamental research.

Yes, they can build more containment vessels. Up to a point. They need to transport them. That takes sunhearts. And, secondly, you have to assume that the process gathering the new shades works very well. If it has a significant leakage rate, there will be trouble.

[therunner he/him]

58 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

They find them by celestial navigation. After leaving them exposed in an environment full of frenzied geological activity and after passage through a gigantic storm they are supposed to find them again. This will not work in all cases. Some of them will end up inside a mountain for example.

They find them using some device on ships, not celestial navigation.
They get general location by celestial navigation.

And loosing them due to activity cannot be that common, as they don't seem to consider needing to sacrifice more to have 'backups'.

59 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

I would go out on a limb and state that the chorus is based on Threnodite technology. They do not have the population density to conduct fundamental research.

Oh certainly it is Threnodite technology.
I just propose it was something original settlers discovered after arriving on Canticle.
They had to modify their technology to adapt for usage of sunhearts, so at some point they did have ability to conduct research.

And the Chorus would not necessarily require fundamental research, if they have enough Realmatic knowledge it would be applied research.

And as Sigzil noted, Beaconite engineers were better than he was, they just needed a push to start. So they have knowledge and capability to conduct research and their society is sufficiently specialized that they have dedicated engineers. They have everything they need to start proper research.

And now they also have all the books Cinder King was hoarding, which should provide them with at least some information on Realmatics.

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes, they can build more containment vessels. Up to a point. They need to transport them. That takes sunhearts. And, secondly, you have to assume that the process gathering the new shades works very well. If it has a significant leakage rate, there will be trouble.

Yeah, and single containment vessel can apparently contain large fraction of original settlers, and still can take more. So the capacity is quite large.

No leakage has been noticed in the entire history of Canticle, so we can assume the leakage rate is minimal.

Additionally, it is possible that shade caught in the sunlight would be destroyed by the large influx of Investiture.

[Elite01]

As far as euthanasia goes would it be better to give people who are close to death to the chorus? That way they would be contained as soon as they become a shade but you wouldn't get a sunheart out of it though. 

[PrestoTheMagnificent]

On 10/2/2023 at 9:41 AM, Oltux72 said:

In other words: Has Nomad doomed Canticle with his humanity? Will they all die in a plague of shades in a few decades?

I think that they'll just give people who are on their deathbed to the wun. That way they get more sunhearts without any premature death happening.