Does the thought of one woman controlling another woman's mind thrill you beyond measure? Do your favorite dreams come wrapped in latex or rubber? How do you feel about robots? Here I am. I'm waiting.
Woo. That was...a head turner :p. Really really painful to read though :(.
I do think that was Shara for real, and yes, I'm sad she never got to wake up and be with Paul again :(.
The only reason is if this *wasn't* life or death for Hawthorne (well losing the empire), she definitely wouldn't have sacrificed someone like Shara for a hunch.
Wizard *might* be in a ton of trouble, though she seems to be the most resourceful person in the novel so...:p.
I did think Paul's re-imprinting was foreseeable, it really was the only way for them to get through this. *Now* Hawthorne's *really* in the dark because she didn't even suspect Lefebvre's Amazons of being subverted, nor Paul's team outside of Paul.
They still *do* have a huge hurdle, because well...Lefebvre's gone, and he was their in so...I have *no* clue what'll happen and that's just awesome :).
Oh and Wiesen is now my least favorite behind Hawthorne. What a weasel ;p.
WOW....poor shara....it wasnt her fault, its all Hawthorne's & yes, it was painful to read,I'm at a loss as for what comes next, but i hope it tips for the resistance, but i hope more females are imprinted, or re- imprinted to serve Hawthorne, or something of the sorts (without none of the main characters compromised)...all in all even with this setback of a chapter, i still am hooked....
I'm glad to see that you're taking this chapter in the spirit with which I hoped you'd take it - meaning you're shocked and horrified, but you haven't thrown up your hands and said, "That's it! I'm done with this series!" Obviously, I can't say where the story in the next chapter, but you'll get a lot of answers fairly quickly; and I think you'll be quite satisfied with them.
I'm pleased that none of you guessed what Shara's test would be (It took *me* by surprise when I came up with it, and then I thought, "Of course!"), but I'm surprised that you all half-exected Paul to be re-imprinted. Make that *pleasantly* surprised. ;-) I want to surprise my readers, but I also want some of them to have the pleasure of figuring out the puzzle.
Yes, LeFebvre's loss is a huge setback; and yes, Wizard has thrown herself into major hot water; but have some pity for Wiesen. ;-P He was a decent enough guy to join Paul's parents in rebelling against Hawthorne. He can't help his current attitude any more than Paolo could help *his* attitude.
I can't answer as many question about this chapter as I could previous ones, but I urge you to keep brainstorming. I'm very curious to see if one thing in particular occurs to anyone. ;-)
Well, I would guess that 90% of the people reading this story were pretty sure Paul would get re-imprinted. I doubt as many of us thought it would be willing. My Money was always on Shara doing the imprinting, to be honest.
I was quite surprised that LeFebvre was killed as well. After all, He was a specimen of a functioning chip-less sleepwalker. That's something I'd want people studying, if I were Hawthorne.
Have a little more faith in yourself, thrall. We aren't all about to dump an excellently-written story because you got a little edgy.
As for the bit at the end, you kept it tasteful; you didn't go into lurid detail and try to make it something to wank to.
(That's not to say that scenes without lurid detail can't squick me, but the most recent thing to do that involved gratuitous amounts of child abuse. You're still a long way away from that line.)
I'll admit I figured Paul and maybe one or two more members were going to be imprinted for the plan. Shara using herself as the test and that it would be presented as lethal were half expected. I will confess to being surprised that Hawthorne let her go through with it. It does make sense though since what is the value of a moderately effective hunter compared to potential loss of an empire.
One question though. The free amazons with Lefebrve were re-imprinted correct? Just seems like the loss of them was worse for the group than losing him. I mean losing a cabinet member is a loss but the amazons were able to go places where it would have been problematic to send the compromised cabinet member. Not counting the knowledge of the plan and all.
The eventual twist, of course, is that Wiesen is awake too. How is impossible to know. But every one of his actions is consistent with trying to stop Hawthorne, and sure enough her power is slipping. The Cabs won't trust her now.
