Chương 64: The Path Less Taken

I snapped my fingers. And the whole world came to an instant pause. The sights, the sounds, the endless stream of drones and the chaotic crowds of people all frozen unnaturally in place. There were multiple ways things could proceed from this point forward. An inordinate number of trajectories by which this exercise… no, this presentation could be taken. But with Ilunor having already reached the Information Dissemination Overflow threshold, those trajectories all but coalesced into one singular direction.

As the flowchart of potentialities all but filtered into a thoroughfare that was by every sense of the word - a wildcard. A box on the flowchart that reads simply as - SUBJECT DEPENDENT. Which meant Ilunor was now going to dictate where we went from here. As mission commander, I could've easily overruled that flowchart, simply gone down a path forged by my own intent. However, the flowcharts existed for a reason.

And if Ilunor's functional state of denial was of any indication, there existed a distressing degree of accuracy by which these predictive analytics operated on. The eggheads and technocrats at home created and designed these guides, manuals, and flowcharts for a reason after all. And it was to mitigate risk, whilst maximizing success potentials for very specific, very narrow sets of variables.

So whilst it wasn't capable of predicting wildcards like the library, the dean, Mal'tory, or any of the magical shenanigans thus far, it was instances such as these where it could shine. I'd been operating more or less outside of its scope of application thus far, completely parallel to its recommendations, so I might as well give it this one. Given how I'd reached a dangerous functional impasse with the Vunerian.

The likes of which was now staring up at me expectantly, and with a gaze that was a stone's throw away from complete and utter detachment from reality. I had to play this carefully.

"Alright Ilunor, where would you like to start?" I spoke thoughtfully, mustering every diplomatically inclined fiber within me from simply yanking him right up and into an ultratall's terrace.

"Point to anything you'd like, or bring up anything we've seen so far, and I'll be more than happy to break things down for you." The deluxe kobold didn't look as if he'd registered those words at first. His expressions ironically became as unflinching as Thacea's, except instead of stoicism or a regal aloofness, his was a constant hundred yard stare that focused on nothing but the air directly in front of it.

"The city." He announced bluntly, and with a monotone hoarseness that matched the vacant expression in his eyes.

"I want to see how it all began. Show me the city as it wasn't, as it was, up until where it supposedly is." Yet despite that monotone, and despite being on the cusp of completely and utterly shattering, he still managed to find it within him to phrase his request in this sing-song vague and cryptic noble-speak. Which was frankly… a good sign. It meant he wasn't a lost cause yet. Something that the EVI agreed with after a little wordless back and forth, and a bit of number crunching.

The fact he was still snippy, ironically, meant that he was still in there. Albeit shaken, and teetering on the edge.

"Okay." I replied after allowing his words to sink in for a bit, speaking through a satisfied grin underneath the helmet. The Vunerian had a whole world to point and choose from, and he picked perhaps the best topic for the situation. A topic that was one I'd been hoping he would pick to begin with.

"EVI, are you ready with that TeamForgeLabsNow timelapse?"

"If you are referring to the Accelerated Overview of the NYC Old Quarter's Development in Greater Acela, I have the simulation parsed and ready, Cadet Booker."

"Awesome." I replied succinctly.

"Now put Captain Li on the tally board. He deserves an honorary mention for this as a New Quarter Yorker." If the EVI was actually sapient, I bet its reactions would be nothing short of a sigh and a head tilt right now. For now it simply brought up our tally board, adding Captain Li into a new third column, and swiftly adding a tally soon after. Though strangely, it simultaneously added one tally mark in its own column, prompting me to perk up but silently accept that it was simply learning by example.

"I'm assuming that one's for your predictions on Ilunor coming to fruition?"

"Correct, Cadet Booker."

"Gotcha. That's fair." I nodded internally.

"You deserve that one."

"Affirmative."

"Now then, let's put on a show. On my mark."

"Affirmative." Switching the audio feed back to the external speakers, I quickly addressed the distressed Vunerian, and the rest of the gang too.

