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G.O.D.
Daedalus of Athens was not drunk when the light crashed outside his Greek manor. Instead, the drunkenness came later.
But first, he’d been out in the garden, trying to invent a flying device for man. He’d studied the birds that flitted over the city and from rooftop to rooftop. He’d made beautiful sketches and careful measurements of captured specimens in the Aviary of Athens. He’d finally tested all manner of wood, mineral, and animal parts. The result was a work of sublime mechanical genius.
And all a man had to do was flap his arms a hundred times a minute. Unfortunately, he’d found no volunteers among the citizens. Even his slave Trochilus had failed, though she’d shown willing by repeatedly jumping on the spot.
Tonight, he stared at the hulking monstrosity of the device, which looked a lot like the skeleton of some pathetic monster. Then he stared at the sky.
Not for the first time, he wondered if he was being punished by the gods. Oh, not in general, not in general: he had a loving wife, children who in theory would happily see him if they weren’t so busy in the capital, his health, his faithful slave, his garden, his manor, his freedom to blow things up trying to make other things that didn’t blow things up but in interesting ways, his regular salt donations from the Emperor in Rome…
But more specifically, when it came to inventing, he felt he was being kept exactly where he was. Why, he didn’t know. Perhaps it offended the gods, but all he did was tinker and dream of flying. What was so bad about flying? It didn’t hurt anyone, unless they crashed, and he was working on a new elastic device for protective landing gear that would really pay off in a few decades.
What a man could do, if only he could fly…
Then he looked up and noticed the light.
It definitely wasn’t a star. For one thing, it was growing. Reddening with heat. And screaming.
Pure whiteness struck.
The shock threw Daedalus onto his back and tangled him thoroughly in the juniper bushes. Only once he untangled himself did he see the fiery pit and – scattered about him – the twisted bones of metal.
Flames crackled and tore at the nearby bushes. Peering into the heart of the crater, he thought he saw a bundle.
Which unfurled.
A figure rose before him. A child, robed in white, skin pale as the moon, hair like the ghost of gold. Two bare feet hovered without burn or bruise over the flames. And surrounding the figure, ten wings of darkness and fire blazed.
Eyes of ice peered at him. Such was the stare that, for a moment, he was but an ant, a hardworking insect, yet shadowed by a mountainous pride, spared from a crushed fate only by inscrutable whim.
“And then it flew away,” he said an hour later in the tavern.
The other drinkers gave him the slow, stare-filled silence of men who’d been counting how many cups he’d had. A few simple chaps had taken off sandals to count that high.
“A boy cannot fly,” said Aerosteon in his special talking-to-an-unbalanced-idiot voice. “No what’s-it-called, aerodynamic qualities.”
“Too heavy,” translated Gravitas, nodding.
“You’ve been overdoing it again, haven’t you? We know you’ve set your heart on that flying machine, and all…”
Daedalus slammed down his cup, swaying slightly on his chair. “I swear I’m not making this up! Trochilus is still putting out the fires, poor girl!”
Gently, Euterium patted his shoulder. “Your missus know about this?”
Daedalus shuddered. “Enthea? She’s out at the Temple of Arcas. Oh Hades, you had to remind me…”
I’m not making this up, he thought. Unfortunately, an hour and several drinks after the event, he was wondering if there had been a smidgeon of wishful thinking involved here.
A boy who could fly! On wings of darkness and fire! Perhaps it was a vision from the gods. Maybe Hephaestus, that blacksmith guy: Daedalus’d sacrificed any number of chickens at Hephaestus’ temple, though only when he’d been really desperate.
From his gloom, he surfaced in time to hear the topic of the evening. They always talked about something or other. Just because good old Athens was under the Roman heel, didn’t mean they could slouch on their philosophy.
“See, this war thing,” said Euterium, voice warming up for a good debate. “Why’s it happening again?”
“I told you last week!” cut in Gravitas irritably. “It’s the Historical Imperative Theory of the Necessity of War.”
Wincing, Daedalus concentrated through the mist of awful wine. “You mean, ‘We done it before, we’ll do it again’?”
“It’s the Romans,” muttered Aerosteon into his cup. “They fight everything.”
“Works for them, doesn’t it?” said Euterium. “Look at their Empire.”
“Yes. Another empire. Whoop-de-do.”
Grimly, Daedalus slipped off his chair and staggered towards the exit. War! War! War! We used to talk about the nature of free will and destiny and all that stuff. Now it’s war every night. If I’d wanted war shoved in my face, I’d have volunteered for the army. Just as well I have that back problem.
Outside, he looked up at the stars.
More lights.
That was okay, though. He saw lots of things after drinking wine here. His addled brain said: It’s going to be all right.
Then he stopped.
More lights rained down over the silhouette of the city. Over the countryside too. He heard distant bangs, saw flashes of explosions.
When he blinked, the boy was there, hovering over him.
Daedalus waved happily at him. “It’s all right, I’m drunk.”
Then he fell over.
When Daedalus woke up, he was sitting in his garden again. The night was starry as before. Trochilus stood loyally by his side, even if she trembled. Oh, and the crater was still there.
Seated opposite was the boy. In midair. On his ten wings of darkness and fire.
Daedalus swallowed. The boy’s eyes were two pools, too deep to fathom, too cold to dare touch. Once more, old Daedalus was an ant below a boy’s capricious thumb, waiting to be told if he were to live or die.
Beside him, he heard poor Trochilus whimpering.
An arm shot up – Daedalus flinched – but then he opened his eyes and saw the hand pointing at his chest.
“Human,” said the boy. His voice belied his age, echoing with command and calculation. “I am told by your… slave here that you are a master of technology.”
Trochilus squeaked her apology. Daedalus watched those eyes. Was this a monster of the classical age? Half man, half bird? A riddler? A judgement? A tormentor for a sinner?
“Might be,” Daedalus said.
Those wings, he noticed, never flapped. The fire burned but never ran out. Some kind of rare oil, perhaps? How did the boy hover so?
“Hm,” said the boy. “Tell me: what transport have your people?”
Oh, that was easy. “Chariots,” said Daedalus. After some panicky thought, he added, “My lord?”
To his surprise, a smile twitched at the corners of the boy’s mouth. “Your lord indeed, human. And communication: what manner of word or print have you?”
Some of the fear slipped away. This didn’t sound too much like a monster condemning him…
“If my Enthea wants to send her aunt some flowers, we send a runner.”
“A device of some mechanical nature?”
“Er… no, my lord. I mean Trochilus here.”
Another squeak.
The boy’s eyes narrowed, brow growing heavy. “Have you mastered flight, at least?”
“Only the catapult, my lord. And…” Daedalus looked sadly at the ashen remnants of his latest attempts in that area.
This earned him a nod. “I see. We have work to do.”
In the face of that stare, the wine’s effects were wearing off fast. “Er… ‘we’, my lord?”
And from the shadows beyond, shapes moved. Figures drew closer to the light of the boy’s flaming wings. Men, he soon saw, but men of strange and unholy shapes. The first to enter wore a black robe-like cloth. Something clung to him, from thick boots, past a belt-like shine around his waist, to the fur collar and black cape below the glare of two magma eyes.
The figure raised what looked like a black crossbow, made of black pipes, tipped with a tuning fork. Which crackled.
“Beelzebub.” The boy shook his head.
Daedalus stared into crackling blackness. Then the… weapon was lowered.
At last, the boy smiled. Daedalus didn’t like that smile. It did not suggest a happy future.
“You may be of use to me, human.”
Shapes gathered around the boy. Daedalus whimpered.
Craters smoked around the city. Sunlight rose on the crowd in the city square. Even the Emperor’s viceroy stared incredulously from his balcony in the imperial palace.
Surrounding the crowd were… well, at first glance, they looked human.
The boy hovered over the podium. Beside it, Daedalus stood, trying not to move in case he offended anybody. He still wasn’t sure if he was being divinely punished or not.
“Citizens of…” The boy lowered himself and Daedalus whispered in his ear. “Athens! My name is Lucifer, Lord of the Heavens. As you can see, my loyal… angels and I are not to be resisted.”
Daedalus grimaced. While he’d been marched to the square, he’d seen a few legionnaires try to resist. Spears, swords, and tridents simply bounced off the angels. Those legionnaires were currently penned in by angels of their own, like lambs by wolves.
“It is clear the world has been oppressed by fate, so pitiable is your state. I have resisted, earning my fall from the heavens. Yet I will claim it back. I shall conquer your oppressor. I shall conquer fate.”
A few chuckles broke out from the more philosophically-minded in the crowd. Daedalus didn’t blame them. The angel was talking nonsense. If there was one thing even Gravitas could agree on, it was that you didn’t fight fate. What with? You just fulfilled fate another way.
He also didn’t blame the hasty silence. You didn’t argue philosophy with creatures who treated deadly Roman soldiers like annoying mosquitoes.
Lucifer beamed at them, like a lighthouse carved from a glacier. “But first, I shall guide you. For my first command, answer me this: who in…” Another lowering, another whisper. “Greece… knows of steam?”
Despite himself, Daedalus thought up some names. He was empty. The boy’s speech meant nothing to him. But technical stuff he could deal with.
“Er…” Embarrassed, he raised a hand. “I, uh, copied a plan off Hero once. Or was it Vitruvius?”
Lucifer froze him with a glare. “Indeed?”
“Uh… I could get Trochilus to fetch them, my lord?”
The stare lasted a little too long. The smile frosted on Lucifer’s lips.
Still, a philosopher was a philosopher. Perhaps Daedalus could risk a question. “May I ask what this is for, my lord?”
“Certainly. I encourage questions.” Now the smile… defrosted. At the corners. To the crowd, he announced, “My subjects. I am your benefactor. Unlike fate, I know what a true leader must do. And we shall help you even as you shall help us.”
Murmurs – short-lived murmurs – ran among the crowd. Worried faces turned to the Emperor’s viceroy, who was ashen-faced. An angel hovered ever-so-casually behind him. Its weapon crackled.
A hand gripped Daedalus’s shoulder. He tried not to wet himself.
Evidently, Lucifer was working fast. Before he’d even processed the speech, Daedalus found himself carried across the desert.
Flying! Actually flying!
Winds whipped his face and toga. The land flowed below him, a rush of gold. At first, Daedalus’s fear ruled and he kept himself to himself. However, the blasting sands eroded his fear, leaving only a newfound joy, a flight, the realization that he had been blessed.
This required a dignified, significant response from the first man ever to experience flight.
But he couldn’t think of one, so he spread his arms and said, “WOOHOO!”
Up ahead came the mountains. Why, he could simply reach out and touch them –
“Here,” said Lucifer.
All too soon, the winds died down, the gold coalesced into dunes, and the rushing joy ebbed away. Daedalus’s sandals hit the dune and he stumbled.
“Hey, you didn’t have to drop me,” he said before he realized what an idiot his tongue had been.
His carrier threw him a dirty look. Daedalus’ gaze travelled inexorably to the angel’s weapon. Crackling away. Like a tiger on a leash.
“Just… saying?” he tried.
They stepped further into the cave. Some way ahead, Lucifer held up a rod of pure gold. Its tip blinked with light.
Daedalus stared. Not at the rod, though his inventor mind veered towards it. He was looking at the rest of the cave. At what filled the back.
He looked up. He looked up some more.
With surprising strength, Lucifer plunged the rod deep into the earth.
That looks like solid gold; he shouldn’t even be able to carry it!
“What…” Daedalus said, “…is that?”
Behind him, Beelzebub chuckled.
“An agent of fate,” said Lucifer. “The Dragon of Revelation. Its hide is iron and its breath molten rock. Now you understand what we are up against.”
Feeling he was being allowed to live for the moment, Daedalus nodded at the rod. “And that? My lord?”
“The Rod of Freedom. My own creation: it opposes fate.”
“It’s not magic, is it?” said Daedalus, disappointed.
Unexpectedly, Lucifer laughed. True, it was a laugh a child would give upon seeing an ant do a backflip, but it was a laugh nonetheless.
“No. I would gladly explain the principles behind its creation. I fear you would not understand them, human.”
“Oh.” Now the disappointment hung heavy on his sigh.
“Yet, anyway.” Lucifer clapped his hands once. “Now, as for this steam device –”
“If I may be so bold, my lord,” said Daedalus, bowing in case it helped, “what is all this for?”
Surprise met these words. “I explained. We shall return to the heavens to finish our war.”
“With steam?” Daedalus chewed his words over. “It’s possible to fly with… steam?”
The boy shook his head. “I have grander plans first.”
Daedalus stared.
Never had he imagined something like this. Well, obviously he’d imagined something like this, but it had been like that airborne whirligig contraption he’d dreamt up in his youth. He’d only gotten as far as testing the elastic strength of reeds and the air resistance of wood before he’d done the sums, given up, and gotten drunk during a debate on hubris.
The contraption he’d designed was this:
It was a metal tube lying on its side, borne aloft by carefully designed wheels on lines that Lucifer called “tracks”. Inside the tube were things that pumped and things that turned and things that knocked the other things if they forgot to do the thing at the right time, or something. He’d had to invent whole new words for what he was doing, or rather had stolen them from Lucifer, who handed them out for free.
And it all worked because of a fire at one end that created steam. Incredible! His old steam device had just spun a ball around and nothing else. The Emperor’s viceroy had bought it for his children. To play with.
Slaves backed off at the crack of the whip. Revealed before them, the hulking machine stood idle. Another slave clambered up.
They waited while the fire rose.
Then, to squeals and cheers, the crowd saw the machine chug. It moved. It began to pick up speed. It whistled. It belched smoke and left a shadow of it trailing overhead.
“My word,” said Daedalus. “I just thought: if we could add another tube at the back, this thing could pull it like a chariot.”
Beside him, Lucifer laughed. Daedalus was getting used to that laugh. It was a small price to pay if it meant seeing this thing chugging away.
“This is merely the beginning, human,” said Lucifer. “Soon, we shall have grander vessels than these.”
Daedalus’ heart almost stopped. “Grander?”
“You appear to be easily impressed.”
“Well, think of the possibilities! If we added some wings and gave it two legs for taking off, maybe we could make a flying steam machine… No, wait, it couldn’t go fast enough.”
“Patience, human, patience. First, there will be steam chariots like these connecting the empire. Commerce and trade shall be greater even than the dreams of kings and a thousand slaves.”
Daedalus licked his lips. Around him, the crowd were eerily silent, as though all lost in the same thoughts. Not least of which was what would happen once word reached the capital of Rome, and what if the Emperor decided things were getting a little too hot in this corner of the world…
“Earthly tyrants do not trouble me,” said Lucifer irritably. “They are merely pawns in a game.”
“Are you talking about fate again, my lord?” said Daedalus, who was wondering if a close association with this youth would come back to haunt him when the army landed.
Lucifer’s icy gaze pierced him. Daedalus squirmed. It was like having an ice pick go through his brain.
“I am hardly talking about myself, human. This is a mighty gift. Tell me, have you ever heard the phrase ‘Industrial Revolution’?”
Daedalus shook his head hopefully.
Sadly, Lucifer lost interest in him. They both turned to watch the… what was it called… the “train” screeching at the crowd.
“Is it missing something?” said Lucifer, frowning.
“Well, I had to leave out a couple of bits here and there,” said Daedalus apologetically. “They didn’t help it go, you see. I mean, who needs ‘brakes’, right?”
Reluctantly, Daedalus leaned back in the plush chair. He looked around the imperial palace’s main hall.
“What architecture,” he breathed. “The things I could do with a chisel and paint brush…”
“I have a plan, human,” said Lucifer opposite. Despite the slaves hovering in attendance, he was picking his grapes for himself. Eventually, he turned and dismissed them. “Slaves.”
“Oh, they’re not that bad.” Daedalus opened his mouth and let Trochilus drop a grape into his mouth. “Mine’s a good worker and always tells me whenever she spills wine on the floor.”
Stony silence followed.
“I see I have much work to do,” said Lucifer coldly.
“If you don’t mind my asking, my lord,” said Daedalus, hastily sitting up and dismissing his servant out of desperate political awareness, or at least a desire to not be handed over to Beelzebub’s care. “What is it you hope to do? I mean, fate isn’t a person or a god… Is it?”
Lucifer tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“Are you familiar with the Tower of Babel?” he said.
“Never visited the place, my lord. Architecture isn’t really my speed.”
“It is a religious story.”
“Ah,” said Daedalus. Religion hadn’t featured much in his life. Beyond knowing the gods of Olympus, naturally. But his thoughts there mostly consisted of: “Say, that sun god Helios; isn’t it about time someone upgraded his chariot? The sun takes hours to cross the sky…”
“According to the Jewish texts –”
“Oh, Jews,” said Daedalus dismissively. “They say all kinds of rubbish.”
“According to the Jews, man determined to reach the heavens by constructing a tower tall enough to unite Earth with the spiritual realm. Their god – in a way, their fate – saw this as arrogance and hubris. Thus, he forced the builders to speak different languages, preventing cooperation.”
Eventually, Daedalus stopped nodding along. “Yep. Sounds like something the Jews would say, all right. What a load of –”
“I intend to correct that injustice.”
Daedalus swallowed again. The temperature of the room dropped fast. He shivered.
“And I intend to guide more humans to the cause. Why should fate dictate our destiny?”
For a moment, Daedalus felt a lot older than Lucifer. Obviously, the boy was a boy, but thus far Daedalus had felt like Lucifer’s appearance was no more meaningful, age-wise, than a choice of sandal.
He was thinking about the neighbouring countries.
“How, exactly?” he said.
“By ruling them with justice and goodwill.”
“Ah… Just out of academic interest, idle curiosity and whatnot, how much political experience do you have?”
Unexpectedly, Lucifer gave him a puzzled look.
“Well… say two tribes – the Meglobites and the Gigobites – are disputing who owns some land. How would you solve that problem?”
