“And what would you have me do!?” Lysis yelled and slammed a clenched fist into the thick, wooden table top. She glanced around the expansive table at the rather shocked faces of various guild members and representatives of the people of Atlantis. She normally kept her cool. A few crotchety old men shouldn’t be enough to make her snap but times were tough. Beyond tough. She missed the tough times. She drew in a deep breath and readied herself to continue but she was beaten to it.
“Kill them, simple enough.” A deep male voice spoke.
Lysis recognised Mardell, Chief of the Bakers’ Guild. A large, well fed man with a deep beard and an equally deep voice to match. She remembered he’d been jolly once. He’d hand out freshly baked rolls of bread to the guards on patrol. He’d spread butter on top, dripping as it melted on the still warm bread. It made a sword much harder to grip, but of course it didn’t matter too much then. But that was a long time ago and it had been a long time since she had seen Mardell anything but angry and it had been a long time since she’d enjoyed any bread that wasn’t hard as a rock and half eaten by vermin.
“The plague has killed thousands, wiped out food production and now hunger will kill thousands more. Bandits roam the countryside stripping fields and robbing caravans. You cannot expect me to execute every man, woman and child found stealing a loaf of bread!” Lysis said doing her best to keep her frayed nerves in check.
A wave of murmurs broke out across the table with several voices taking different sides in the discussion.
“It’s your job to enforce the law and to keep us safe!” One called out.
“With what men? Most of the Watch is dead. They gave their lives to keep you ungrateful whelps alive and now you complain because we cannot keep your wares safe!?”
There were more murmurings from the assembled men. Men who wore large red coats with white fur linings. Men with large extravagant hats adorned with feathers atop their heads. Men who bedecked themselves in metal and jewellery and seemed to have no inkling of just how serious the situation was in the city. It made Lysis’ blood boil. The atmosphere in the room seemed to be completely disconnected from reality. A group of well-dressed men around a table whose surface was meticulously carved and detailed with rose stems and petals. They drank from metal cups that shone in the light of the roaring fire. The walls were decorated with banners and sigils from the various guilds. It all seemed to be worlds away from what was going on in the streets outside.
Lysis was on the verge of losing it. She needed something. Anything. The Watch was once a straightforward role. The Goddess’ priests maintained order by reminding the populous that if they disdained the laws of The Goddess then she would disdain them. Now there was no Goddess, no Watch and pretty much no law.
“We could help…” A nervous voice spoke up.
Lysis turned to the remarkably petite and meek looking sallow skinned young woman behind her. She was fixed to a metal contraption on the floor, unable to step out of its confines but she was there before them, as clear as day.
“We could provide food, help with security…” Zara continued.
“Absolutely not!” Mardell yelled, being backed up by several other Guild Chiefs. “Your kind have brought nothing but death, destruction, plague and ruin on our people since you revealed yourselves! The only thing we want from you is to leave this place and never come back!”
Zara shrunk into herself under the weight of Mardell’s rant. He was backed up by a chorus of angry voices. Consciously she knew she was standing in a holosuite in Pryvani’s compound, far away atop a mountain, but she had never felt smaller or more afraid. In the holosuite Mardell appeared to be a beast of a man, a full head taller than she was with a large, round belly and a beard so long and thick it made it appear his head was attached directly to his shoulders without the aid of a neck. The tension in the air was palpable even in a holographic recreation.
“Quiet you fools!” Lysis said slamming her fist into the table once more and glaring at each man one by one until he settled into his chair. “Yes since these Titans appeared times have been hard but it has not been their doing…”
Lysis was interrupted once more but a glare and snarl quickly put paid to the interruption.
“…Zara, Taron and Pryvani have done nothing but try to help us. Pryvani put herself between us and a monster bent on our annihilation. They could walk away from us, return to their lives and leave us to ruin if they choose but they offer to help us. And you insult her? You are a fool Mardell. We should take their food and their protection. Any help we can get we should take. Or we’re all dead.”
“How can they protect our stalls!?” One voice asked.
“They can’t. You’ll have to lock your goods away until we can train new Guards.” Lysis replied.
“Unacceptable!” came the response amid a chorus of angry voices. “How will I feed my family!?”
“We will feed you!” Zara shouted, drawing courage from Lysis.