"Hold onto your hats, guys." I spoke with nothing short of excitement. The gang reacted to this with varying degrees of nods. Which meant the EVI was once again on point in translating that timeless expression. I snapped my fingers once again for dramatic flair, a wordless cue for the EVI to begin. The world slowly began receding, like an artistic interpretation of a distant memory fading into the background.

As the lights, the sounds, and the nonexistent smells started fading away, sucked into a central finite point in space until nothing at all remained. A few seconds passed as we were momentarily suspended in a vacuum. Then, we were immediately and unceremoniously thrust back into the world, albeit from an elevated position up and above the city. Or more accurately, above an expanse of land bristling with natural beauty.

As what we saw in front of us was the iconic tri-way vantage point, a perspective that offered views of most of the five boroughs of New York, with the East and Hudson Rivers merging into the Upper Bay, and then out and through the Lower Bay, before meeting the Atlantic Ocean. Manhattan was the focal point of this viewing angle, as it always was in these sorts of programs showing off NYC. Yet even at this point in time, most people would still be able to make out this particular part of Acela.

As Manhattan island, flanked on one side by Brooklyn and Queens, and on the other by New Jersey, was so geographically iconic that even a spacer could make it out after a few long hard looks.

This was true even in spite of the current lack of its equally-iconic New Quarters, as despite the addition of New Manhattan extending the island of the same name, and New Brooklyn expanding on the city's most populous borough, the shape and form of the new quarters complemented the old; making even the pre land extension project borders recognizable to the average observer.

"This was Acela. Or more specifically, the NYC old quarter prior to any support beams being jammed into the earth." I spoke slowly, calmly, and with that same air of contained excitement I'd used up to this point.

"What I'm about to show you is a timelapse of the city's origins, of its urban development throughout the years, so if at any point you wish for me to pause to explain something, please feel free to do so." A round of tentative nods was the only response I received from the group, with Ilunor thankfully taking part in that exchange with a little head bob of his own. So with that little caveat out of the way, the timelapse began. And the first visible changes to the land started coming into focus.

It started off simply enough. With the establishment of dirt roads, log huts and cabins, alongside the presence of a handful of brick-reinforced structures. Horses and a whole host of animal-drawn vehicles started coming into focus too, as the timelapse made it look as if someone had just booted up an Era of Epochs game, before smashing the timeskip button until all of the individual figures became nothing but a blur of movement.

The pace really started picking up now as wooden ports started appearing around the small town-sized development nestled atop of Manhattan island. With the appearance of the first large fully-rigged sailing vessels entering the harbor being the only thing to slow the pace down, just to allow the gang some time to get a feel of the era's technological state, before picking back up its hastened pace. No one raised any brows, or had any objections to either the city nor the ships at this point in time. Which was good.

It meant that the dissemination threshold was holding. Early NYC was, after all, quite comparable to the cities as seen through the sight-seers. Thacea's sight-seer in particular made it clear that such ships existed, and in an adjacent realm no less. Which made it a good jumping point for Ilunor, as the point of contention was more than likely going to start as industrialization really kicked in. The seconds ticked by with each passing year now roughly corresponding to roughly a second of holographic time.

As we moved swiftly from the 18th to the 19th century. Wood structures were expanded until they could expand no more, and were swiftly replaced by brick and mortar buildings. Some of them now proudly boasted design flourishes that demonstrated the city's growing wealth.

A wealth that was corresponding in tandem to the development of the harbors and ports, as New York's more illustrious harbors started gaining a foothold, with larger and larger ships in greater and greater volumes coming into and out of the harbor at dizzying speeds. The roads were likewise changing, as dirt roads were filled with gravel and stone, then eventually pavement.

Horses and wagons soon gave way to buggies and carriages more reminiscent of Lord Lartia's stretched-carriage, or more accurately, Thalmin's own realm and the abundance of beast-drawn vehicles in his capital. But as the 1830s started drawing to a close, so too did the direct comparisons between Earth, and the adjacent realms start to diverge. With the appearance of a large, lumbering, smoke-spewing behemoth that despite having its sails on proud display, was unlike any other vessel currently in the harbor.