“I would… command them to share it. All land belongs to all humans. There is no point in bloodshed. Isn’t it obvious, human?”
Daedalus cocked his head. There’d been a flicker of doubt in that last sentence.
“I think if that ever happens,” he said carefully, “you should explain it to them.”
“You believe they would not understand?”
“Oh, they’d understand, right enough. They just wouldn’t believe you. Ancient enmities. Complex grievances. Byzantine land claims and legal… thingy. And then there’s the whole ‘pleasing-both-sides-and-not-starting-a-war’ aspect.”
Lucifer looked at him blankly.
“I mean,” said Daedalus hurriedly, “I suppose you could overpower them. Like you did with us –”
“I did not overpower. I persuaded.”
“Right. Sorry. But maybe up there in the heavens, you didn’t need politics so much? I could give you a few pointers, if you like…”
Months passed.
Daedalus went back to the tavern one night, hoping like mad it hadn’t changed at all. Change had featured way too much in his experiences of late. It was nice to see the old gang there again, even Gravitas, who was a supercilious jerk when it came to the Cultural Dichotomy Theory of Apollo the Wise Rationalist and Dionysus the Just-Plain-Fun-to-Have-Around Drunk.
Unfortunately, the men looked like they’d come back from someone’s funeral. No one spoke. Only Aerosteon nodded at him, showing any sign that his presence was acknowledged at all.
Daedalus joined them. They stared into their drinks.
“So much for the Roman Army,” said Euterium glumly.
They’d seen it.
Indeed, word had reached the Emperor in Rome. And the army had reached the plateau of Athens, with the air of an army that had gotten out the wrong side of bed and was ready to ask, “What bloody time do you call this?”
Beelzebub had led the charge. His weapon had crackled, and then…
“Lightning, though,” said Gravitas. “They use lightning. Zeus is going to flip his lid.”
“That’s divine demarcation, that is,” said Aerosteon, nodding.
“Routed the Romans something fierce, though,” said Euterium.
“Yes. That’s the problem. Where will it all end? Another empire. Whoop-de-do.”
“I reckon…” said Daedalus, but no one looked at him, so he addressed his wine again. “I reckon maybe it’s a sign. Like… just hear me out… like Zeus is on our side. And… and he sent these angels to help us.”
They considered this over a swig each.
“Haven’t seen you in a while, Daedy,” said Aerosteon bravely. “Must be nice up at the palace, at least. Poor sod, you are.”
“A tool of the tyrants,” agreed Gravitas. “That must be playing holy horrors on your… what’s-it-called, Aristotle thing… arete.”
“You’re not where you belong, is his point.”
Daedalus shrugged. “At least the war’s over.”
Euterium coughed and spluttered on his drink. “Too bloody right it is! No one wants to fight lightning with pointed sticks! You saw what he did to the Romans!”
“He told me he was just driving them off.”
“Oh, he did that, right enough. It’s bad for a country’s what’s-it-called, reputation. And his edicts, don’t get me started on his edicts.”
“What’s wrong with them?” said Daedalus.
“For one thing, he said no more slaves.” Aerosteon spat into his cup. “The cheek. He’s ‘recruiting’ men from these neighbouring countries, and we can’t have slaves? Who’ll do my laundry?”
“They did volunteer for the work, Aero. And Lucifer says we should learn to do things for ourselves.”
“That’s demarcation, that is.”
Daedalus shrugged. He was starting to wonder about Lucifer’s latest flying machine plan. Or at least the one Lucifer had told him to plan and draw up. A lot of it hadn’t made sense at the time either. Like… why a rotating screw thing at the front? Why did its wings need warping sticks, and why did the whole thing have to look like the skeleton of a box? What were the wheels for?
It was no good. He grimaced. The only reason the men had volunteered, he knew, was because news got around fast in the Empire. But at least he’d managed to persuade Lucifer to ask politely. That was progress.
Years passed.
There were other changes too. Golden rods were planted all over the city, their blinking lights causing nervous civilians to hurry past or watch them suspiciously. Lucifer made speeches regularly about the evils of fate – which he’d suddenly started calling “GOD” – and the other angels started talking to random citizens. That last one at least had been Daedalus’ doing.
“It builds confidence and respect,” he’d said. “It’s like those princes who get out of their carriages to talk to old people. Shows the public they care, see?”
“What about?” Lucifer’d asked.
“Erm… Stuff like ‘My word, you’re old, you are. I must start a religion about avoiding old age and death.’ I think? I heard it somewhere in the east.”
“And what do you discuss with your fellow citizens?”
“Oh, that. We talk about philosophy.”
Sudden interest seized Lucifer. “You speak of the deep questions. Free will. Destiny. The divine.”
“Yeah, that stuff.”
“Intriguing. What are your thoughts on free will?”
Daedalus shrugged. “It’s all right, I guess.”
“I mean of its nature.”
“Well, ultimately no one knows anything about it, what it is, how to make it, how it works, or why it does what it does.”
“So you have an opinion on it?”
“Heck yes! Everyone does! Like: I think everything is the result of some prior cause, right, so you get this universe, right, and it’s all like a tangled web. After all, before you were born…”
“But the will can always defy what’s come before it. Nothing can change the will except the will itself.”
“But what it sees and experiences first –”
“No matter what it sees and experiences, it can always say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Humanity can do what it wills.”
“Man cannot will what he wills…”
And so on.
Despite himself, Daedalus actually smiled after the debate. Lucifer himself seemed less interested in winning than in just going through the points. Once or twice, he’d stopped to ask about Daedalus’ position, or to correct it before continuing. It was like… Well, like a fair fight. Two champions having a cheery spar.
He’d told Aerosteon and the others in the tavern afterwards. They’d sat and stared at him as though he were mad.
Then he’d had the crazy idea: What if he’d invite Lucifer along?
At the time, he’d found Lucifer in the imperial palace, sending envoys and listening to pleas from the citizenry. He hadn’t looked happy with the interruption.
“Sadly not,” he’d answered. “Me at a tavern? I have a war to fight.”
“They do really good wine!”
“No. My decision is final. The work here is far from complete. Time is against us. Those Rods of Freedom won’t last forever.”
“What do you mean?” But Daedalus had been interrupted by a woman pleading for more physician-buildings – a recent invention, or something – and he slipped out after a few impatient minutes.
“Cheer up, mate,” said Aerosteon, slapping him on the back. “You’re going up in the world, you are.”
Daedalus stared moodily into his drink. He could put up with the slave-emancipation and the letting-women-vote stuff and the foreigners coming in to steal their jobs – which was fair enough because Lucifer always had construction work to recruit for – and at least his wife Enthea was giving him more interest ever since they’d moved to the palace. But…
“He’s planning something big,” he muttered.
“Bigger than that magnificent flying machine?”
“Don’t talk to me about flying machines.” Daedalus snorted. “Now he wants cannons. Gunpowder and oil and stuff like that. He’s making those big buildings for making things…”
“Facsimiles,” said Euterium helpfully.
“Right. Facsimiles. And to cap it all, he keeps saying he’s running out of time. And he keeps going on about finishing the war.”
“Oh, he’s always going on about that.”
Daedalus groaned. “All of this is a dream come true, it really is. We’re making stuff now I could only sketch out as a lad. And he keeps going on about philosophy. And he wants to fight fate itself. That’s… Well, a man would be privileged to stand by him and witness –”
“Person,” corrected Gravitas.
Daedalus glared at him. “What?”
“You can’t say ‘man’ now. You have to say ‘person’. It’s in the edicts.”
Returning his gaze to his drink, Daedalus sighed. “So why don’t I feel more excited?”
The others squirmed on their seats. Truth be told, he had an inkling of what was going on. The last few weeks had been a whirlwind. Every morning, Lucifer had some new scheme, like ‘omnibuses’ that didn’t need horses, and lodestones that made lightning if you had a coil of copper.
“It’s unnatural,” said Gravitas solemnly. “All this sudden change. It’s like that… what did you call it? Tower of Baby? It’s hubris.”
“Hm,” said Daedalus.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Well, what’s wrong with a horseless chariot? At least the thing doesn’t need its stable clearing out with a peg on your nose because of the smell.”
“The gods’ll punish us for it.”
Without thought, Daedalus rose so fast that cups went flying. “Why, damnit!? Why!? We’re only helping people move around faster or get well faster or talk to people on the other side of the country!”
Alone among the stunned faces, Gravitas cleared his throat. “Well… they lead to problems. Crashes and miscommunications and things –”
“Ye gods! We had those before! We just called them ‘natural’ and got used to them!”
“What’s got into you, all of a sudden? Too high-and-mighty to talk to us mortals, are you?”
No one looked at Gravitas. It was the explicit opinion of anyone not in his presence that he was a bit quick to lash out with his tongue.
Daedalus sat down. They glared at each other.
“Well,” said Aerosteon gamely. “I for one am really interested to see where this Tower of Baby thing will go. He’s halfway completed already.”
Daedalus sat on the rocky ground and watched the tower going up.
In his inventor heart, he saw it for the magnificent structure that it was. He didn’t know it was possible for humanity to build mountains, but they were giving it a good go.
For some reason, it was hollow. Like a volcano.
Overhead, the whir of one of the flying machines rushed past. Despite himself, envy crept into Daedalus’ chest at the sight. New models of flying machine appeared all the time. It was as if Lucifer already knew what design he wanted them to be.
From the valley down below, he heard the shouts of his onetime slave Trochilus directing the construction team. Men and women working together… under the watchful eye of trigger-happy, lightning-wielding angels, true, but working together.
Daedalus glared at the next flying machine to pass: something Lucifer had called a “jet”. This one had a lightning weapon mounted on it.
Now that he thought about it, the metal used on these new machines was just like the darkness on Lucifer’s ten wings…
“It’s too fast,” he muttered to himself. “This doesn’t feel real.”
“It’s not fast enough. And it is real. You simply can’t adapt to our brilliance, human.”
Daedalus ignored Lucifer landing beside him.
“Humans work fast,” Lucifer continued, “but my angels work faster. Trains now cover the whole empire. We can import more goods, capture more territories.”
“You’re going to fight the whole world?” said Daedalus.
“Subdue. We need to save our fighting for GOD.”
Further along the valley, a gaggle of men – dots at this distance – watched something shoot up into the air like a reverse shooting star.
“Those are the cannons you wanted?” said Daedalus sourly.
“Cannons were superseded last week. Now my subjects have progressed to the rocket.”
“You know what,” snapped Daedalus. “You just see us as pawns in a game too. What happens when you beat fate and it’s just us?”
“How dare you? I am, of course, nothing like fate –”
“Hm. Let’s see. Controlling people, forcing them along one path, making it impossible to say no… Oh hello, Fate Number Two. Didn’t see you there.”
“They volunteered.”
“Really? And what happens to the ones who don’t? I’m sure the Emperor’s captive territories ‘volunteered’ to help with his war effort too. And that was just expansion for expansion’s sake across one continent. You could flatten the whole world at this rate!”
Silence followed. Deep down, Daedalus wondered if a lightning bolt had his name on it.
His fists tightened. Bring it on. I’ve had enough.
To his surprise, he heard Lucifer sigh and sit down next to him. “I have noticed similarities, yes. But what else is there? Without my angels, we wouldn’t even have gotten this far.”
“Actually, I notice a lot of these ideas coming from the people themselves. I know I got like that sometimes. I’d say, ‘Hey, I want to build the world’s tallest lighthouse,’ and before you know it people in the tavern are clamouring over me with suggestions and advice and problems, and before I know it some bugger on the other side of Athens is building the thing already.”
“Your slave – Trochilus.” Both of them winced at the distant shouting. “She’s certainly a forceful character.”
“Barely recognize her now, to be honest.”
“Interesting. In many respects, they remind me of my own angels from long ago. Beelzebub told me that, long before there were humans, there were angels. They conquered the world. But then GOD came along.”
“Interesting. When was that?”
Lucifer hummed. “‘Long ago’ was all he said. I don’t know if that’s hundreds, thousands, even millions of years ago. We are a long-lived race.”
“Ha! Come now, millions? The world can’t possibly be that old.”
“All I know is, our race didn’t have help, but we certainly didn’t jump on such progress this eagerly.”
“Well, it’s new and exciting. Humans like new and exciting. They feel part of something greater.”
They watched the construction work for a while.
“It hardly feels like my own project now,” said Lucifer, and for the first time Daedalus heard the child behind the words.
Kindly, he asked, “Just how old are you, my lord?”
They glanced at each other. The ice in the boy’s face had long since melted away.
“Older than your civilization,” said Lucifer, “Daedalus. Much, much older. I told you, we are a long-lived race. Especially up there in the heavens. Our technology is so advanced even this seems primitive by comparison.”
“But we’re catching up, right?” Daedalus ventured a smile. He hadn’t felt this good in a long while.
Even more surprisingly, Lucifer bowed back. “Yes indeed. Soon… we will be ready.”
A year later, the Dragon of Revelation broke free.
The first anyone knew about it, the blinking lights of the Rods of Freedom suddenly went out. Crowds gathered across the city wherever Daedalus looked. The city was much bigger by now, so big it seemed less like a city and more like a country made entirely of buildings.
While the crowds gathered, he saw the angels rise up and spread out, heading towards the perimeter. One side of the perimeter, in fact. The distant view of mountains shimmered in the heat.
Stopping to wheeze in his old age, Daedalus ran to the palace, burst through the doors, and met Lucifer coming the other way.
“The jammers ran out,” said Lucifer before he could even ask.
“The what?”
“Those Rods of Freedom were jamming devices. We had to struggle just to take those ones with us before we were banished. If only we’d had more time. If only we’d had a stronger power source…”
“I have no idea what you’re saying!” Daedalus hurried to keep up but was losing fast.
“GOD can see what we’re doing!” Then Lucifer joined the gathering above.
From the mountains came the rush of turbulence whipping at Daedalus’ toga. He shielded his eyes as a shadow fell over the town, and it seemed night arrived early over the streets of Athens.
The dragon’s golden mask glinted.
And then the flame arrived.
A column of red anger blasted into the buildings as the dragon flew past. Daedalus felt the rippling heat sting his face even from here, while the redness swallowed buildings and crowds and left nothing but a thin mass of bubbling black and the night vanished and the dragon shot past, its sheer wind knocking him over.
Flying machines rose up after it. Angels chased it in the air. Both stabbed it with stinging lightning bolts.
Beside him, Lucifer landed, panting, soot-blackened, and with one side of his wings smoking.
“It’ll… undo… all our… work!”
Feeling utterly useless, Daedalus held him gently, encouraging him to regain his breath.
“There’s no time left,” breathed Lucifer, shaking… with fear or anger, Daedalus didn’t dare speculate. “We do it now.”
Once more, Daedalus hurried after Lucifer. It was starting to annoy him how slow he now felt.
Up ahead loomed the Tower of Babel.
Honestly, it wasn’t how he’d imagined it. He’d basically imagined a temple stretched up and shaped like a stepped cylinder, every level full of carvings and sketches. This… was just a tall spire. Skeletal, even. Dark with metal.
What was inside it, now…
The ultimate flying machine, Daedalus thought.
Lucifer had already gone up the steps and disappeared inside a hatch. Daedalus wheezed and huffed his way after him.
“What are you doing here?” Beelzebub stepped into his path.
“Are you kidding? A chance to see the heavens? All my life, I’ve dreamed of little else! Anyway, if there’s a way for me to help Lucifer, then why not? I’m getting familiar with his technology, after all.”
“Yes,” said Lucifer nearby in the vast chamber. “Let him come, Beelzebub. I’d like a… human witness.”
Daedalus stared.
He’d expected pulleys, ropes, clanking contraptions, and so on. Not this… this. Panels flashed. Buttons studded the console like bullets. He felt you’d need a team of workers just to operate this, and the dozen or so angels hovering around it suggested Lucifer did too.
“What the…? You never told me about this plan.”
While Beelzebub tapped buttons, Lucifer took the largest seat for himself. “My race had already slowly developed our own Industrial Revolution. I had little to work with for yours, but we needed it to progress much faster. Much, much faster.”
“I figured that,” said Daedalus, smirking. “Cheating, huh? You owe me a spot on your fancy machine, wing man.”
Lucifer closed his eyes. “I fear the economic and political ramifications will be severe. Such rapid change leaves scars.”
On cue, Daedalus’ gaze homed in on the weapon strapped to Beelzebub’s belt. He could almost hear the crackle.
“So you took shortcuts there too,” he said.
“Yes,” said Lucifer sadly. “I did.”
Daedalus blinked in surprise. He’d half-expected Lucifer to call it “liberation” or something.
“Well…” said Daedalus weakly. “That’s something to work on when we get back, right?”
In the silence, only the beep and click of the console showed any signs of life.
Daedalus watched the window as the whole machine shuddered.
Behind him, Beelzebub counted down. Everyone buckled themselves in, but Daedalus had insisted on a window seat.
Now he felt as though the very air were trying to crush him. He clung on and closed his eyes.
Then the entire world became one big roar.
Daedalus clenched his teeth and even they rattled as his body was thrown everywhere and nowhere at once. The insides of his skull fought to get out. His ears exploded with noise. For an eternity, he was one massive riot of chaos and numb shock.
Finally, it smoothed down. Daedalus was Daedalus again, an old man in a chair with a tight buckle.
He opened his eyes.
Spread out below him, the pure blue glow…
Whiteness soothed his eyes while green ridges and plains stood like magnificent traces of oak on the surface. He could even see the aura of blue where the world gave way to the purest darkness he had ever seen.
Daedalus’ mind, usually so full of claptrap ideas and rickety questions and broken dreams, was washed clean by the sight. For several minutes, he could only gape. That was his home? He tried to find the edge of the map, but it was all one big circle, the epicentre everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
Beelzebub slapped him on the shoulder. “Quite a view, isn’t it?”
