We're All Human

Afterword

Panpan. An interesting element. Panpan's sole purpose in this story was giving the impression of a larger world, and on giving the  "relying on strangers" theme just a tiny bit more reinforcement. She's a bit character in this book, but who's to say what she'll become?

Incidentally, some of the CASH posters have defined personalities, mostly because they're based on failed characters I've already had. Akemin's a Tokyo-based miser with terrible self-care skills and a bent towards transhumanism, Ryoryo's her brother who's significantly more willing to spend money and occasionally have fun. Heyase's a grey-hat hacker who spent several years trolling the Make*Believe people (Ringo and his friends). And, I think more importantly than any of these, Princess PewPew is Ringo's best friend, the second in command of his cultbusting group, and generally a really interesting character. It's somewhat regrettable that she didn't appear in more than one chapter, but I suppose that's how it goes. 

Okay, enough of the bit players. Time to get to the people this book is actually about.

Starting with Dante. Dante is the book's deuteragonist, and if you look on who does things throughout it, it's mostly Dante. She's a foil to Atai-- she takes action where Atai dithers, gets in arguements where Atai makes friends, watches Black Alley Stories from a literary perspective where Atai watches it for how it makes her feel. Dante is one of those other characters who is many, many times more qualified to save the world than Atai is. And, indeed she does, and she, to a lesser degree, sacrifices herself at the end-- she loses her physical body, but more importantly she loses her reason for existing. She doesn't start like this. For all she talks about saving Angele, she's in it to commit revenge. For whom? I'm not sure. She says it's for Angele, but she also hates Wareware because he's who she /could/ be, who she fears that she is. Like Shizuo Heiwajima, she views herself as a monster, and yet tries so hard not to be one. And in the end, she succeeds, but only because of Atai. They empower eachother, Dante spurring her to action, Atai spurring her to goodness. It's because of this that Dante, in the end, is allowed to take Atai's place as an AI, and to write her story (the book may or may not be an in-universe account by Dante of Atai's feelings about the situation.)

Ringo's much the same. He's afraid. He managed to resist the cult but now he's being hunted, and he doesn't know what to do except for struggle. That's why he turns the defense over to Atai-- he understands that there's a great moral imperative going on, that a plan to save the people turned by Wareware back is essential... but he also knows that he would kill them all if he had to. I'm not honestly sure to what extent his regret in the epilogue is sincere, but maybe Atai changed him, too. He was, after all, willing to gamble his life on her plan working. He's very much the hero of another story, too, speaking of books that must be written.

And the hero, Atai. As much as she's the most important one for me to write an essay about, I think I already did. If you read the book, you see who she is. She's afraid but brave, she trusts her friends more than anyone, and she believes in the intrinsic goodness of mankind despite it all. No, I don't know where she came from. You don't explain miracles. They just happen.

Her dark mirror, Wareware. Atai is a machine that is human. Wareware is a human that is, in the end, little more than a machine. After her childhood, most of Atai's existance is refered to with organic terms-- she's blind instead of "no optical inputs", she very explicitly "lives" in her computers. And at the same time, Wareware's distributed model is refered to with explicitly mechanical terms-- Nodes, routing, update. Yet, she was born from nothing in a library computer, and he was born a man named John. For Dante and for most of BASMUSH's character arcs, it's important that he's a human who becomes a monster, where they're monsters who are all more-or-less human. But beyond that, his existence is purely mechanical, aside from aberrations like his fascination with Angele. He exists solely to blot out independent thought. He doesn't think, he doesn't do anything, and in the end he gives up and allows himself to be wiped away with no resistance whatsoever.

I'm aware that he's pretty much a walking pillar of "avoiding death is bad" which conflicts heavily with my stated philosophy. However, my stated philosophy, while anti-death, is also anti-murder.

Those are who populated this world, these are the threads that together weave a simple story-- we're all human, all of us, no matter how wretched we think we are, no matter what we do, we all deserve a chance to be happy and healthy and wealthy and wise, to live and to love. Thank you for reading.

Questions:

One of these questions is important that I know the answer to, the other is just a survey as to your preferences. I'd prefer that you answer both, but please answer the first at least.

Who, in your opinion, is speaking at the end of the book? Who is the person who wakes up in the computer, and who is giving them words of advice? Generally, what's happening? Please state why you think this in whatever detail you feel fitting, but I will accept answers with no explanations.

(if you want a canon answer-- I have no idea.)

Second, if I were to write continuation works, would you rather I upload them as individual books, or as attachment to this one? If I upload them as individual books, would you want me to add a new chapter to this book keeping you informed as to new releases?