The thrash thrash thrash of its paddlewheels churned the calm waters of harbor, and if smellovision was a thing, the group would've probably been hit with a facefull of burnt coal as the camera deliberately spun and focused in on this beast of iron and wood born out of the early efforts of industrializing humanity. On its side, was written in English, translated to High Nexian - the SS GREAT WESTERN. The age of sail had come to an end. And the age of steam had just begun.

As expected, the group's attention was now placed squarely on this vessel. As Thalmin and Thacea in particular seemed utterly drawn to the large paddlewheels on its side, their eyes darting back and forth between that, and the smoke billowing out of its singular smokestack.

"The sails I understand. Wind powered ocean-faring vessels are not beyond us, or at least my realm. However… those… paddlewheels, I'm assuming they play a primary role in the ship's propulsion?" Thalmin was the first to speak up, his confidence in voicing his curiosities was becoming more and more apparent as compared to the other two.

"Correct."

"Propelling itself forward, by virtue of pushing itself along the waves akin to oars." He mused, before quickly adding.

"I am by no means an expert in nautical affairs so you must forgive me if I am making any missteps in my seafaring terminology."

"Don't worry Thalmin, you and I are on the same boat on that front." My unintentional pun was seemingly translated into High Nexian rather literally. As the lupinor prince responded with an appropriately timed puffy cackle, before moving swiftly onward onto his next points.

"With that being said, this begs the question… I don't imagine those paddles to be powered by mana."

"Nope."

"Nor wind."

"Nope."

"Nor the power of beasts nor man hidden within."

"Nope."

"Then it must be the burning of the compressed remains of plant and animal matter, as you so eloquently described earlier." Thalmin pondered, prompting me to simply nod my head in response.

"That is correct." I paused, wondering if I wanted to poke more fun at the topic by bringing up the burning of dragon remains again, but then realized it'd probably be counterintuitive to the goal of this whole exercise - to ease Ilunor in on the reality that Thacea and Thalmin had seemed to already warmed up to. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"If there are no further questions I'll move on to-""Show me." Ilunor interjected, his eyes having ignored everything else currently on display, save for the steamship.

"How does the simple act of burning anything, be it plant, animal, wood, coal, or what have you, equate to that?" He pointed at the rotating paddlewheels.

"How can the mana-less action of mere fire and heat, equate to the movement of such constructs?"

"Easy." I announced with an affirmative nod, snapping my fingers once more, as the projection zoomed in further and further towards the vessel; before outright entering it as we passed the top deck, the bridge, the first class saloon, then heading deep into the bowels of the ship itself. The boiler room. There, we witnessed what amounted to a dirty operation. With chunks of black sooty rock being picked up and shoveled into these massive furnaces; roaring and bathing the entire space in a heat-filled miasma.

"We use this heat-" I started, allowing the EVI to zoom out from that vantage point, before highlighting the water tanks behind it.

"-to boil water. Which then turns into steam." The perspective zoomed out even more now, highlighting the journey of the steam into the engine room, where it began pushing these massive two-story tall pistons.

"Which pushes these pistons, which in turn, is translated to mechanical energy which pushes the paddlewheels." We zoomed out even more, just momentarily touching on the various gears, cogs, and moving parts necessary to translate that energy over into the simple clockwise motion of the paddlewheels. The whole scene lasted for barely a minute, before zooming back out and over the harbor, where I stood with my fists resting firmly on both of my hips.

"Like I said, easy, right?" This was the first time something palpable was touched upon during this presentation. The first time where vague comments and explanations had suddenly been translated into tangible reality. Everything was already there to grasp, the burning of coal, the heating up of water, the creation of steam… the only bridge that needed to be crossed was how those innocuous factors could be translated into usable energy.

Which, given the purely mechanical motions of the whole process, was something I hoped would be easily grasped. Thalmin's eyes practically glowed with an even greater sense of vigor now. Thacea's expressions, whilst unreadable, betrayed something stirring within. And Ilunor? Well, I never imagined that it would be possible for someone to possess both a vacant expression and a look of realization at the same time.