“I will not rely on hand outs.” Mardell interrupted again. “My father was a baker. And his father before him. Going back as far as any of us know. We fed our families ourselves. With help from no man. And certainly with no Titans helping.”
The Guilds Chiefs started to shout their objections once more. They yelled at her, to Lysis and each other. Some eager to take the offer of food and protection but most unwilling to become reliant on outside forces. Zara watched in despair as Lysis got up from her spot on the table to go nose to nose with the Brewer’s Guild Chief who had levelled a personal insult regarding her honour and that of the Watch.
Zara was about to call out and intervene when the room flickered and then disappeared, reverting back to the holosuite in the compound.
“Battery depleted…” The computer’s voice advised.
“Damn…that did not go to plan at all.” She sighed as walked towards the door. “Pryvani always makes it look so easy.”
***
Zara traipsed anxiously down the corridors of the compound, waiting for her pad to chime. Lysis had been given a communicator; similar to the one Zhan had been given by Pryvani. She was using it to keep in touch with Zara and inform her of the developments in the city. Zara wasn’t quite sure how long she had been walking or where she was going. She was just walking down the near identical corridors. If you knew which way you were going you keep going and going without hitting a dead end.
She stopped at a junction, corridors going off in four different directions. She sighed and continued her walk, turning left. She felt incredibly lost and lonely. She was on her own here save for Taron and Nick. Pryvani, Rixie, Zhan and Alex were off dealing with Pryvani’s legal problems. Brinn had taken some time to be with her parents on Archavia and had taken Sophia with her to monitor her. That was understandable after all she’d been through. Trell was a monster but she was still Brinn’s sister.
Nick was still here, presumably asleep in Brinn’s quarters. He was doing what he could to help provide some medical care down in Atlantis but there was only so much one partially trained man could do.
She turned on her heel and headed towards the lab. Taron was most likely there, hunched over the stripped down components of Trell’s bomb. He spent all of his free time hunched over tiny components going over them with a nanoscanner, searching for any trace of evidence of the bomb’s original owner. It clearly hadn’t been Trell. She was psychotic, not suicidal. Zara wished he would just ignore it for a while and try to help her with Avalon but he was totally consumed by guilt over bringing the plague to Avalon in the first place. He was only a carrier but he acted like he was a knowing, guilty accomplice.
The doors to the lab hissed open and Zara stepped through. As predicted, Taron was hunched over a desk with a pair of tweezers in one hand and a nanoscanner in the other. He was watching the microscopic metal skin of whatever it was he was scanning glide by on a screen. If he knew Zara was in the room he certainly didn’t show any sign of it.
“Hey…” Zara said hopefully.
Taron continued to study the screen as Zara waited for a response.
“Just one minute…” He said as Zara started to think he was ignoring her.
“Sure…” Zara said and sat on the metal work bench and studied her feet as she kicked them back and forth in front of her.
Taron continued as if she wasn’t there for a few more minutes, leaving Zara alone with her thoughts. He eventually set down the tweezers, turned off the screen and spun round on his stool.
“What’s up?” He asked quite matter-of-factly.
“I need help…” Zara said dropping off the work bench and approaching Taron. She wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled her head into his chest. She felt his arms loosely grip her. She had hoped for more but it was not forthcoming. Taron was usually relentless in his efforts to make her feel better but he still appeared to be elsewhere. In the past if she was even a little glum he would disappear for an hour and come back with her favourite Aementi takeout, some sticky gok’ma and usually some juicy gossip to cheer her up. “Avalon…it’s a mess…and they won’t listen to me.”
Taron sighed and his hand moved from her back to her shoulders. He looked her straight in the eyes. She could see the worry, stress and guilt etched into his face. She couldn’t remember seeing him like this before. He was always so care free. “You can’t make them listen to you. It’s their choice. They’re free to do as they like.”
“What if you tried talking to them? The Guilds…”
“If they won’t listen to you then they’re certainly not going to listen to me.” Taron turned back and sat on his stool. “You can only do what you can.”
“But thousands will die!” Zara half shouted before reining in her voice.
“And it’ll be their choice. It stinks worse than shaka but it’s theirs to make.” Taron repeated flatly.
Before she could respond Zara’s attention was drawn to her now beeping pad. She was being called by Lysis.
