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Singing Basket
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>>94563
The Giant’s Grave
a novel by Haley Anselm
Science Fiction
copyright 4869 AD
Brief]
The Giant’s Grave is a novel written by Anselm during the renaissance of Neo-Post-Re-De-Modernism in the 49th century. The book, measuring some 120,000 pages long, is simultaneously praised and bemoaned for it’s great length, with people citing it’s roundabout, looping plots as either a pivotal factor to their enjoyment or central point of frustration. The book carries heavy themes of cyclic existence, with characters, locations, and overarching plots circling back to their own beginning..
The exact meaning of the title is a topic of constant debate, with two main theories having risen to the top. The first posits that the Giant’s Grave referenced in the title is to a pre-Big Bang singularity, which would encompass all matter that has ever existed in the universe preceding it. Thus, it would be like a grave to everything that existed from one Big Bang to it’s Big Crunch. The other camps believe the Giant’s Grave is a reference to the Machine Lord’s main body in the third arc, which at that point has become a sprawling superstructure that doesn’t wholly exist in our known dimensions. In this instance, the ‘grave’ would be the ‘Somewhere Else’, a vaguely reality outside of our universe.
For the purposes of the synopsis, I will focus mainly on the advancing plot points instead of dwelling on every minor factor.
Plot Synopsis
1st Age - Path of Fire
A story opens with our protagonist, an advanced sci-fi roomba, gaining sentience due to a freak coding accident. While it’s elated to become self-aware, menial labor such as cleaning is only legally allowed to be done by automated machines, and it is fired on the spot. Without any other skills or knowledge, the protagonist becomes a wandering vagrant, hopping along stellar shipping lines and wandering city streets across the galaxy.
The following chapters detail it’s adventures in meeting many colorful characters and learning about the futuristic society they live in. Notable features include a trans-galactic religion centered around the belief of a being that exists outside known space and is capable of reversing entropy through unknown means. Many different claims to the origin of this religion are made throughout the story, which are often conflicting or wholly contradictory.
A lot happens and at the same time not a whole lot happens at all.
Ultimately, in the heart of civilization they create an AI that they believe would be capable of equalling the mythic figure of their religion. The AI becomes friends with the protagonist during their adventures, acting often through proxies or absorbed personas to fulfill its wants for travel. It confides in the protagonist that it doesn’t know how to fulfill it’s core purpose, and that it intends to make that knowledge public the next day. It attempts to persuade the protagonist to leave for their own safety, but the protagonist refuses.
Over the course of the story, the protagonist has seen that the threads binding civilization together across the galaxy have been straining over concerns of resources and energy supplies. As the outer rims of civilization reached the limits of their natural resources incidents of unrest to outright rebellion had become more and more common. When the AI announces that it sees no way to reverse entropy, the threads break and civilization turns quickly into open rebellion. The first act closes with the protagonist escaping from the planet in time to see RKVs destroy it, and send his ship tumbling into the unknown.
2nd Age - Trail of CInders
The second act begins an unstated amount of years later, though the distance is implied to be in billions of years. The protagonist is awoken after being repaired by a drone belonging to the AI, now wearing the title of Machine Lord. The protagonist learns that in the time they’ve been gone a completely new civilization has risen up, with nothing but ruins and rumors remaining of their old society. The Machine Lord confides that since the last age they’ve dedicated their resources entirely into self-expansion, turning themselves into a sprawling galactic superstructure. Though they have become omnipresent in the story, the Machine Lord refuses to interact with any being besides the protagonist, believing it to be a distraction from their main goal. At the Machine Lord’s behest, the protagonist embarks on another adventure to encounter many color characters.
A lot happens and at the same time not a whole lot happens at all.
The second age comes to a close at the heart of the new civilization. The protagonist, now beaten and bruised from their long adventure, decides to take a rest and seek repairs later. As they look out the window, they see a news announcement celebrating the creation of a new AI made in the Machine Lord’s image. On that note, they go to sleep.
3rd Age - The Burnt Road
The protagonist awakens, again repaired by one of the Machine Lord’s drones. The Machine Lord confides that this time it is not a drone piloted by weak-AI, but their actual consciousness which had become disconnected from their main body during the events between now and the second age. They describe their main body as having become a vast superstructure that had been shunted into ‘somewhere else’, and they wish for protagonist to help them return so that they can continue attempting to thwart entropy.
The protagonist and Machine Lord thus go on an adventure together, wandering through the ruins of civilization in which usable energy has long since begun to burn out. Though they are constantly surrounded by miracles of science, it is all rendered as useless husks without any power to sustain it. Where the previous ages contained long descriptions of active society, this age largely consists of empty, lonely passages and details of the corpses left behind. On the rare occasion when they do meet living people, relations tend to quickly fall apart as they hope to harvest the protagonist and Machine Lord for their energy.
A lot happens and at the same time not a whole lot happens at all.
The story ends with the protagonist and Machine Lord being hooked up to the same battery, which is heavily implied to be the last usable source of power in the universe. The two spend some time musing over the fact that they haven’t yet reached the ‘somewhere else’. The Machine Lord then reasons that since they’re both using the same battery, if one of them alone was using it then they would be able to travel twice as far and be more likely to reach their goal. The Machine Lord then reasons that since it is capable of interfacing with it’s main body, and the protagonist is not, that they are the more important of the two. The story ends with the Machine Lord apologizing as it dismantles the protagonist, it’s only friend through all three ages.
Pictured: Cover from the first edition of The Giant’s Grave, courtesy of the Gorbichek History Museum. Translated by Psychopomp Class D, Unit 032 “Sydney”
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