"All of this…" He finally started to respond.

"All of these… roundabout, meandering, long-winded processes… all to mimic but a fraction that the gifts of mana afford us?" He spoke disjointedly, mumbling out some words, yet voicing it in perfect clarity in others. It was as if he was undecided in whether or not he was addressing himself, or anyone else in the group. I allowed him some time to stew as a result. Before finally, he once again fixated his gaze on me.

"You turned a basic principle, a child's toy, and embraced it to make up for your handicaps!" He exclaimed hoarsely.

"In the absence of mana, in the absence of the easy way out, we embraced every principle we understood and applied it practically. We walked the path less taken. Through trial and error what you claim to be a fraction of what mana can afford you, we went from this-" I gestured once more at the SS Great Western.

"-to this-" I flared my hands, and the transatlantic paddlewheel steamer was suddenly accompanied by the iconic Olympic Class liners of the 1910s with their four imposing smoke stacks rising tall and bellowing horns blaring proud.

"-in about eighty years. From there, things only further improved, as we iterated and innovated from burning coal to burning more concentrated sources of heat." Adding to this impromptu lineup, large diesel-powered cruise ships of the 2000s drifted into view; large, unwieldy, monolithic things the size of entire city blocks or hotels balanced precariously upon a hull that was squat and wide. Yet despite my personal distaste for them, they still had their place in history.

"From there, we found even more efficient ways of boiling water to generate steam." The projection switched up yet again, now adding a 22nd century liner, a vessel just under twice the size of its 21st century counterpart, but powered by nuclear engines.

"Before finally, transitioning to more condensed energy sources." I ended the little tangent off with the appearance of a typical 31st century liner, one that ironically held more in common with the aesthetics of those early ships, but with the size, scale, and detailings of modernity giving away its place in the timeline. This whole tangent was… a necessary jumping off point.

To demonstrate that in the absence of mana, and in the absence of power being derived from manual labor or the labor of beasts of burden, there existed an alternative. To show that humanity had chosen that alternative, as a means of hammering home the reality of the potentials of a so-called mana-less civilization. I allowed Ilunor to stew in the shadow of the great modern liners for a few more minutes, as I could actually witness the cogs beginning to turn in his head now.

"And all of this nautical mana-less advancement… for what purpose?" He spoke incredulously, breaking the silence once more. The question should've taken me off guard, but with Ilunor's less than flattering track record, it felt rather on point.

"Same answer as to every other mode of transport we invested our time and energy into - to move people and materials from one side of the world to another." I replied bluntly, before moving to address the real question being asked here.

"However I don't think that's the answer you wanted. That much is obvious enough. Transportation is literally just that after all. So what's your actual question here, Ilunor?" The Vunerian let out a few strained huffs following that little confrontation, a few puffs of white smoke emerging from his nostrils, disrupting the otherwise seamless projection as a result.

"My question, Earthrealmer, is what would possess your kind to go through such lengths as to achieve…" Ilunor paused abruptly, as if the next word he was about to blurt out was at odds with the reality and opinions he wanted to project. A critical error, or an incongruent value in an otherwise cohesive system.

"... what should be impossible." There it was. The cracks in the foundation were showing. The Vunerian, through greater effort, was starting to ease off of the information dissemination overflow threshold. The appearance of the simple, almost innocuous ' should', being demonstrative of how it was now his beliefs holding him back rather than the core understanding of his world preventing him from moving forward.

"Because all of this would have been impossible without either mana, or technology, Ilunor." I replied readily, trying my best to bridge the gap.

"And since our civilization, our people, our world lacks the former… our only option was to embrace the latter."

"Embracing an… alternative is one thing, earthrealmer." Ilunor replied with an intense focus on his face.

"But to embrace it to such an extent, with seemingly no end in sight… what is the purpose?"

