Tales of the Vuduri: Year Two

by Michael Brachman

  Yesterday, we examined part 1 of the first major plot hole regarding Rome's interrogation. Oronus had his answers from Rei. Why ask Rome the same questions? What purpose would it serve?

  This scene from Part 3 of Rome's Revolution was originally designed way back when I thought the Overmind of Earth was behind the segregation and ultimate genocide of the Ibbrassati. It wasn't until later that I found out MASAL was behind it. I just thought it would be really cool for Rome to land, get hauled off to jail and potentially executed. Of course we know that Rei saves her by arguing on her behalf. Basically, he proved that Rome was just following orders and if the Overmind executed Rome, he'd have to execute every Vuduri on Earth.

  But I don't think that's the answer. I don't think the Overmind ever had any intention of executing Rome. If it had, they would have shot her as she was exiting the Flying House. No, I think the plan was always to commute her sentence, send her off to Hawai'i and let MASAL track her down. After all, she was part of the Slayer program described in Rome's Evolution. I think Oronus just let Rei defend her so the story was more believable. Laying a better trap as it were.

  So maybe Oronus interrogating Rome was just part of this ruse. The fact that Rome told a different story about Aason's death than Rei and Oronus ignored it supports this claim.

  However, luckily for me (and you, the reader) was the fact that Estar and the Onsiras were listening in and the discrepancy caused the chain of events leading to MASAL's destruction.

  One teaser. We haven't seen the last of MASAL. He makes a surprising reappearance in the upcoming novel The Milk Run which should be ready later this year.

  Entry 2-036: January 31, 2014

 

  Rome has feelings

  Another major plot hole in the Rome's Revolution series is the whole mess about whether Rome had feelings or not growing up. I constantly go back and forth and give you conflicting information about this issue.

  I told you that most Vuduri children are sent away and raised in communal daycare facilities yet Rome was not. I told you that Rome was a good little Vuduri yet she had her cat, Skodla whom she loved very much. She was supposed to be robotic but was heartbroken after her father was abducted. Even on Dara, when she first met Rei, she was immediately attracted to him yet was unable to articulate or even acknowledge this.

  So what's the deal, anyway? Did Rome have feelings or not? Answer: I think she did. I think growing up in a "mixed" home allowed her to see both her father's emotional side and allowed her to see her mother's love for her father. Her peers would tease her (subtly, they were Vuduri after all) because she was mosdurece. So Rome learned to keep those feelings hidden away but they were there. She even came to have disdain for the open emotionality of the mandasurte.

  She got so good at hiding her feelings that when she and Rei first tried on the Espansor Bands, many of her memories became unlocked that had been hidden away forever.

  Rome mulled this over and in the end, she decided this was the way she was meant to be. She admitted to Rei that on the day she was Cesdiud (cast out), she was reborn and would never look back. But the fact is, she was just acknowledging feelings that had been under the surface all along.

  Entry 2-037: February 1, 2014

 

  Onsiras among us

  Another plot hole was my handling of the Onsiras walking freely among the regular Vuduri yet never being noticed. Estar, who originally had pure silvery eyes clearly stood out, even in the modern version of Rome's Revolution because she had mismatched eyes. How come nobody noticed? How come Rei was the first to point this out?

  And the Zengei, the Onsiras with the flat black, shark-like eyes, nobody noticed they walked around like robots and didn't even communicate with the Overmind? How do you pull that off?

  The answer lies in the Yatori which is a piece of ornamental cloth or jewelry that the Vuduri learn to ignore. They want so desperately to not think for themselves that if the Overmind says these weirdoes are OK, they believed him.

  Rome's whole premise for exposing the danger represented by the Onsiras was to find a pure Vuduri, not tainted by this "second sight" and tell them the truth. This would bring the idea into the Overmind and like the Emperor's new clothes, everyone would see the Onsiras for what they were.