“Lysis, how’d it go?” She answered leaving Taron to get back to his work.
“Not great I’m afraid.” The voice came back rather tinny from the simple communicator. “The Guilds overwhelmingly rejected your offer of help and they’ve passed a motion calling on The Watch to cut the hands off anyone caught stealing…”
“No!” Lysis responded with disbelief.
“Half the Watchmen have sworn to disobey the order and the other half are ready to desert. I’m all out of ideas here, Zara…” Lysis spoke. The feeling of despair came across as clear as day through the fuzz of the transmission.
“Sit tight Lysis. I’ll call Pryvani, we’ll think of something.” Zara offered not quite sure of what, if anything she could do.
“Better make it quick. The first hungry kid that gets caught stealing a loaf of bread could set off a riot.” The nervous Watch Captain warned.
“Will do.” Zara said ending the transmission.
She sighed and tossed the pad away to the corner of the room. “Urgh! Why don’t they just listen to me!?”
Taron turned around to face the now pacing Zara.
“We could feed all of them! It wouldn’t be permanent! Just until they get back on their feet! We caused this mess, we should help fix it!” She yelled.
“Maybe they don’t want our help because since Titans started interfering we’ve caused them nothing but grief?” Taron raised an eyebrow.
“But so many people are going to die! We have to do something!”
“You heard Lysis. The Guilds voted not to accept our help. We have to respect their decision.” Taron stressed.
Zara paused for a second before a large grin drew across her face. She jumped forward and grabbed Taron’s face, pressing her lips into his and kissing him forcefully. She jumped back and made for the door. “It’s that sort of thinking that made me fall in love with you!”
“What are you going to do?” Taron asked confused.
The door opened and Zara stepped through it.
“Save Atlantis.” She said as she stepped through the door.
***
“Meat…meat…Ah ha!” Zara grinned as she lifted a large stack of sliced spakkal from the larder. It was salted and preserved. It should stay fresh and good to eat for a week or two. “No synthesized stuff here. Only the best for Pryvani Tarsus.”
She turned around and examined the pile of various foodstuffs on the table. An assortment of cheeses, breads and spakkal. She did some quick mental arithmetic. A day’s worth of food for her would feed roughly fifteen thousand Humans.
“Wow does that make me feel like a gorb…wait that’s not right. Humans eat more regularly than we do.”
Zara quickly worked out she could feed about five thousand Humans with a day’s worth of food for her. She grabbed a rucksack and started to pile it full of bread, cheese and salted meats. Anything that would stay relatively fresh. She glanced around the well-stocked larder. There was easily enough food to keep ten Titans going for a month. There was now only herself and Taron left behind in the compound. With roughly one hundred thousand Humans needing fed she’d be out of food in just a few weeks.
“Better place an order with Valhalla station.” She said lugging the rucksack onto her back and adjusting the straps. “Let’s hope they’ll take credit from Pryvani Tarsuss.”
She removed her pad from her pocket and tapped on the Lysis contact she’d dropped on her home screen.
“Hello?” Lysis replied, still not one hundred percent sure how the magical box she’d been given allowed her to speak to Zara.
“Lysis, I’m on my way down to the city. Tell the guards to form up in the main square. They’re going to be needed.” Zara said as she walked down the corridors.
There was a pause. “Zara…what are you up to?”
“I’ve food. Enough for everyone.”
“That’s nice Zara but you heard what the Guilds said. They don’t want your help.” Lysis replied sounding rather nervous.
“You let me worry about the Guilds. I’ll be in the main square within the hour. There’s a lot of hungry people in the city and I’ll need help passing out the food. It’s up to you if you want to help or not.
Lysis sighed. “We’ll be there. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
The Lysis icon shrank back and returned to the home screen as she disconnected and Zara returned her pad to her pocket.
“So do I Lysis, so do I.”
Zara does have a human model for Avalon..It requires a bit of adaptation though..
Hmm Zara does have a human model for temporary societal re-structuring. It can be adapted for Avalon…
I intended to post an update today but life has gotten in the way. Hopefully one over the next few days.
Perhaps this story should be called: “The Lost Tales of Avalon” …. hey it sounds good (to me) 🙂
But they’re not lost! See! Right there! Freshly documented!