"To march forward to the tune of progress for the sake of progress, and for the sake of improving the tools at the disposal to civilization, to better allow civilization to facilitate the needs and wants of its citizenry. To celebrate the past, by continuing their legacy, in creating a better future for all."

"So you supposedly celebrate and honor the past by creating an unrecognizable future?" Ilunor shot back once more, the unexpected divergence from my meaning almost completely threw me off yet again.

"The sacrifices of the past have always been to better the future. Sometimes that future might be different to what the past inherently was." I argued back.

"Then we have very different values on what it means to celebrate and honor the past, newrealmer." Ilunor replied candidly.

"But you cannot deny, Nexian, that the values of Earthrealm are eerily similar to the values of the Nexus and the Crownlands in particular. As it seems as if both trend towards the celebration of civilization?" Thalmin suddenly butted in, prompting the Vunerian's eyes to grow wide with indignation, before transitioning into a look of realization, but emerging on the other end instead with a renewed sense of commitment. A commitment to the narrative of his worldview.

"We are at odds at the crystallization of perfection, and this seemingly senseless commitment to dangerous progression for the sake of nothing but a perceived betterment at the cost of the loss of the eternal permanence of the past." Ilunor replied.

"But can you really say to yourself that this is not a civilization bearing all of the hallmarks of Crownlands Preeminence?" Thalmin once more shot back with a toothy grin.

"You said it yourself, Nexian, the Earthrealmers seemingly experience only issues that arise from that very crystallization of Crownlands Preeminence: the immaterial worries that arise out of complexity." Thalmin quoted me word for word.

"Moreover, she knew what that term was, describing it, without actually speaking it." This seemed to push Ilunor further into a silent stupor, as his look of tentative reconciliation with my explanations was being challenged by Thalmin's more heavy-handed approach. Which prompted me to reenter the fray to prevent the IDOV threshold from being crossed, and to wrestle control of the intended presentation back towards its intended path.

"With all that being said, Ilunor. All I meant to say was that we push forward in spite of our lack of mana, as a result of our tenacious nature to secure what would've been to the past - an intangible dream. You are right in calling us a race of dreamers, but you fail to see how much we wish to see that dream become a reality we can truly live in. How about we proceed?"

Ilunor, along with Thacea and Thalmin, nodded in varying degrees of agreement; an improvement from their former tentative nature to the progression of the projection. The EVI quickly cleared up the lineup of ships, leaving only the SS Great Western remaining, as it finally docks into the harbor to the cheering of period-dressed crowds. Things progressed quickly from there. As the timelapse once more resumed its steady pace.

The rate at which new brick and mortar buildings began rising from the earth hastened, and the establishment of the iconic grid layout started manifesting quicker than the placement of the dirt roads ever managed. The spread of the city increased horizontally, with it taking up more and more of the previously untouched greenery, draping the blanket of green with a cold hard layer of browns and grays. But instead of it spreading from any central focal point, the development seemed to happen sporadically.

With the center of each borough radiating outwards, like tendrils of industrial and urban progress hungry for any free space it could snag up, converting it to more of itself. Train tracks were visible in the distance as well, as grand central station sprung up around the same time, accompanied by a whole host of trains that seemed to grow in size and scale with each passing year.

Each model iterated on the previous, the engines growing larger and larger, the carriages following the same trend, and the length of each train elongating overall as a result. Smokestacks suddenly appeared practically everywhere, as thick black plumes enveloped the skies.

This breakneck pace of industrial and urban development finally came to a head at the turn of the 19th century, with the appearance of one of the first truly tall structures finally emerging out of the dense cluster of buildings that now inhabited Manhattan. From that point forward, the course of the city's development was no longer restricted to a single plane, as a completely new world opened up. The skies.

Vertical development followed the same pattern, highrises emerging from the densest clusters of the urban core, rising seemingly out of nothing, coming to dominate the skies and creating a distinct pattern set against the horizon. The city's skyline. Yet all wasn't completely static on the ground as well, as alongside the development of these new vertical symbols of prosperity came the symbol of prosperity for the common man - the automobile.

