The Twisted Secret of Area X | Annihilation Trilogy

foreign [Music] hi guys it's Quinn here if you enjoy my videos consider hitting the like button it's the only way the YouTube algorithm really notices me the southern reach is a science fiction Trilogy by author Jeff Vandermeer some weeks ago I released a video covering the first book in the series annihilation Annihilation which was adapted into a film in 2018 introduces to us the mystery of area X though the first book excellently sets the stage for one of the most authentic Cosmic horror Tales since H.P Lovecraft the mysteries of the series really unfold in the following two books Authority and acceptance each of the books were released in 2014 Just months apart from each other now that I've finished the entire Trilogy my recommendation is to read them as a single book as the three together tell a complete story these three books definitely make up one of the most mind-bending trilogies that I've read in the last few years in this video we will Journey beyond the border into the mind-breaking corridor of area X what is the secret of area X why is it here what does it want what is the other worldly creature known as the crawler who etched its Eerie sermon along the walls of the tunnel referred to as the tower what role did the Lighthouse Keeper play in all these strange events and what are the motives of the mysterious organizations the Seance and science Brigade and the southern reach this series is one of the most interesting Cosmic horror stories that I've read it maintains its mystery but provides satisfying answers to many of the primary questions for those that look hard enough in my opinion this Trilogy can be seen almost as a retelling of HP lovecraft's the color out of space essentially it is a first Contact story and like the color out of space it points out that our definition of life might be quite limited given the vastness of the universe who knows what strange forms may come into existence and who can say how contact with life on Earth would affect said entities and what effect they may have on us for reasons that remain obscure it all begin at least from the perspective of Earth along the Forgotten Shore assure that it long been known to conjure Twisted stories among its inhabitants there were plenty of eerie whispers about things seen and heard something had happened there 30 years prior to the events of annihilation the event in present day the place is devoid of human life and nature has reclaimed it it is now area X this video will contain Major Spoilers for the southern reach Trilogy so if you haven't read them and spoilers are a thing you care about I suggest you pause this video and come back to it after you've read the series otherwise continue forward part one the beginning the origin of area X the Forgotten Shore had been a strange place for as long as anyone could remember it the stretch of land along the Pacific coast was no stranger to ghost stories and more bizarre tells still fishermen often brought back stories of strange things they had seen swimming just beneath the water line a small town nearby was home to about 1500 people one of which was the Lighthouse Keeper a man named Saul we first learn of the Lighthouse Keeper in the first book Annihilation but his significance is not fully revealed into the final book in the series acceptance Saul was one of the first people to come into direct contact with whatever it was that caused area X to become what it eventually became in book 3 acceptance we learned that roughly 30 years before the events of the first book in the series the area was regularly studied by an organization known as the S and SB or science and Seance Brigade the connection between the S and SB and the southern reach organization which would later send Expeditions into area X is at first not clear the SNSB seemed to be an organization with a dualistic purpose or at least that is to say members in that organization had different ideas about exactly what it was they were studying and how to go about studying it as their name would suggest the nature of their experiments related to both science and mysticism something about the Forgotten Shore and the island off its Coast interested them the organization had been given a permit by the government to study the coast their headquarters was on an island just off the coast known as failure Island the island was named as such because all previous attempts to settle the island had ended miserably on the island still stood an old ruined Lighthouse the lens and Saul's Lighthouse had previously been the one to light failure Islands the island itself was not unfamiliar to Strange Tales in a way it almost seemed cursed strangeness was nothing new for failure Island if you listen to Old Jim or some of the other locals The Mists of the Forgotten Shore had always included that Island even before the latest in a series of attempts at settlement had failed the rough unfinished Stone and wood of the town's buildings the Island's isolation the way the sea Lanes had already begun to change while the lighthouse was under construction so long ago had seemed to presage its ultimate fate exactly why the SNSB had chosen to build their base there was not clear stranger still they seemed to take a particular interest in