Oh, well thats no fun….. perhaps you can say they were simply misplaced..or perhaps it just slipped your mind…..or…..ok…
Re: earlier review.
That line should read: ” ‘No!’ Zara responded with disbelief.”
Does anyone remember what pryvani legal issues were about?
According to Titan: Pandemic, Chapter Twenty-One: Family Issues, Syon is suing for control of the Tarsuss Corporation. The legal documentation apparently calls Pryvani “incompetent”. After reading the documentation Hurassen then says that claim is preposterous, and speculates that Syon’s real aim is to render the majority of Pryvani’s assets frozen for as long as possible.
If Syon is smart (but is she ? You have to wonder since we know what she promised the Insectoids…), she will play up the fact that Pryvani surround herself with Humans, push her to admit she sees them as people which would make her look like a lunatic.
Which could be tied in with what’s going on in Physics and Exilomad.
Here is my thoughts.
Everything time we see titans helping or intervene with humans its always the humans that pays the price and come out worst in the end.
Tired of all this titan bull. Open your eyes and see what lays before you, you are not helping humans, you are hurting them more. Thinking you know humans more? Wrong, humans knows humans more and am not talking about pet humans, earth and wild humans know the best for their race.
Keep the bugs from eating humans and than stay the hell away from humans.
I hope I’m wrong, but I think that a riot is inevitable at this point. If Zara had done nothing it would probably have been set off by a guildsman (since almost no Watch member will go through with it) cutting off the hand of a starving orphan caught stealing. But now there’s a significant likelihood that a guild representative will confront Zara about handing out food against their wishes. And once the general public finds out that their government rebuffed titan aid, leaving the man on the street to starve (combined with the new “caught stealing, lose your hand” law)…
I wonder though: Does Atlantis know that the recent plague was an artificial creation deliberately introduced to them? Because if not (and frankly I doubt anybody told them; hell, I’m not sure how much the titans themselves know) it’d look like association with titans endangers lives even if that’s not the titans’ intent.
Pryvani knows who was responsible for the plague, thats (one of ) the reasons shes on Grelau to gather proof..The guild masters have a point, I would also be concerned with protecting my property even in the middle of a famine..Yeah they are being obstinate but it is understandable
If they knew who was responsible for the plague it would not only cause a riot but instigate an insurrection – that is the last thing Pryvani would want…..
Thinking more about this she needs more resources…Managing an entire planet has got to be tough…us humans can’t even manage our own itty bitty plots of land (countries) how the heck can even the Titans manage a whole civilization? She knows that we are more than simply animals in a cage..(TETH people take note…)
And to Tauron’s argument that the Titans should leave the humans alone – well that is wrong…Titans are responsible for these problems..Leaving them alone now would make it worse..Avalon would just have continous cycles of war and famine..They are responsible for getting them back on their feet and pointing them in the right direction. Even guiding them to a degree
“[Titans] are responsible for getting them back on their feet and pointing them in the right direction. Even guiding them to a degree.”
Isn’t that exactly what Pryvani and her ancestors did for centuries ?
Slippery slope, sir…
Uhhhhh no. They did not. They kept them in a pre-industrial state for centuries while Pryvani (until she changed) and her ancestors played Goddess. It was like thier own wildlife preserve. Now that has changed and her role in Avalonian affairs has to change as well.
Hmm I don’t like the sound of people who are essentially young adults themselves guiding an entire civilization. Pryvani is really the only qualified person there to guide Avalon in any real capacity. And I assume she’s been trying to recruit people like Niall, Darren, Sorcha, and whoever else to help her.
You do know Pryvani is younger than any other Titan on the moon, right? I don’t see how she is any more qualified to guide Avalon than any of the others there. Not that age is the sole factor, Pryvani has been essentially forced into the family business at a young age. Just in case anyone is curious, as of the original Titan (where these characters bios are), the main cast ranges from Pryvani at age 22, to Taron at 28. While technically all the humans are younger, only Nick is physiologically younger than Pryvani, at age 21.
Pryvani is more qualified to guide Avalon because of the experience she has despite how young she is. Zara and Taron have no experience in politics, economics, science, or actual leadership and their professions are mostly useless towards guiding Avalon.