I suspect Shara isn't really dead. There are just enough ways to fake this that you can navigate your way out, and fundamentally Paul can't function as a character after this loss. To get three more chapters Paul has to somehow survive this.
In the end, I suspect this is a story about the depths people will go to in order to accomplish things. It's about the monsters people become - that Hawthorne did become and that Paul has had to become.
Even odds that the final imprint is Paul or Shara imprinting Hawthorne.
Hey Thrall, one thing that has been bugging me since I read the chapter.
" sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride" sorry if I messed up the HTML for the bold, was that just a mistake in editing, or is there a clue in there?
Hmm...rereading it, I *do* have a tiny bit of doubt now :p.
The thing is, Dreamer is effectively useless on Paul, whenever it's used he'll just wake up no matter what.
*So*, my guess, or more of a question really (no answers though!) is...what if they were to synthesize Paul's dna/trait into say...a virus, airborne, waterborne etc, and people would wake en masse? That would really destroy the empire overnight, and it's *plausible* I think.
If Wiesen were awake though, I think it'd have to be hinted at somehow because at least in Paul's thoughts there was no hint of that, and that's something if it *was* true, Paul should know to play the scene better for Hawthorne.
Okay, I'll answer what I can, without revealing too much about the next chapter.
I would never, *ever* cross the line into child abuse - or incest, either. But thanks for the encouraging word, magic9mushroom. I do tend to be hard on myself.
Hawthorne doesn't need LeFebvre alive to study his DNA, and his behavior as a sleepwalker was the same as any other Level Zero, so she'd have no reason to study him alive. Plus, her longstanding policy is to execute traitors immediately. She couldn't make an exception for him. Her authority was at stake.
No one but Paul's team has ever thought of trying to re-imprint a sleepwalker. Wiesen is the only other geneticist who'd be smart enough to consider it, but neither he nor any of the others sleepwalking geneticists had reason to think of doing it because they didn't expect anyone to Wake Up. The only reason re-imprinting occurred to Charlotte (and later Paul) was desperation.
That being the case, no, the ex-Amazons haven't been re-imprinted.
Lygah, I'm not sure what your question is about the ingredients of the lethal injection. I know the words came out in a weird font on my blog, but that's only because I copied and pasted them from an article I found online. There's no clue in them. They're just the standard ingredients for a lethal injection.
You are all coming up with some *wonderful* speculations about the last three chapters. This is a great comment thread!
lizthegrey, thanks for catching the typo. I always end up with a bunch of those because I do so much polishing. I'm half-tempted to correct that one and re-send the chapter to Simon, but I figure there are probably at least three more I haven't caught yet, so I probably shouldn't bother. ;-/
Did anyone besides me suspect at any point that Melora didn't actually re-imprint Paul? That maybe she gave him a placebo (or perhaps some kind of mild sedative) and that the whole hypnosis spiel wasn't a spiel at all, but that she was really hypnotizing him into believing and acting like he was a sleepwalker again, in order to get through whatever test he would be facing? To me there seemed to be a lot pointing to that possibility...
I considered that, but it didn't seem particularly possible given Wiesen's categorical statement that Dreamer was dominant in Paul's genes.
Unless, of course, Wiesen is wrong and/or lying, but given how he freely admitted how much he didn't understand, I'd suspect that what he did make of it was correct.
Yeah, I agree that that's a pretty significant hole in that theory, making it much less plausible. Wiesen secretly being Awake as well (which has already been theorized) could explain it I suppose. But that means the team, or at least Melora, would had to have known about that. And even then it would've been a huge risk, since presumably Wiesen is hardly the only person that could carry out and interpret a DNA test.
I also have my doubts that 'mere' hypnosis would really be enough to make Paul kill Shara, what with the whole 'can't make you do anything against your core values' aspect. Although he did certainly go through an internal struggle as far as that's concerned.
And back on the subject of the DNA test, I also wonder if that test was supposed to be conclusive and irrefutable proof of Paul still being a sleepwalker, why Hawthorne still felt it necessary to have Shara do what she did? A (rather theatrical) demonstration of her control for the assembled Cabs perhaps, or just being cruel for cruelty's sake? But would it really be logical for her to sacrifice a relatively valuable asset like Shara just for that? Especially since from what we've seen, she was pretty effective at rooting out resistance members.