Saul's Lighthouse particularly the lens they had been given permission to use the Lighthouse Lens in their experiments the purpose of which Saul did not understand Saul was annoyed by their intrusions and the overall presence of the main two to visit him a man by the name of Henry and a woman named Suzanne Saul knew that they were studying the shore and the surrounding area or experimenting on it their reasons eluded him they were always present now taking measurements and photographs dictating statements under their bulky tape recorders making their amateur movies intent on finding what Saul knew of the stories surrounding the shore but he did not buy into them he thought the stories and whisperings to be just that tall tales passed around the everyday being reshaped into the mysterious and the otherworldly he knew the history of the shore here the way that distance and silence magnified the mundane how into those spaces and the fog and the empty line of the beach thoughts could turn to The Uncanny and begin to create a story out of nothing but that was before Saul himself would encounter something truly uncanny along the shore something beyond words mysteriously one night the SNSB base on failure Island burned down there was no explanation given as to what caused it a short amount of time following this event Saul saw something on the lawn outside the lighthouse an object that defied reason or explanation the nature of which seemed unknowable and unnamable it captivated him and transfixed him it appeared to be some kind of Otherworldly plant with eight petals it was almost as if it was made of light whatever it was it was delicate beyond measure yet perversely reminded him of the four-ton Lins far above his head the sun was a whispering Corona at his back the heat had risen but there is a breeze that lifted the leaves off the Palmettos in a rattling stir the girl was somewhere behind him singing a nonsense song having come back off the Rocks earlier than he'd expected nothing existed in that moment except for the plant and The Gleam he could not identify he had gloves on still so he knelt beside the plant and reached for the glittering thing brushing up against the leaves was it a tiny shifting spiral of light it reminded him of what you might see staring into a kaleidoscope except an intense White but whatever it was swirled and glinted and eluded his rough grasp and he began to feel faint alarmed he started to pull back but it was too late he felt a sliver into his thumb there was no pain only a pressure and then numbness but he still jumped up in Surprise yowling and waving his hand back and forth he frantically tore off the glove examined his thumb aware that Gloria was watching him not sure what to make of him nothing now glittered on the ground in front of him no light at the base of the plant no pain in his thumb slowly Saul relaxed nothing throbbed in his thumb there was no entry point no puncture he picked up the glove checked it and could not find a tear at that moment though Saul would remain in denial about it for quite some time something entered him it entered him and waited he began to change slowly he began to see things his dreams filled with visions or premonitions and his mind became continually flooded with a strange sermon and the Hand of The Sinner shall rejoice for there is no sin in Shadow or in light that the seeds of the Dead cannot forgive over the course of acceptance Saul is slowly taken over by the Light inside him he knows deep down that eventually what hides within him will come to the surface and his own Consciousness would be pushed aside fragmented and Scattered during this time Saul is increasingly disturbed by the behavior of the SNS beam particularly Henry one night Saul wakes to find Suzanne Henry and a strange woman he did not know in the lighthouse he has caught them in the middle of something but he does not understand what Suzanne and the woman he didn't know stood by the door to the railing dressed in all black with Henry on his knees in front of them almost as if he'd been dealt a blow Suzanne looked defended as if he'd burst in on them in their own home but the stranger hardly acknowledged his presence stood there with arms crossed oddly relaxed her hair was long and quiffed she was dressed in an Overcoat dark slacks and a long red scarf something about the unknown woman Disturbed The Lighthouse Keeper it was her coldness and the way she disregarded him she seemed to be treating him like an annoying variable in one of their experiments at this moment something interesting happens Suzanne appears to hypnotize Saul to calm him down this is another clear tide that connects the SNSB to the southern reach which made widespread use of hypnotism in the book's Annihilation and Authority Suzanne's attempt however did not calm Saul down instead he was filled with fear reading this section you get the sense that they know something about what is happening to Saul and that they might have even caused it just get the hell out Saul said and rinse the ax free although it cost him held it high on the handle because in such Close Quarters it would be no use to him otherwise there was such a terror in him now that they wouldn't go that he couldn't make them get the hell out while still in his head a thousand