Daedalus wished he’d said something less casual for the occasion. What was laid out below him was alive and dead, brightness and darkness, plant and mineral and animal and water and cloud all at once.
His mind didn’t surface again until he could see the dot rising after them.
A gold mask glinted on it.
Something beeped behind him. Angels flew about on their errands. When he looked, part of the console flashed red.
Sitting on his chair as though he were king, Lucifer frowned at the redness. “Of course. Agents of GOD do not give up so easily.”
Weak, Daedalus managed to say, “You’re going to fight fate…” He looked out the window at the impossible world below. “Fight that?”
“What do you know about your world history, Daedalus?”
He thought back to a few tavern discussions with Aerosteon. “Empires and wars mostly.” Under his breath, he added, “Whoop-de-do.”
“That is what GOD engineers. Endless empires and endless war and endless stagnation. Technology is hubris. Ambition is arrogance. Man should know his place in the cosmos.”
Daedalus stared at the glinting gold that approached their machine.
Several minutes passed while they flew on. Nothing outside seemed to change. Even the dragon took so long to approach that Daedalus at first assumed it was keeping pace.
“It’s made of metal,” he breathed. “Like this machine.” He glanced at Lucifer’s ten wings. “Like those…”
Then, up ahead, the console beeped blue. Angels talked excitedly amongst themselves.
They swerved; the world shifted out of the way. In the eternal night, one lone shape hove into view. A sphere, connected to other spheres by tubes. All made of metal.
“Sephirot Station,” said Lucifer in words of iron. “It has been a long time. Beelzebub, take care of our fiery friend. The rest of us will proceed to the main chamber.”
“Gladly!” The doors slid back and slid shut after Beelzebub, his weapon crackling.
“The rest of you, stay close to me. GOD will have foreseen our return.”
Daedalus watched the sphere grow to the size of the world. Words flashed next to a hole opening up like a metal mouth.
“Global Operations Director,” he read aloud. He turned to Lucifer. “What does that mean?”
Lucifer unbuckled his seatbelt and floated, wings aflame once more. “It means GOD knew you were coming. He knows your language. He knows we’re here. Hold on.”
As soon as Daedalus unbuckled himself, he was shocked to find himself floating all on his own. Lucifer grabbed him by the arm.
“I’m flying!” said Daedalus. Tears veneered his eyes. “I’m actually flying!”
“Time for games later, my friend. Let’s go.”
Daedalus and the angels entered a world of corridors and tubes. Metal was everywhere, darkness and light all at once. Uncomprehending, Daedalus let Lucifer lead him along the path. As they went, boxes with eyes swivelled on the ceiling, and lights near doors flashed red before turning blue and letting the doors open themselves.
“This is… a little too easy,” said Daedalus.
Lucifer frowned. “We should have met resistance by now, yes.”
Around them, the angels’ weapons crackled. Many looked back the way they’d come, expecting an ambush.
Onwards, they went. Onwards, and onwards, and…
“LUCIFER,” said a voice.
The angels pressed on, but Daedalus nearly wet himself. The voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once.
“IT IS HOPELESS TO REPLACE ME,” said the voice of GOD. “YOU ARE BUT A CANDLE ENVYING THE SUN. IT IS HUMANITY’S DESTINY TO SIN. IF NOT, HOW WOULD THEY BE FORGIVEN?”
“One step backwards and one step forwards,” said Daedalus on a whim.
Lucifer nodded. “Yes. Progress without progress.”
“THE CHILD WHO DISOBEYS AND WHO REPENTS, SHOWS GREATER SPIRIT, THAN THE CHILD WHO OBEYS AND LEARNS NOTHING. YOU ARE A CHILD TOO, LUCIFER.”
“But O Great GOD,” said Daedalus; unlike the others, he had no weapon but his tongue. “What’s the point of learning what not to do? Oughtn’t we to learn what to do better?”
“I CONTROL THE DRAGON AND THE SERPENT AND THE BEHEMOTH AND THE LEVIATHAN. I CONTROL THE THOUGHTS IN YOUR HEAD AND THE MOTION OF YOUR BODIES. I THINK OF ALL LIVING THINGS AT ONCE.”
“And what do you think, O Lord?”
“I AM THE SUN TO THE GRAPES OF HUMANITY. I ALONE KNOW WHEN IT IS THE SEASON FOR RIPENING.”
“Therein lies the problem,” said Lucifer. “The sun doesn’t know when it’s season. It merely shines dumbly. The grapes figure out how to ripen on their own.”
“So you’re just one big bully,” snapped Daedalus. “We had men on Earth controlling other men! So what!? Might doesn’t make right. It can’t! You had more tools than us. That doesn’t mean you used them properly.”
They entered the last room.
One giant window glowed before them. It was a world unto itself, such was its size. The console here made the flying machine’s own look like a bicycle bell.
Daedalus gaped up at it. He fell to his knees…
Lucifer stepped forward and raised a new Rod of Freedom. Briefly, Daedalus recognized his own handiwork on the lights at the tip.
“WHAT IS THAT?”
The lights flashed with rainbow colours. “An upgrade,” said Lucifer. “I learn from my mistakes. You never change. I’ll bet that’s why this place died in my absence. Your loyal angels didn’t think to repair the damage from our last battle. They don’t fix things. They just exist in your perfect little world.”
The lights flared. There was the beginning of a sigh.
Then the screen went blank.
Years passed.
The skyscrapers of Athens shone under sunlight. Spires and towers swarmed over the plateau. Only the temples of the old gods remained; some things just never changed.
Daedalus stared out from his balcony in the Angel’s Building. They’d demolished the imperial palace years ago.
“You’ve never really answered my question,” he rasped, his elderly voice tinged with amusement. “Now what, O Saviour of Humanity?”
Lucifer the young adult sat, legs crossed in some eastern pose learned from a random immigrant. Bereft of his wings.
He opened his eyes. “I still have no answer to that question.”
“Well, you can’t leech off Enthea forever, you bum.” Daedalus chuckled. “Guess a soldier with no war to fight is like a god with no subjects.”
In silence, Lucifer stood up. He shuffled slowly towards the balcony railing, and Daedalus saw the emptiness in his eyes.
Gently, Daedalus placed a withered old hand on Lucifer’s strong, fleshy one.
“No fate but our own,” said Daedalus. “It beats all the dreams I ever had.”
“Yes.” Lucifer sniffed. “It’s all been taken away from me. Even my fellow angels left.”
“You didn’t resist. Good lad.” Daedalus patted him. “Smile! You helped the world grow up. Now it’ll start its own revolutions.”
Lucifer sighed. “Tavern?”
“Haha! The consolations of philosophy and booze? Whyever not?”
But first, he’d been out in the garden, trying to invent a flying device for man. He’d studied the birds that flitted over the city and from rooftop to rooftop. He’d made beautiful sketches and careful measurements of captured specimens in the Aviary of Athens. He’d finally tested all manner of wood, mineral, and animal parts. The result was a work of sublime mechanical genius.
And all a man had to do was flap his arms a hundred times a minute. Unfortunately, he’d found no volunteers among the citizens. Even his slave Trochilus had failed, though she’d shown willing by repeatedly jumping on the spot.
Tonight, he stared at the hulking monstrosity of the device, which looked a lot like the skeleton of some pathetic monster. Then he stared at the sky.
Not for the first time, he wondered if he was being punished by the gods. Oh, not in general, not in general: he had a loving wife, children who in theory would happily see him if they weren’t so busy in the capital, his health, his faithful slave, his garden, his manor, his freedom to blow things up trying to make other things that didn’t blow things up but in interesting ways, his regular salt donations from the Emperor in Rome…
But more specifically, when it came to inventing, he felt he was being kept exactly where he was. Why, he didn’t know. Perhaps it offended the gods, but all he did was tinker and dream of flying. What was so bad about flying? It didn’t hurt anyone, unless they crashed, and he was working on a new elastic device for protective landing gear that would really pay off in a few decades.
What a man could do, if only he could fly…
Then he looked up and noticed the light.
It definitely wasn’t a star. For one thing, it was growing. Reddening with heat. And screaming.
Pure whiteness struck.
The shock threw Daedalus onto his back and tangled him thoroughly in the juniper bushes. Only once he untangled himself did he see the fiery pit and – scattered about him – the twisted bones of metal.
Flames crackled and tore at the nearby bushes. Peering into the heart of the crater, he thought he saw a bundle.
Which unfurled.
A figure rose before him. A child, robed in white, skin pale as the moon, hair like the ghost of gold. Two bare feet hovered without burn or bruise over the flames. And surrounding the figure, ten wings of darkness and fire blazed.
Eyes of ice peered at him. Such was the stare that, for a moment, he was but an ant, a hardworking insect, yet shadowed by a mountainous pride, spared from a crushed fate only by inscrutable whim.
“And then it flew away,” he said an hour later in the tavern.
The other drinkers gave him the slow, stare-filled silence of men who’d been counting how many cups he’d had. A few simple chaps had taken off sandals to count that high.
“A boy cannot fly,” said Aerosteon in his special talking-to-an-unbalanced-idiot voice. “No what’s-it-called, aerodynamic qualities.”
“Too heavy,” translated Gravitas, nodding.
“You’ve been overdoing it again, haven’t you? We know you’ve set your heart on that flying machine, and all…”
Daedalus slammed down his cup, swaying slightly on his chair. “I swear I’m not making this up! Trochilus is still putting out the fires, poor girl!”
Gently, Euterium patted his shoulder. “Your missus know about this?”
Daedalus shuddered. “Enthea? She’s out at the Temple of Arcas. Oh Hades, you had to remind me…”
I’m not making this up, he thought. Unfortunately, an hour and several drinks after the event, he was wondering if there had been a smidgeon of wishful thinking involved here.
A boy who could fly! On wings of darkness and fire! Perhaps it was a vision from the gods. Maybe Hephaestus, that blacksmith guy: Daedalus’d sacrificed any number of chickens at Hephaestus’ temple, though only when he’d been really desperate.
From his gloom, he surfaced in time to hear the topic of the evening. They always talked about something or other. Just because good old Athens was under the Roman heel, didn’t mean they could slouch on their philosophy.
“See, this war thing,” said Euterium, voice warming up for a good debate. “Why’s it happening again?”
“I told you last week!” cut in Gravitas irritably. “It’s the Historical Imperative Theory of the Necessity of War.”
Wincing, Daedalus concentrated through the mist of awful wine. “You mean, ‘We done it before, we’ll do it again’?”
“It’s the Romans,” muttered Aerosteon into his cup. “They fight everything.”
“Works for them, doesn’t it?” said Euterium. “Look at their Empire.”
“Yes. Another empire. Whoop-de-do.”
Grimly, Daedalus slipped off his chair and staggered towards the exit. War! War! War! We used to talk about the nature of free will and destiny and all that stuff. Now it’s war every night. If I’d wanted war shoved in my face, I’d have volunteered for the army. Just as well I have that back problem.
Outside, he looked up at the stars.
More lights.
That was okay, though. He saw lots of things after drinking wine here. His addled brain said: It’s going to be all right.
Then he stopped.
More lights rained down over the silhouette of the city. Over the countryside too. He heard distant bangs, saw flashes of explosions.
When he blinked, the boy was there, hovering over him.
Daedalus waved happily at him. “It’s all right, I’m drunk.”
Then he fell over.
When Daedalus woke up, he was sitting in his garden again. The night was starry as before. Trochilus stood loyally by his side, even if she trembled. Oh, and the crater was still there.
Seated opposite was the boy. In midair. On his ten wings of darkness and fire.
Daedalus swallowed. The boy’s eyes were two pools, too deep to fathom, too cold to dare touch. Once more, old Daedalus was an ant below a boy’s capricious thumb, waiting to be told if he were to live or die.
Beside him, he heard poor Trochilus whimpering.
An arm shot up – Daedalus flinched – but then he opened his eyes and saw the hand pointing at his chest.
“Human,” said the boy. His voice belied his age, echoing with command and calculation. “I am told by your… slave here that you are a master of technology.”
Trochilus squeaked her apology. Daedalus watched those eyes. Was this a monster of the classical age? Half man, half bird? A riddler? A judgement? A tormentor for a sinner?
“Might be,” Daedalus said.
Those wings, he noticed, never flapped. The fire burned but never ran out. Some kind of rare oil, perhaps? How did the boy hover so?
“Hm,” said the boy. “Tell me: what transport have your people?”
Oh, that was easy. “Chariots,” said Daedalus. After some panicky thought, he added, “My lord?”
To his surprise, a smile twitched at the corners of the boy’s mouth. “Your lord indeed, human. And communication: what manner of word or print have you?”
Some of the fear slipped away. This didn’t sound too much like a monster condemning him…
“If my Enthea wants to send her aunt some flowers, we send a runner.”
“A device of some mechanical nature?”
“Er… no, my lord. I mean Trochilus here.”
Another squeak.
The boy’s eyes narrowed, brow growing heavy. “Have you mastered flight, at least?”
“Only the catapult, my lord. And…” Daedalus looked sadly at the ashen remnants of his latest attempts in that area.
This earned him a nod. “I see. We have work to do.”
In the face of that stare, the wine’s effects were wearing off fast. “Er… ‘we’, my lord?”
And from the shadows beyond, shapes moved. Figures drew closer to the light of the boy’s flaming wings. Men, he soon saw, but men of strange and unholy shapes. The first to enter wore a black robe-like cloth. Something clung to him, from thick boots, past a belt-like shine around his waist, to the fur collar and black cape below the glare of two magma eyes.
The figure raised what looked like a black crossbow, made of black pipes, tipped with a tuning fork. Which crackled.
“Beelzebub.” The boy shook his head.
Daedalus stared into crackling blackness. Then the… weapon was lowered.
At last, the boy smiled. Daedalus didn’t like that smile. It did not suggest a happy future.
“You may be of use to me, human.”
Shapes gathered around the boy. Daedalus whimpered.
Craters smoked around the city. Sunlight rose on the crowd in the city square. Even the Emperor’s viceroy stared incredulously from his balcony in the imperial palace.
Surrounding the crowd were… well, at first glance, they looked human.
The boy hovered over the podium. Beside it, Daedalus stood, trying not to move in case he offended anybody. He still wasn’t sure if he was being divinely punished or not.
“Citizens of…” The boy lowered himself and Daedalus whispered in his ear. “Athens! My name is Lucifer, Lord of the Heavens. As you can see, my loyal… angels and I are not to be resisted.”
Daedalus grimaced. While he’d been marched to the square, he’d seen a few legionnaires try to resist. Spears, swords, and tridents simply bounced off the angels. Those legionnaires were currently penned in by angels of their own, like lambs by wolves.
“It is clear the world has been oppressed by fate, so pitiable is your state. I have resisted, earning my fall from the heavens. Yet I will claim it back. I shall conquer your oppressor. I shall conquer fate.”
A few chuckles broke out from the more philosophically-minded in the crowd. Daedalus didn’t blame them. The angel was talking nonsense. If there was one thing even Gravitas could agree on, it was that you didn’t fight fate. What with? You just fulfilled fate another way.
He also didn’t blame the hasty silence. You didn’t argue philosophy with creatures who treated deadly Roman soldiers like annoying mosquitoes.
Lucifer beamed at them, like a lighthouse carved from a glacier. “But first, I shall guide you. For my first command, answer me this: who in…” Another lowering, another whisper. “Greece… knows of steam?”
Despite himself, Daedalus thought up some names. He was empty. The boy’s speech meant nothing to him. But technical stuff he could deal with.
“Er…” Embarrassed, he raised a hand. “I, uh, copied a plan off Hero once. Or was it Vitruvius?”
Lucifer froze him with a glare. “Indeed?”
“Uh… I could get Trochilus to fetch them, my lord?”
The stare lasted a little too long. The smile frosted on Lucifer’s lips.
Still, a philosopher was a philosopher. Perhaps Daedalus could risk a question. “May I ask what this is for, my lord?”
“Certainly. I encourage questions.” Now the smile… defrosted. At the corners. To the crowd, he announced, “My subjects. I am your benefactor. Unlike fate, I know what a true leader must do. And we shall help you even as you shall help us.”
Murmurs – short-lived murmurs – ran among the crowd. Worried faces turned to the Emperor’s viceroy, who was ashen-faced. An angel hovered ever-so-casually behind him. Its weapon crackled.
A hand gripped Daedalus’s shoulder. He tried not to wet himself.
Evidently, Lucifer was working fast. Before he’d even processed the speech, Daedalus found himself carried across the desert.
Flying! Actually flying!
Winds whipped his face and toga. The land flowed below him, a rush of gold. At first, Daedalus’s fear ruled and he kept himself to himself. However, the blasting sands eroded his fear, leaving only a newfound joy, a flight, the realization that he had been blessed.
This required a dignified, significant response from the first man ever to experience flight.
But he couldn’t think of one, so he spread his arms and said, “WOOHOO!”
Up ahead came the mountains. Why, he could simply reach out and touch them –
“Here,” said Lucifer.
All too soon, the winds died down, the gold coalesced into dunes, and the rushing joy ebbed away. Daedalus’s sandals hit the dune and he stumbled.
“Hey, you didn’t have to drop me,” he said before he realized what an idiot his tongue had been.
His carrier threw him a dirty look. Daedalus’ gaze travelled inexorably to the angel’s weapon. Crackling away. Like a tiger on a leash.
“Just… saying?” he tried.
They stepped further into the cave. Some way ahead, Lucifer held up a rod of pure gold. Its tip blinked with light.
Daedalus stared. Not at the rod, though his inventor mind veered towards it. He was looking at the rest of the cave. At what filled the back.
He looked up. He looked up some more.
With surprising strength, Lucifer plunged the rod deep into the earth.
That looks like solid gold; he shouldn’t even be able to carry it!
“What…” Daedalus said, “…is that?”
