Songs

Idk what I'll do with this shrine yet, but I have a few songs I listen to that remind me of the series so here they are.

Thing - by Steampianist

This Song makes me think of Avrana Kern and These of We.
For Kern I'm specifically thinking of the Lightfoot subset that longed to experiance emotions again and would invade Meshner's implant to feel them. I can see how it would relate to all of Kern, since even in the first book she longed to be human again, but this version in particular had a taste of it and was desparate for it. She kept invading Meshner's implant and manipulating his emotions until she got him in trouble and killed. Honestly I feel like the lightfoot subset of Kern was my favorite character in the second book.

In this instance I will refer to the parasite as "These of We"; this song feels like it was made for them. In the beginning they were simple and thought they understood the world until they discovered the alien humans, or "friend" like in the song. The song talks about how they want to be like this friend, to have eyes and hands like this friend and to express emotion like them. These of We have become obssessed ever since they became These of Lante. Obssesed with going on an adventure, with becoming more, and discovering more. When they were trapped on Nod they became obssessed with becoming human. They would recreate human cities and the human body imperfectly, waiting to be able to take over more people.

I think it's amazing that these 2 characters although extremely different, can relate so much. It was Kern in the end that made them understand that they can't become human without destroying humans, and because of it, going back to being alone and longing. After all, she experienced it herself with Meshner.

On The Run - by Empire Fall

After Kern gets Meshner caught by These of Lante, she invades his implant and tries to protect him from them. She takes him through memory and memory running from the parasite. This running is what reminds me of the song.

Kern takes control of Meshner and takes away his memories and thinking so that These of Lante doesnt find him. Meshner is stripped down only to running, for days he runs from something and he doesn't know what. One by one they go through memories to hide in, but Meshner doesn't have time to process any of them, when he starts to understand, These of Lante catches up. Eventually he runs out of his own memories so Kern offers hers, and tries to keep him ignorant as they continue to be chased. The parasite eventually catches up, they couldn't run forever.

The chasing is what connects the song and this scene. The song describing that no matter how much you run, this monster is catching up to you. They ran every path and obstacle, just like Meshner and Kern did. They climbed and swum and crawled through everything they could and they couldn't escape, and they're exhausted.

This part of the book felt very intense to me, more so than the rest of the book. Idk how to describe it, it feels like a rush reading it, and this song makes me feel similarly.

Characters mentioned

Theres a lotta characters in this series, and most of them have the same name as many others. I decided to write a short description on some of them, so that it's easier to keep track.

A.I

Avrana Kern

There are several splinters of Kern. She started off as a human scientist but her brain merged with the personality upload and after thousands of years the vessel of her mind has changed many times

• Human -


• The Mesenger -


• Main copy -


• Voyager subset -


• Lightfoot subset -

Artifabian

Eliza

humans

Yusuf Baltiel

Bales

Mutineer sent out first for air samples.

Vrie Guyen

Karst

Lead of the Security detail on the Gilgamesh

Isa Lain

Chief Key Crew engineer of the Gilgamesh

Erma Lante

Holsten Mason

Classisist

Nessel

Mutineer Student Classisist, portid prisoner

Scoles

Mutineer leader

Tevik

Mutineer pilot

Disra Senkovi

Renas Vitas

Head of the scientific team on the Gilgamesh

Humans

Meshner

Portids

The difficulty with Portids is that their names do not translate to human words, so the vast majority of them have the same placeholder human name. There are dozens of well known Portias and Biancas and Fabians. It will be difficult for me to distinguish them.

Octopi

The same difficulty of naming occurs here. Most Octopi are either Paul or Salomi; in the beginning they had numbers to identify them, but the population grew and it was harder to keep track.

Nod

These of We / the parasite

description

• Those of We -


• These of Lante -


• These of Baltiel -