lighthouses burned but Henry just Shrugged said suit yourself Henry almost contorted himself to avoid brushing his soul as they passed by as if Saul were made of the most delicate Crystal the woman gave him a mysterious Smile as she turned into the spiral leading down a smile full of teeth the identity of the mysterious woman is never clearly stated but there are hints given as to who it could be I will go over this later in the video as time goes on Saul continues to have dreams and Visions the time of ultimate change is approaching he discovers one night that the secret trapdoor in his lighthouse is open from the open space a light pours out the light emanates from a glowing flower a mirror of the one from his yard a Pure White Blossom with eight petals which had unfurled from the top of a familiar plant whose Roots disappeared into the papers below the plant that it enticed him on the lighthouse lawn so long ago to reach down drawn by a glitter a gleam an almost holy intensity Rose from somewhere within and filled Saul up along with a dizziness light was leaking out of him now too coursing through the trapdoor to communicate with what lay below and there came the sensation of something pulling him close holding him tight of recognizing him Saul lose his Consciousness at this point and when he awakes he discovers that he is again in the Watchtower of the lighthouse Henry and Suzanne lay Dead next to him with no discernible wounds when he climbs the ladder Saul discovers something that defied belief there was Henry alive holding a gun this Henry is obviously a doppelganger similar to the one seen in Annihilation Henry was likely the first doppelganger ever made by area X the original Henry had been on the seon side of the SNSB he believed that whatever area X was or whatever caused it or drove its primary function was a God or Spirit but it had been something else entirely it had remade him seemingly in an attempt to suit its purpose I found it Saul like I said I would or it found me only it wasn't what I thought do you know what it is Saul almost pleading there was no good answer to Henry's question Saul manages to evade Henry and Escape Into the Wilderness but he cannot Escape what is inside him he can feel that his end is near and that something new would be born something was about to Crest like a wave something was about to come out of him he felt weak and Invincible all at once was this how it happened was this one of the ways God came for you he did not want to leave the world and yet he knew now that he was leaving it or that it was leaving him for Saul it was although an entire universe was opening up in his mind but it was incomprehensible to him but a universe was opening up in his head filled with images he didn't couldn't understand a flowering plant that could never die a rain of white rabbits cut off in mid-leap a woman reaching down to touch a starfish in a tidal pool green dust from a corpse blowing away in the wind Henry standing Atop The Lighthouse jerking and twitching receiving a signal from very very far away Saul is being given images of the present past and future it seems the particular image of Henry in communication with something far away gives a pretty clear suggestion that the type of entity that we are dealing with is either of an extraterrestrial or extra dimensional nature the image of the rabbits clearly references a future experiment performed by the southern reach we will discuss this particular experiment later in the video saw also sees various images from future Expeditions that would eventually be sent out into area X Saul eventually comes to terms with the fact that he cannot fight The Light Within him is impossible to resist finally he accepts what is happening it was just a tiny thing a splinter and yet it was as large as entire worlds and he was never going to understand it even as it took him over his last thoughts before the thoughts that were not his that were never going to be his perhaps there is no shame in this perhaps I can bear this fight this give in but not give up and project it out behind him toward the sea Saul unable to say the name just three simple words that seemed so inadequate and yet they were all he had left to use Saul loses Consciousness then he awakes as the Monstrous entity first encountered in Annihilation the crawler the place where he fell in the forest becomes the tunnel in the earth referred to an Annihilation as the tower we learn from this chapter that the Splinter is not from Earth it is connected with a kind of mirror of itself inside the lighthouse within the Splinter is what Saul describes as an entire universe this is likely a reference to its interdimensional nature the Splinter and the flower of light beneath the lighthouse seemed to be tied to some other dimension perhaps multiple Dimensions some force from that Dimension could be using the Splinter as a proxy to execute its purpose what that purpose is I will attempt to decipher as we continue this video is never fully clarified whether or not Saul's transformation into the crawler and the creation of the tower was the event that sparked the creation of area X or if it was merely an event which occurred parallel to it either way all 1500 citizens along the Forgotten Shore were annihilated part two the