“Pryvani knows who was responsible for the plague.” Are you sure? As far as I can tell the only things that Pryvani actually knows are that the disease that swept through Atlantis and the one inside Trell’s bomb are both artificially created, that they are pretty much identical except for which species they affect, and that Trell was working for Syon before her imprisonment. This makes Syon the obvious suspect of course, but unless Pryvani has found out that the courier Taron and Sophia met was actually Syon’s consigliore Yvenna (there is no mention of Pryvani knowing that, but it’s possible) there’d be no certainty, only suspicions.
And the main reason Pryvani is on Grelau is because of her mother’s lawsuit for control of the company. Gathering proof would be nice, but Pryvani has an information network for that sort of thing; finding something on her own would be a stroke of luck. Note that Pryvani hesitated about going at all, thinking that Avalon was still in disarray and that Hurassen didn’t actually need her to be present at the lawsuit in order to defend her. In fact I’m not even sure that Pryvani knows that she and her mother are currently staying in the same hotel.
She knows….As you said she has her own spy network. Even if she didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle she is smart enough to see the whole picture. She doesn’t have enough (Titan) actionable evidence. That is one of the reasons she is on Grelau. Not only she wants complete control of Avalon and her part of her inheritance. She also wants to put her mother in prism, she know she is a criminal…Source: Johnny Scribe in response to one of my posts in the original Titan story
I’m not sure you would really say Syon is “staying” at the hotel? We’ve seen she has an office there, but has it been mentioned where she’s residing when not working?
Syon is the CEO of Darkstar Media. It’d make no sense for her to have an office job in Vasha’s hotel. Syon has been mentioned to do work while inside the hotel, but I’m pretty sure that Syon has a suite instead of an office, that she’s staying at the hotel because of the trial, and that the work she was doing inside her suite consisted of remotely managing her company and her underworld contacts.
Arena Chapter 2: “First up was the office of one of the top shareholders in the hotel’s parent company.” (Referring to Syon Fand’s place. Plus the description when Renna cleans it makes no mention of living quarters. Also, between the prologue of Arena, and the similar account of Syon’s introduction in Titan ch 9, this seems to me at least to be her normal office. (And yes, Arena seems to have been planned for *that* long, seems like forever ago) Anyhow, this somehow got rather offtopic for this story.
Yes, I have actually been planning Arena (and Sovereign too, to a lesser extent) for pretty much a year now.
From an Avalonian perspective I’d look at it like this.
I have a Goddess and she protects me and my family and Avalon. A demon attacks and kills many. Then other Gods and Goddesses appear. The people fracture and all hell breaks loose. Many die. We lose our Goddess. We are now alone.
A plague sweeps the world killing thousands. The demon returns and is killed but our civilisation is crippled. This all happened when we lost our Goddess. This all happened when the Titans turned up.
It’s good to see a story about Avalon. That culture has room for development, and the consequences of Pandemic need to be explored.
And I intend to explore it a bit!
Could Zara be starting some kind of revolt against the guilds? The only way they could stop the aid is by taking the supplies from the people AFTER Zara had distributed them. She might be trying to make Lysis look good in the eyes of the common man and elevate her to a leadership position. Really what Atlantis needs is law, order and government. I think the church used to control things under the Goddess’ authority. There’s now a power vacuum that needs to be filled. And it WILL be filled. It always is. The question will be whether its a good or bad government?
I can’t say I’m as interested in this story as other Titan stories, but it IS only the first chapter. Its the interaction between Titan and human that I like about this series.
Howdie stranger…
come round’ these parts often? you look familiar but I can’t reckon place a name with a face……..(currently in a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti western marathon…ya’ll havta excuse my bad gramma…)
These people need a Marshall plan or something like that..Its like the south after the civil war or Europe after WWII..you just can’t go..”Hey guys I know that you just had a civil war and your society is in shambles but since we interfered before (and caused these problems) we feel guilty and won’t bother helping you out now…..You just have to figure it out on your own……..good luck!”
The Marshall Plan is the best model for Zara’s response: a one time infusion of aid that they can use to get themselves back on their feet.
