Reviewer: seldom Signed [Report This]
Date: September 07 2021 2:51 AM Title: Revelation

What a well-written, fantastic story! I don't normally like mini-people stories, but this one has such great characters and fascinating world-building.

Author's Response:

Thank you very much! 

Reviewer: sandman579 Signed [Report This]
Date: August 31 2021 6:48 PM Title: Revelation

Just what the heck happened during the diminishing event 100 years ago? I could understand if specks were carriers for the still active virus that would occassionally effect a normal human to shrink or pass onto a pregnancy and cause normal parents to recieve a speck baby. But one of the victims even said after she was shrunk that it just doesn't happen to people anymore. Some characters like Claire say propoganda like "Its God's punishment" but I can't see society as a whole believing that. There's the propoganda that specks are both habitual thieves stealing a fortune from regular people while also draining billions from governments. But this shouldn't be universal. The holes should be everywhere, with local politicians or economists noticing missing momey in the budgets or regular folks noticing anything of significance being stolen by a speck. Literally the only thing I can see them stealing is jewelry or random food scraps as even smartphones would be too large to make off with.

 

Maddie's outburst is rather strange. I understand if it's a plot device to help facilitate Jisoo to convince Eren to leave the state's with her with no community or job ties to hold him. But all of these business and tech people are literally fighting against their own interest. If it works, just keep quiet about a speck being involved as long as you can and it won't be an issue when people do find out. They'd rather reject Eren's work, which they may not even be able to replace if Eren's the only engineer who could handle the task, when the company simply won't survive if they don't release the robot now to their investors. Does Maddie really have such a contrasting personality where she wants to help the elderly and disabled while clinging to some prejudice against specks? She seems to smart to fall for the propoganda, so what's her personal issue with specks?

 

Technically robotic research and implementation is further ahead in Asia then in the US. If Eren's acceptance into Amrita goes well, will we see him allowed to join or develop a branch in robotics? It would be an amusing twist if Eureka recovers from throwing him out, only for Amrita or a company owned by them to invade the market with a better robot with Eren as a public face of the company as a speck. Maddie can't boo-hoo us with how hard she's worked and how much she just wants to help people while being a hateful supremacist. I'd like to see her fail now, especially if it happens while she sees Eren suceed. She did try to strike him and Jisoo's killed for less so I worry Jisoo or an aid might act before we have a chance to see Maddie lose her company normally

Author's Response:

A lot of characters have very different beliefs about The Diminution, which is how I think it would be if it were to happen in real life, especially if it was theoretically something not obviously explained or agreed upon by the big thinkers of the world. Some characters believe that it was a form of divine punishment definitely, while others subscribe to other theories popular with different scientiests, like it was a virus, or some kind of cosmic effect that we don't possess the technology to detect/observe just yet. Claire is not indicative of the entire world's population and what they believe though, your right. Most prejudices against specks are based off propaganda and years of lying and predisposed bias against specks, which blinds people to reality. Not so different from real life bigotry which isn't based off fact but rather stereotypes which while easily disproven still exist. 

For Maddie, it's more about whether or not investors would accept the product. And she is a very honest person by nature who doesn't like lying, but she is still a very alruistic woman. Just like many people who are charitable in some ways but bigoted in others, I would say she's more 'flawed' than 'contrasting'. It's definitely possible in this world to be by all means a 'good person' by most people's standards, but still dislike specks which begs the question of what really defines a good person. 

Ultimately a goal of this story is to demonstrate how pointless and senseless bigotry is, but how even if easily disproven it still remains pervasive and why that is, which is why I love reviews like this one which focus on the human element of the characters, the flaws they have and investigate why seemingly great people like Maddie would have a pitfall. I think outside of the gts elements of the story it's a good thing to think about!

Reviewer: somerandomguy7 Signed [Report This]
Date: August 29 2021 2:03 PM Title: Revelation

Damn, i was hoping Maddie would be the one to accept him, and the other employees would be pissed off about it. Maybe some if not all would leave the party and company, leaving only Eren and Maddie to figure out a way to continue from there. Oh well, guess that ship has sailed. 

Though Desmond seems to be reasonable. Guessing he might be the one to argue in favor of keeping Eren's contributions and convince Maddie to talk to Eren and have him to keep working there. Fingers crossed!

Author's Response:

We haven't seen the last of Desmond or the Eureka team, stay tuned and see how they react post realization!