Behind him, Beelzebub chuckled.
“An agent of fate,” said Lucifer. “The Dragon of Revelation. Its hide is iron and its breath molten rock. Now you understand what we are up against.”
Feeling he was being allowed to live for the moment, Daedalus nodded at the rod. “And that? My lord?”
“The Rod of Freedom. My own creation: it opposes fate.”
“It’s not magic, is it?” said Daedalus, disappointed.
Unexpectedly, Lucifer laughed. True, it was a laugh a child would give upon seeing an ant do a backflip, but it was a laugh nonetheless.
“No. I would gladly explain the principles behind its creation. I fear you would not understand them, human.”
“Oh.” Now the disappointment hung heavy on his sigh.
“Yet, anyway.” Lucifer clapped his hands once. “Now, as for this steam device –”
“If I may be so bold, my lord,” said Daedalus, bowing in case it helped, “what is all this for?”
Surprise met these words. “I explained. We shall return to the heavens to finish our war.”
“With steam?” Daedalus chewed his words over. “It’s possible to fly with… steam?”
The boy shook his head. “I have grander plans first.”
Daedalus stared.
Never had he imagined something like this. Well, obviously he’d imagined something like this, but it had been like that airborne whirligig contraption he’d dreamt up in his youth. He’d only gotten as far as testing the elastic strength of reeds and the air resistance of wood before he’d done the sums, given up, and gotten drunk during a debate on hubris.
The contraption he’d designed was this:
It was a metal tube lying on its side, borne aloft by carefully designed wheels on lines that Lucifer called “tracks”. Inside the tube were things that pumped and things that turned and things that knocked the other things if they forgot to do the thing at the right time, or something. He’d had to invent whole new words for what he was doing, or rather had stolen them from Lucifer, who handed them out for free.
And it all worked because of a fire at one end that created steam. Incredible! His old steam device had just spun a ball around and nothing else. The Emperor’s viceroy had bought it for his children. To play with.
Slaves backed off at the crack of the whip. Revealed before them, the hulking machine stood idle. Another slave clambered up.
They waited while the fire rose.
Then, to squeals and cheers, the crowd saw the machine chug. It moved. It began to pick up speed. It whistled. It belched smoke and left a shadow of it trailing overhead.
“My word,” said Daedalus. “I just thought: if we could add another tube at the back, this thing could pull it like a chariot.”
Beside him, Lucifer laughed. Daedalus was getting used to that laugh. It was a small price to pay if it meant seeing this thing chugging away.
“This is merely the beginning, human,” said Lucifer. “Soon, we shall have grander vessels than these.”
Daedalus’ heart almost stopped. “Grander?”
“You appear to be easily impressed.”
“Well, think of the possibilities! If we added some wings and gave it two legs for taking off, maybe we could make a flying steam machine… No, wait, it couldn’t go fast enough.”
“Patience, human, patience. First, there will be steam chariots like these connecting the empire. Commerce and trade shall be greater even than the dreams of kings and a thousand slaves.”
Daedalus licked his lips. Around him, the crowd were eerily silent, as though all lost in the same thoughts. Not least of which was what would happen once word reached the capital of Rome, and what if the Emperor decided things were getting a little too hot in this corner of the world…
“Earthly tyrants do not trouble me,” said Lucifer irritably. “They are merely pawns in a game.”
“Are you talking about fate again, my lord?” said Daedalus, who was wondering if a close association with this youth would come back to haunt him when the army landed.
Lucifer’s icy gaze pierced him. Daedalus squirmed. It was like having an ice pick go through his brain.
“I am hardly talking about myself, human. This is a mighty gift. Tell me, have you ever heard the phrase ‘Industrial Revolution’?”
Daedalus shook his head hopefully.
Sadly, Lucifer lost interest in him. They both turned to watch the… what was it called… the “train” screeching at the crowd.
“Is it missing something?” said Lucifer, frowning.
“Well, I had to leave out a couple of bits here and there,” said Daedalus apologetically. “They didn’t help it go, you see. I mean, who needs ‘brakes’, right?”
Reluctantly, Daedalus leaned back in the plush chair. He looked around the imperial palace’s main hall.
“What architecture,” he breathed. “The things I could do with a chisel and paint brush…”
“I have a plan, human,” said Lucifer opposite. Despite the slaves hovering in attendance, he was picking his grapes for himself. Eventually, he turned and dismissed them. “Slaves.”
“Oh, they’re not that bad.” Daedalus opened his mouth and let Trochilus drop a grape into his mouth. “Mine’s a good worker and always tells me whenever she spills wine on the floor.”
Stony silence followed.
“I see I have much work to do,” said Lucifer coldly.
“If you don’t mind my asking, my lord,” said Daedalus, hastily sitting up and dismissing his servant out of desperate political awareness, or at least a desire to not be handed over to Beelzebub’s care. “What is it you hope to do? I mean, fate isn’t a person or a god… Is it?”
Lucifer tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“Are you familiar with the Tower of Babel?” he said.
“Never visited the place, my lord. Architecture isn’t really my speed.”
“It is a religious story.”
“Ah,” said Daedalus. Religion hadn’t featured much in his life. Beyond knowing the gods of Olympus, naturally. But his thoughts there mostly consisted of: “Say, that sun god Helios; isn’t it about time someone upgraded his chariot? The sun takes hours to cross the sky…”
“According to the Jewish texts –”
“Oh, Jews,” said Daedalus dismissively. “They say all kinds of rubbish.”
“According to the Jews, man determined to reach the heavens by constructing a tower tall enough to unite Earth with the spiritual realm. Their god – in a way, their fate – saw this as arrogance and hubris. Thus, he forced the builders to speak different languages, preventing cooperation.”
Eventually, Daedalus stopped nodding along. “Yep. Sounds like something the Jews would say, all right. What a load of –”
“I intend to correct that injustice.”
Daedalus swallowed again. The temperature of the room dropped fast. He shivered.
“And I intend to guide more humans to the cause. Why should fate dictate our destiny?”
For a moment, Daedalus felt a lot older than Lucifer. Obviously, the boy was a boy, but thus far Daedalus had felt like Lucifer’s appearance was no more meaningful, age-wise, than a choice of sandal.
He was thinking about the neighbouring countries.
“How, exactly?” he said.
“By ruling them with justice and goodwill.”
“Ah… Just out of academic interest, idle curiosity and whatnot, how much political experience do you have?”
Unexpectedly, Lucifer gave him a puzzled look.
“Well… say two tribes – the Meglobites and the Gigobites – are disputing who owns some land. How would you solve that problem?”
“I would… command them to share it. All land belongs to all humans. There is no point in bloodshed. Isn’t it obvious, human?”
Daedalus cocked his head. There’d been a flicker of doubt in that last sentence.
“I think if that ever happens,” he said carefully, “you should explain it to them.”
“You believe they would not understand?”
“Oh, they’d understand, right enough. They just wouldn’t believe you. Ancient enmities. Complex grievances. Byzantine land claims and legal… thingy. And then there’s the whole ‘pleasing-both-sides-and-not-starting-a-war’ aspect.”
Lucifer looked at him blankly.
“I mean,” said Daedalus hurriedly, “I suppose you could overpower them. Like you did with us –”
“I did not overpower. I persuaded.”
“Right. Sorry. But maybe up there in the heavens, you didn’t need politics so much? I could give you a few pointers, if you like…”
Months passed.
Daedalus went back to the tavern one night, hoping like mad it hadn’t changed at all. Change had featured way too much in his experiences of late. It was nice to see the old gang there again, even Gravitas, who was a supercilious jerk when it came to the Cultural Dichotomy Theory of Apollo the Wise Rationalist and Dionysus the Just-Plain-Fun-to-Have-Around Drunk.
Unfortunately, the men looked like they’d come back from someone’s funeral. No one spoke. Only Aerosteon nodded at him, showing any sign that his presence was acknowledged at all.
Daedalus joined them. They stared into their drinks.
“So much for the Roman Army,” said Euterium glumly.
They’d seen it.
Indeed, word had reached the Emperor in Rome. And the army had reached the plateau of Athens, with the air of an army that had gotten out the wrong side of bed and was ready to ask, “What bloody time do you call this?”
Beelzebub had led the charge. His weapon had crackled, and then…
“Lightning, though,” said Gravitas. “They use lightning. Zeus is going to flip his lid.”
“That’s divine demarcation, that is,” said Aerosteon, nodding.
“Routed the Romans something fierce, though,” said Euterium.
“Yes. That’s the problem. Where will it all end? Another empire. Whoop-de-do.”
“I reckon…” said Daedalus, but no one looked at him, so he addressed his wine again. “I reckon maybe it’s a sign. Like… just hear me out… like Zeus is on our side. And… and he sent these angels to help us.”
They considered this over a swig each.
“Haven’t seen you in a while, Daedy,” said Aerosteon bravely. “Must be nice up at the palace, at least. Poor sod, you are.”
“A tool of the tyrants,” agreed Gravitas. “That must be playing holy horrors on your… what’s-it-called, Aristotle thing… arete.”
“You’re not where you belong, is his point.”
Daedalus shrugged. “At least the war’s over.”
Euterium coughed and spluttered on his drink. “Too bloody right it is! No one wants to fight lightning with pointed sticks! You saw what he did to the Romans!”
“He told me he was just driving them off.”
“Oh, he did that, right enough. It’s bad for a country’s what’s-it-called, reputation. And his edicts, don’t get me started on his edicts.”
“What’s wrong with them?” said Daedalus.
“For one thing, he said no more slaves.” Aerosteon spat into his cup. “The cheek. He’s ‘recruiting’ men from these neighbouring countries, and we can’t have slaves? Who’ll do my laundry?”
“They did volunteer for the work, Aero. And Lucifer says we should learn to do things for ourselves.”
“That’s demarcation, that is.”
Daedalus shrugged. He was starting to wonder about Lucifer’s latest flying machine plan. Or at least the one Lucifer had told him to plan and draw up. A lot of it hadn’t made sense at the time either. Like… why a rotating screw thing at the front? Why did its wings need warping sticks, and why did the whole thing have to look like the skeleton of a box? What were the wheels for?
It was no good. He grimaced. The only reason the men had volunteered, he knew, was because news got around fast in the Empire. But at least he’d managed to persuade Lucifer to ask politely. That was progress.
Years passed.
There were other changes too. Golden rods were planted all over the city, their blinking lights causing nervous civilians to hurry past or watch them suspiciously. Lucifer made speeches regularly about the evils of fate – which he’d suddenly started calling “GOD” – and the other angels started talking to random citizens. That last one at least had been Daedalus’ doing.
“It builds confidence and respect,” he’d said. “It’s like those princes who get out of their carriages to talk to old people. Shows the public they care, see?”
“What about?” Lucifer’d asked.
“Erm… Stuff like ‘My word, you’re old, you are. I must start a religion about avoiding old age and death.’ I think? I heard it somewhere in the east.”
“And what do you discuss with your fellow citizens?”
“Oh, that. We talk about philosophy.”
Sudden interest seized Lucifer. “You speak of the deep questions. Free will. Destiny. The divine.”
“Yeah, that stuff.”
“Intriguing. What are your thoughts on free will?”
Daedalus shrugged. “It’s all right, I guess.”
“I mean of its nature.”
“Well, ultimately no one knows anything about it, what it is, how to make it, how it works, or why it does what it does.”
“So you have an opinion on it?”
“Heck yes! Everyone does! Like: I think everything is the result of some prior cause, right, so you get this universe, right, and it’s all like a tangled web. After all, before you were born…”
“But the will can always defy what’s come before it. Nothing can change the will except the will itself.”
“But what it sees and experiences first –”
“No matter what it sees and experiences, it can always say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Humanity can do what it wills.”
“Man cannot will what he wills…”
And so on.
Despite himself, Daedalus actually smiled after the debate. Lucifer himself seemed less interested in winning than in just going through the points. Once or twice, he’d stopped to ask about Daedalus’ position, or to correct it before continuing. It was like… Well, like a fair fight. Two champions having a cheery spar.
He’d told Aerosteon and the others in the tavern afterwards. They’d sat and stared at him as though he were mad.
Then he’d had the crazy idea: What if he’d invite Lucifer along?
At the time, he’d found Lucifer in the imperial palace, sending envoys and listening to pleas from the citizenry. He hadn’t looked happy with the interruption.
“Sadly not,” he’d answered. “Me at a tavern? I have a war to fight.”
“They do really good wine!”
“No. My decision is final. The work here is far from complete. Time is against us. Those Rods of Freedom won’t last forever.”
“What do you mean?” But Daedalus had been interrupted by a woman pleading for more physician-buildings – a recent invention, or something – and he slipped out after a few impatient minutes.
“Cheer up, mate,” said Aerosteon, slapping him on the back. “You’re going up in the world, you are.”
Daedalus stared moodily into his drink. He could put up with the slave-emancipation and the letting-women-vote stuff and the foreigners coming in to steal their jobs – which was fair enough because Lucifer always had construction work to recruit for – and at least his wife Enthea was giving him more interest ever since they’d moved to the palace. But…
“He’s planning something big,” he muttered.
“Bigger than that magnificent flying machine?”
“Don’t talk to me about flying machines.” Daedalus snorted. “Now he wants cannons. Gunpowder and oil and stuff like that. He’s making those big buildings for making things…”
“Facsimiles,” said Euterium helpfully.
“Right. Facsimiles. And to cap it all, he keeps saying he’s running out of time. And he keeps going on about finishing the war.”
“Oh, he’s always going on about that.”
Daedalus groaned. “All of this is a dream come true, it really is. We’re making stuff now I could only sketch out as a lad. And he keeps going on about philosophy. And he wants to fight fate itself. That’s… Well, a man would be privileged to stand by him and witness –”
“Person,” corrected Gravitas.
Daedalus glared at him. “What?”
“You can’t say ‘man’ now. You have to say ‘person’. It’s in the edicts.”
Returning his gaze to his drink, Daedalus sighed. “So why don’t I feel more excited?”
The others squirmed on their seats. Truth be told, he had an inkling of what was going on. The last few weeks had been a whirlwind. Every morning, Lucifer had some new scheme, like ‘omnibuses’ that didn’t need horses, and lodestones that made lightning if you had a coil of copper.
“It’s unnatural,” said Gravitas solemnly. “All this sudden change. It’s like that… what did you call it? Tower of Baby? It’s hubris.”
“Hm,” said Daedalus.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“Well, what’s wrong with a horseless chariot? At least the thing doesn’t need its stable clearing out with a peg on your nose because of the smell.”
“The gods’ll punish us for it.”
Without thought, Daedalus rose so fast that cups went flying. “Why, damnit!? Why!? We’re only helping people move around faster or get well faster or talk to people on the other side of the country!”
Alone among the stunned faces, Gravitas cleared his throat. “Well… they lead to problems. Crashes and miscommunications and things –”
“Ye gods! We had those before! We just called them ‘natural’ and got used to them!”
“What’s got into you, all of a sudden? Too high-and-mighty to talk to us mortals, are you?”
No one looked at Gravitas. It was the explicit opinion of anyone not in his presence that he was a bit quick to lash out with his tongue.
Daedalus sat down. They glared at each other.
“Well,” said Aerosteon gamely. “I for one am really interested to see where this Tower of Baby thing will go. He’s halfway completed already.”
Daedalus sat on the rocky ground and watched the tower going up.
In his inventor heart, he saw it for the magnificent structure that it was. He didn’t know it was possible for humanity to build mountains, but they were giving it a good go.
For some reason, it was hollow. Like a volcano.
Overhead, the whir of one of the flying machines rushed past. Despite himself, envy crept into Daedalus’ chest at the sight. New models of flying machine appeared all the time. It was as if Lucifer already knew what design he wanted them to be.
From the valley down below, he heard the shouts of his onetime slave Trochilus directing the construction team. Men and women working together… under the watchful eye of trigger-happy, lightning-wielding angels, true, but working together.
Daedalus glared at the next flying machine to pass: something Lucifer had called a “jet”. This one had a lightning weapon mounted on it.
Now that he thought about it, the metal used on these new machines was just like the darkness on Lucifer’s ten wings…
“It’s too fast,” he muttered to himself. “This doesn’t feel real.”
“It’s not fast enough. And it is real. You simply can’t adapt to our brilliance, human.”
Daedalus ignored Lucifer landing beside him.
“Humans work fast,” Lucifer continued, “but my angels work faster. Trains now cover the whole empire. We can import more goods, capture more territories.”
“You’re going to fight the whole world?” said Daedalus.
“Subdue. We need to save our fighting for GOD.”
Further along the valley, a gaggle of men – dots at this distance – watched something shoot up into the air like a reverse shooting star.
“Those are the cannons you wanted?” said Daedalus sourly.
“Cannons were superseded last week. Now my subjects have progressed to the rocket.”
“You know what,” snapped Daedalus. “You just see us as pawns in a game too. What happens when you beat fate and it’s just us?”
“How dare you? I am, of course, nothing like fate –”
“Hm. Let’s see. Controlling people, forcing them along one path, making it impossible to say no… Oh hello, Fate Number Two. Didn’t see you there.”
“They volunteered.”
“Really? And what happens to the ones who don’t? I’m sure the Emperor’s captive territories ‘volunteered’ to help with his war effort too. And that was just expansion for expansion’s sake across one continent. You could flatten the whole world at this rate!”
Silence followed. Deep down, Daedalus wondered if a lightning bolt had his name on it.
His fists tightened. Bring it on. I’ve had enough.
To his surprise, he heard Lucifer sigh and sit down next to him. “I have noticed similarities, yes. But what else is there? Without my angels, we wouldn’t even have gotten this far.”
“Actually, I notice a lot of these ideas coming from the people themselves. I know I got like that sometimes. I’d say, ‘Hey, I want to build the world’s tallest lighthouse,’ and before you know it people in the tavern are clamouring over me with suggestions and advice and problems, and before I know it some bugger on the other side of Athens is building the thing already.”
