Media on CatalystND

Wool - Silo Series

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 15:41:01 -0500

This book is a 10/10

Everything about this setting engrossed me. The characters are flawed in all the right ways, and the way the story is told kept me on the edge of my seat.

I will not retell much of the story as I tend to, I want to get away from that habit, but rather will talk about the parts of the story that captured me. The story definitely has a few acts, and the first one was one of my favorites.

Holston

At the top of the ramp, Holston saw the heaven into which he’d been condemned for his simple sin of hope.

The story of Holston is how we are introduced to the Silo. Holston is the Silo’s sheriff, and has been for long enough to have become a fixture of the silo, but not much longer. He is well loved by those around him - his deputy, the mayor, and at one point, his wife.

Unfortunately, Holston’s wife is no longer in the silo, for she committed the most unforgivable sins in this world, she wanted to leave. Simply saying that wish out loud is enough to send one to a cleaning. See, the silo this story takes place in is fully underground, the world having become uninhabitable long ago. How long is not clear yet, but long enough for the general populace to sometimes doubt much of what they have been told existed in the outside world. Elephants are once brought up as something that must have been made up for the children’s books, and not something that actually existed. Since the silo is fully underground, there is would be no view of the outside world, except there is. There is a sensor array outside, that provides a video feed to the silo of the outside world. However, these cameras get a film over them rather quickly due to the toxins in the air outside. The solution to this problem is an interesting one - those who are sentences to death are instead sentenced to a cleaning, where they are put into a suit to keep them alive for a period of time and sent outside to clean the sensors.

You might ask, if the person sent to cleaning has just been condemned to death by those around them, why would they do this final task for those who would kill them? This is an interesting question that I will not give away, but none the less, they always clean.

A cleaning is a holiday inside the silo. People from all levels come to the top levels to view the large screens of the outside while the view is as clear as possible. This joy and excitement is starkly contrasted by Holston’s remembrance of the day his wife was sent out to clean. He remembers being one of the only ones who was present while she actually did the cleaning - no one else cared enough about his wife to want to deal with the emotional moment where she cleaned the cameras and then wandered off to a nearby hill to die. But he was there, he watched her smiling as she did her final chore. Now every time he looks at the screens that show the outside, he can see his wife’s body hidden away in her cleaning suit, forever memorialized.

But why did she even say she wanted out if she knew it was a death sentence? Why did anyone? Many do because they can no longer take being cooped up in the silo. Something in their brain breaks and they crave the outside. Some do it as a form of suicide. Holston’s wife did it for a different reason. She had learned how to recover deleted files, and recovered some data from before the uprising, which caused much IT’s* servers to be deleted. What she found deleted on that server was a program to fake images on a screen. She determined that it must be to fake the image that the sensors of the outside show to trick people into thinking it was a desolate wasteland, when in reality it was green and lush. She wanted to go outside because she believed she could live freely there. After years of researching what his wife had found, Holston one day decided to find out for himself, and said the words that were not allowed to be said. What he found out, I will leave out for now. But on the camera feeds in the silo, there are now two bodies next to each other on that hill, forever together once again.

Artemis

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 07:41:01 -0500

Artemis is a quick and fun sci-fi novel by Andy Weir. I hadn’t read anything about this book going in, but after having read both The Martian and Project Hail Mary I was ready for another man surviving alone in space novel, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I got.

Artemis is the first and only city on the moon - but don’t call the locals lunies - they don’t like that. Our story follows the story of a young woman - Jazz Bashara - who has lived on Artemis since she was 6 years old. No one is born on the moon, due to the problems that come with gestating and raising a baby in 1/6G, so Jazz is the closest one can get to truly being an Artemisian, and she takes great pride in this and in her city.