  Unfortunately for Rome, the Vuduri she had picked out, her mother, had cast herself out before Rome could share the secret. Luckily for Rome, she had already warped Ursay's thinking so completely that he was able to substitute for Binoda and let the Vuduri know once and for all what a danger the Onsiras represented.

  Rome also spilled the beans on what was happening on Deucado. More on that tomorrow.

  Entry 2-038: February 2, 2014

 

  How do you keep genocide a secret?

  Yet another plot hole was using Deucado as a prison planet, kidnapping the mandasurte and holding them on that world for 19 years until an asteroid came and wiped them all out. How do you keep something like that a secret?

  Originally, in the long-form version of Rome's Revolution, I thought the Overmind of Earth was an active conspirator in the plot to wipe out the mandasurte. We still see hints of this in Rome's Evolution when Virga admits that Helome was created to be an ethnically pure planet.

  But how do you send Vuduri back and forth to Deucado and still keep its true nature under wraps? Answer, I didn't.

  The way I figured it, the Overmind sent a contingent of Vuduri to Deucado to oversee the resettlement of any mandasurte that wished to leave Earth. But it started as a separate-but-equal kind of thing. I then twisted the story so that a contingent of MASAL-controlled Vuduri (actually Onsiras) came to Deucado and "reprogrammed" their mission. The Vuduri on Deucado had no knowledge of the Onsiras so being sheep-like as they are, they believed their new directive.

  I don't think it is practical but the Onsiras planned on keeping the Vuduri stationed there planet-bound for 19 years. If you ask me, that's a long time to keep such a deadly secret but luckily, Rome's Revolution swept over the planet and protected me from having to come up with a better explanation.

  Entry 2-039: February 3, 2014

 

  400 and counting!

  Can you believe it? I have hit the 400 mark in these posts about Rome's Revolution and the world of the Vuduri.

  When I first started this blog, I had just published The Ark Lords and was in the middle of constructing the outline for Rome's Evolution. Originally, Rome's Evolution was supposed to be a novella but after I put two and two together (Sussen anyone?), it had blossomed into a full-blown novel. Now I am in the process of constructing The Milk Run which is a little behind schedule.

  Although, at times, this blog may appear to be stream of consciousness, the underlying guide is following the original long-form of Rome's Revolution and discuss plot points, scientific principles, etc. And I'm only up to Chapter 8. It'll probably be the rest of this year to finish up that book. Then there are two more long-form books which make up the modern Rome's Revolution. No danger of running out of topics.

  I packaged up the first year's worth of blog entries and published the volume as Tales of the Vuduri: Year One. It is available for free everywhere except on Amazon and BN where it costs 99 cents.

  The word tally for that volume was right around 120,000 words or roughly 325 words per entry. That means that at 400 blog posts, I am nearing the 130,000 mark. When I get to the end of year two, it will be nearly a quarter million words.

  Mind-boggling! I hope you are enjoying it.

  Entry 2-040: February 4, 2014

 

  How come the Deucadons never came up for air?

  I hope you are not getting tired of them but here is yet another plot hole from Rome's Revolution. Are we really supposed to believe that the Deucadons, some 50,000 strong, hid underground and were attacked just once by the Vuduri and cowered down there?

  We'll come back to that but let's consider the absurdity of the Deucadon's situation in the first pla
ce. Supposedly they crash-landed on Deucado 500 years before. Because they were never able to recover the cargo compartment, they started their new life on their new world with nothing but the clothes on their back.

  Not even one generation later, the inherent conflict between the Whites and the Grays arose and the colonists split into two camps. The Grays were killed when the asteroid (actually a comet) hit the planet and formed Lake Eprehem. The story continues that the Whites took refuge underground.

  First: how did they even find the caves which eventually became their homes? Next, how did they see? How did they know to go down nearly a mile underground? How did they excavate and create "Old Town" and later their real home?

  I find it kind of hard to believe they pulled that off but it makes the story very exciting. Tomorrow, why didn't they come up for air?