Expeditions the experiments the SNSB which was tied to the government agency Central first mentioned in book 2 Authority in some way had been active for many years before the event there was something about the Forgotten Shore that Drew them there perhaps something about the nature of the place facilitated the opening of doorways to other places perhaps the sliver and its mirroring flower appeared there because there was no other place other than there that it could appear it is possible that the S and SB themselves were the Catalyst for the event that they had called something from very far away to Earth or perhaps they were studying something that had been trapped there long ago the key to this is the Lighthouse Lens itself but we will get to that soon enough if the SNSB was in fact tied to Central then that itself connects it to the southern reach considering that Central is also the agency behind the southern reach program we know that agents like Jackie Severance and Whitby were some of the earliest to study area X after the event it is possible that Jackie and Whitby had also been members of the SNSB at the time it seems to be implied that Jackie Severance was the mysterious woman in all black who Saul discovered in the lighthouse Tower late that night with Henry and Suzanne we learn an authority that Jackie who was apparently a high-ranking member of central has a son also tied to the agency Jackie's son who is referred to in the books as control is the main character of the book Authority during his time as the Director of the Southern reach he does a lot of unraveling of the organization's past or at least the parts of it that are made visible to him though he is the director of the Southern reach he still answers to Central we learn that many Expeditions were sent into area X following the initial Explorations some returned some did not and some returned changed it was mentioned that according to the files the first expedition had experienced such Horrors almost Beyond imagining that it was a wonder that they had sent anyone after that but they had sent more countless more the first book in the trilogy follows the supposed 12th Expedition sent into area X by the southern reach but we later learned that that was merely the current iteration of the 12th Expedition as far more than 12 had been sent over the last 30 years the current 12th Expedition which is made up of the protagonist of annihilation consisted of four individuals the psychologist the biologist the surveyor and the Anthropologist not much is known about the surveyor and the Anthropologist on the 12th Expedition the psychologist is initially introduced as the leader of the Expedition but we learn in the second book Authority that she had actually been the director of the Southern reach at the time willingly the director whose name was Gloria had chosen to join the Expedition she had in fact grown up on the Forgotten Shore she had known Saul the Lighthouse Keeper during the events described before the 12th Expedition had in fact not bit her first Venture into the region even after area X was formed she had visited the lighthouse and returned she unlike some did not experience any form of time dilation the biologist is the main protagonist of the first novel we take in area X through her eyes as she becomes increasingly more transfixed and mesmerized by the beauty and horror of the place her husband had been on the previous Expedition he had returned but not the same somehow deep down she had known that it was not truly him she also on some level hoped that she would find the real him inside Area X what exactly is happening inside Area X is not immediately clear we know basically that all biological life that comes into contact with it was changed DNA was copied and reincorporated into other life in strange and bizarre forms over the course of the first novel we follow the biologist as she comes to know the strangeness of the area and comes to understand that the organization the southern reach had been lying about the nature of the Expeditions from the beginning eventually the biologists would come face to face with the creature which she had named the crawler I detailed the experience of the biologist in the first book in this video here Linked In the description area X is a place outside of our normal perception of time it is not clear why but time moves differently in area X depending on where and when the border into it was crossed the biologists from book one experiences 30 years of time within area X During the three-week period between Annihilation and Authority in Authority control comes across a video on a previous experiment of the Southern reach it involved them sending rabbits through the invisible border of area X saw the Lighthouse Keeper was given a vision of this particular experiment as he transformed into the crawler A Reign of white rabbits cut off in mid-leap as if in a reflexive Act of frustration at the lack of progress the scientists had let loose 2 000 white rabbits about 50 feet from the border in a clear-cut area and herded them right into the Border in addition to the value of observing the rabbits transition from here to there the science division had some hope that the simultaneous or near simultaneous breaching of the Border by so many living