Jazz has been a smuggler for most of her adult life. When she was 8 years old, she was assigned a pen pal on earth who she has stayed in contact with her whole life. This pen pal ended up becoming a load master for KSC, the space agency that handles all shipping too and from Artemis. Jazz is a porter on the moon - basically she delivers cargo from incoming ships to the people who need it. This gave them the perfect setup to import and distribute goods without anyone knowing. It takes the occasional bribe, and the local cop, Rudy, is very much so onto Jazz, but their operation pretty much runs without issue

The Big Gig

The main arch of the story follows the attempt of Jazz to assist a local billionaire in taking down a local company - Sanchez Aluminum. Why would this billionaire want to take out some local metal company on the moon? The main reason we are presented with early on is that Sanchez Aluminum has a contract with the city where so long as they supply the city with oxygen, they get free power from the city’s nuclear generator - pretty much as much as they want.

What the billionaire wants to do with this power is unclear for the first half of the book. He claims it is to make his own aluminum company but we are told that is not a profitable industry anymore, so we know he is likely lying. Either way, he offers Jazz one million slugs to do a job, that job being to stop Sanchez Aluminum from delivering the oxygen they need to in order to keep their free power contract. This will allow our billionaire to supply the city with oxygen he has been stockpiling in order to get the free electricity, then setting up his own company.

Jazz

This book, like most of Andy Weir’s books, are a first person retelling of the story. Jazz is by far the most entertaining character Andy has told a story through. She is the daughter of a highly skilled welder, who is also very devoted Muslim. This causes most of the conflicts between Jazz and her father as she begins doing petty crime in her early teens. Despite becoming a career criminal, Jazz is generally a good person. She does smuggle, but makes it clear that she tries to limit the amount of harm that can be done with what she exports - no guns, no hard drugs, limited flammables, etc. She also cares deeply about those around her, which can sometimes cause her to be an asshole to others, but for all the right reasons.

Everyone also constantly talks about Jazz’ potential. She hates when anyone brings this up, as she likes her job and the lifestyle she has - aside from the lack of money. Jazz is undeniably intelligent and street smart. She has very strong intuition for both technical topics and people, a powerful combination. Her father in particular always talks about how she could have been a master welder, or really anything she wanted to be.

Jazz is also funny. She is sarcastic as hell, quick witted, and self deprecating enough to always keep the internal dialog interesting. Her sass with both her friends and enemies is great, and keeps you engaged through the whole book. It was also nice to follow the story of a woman in a living city she loves, rather than a man alone in space.

TLDR

This book is fun, short enough to finish in a day if you were dedicated, and overall a great read. Jazz is a very engaging and fun character, and the city of Artemis is realistic and believable.

The Last of Us

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:14:46 -0400

I just now completed The Last of Us Part II, literal minutes before starting to write this. I wanted to get some of my thoughts on both this game, and the larger story of The Last of Us while it is still fresh. This is a story that does not let you emotions rest, but is truly executed masterfully.

Joel

Oh Joel, this game was brutal. First, lets talk about Joel in the first game. Joel was a broken man, all emotion stripped from him besides anger and despair after his daughter Sara was killed by a soldier at the beginning of the cordyceps outbreak. After what must have been 1-2 decades of living in a broken world with nothing to live for, Joel found an unexpected second purpose in life.

Given the task of transporting Ellie across the country in an attempt to create a cure, we see a beautiful father daughter relationship form between these two strangers who both need each other more than anything. The core of the story of The Last of Us Part I to me was hope. There was hope for a cure, there was hope for a second chance at family with Ellie, there was hope for a better life in Jackson. You wanted to fight tooth and nail to protect Ellie as Joel, not just because of the hope she offered to the world at large in the form of a cure, but to you personally to help you heal from the loss of your family.

Joel only has a soft spot for Ellie in the first game. His time alone has hardened the rest of him apart from this one vulnerability, and given how little he has in this world apart from Ellie, he would do anything to keep her safe. When you play through the defining turning point with the fireflies at the end of the first game, if you were like me you didn’t hesitate to do what needed to be done to save Ellie. Joel’s actions are clearly wrong, Ellie’s death would have meant more to the world than her life, but what does that matter to Joel? To lose a second daughter would surly be the end of Joel, and his purpose for the last months has been to keep her safe at all costs.