As horses, buggies, and carriages suddenly disappeared almost seemingly overnight across the first few decades of the 20th century, replaced almost entirely by their mechanical successors, the noisy, klaxon-sounding machines prompting Thalmin to once again cover his ears, much to Ilunor's delight. Roads were now all but paved in the classic asphalt black, sidewalks were emerging as a result, and gridlock was visible seemingly every other second on the timelapse.

However, as much as the roads were being clogged, so too were the skies themselves starting to become host to a whole new type of technological innovation. As a small, almost imperceptible speck visible against the otherwise bright and cloudless skies made itself known through a series of mechanical sputters. The age of flight had arrived. The first biplanes started to take flight, their sputtering engines barely carried them aloft across the New York skyline.

However, at the pace of the timelapse, these small unwieldy constructs of wood and canvas soon gave way to more rigid constructs, which began performing increasingly daring flights, coloring the skies in banners, advertisements, and daring displays of aerial acrobatics. A brief interlude in the interwar period brought about the appearance of the short-lived airships, as Thacea in particular seemed utterly drawn to their looming, imposing presence.

But just as quickly as they appeared on the projection, so too did they disappear, replaced instead by increasingly larger and larger propeller driven planes that crowded the skies. Eventually those too were phased out, as the sounds of piston-driven engines were outright outcompeted by the shrill exhaust of jet engines. The jet age had arrived. Just barely after the emergence of the age of aviation itself.

Ilunor, having seemingly recalled his own boastful words but a few hours ago, fell questionably silent at the sight of these flying artifices as Thalmin eloquently mumbled out. The thing was, the emergence of aircraft and their development across the 20th century happened so quickly, that their appearance in the time lapse seemed not to have sunk in for the Vunerian just yet.

As he still seemed mesmerized by the short-lived time of the airships, prior to their replacement by larger and larger piston-driven prop planes, that were themselves phased out for jets almost as quickly as they arrived on scene.

Contrails started blanketing the skies with increasingly artificial patterns, indicating the mass proliferation of commercial aviation over the latter half of the 20th century, as development absolutely exploded during this time, with modern glass and steel towers eclipsing the old, art-deco structures.

The rate of construction started slowing in the early to mid twenty-first however, as the Cascade Collapse saw a near complete halt in economic growth, and by extension, the city's otherwise seemingly never ending thirst for urban development. But as quickly as that lull period arrived, so too did it end, as a new economic boom brought on by the beginnings of the intrasolar era drove the engines of industry to a whole new level.

Supertall skyscrapers were now being accompanied by the emergence of some of the first megatalls to arrive onto the scene in NYC, with the greatest irony of it being that the first megatall was constructed not in downtown Manhattan, but in the neighboring Jersey City.

This trend of friendly cross-state, inter-city rivalry came into full swing as lunar colonization brought about a seemingly never ending torrent of economic potential, with megatalls slowly, but surely popping up every which way across the island of Manhattan. At about the same time, the spaghettification of the overground elevated rail systems started coming into its own, as Grand Central now played host to a terminal nexus of newly minted passenger rail services.

Rail services that stopped at the foot, or even inside of some of the newly constructed megatalls, before diverging outwards towards the five boroughs, and even into New Jersey itself. The first inklings of the deeply-integrated Acela could trace its roots to this period of deepening interconnectedness. However, just as quickly as this pace of progress pushed forward, so too did a new challenge emerge. One that arrived in the form of what has, and continues to be the lifeblood of the city itself. The ocean.

As water levels continued to rise, coming to a head in the Big One of 2109, as the city looked as if it had practically sunk beneath the waterline for a short, but still not-negligible period of time. Yet this did nothing to phase the seemingly impregnable city. In fact, it seemed to incite the exact opposite. As something entirely new began manifesting just to the left and right of the projection - a massive buildup of truly epic proportions in an area of otherwise undeveloped space at the banks of the lower bay.

The New York - New Jersey enclosure dam. The birth of the age of terrestrial megastructures had finally arrived.