Paul SB - Incompatible, sub08 - 4262 words

[Paul SB]

 

Hello everybody,

 

Here's your next installment in this particular adventure. I hope you're enjoying the tale. Entry 13 has A arriving on Mars and getting a sort of job. My hope is that it doesn't come across as too easy, though you can expect the EU would keep an eye on her and not make it obvious. In Entry 14 C & B leave with some EU observers, A gets an AI-equipped folio to work with, and they identify a possible location to set up A's new workplace. I'm not sure if the pacing is a bit slow, but I do want readers to get a feel for this future.

Enjoy!

[Appol PhD they/he]

All right time to dig in!

Overall: I don’t think the pacing is too slow at all, since there are a lot of changes that happen for A. I think instead of getting to the point faster what we need is more stakes and complexity, which are related to each other. For stakes, it’s not clear how these interactions could result in a success or fail state for what A wants. This is a pretty pivotal series of events from her but I’m not getting a lot on what she’s actually trying to accomplish here. For complexity, a lot of what I’m thinking about comes from how the EU is set up. Right now they basically feel like the good guys when taking in refugees like A feels like it should be a lot more complicated. Even if the story plans to make the EU more flawed later it’s important to introduce some complexity upfront.  

As I go:

Pg 2. It’s good to get motion, but I think we need more stakes. I imagine that how A comes across to the EU people is important in what her future looks like, and I think we need something like that on the page.

Pg 5. The light cycle is one of those details where it’s very cool that the story thinks of it, but I think we need more on why these details inform the stakes of A’s specific situation.

Pg 6. I think we need some more background details on immigration into EU. I don’t really associate Europe with being friendly towards immigration or having the infrastructure to accommodate it throughout modern history. It can totally be different in this sci-fi world, but I think we need to know why.

Pg 11. C’s gifts are fun details to set up. Curious how they’ll be used.

Pg 13. I think the socialism explanation is less important than finding an interesting way for A to engage with it

[Paul SB]

Okay, I went back and made some changes. Most of them were pretty simple and only required a few sentences. It helps to have other people who can spot things I've missed. 

I think that your impression of immigration in the EU might come from relatively recent phenomena. My mom's from Holland, a country that is well known for accepting all sorts of people, and pretty much since the end of WW2 most European countries have been very open to immigrants. Since the war in Syria, however, and the huge boost Bush gave to ISIS, right-wing, anti-immigrant factions have gained a lot more followers than they had since the days of Adolf the Mustached Maniac. It's not commonly taught in America that immigration played a big role in the rise of fascism. A lot of people were getting out of Russia during Stalin's purges, flooding into Western Europe. This compounded the crisis of the Great Depression. It's ironic that Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler all claimed that these swarms of refugees were communists. Hitler is most known for his hatred of Jewish people, but to justify it to the German people he constantly claimed that they were all Marxists and in league with the Soviets to destroy Western Civilization and Christianity. After the War the idea of barring and blaming immigrants was seen by many Europeans as a feature of fascism, so they have had pretty lax immigration standards, at least until recently. I had a physics partner in 11th grade who complained about all the Turks in Germany, who he said were too obsessed with their "manliness" so they were constantly picking fights with people. That was back in the early '80s.

[Appol PhD they/he]

On 2/6/2026 at 11:07 PM, Paul SB said:

I think that your impression of immigration in the EU might come from relatively recent phenomena. My mom's from Holland, a country that is well known for accepting all sorts of people, and pretty much since the end of WW2 most European countries have been very open to immigrants.

Yeah, but that's mostly immigration within Europe. My mom lived in Europe a bit during the 90s and said that by and large people were much more hostile and racist  than Americans are (though she was mostly in France and said it was better in other parts of Europe). 

But that's not even really the point. This is a fictional world where lots of people want to escape the anarcho-capitalist system, and taking in refugees is always a complicated and messy process. It's the story's job to find the conflict and the complexity in those underlying mechanics. Doesn't mean the EU has to be morally grey necessarily.