The Marshall Plan was feasible because (extremely boiled down) it was giving money/credit to Western Europe to rebuild its industries and trade which it had to do so largely through purchasing US goods from steel to cotton and borrowing on top of that as well. This allowed both economies to prosper through expanded trade opportunities yada yada. Titan money is useless here, and there’s nothing for them to trade with Titans. This is primarily an agrarian society with what appears to be limited free trade through guilds. These products, of course, are basically subsistence though, they would be trading in cloth, clothing, rare foodstuffs (think spices, apples, oranges, etc.), perhaps raw materials for building and crafting tools. Food is really all you can give them and hope that this stabilizes the people and the government and its institutions long enough to end the internal causes of destruction (famine, plague, civil war).
In my mind this all is more akin to a better version of say Somalia in 1992-93 in which the UN began massive food delivery operations to alleviate the famine there. Unlike Somalia and on the plus side, Avalon seems to still have the semblance of a government (altho Im still confused as to if its an aristocracy with leading families or actual rulers that they select or what). It also appears to be a fairly bountiful planet/region of the planet, not the vast tracks of semi-arid land of Somalia. Solving the immediate problem of hunger could very well give the rulers time to stave off further rebellion and riots, calm the city, then begin to reestablish order over the rest of the immediate region with a new army/watch. With a return of order and laws (courts to regulate disputes, administer justice to thieves, etc.) comes time for the nation to heal and people to be productive again because they aren’t hoarding food or trade stuffs in a hole for fear of marauding bandits.
The other route is dump a bunch of Titan tech on them and launch them forward hundreds of human years (not exactly stable but it if I took the time there is a reasonable argument to be made for it).
I just hope Zara understands that there’s a long, grueling task beyond simply giving the people food, and that these problems generally have to be fixed by the governments/people themselves (and her intervention, depending on its nature can have many dangerous/destabilizing effects). However, she consistently seems short sighted so I’m not getting my hopes up.
Zara will do her best. With the best of intentions. As we know, that always pans out well for all concerned. Ham and cheese sandwich anyone?
Zara does have a human model for Avalon..It require some tweaking but it can work..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus
A word of advice to Zara, you may think that feeding them with your food will help them greatly and it’ll only be for a while but if they grow too used to Titan handouts you might find yourself too entrenched in it to withdraw. After all, if they get free food why bother with growing your own?
The guild leaders are just caught up in their own foolish pride. The needs of the people should come first, regardless of it wounding your pride or not. It’s easy for them to turn down Zara’s help, when they are obviously not the ones going hungry.
The guild leaders will be upset, but when Zara has the overwhelming support of the people they’ll have no choice but to go along with it.
I’m on the worried side as to what she’ll do. As far as I can tell these are basically Avalon’s rulers and as such their wishes must be respected. Nor can their concerns be considered only the product of pride. Before the events of these stories they and the people were living basically stable lives, no disasters, no rampaging “gods”, no massive plague. In a fairly short period many citizens have been killed by Trell, massive property destroyed, their religion and understanding of their place in he universe in tatters, thousands dead to plague and civil war,; all caused, at least in part, by Titans. They have every right rulers of the people to be genuinely suspicious of Titan help.
Are they right? No, and temporary provisions to save them from famine makes sense. Nonetheless, they have all been subjected to traumatic events caused by creatures they used to worship as gods, not hard to understand why they would want to refuse them. If she kicks down the door and says “F u” to them, she essentially is ignoring their government, sovereignty, and laws, which is counterproductive to what Pryv is trying to achieve. It will really irk me if she does and if so I hope Taron or Pryv chews her out.
Great chapter! The high emotions ring especially true. Just one nitpick, though: you essentially have Lysis talking to herself when you make the big reveal about the punitive amputations. 😉
So is Zara going to start a presidential campaign or something? If the current guild leadership won’t accept what is the equivalent of foreign aid, and is out of touch with the common man on the street, then maybe it’s time for a grassroots movement to get around them.
Also nice to see another OHH story. So what’s going to be the scope of this story?
Only farms and smaller villages wouldn’t make much sense if we consider the Tarsuss family has been watching over Avalon for at least a few generations, which would be close to a millennium in human time. That is more than enough time for the humans to move across the surface of moon and set up multiple large settlements.
I’d put Avalon on Roman Empire era level at best. I wouldn’t be sure where to put the tribe but they are confirmed to have and know how to use gunpowder where we don’t know if the Avalonians can do the same.