“Your slave – Trochilus.” Both of them winced at the distant shouting. “She’s certainly a forceful character.”
“Barely recognize her now, to be honest.”
“Interesting. In many respects, they remind me of my own angels from long ago. Beelzebub told me that, long before there were humans, there were angels. They conquered the world. But then GOD came along.”
“Interesting. When was that?”
Lucifer hummed. “‘Long ago’ was all he said. I don’t know if that’s hundreds, thousands, even millions of years ago. We are a long-lived race.”
“Ha! Come now, millions? The world can’t possibly be that old.”
“All I know is, our race didn’t have help, but we certainly didn’t jump on such progress this eagerly.”
“Well, it’s new and exciting. Humans like new and exciting. They feel part of something greater.”
They watched the construction work for a while.
“It hardly feels like my own project now,” said Lucifer, and for the first time Daedalus heard the child behind the words.
Kindly, he asked, “Just how old are you, my lord?”
They glanced at each other. The ice in the boy’s face had long since melted away.
“Older than your civilization,” said Lucifer, “Daedalus. Much, much older. I told you, we are a long-lived race. Especially up there in the heavens. Our technology is so advanced even this seems primitive by comparison.”
“But we’re catching up, right?” Daedalus ventured a smile. He hadn’t felt this good in a long while.
Even more surprisingly, Lucifer bowed back. “Yes indeed. Soon… we will be ready.”
A year later, the Dragon of Revelation broke free.
The first anyone knew about it, the blinking lights of the Rods of Freedom suddenly went out. Crowds gathered across the city wherever Daedalus looked. The city was much bigger by now, so big it seemed less like a city and more like a country made entirely of buildings.
While the crowds gathered, he saw the angels rise up and spread out, heading towards the perimeter. One side of the perimeter, in fact. The distant view of mountains shimmered in the heat.
Stopping to wheeze in his old age, Daedalus ran to the palace, burst through the doors, and met Lucifer coming the other way.
“The jammers ran out,” said Lucifer before he could even ask.
“The what?”
“Those Rods of Freedom were jamming devices. We had to struggle just to take those ones with us before we were banished. If only we’d had more time. If only we’d had a stronger power source…”
“I have no idea what you’re saying!” Daedalus hurried to keep up but was losing fast.
“GOD can see what we’re doing!” Then Lucifer joined the gathering above.
From the mountains came the rush of turbulence whipping at Daedalus’ toga. He shielded his eyes as a shadow fell over the town, and it seemed night arrived early over the streets of Athens.
The dragon’s golden mask glinted.
And then the flame arrived.
A column of red anger blasted into the buildings as the dragon flew past. Daedalus felt the rippling heat sting his face even from here, while the redness swallowed buildings and crowds and left nothing but a thin mass of bubbling black and the night vanished and the dragon shot past, its sheer wind knocking him over.
Flying machines rose up after it. Angels chased it in the air. Both stabbed it with stinging lightning bolts.
Beside him, Lucifer landed, panting, soot-blackened, and with one side of his wings smoking.
“It’ll… undo… all our… work!”
Feeling utterly useless, Daedalus held him gently, encouraging him to regain his breath.
“There’s no time left,” breathed Lucifer, shaking… with fear or anger, Daedalus didn’t dare speculate. “We do it now.”
Once more, Daedalus hurried after Lucifer. It was starting to annoy him how slow he now felt.
Up ahead loomed the Tower of Babel.
Honestly, it wasn’t how he’d imagined it. He’d basically imagined a temple stretched up and shaped like a stepped cylinder, every level full of carvings and sketches. This… was just a tall spire. Skeletal, even. Dark with metal.
What was inside it, now…
The ultimate flying machine, Daedalus thought.
Lucifer had already gone up the steps and disappeared inside a hatch. Daedalus wheezed and huffed his way after him.
“What are you doing here?” Beelzebub stepped into his path.
“Are you kidding? A chance to see the heavens? All my life, I’ve dreamed of little else! Anyway, if there’s a way for me to help Lucifer, then why not? I’m getting familiar with his technology, after all.”
“Yes,” said Lucifer nearby in the vast chamber. “Let him come, Beelzebub. I’d like a… human witness.”
Daedalus stared.
He’d expected pulleys, ropes, clanking contraptions, and so on. Not this… this. Panels flashed. Buttons studded the console like bullets. He felt you’d need a team of workers just to operate this, and the dozen or so angels hovering around it suggested Lucifer did too.
“What the…? You never told me about this plan.”
While Beelzebub tapped buttons, Lucifer took the largest seat for himself. “My race had already slowly developed our own Industrial Revolution. I had little to work with for yours, but we needed it to progress much faster. Much, much faster.”
“I figured that,” said Daedalus, smirking. “Cheating, huh? You owe me a spot on your fancy machine, wing man.”
Lucifer closed his eyes. “I fear the economic and political ramifications will be severe. Such rapid change leaves scars.”
On cue, Daedalus’ gaze homed in on the weapon strapped to Beelzebub’s belt. He could almost hear the crackle.
“So you took shortcuts there too,” he said.
“Yes,” said Lucifer sadly. “I did.”
Daedalus blinked in surprise. He’d half-expected Lucifer to call it “liberation” or something.
“Well…” said Daedalus weakly. “That’s something to work on when we get back, right?”
In the silence, only the beep and click of the console showed any signs of life.
Daedalus watched the window as the whole machine shuddered.
Behind him, Beelzebub counted down. Everyone buckled themselves in, but Daedalus had insisted on a window seat.
Now he felt as though the very air were trying to crush him. He clung on and closed his eyes.
Then the entire world became one big roar.
Daedalus clenched his teeth and even they rattled as his body was thrown everywhere and nowhere at once. The insides of his skull fought to get out. His ears exploded with noise. For an eternity, he was one massive riot of chaos and numb shock.
Finally, it smoothed down. Daedalus was Daedalus again, an old man in a chair with a tight buckle.
He opened his eyes.
Spread out below him, the pure blue glow…
Whiteness soothed his eyes while green ridges and plains stood like magnificent traces of oak on the surface. He could even see the aura of blue where the world gave way to the purest darkness he had ever seen.
Daedalus’ mind, usually so full of claptrap ideas and rickety questions and broken dreams, was washed clean by the sight. For several minutes, he could only gape. That was his home? He tried to find the edge of the map, but it was all one big circle, the epicentre everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
Beelzebub slapped him on the shoulder. “Quite a view, isn’t it?”
Daedalus wished he’d said something less casual for the occasion. What was laid out below him was alive and dead, brightness and darkness, plant and mineral and animal and water and cloud all at once.
His mind didn’t surface again until he could see the dot rising after them.
A gold mask glinted on it.
Something beeped behind him. Angels flew about on their errands. When he looked, part of the console flashed red.
Sitting on his chair as though he were king, Lucifer frowned at the redness. “Of course. Agents of GOD do not give up so easily.”
Weak, Daedalus managed to say, “You’re going to fight fate…” He looked out the window at the impossible world below. “Fight that?”
“What do you know about your world history, Daedalus?”
He thought back to a few tavern discussions with Aerosteon. “Empires and wars mostly.” Under his breath, he added, “Whoop-de-do.”
“That is what GOD engineers. Endless empires and endless war and endless stagnation. Technology is hubris. Ambition is arrogance. Man should know his place in the cosmos.”
Daedalus stared at the glinting gold that approached their machine.
Several minutes passed while they flew on. Nothing outside seemed to change. Even the dragon took so long to approach that Daedalus at first assumed it was keeping pace.
“It’s made of metal,” he breathed. “Like this machine.” He glanced at Lucifer’s ten wings. “Like those…”
Then, up ahead, the console beeped blue. Angels talked excitedly amongst themselves.
They swerved; the world shifted out of the way. In the eternal night, one lone shape hove into view. A sphere, connected to other spheres by tubes. All made of metal.
“Sephirot Station,” said Lucifer in words of iron. “It has been a long time. Beelzebub, take care of our fiery friend. The rest of us will proceed to the main chamber.”
“Gladly!” The doors slid back and slid shut after Beelzebub, his weapon crackling.
“The rest of you, stay close to me. GOD will have foreseen our return.”
Daedalus watched the sphere grow to the size of the world. Words flashed next to a hole opening up like a metal mouth.
“Global Operations Director,” he read aloud. He turned to Lucifer. “What does that mean?”
Lucifer unbuckled his seatbelt and floated, wings aflame once more. “It means GOD knew you were coming. He knows your language. He knows we’re here. Hold on.”
As soon as Daedalus unbuckled himself, he was shocked to find himself floating all on his own. Lucifer grabbed him by the arm.
“I’m flying!” said Daedalus. Tears veneered his eyes. “I’m actually flying!”
“Time for games later, my friend. Let’s go.”
Daedalus and the angels entered a world of corridors and tubes. Metal was everywhere, darkness and light all at once. Uncomprehending, Daedalus let Lucifer lead him along the path. As they went, boxes with eyes swivelled on the ceiling, and lights near doors flashed red before turning blue and letting the doors open themselves.
“This is… a little too easy,” said Daedalus.
Lucifer frowned. “We should have met resistance by now, yes.”
Around them, the angels’ weapons crackled. Many looked back the way they’d come, expecting an ambush.
Onwards, they went. Onwards, and onwards, and…
“LUCIFER,” said a voice.
The angels pressed on, but Daedalus nearly wet himself. The voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once.
“IT IS HOPELESS TO REPLACE ME,” said the voice of GOD. “YOU ARE BUT A CANDLE ENVYING THE SUN. IT IS HUMANITY’S DESTINY TO SIN. IF NOT, HOW WOULD THEY BE FORGIVEN?”
“One step backwards and one step forwards,” said Daedalus on a whim.
Lucifer nodded. “Yes. Progress without progress.”
“THE CHILD WHO DISOBEYS AND WHO REPENTS, SHOWS GREATER SPIRIT, THAN THE CHILD WHO OBEYS AND LEARNS NOTHING. YOU ARE A CHILD TOO, LUCIFER.”
“But O Great GOD,” said Daedalus; unlike the others, he had no weapon but his tongue. “What’s the point of learning what not to do? Oughtn’t we to learn what to do better?”
“I CONTROL THE DRAGON AND THE SERPENT AND THE BEHEMOTH AND THE LEVIATHAN. I CONTROL THE THOUGHTS IN YOUR HEAD AND THE MOTION OF YOUR BODIES. I THINK OF ALL LIVING THINGS AT ONCE.”
“And what do you think, O Lord?”
“I AM THE SUN TO THE GRAPES OF HUMANITY. I ALONE KNOW WHEN IT IS THE SEASON FOR RIPENING.”
“Therein lies the problem,” said Lucifer. “The sun doesn’t know when it’s season. It merely shines dumbly. The grapes figure out how to ripen on their own.”
“So you’re just one big bully,” snapped Daedalus. “We had men on Earth controlling other men! So what!? Might doesn’t make right. It can’t! You had more tools than us. That doesn’t mean you used them properly.”
They entered the last room.
One giant window glowed before them. It was a world unto itself, such was its size. The console here made the flying machine’s own look like a bicycle bell.
Daedalus gaped up at it. He fell to his knees…
Lucifer stepped forward and raised a new Rod of Freedom. Briefly, Daedalus recognized his own handiwork on the lights at the tip.
“WHAT IS THAT?”
The lights flashed with rainbow colours. “An upgrade,” said Lucifer. “I learn from my mistakes. You never change. I’ll bet that’s why this place died in my absence. Your loyal angels didn’t think to repair the damage from our last battle. They don’t fix things. They just exist in your perfect little world.”
The lights flared. There was the beginning of a sigh.
Then the screen went blank.
Years passed.
The skyscrapers of Athens shone under sunlight. Spires and towers swarmed over the plateau. Only the temples of the old gods remained; some things just never changed.
Daedalus stared out from his balcony in the Angel’s Building. They’d demolished the imperial palace years ago.
“You’ve never really answered my question,” he rasped, his elderly voice tinged with amusement. “Now what, O Saviour of Humanity?”
Lucifer the young adult sat, legs crossed in some eastern pose learned from a random immigrant. Bereft of his wings.
He opened his eyes. “I still have no answer to that question.”
“Well, you can’t leech off Enthea forever, you bum.” Daedalus chuckled. “Guess a soldier with no war to fight is like a god with no subjects.”
In silence, Lucifer stood up. He shuffled slowly towards the balcony railing, and Daedalus saw the emptiness in his eyes.
Gently, Daedalus placed a withered old hand on Lucifer’s strong, fleshy one.
“No fate but our own,” said Daedalus. “It beats all the dreams I ever had.”
“Yes.” Lucifer sniffed. “It’s all been taken away from me. Even my fellow angels left.”
“You didn’t resist. Good lad.” Daedalus patted him. “Smile! You helped the world grow up. Now it’ll start its own revolutions.”
Lucifer sighed. “Tavern?”
“Haha! The consolations of philosophy and booze? Whyever not?”
Pics
GOD:
Giant Orange Dude
Great Olive Dinner
Grand Old Dog
Gardening Over Drinking
etc.
Love the story. It was a bit slow in the beginning but really picked up in pace and quality when the rods went out. Probs on my top slate ;)
Giant Orange Dude
Great Olive Dinner
Grand Old Dog
Gardening Over Drinking
etc.
Love the story. It was a bit slow in the beginning but really picked up in pace and quality when the rods went out. Probs on my top slate ;)
Daedalus of Athens was not drunk when the light crashed outside his Greek manor. Instead, the drunkenness came later.
Okay, I must admit that's quite a good opening line.
his regular salt donations from the Emperor in Rome…
Okay, I probably shouldn't demand historical accuracy from such a story, but so much stuff about ancient Greece is wrong that it kept breaking my immersion.
For starters, as far as I can tell, Daedalus was the grandon of Erechtheus, the king of Athens from 1397 BC to 1347 BC. Rome was founded a humble six centuries later and it didn't have an Emperor until Octavian Augustus became one in 27 BC. To put it in perspective, it's like saying Barack Obama liked to hang out with Charlemagne.
“A boy cannot fly,” said Aerosteon in his special talking-to-an-unbalanced-idiot voice. “No what’s-it-called, aerodynamic qualities.”
“Too heavy,” translated Gravitas, nodding.
*looks at names* I see what you did here... Also, Beelzebub? That's a bit closer than the Roman Empire, given that he was originally a Philistine god, but still, Philistia wasn't a thing for the next 200 years. Though maybe Beelzie was just hanging out, waiting for his followers to establish a country.
Okay, I'll just assume it's a theme park version of Ancient Greece and not a particularly well researched one; a theme park version would have hoplites than legionnaires (since they became a thing in 7th century BC, they'd be historically inaccurate, but not geographically inaccurate, like legionnaires - especially ones who carry tridents like gladiators).
“I, uh, copied a plan off Hero once. Or was it Vitruvius?”
Hero of Alexandria? Quite an impressive feat, given the guy was born in 10 AD. And Vitruvius predates him by only a couple of decades.
“Oh, Jews,” said Daedalus dismissively. “They say all kinds of rubbish.”
Do I need to point out that at the time there were, at best, about five Jews somewhere in the Fertile Crescent, pretty far away from Greece? Maybe it was all intentional, but it was pretty effective in ruining the experience for me.
I think my comment is going to be a bit disjointed. Apologies for that.
This is an amusing story. Sure, as Samey pointed out, it would made any historian tear his hair out because of the helter-skelter, topsy-turvy chronology. But I’m not sure we should stick to the reality of history here. In any case, the whole text feels like a big cauldron in which you had thrown various philosophical concepts. You stir, stir, and fish what's coming out with a ladle before incorporating it into your story.
I’m a bit lost with the dragon’s subplot. What’s that?
The plot left me a bit confused too. So, the devilish legions build machines to extend their earthly dominion to recruit people to make more machines, but at the same time they build a rocket to conquer a single space station. I don’t see what's the point of building jets and missiles. What are they used for? Pull wool over their true intent?
Also the way the Greeks in the tavern react left me pondering. It’s not even stoicism, it’s more like fatalism, which I think wasn't much the mode at that time.
So, okay – Lucifer and Beelzebub are hellbent (sorry) to destroying God, which, if I’m not mistaken, happens to be a computer. This makes me thing of an old Star Trek episode called The Return of the Archons. The philosophical stance here is interesting, with God being depicted as static and self-absorbed, and Lucifer being depicted as a dynamical, simmering-with-ideas entity, Change versus stillness. This is, in a way, a heretical, but not unheard of, position.
Unfortunately, that interesting premise you build your story on fails to deliver. Lucifer wins, but finds himself at loose ends and abandoned, so there’s no clear winner. Daedalus has survived. The tavern always exists. Technological progress doesn’t seem to have changed anything in the way those Greeks live. Lucifer doesn’t seem to want to continue building a highly advanced civilization now that his goal has been reached.
In a way, you leave us exactly where we would like the story to begin: “At some point in time, Lucifer gets even with God. Then…” I can’t really buy that Lucifer we spend all the rest of eternity discussing philosophy with barflies, though it’s something you suggest.
It’s a good comedy, but as the set-up is completely crazy, we’re entitled (and enticed) to construe the whole text as a fable, or a parable. But we’re not told what the parable is, except that “once you've defeated your enemy, you’re left twiddling your thumbs”. Or maybe what you tried to tell is that “things never change”. Or, like Voltaire’s Candide, “all that is well, but most important is that we learn gardening.” Or “god or no god, that doesn’t make any difference”. Or whatever.
There is no real solid conclusion, you leave us with a dangling scene. It is a bit underwhelming w/r to the rest of the story.
