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The Unraveling
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Wool: Discuss Book 4: The Unraveling
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Rob, Roberator
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Apr 30, 2013 03:30AM
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I sorta jumble books 4 and 5 together, so I don't want to say too much lest I spoil. I will say that this is where we start to see that things aren't black and white.I admit that I lost focus during parts. I don't care so much about the technical details of fighting/battle scenes so I skimmed a lot of these parts.
I definitely was all about uncovering the truth, so still leaned toward favoring the engineers and Juliette, but also was invested in the artist guy.
I haven't finished this part yet, but I'm just wondering why the programming for the visor image stops working once Juliette gets past the visible line. I was imagining the program as taking in what a camera on the visor sees and modifying it (taking bodies and making them look like rocks, taking dead earth and making it look alive. It can't just be a video because it needs to react exactly to her position and head movements to ensure that she is able to see what she needs to do the cleaning. With that filtering program running, I don't see why it wouldn't just apply the same things to this new world. Wouldn't all of the silos use the same program and it would work anywhere. I could maybe buy that they hadn't programmed in what the bottoms of buildings look like, but I just don't buy that there is a magical line where everything past it is unfiltered.
I've done my fair share of programming and just can't figure this out. Some blips or bugs I would believe but it just completely failing at a certain point I don't buy. Unless some programmer along the way wanted to help out anyone who got that far. Any other programmers out there who can think of a rational for what Juliette sees in her visor?
Part 4 was compelling. I like how the narrative split into three, focusing on Jules, Knox, and Lukas. Given the relationship between Lukas and Jules and Lukas's new role as a shadow to Bernard, I wonder if we're being set up for a tragedy. Or will their relationship save them from ending up like Silo Seventeen?After reading Shaina's comments, I thought, Oh yea. I did stumble a bit on that. Funny how I was able to put my disbelief in check and continue on with the story here, but I have a much more difficult time doing the same thing with the people traveling through the silos on stairs.
There was a big jump in time when the story shifts from Knox climbing the stairs with his army to Lukas describing the battle. Was that jarring to anyone else?
I thought Jules chasing Solo through the silo was the most predictable part of the series thus far. But still it didn't stop me from enjoying the story.
Wasn't it interesting that part four ends the same way as part three-with a shift to Bernard's POV and him going to the radio and communicating with another silo?
Shaina wrote: "I haven't finished this part yet, but I'm just wondering why the programming for the visor image stops working once Juliette gets past the visible line. I was imagining the program as taking in wh..."Hmmm, that never occurred to me, I guess I just assumed all the number crunching was happening back in IT and they were using a line of sight type feed to the visors...now I'm going to have to go back and reread it.
D. H. wrote: "Given the relationship between Lukas and Jules and Lukas's new role as a shadow to Bernard, I w..."I was wondering the same. Especially after we learned how Juliette got her name.
Shaina wrote: "Shaina (ShainaEG) | 31 comments I haven't finished this part yet, but I'm just wondering why the programming for the visor image stops working once Juliette gets past the visible line. I was imagining the program as taking in what a camera on the visor sees and modifying it (taking bodies and making them look like rocks, taking dead earth and making it look alive. It can't just be a video because it needs to react exactly to her position and head movements to ensure that she is able to see what she needs to do the cleaning."I think it's because IT simply didn't think it was necessary to record any other footage as the suits/heat tape failed before the people could cross line of sight. Either that, or it didn't matter anyway since by then the cleaners already knew they were dying and didn't need false images.
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But my take on it was that they made a much less adaptable program. They essentially created a fixed set of objects and pegged them to realworld coordinates and then didn't create any objects beyond that. Sort fo like building a landscape scene for a video game.
I would think it's simpler to code that than to create a world that adapts on the fly to unknown terrain. Though it's a lot more lines because you have to create all the objects.
It's funny how people say certain parts of the story are predictable and therefore disappointed them. I find most stories predictable frankly. It's almost impossible to tell a truly new story of course. And in some cases having no predicatbility would mean a non-sensical story. I get my enjoyment out of whether they are interestingly told.
That said I find Woool to be one of the least predictable books I've read in a long time. Just when I think I have it pegged it twists.
I too felt the pace began to slow down in this part. Not necessarily even a bad thing. Gives us a chance to get to know Knox and Walk a little better. And Juliette's story kept me on edge until she met solo. I figured she would survive but then I'd felt that way about the Mayor and the Deputy too, so I just wasn't certain.
What I do like is that we're not just being kept in the dark with dribs and drabs of the mystery doled out until the big reveal at the end. Huge chunks of secrets are revealed. When Bernard took Lukas into the back room I was like a kid in a candy store. And usually author's delay things like the call from Juliette because it seems 'too easy' but Howey just goes for it. I kind of love that. Especially because as much as he's revealed you're still hundering for more. Or at least I am.
I also imagined that it was programmed from inside the silo- and that the programmers could only code imaged for what they saw so that once the cleaner stepped over the hill whatever lay beyond was not visible to the silo and therefore the programmers were unable to create images for it? Maybe? I have so little technical skill this is pure speculation.