  Entry 2-041: February 5, 2014

 

  Deucadons. Air. Part 2

  Yesterday, we discussed the inherent absurdity of the whole Deucadon situation. However, it was necessary to include them in Rome's Revolution to make the plot move forward so I glossed over the impracticality. They are very interesting characters. There will be a short story about the origin of the Deucadons in The Vuduri Companion (to be released later this year) which will cover the crash landing.

  Today I want to consider the question I raised yesterday: Are we really supposed to believe that the Deucadons, some 50,000 strong, hid underground and were attacked just once by the Vuduri and cowered down there forevermore?

  We know that the Deucadons regularly sent scouting parties to the surface to collect information and materials. We know that they encountered the Vuduri exactly one time and the group was obliterated. I don't know how the word got down below that they were under attack. There was some mention of communicators in Rome's Revolution so we'll let that one slide.

  We know that the Deucadons developed their invisibility cloaks and were able to go back to the surface, undetected. Were they going to just tolerate the situation?

  The answer is no. They were getting ready to fight back. In fact, Bukky did allude to the fact that war was coming and they were going to return to the surface. They were going to take down the Vuduri if necessary. So it is a good thing that Rome brokered a peace before this happened.

  Entry 2-042: February 6, 2014

 

  North America, abandoned?

  When Rei and Rome returned to Earth in the last part of Rome's Revolution, Rome alluded to the fact that North America had been abandoned by the Vuduri for at least a century. No mention was ever made of South America. What was the reasoning behind this? After all, the historical novel contained within The Ark Lords took place in New Jersey and Illinois. Yet when Rei and Rome arrived at the Tevatron, it was pretty clear that the entire continent was deserted.

  We know Jack Henry lived there eight centuries earlier. We know the Erklirte landed there and women were taken. The rebels eventually won the war and eliminated the Ark Lords. So why, 800 years later, would they abandon the continent that gave birth to their freedom?

  First, I needed North America because I needed the Tevatron so that's why they were there in the first place. I needed the continent to be deserted because I needed the Tevatron to be last place anybody would look.

  So how come everybody left?

  Here is my guess: as mankind was still recovering from the Great Dying, all continents were sparsely populated. When the 24th chromosome was introduced and the Vuduri became the Vuduri, they wanted to congregate together so they all migrated back to Europe, starting in Portugal and spreading out from there. By the time Rome was born, there still weren't enough people to bother settling North America.

  We also discovered that the mandasurte retreated back to Hawai'i which was where many of them were from. Once again, there weren't too many people so this was practical.

  So there you have it. Once the humans walking the Earth coalesced into the Vuduri and mandasurte, they regrouped and segregated themselves to Europe and Hawai'i thus leaving North America deserted.

  As a side note: if you read Rome's Evolution, you know that there was a secret compound in SoCal where the Onsiras lived and that was the location of the climax of that book.

  Entry 2-043: February 7, 2014

 

  Super coincidences

  While these are not really plot holes, there are a remarkable number of coincidences in Rome's Revolution that make for an exciting story but might require a good long suspension of belief.

  I'll just mention a few of them and if you have any other ideas, please send them along and I'll address them. For example, it was rather coincidental that the Ark II just happened to be in the Tabit system when the Vuduri were occupying Skyler Base. What are the odds? Pretty slim but without it, there isn't much of the story.

  And are we really supposed to believe that Rome crash-lands on Deucado right where her kidnapped father was living? They had an entire planet. She didn't even know Fridone was there. But if she hadn't landed there, there wouldn't have been much in terms of pathos and the eventual reunion of Rome's mother and father.

  Are we really supposed to believe that Ark II, having hit an asteroid, would ultimately doom Deucado? In the book, they refer to it as "cosmic billiards" but seriously, the chances of dislodging an asteroid and have it land exactly on your target planet 14 centuries later seems kind of slim to me. But what good would it be putting the Ibbrassati there to be wiped out if there wasn't an asteroid in the first place.