Anonymous, I can respond to exactly *one* of your comments. ;-) Wiesen's test only proved that Paul had the sleepwalker gene and that it was dominant. Wiesen noticed the irregularities and didn't know what to make of them, so he couldn't guarantee that Paul was "a happy little drone boy."
Hawthorne wasn't expecting him to prove Paul's innocence, anyway. She was fairly sure of Paul's guilt, so she only ever meant Wiesen to be a warm-up act for Shara. Even if Paul's DNA had looked perfectly normal for a sleepwalker, Hawthorne wouldn't have been satisfied until he passed Shara's test. There was just too much evidence against him.
Hmm...so if the DNA test wasn't conclusive, then Paul not really having gone back to being a sleepwalker is still at least a possibility. After all, not much has been disclosed about -how- exactly Waker counteracts Dreamer. For all we know it's -normal- for the sleepwalker gene to remain dominant in someone after they've been Awakened. I'm far from an expert on genetics, so I can't say for sure if this would be possible in the real world...but I can't say it -wouldn't- be either. And of course this is a work of fiction, and one with something of a sci-fi setting at that, so it's rather tricky to say what could and couldn't be possible anyway.
If the sleepwalker gene indeed stays dominant after Awakening then Melora would certainly know this. So trying to fake the imprinting and using hypnosis instead would have been a viable option in that case, though certainly not one without risks by any means. But actual re-imprinting posed risks as well of course.
A dominant gene is one that expresses itself even if it's present in just one half of a pair of chromosomes. A recessive gene can only express itself if it's present in both halves of a pair of chromosomes. That being the case, if the sleepwalking trait in dominant in Paul, then he must be sleepwalking. When Waker activates, the trait becomes recessive. He still has the trait, but it has no effect on him.
Re-imprinting Paul was very risky because no one knew if the sleepwalking trait could be made recessive a second time. It's *meant* to be dominant, so it might have stayed that way. Charlotte took the same risk, and both of them did it willingly, knowing full well that they might never Wake Up again.
Yes, I'm shooting down the "He was only hypnotized" theory. ;-) It's been fun to watch people play with it, but Melora really did dose him with D2.0. Why would either of them take a chance on having him fail Shara's test? It could mean the death of them all. And Melora is nothing if not practical.
Okay, fair enough. It was fun speculating at any rate.
Oh, by the way, I also spotted a few minor typos and stuff as I was rereading, although mileage may vary on the first two:
-There were nine of them so far, and at Linda’s insistence he’d Awakened each of them himself and then begged her //them instead of her// to make him regret doing it.
-He knew she must be free //comma// because otherwise //no comma// the other Awakened Amazons wouldn’t have let her past the front hall.
-He’d always considered that one //of// his chief survival skills.
-LeFebvre just hoped they didn’t know who’d imprinted //him//.
hat's what happens when I create umpteen drafts of every chapter. :-/ It even happens when I respond to these comments, because I'm so OCD that I edit those too! Let's see if I can keep this one clean. ;-P
In this case, however, you're wrong about the first two typos. Trust me; I'm an ex-English teacher. ;-P Thanks for catching the last two, though. I plan to e-publish this story later, and I'm going to ask for readers' help in fixing these little mistakes.
I know I'm way late, but this keeps bugging me every time I reread.
What are lie-detecting programs? They're not mentioned or used before or since, even when it seems they would be really useful if they exist (like asking Paul if he's loyal to the General, Shara's made up story that Hawthorne believes, etc), and how do they even work?
It reads like one of those things in sci-fi/fantasy where some magic/tech suddenly shows up for one time and then never again, even though that doesn't make much sense. Only here it isn't even used.
(I love the rest of the chapter and am not criticizing. As noted, this has just been bugging me).
That's a good question, and I'll be honest: I hadn't given it a lot of thought. I see what you mean about it appearing and then disappearing, but while it could have a lot of uses for the Cabs in their machinations against one another, I don't see it being much use in Paul's case.