This is an amusing story. Sure, as Samey pointed out, it would made any historian tear his hair out because of the helter-skelter, topsy-turvy chronology. But I’m not sure we should stick to the reality of history here. In any case, the whole text feels like a big cauldron in which you had thrown various philosophical concepts. You stir, stir, and fish what's coming out with a ladle before incorporating it into your story.
I’m a bit lost with the dragon’s subplot. What’s that?
The plot left me a bit confused too. So, the devilish legions build machines to extend their earthly dominion to recruit people to make more machines, but at the same time they build a rocket to conquer a single space station. I don’t see what's the point of building jets and missiles. What are they used for? Pull wool over their true intent?
Also the way the Greeks in the tavern react left me pondering. It’s not even stoicism, it’s more like fatalism, which I think wasn't much the mode at that time.
So, okay – Lucifer and Beelzebub are hellbent (sorry) to destroying God, which, if I’m not mistaken, happens to be a computer. This makes me thing of an old Star Trek episode called The Return of the Archons. The philosophical stance here is interesting, with God being depicted as static and self-absorbed, and Lucifer being depicted as a dynamical, simmering-with-ideas entity, Change versus stillness. This is, in a way, a heretical, but not unheard of, position.
Unfortunately, that interesting premise you build your story on fails to deliver. Lucifer wins, but finds himself at loose ends and abandoned, so there’s no clear winner. Daedalus has survived. The tavern always exists. Technological progress doesn’t seem to have changed anything in the way those Greeks live. Lucifer doesn’t seem to want to continue building a highly advanced civilization now that his goal has been reached.
In a way, you leave us exactly where we would like the story to begin: “At some point in time, Lucifer gets even with God. Then…” I can’t really buy that Lucifer we spend all the rest of eternity discussing philosophy with barflies, though it’s something you suggest.
It’s a good comedy, but as the set-up is completely crazy, we’re entitled (and enticed) to construe the whole text as a fable, or a parable. But we’re not told what the parable is, except that “once you've defeated your enemy, you’re left twiddling your thumbs”. Or maybe what you tried to tell is that “things never change”. Or, like Voltaire’s Candide, “all that is well, but most important is that we learn gardening.” Or “god or no god, that doesn’t make any difference”. Or whatever.
There is no real solid conclusion, you leave us with a dangling scene. It is a bit underwhelming w/r to the rest of the story.
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Unabomber quotes aside, I have one snippet to add to >>Samey90's historical nitpicking:
This is probably unfair, but at this time 'Byzantine' would just refer to the city Byzantium. The word 'Byzantine' to refer to complex things only came about hundreds of years after the fall of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, I'm pretty sure. I probably only noticed this because >>Samey90 was talking about all these historical points in Discord and I had that in mind as I read.
...aside from that, I really don't know how to feel about the story yet. I agree with some of >>Monokeras's criticisms, but not as harshly. Even so, I think this will have a solid place on the upper side of my slate.
Unabomber quotes aside, I have one snippet to add to >>Samey90's historical nitpicking:
Byzantine land claims and legal… thingy
This is probably unfair, but at this time 'Byzantine' would just refer to the city Byzantium. The word 'Byzantine' to refer to complex things only came about hundreds of years after the fall of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, I'm pretty sure. I probably only noticed this because >>Samey90 was talking about all these historical points in Discord and I had that in mind as I read.
...aside from that, I really don't know how to feel about the story yet. I agree with some of >>Monokeras's criticisms, but not as harshly. Even so, I think this will have a solid place on the upper side of my slate.
I feel like standing up and applauding all the creativity that's been poured into this story, but at the same time, I don't... think...
Hang on a minute.
Yes, I'm having a similar reaction to World War Sunflower here, albeit for different reasons. But you can be safe in the knowledge that you have my blessing to point and laugh at the author of that story for bothering me more than you have.
But insincere comments aside, I did enjoy this one. The comedic narration worked really well,Rincewind Daedalus was a great character to follow along with, and you had some great lines. The barfly philosophers taking off their sandals to count Daedy's drink intake had me stopping for a moment to giggle, and that's not the only time that happened.
That aside, the entry also felt quite distracted, with different ideas being brought up and then abandoned quickly for the sake of a joke or a quick scene change. A lot of it was hard to follow. The style is very quickfire, and comedy-focused, so when it tried to have a moral while simultaneously being so intent on giving me the giggles, the moral fell flat. I think based on other comments that they have had a similar reaction. You even seem to have broken Cassius!
But here's the main issue I have with a story like this: Your style is funny, but your plot is not. If the witty narration and sharp dialogue is stripped away, and all we're left with is the plotline, we have: In an amalgamated melting pot of historical Greek figures, Lucifer breaks away from God, attempts to advance humanity along its technological development way faster than intended, and confronts God to challenge his beliefs and treatment of his subjects. Is that funny? On its own, no.
Actually, it sounds kind of like a Marvel movie, but one of those ones that get tons of flak for trying to be too funny. In those movies—and in this story—there's none of the emotional impact or character development that the better movies might have. Instead it's all played for laughs. I feel like we're watching Thor: Ragnarok, except instead of following Thor, the entire story is centered around that comic relief character who gets "kidnapped" by Hela. He's funny, sure, but isn't there stuff going on that has more gravity than this?
I don't know if any of that made sense. My point is that there I see two (of many) different directions that I feel could have made this story more enjoyable: If the plot itself were funny so that the narration could support it better, or if the comedy were dialed down and the actual impact you wanted to have in the story was given more focus and more time.
But still, I'm comparing you to a Marvel movie, and those are a lot of fun, so don't take this as admittance that I didn't enjoy it. I did.
So thanks, you.
Hang on a minute.
Yes, I'm having a similar reaction to World War Sunflower here, albeit for different reasons. But you can be safe in the knowledge that you have my blessing to point and laugh at the author of that story for bothering me more than you have.
But insincere comments aside, I did enjoy this one. The comedic narration worked really well,
That aside, the entry also felt quite distracted, with different ideas being brought up and then abandoned quickly for the sake of a joke or a quick scene change. A lot of it was hard to follow. The style is very quickfire, and comedy-focused, so when it tried to have a moral while simultaneously being so intent on giving me the giggles, the moral fell flat. I think based on other comments that they have had a similar reaction. You even seem to have broken Cassius!
But here's the main issue I have with a story like this: Your style is funny, but your plot is not. If the witty narration and sharp dialogue is stripped away, and all we're left with is the plotline, we have: In an amalgamated melting pot of historical Greek figures, Lucifer breaks away from God, attempts to advance humanity along its technological development way faster than intended, and confronts God to challenge his beliefs and treatment of his subjects. Is that funny? On its own, no.
Actually, it sounds kind of like a Marvel movie, but one of those ones that get tons of flak for trying to be too funny. In those movies—and in this story—there's none of the emotional impact or character development that the better movies might have. Instead it's all played for laughs. I feel like we're watching Thor: Ragnarok, except instead of following Thor, the entire story is centered around that comic relief character who gets "kidnapped" by Hela. He's funny, sure, but isn't there stuff going on that has more gravity than this?
I don't know if any of that made sense. My point is that there I see two (of many) different directions that I feel could have made this story more enjoyable: If the plot itself were funny so that the narration could support it better, or if the comedy were dialed down and the actual impact you wanted to have in the story was given more focus and more time.
But still, I'm comparing you to a Marvel movie, and those are a lot of fun, so don't take this as admittance that I didn't enjoy it. I did.
So thanks, you.
Man, this one was my favourite while I was working on it. So much stuff just came together that I'm really disappointed it fared so abysmally. It's fair to say I spent the majority of my time on this entry, and since lots of stuff didn't seem to get across, I thought I'd list what went into this fic here.
[*]Daedalus is a mythical figure best-known for creating the Minotaur's labyrinth and for inventing the wax-and-feather wings that allowed him and Icarus to escape. He was a mythical reference first and foremost. Heck, the opening begins with a mythical inventor joke (the reference to said Daedalus's flying device).
[*]The "Athens during Roman occupation" setting, specifically during the reign of Emperor, places this close to modern times without having Jesus around (which would have been awkward, given Lucifer's presence is already stretching it). However, it mainly fed into the broader theme of conquerors, and you rarely get much more recognisable conquerors than the Romans.
[*]Daedalus's salt contribution is lifted directly from the old Roman payment of salt to soldiers, hence the derivation of "salary" and a "man worth his salt". It's unlikely he'd get any from the Emperor, though, but I wanted to suggest a kind of imperial patronage for good behaviour (and to imply Daedalus is quite high-ranking himself).
[*]Trochilus is a gag name. It's a genus of hummingbird. In fact, it's the type genus of Trochilidae. This also plays on the need for the device's operator to flap their arms a hundred times a minute.
[*]Apart from being a world-building note, another important note for the slave Trochilus is that, despite Daedalus later acting as conscience to Lucifer, her presence reminds us that Daedalus himself isn't flawless when it comes to an egalitarian outlook. She doubles (triples?) as a symbolic caged bird, fitting for Daedalus given his mythical roots and themes.
[*]Of course, Lucifer is the mythical rebel angel cast down into Hell for opposing God. If Paradise Lost is to be believed, he also became the serpent that tempted Eve with the Tree of Knowledge, though specifically of Good and Evil rather than Knowledge in general. Both work here, given his moral awakening as the fic progresses. His name, "bearer of light (of the morning star)" is also a reference both to his "enlightenment" through the Industrial Revolution and to the way he enters the scene as a star-like dot in the sky.
[*]The tavern-goers and their philosophizing was loosely inspired by similar scenes/characters in Terry Pratchett's Pyramids and Small Gods. They were parodies of Greek philosophers, whereby supposedly stately matters of philosophy are reduced to pub chat and petty squabbles.
[*]Aerosteon means "air-filled bones". Since I'm a dino aficionado, it's also a genus of (possibly Megaraptorid) dinosaur. Gravitas is also the opposite of this lightweight motif, hence he usually opposes Daedalus.
[*]Enthea is a back-formation of Enthusiasm, or "possessed by a deity". Since Daedalus's wife is not recorded in any sources I consulted, I took the liberty of going for an artistic inspiration for the name.
[*]Euterium doesn't really mean anything. The "eu" stands for "good/well", but "terium" is a nonsense formation I loosely got from "tera-" (trillion, and also a homophone for "terror") and "-ium", a usual ending for elements of the Periodic Table. At the time, I just used it as a placeholder name until I could think of something better, and obviously I lost track. Apologies. <:D
[*]The Temple of Arcas is actually dedicated towards the King Arcas of Arcadia, a mythical son of Zeus whose nymph lover Callisto was turned into a bear by a typically jealous Hera. The reference was chiefly to the pastoral idyll invoked by Arcadia, which is ironic both because the fic mostly focuses on urban positives rather than on rural ones, and because real-life Arcadia is (and was) actually a bit of a barren dump.
[*]Beelzebub being Lucifer's second-in-command is lifted straight out of Paradise Lost. His lightning "crossbow" is based on the concept of the rail gun, which uses magnetism rather than ignition to fire rounds at high speed. Not to forget his "Lord of the Flies" name etymology fits well with the theme of flight and of insects beneath greater beings. (Similar to Daedalus feeling like an ant beneath Lucifer).
[*]Lucifer's ten wings reflect both the tendency for higher-ranking angels in angelology to have a greater number of wings, (though higher than six is unusual) and the ten ranks angels usually get in the Christian and in various Jewish rankings. It's also slightly overkill, reflecting how high his position was pre-fall.
[*]The Roman viceroy is a bit of a cheat. In those days, there was no viceroy or any equivalent, but I needed a nobleman to represent the Emperor without actually dragging the Emperor into Athens from Rome, so the viceroy was used as a stand-in.
[*]The steam reference, and the double reference to Hero of Alexandria and Vitruvius, are all founded on the aeolipile, the first described steam engine. Hero makes the first definite reference to it, though there is an uncertain possibility that Vitruvius came up with something similar much earlier. This is reflected in Daedalus's uncertainty over whether he got the notes from Vitruvius.
[*]In fact, this is what inspired a huge part of this fic: the aeolipile and the possibility for the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution to have been invented sooner. It's an idea that's captured my imagination over and over.
[*]One of the main features of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of the train network, which led to much rapid development and also resulted in the need for the standardization of time. It's also extremely iconic and useful for importing supplies. That's why Lucifer makes it a top priority before embarking on the main project.
[*]The Dragon of Revelation is an obvious allusion to Revelations; it's part of the package for the end of the world, so its use to end the world Lucifer is trying to create fits naturally into that. The Golden Mask is loosely based on the Golden Masks of the Pharaohs in Egypt, just for flavour.
[*]Note that, while there are mountains near Athens, they're unlikely to harbour giant biblical dragons, so this was a stretch in the story.
[*]Lucifer's Rod of Freedom is (ironically) loosely based on the imperial regalia of rulers in many ancient civilizations.
[*]The mention of the viceroy's children playing with the aeolipile is sort of a dig at the fact that so many ancient peoples in Greece failed to capitalize on the new steam technology, seeing it mainly as a curio or toy.
[*]Meglobites and Gigobites are gag names, references to Megabytes and Gigabytes. ("Mega-" in full is usually "Megalo-", and "Gigo" doubles as a reference to "Garbage In Garbage Out"). The land disputes between people whose names end in "-ites" is hardly rare in history, most obviously with the clashes between the Canaanites and the Jews. I didn't really want to reference any specific examples.
[*]No, the Byzantine thing wasn't a reference to Byzantium. Just a coincidence borne from using English for Ancient Greek characters.
[*]Gravitas' Cultural Dichotomy Theory is a reference to Nietzsche's "Apollonian and Dionysian" division of cultures.
[*]Beelzebub using lightning would have been a bit of a Ben Franklin moment, but a recognized sign of hubris to the Ancient Greeks, given they're Zeus's main weapon. Another example of futuristic technology superseding ancient beliefs about the world.
[*]The reference to the "Aristotle thing... arete" refers to Aristotle's concept of excellence and fulfilment of purpose. Daedalus being coopted as a tool of the tyrant would be viewed as him being denied his natural purpose. "You're not where you belong, is his point."
[*]Some people might recognize the flying machine with the "rotating screw thing" as a Wright-brothers-like plane, the first step towards aviation and mechanical flight.
[*]Daedalus' story about the prince noticing the old people is a slight reference to the story of the Buddha, who was prompted on his spiritual quest by the sight of old age, illness, and death, awakening him to the transience and pains of life. Obviously, Daedalus's version is somewhat garbled.
[*]"No one knows anything about it, what it is, how to make it, how it works, or why it does what it does": slight paraphrasing aside, this is a direct quotation from Pearl S. Buck that I liked the sound of. The "Man cannot will what he wills" is likewise directly from Shopenhauer.
[*]"Physician-building" means "hospital". I wasn't sure if "hospital" would sound right even in an advanced Greek setting, so I opted to go with "physician" and tack "-building" onto the end.
[*]The "letting-the-women-vote" stuff is a reference to how primitive the Ancient Greek democracy used to be. Lucifer's not just speeding up industry. Although Ancient Greek civilization actually had quite a lot of "foreigners", I wanted to imply that Lucifer was more inclusive than usual in his conquest, and it was a regrettably tempting shorthand.
[*]Cannons, gunpowder, and oils are preparation for the rocket fuel Lucifer would later employ.
[*]The "facsimiles" are actually "factories", it's just that Ancient Greeks aren't likely to be familiar with "factories", and anyway using a word reserved for an inferior copy had some good implications to it, such as the complaint that mass production is inferior to individual craftsmanship in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.
[*]"Lodestones that made lightning" is a rough reference to the modern electric generator using magnets. Likewise, the omnibuses and horseless chariots are lead-ins to the automobile. Lucifer is thinking ahead to the 20th Century.
[*]The new models of flying machine refer to the development of the aircraft during the two World Wars, culminating in the "jet". By this point, Lucifer's machine-like wings start to resemble the current technology and Daedalus has an early clue as to their scientific rather than magical nature.
[*]This is also why Daedalus complains about things moving too fast. He's not just referring to the Industrial Revolution as a whole, but to the exceptional speed a jet fighter can achieve.
[*]Progressing from cannons to the rocket is a reference to the side-by-side development of rockets and missiles. Missiles originally referred to any kind of projectile and not exclusively to the rocket-propelled ones.
[*]The lighthouse Daedalus mentions is a loose reference to the Pharos of Alexandria. And before you go nuts about the anachronism, this isn't meant to be the actual Pharos. It's just Daedalus getting ambitious.
[*]Daedalus' scepticism towards the world being millions of years old is another world-building note, an Ancient-Modern difference in outlook; before modern geology developed, most ancient estimates of how old the world was were distinctly anthropocentric, only a few thousand or tens of thousands at most.
[*]And voila! The aircraft project thus gives way to the manned space shuttle, as per the technological development of the 20th Century! In fact, making the Tower of Babel a launch pad seemed to me to be the best modern analogue to any kind of heavens-reaching structure made by humanity.
[*]Obviously, by this point I feared the suspension of disbelief was in trouble, so I added some dialogue indicating that Lucifer basically did a lot of cheating to get here, namely that he already knew what followed what.
[*]Beyond this point, it gets sci-fi in the speculative technology sense, so there's not much to note other than the low-gravity effects on Daedalus briefly convincing him he was flying as soon as he unbuckled himself. Making G.O.D. a computer wasn't based on anything specific, though since Monokeras mentioned Star Trek I think a close example would be "Who Weeps for Adonis?" where a seemingly godlike being is actually using a machine to simulate immense power.
[*]That said, I quite like the idea of making the space station resemble a Sephirot. For those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefirot
[*]The reference to the "child who disobeys and repents" is loosely inspired by the Parable of the Lost/Prodigal Son. I thought a sideways, heretical interpretation by Daedalus and Lucifer would have given an interesting perspective on the whole "stable, changeless society" aspect, namely that Lucifer thinks G.O.D.'s idea of progress is futile and ultimately hyper-conservative, even backwards. I also toyed with the idea that Lucifer was once the dutiful son who felt hard done by, so he viewed it as "one step back and one step forwards" and rebelled out of a sense of betrayal. That possible reading also puts an interesting spin on his (not-so-secret) desire to replace G.O.D. (desire for new management and fairness).