  Why would MASAL build his lair under Kilauea? Seems kind of silly to me and lends itself to easy vaporization. However, rather than just being a dramatic venue and plot device, the decision to build MASAL's base there is actually a little easier to explain. He needed a source of power that could not be detected from the surface and the magma beneath Kilauea was perfect for his giant thermocouples.

  So, in general, while there are a lot of super-coincidences in these books, they make for an interesting and lively story so unless anybody is really bothered by them, I'm going to leave them in place.

  Entry 2-044: February 8, 2014

 

  Non-coincidences

  Yesterday, I mentioned a series of super-coincidences that make the story as exciting as it is. However, if you consider them for too long, they kind of break down. Today I'd like to discuss non-coincidences. This is the "glue" that binds together the story behind Rome's Revolution and the books in the series.

  If you let it slide how improbable it was that Rei's Ark was found passing through the Tabit system, then Rei meeting Rome is easy to accept. After all, Rome's Revolution, if nothing else, is a love story and it is those two people who are in love. My explanation about why Rome was chosen to reanimate Rei holds up on many levels.

  The scene where Rei and Rome use the Espansor Bands and they malfunction and their souls intertwine is explained in the story. The exact same phenomenon occurred between Rome's parents, Fridone and Binoda, so as the story moves along, it isn't hard to believe at all.

  The fact that Rei stepped into OMCOM's long-term holographic storage area and became mesmerized by the dazzling, sparkling lights is not that hard to believe. The fact that OMCOM took advantage of it to implant a post-hypnotic suggestion only speaks to the fact that OMCOM had figured out what was going on and he wanted to give Rei some protection that nobody, even Rei, would know about. In the original, long-form version of Rome's Revolution, OMCOM was more detached and more self-centered but in the modern version, in his own way, he is looking out for everyone's (including his own) best interest.

  The fact that the Stareater arrives at the Tabit system just as the Vuduri are leaving makes for a dramatic ending of Part 1 but does not stretch the imagination. After all, they had plotted the course of the swarm of Stareaters, who travel at one half the speed of light and deduced they were going to arrive at Earth in three years. So Tabit was well back in the area where Stareaters could dwell. With regard to why the Vuduri missed
the event at Winfall is explained in the text, rather well I think, because of the Vuduri miscalculation of the flow of time.

  There are other non-coincidences that do not require the suspension of belief. The Vuduri accepted Rome into their medical facility on Deucado because they wanted to locate the fallen Ark. MINIMCOM developed his whoosh-pop PPT tunnels based upon their crash landing on Deucado. His "invisibility" cloak was rather easy, technologically, once he saw how the Deucadons did it. The weaponized VIRUS units were a direct result of their malleable programming in the first place.

  I guess, in the end, a story is a story. And if you start pick apart the threads woven together to tell the tale, pretty soon you just end up with a pile of threads. So let it go and enjoy!

  Entry 2-045: February 9, 2014

 

  Why did the Overmind reject the VIRUS units?

  This isn't really a plot hole but why did the Overmind reject the VIRUS units as a solution to the Stareater problem? With the information returned from Tabit, surely the Overmind knew that the Earth was doomed without them.

  We only find out that the Overmind is going to abandon Earth right at the end of Rome's Revolution and it depresses Rome completely. Rei is flabbergasted. How can the Overmind turn its metaphorical back on the only proven solution for defeating the Stareaters?

  The answer lies within the very structure of Vuduri society. After the Robot War, the Vuduri made it an integral part of their society that no computer and therefore no memron could ever come in contact with a Casimir Pump again. They felt it was simply too dangerous. And the VIRUS unit is nothing more than a self-replicating memron with twin Casimir Pumps attached. It was the living embodiment of this edict. This is why Rome was convicted and banished to Hawai'i. The Overmind wanted no part of this.