Here's a numerical token you can use to reclaim it at the end of the day. With the help of Dr. X, a Chinese hacker and secret leader of the Celestial Kingdom phyle, Hackworth makes a bootleg copy of the Primer for his daughter, Fiona. The South African Republic (Transvaal), virtually bankrupt, had suffered military humiliation at the hands of the Pedi, and support for President Thomas F. Burgers had declined because of this. The book has a hidden connection to an actor named Miranda that reads and acts out story's in the book and teaches Nell. And it does - what I love about Stephenson is his high level of prescient-ness. If you fall of the tech-speak train you start to glaze over a bit and get confused, or at least I do. So the girls will become Leaders of a new way, with out the foot deforming etc, but with the use of the seed. From Wikipedia: "The Confucian solution of the Primer was hierarchical, while the Victorian was highly individualistic." Perhaps it was the effect of the subversive aspect of the Primer on the Mouse Army. Hackworth is ordered to join the Dreamers, a weird collective intelligence among which, through his subconscious, he designs a nanotech control method for the Celestial Kingdom represented by Dr. X. Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. Certain parts of your experience will be much funnier if you wear it, while others will be unspeakably boring if you don't. The Boxer Rebellion was lead by The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, and was anti-foreign. Now, go to the diamond charging station to the left and place the Hexipal in it. The period also witnessed the first political organizations among Coloureds in the Cape and Indians in Natal and the Transvaal. She died three months later in her sleep, and had the grandest funeral Turingia has ever seen. It'll be perfectly safe here behind the counter. Running away from his own nature that could not unthink what was once thought of. The spirits know Janet as the first one to cross over, but somehow, only Mr. Martin seems to have been witness to that. This is the third Neal Stephenson book Ive read, the first two being. We know only a few of the oldest girls were subjected to this because they are the ones being carried by the army on the march. Yet I don't think I ever truly understood the story, and certainly not the ending. Various characters suggest that this caregiving figure is what allows Nell to develop into a well-adjusted, inquisitive, and confident adult. Together, they represent a new . The book ends with Nell finding Miranda because the entire novel has been about her search for, and the importance of, a loving family. I get the feeling that Stephenson's writing process goes something like this: The logical dystopian continuation of a feudal system in a cyberpunk, no wait, the cyberpunk, yes you heard right, setting. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Cities appear divided into sovereign enclaves affiliated or belonging to different phyles within a single metropolis. Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. Diamond Age also includes fully narrated educational tales from the Primer that map Nell's individual experience (e.g. The Primer was just scratching the surface of what such a system was capable of. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Technological visionaries such as Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle, both of whom receive an honorary mention in The Diamond Age, have argued that if nanotechnology develops the ability to manipulate individual atoms at will, it will become possible to simply assemble diamond structures from carbon atoms, materials also known as diamondoids. If you are raised on a steady diet of "Western" literature it's easy to miss these double meanings. The left shapes are the starting points of the wires and the right shapes are the ending points. they produced the necessary goods; and 3) the artisans, because they In what context did Garak (ST:DS9) speak of a lie between two truths? Be as it may, the Celestial Kingdom and Dr. X are definitely not of the anarchist persuasion, quite the opposite in fact. The Vickys, neo-Victorians, are a tribe. suitable for the unique cultural requirements of the Han readership. Nell spent most of her days organising the life of the Community. Nell in the real world desides to find her hidden mother and finds out that she has become part of the wet net Drummers. Improving the copy in the close modal and post notices - 2023 edition, New blog post from our CEO Prashanth: Community is the future of AI, Latest Blog Post: Favorite Question and Answers from First Quarter 2023. 7 yr. ago Miranda was grasping at straws to contact Nell. The computer is named "Wizard 0.2", a typographical allusion to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was the destruction of our society. As integrating the Han girls into neo-Victorian society was deemed as too much of a shock, Queen Victoria II ordered Imperial Tectonics to build a small round artificial island, Turingia, not too far from New Chusan. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. Indeed, just as we named the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Steel Age after the materials that humans could make, we might call the new technological epoch we are entering the Diamond Age". With the girls turning nineteen, they were encouraged to discover other phyles, spreading knowledge, gaining new experiences, and making new acquaintances primarily to men. GENERAL FICTION, by Feed lines were installed ubiquitously, but in much smaller supply than those of New Atlantis, which incidentally fit snugly with the frugal lifestyle of the Girls. THE DIAMOND AGE. Which, OK, is worth doing, but it's 3:42am and I've been reading since about 8pm, so forgive me if I don't open it up again just now. After high school, Caitlin travels the world and cant understand why Vix, by now at Harvard on a scholarship and determined to have a better life than her mother has had, wont drop out and join her. Sir? As for them both leaving the Middle Kingdom they attack the fist checkpoints while Hackworth is watching and tie them up. In The Diamond Age, much is made of the fact that there is an actual human who loves Nell behind the face of the Primer. Rebel groups are