In the second game, we see a softer, more human Joel. I have seen many people point to this and say “How did Joel go from being such a bad ass to such a softy so quickly?” As far as Joel abilities go, he is just as capable in part 2 as the first game, however it is true that his personality is much softer. However, the interactions we are seeing are still through Ellie’s eyes, during a period where she was fighting with Joel. He is clearly distraught, and is hurting deeply about the thought of losing Ellie from his life. Through this lens, I didn’t see any inconsistency in Joel in part II. He continues to put protecting Ellie and his relationship with her above all else, and now with that that relationship in jeopardy Joel is suffering emotionally. That is displayed in vulnerability and timidness towards Ellie as he attempts to repair their relationship.

Ellie

Wow, this second game was not what I expected from Ellie. But honestly, I enjoyed it. The game shows us the strained relationship between Ellie and Joel at the beginning of the game, but once Ellie has to witness the brutal murder of Joel at the hands of Abby, we see how much she truly did still care for Joel. Seeking revenge on those who killed Joel, despite them allowing Ellie to live, does not seem optional for Ellie and Tommy.

We constantly see flashbacks to the good times Joel and Ellie had in Jackson during the time we missed between games. This is a brutal reminder of why you have to keep continuing on your hunt for Abby in Seattle, despite the physical and emotional trauma you are experiencing from your actions. As the player, I felt just as motivated to avenge Joel as Ellie did. Having played through part I right before starting part II, I personally remember how fond I was of Joel, and how when playing Joel the game instilled the “I would do anything for Ellie” into you. Now playing as Ellie, having had Joel ripped away from our story, I wanted to find Abby and end her. If only you knew how much pulling on that thread was going to hurt.

To be clear, this game only gives you time to process in the flashbacks, and even then it tends to be pretty painful. As I was going through and hunting down Abby’s friends, who as you continue in Ellie’s story you realize are not inherently evil people, I would legitimately feel despair at the situation constantly. If in Part I you were fighting for hope, in Part II you are simply trying to survive and fight off the despair. The sense of loss, hopelessness, and regret and constant and unyielding throughout the whole game. You almost never feel good, except for in a few sections with Dina, but even those are ripped away from us.

I was so happy when they allowed both Ellie and Abby to live at the end of Seattle. To see Ellie and Dina living together with their child on their farm was beautiful, and felt like a happy ending to the game - one I thought we were not going to get. I actually felt hope for Ellie again, something this game did not give us much of. And then the story took it away, as Ellie’s need for revenge sent her back after Abby. Ellie’s choosing to leave Dina to hunt for revenge again when there is no threat to her family is heart breaking. To see that she can not chose happiness, and is stuck on the despair and hatred she feels over losing Joel really did crush me. That is not to say that it is a poor story decision, in fact it drives home the feeling of helplessness more than anything else in this story did. Ellie just can’t be at peace knowing that the person who took everything from her is still out there.

The End

I am not going to focus on Abby’s story. I did enjoy it, and seeing that all of her friends are actually decent enough real people was great story telling. Showing you this only after you had massacred most of them increases that feeling of helplessness and despair. You know what is going to happen to them and despite that you still grow to like them and root for them.

The ending battle between Ellie and Abby summarizes their quarrel perfectly. These two girls who could have been good friends in another life are both on the brink of death before the fight even starts. They are prepared to get into 2 separate boats and head their separate ways. However at the last moment, Ellie’s need for revenge prevents her from moving on for the third time. You flail, trash, and beat each other to an inch of both your lives, with Ellie ultimately winning. Ellie can’t finish Abby off though. Despite this deep desire for revenge, despite all the damage Abby has done, despite the fact that she is literally holding Abby underwater, after having a flashback of one of the good times with Joel - she pulls Abby out of the water and tells her to leave. I took this as Ellie wanting to be a better person in Joel’s memory, or maybe just realizing that he wouldn’t have cared about her avenging him and losing the motivation to take another life.