[*]"I CONTROL THE DRAGON AND THE SERPENT AND THE BEHEMOTH AND THE LEVIATHAN." This is a reference to the speech in the Book of Job.
[*]The back-and-forth between Lucifer, G.O.D., and Daedalus involves a grapes-and-sun comparison. This is based on a similar one from Sri Ramakrishna. "The sun knows how a bunch of grapes is to be ripened." Obviously, Sri Ramakrishna was making a wholly different point to the one Lucifer and Daedalus arrive at.
[*]And I figured the best ending image for this kind of fic would be to make Athens the New York of Lucifer's new world! Skyscrapers were also a concept I considered for the prompt "They Stood Against the Sky", given the name, so they had a nice thematic parallel to them too.
Author's Appendix (List of References and Concepts)
[*]Daedalus is a mythical figure best-known for creating the Minotaur's labyrinth and for inventing the wax-and-feather wings that allowed him and Icarus to escape. He was a mythical reference first and foremost. Heck, the opening begins with a mythical inventor joke (the reference to said Daedalus's flying device).
[*]The "Athens during Roman occupation" setting, specifically during the reign of Emperor, places this close to modern times without having Jesus around (which would have been awkward, given Lucifer's presence is already stretching it). However, it mainly fed into the broader theme of conquerors, and you rarely get much more recognisable conquerors than the Romans.
[*]Daedalus's salt contribution is lifted directly from the old Roman payment of salt to soldiers, hence the derivation of "salary" and a "man worth his salt". It's unlikely he'd get any from the Emperor, though, but I wanted to suggest a kind of imperial patronage for good behaviour (and to imply Daedalus is quite high-ranking himself).
[*]Trochilus is a gag name. It's a genus of hummingbird. In fact, it's the type genus of Trochilidae. This also plays on the need for the device's operator to flap their arms a hundred times a minute.
[*]Apart from being a world-building note, another important note for the slave Trochilus is that, despite Daedalus later acting as conscience to Lucifer, her presence reminds us that Daedalus himself isn't flawless when it comes to an egalitarian outlook. She doubles (triples?) as a symbolic caged bird, fitting for Daedalus given his mythical roots and themes.
[*]Of course, Lucifer is the mythical rebel angel cast down into Hell for opposing God. If Paradise Lost is to be believed, he also became the serpent that tempted Eve with the Tree of Knowledge, though specifically of Good and Evil rather than Knowledge in general. Both work here, given his moral awakening as the fic progresses. His name, "bearer of light (of the morning star)" is also a reference both to his "enlightenment" through the Industrial Revolution and to the way he enters the scene as a star-like dot in the sky.
[*]The tavern-goers and their philosophizing was loosely inspired by similar scenes/characters in Terry Pratchett's Pyramids and Small Gods. They were parodies of Greek philosophers, whereby supposedly stately matters of philosophy are reduced to pub chat and petty squabbles.
[*]Aerosteon means "air-filled bones". Since I'm a dino aficionado, it's also a genus of (possibly Megaraptorid) dinosaur. Gravitas is also the opposite of this lightweight motif, hence he usually opposes Daedalus.
[*]Enthea is a back-formation of Enthusiasm, or "possessed by a deity". Since Daedalus's wife is not recorded in any sources I consulted, I took the liberty of going for an artistic inspiration for the name.
[*]Euterium doesn't really mean anything. The "eu" stands for "good/well", but "terium" is a nonsense formation I loosely got from "tera-" (trillion, and also a homophone for "terror") and "-ium", a usual ending for elements of the Periodic Table. At the time, I just used it as a placeholder name until I could think of something better, and obviously I lost track. Apologies. <:D
[*]The Temple of Arcas is actually dedicated towards the King Arcas of Arcadia, a mythical son of Zeus whose nymph lover Callisto was turned into a bear by a typically jealous Hera. The reference was chiefly to the pastoral idyll invoked by Arcadia, which is ironic both because the fic mostly focuses on urban positives rather than on rural ones, and because real-life Arcadia is (and was) actually a bit of a barren dump.
[*]Beelzebub being Lucifer's second-in-command is lifted straight out of Paradise Lost. His lightning "crossbow" is based on the concept of the rail gun, which uses magnetism rather than ignition to fire rounds at high speed. Not to forget his "Lord of the Flies" name etymology fits well with the theme of flight and of insects beneath greater beings. (Similar to Daedalus feeling like an ant beneath Lucifer).
[*]Lucifer's ten wings reflect both the tendency for higher-ranking angels in angelology to have a greater number of wings, (though higher than six is unusual) and the ten ranks angels usually get in the Christian and in various Jewish rankings. It's also slightly overkill, reflecting how high his position was pre-fall.
[*]The Roman viceroy is a bit of a cheat. In those days, there was no viceroy or any equivalent, but I needed a nobleman to represent the Emperor without actually dragging the Emperor into Athens from Rome, so the viceroy was used as a stand-in.
[*]The steam reference, and the double reference to Hero of Alexandria and Vitruvius, are all founded on the aeolipile, the first described steam engine. Hero makes the first definite reference to it, though there is an uncertain possibility that Vitruvius came up with something similar much earlier. This is reflected in Daedalus's uncertainty over whether he got the notes from Vitruvius.
[*]In fact, this is what inspired a huge part of this fic: the aeolipile and the possibility for the steam engines of the Industrial Revolution to have been invented sooner. It's an idea that's captured my imagination over and over.
[*]One of the main features of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of the train network, which led to much rapid development and also resulted in the need for the standardization of time. It's also extremely iconic and useful for importing supplies. That's why Lucifer makes it a top priority before embarking on the main project.
[*]The Dragon of Revelation is an obvious allusion to Revelations; it's part of the package for the end of the world, so its use to end the world Lucifer is trying to create fits naturally into that. The Golden Mask is loosely based on the Golden Masks of the Pharaohs in Egypt, just for flavour.
[*]Note that, while there are mountains near Athens, they're unlikely to harbour giant biblical dragons, so this was a stretch in the story.
[*]Lucifer's Rod of Freedom is (ironically) loosely based on the imperial regalia of rulers in many ancient civilizations.
[*]The mention of the viceroy's children playing with the aeolipile is sort of a dig at the fact that so many ancient peoples in Greece failed to capitalize on the new steam technology, seeing it mainly as a curio or toy.
[*]Meglobites and Gigobites are gag names, references to Megabytes and Gigabytes. ("Mega-" in full is usually "Megalo-", and "Gigo" doubles as a reference to "Garbage In Garbage Out"). The land disputes between people whose names end in "-ites" is hardly rare in history, most obviously with the clashes between the Canaanites and the Jews. I didn't really want to reference any specific examples.
[*]No, the Byzantine thing wasn't a reference to Byzantium. Just a coincidence borne from using English for Ancient Greek characters.
[*]Gravitas' Cultural Dichotomy Theory is a reference to Nietzsche's "Apollonian and Dionysian" division of cultures.
[*]Beelzebub using lightning would have been a bit of a Ben Franklin moment, but a recognized sign of hubris to the Ancient Greeks, given they're Zeus's main weapon. Another example of futuristic technology superseding ancient beliefs about the world.
[*]The reference to the "Aristotle thing... arete" refers to Aristotle's concept of excellence and fulfilment of purpose. Daedalus being coopted as a tool of the tyrant would be viewed as him being denied his natural purpose. "You're not where you belong, is his point."
[*]Some people might recognize the flying machine with the "rotating screw thing" as a Wright-brothers-like plane, the first step towards aviation and mechanical flight.
[*]Daedalus' story about the prince noticing the old people is a slight reference to the story of the Buddha, who was prompted on his spiritual quest by the sight of old age, illness, and death, awakening him to the transience and pains of life. Obviously, Daedalus's version is somewhat garbled.
[*]"No one knows anything about it, what it is, how to make it, how it works, or why it does what it does": slight paraphrasing aside, this is a direct quotation from Pearl S. Buck that I liked the sound of. The "Man cannot will what he wills" is likewise directly from Shopenhauer.
[*]"Physician-building" means "hospital". I wasn't sure if "hospital" would sound right even in an advanced Greek setting, so I opted to go with "physician" and tack "-building" onto the end.
[*]The "letting-the-women-vote" stuff is a reference to how primitive the Ancient Greek democracy used to be. Lucifer's not just speeding up industry. Although Ancient Greek civilization actually had quite a lot of "foreigners", I wanted to imply that Lucifer was more inclusive than usual in his conquest, and it was a regrettably tempting shorthand.
[*]Cannons, gunpowder, and oils are preparation for the rocket fuel Lucifer would later employ.
[*]The "facsimiles" are actually "factories", it's just that Ancient Greeks aren't likely to be familiar with "factories", and anyway using a word reserved for an inferior copy had some good implications to it, such as the complaint that mass production is inferior to individual craftsmanship in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.
[*]"Lodestones that made lightning" is a rough reference to the modern electric generator using magnets. Likewise, the omnibuses and horseless chariots are lead-ins to the automobile. Lucifer is thinking ahead to the 20th Century.
[*]The new models of flying machine refer to the development of the aircraft during the two World Wars, culminating in the "jet". By this point, Lucifer's machine-like wings start to resemble the current technology and Daedalus has an early clue as to their scientific rather than magical nature.
[*]This is also why Daedalus complains about things moving too fast. He's not just referring to the Industrial Revolution as a whole, but to the exceptional speed a jet fighter can achieve.
[*]Progressing from cannons to the rocket is a reference to the side-by-side development of rockets and missiles. Missiles originally referred to any kind of projectile and not exclusively to the rocket-propelled ones.
[*]The lighthouse Daedalus mentions is a loose reference to the Pharos of Alexandria. And before you go nuts about the anachronism, this isn't meant to be the actual Pharos. It's just Daedalus getting ambitious.
[*]Daedalus' scepticism towards the world being millions of years old is another world-building note, an Ancient-Modern difference in outlook; before modern geology developed, most ancient estimates of how old the world was were distinctly anthropocentric, only a few thousand or tens of thousands at most.
[*]And voila! The aircraft project thus gives way to the manned space shuttle, as per the technological development of the 20th Century! In fact, making the Tower of Babel a launch pad seemed to me to be the best modern analogue to any kind of heavens-reaching structure made by humanity.
[*]Obviously, by this point I feared the suspension of disbelief was in trouble, so I added some dialogue indicating that Lucifer basically did a lot of cheating to get here, namely that he already knew what followed what.
[*]Beyond this point, it gets sci-fi in the speculative technology sense, so there's not much to note other than the low-gravity effects on Daedalus briefly convincing him he was flying as soon as he unbuckled himself. Making G.O.D. a computer wasn't based on anything specific, though since Monokeras mentioned Star Trek I think a close example would be "Who Weeps for Adonis?" where a seemingly godlike being is actually using a machine to simulate immense power.
[*]That said, I quite like the idea of making the space station resemble a Sephirot. For those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefirot
[*]The reference to the "child who disobeys and repents" is loosely inspired by the Parable of the Lost/Prodigal Son. I thought a sideways, heretical interpretation by Daedalus and Lucifer would have given an interesting perspective on the whole "stable, changeless society" aspect, namely that Lucifer thinks G.O.D.'s idea of progress is futile and ultimately hyper-conservative, even backwards. I also toyed with the idea that Lucifer was once the dutiful son who felt hard done by, so he viewed it as "one step back and one step forwards" and rebelled out of a sense of betrayal. That possible reading also puts an interesting spin on his (not-so-secret) desire to replace G.O.D. (desire for new management and fairness).
[*]"I CONTROL THE DRAGON AND THE SERPENT AND THE BEHEMOTH AND THE LEVIATHAN." This is a reference to the speech in the Book of Job.
[*]The back-and-forth between Lucifer, G.O.D., and Daedalus involves a grapes-and-sun comparison. This is based on a similar one from Sri Ramakrishna. "The sun knows how a bunch of grapes is to be ripened." Obviously, Sri Ramakrishna was making a wholly different point to the one Lucifer and Daedalus arrive at.
[*]And I figured the best ending image for this kind of fic would be to make Athens the New York of Lucifer's new world! Skyscrapers were also a concept I considered for the prompt "They Stood Against the Sky", given the name, so they had a nice thematic parallel to them too.
Now for actual responses.
>>Anon Y Mous
The beginning I hedged my bets over, given the outlandish premise needed a good run-up before we got to the main event. I'm glad you liked it, either way!
>>Samey90
For the record: This is a comedy-sci-fi-"pseudo-fantasy"-philosophical fic in which mythical Lucifer teams up with mythical Daedalus to create the Industrial Revolution two millennia ahead of schedule to fight God. True, the historical context and references don't always mesh, but I'm outright puzzled as to who exactly is interpreting that set-up as a faithful historical drama. Daedalus alone is far more recognizable as a mythical figure than as any kind of historical one; even Wikipedia calls him mythical repeatedly.
Hey! Now that's my idea for the next fic... :D
Ancient Greece actually was occupied by the Romans in the first century BC, though I admit the gaff with the trident was unintentional.
This... To put it politely, this does not sound likely to me. I mean, I haven't researched it, this was a shot in the dark, but five seriously sounds unlikely to me.
>>Monokeras
?
I don't want to sound funny, but how exactly could you get lost there? It's not a complicated plot device. The dragon's literally described by Lucifer as an Agent of God that stops and pursues them as soon as the jamming devices fail. Daedalus's comment near the end that "It’s made of metal" plus the general sci-fi turn of the story plus the fact that it's literally flying in space should be a pretty open-and-shut case.
Again, what? The narrative explicitly progresses from technology to technology. It's explicitly a recreation of the Industrial Revolution. They're progressing from steam engines and planes to space rockets. The very narrative structure reflects that progression which explicitly parallels the real-world development of technology, just two thousand years ahead of schedule. Technological progression. He is starting with the Ancient Greeks, after all. You don't just go from there to rockets.
As for your interpretation of the ending, much less the point of the story...
This is the exact opposite of what the scene was designed to do. Far from suggesting loss of progress now Lucifer has no enemy, it shows that humanity has developed to the point at which Lucifer himself is replaced, and unlike G.O.D. he makes no attempt to resist the change. Progress is occurring and it's now out of Lucifer's hands, and since he doesn't resist he completes his character arc set-up from the start, where he just marched in and dominated the humans under the excuse of being a benevolent dictator. Obviously, there are complications - Lucifer did have a benevolent goal and a time limit forcing his hand, for instance, which prevents this being a straight "Lucifer is bad" harangue - but the arc's there.
Quite apart from the obvious technological saltation on display, there definitely have been changes to society as the story progressed. Daedalus's influence gets the angels to stop treating the humans as pure slaves and to actually interact with them. Trochilus is another example, going from a mere slave to a confident worker directing the Tower of Babylon crew. In that same scene, Lucifer describes how ideas are coming from humans as much as from him now, with a developing thread that leads to the humans rebelling against Lucifer post-G.O.D.'s defeat. Lucifer even introduces same-sex equality and openness to foreigners, effectively bringing humanitarian revolutions up early too.
The emphasis is on Lucifer being replaced in turn. The main difference here between him and G.O.D. is that Lucifer learns from his mistakes; whereas, in the story, G.O.D. hasn't changed and is soon outdone by Lucifer's upgrades, Lucifer is said by Daedalus to have not resisted the revolutions of humanity taking technological progress away from him. Daedalus even compliments him for it, even as Lucifer's unhappy about the abandonment. This is Daedalus preventing Lucifer from becoming just another tyrant, an important note given the theme of conquerors and the nature of G.O.D. itself.
It was intended to be an ambivalent or bittersweet ending; humanity's no longer held back by G.O.D. and technological benefits have been accompanied by other social ones. It's the dawn of a new age; Lucifer certainly had no skyscrapers prior to this final scene. And following that real-world analogy to the modern day, it should be obvious that social change has happened. The tavern and the few temples leftover, plus the comment earlier about "scars" as a result of such fast development, weren't there to undermine this point, but just reminders that it wasn't a naively complete transformation.
In short, this is the natural end-point both of Lucifer's character development from "fighting tyrant" to "friend and philosophical bystander", and of technological innovation transferring from him to the humans.
"Dangling scene". Oy vey...
>>Miller Minus
Haha! First of all, that's a bizarre way to open given that this contest allows for multiple entries. I mean, try pointing and laughing at yourself. It just doesn't work, does it? :D
Second of all, comparing Daedalus to Rincewind makes no sense to me. The obvious fit is surely Leonardo da Quirm?
"That aside, the entry also felt quite distracted, with different ideas being brought up and then abandoned quickly for the sake of a joke or a quick scene change."
I have no idea what you mean here. Every scene had its place in the development and progression both of the technology and of the character arcs (for instance, Daedalus's initial excitement once he figures out what was going on eventually gives way to his resentment and frustration, which leads to him openly having a go at Lucifer - a child that, at the start, unnerved and terrified him). About the only possible things I can think of are references like the "Cultural Dichotomy Theory", and that was so obviously a throwaway gag that I fail to see how it could mar the meat of the fic. I can tell the difference between a garnish and a steak.
Your recommendation for this suggests you'd have preferred something more monolithic, either all-comedy or all-seriousness. It's not a simplification I'm inclined towards, to be frank. For starters, blending comedy and seriousness together can be done: hell, Pratchett was an exemplar of the form. For another, the comedy and the seriousness stem from the same source(s).