Ah, so you guys are kind of imagining a mapping where a full virtual world of everything that can be seen is displayed based on her position and where she's looking. that certainly makes sense, and they just add a boulder every time a new body appears.That seems to make me think that the different silos are doing divergent things to ensure that the cleanings happen. Rather than all being able to share one piece of software. Unless all of the silos are similar enough that the same base geography was used and the IT heads have just added to it over the years.
I really love how much this world is making me think about it. I've been thinking about it as I fall asleep and when I shower and walk to the subway. I've been trying to piece out why it's better for only the head of IT to know the truth than for everyone to know the real purpose.
Also, I really want to be the head of IT and be in that secret room. Access to all the data and knowledge of your civilization.
Dies anyone have any thoughts on why Bernard/IT wanted to start getting more involved in the politics? Had something already been set off by Holsten and his wife? It seems like a lot of this could have been avoided if IT had just kept running things from the shadows. And maybe had a little chat about the truth with Juliette.
Shaina wrote: "Ah, so you guys are kind of imagining a mapping where a full virtual world of everything that can be seen is displayed based on her position and where she's looking. that certainly makes sense, and..."Well- we know the head honchos of each silo are in contact- or at least have the ability to speak with one another via the links that they have. With that in mind I imagine that any tech that they might create they would share with one another when it came to cleanings etc. BUT- I imagine that the tech that they have is much the same that they're had for YEARS and there doesn't seem to be much wiggle room for change/progress. I could see them with the same static tech and programming for ages with no reason to update/upgrade/change.
Shaina wrote: "and they just add a boulder every time a new body appears"They don't even do that. In part 1 when Holston trips over a body as he walks up the hill it is because he doesn't see anything in his visor. It was not part of the program at all. It was only after he broke through the visor he saw what he thought was a boulder that turns out to be a body.
I don't think that the programmed paradise has changed at all for many years.
Juliette definitely sees the bodies replaced by boulders, so there is some updating going on, but it wouldn't be hard to just stick in a boulder where there is a body. "Holston and Allison. Hidden from her by the magic of the visor. Covered in a mirage of stone.
.....
She glanced down at the hill and spotted sporadic other boulders resting in the grasses, their arrangement not random at all but where the cleaners of old had collapsed." (p233 or 234)
Mod
Project Manager: Yes...
E: But you're also requesting on the fly adaptation of all scenery.
PM: Of course. Is that a problem?
E: No, we can write you code that doe sa 1-for-1 substitution for all elements, but that's going to take a lot of time and testing and we wouldn't be able to meet your ship date.
PM: What can we do?
E: Well if your subjects are never leaving the near hill environment, I suggest we just code a static landscape for that environment. We can put a small amount of effort into adaptive code that turns unexpected objects into say boulders or something.
PM: What if they make it beyond the hill?
E: Well, what are the chances of that? It's like saying, "What if someone uses a Mac to access our website?" You know? It's always a possibility but the use cases are such a low percentage I just can't recommend devoting time and resources to it.
they should have just made it all go black, then you can't see anything else and get disoriented. Maybe it's still on some to do list that never got done before they had to go underground.
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Maybe it's still on some to do list that never got done before they had to go underground."
E: Well that would have been easy enough to implement, but I'm looking over your Project Requirements and I don't see that isted anywhere in the scope....
Oh I see Tom has been to my place of employment...
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And mine!
I'm totally with Tom here. Given infinite time and resources I'm sure they could have programmed something more flexible.
I rarely get the amount of time I need to implement the changes I want because the customer priorities are always changing.
And you can drive yourself crazy with those fringe cases. I remember this one time where my code crashed an email server by flooding it with alerts because the expected number of alerts per component per day was less than 5 and we had a component send us hundreds of thousands. And of course it was over the weekend.
Needless to say rewriting that part of the code suddenly became a priority. Go figure.
Personally I found the software's limits very realistic.
I have similar issues about the visor to the ones Shaina has.The problem that I see with the landscape issues is that seeing the decrepit state of the bottoms of the buildings or the lacks of bottoms of other buildings implies that the helmet is mounted with some sort of camera. If it were just lack of programming, it seems to me that the screen would show nothing at all beyond the horizon.
So, either there should have been some sort of mechanism in place to encode everything on the fly, or there should have been no data to display. Does that make sense? It wouldn't have been a programming choice to make the screen go black, it seems to me like it must go black if everything in the visor is programmed to be a lie.
Granted, this would mean that there was no way at all she would have survived to make it to the next silo over because she could have never seen the next silo over. It seemed like his attempt to add depth to the deception fell a little flat. Maybe just having the bottoms of the fabricated buildings missing from view would have been enough to convey this. Aside from those gripes, I'm still enjoying the book as a whole.