I left the end of this story feeling like everything had been completed. It did not feel good, but that was the point. Not all revenge stories end with the bad guy dead, sometimes you were the bad guy all along. We are all human, we all have the capability to do terrible things, but we are redeemable. I know its fiction - but I hope Ellie finds her peace back in Jackson.

The Mercy of Gods

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 22:41:01 -0500

The Expanse is one of my favorite stories ever told. The characters, their relationships, and the way the universe functions are all so coherent and well written, and come together to make such an engaging and believable story of humanity venturing into the unknown. When I saw that the writers had started a new story I dove into it immediately, and expectations were high.

The Setup

The Mercy of Gods did not disappoint. The world is a bit more overwhelming when they first drop you in - we are not on Earth, instead humanity calls the planet of Anjiin its home. However, it is not where humans originate from. There are two trees of life on Anjiin, the one we are familiar with - humans, squirrels, crabs, and trees - all your normal earth life, and another native tree of life that functions completely differently. They don’t use DNA to copy their genetics, and they don’t use the same mechanisms to create and use energy. These differences are what our main cast of characters has spent their life focused on. We follow a research group whose main project has been “reconciling” these two trees of life, and allowing on to nourish the other. Humanity also knows that their tree of life is the invader on this planet, although they have no idea how this came to be. In the fossil record, one day humans and all their accompanying species just showed up, but the other life had been there for much longer.

These scientists live a fairly average life, and although there are differences like their homes being grown from “coral” from the other tree of life, they live in a fairly familiar world to what we inhabit. Technology is around the same point, give or take. Humanity has satellites and missiles, but is no where close to conquering the stars. We do use these satellites to watch into space though, and one day we noticed something abnormal in space. After Jellit, one of our main characters twin brother, was able to see through the abnormality to what was truly happening, humanity was shocked by the sight of an armada of ships headed to Anjiin.

This is where the story really kicks off. Humanity is conquered in just over a week. The aliens, a race known as the Carryx, kill 1 in 8 humans as soon as they arrive, simply to send the message that they can. This is not done via war as we know it. Rather, as soon as the Carryx arrive they set up a grid over the entire planet, that hovers in the sky stationary above the ground. These thousands of pods, then proceed to shoot the 1 in 8 people all at once with no warning. Humanity tries to fight back, the battle is lost before it has begun.

The Journey

Most of the research group ends up all aboard the same vessel which has left Anjiin for who known where. All of the prisoners were boarded onto this ship with no context, and left in a room with no instruction. The prison does have fresh water and “food” if you can call it that, but nothing else. It is always cold, there is nothing to do, and they do not now know what is happening. On the ship, we mainly follow two people, Dafyd Alkhor and Jessyn Kaul. If there is a main character in this story, you would likely say it is Dafyd. He was just the lowly research assistant in the group, not even a full fledged researcher. However, he likes people underestimating him and often uses this to his advantage.

On Anjiin, Dafyd always lusts after Else Yannin, a beautiful woman who also just happens to be his boss’s partner. However, the lead researcher Tonner is not on this ship, and if you put a bunch of stressed primates in a box for an extended period of time, they are going to do the thing primates do to release stress. So, Dafyd and Else start their relationship looking for comfort wherever they can while imprisioned traveling through non-symetrical space.

Jessyn is a skilled researcher, however privately she has always struggled with mental issues. The way it is described, I think we can best call it depression. She often eludes to having had suicidal thoughts in the past, and makes it sound like even when things were good she still had fairly dark thoughts. Jessyn is able to keep herself sane in her day to day life with the assistance on Jellit and her medication. On this ship though, there is no Jellit, and there are only a few weeks worth on pills. She often spends her days counting how many pills she has left in pocket, and worrying about what will come once she runs out. She knows that it would hard for her to keep her mind under this kind of stress even with her pills, and she is not going to have those for much longer.