It's particularly disappointing that you seemed to regard Daedalus as incidental or minor compared with the story as a whole. The exact opposite was the case. Daedalus and Lucifer teaming up isn't just an excuse for a gagfest. They bring the rebellious tale of Lucifer-vs-God in collision with the worldly-yet-innovative philosophy of Ancient Greece, united through a sci-fi conceit that requires Lucifer to co-opt an inventor and his ilk.
Daedalus isn't some comic relief thrown in to make fun of Lucifer's rebellion. Throughout the fic, baked into it from the start, are themes of free-will-and-fate, tyrants/conquerors-and-liberation, and progress versus stagnation. The fic is about the way Daedalus and eventually Lucifer navigate those themes. That's why Daedalus is jaded by the philosophical talk in the second scene and feels held-back in the first.
That's why Lucifer, for all his benevolent intentions and exciting new technological marvels, can't end wholly successfully. It's because he starts off as a proud tyrant, and him just winning would strike the wrong note for such a morally complex position. Daedalus responds positively to the technological innovation - as expected, given the theme of flight and freedom he's associated with it in the first scene - but it doesn't escape his notice that Lucifer is just another tyrant. Even when people "volunteer", he notes that it's mainly because "news gets around", especially after the defeat of the Romans at Beelzebub's hands.
So he softens him up, first with the political advice and then by growing frustrated and outright talking back to him. Lucifer, in turn, warms up to the philosophical discussions of Daedalus, which presents him with a less violent way of espousing and challenging his and other people's views. Lucifer, thanks to Daedalus's efforts, stops playing the supreme high-and-mighty boy at the start and starts admitting to his faults in the second half of the fic.
This culminates in him not resisting when humanity starts coming up with its own ideas, taking the project away from him, and having its own revolutions at the end (which Daedalus thanks him for). Daedalus' philosophical background and experience with conquerors and history enables him to contribute his point during the discussion with G.O.D. at the climax, and Lucifer and he are presented as in synch by this point.
The fact that Lucifer ends up living with Daedalus and his wife and going to the tavern like Daedalus originally wanted for "the consolations of philosophy" caps their mutual development and softens Lucifer enough that he escapes just becoming another tyrant. This is a point of emphasis, as a clear indication in the original Lucifer myth is that Lucifer would just muck things up if ever he actually deposed God, a feat which in any case is A) impossible, and B) lost on him because of his sin of pride.
Sorry to go on like this, but it profoundly irritates me when it's suggested that comedy can't be meaningful, well-developed, philosophical, even moralistic, and suggested in the same comment that makes a Terry Pratchett reference. It strikes me as narrow. Both the comedy and the seriousness were baked into this fic from the concept up and planned out from first scene to last. They stem from the same incongruities and absurdities as seemed thematically appropriate, and while the comedy's there to have fun with the concepts - because I fail to see why serious subjects are somehow forbidden from having a dose of levity in them to add to the flavour - they coexist with the character interplay and the foibles of the protagonists, feeding off the same source.
I'll admit the last scene involved some definite word-count-jitters and rushing, fair enough. World War Sunflower had a similar problem. But I'll be damned if my features are accused of being bugs.
>>Anon Y Mous
The beginning I hedged my bets over, given the outlandish premise needed a good run-up before we got to the main event. I'm glad you liked it, either way!
>>Samey90
For the record: This is a comedy-sci-fi-"pseudo-fantasy"-philosophical fic in which mythical Lucifer teams up with mythical Daedalus to create the Industrial Revolution two millennia ahead of schedule to fight God. True, the historical context and references don't always mesh, but I'm outright puzzled as to who exactly is interpreting that set-up as a faithful historical drama. Daedalus alone is far more recognizable as a mythical figure than as any kind of historical one; even Wikipedia calls him mythical repeatedly.
"To put it in perspective, it's like saying Barack Obama liked to hang out with Charlemagne."
Hey! Now that's my idea for the next fic... :D
hoplites than legionnaires
Ancient Greece actually was occupied by the Romans in the first century BC, though I admit the gaff with the trident was unintentional.
about five Jews
This... To put it politely, this does not sound likely to me. I mean, I haven't researched it, this was a shot in the dark, but five seriously sounds unlikely to me.
>>Monokeras
I’m a bit lost with the dragon’s subplot. What’s that?
?
I don't want to sound funny, but how exactly could you get lost there? It's not a complicated plot device. The dragon's literally described by Lucifer as an Agent of God that stops and pursues them as soon as the jamming devices fail. Daedalus's comment near the end that "It’s made of metal" plus the general sci-fi turn of the story plus the fact that it's literally flying in space should be a pretty open-and-shut case.
but at the same time they build a rocket to conquer a single space station. I don’t see what's the point of building jets and missiles.
Again, what? The narrative explicitly progresses from technology to technology. It's explicitly a recreation of the Industrial Revolution. They're progressing from steam engines and planes to space rockets. The very narrative structure reflects that progression which explicitly parallels the real-world development of technology, just two thousand years ahead of schedule. Technological progression. He is starting with the Ancient Greeks, after all. You don't just go from there to rockets.
As for your interpretation of the ending, much less the point of the story...
This is the exact opposite of what the scene was designed to do. Far from suggesting loss of progress now Lucifer has no enemy, it shows that humanity has developed to the point at which Lucifer himself is replaced, and unlike G.O.D. he makes no attempt to resist the change. Progress is occurring and it's now out of Lucifer's hands, and since he doesn't resist he completes his character arc set-up from the start, where he just marched in and dominated the humans under the excuse of being a benevolent dictator. Obviously, there are complications - Lucifer did have a benevolent goal and a time limit forcing his hand, for instance, which prevents this being a straight "Lucifer is bad" harangue - but the arc's there.
Quite apart from the obvious technological saltation on display, there definitely have been changes to society as the story progressed. Daedalus's influence gets the angels to stop treating the humans as pure slaves and to actually interact with them. Trochilus is another example, going from a mere slave to a confident worker directing the Tower of Babylon crew. In that same scene, Lucifer describes how ideas are coming from humans as much as from him now, with a developing thread that leads to the humans rebelling against Lucifer post-G.O.D.'s defeat. Lucifer even introduces same-sex equality and openness to foreigners, effectively bringing humanitarian revolutions up early too.
The emphasis is on Lucifer being replaced in turn. The main difference here between him and G.O.D. is that Lucifer learns from his mistakes; whereas, in the story, G.O.D. hasn't changed and is soon outdone by Lucifer's upgrades, Lucifer is said by Daedalus to have not resisted the revolutions of humanity taking technological progress away from him. Daedalus even compliments him for it, even as Lucifer's unhappy about the abandonment. This is Daedalus preventing Lucifer from becoming just another tyrant, an important note given the theme of conquerors and the nature of G.O.D. itself.
It was intended to be an ambivalent or bittersweet ending; humanity's no longer held back by G.O.D. and technological benefits have been accompanied by other social ones. It's the dawn of a new age; Lucifer certainly had no skyscrapers prior to this final scene. And following that real-world analogy to the modern day, it should be obvious that social change has happened. The tavern and the few temples leftover, plus the comment earlier about "scars" as a result of such fast development, weren't there to undermine this point, but just reminders that it wasn't a naively complete transformation.
In short, this is the natural end-point both of Lucifer's character development from "fighting tyrant" to "friend and philosophical bystander", and of technological innovation transferring from him to the humans.
"Dangling scene". Oy vey...
>>Miller Minus
Haha! First of all, that's a bizarre way to open given that this contest allows for multiple entries. I mean, try pointing and laughing at yourself. It just doesn't work, does it? :D
Second of all, comparing Daedalus to Rincewind makes no sense to me. The obvious fit is surely Leonardo da Quirm?
"That aside, the entry also felt quite distracted, with different ideas being brought up and then abandoned quickly for the sake of a joke or a quick scene change."
I have no idea what you mean here. Every scene had its place in the development and progression both of the technology and of the character arcs (for instance, Daedalus's initial excitement once he figures out what was going on eventually gives way to his resentment and frustration, which leads to him openly having a go at Lucifer - a child that, at the start, unnerved and terrified him). About the only possible things I can think of are references like the "Cultural Dichotomy Theory", and that was so obviously a throwaway gag that I fail to see how it could mar the meat of the fic. I can tell the difference between a garnish and a steak.
"Your style is funny, but your plot is not."
Your recommendation for this suggests you'd have preferred something more monolithic, either all-comedy or all-seriousness. It's not a simplification I'm inclined towards, to be frank. For starters, blending comedy and seriousness together can be done: hell, Pratchett was an exemplar of the form. For another, the comedy and the seriousness stem from the same source(s).
It's particularly disappointing that you seemed to regard Daedalus as incidental or minor compared with the story as a whole. The exact opposite was the case. Daedalus and Lucifer teaming up isn't just an excuse for a gagfest. They bring the rebellious tale of Lucifer-vs-God in collision with the worldly-yet-innovative philosophy of Ancient Greece, united through a sci-fi conceit that requires Lucifer to co-opt an inventor and his ilk.
Daedalus isn't some comic relief thrown in to make fun of Lucifer's rebellion. Throughout the fic, baked into it from the start, are themes of free-will-and-fate, tyrants/conquerors-and-liberation, and progress versus stagnation. The fic is about the way Daedalus and eventually Lucifer navigate those themes. That's why Daedalus is jaded by the philosophical talk in the second scene and feels held-back in the first.
That's why Lucifer, for all his benevolent intentions and exciting new technological marvels, can't end wholly successfully. It's because he starts off as a proud tyrant, and him just winning would strike the wrong note for such a morally complex position. Daedalus responds positively to the technological innovation - as expected, given the theme of flight and freedom he's associated with it in the first scene - but it doesn't escape his notice that Lucifer is just another tyrant. Even when people "volunteer", he notes that it's mainly because "news gets around", especially after the defeat of the Romans at Beelzebub's hands.
So he softens him up, first with the political advice and then by growing frustrated and outright talking back to him. Lucifer, in turn, warms up to the philosophical discussions of Daedalus, which presents him with a less violent way of espousing and challenging his and other people's views. Lucifer, thanks to Daedalus's efforts, stops playing the supreme high-and-mighty boy at the start and starts admitting to his faults in the second half of the fic.
This culminates in him not resisting when humanity starts coming up with its own ideas, taking the project away from him, and having its own revolutions at the end (which Daedalus thanks him for). Daedalus' philosophical background and experience with conquerors and history enables him to contribute his point during the discussion with G.O.D. at the climax, and Lucifer and he are presented as in synch by this point.
The fact that Lucifer ends up living with Daedalus and his wife and going to the tavern like Daedalus originally wanted for "the consolations of philosophy" caps their mutual development and softens Lucifer enough that he escapes just becoming another tyrant. This is a point of emphasis, as a clear indication in the original Lucifer myth is that Lucifer would just muck things up if ever he actually deposed God, a feat which in any case is A) impossible, and B) lost on him because of his sin of pride.
Sorry to go on like this, but it profoundly irritates me when it's suggested that comedy can't be meaningful, well-developed, philosophical, even moralistic, and suggested in the same comment that makes a Terry Pratchett reference. It strikes me as narrow. Both the comedy and the seriousness were baked into this fic from the concept up and planned out from first scene to last. They stem from the same incongruities and absurdities as seemed thematically appropriate, and while the comedy's there to have fun with the concepts - because I fail to see why serious subjects are somehow forbidden from having a dose of levity in them to add to the flavour - they coexist with the character interplay and the foibles of the protagonists, feeding off the same source.
I'll admit the last scene involved some definite word-count-jitters and rushing, fair enough. World War Sunflower had a similar problem. But I'll be damned if my features are accused of being bugs.
>>BlueChameleonVI
Look man, I can't help how I reacted to your story. It didn't work for me as well as I thought it could, and since I thought this kind of story was my thing, I tried to put my concerns into words. I thought the comedy and the seriousness clashed, and at no point did I suggest that it was impossible for them to work together. For me, in this story, they didn't work together. One person, one story, one opinion.
Maybe my thoughts weren't helpful. Maybe this isn't as much my thing as I thought it was. Maybe I was piss-drunk when I wrote my review. Maybe I'm a mouthbreather.
Maybe a lot of things.
Next time you think my comment is narrow, or makes no sense, or is "profoundly irritating", feel free to ignore me. You have every right as the author, and I resent being ranted at when I was just trying to help.
Look man, I can't help how I reacted to your story. It didn't work for me as well as I thought it could, and since I thought this kind of story was my thing, I tried to put my concerns into words. I thought the comedy and the seriousness clashed, and at no point did I suggest that it was impossible for them to work together. For me, in this story, they didn't work together. One person, one story, one opinion.
Maybe my thoughts weren't helpful. Maybe this isn't as much my thing as I thought it was. Maybe I was piss-drunk when I wrote my review. Maybe I'm a mouthbreather.
Maybe a lot of things.
Next time you think my comment is narrow, or makes no sense, or is "profoundly irritating", feel free to ignore me. You have every right as the author, and I resent being ranted at when I was just trying to help.
>>BlueChameleonVI
I mean I could probably dig into your story and unearth more bones to pick. That would be unwise. Just one thing. When you say:
So much stuff just came together that I'm really disappointed it fared so abysmally.
it’s your right to think that the sixth spot is “abysmal” but it makes me wonder what you think of the stories that finished lower — personally, I don’t care, since I am convinced my talents as author are definitely way worse than abysmal, but I suppose that’s not the case for all the other contestants.
I mean I could probably dig into your story and unearth more bones to pick. That would be unwise. Just one thing. When you say:
So much stuff just came together that I'm really disappointed it fared so abysmally.
it’s your right to think that the sixth spot is “abysmal” but it makes me wonder what you think of the stories that finished lower — personally, I don’t care, since I am convinced my talents as author are definitely way worse than abysmal, but I suppose that’s not the case for all the other contestants.
>>BlueChameleonVI
Well, except Daedalus was thought to be a grandson of an Athenian king who lived in the fourteenth century BC, long before Rome (founded 753 BC) or the inception of Judaism (around 9th century BC; five Jews from my comment would probably be followers of the polytheistic Semitic religion Judaism originates from). The story would indeed make more sense placed closer to the birth of Jesus, but then, Daedalus would have to be a time traveller. Babel actually found a way around it, mentioning that people before the flood could live for centuries (which is a reference to the Bible, where Methuselah lived for 969 years and Adam for 930).
Ancient Greece actually was occupied by the Romans in the first century BC, though I admit the gaff with the trident was unintentional.
Well, except Daedalus was thought to be a grandson of an Athenian king who lived in the fourteenth century BC, long before Rome (founded 753 BC) or the inception of Judaism (around 9th century BC; five Jews from my comment would probably be followers of the polytheistic Semitic religion Judaism originates from). The story would indeed make more sense placed closer to the birth of Jesus, but then, Daedalus would have to be a time traveller. Babel actually found a way around it, mentioning that people before the flood could live for centuries (which is a reference to the Bible, where Methuselah lived for 969 years and Adam for 930).
>>Miller Minus
>>Monokeras
No no, I didn't mean it like that, I swear! It's just me. "Abysmally" was too strong a word. I needed some time to cool off before I realized that. I had no intention of offending anyone or of belittling their work. That would be ignorant, rude, and self-absorbed of me.
I know you were. That's what these rounds are for, after all. I appreciate that now.
And I know I was acting like a snot. You see, I had really, really high hopes for this one. Too high, as it turned out. I thought I'd figured out how to make an entry that satisfied a lot of criteria, criteria I thought would make it strong enough for a medal: comedic, engaging, meaningful, creative, and with a solid beginning-middle-end, stuff like that. It felt absolutely right in the moment of writing, I loved the thing, so when it placed lower down than I'd hoped, I got frustrated. Overambitious to the point of delusion, I admit, but frustrated all the same. So I took it out in the comments.
Sorry for my taking it so immaturely. It was a heat-of-the-moment response. I'll leave the posts up so I'm not hiding my mistakes, but after thinking about it since posting them, I regret how I acted.
I apologize to everyone I had a go at. I made a mistake. It won't happen again.
>>Monokeras
it’s your right to think that the sixth spot is “abysmal” but it makes me wonder what you think of the stories that finished lower
No no, I didn't mean it like that, I swear! It's just me. "Abysmally" was too strong a word. I needed some time to cool off before I realized that. I had no intention of offending anyone or of belittling their work. That would be ignorant, rude, and self-absorbed of me.
and I resent being ranted at when I was just trying to help.
I know you were. That's what these rounds are for, after all. I appreciate that now.
And I know I was acting like a snot. You see, I had really, really high hopes for this one. Too high, as it turned out. I thought I'd figured out how to make an entry that satisfied a lot of criteria, criteria I thought would make it strong enough for a medal: comedic, engaging, meaningful, creative, and with a solid beginning-middle-end, stuff like that. It felt absolutely right in the moment of writing, I loved the thing, so when it placed lower down than I'd hoped, I got frustrated. Overambitious to the point of delusion, I admit, but frustrated all the same. So I took it out in the comments.
Sorry for my taking it so immaturely. It was a heat-of-the-moment response. I'll leave the posts up so I'm not hiding my mistakes, but after thinking about it since posting them, I regret how I acted.
I apologize to everyone I had a go at. I made a mistake. It won't happen again.
No worries man, it's good to be passionate about your work. And props to you for sprinting out 24000 words in three days--that's some bitchin' workrate you have.
Hope to see you next round.
Hope to see you next round.
>>BlueChameleonVI
It’s okay. We’re all in good faith. Criticism can be hard to bear, especially since some of us (including me) have a tendency to deliver strong blows. So it’s your right to respond in kind.
But yeah, sometimes putting off a few hours just to let the pressure ease up ‘s a good idea! ;)
See you in a month or so!
It’s okay. We’re all in good faith. Criticism can be hard to bear, especially since some of us (including me) have a tendency to deliver strong blows. So it’s your right to respond in kind.
But yeah, sometimes putting off a few hours just to let the pressure ease up ‘s a good idea! ;)
See you in a month or so!