I guess the normal state of the screen must be transparent, otherwise you would need to program for everything inside the silo as well. But in the end, I accept it for the sake of the story, even though it's kinda concoluted. Same goes for making the suit hard to take off. Why? You want the people to die anyway, so why make it hard to get out of the suit?
They don't want people to take the suit off before they clean
The software was obviously written by Dilbert from a spec his boss wrote :)But seriously, I am enjoying this more as the story develops and matures. It now feels like a real developed novel, instead of books 1 and 2 which felt more like 'throw some great ideas out quickly to see which stick'. Continuing on to book 5 and looking forward to finding out how it ends.
I thought it was interesting that Bernard gets painted in a more sympathetic light in this section. Which is not to excuse him or his actions, but I can see how he's been conditioned to follow the Order and not to question it, just like the others have been conditioned to follow the Pact and not to question it.My thought regarding the helmet is that they've constructed a very detailed virtual world encompassing the bowl in which the silo sits. Some sort of tracker records the position and attitude of the helmet within that bowl, relays that back to IT, who renders the view and transmits it to the display. Or maybe the suits have enough processing & storage power to do it locally (which would reduce lag) but that would be tremendously wasteful. Although the whole exercise is tremendously wasteful.
It's maybe not much more sophisticated than the rendering engines found in many games today. The programming can be the same from silo to silo, each one just needs its own data set.
I don't think there needs to be a camera on the suit - if the screen substrate is basically translucent, it can simply render locations not defined within the simulation as transparent. It needs to do this for when the suit is inside (hidden from the antennas). The must always stay in sight rule could simply be from necessity, since the telemetry and screen transmissions would likely be simple radio waves which need line of sight. Outside the bowl was simply not catered for, cos no one ever gets that far, right? And even if they did, it's not like they're going to be able to complain. I mean, reach another silo, get all the way down to IT, find the secret comms bunker and phone home? "Hey guy, your suit is duff, come and fix it!" How likely is that?
Just finished Book 4 now and will probably finish book 5 by tomorrow!I hadn't thought too much about the helmet view, yet now that it's mentioned, I do wonder about Holsten's helmet from Book 1? His helmet, if I recall correctly, went blank soon after he stumbled over his wife's body. So shouldn't Juliette's helmet have done the same? Maybe hers still worked because her suit was made with better material? Perhaps Holsten's view went black once the suit was damaged by the elements.
Anyway, I did like this book more than any of the earlier ones. It felt more active with the shifting viewpoints. Plus, I like the insertion of lines from the Tragic Historye of Romeus and Juliet. I just hope Juliette and Lukas' story isn't so tragic.
I still, however, have a sense of impending doom. Ever since Juliette stumbled over all the bodies outside of and at the top of silo 17. I hope things will change for silo 18, yet I cannot see how things would get better. Granted, Juliette intends to come back, but won't she have the same problem of letting in the bad air, like she did when she entered silo 17, assuming she is able to make a suit for herself from whatever is left in silo 17? Earlier she speculated she could build a suit, so I'm not questioning that. I wonder about the available materials. Everything would be over 30 years old and the supplies in IT would presumably be faulty.
Also, if others discover that there are other silos out there, couldn't that cause a panic? I would think some, at least, would begin to feel trapped within their silo and yearn to go outside.
I really hope things end for the better. Guess I'll find out soon enough.
Yes, I picked up the star-crossed lovers reference in part 3, with Juliette and Lukas in the cafeteria watching the stars.Holsten spent a long time cleaning, which Juliette didn't. So she would be able to go much further before the battery failed (I suspect it was timed quite carefully, along with the air supply).
Finished book 4 and although I am still enjoying the story it seems to be getting bogged down at this point. One point that struck me is why would anyone let IT build the suits? I'm in IT myself and although a lot of us are technically pretty savy, a lot of us are not that practical in real life terms. I can explain to you, and draw diagrams, of how a car engine works, but can I change my own oil... nope :)
This was probably my least favourite part of the book.I'm not over fond of Lukas, and whilst his friendship with Bernard was interesting, the book didn't really sell their relationship to me, and I barely felt like the characters even knew each other, let alone well enough for Bernard to trust Lukas with so much. Perhaps part of my struggle with Lukas' character was that I just don't buy the whole 'Romeo and Juliet' thing anymore. My younger self lapped that stuff up, but older, more cynical me is thinking 'oh, come on, get real, he doesn't even know her!'
I liked Juliette's exploration of the silo until she met someone else. It's not that there was anything really wrong with the meeting, but it seemed a little too convenient, and I liked it better when she was on her own, unravelling the mysteries alone.
The uprising was nicely played for the most part, but it felt rushed toward the end.
Don't get me wrong, though, I'm still enjoying the story, and wanting more. On to part 5.
I loved this part! Best part so far. I really felt it picked up speed. The chapters were shorter, POV switched, we found out a tone about the world. I loved the unfolding of everything, from the larger world view to the escalating situation in silo 18. Although I do agree I felt like Bernard and Lukas hardly knew each other.
Also, if this star crossed lovers thing is played up too much I will be very disappointed :(