What I pictured was a program that works a lot like today's lie detector machines, only without having to touch the subject to read their truthfulness. It would be something like what the Peacekeeper private in Chapter 1 had. Paul knew she could "read" his emotions through the dilation of his pupils, his heart rate, and so on.
Hawthorne wouldn't use a program like that to test Paul because she wants to be 100% certain of his guilt or innocence (and let's be honest, she also wants to degrade him and make him suffer), and Paul might conceivably pass a lie detector test with the right combination of pharmaceuticals. He'd have plenty of those in the lab, and he'd know how to use them. Using Shara gives Hawthorne absolute proof of Paul's status...or so she thinks.
It's still weird to me - like, today's lie detectors don't work well at all.
And it still seems like someone as paranoid as Hawthorne would have had a lie detector around when talking to Shara later on, but Shara lies to her with no problem.
(Again, sorry to keep picking at this. Fantasy lie detectors and their many, many implications are an interest of mine, so it jumped out).
You kind of have a point about Hawthorne not using a lie detector on Shara; and if you keep nitpicking, I'm eventually going to run out of ways to rationalize. ;-P But a) Hawthorne's so paranoid that she wouldn't trust her security to a mere lie detector (She might not even have one) even though the other Cabs do, b) she initially trusts Shara 100% because Shara died for her, and c) even so, she still makes Mullins check Shara's DNA in the office.
Again, if you keep asking questions, eventually I'm not going to be able to answer them. But since you're a fan of fantasy lie detectors, maybe you can imagine Hawthorne has a Bene Gesserit Truthsayer behind the *other* side door in her office. ;-P
30 comments:
Well, I have to say I didn't guess the test, though I did realise that the geneticists would have to start imprinting each other again.
I have my suspicions, of course, about whether that was really Shara.
Woo. That was...a head turner :p. Really really painful to read though :(.
I do think that was Shara for real, and yes, I'm sad she never got to wake up and be with Paul again :(.
The only reason is if this *wasn't* life or death for Hawthorne (well losing the empire), she definitely wouldn't have sacrificed someone like Shara for a hunch.
Wizard *might* be in a ton of trouble, though she seems to be the most resourceful person in the novel so...:p.
I did think Paul's re-imprinting was foreseeable, it really was the only way for them to get through this. *Now* Hawthorne's *really* in the dark because she didn't even suspect Lefebvre's Amazons of being subverted, nor Paul's team outside of Paul.
They still *do* have a huge hurdle, because well...Lefebvre's gone, and he was their in so...I have *no* clue what'll happen and that's just awesome :).
Oh and Wiesen is now my least favorite behind Hawthorne. What a weasel ;p.
WOW....poor shara....it wasnt her fault, its all Hawthorne's & yes, it was painful to read,I'm at a loss as for what comes next, but i hope it tips for the resistance, but i hope more females are imprinted, or re- imprinted to serve Hawthorne, or something of the sorts (without none of the main characters compromised)...all in all even with this setback of a chapter, i still am hooked....
I'm glad to see that you're taking this chapter in the spirit with which I hoped you'd take it - meaning you're shocked and horrified, but you haven't thrown up your hands and said, "That's it! I'm done with this series!" Obviously, I can't say where the story in the next chapter, but you'll get a lot of answers fairly quickly; and I think you'll be quite satisfied with them.
I'm pleased that none of you guessed what Shara's test would be (It took *me* by surprise when I came up with it, and then I thought, "Of course!"), but I'm surprised that you all half-exected Paul to be re-imprinted. Make that *pleasantly* surprised. ;-) I want to surprise my readers, but I also want some of them to have the pleasure of figuring out the puzzle.
Yes, LeFebvre's loss is a huge setback; and yes, Wizard has thrown herself into major hot water; but have some pity for Wiesen. ;-P He was a decent enough guy to join Paul's parents in rebelling against Hawthorne. He can't help his current attitude any more than Paolo could help *his* attitude.
