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| == Part 1 == | | == Part 1 == |
| {{Spoiler|Descent}} | | {{Spoiler|Descent}} |
| ''Aboard the ship of the Pioneers mission, near the end of its voyage to Calima, the engineer Kurt lives as almost everyone does: inside Omega's recreations, waking only for the vigil shifts. Uneasy about what the arrival will change, he looks into Raina's idea that their reality may itself be a recreation, begins an affair with Aditi, the new leader of the researchers, and drifts away from Claire. On the morning they reach orbit, the ship is struck and falls to the surface.'' | | ''Aboard the ship of the Pioneers mission, near the end of its voyage to Calima, the engineer Kurt lives as almost everyone does: inside Omega's recreations, waking only for the vigil shifts. Uneasy about what the arrival will change, he looks into Raina's idea that their reality may itself be a recreation, interacts with the incisive Aditi, the new leader of the researchers, and drifts away from Claire. On the morning they reach orbit, the ship is struck and falls to the surface.'' |
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| Three cycles before the [[Pioneers mission|Pioneers mission]] reaches [[Calima|Calima]], the engineer [[Kurt|Kurt]] lives as almost everyone aboard [[The ship|The ship]] does: in the recreations of the AI [[Omega|Omega]], waking with the rest of section 9 for the vigil shifts. Before the vigil, as always, comes a group experience, a battle at Hadrian's Wall in which Kurt and [[Kseniya|Kseniya]] run into the famous guardian Yong, really his friend [[Wang|Wang]].
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| Awake, Kurt sees his friends [[Claire|Claire]] and [[Nikau|Nikau]], and at the assembly meets [[Aditi|Aditi]], the new leader of the [[Researchers|Researchers]], while the guardian [[Pedro|Pedro]] clashes with the engineers' leader [[Ifiok|Ifiok]] over a proposal for weapons. Uneasy about whether arriving on a real planet will change anything, Kurt talks to the therapist [[Raina|Raina]], who suspects that the crew may already be living inside a recreation. With Kseniya's help he compares Omega's running code with its backup and finds nothing that proves it either way.
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| He begins an affair with Aditi, and it widens a distance that has been growing between him and Claire, who is hurt when she learns of it. Back in the recreations Ifiok gives him a strange task, to test Omega in scenarios of scarcity, and Kurt finds that in every one the AI keeps the crew divided into competing groups. He plays the "Battle for Draconis" with Kseniya, where Claire destroys his mech, and meets Aditi again in a primitive hunting recreation, where she tells him she thinks humanity has reached the limit of its possibilities.
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| As they near Calima, the latest data suggest life on the satellite. Kurt wakes for the vigil more anxious than he can remember. A man in the next tank is staring at something on his visor, columns, when a violent impact throws Kurt against the wall, and the ship falls towards the planet.
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| | {{Spoiler end}} |
| == Part 2 == | | == Part 2 == |
| {{Spoiler|Descent}} | | {{Spoiler|Descent}} |
| ''Kurt wakes among the wreck on Calima: only a tenth of the crew survived, the ship's energy is running out, and Ifiok makes him second of the engineers. The survivors have reorganised themselves: Claire leads a new group of hunters, Kseniya works with the reclaimers, and Wang, as Yong, has gathered young followers to keep order. Kurt learns that a crystal-plant hybrid can pass its energy to a few people with a rare gene, finds that he and Wang are among the nine candidates, and wins the assembly's approval for an expedition into the fog.'' | | ''Kurt wakes among the wreck on Calima: only a tenth of the crew survived, the ship's energy is running out, and Ifiok makes him second of the engineers. The survivors have reorganised themselves: Claire leads a new group of hunters, Kseniya works with the reclaimers, and Wang, as Yong, has gathered young followers to keep order. Kurt learns that a crystal-plant hybrid can pass its energy to a few people with a rare gene and wins the assembly's approval for an expedition into the fog.'' |
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| Kurt wakes in a tank among [[The wreck|The wreck]], healed after dozens of days in a coma. Nikau tells him what has happened: entering orbit, the ship was cut in two and fell; only a tenth of the crew survived, and most of the survivors are kept in comas to save the dwindling energy. Ifiok, now old and gaunt, makes Kurt second of the [[Engineers|Engineers]] and asks him for a report on the energy problem.
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| Studying the records, Kurt learns that the ship was destroyed by a discharge through the [[The atmospheric particles|The atmospheric particles]], triggered when its instruments examined [[The columns|The columns]] around an island. Omega has changed: it is slow, and begins to ask "For what reason?" before obeying. The survivors have organised themselves around the wreck: the [[Reclaimers|Reclaimers]], Kseniya among them, search the remains; Claire leads the new [[Hunters|Hunters]], who feed and clothe everyone; and Wang, as Yong, patrols the centre with a band of young [[Yong's followers|Yong's followers]]. Kurt finds Claire changed and admired, receives a set of clothes she has made for him, and sees her with [[Ekon|Ekon]].