The climax of this act comes as some of the humans plan violence against the guards the Carryx use. Dafyd is firmly against the violence. He has sought to understand the Carryx and the other species around him, although he has not yet figured them out. He keeps trying to put himself in their shoes and try to predict their reaction to their actions. He assumes that if the prisoners get rowdy and violent, than the Carryx will simply dispose of their unarguable cargo. However, when the violence does come, and one of the aliens are killed, there is no reprisal or violence against the prisoners. Instead, another one of the species that was killed comes out, and consumes the corpse of its dead companion.

At first Dafyd can not understand this. This ends up being his first major realization that his jailers aren’t human. Not only in the literal sense, but in their logic as well. The Carryx and all the other species we have and will encounter do not think like our characters and us. We will later learn that the Carryx often use the motto of “What is, is”. Is a Carryx or one of their soldiers was ever weak enough to get killed by a human, it didn’t deserve to live. There is no need to punish the humans for being humans.

The Takeaway

SciFi explores facets of the real world by stripping away or adding on new elements to it. The Mercy of Gods examines our humanity and our sanity. Do we remain human when we lose our family? How about after watching your partner die? When all the guards rails are removed and the rules are not the same as they have been for your whole life?

What about your mind - can you stay positive, or even stay yourself when you run out of the pharmaceuticals that keep your brain chemistry normal? What about after being placed into a cold unforgiving metal box with nothing besides water and nutrient paste for months? After you watch one of your few surviving friends get blown up?

The Mercy of Gods shows us what it means to be human and to exist in a tribe when we are pushed to our extremes.

Midst

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 18:50:13 -0500

Midst has a story to tell, or at least they found one to tell in the process of making it, and tells it in a very unique way. The way Midst is performed makes it feel like the narrators are organically telling you a story. It doesn’t feel like an audiobook where all the lines have been meticulously written, and it doesn’t feel like a RPG podcast where the players playing characters. Instead, it feels like hearing a grand story as a child.

The details are sometimes exaggerated to grand effect, or left extremely vague - whichever adds to the feeling and flow of the story. For example, the main mode of ground transportation in this universe are bocular vehicles. What does it mean for a vehicle to be bocular powered? Who knows, it doesn’t matter!

I am not going to give an summary of the story as a whole, but I will give a list of some highlights on my favorite concepts and moments from the story. Warning, spoilers ahead:

There is a force, or maybe things, known as terrors that happen in the fold, the “dark” part of this universe. The way the narrators explain what is happening during terrors is awesome. They keep a fast flow of crazy, cosmic horror descriptions coming at you for minutes at a time, making you feel overwhelmed and awed. Shot a gun in the fold? The light summons a swarm of pirañas in the muzzle flash. Trying to hide massive terror but it finds you? Your leg is now a man named Jacob, and your neighbors personality has been replaced by frogs.
Moc Weepe is such a cool character and I love him. His evolution from slimy business man into murderous cult leader feels natural despite how fast it happens. The evolution of his voice as the fold consumes him adds to the terror you feel when Weepe is present, especially once they have to start adding the pump sound effects in the background. It has the same vibes as a Darth Vader.
Lark trying to convince herself she doesn’t give a damn about anyone while constantly putting herself at risk every 10 minutes. A great tough on the outside, soft (but still badass) on the inside character.
Despite being unlikable on purpose (sometimes), I liked Phineas’ redemption story quite a lot. His flaws are well justified, but they shine through constantly. Phineas’ freezing when offered valor in exchange for Lark is a prime example. Of course we dislike that he even thought about betraying the other members of the breach, but it makes sense as the desire to become valorous has been burned into Phineas for his entire life.
The excitement with which they describe every creature in Midst. I would pay just to have them read off creatures they created for a few episodes. The fold whales and mirror hawks are some top examples.