I can't answer as many question about this chapter as I could previous ones, but I urge you to keep brainstorming. I'm very curious to see if one thing in particular occurs to anyone. ;-)
Well, I would guess that 90% of the people reading this story were pretty sure Paul would get re-imprinted. I doubt as many of us thought it would be willing. My Money was always on Shara doing the imprinting, to be honest.
I was quite surprised that LeFebvre was killed as well. After all, He was a specimen of a functioning chip-less sleepwalker. That's something I'd want people studying, if I were Hawthorne.
Have a little more faith in yourself, thrall. We aren't all about to dump an excellently-written story because you got a little edgy.
As for the bit at the end, you kept it tasteful; you didn't go into lurid detail and try to make it something to wank to.
(That's not to say that scenes without lurid detail can't squick me, but the most recent thing to do that involved gratuitous amounts of child abuse. You're still a long way away from that line.)
I'll admit I figured Paul and maybe one or two more members were going to be imprinted for the plan. Shara using herself as the test and that it would be presented as lethal were half expected. I will confess to being surprised that Hawthorne let her go through with it. It does make sense though since what is the value of a moderately effective hunter compared to potential loss of an empire.
One question though. The free amazons with Lefebrve were re-imprinted correct? Just seems like the loss of them was worse for the group than losing him. I mean losing a cabinet member is a loss but the amazons were able to go places where it would have been problematic to send the compromised cabinet member. Not counting the knowledge of the plan and all.
Ballzy move killing off Shara, while sad, lets hope she stays dead. This is great to raise the stakes for the rest of the characters.
Lets hope the last 3 chapters keep up the standard you set in this one.
The eventual twist, of course, is that Wiesen is awake too. How is impossible to know. But every one of his actions is consistent with trying to stop Hawthorne, and sure enough her power is slipping. The Cabs won't trust her now.
I suspect Shara isn't really dead. There are just enough ways to fake this that you can navigate your way out, and fundamentally Paul can't function as a character after this loss. To get three more chapters Paul has to somehow survive this.
In the end, I suspect this is a story about the depths people will go to in order to accomplish things. It's about the monsters people become - that Hawthorne did become and that Paul has had to become.
Even odds that the final imprint is Paul or Shara imprinting Hawthorne.
-Aaronhalt
Hey Thrall, one thing that has been bugging me since I read the chapter.
" sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride" sorry if I messed up the HTML for the bold, was that just a mistake in editing, or is there a clue in there?
Hmm...rereading it, I *do* have a tiny bit of doubt now :p.
The thing is, Dreamer is effectively useless on Paul, whenever it's used he'll just wake up no matter what.
*So*, my guess, or more of a question really (no answers though!) is...what if they were to synthesize Paul's dna/trait into say...a virus, airborne, waterborne etc, and people would wake en masse? That would really destroy the empire overnight, and it's *plausible* I think.
If Wiesen were awake though, I think it'd have to be hinted at somehow because at least in Paul's thoughts there was no hint of that, and that's something if it *was* true, Paul should know to play the scene better for Hawthorne.
I think it has been hinted at, though. At least inasmuch as we know people developed Waker before, and Wiesen was among them.
-Aaronhalt
Okay, I'll answer what I can, without revealing too much about the next chapter.
I would never, *ever* cross the line into child abuse - or incest, either. But thanks for the encouraging word, magic9mushroom. I do tend to be hard on myself.
Hawthorne doesn't need LeFebvre alive to study his DNA, and his behavior as a sleepwalker was the same as any other Level Zero, so she'd have no reason to study him alive. Plus, her longstanding policy is to execute traitors immediately. She couldn't make an exception for him. Her authority was at stake.
No one but Paul's team has ever thought of trying to re-imprint a sleepwalker. Wiesen is the only other geneticist who'd be smart enough to consider it, but neither he nor any of the others sleepwalking geneticists had reason to think of doing it because they didn't expect anyone to Wake Up. The only reason re-imprinting occurred to Charlotte (and later Paul) was desperation.
That being the case, no, the ex-Amazons haven't been re-imprinted.