My theory is that the Avalonians never spread out much because they wanted to stay close to their goddess. They probably deduced that she lives somewhere in the mountains near Atlantis (because that’s where the compound is that she’d always be coming from and going back to). And Pryvani and her predecessors undoubtedly visited Atlantis far more often than any other place.
The Tarsus folks deliberately kept Humans in a confined area so they were easily managed and looked after. They also ensured most of them were healthy and well fed keeping the need to develop bottled up.
So I guess Avalon was the ultimate Terrarium for the Tarsus family.
OHH Lives! Okay bit of an exaggeration since he’s been active in the comments but still…
Great to see you writing again wasn’t expecting anything until Hybrid, and glad to see this story, Nick, Zara, Lysis and Taron really needed a showcase for them. Great characters that just couldn’t get enough screen time.
On the issue at hand, I can sympathize with the anger and a lot of it was 100% justified, but I really don’t have a problem with Titans helping (not solving, solving gets you nowhere) problems caused by other Titans. Still not sure what Zara has planned though.
Mmm… 1 day worth of food for 1 titan can feed 5000 humans ?
Let’s say 3 titan meals per titan day which equals to 9 human meals over 3 Earth days…
Since a Titan is about 24 times the size of a Human…
Okay, I suck at maths ! 😀
But it seems to me that you couldn’t feed anywhere near 5000 people with one day’s Titan ration.
The Guild Masters reactions suck but is very understandable. I hope Zara treads carefully and doesn’t bully her way in. She doesn’t seem like the type but who knows.
A titan has 24*24*24 (orso) the volume of a human. That’s close to 14,000 humans per titan. However, since this topic has been beaten to death regarding human vs titan metabolism, including digestion, I dare not speculate at all on just how much more food a titan needs. I will just comment that it doesn’t really make sense that just because humans eat more often, that they eat more. It would all depend on how fast they burn food compared their body weight.
Anyways … however many people Zara can feed, it’s not going to be sustainable for the long term. Whether it’s the right thing to do, I’m not so sure about. On the one hand, the *ideal* situation is they provide food for themselves. On the other hand, they’ve basically just gone through biological and physical warfare, so getting help whether they like it or not is probably best.
As for metabolism, I’ve done the math for my own stories. My giants range from 120 to 170 feet tall with an average of 150 feet, and weigh an average of 983 tons and eat around 8 to 12 metric tons every 24 hours, they also live in half gravity environment. This is based on a fish diet using the Harris–Benedict equation, since the amount will vary based on the calorie density of the food your consuming. I had to do this math to find out how many fish, how much space they would take, and what kind of environment would have to be present to sustain giants. As for Titan Giants, they too my knowledge, shorter on average, weigh less, and have even less gravity to contend to then mine. So they should eat less. In fact I think Opening hat told me one time “Titans ate about 16 tonnes of food a day. (Naskia weighs in around 700 tonnes at 125 feet tall)”
Avalon humans probably can be compared to people of the 1800’s or earlier. In this case we already have statical averages from that time. Men at on average 3,594 calories per day, a while woman ate 2,607 or an average of 3100, this statistic includes kids and the elderly. Fish have an average of 1,383 calories in 1 kilogram of edible fish. So 5000(3100)= 15,500,000 calories of fish per day is 11207kg of fish, or 24,707.2 pounds, or 24.7072 metric tons. So I think Zara’s math is wrong, or she’s a pig? But wait, there’s the fact a Titan day is much longer, she said 1 titan days worth of food would feed 5,000 humans for 1 1 Titan day. Well 1 Titan day is 3.5 times longer, but I guess this means she’s actually grabbing 86.475 metric tons of “Fish”, “That’s a lot of fish.”
As for Avalon’s technology level, that is hard to judge, but they did have flash bang grenades in Chapter Two: A City on The Brink Titan: Pandemic by JohnnyScribe. “I even told the authors they should not have them.” These are not easy to make, and are a relativity recent invention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M84_stun_grenade To make aluminum or stainless steel, or even pure cure the ingredients to make a flash bang, require advanced know how on meteorology, chemistry, and advanced science. To make them safe and non lethal and perform correctly requires fine machining and component ratios. Even if I gave the schematics to the confederate or union army, they wouldn’t even have the machines to make the machines that do the work to make the flash grenades. I’ve read over quite a few research texts done for Eric Flints 1632 novels, some tech just ain’t doable without infrastructure and advanced knowledge.