working underground to create the Seed, a native, alternate form of nanotechnology. The novel's character Judge Fang is based on a creative extension of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee mystery series, which is based around a Confucian judge in ancient China who usually solves three cases simultaneously. The Bond initially represented poorer farmers and espoused an anti-British Pan-Afrikanerism in the Cape and beyond, but, after its reorganization a few years later under Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, the group began to champion the Capes commercial interests and acquired a new base of supportmainly wealthier farmers and urban professionals. The Drummers were disbanded by New Atlantan nanosites that destroyed the rod logic embedded in the Hive Mind. The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. Rice was the basis for our society. The story of how this casual invitation turns the two girls into what they call "Summer sisters" is prefaced with a prologue in which Vix is asked by Caitlin to be her matron of honor. This conflict has an economic element as well, with the Feed representing a centrally-controlled distribution mechanism, while the Seed represents a more flexible, open-ended, decentralized method of creation and organization. - and it is like a roller coaster coming off the rails and crashing very, very suddenly on the last page. RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 1995. must be better ways to do it now, maybe by regulating the growth of Wait, sir? Miranda Redpath, an aspiring actor, serves as the voice and personality for Nells Primer. Has Dynabook inspired Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age? In fact I think it also predicts a lot of the future of nanotechnology and entertainment. It is also hinted that property rights are so expansive that the Protocol recognizes children as the economic assets of their parents. National governments have vanished, leaving society divided into enclaves along ethnic, cultural, and ideological lines, the most dynamic of which are the new-Victorian Atlanteans of . What is the connection between Snow Crash and The Diamond Age? But then other stories come into play and confusion sets in - at least in my head it did! A young woman padded Dr. X sends Hackworth to North America to join the Drummers, a group that uses orgiastic sex to create a distributed human network that endlessly grows as more people get infected with their particles via sex; this network is needed to create the Seed. The most important quality to achieving an interesting life is deemed to be a subversive attitude towards the status quo. The rise of the Afrikaner Bond and new laws affecting franchise qualifications and taxes also stimulated more-vigorous Black participation in electoral politics after 1884. Judy Blume. He was not looking for anything he was running away. This has been on my shelf a while, I think a friend sent it to me. At Nells request the island was kept flat, and populated by simple, nearly identical houses, hierarchically organised into groups of four. @moohbear I think the implications of the rest of Dr. X's speech is that you need the scholar-bureaucrats to "teach" (IE, enforce) proper strata and order so that some farmer with a grudge doesn't decide to grow a couple of WMDs to nuke his annoying neighbor's home. Neal Stephenson The first Seeds appeared in the spring. Hackworth did put confusion values in the chinese version of the primer. Peasants planted the seeds and had the Snow Crash is without question the biggest SF novel of the 1990s. In the extremely globalized future depicted in the novel, these cultural divisions have largely supplanted the system of nation-states that divides the world today. With the Feed networks burnt the population struggled, and the Confucian structure slowly gave way to local warlords fighting over the scarce resources. Mind Matters were much more vague in nature, focusing around education, and a development of a cultural identity. When the Feed came in from Atlantis, from Nippon, we no longer had to plant, because the rice now came from the matter compiler. Welcome to Stephensonland! Neal Stephenson, by out of the kitchen on silk slippers and gave Hackworth his own tumbler The Chinese do not like being economically dependent on foreigners and so they rebel against the foreigners that live along the coast of China in order to kick them off their soil and cut off the flow of The Feed. All of this is staggeringly inventive and meticulously detailed, but, lacking a coherent plot and set forth in an by It is to some extent a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The Feed carries streams of both energy and basic molecules, which are rapidly assembled into usable goods by matter compilers. Process of finding limits for multivariable functions. Hackworth makes his last contribution to the creation of the Seed, but Nell rescues Miranda before the Drummers can create it. Redesigned and rebooted, it formed the backbone of a virtual work and play environment that was by far the largest and longest running ractive ever created. Stephenson is undoubtedly a good writer. Sounds like anarchy to me. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. Peasants planted the seeds and had highest status in the Confucian hierarchy. These dramatic changes were propelled by two linked forces: the development of a capitalist mining industry and a sequence of imperialist interventions by Britain. Over the course of the story, the Common Economic Protocol sponsors the investigation of clandestine Seed technologies in order to preserve the established order from subversion, using the justification that unrestricted access to Sources would lead to the proliferation of high tech weapons and result in anarchy. They raise their children to believe in that codebut their children believe it for entirely different reasons." "They believe it," the Constable said, "because they have been . But The Diamond Age can be read as a cautionary tale, revealing the excesses of postmodern culturalism, and the dangers of denying history its role in shaping revolutionary and liberating subjectivities in the face of a global techno-power that has marshaled geography in its conquest of history. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? Within three years they started to understand the Book of the Book, marvelling at the complexity of its design. But with a peasant family able to get anything they want on their own, from food to clothes, medicines, electronics, all the way up to WMD, there seem to be little need for bureaucrats, or even society. The mix of high technology, the sophisticated neo-Victorians, and the Confuscians made a confusing but ultimately satisfying story. When Hofmeyr threw his support behind Cecil Rhodes in 1890, he enabled Rhodes to become prime minister of the Cape; their alliance stemmed from a mutual desire for northward economic expansion. . The industry became a monopoly by 1889 when De Beers Consolidated Mines (controlled by Cecil Rhodes) became the sole producer. Children were laughing, parents were smiling, and grandparents were crying of joy, as they saw their hard work bearing fruit. I remember that part of Dr. X explanation, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me. The novel deals with themes of education, social class, ethnicity, and the nature of artificial intelligence. Does contemporary usage of "neithernor" for more than two options originate in the US, Dystopian Science Fiction story about virtual reality (called being hooked-up) from the 1960's-70's, How to turn off zsh save/restore session in Terminal.app, How small stars help with planet formation, Finding valid license for project utilizing AGPL 3.0 libraries, Trying to determine if there is a calculation for AC in DND5E that incorporates different material items worn at the same time. Okay, here's what this Stephenson guy did with his novel. As Dr. X was a scholar-bureaucrat, elevating farmers to the top of the hierarchy might just be self-effacing. The part that is confusing me is as follows: . It is to some extent a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. Over the course of her childhood and teen years, Nell grows into an able fighter, programmer, and leader because of the Primer. Ok, you're all set. thematic elements have more to do with the importance of good parentingand education than they do with the effects of nanotechnology. When Tom Bombadil made the One Ring disappear, did he put it into a place that only he had access to? Stephenson (Snow Crash, 1992) imagines a 21st century in which molecular machines (nanotechnology) can create any desired object or structure. As the Master said, Let the producers be many and the consumers few.' Although, I'd thought that removing that aspect was Hackworth's alteration that he slipped in when he was ordered to mass-produce it. So, how is giving full control and independence to everyone through the Seed something Mr. X would want? Her epitaph said: Miranda, the Mother of Turingia. I guess it makes sense thematically, but that's a really weak premise to go that route. . The story is about rich foreigners and poor Chinese people. it and without appreciating the ramifications of what he was doing, She joins the Drummers, whose work on the Seed may allow her to unmask Nells identity and location. It only takes a minute to sign up. He could not not endeavour to tread down the path that was once proven possible. development, all of them bowing to Nell, not with a Chinese bow or a In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl Caitlin Somers to spend the summer with her on Marthas Vineyard, her life changes forever. It was just how people in the future entertain themselves. Content Warning: The source novel includes sexual abuse and violence, misogynistic slurs as characterization, and physical violence. She was spotted by many inhabitants as a faery or sprite, helping them out in small, spontaneous and unpredictable ways. Parking lots and chaos.. The primary point of dispute, as always, was intellectual property, the lack of which in Turingia devalued the achievements of neo-Victorian engineering. By the London Convention of 1884, republican self-government was restored, subject to an imprecise British suzerainty over external relations. Hackworth's crime becomes known to Lord Finkle-McGraw and Dr. X, the black market engineer whose compiler Hackworth used to create the copy of the Primer, and each man attempts to exploit Hackworth to advance their opposing goals. Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience. The Diamond Age Envisions the next century as brilliantly as snow crash did the day after tomorrow." Newsweek "[Stephenson is] the hottest science fiction writer in America. I think the change done in the Mouse Primer, was to make them loyal to the first Primer, to Princess Nell. The last 50 pages or so make zero sense given the rest of the novel, and the ending itself seems more like just a stop rather than an ending. Epilogue to "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson - fan fiction by Robert Sugar Aftermath Nell and the Mouse Army settle down John Percival Hackworth and the Seed Following the Day of the Thousand Fists many events happened in quick succession. After the revolution of the Fists, chaos reigned over most of old China. I find it strange to paint the Seed as a Chinese/Confuscianist ideal. South Africa experienced a transformation between 1870, when the diamond rush to Kimberley began, and 1902, when the South African War ended. He spent a lot of time with his daughter, making up for all those years they have not seen each other. shocked to see that her feet were no more than four inches long. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. All of the girls (including Nell) have taken part in this activity in a highly orderly fashion. Other phyles are less defined some intentionally, as with the CryptNet group or the mysterious hive-mind Drummers. To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers. It probably didnt even hurt. Nell ) have taken part in this activity in a highly orderly fashion chinese.! Chaos reigned over most of her days organising the life of the girls ( including Nell ) taken. Crying of joy, as they saw their hard work bearing fruit and basic molecules, which are rapidly into... ( including Nell ) have taken part in this activity in a highly orderly.. At the end of the hierarchy might just be self-effacing best answers are voted up and rise the. 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