Lygah, I'm not sure what your question is about the ingredients of the lethal injection. I know the words came out in a weird font on my blog, but that's only because I copied and pasted them from an article I found online. There's no clue in them. They're just the standard ingredients for a lethal injection.
You are all coming up with some *wonderful* speculations about the last three chapters. This is a great comment thread!
Typo: betraying him just as thoroughly has he’d betrayed her
s/has/as/
Actually my question was just that. If the font was different on purpose or not. Thanks for the answer
lizthegrey, thanks for catching the typo. I always end up with a bunch of those because I do so much polishing. I'm half-tempted to correct that one and re-send the chapter to Simon, but I figure there are probably at least three more I haven't caught yet, so I probably shouldn't bother. ;-/
Did anyone besides me suspect at any point that Melora didn't actually re-imprint Paul? That maybe she gave him a placebo (or perhaps some kind of mild sedative) and that the whole hypnosis spiel wasn't a spiel at all, but that she was really hypnotizing him into believing and acting like he was a sleepwalker again, in order to get through whatever test he would be facing?
To me there seemed to be a lot pointing to that possibility...
I considered that, but it didn't seem particularly possible given Wiesen's categorical statement that Dreamer was dominant in Paul's genes.
Unless, of course, Wiesen is wrong and/or lying, but given how he freely admitted how much he didn't understand, I'd suspect that what he did make of it was correct.
Yeah, I agree that that's a pretty significant hole in that theory, making it much less plausible. Wiesen secretly being Awake as well (which has already been theorized) could explain it I suppose. But that means the team, or at least Melora, would had to have known about that. And even then it would've been a huge risk, since presumably Wiesen is hardly the only person that could carry out and interpret a DNA test.
I also have my doubts that 'mere' hypnosis would really be enough to make Paul kill Shara, what with the whole 'can't make you do anything against your core values' aspect. Although he did certainly go through an internal struggle as far as that's concerned.
And back on the subject of the DNA test, I also wonder if that test was supposed to be conclusive and irrefutable proof of Paul still being a sleepwalker, why Hawthorne still felt it necessary to have Shara do what she did? A (rather theatrical) demonstration of her control for the assembled Cabs perhaps, or just being cruel for cruelty's sake? But would it really be logical for her to sacrifice a relatively valuable asset like Shara just for that? Especially since from what we've seen, she was pretty effective at rooting out resistance members.
Anonymous, I can respond to exactly *one* of your comments. ;-) Wiesen's test only proved that Paul had the sleepwalker gene and that it was dominant. Wiesen noticed the irregularities and didn't know what to make of them, so he couldn't guarantee that Paul was "a happy little drone boy."
Hawthorne wasn't expecting him to prove Paul's innocence, anyway. She was fairly sure of Paul's guilt, so she only ever meant Wiesen to be a warm-up act for Shara. Even if Paul's DNA had looked perfectly normal for a sleepwalker, Hawthorne wouldn't have been satisfied until he passed Shara's test. There was just too much evidence against him.
Hmm...so if the DNA test wasn't conclusive, then Paul not really having gone back to being a sleepwalker is still at least a possibility. After all, not much has been disclosed about -how- exactly Waker counteracts Dreamer. For all we know it's -normal- for the sleepwalker gene to remain dominant in someone after they've been Awakened. I'm far from an expert on genetics, so I can't say for sure if this would be possible in the real world...but I can't say it -wouldn't- be either. And of course this is a work of fiction, and one with something of a sci-fi setting at that, so it's rather tricky to say what could and couldn't be possible anyway.
If the sleepwalker gene indeed stays dominant after Awakening then Melora would certainly know this. So trying to fake the imprinting and using hypnosis instead would have been a viable option in that case, though certainly not one without risks by any means. But actual re-imprinting posed risks as well of course.
A dominant gene is one that expresses itself even if it's present in just one half of a pair of chromosomes. A recessive gene can only express itself if it's present in both halves of a pair of chromosomes. That being the case, if the sleepwalking trait in dominant in Paul, then he must be sleepwalking. When Waker activates, the trait becomes recessive. He still has the trait, but it has no effect on him.