But enough nitpicking, I still love all the Titans stories, regardless of any technical or factual faults I find with them, one of my biggest problems and looking at stories too damn logically.
Ahh but I didn’t calculate based on fish.
My method:
Average human eats 1.25kg of food a day. Multiply by 24 to the power of 3.
Gives you a titan daily meal of 17280kg. But titans eat less regularly than us so divide by 3 gives you 5760kg of food per day.
Varying portion sizes for citizens in different stages of development that equates to roughly 5000 people fed per day.
Also in regards to flash bangs. None gunpowder based smoke bombs have been used for millenia. Their use by the Avalonians is not novel.
Sounds like you did your research. Clever. Love to see you writing again by the way!
Not a fan of Avalon but this chapter was enjoyable and added a good view of how things are post disaster. I agree with Zara providing disaster relief, at least for the short term. But in the long term the avalonians are going to need to stand on their own. I’ve noticed that despite existing for a much longer period of time, the avalonians aren’t that much more advanced than the tribe. Being under the care of Titans have neutered Avalon to an incredible degree.
There is also something that bugs me. The story makes it seems that Atlantis is the only center of populace. Shouldn’t the humans be spread across the entirety of the planet by now? Where are the other city states other than Atlantis? I imagine most of the people that could leave Atlantis would just go somewhere else.
Atlantis is a on a moon, Avalon, not a planet. (The planet is Tarsuss) While,Atlantis is the largest human controlled city in the empire, it’s unclear whether there are others. On Avalon at least, the Pandemic novels seem to imply that outside this main city is only farms and smaller villages.
As far as comparing it to The Tribe, I think they are much further advanced. They’re certainly not to our level of technology of course, but the Tribe doesn’t really have much. The latter has concepts of written and spoken language, simple mechanical contraptions, and a basic system of specialized jobs. There’s many more specifics of course, but I think this is enough to compare them to an earth timeline. Personally, I would say they could exist if they were on earth at least as early as recorded history, say conservatively 3000 BC or earlier. Atlantis is a bitter harder to judge, I’m not sure how much of their system was put in place by the Titans, but as it stands I’d say they were representative of at least midevil times, and I daresay compared to America, even comparable as late as the 18th century.
TL;DR Current day Titan Society is quite far ahead of Earth, which is so far ahead of both of these primitive societies that they seem practically the same level of advancment in comparison. Neither really has a drive for exploration, nor a want for resources, both IMO major factors for advancements in all areas of society.
I guess thats where the Titans come in for the most criticism. One of the main human traits is drive and exploration, curiosity..etc. Thats been a hallmark of our civilization. The human societies here lack such qualities and hence they are stunted. The Titans in their misguided munificence have smothered these humans to the point of incapacitation where even a minor disruption in civilized life results in major crises…Yes I know the plague and the effects are not minor but most human civilizations have bounced back fro much worse
I seem to recall Luke thinking that the Tribe was more or less a 19th century society, technologically speaking. If so, it is more advanced than Avalon.
The social organization might be simpler in the Tribe but that’s because it is made of former and escaped pets or their descendants.
I seem to recall the Tribe having things like running water, elevators, and gunpowder. Now I might not be remembering it right but those put the Tribe way past Avalon.
The Tribe has the advantage of being near the modern day Titans so they probably learned from them. However running water alone would not put them ahead as I remember the Romans having running water as well.
Making a technology comparison between the Tribe and Avalon is doomed to failure I think. The Tribe has gunpowder but can only forge bronze. While Avalon has flashbang grenades but still uses swords and bows. The problem is that the Tribe would have had the opportunity to duplicate some titan technology, while Avalon’s development will no doubt have been altered by its goddess (stunting weapons research while supplying materials and maybe even technologies deemed necessary). The result is that the technological development of both the Tribe and Avalon is all over the place by Earth standards.
Running water requires an aqueduct. The romans built one. We don’t know if the Atlantians did the same.
As I stated somewhere further up, the Humans don’t have full roam of the moon. They do have a large area to grow into though. Atlantis is the major population centre but there are some small and large villages around. I intend to flesh this out a little in this story.