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| In the reports he finds the [[Crystal-plant hybrid|Crystal-plant hybrid]], whose energy two researchers have absorbed and released as heat and magnetism. He plans a transformer with the engineer [[Renzo|Renzo]], asks Kseniya to recover the parts and Raina to study the genetics, and searches for crew with the same genes. The search finds nine candidates, three in each group, among them Wang and Kurt himself. Omega refuses another search, and Raina points him to his own genetic record, the only one left, made after his treatment.
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| Wang, who rescues Kurt from two guardians trying to rob him, agrees to join. Raina, convinced now that they are living in a recreation, asks to come as an advisor, and Claire sends Kurt a message warning him not to trust Aditi. Aditi supports the plan on condition that the expedition does not use the exploration vehicle and brings back any unknown creatures. The assembly approves the expedition despite Pedro, now leader of the [[Guardians|Guardians]].
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| | {{Spoiler end}} |
| == Part 3 == | | == Part 3 == |
| {{Spoiler|Descent}} | | {{Spoiler|Descent}} |
| ''The expedition reaches the crystal, but on the way it meets a black fluid that turns animals into the sunken. Back at the wreck Ifiok is dead, the energy transfer works, and the sunken attack; Pedro uses the fear to impose a mass migration, and Aditi flees west alone in the exploration vehicle. The hunters' rebellion, planned by Claire and fought by Kurt in a modified exploration robot, ends when Kurt discharges lightning in a duel with Wang, who lets the rebels march east towards the mountains.'' | | ''The expedition reaches the crystal, but on the way they meet strange creatures that interact with an abominable black fluid. Back at the wreck Ifiok is dead, the energy transfer works, and the sunken attack; Pedro uses the fear to impose a mass migration, and Aditi flees west alone in the exploration vehicle. The hunters' rebellion, planned by Claire and fought by Kurt in a modified exploration robot, ends with a final duel between Kurt and Wang.'' |
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| The expedition sets out west into the fog: eight of the nine candidates, a stasis specialist, Raina and a guardian chosen by Pedro, with Kurt at the controls of a work robot. Near their goal they follow a kutsanp that drags another into the [[The black pool|The black pool]]; the other crawls back out, possessed by the [[The black fluid|The black fluid]], and the first kills a guardian with a tentacle. Kurt kills it with the robot, and they take both creatures back. At the [[The crystal cluster|The crystal cluster]] all the candidates absorb energy.
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| Back at the wreck they learn that Ifiok is dead, officially of old age. The energy transfer works, though Kurt himself seems to produce nothing. At dusk the [[The sunken|The sunken]] attack: possessed animals and a creature over five metres tall throw themselves at the camp, until Kurt has Omega send the trackers, whose [[Nanomachines|Nanomachines]] drive them away. At the assembly that follows, Pedro plays on the fear and, with Aditi's vote, imposes a mass migration. Aditi tells Kurt he will lose the game for trying to help everyone, and flees west alone in the exploration vehicle. The guardians take control of everything.
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| In despair, Kurt is found by Claire at a pool on the periphery. They confess their love, and she tells him the hunters' plan: to rise in the rear half of the migration and lead whoever wishes east, to the [[The eastern mountain ranges|The eastern mountain ranges]]. Kseniya rallies the engineers. Kurt talks Omega into giving him access and loads Ifiok's software onto the exploration robot, so that it no longer recognises people as living beings. Pedro confronts him and reveals what he wants, a past where a few have a lot; only Raina's arrival saves Kurt, and she joins the rebels.
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| The guardians discover the plan and capture many rebels, Kurt and Kseniya among them, but Raina, disguised as a guardian, frees them. Kurt frees the rear convoys one by one at the controls of the armed robot, killing many soldiers, including one of Yong's young followers. When Nikau tells him that Claire has been taken, he presses on in fury until he meets Wang in a clearing, with Claire wounded at the soldiers' feet.
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| Wang brings down the robot and beats Kurt with his sword. Then Kurt's rage breaks out as a discharge of lightning; he nearly drowns Wang in the river, but stops, asking what justice there can be. Wang lets the rebels go. He stays with the guardians, believing the survivors will be weaker apart, and the two friends shake hands for the last time. The rebels march east through the fog, Kurt limping beside Claire's cot.
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| | {{Spoiler end}} |
| [[Category:Descent]] | | [[Category:Descent]] |