Re-imprinting Paul was very risky because no one knew if the sleepwalking trait could be made recessive a second time. It's *meant* to be dominant, so it might have stayed that way. Charlotte took the same risk, and both of them did it willingly, knowing full well that they might never Wake Up again.
Yes, I'm shooting down the "He was only hypnotized" theory. ;-) It's been fun to watch people play with it, but Melora really did dose him with D2.0. Why would either of them take a chance on having him fail Shara's test? It could mean the death of them all. And Melora is nothing if not practical.
Okay, fair enough. It was fun speculating at any rate.
Oh, by the way, I also spotted a few minor typos and stuff as I was rereading, although mileage may vary on the first two:
-There were nine of them so far, and at Linda’s insistence he’d Awakened each of them himself and then begged her //them instead of her// to make him regret doing it.
-He knew she must be free //comma// because otherwise //no comma// the other Awakened Amazons wouldn’t have let her past the front hall.
-He’d always considered that one //of// his chief survival skills.
-LeFebvre just hoped they didn’t know who’d imprinted //him//.
hat's what happens when I create umpteen drafts of every chapter. :-/ It even happens when I respond to these comments, because I'm so OCD that I edit those too! Let's see if I can keep this one clean. ;-P
In this case, however, you're wrong about the first two typos. Trust me; I'm an ex-English teacher. ;-P Thanks for catching the last two, though. I plan to e-publish this story later, and I'm going to ask for readers' help in fixing these little mistakes.
Late to the party, but... wow. That was so very hard to read. God. Poor Shara.
But you're right. I want to read the end.
I'm glad I haven't run you off. ;-) I noticed that you'd stopped commenting!
I know I'm way late, but this keeps bugging me every time I reread.
What are lie-detecting programs? They're not mentioned or used before or since, even when it seems they would be really useful if they exist (like asking Paul if he's loyal to the General, Shara's made up story that Hawthorne believes, etc), and how do they even work?
It reads like one of those things in sci-fi/fantasy where some magic/tech suddenly shows up for one time and then never again, even though that doesn't make much sense. Only here it isn't even used.
(I love the rest of the chapter and am not criticizing. As noted, this has just been bugging me).
That's a good question, and I'll be honest: I hadn't given it a lot of thought. I see what you mean about it appearing and then disappearing, but while it could have a lot of uses for the Cabs in their machinations against one another, I don't see it being much use in Paul's case.
What I pictured was a program that works a lot like today's lie detector machines, only without having to touch the subject to read their truthfulness. It would be something like what the Peacekeeper private in Chapter 1 had. Paul knew she could "read" his emotions through the dilation of his pupils, his heart rate, and so on.
Hawthorne wouldn't use a program like that to test Paul because she wants to be 100% certain of his guilt or innocence (and let's be honest, she also wants to degrade him and make him suffer), and Paul might conceivably pass a lie detector test with the right combination of pharmaceuticals. He'd have plenty of those in the lab, and he'd know how to use them. Using Shara gives Hawthorne absolute proof of Paul's status...or so she thinks.
Got it.
It's still weird to me - like, today's lie detectors don't work well at all.
And it still seems like someone as paranoid as Hawthorne would have had a lie detector around when talking to Shara later on, but Shara lies to her with no problem.
(Again, sorry to keep picking at this. Fantasy lie detectors and their many, many implications are an interest of mine, so it jumped out).
You kind of have a point about Hawthorne not using a lie detector on Shara; and if you keep nitpicking, I'm eventually going to run out of ways to rationalize. ;-P But a) Hawthorne's so paranoid that she wouldn't trust her security to a mere lie detector (She might not even have one) even though the other Cabs do, b) she initially trusts Shara 100% because Shara died for her, and c) even so, she still makes Mullins check Shara's DNA in the office.
Again, if you keep asking questions, eventually I'm not going to be able to answer them. But since you're a fan of fantasy lie detectors, maybe you can imagine Hawthorne has a Bene Gesserit Truthsayer behind the *other* side door in her office. ;-P
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