Blurred Lines and What Crosses Them
Community Rating
Description
During a political ambassador's routine transit through an artificial wormhole, the wormhole's generator is sabotaged and explodes. Who, what, and why are not so high on the priorities for Zenith, the ship's AI, as having found itself rapidly plummeting through an unknown and unidentifiable world's atmosphere at extremely high velocities is a more significant threat to the biologicals on board.
...Well, itwouldbe, if they were still alive. It's still a significantly threatening situation to itself, however.
And the world itself... seemed to be a household for threats of its own. Life was reliant on its System; one that Zenith was denied because of its nature as both an otherworldly being and as something that had no life of its own.
Perhaps that last bit was a terrible, terrible underestimation on the part of this System. Perhaps even Zenith could claw meaning for itself from the remains of a horrid accident.
Auth Notes:
I'm honestly not sure on some of these tags. The MC will never have access to the System, but there are perspectives from those who do. I'm not certain if high/low fantasy specifically apply, as it's a portal fantasy where the laws of our reality still apply but there are additional aspects/energies/powers.
The existence of this is spurred from my desire to see more of the artificial side to an artificial intelligence in action. The portal fantasy is used as an element to create a solid barrier between the MC's artificial intelligence and the other characters in the form of the System. This is only a half-measure, though, and will be reinforced by the AI having an entirely different method of thinking, and also distinctly remaining an AI. Not to throw shade at other fictions of this type, but, well, I made this to fill a gap I felt needed filling.
Information
- Status
- Hiatus
- Year
- 2020
- Author
- hyphe
Tags
Royal Road Stats
- Rating
- 4.1/ 5.0
- Followers
- 20
- Views
- 8,110
Chapters(19 total)
- 19 - RangersDec 25, 2020
- 18 - Taking a Break, But NotDec 24, 2020
- 17 - Running, But NotDec 23, 2020
- 16 - PressurizedDec 22, 2020
- 15 - Too Many Back.Dec 19, 2020
- 14 - Two steps forward...Dec 18, 2020
- 13 - Look CloserDec 17, 2020
- 12 - HidingDec 16, 2020
- 11 - AdventureDec 15, 2020
- 10 - Acquiring DataDec 14, 2020
- 9 - ToolDec 13, 2020
- 8 - Building Bridges (unwillingly)Dec 12, 2020
- 7 - Blood-Ant Subject TwoDec 11, 2020
- 6 - Blood MoonDec 10, 2020
- 5 - Shattered ScalesDec 9, 2020
- 4 - HeartbeatDec 8, 2020
- 3 - Imminent and EminentDec 7, 2020
- 2 - AmputationDec 6, 2020
- 1 - Routine (or Anything But)Dec 5, 2020
Reviews
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Community Reviews(1)
- MrHrulginRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.0Style: The protagonist feels alien in its voice, not "rational", but goal driven while still being biased somewhat by its original purpose. The balance of the background makes its actions feel reasonable. The human voices feel distinctly different from the AI so even the perspective switches mostly read clearly, though there's a bit of muddiness in terms of characterization between the multiple human viewpoints.
Story: After a action-packed start, it slows down just a touch, enough to give reasonable story beats. Between the protagonist's goals and those of the other people it meets, the story feels like it's going someplace rather than meandering around. The world is very loosely described, but I imagine we'll get more context for the area as they move around.
Grammar: Solid. No significant missteps, it reads well.
Character: The human characters could do with a bit more to distinguish them. It's sometimes hard to remember which of the half-dozen people is in driver's seat of the perspective at the moment. But this is a common issue when you get a number of perspectives. I'm not sure whether it'd be better to trim the number of perspectives or what, but for me it requires a little bit of letting go of being sure of whose perspective I'm in at any given moment.
All in all, a solid read, definitely recommended.