bodies might overload the mechanism behind the Border causing it to short-circuit even if just locally this supposed that the Border could be overloaded like a power grid they had documented the rabbit's transition not only with the standard video but also with tiny cameras strapped to some of the rabbit's heads the resulting Montage had been edited together use split screen for maximum dramatic effect along with slow motion and fast forwarded in ways that conveyed and oddly flippant quality when taken in aggregate as if even the video editor had wanted to make light of the event to somehow through an embedded irreverence find a way to unsee it in all control knew the video and digital library contained more than 40 000 video segments of rabbits Vanishing jumping squirming atop one another as they form sloppy rabbit pyramids in their efforts not to be pushed into the Border future Expeditions Beyond The Border discovered no sign of the rabbits given this information it would seem as though area X was attempting to maintain a certain ecosystem and simply weeded out the excess rabbits this would make sense because that many rabbits introduced at once would be almost certain to form into an invasive species putting area X's curated ecological balance into Jeopardy area X could have had an unlimited amount of time to do this considering that time is extremely variable Beyond The Border as mentioned before some Expeditions went in and never returned some Expeditions came back eerily unharmed and there were those of course that came back fine but different it is possible that some Expeditions like the biologists spent years and even decades within area X before either dying of old age or Dying by some other means or being transformed some other biological form those that came back unharmed simply entered area X within a Time stream that was aligned with our own and for whatever reason were not infected by area X but those who came back themselves but not have a different explanation for whatever reason area X made copies of things doppelgangers I mentioned earlier that Henry whose original died in the lighthouse may have been the first doppelganger that area X created in Authority we also encounter ghostbird the doppelganger of the biologist of the 12th Expedition it is clear that those who return themselves but not themselves were actually doppelgangers this explains one aspect this however does not explain how those doppelgangers got out of area X the books seemed to suggest that this was through a form of teleportation the tower which seems to be a kind of entity of its own some kind of bizarre inversion of the lighthouse formed during the final merger of Saul's Consciousness and the sliver possesses at the bottom of it a strange light the biologist in the first book fled from the light terrified but control near the end of book 3 jumps into it it seems that the light at the bottom of the tower is a kind of exit point but where it leads seems to be random for some it leads to outside of area X for others elsewhere perhaps in book 2 Authority control views the video of the first expedition on it he can see the doppelgangers of the original members of the first expedition entering the tower it is pretty clear that this was the way in which those who came back changed got out of area X it would seem that the futility of the Expeditions grew with each additional Mission by the time of annihilation it did not seem as though they were gathering much more information but for whatever reason the Expeditions continued they fed area X this has to be tied to the motives of central but what exactly those motives are are never fully stated in the series we only know that their interest was fixed upon area X and that they had their eyes upon the SNSB long before area X came into existence but what is area X well I've combed through the text of these books and I think I found the answer part three what is area X what does it what so what do we know something not from here came into contact with the Earth the SNSB performed experiments on failure Island their headquarters burned down and shortly after Saul the Lighthouse Keeper was pricked by the strange flower the government agency's Central responsible for the southern reach was also tied to S and SB and all of this is somehow tied to Saul's Lighthouse Lens which had once been on failure Island the series does not connect all these dots for you we have to do a bit of work to figure out exactly what may be going on at this point area X seems like some kind of biological machine left over by an intelligent alien life from somewhere else it is possible that it is from another dimension or from far out in space this is suggested by one of Saul's Visions as the strange plant begins to take him over the star is no longer shown but flew and scuttled across the sky and the violence of their passage did not bear scrutiny he had the sense that something distant had come close from far away that the Stars moved in this way now because they were close enough to be seen as more than tiny Points of Light if I had to make an educated guess I would say that whatever area X is is From Another Dimension or at least travels interdimensionally Saul sees it as coming from beyond the stars because that is the only way his human mind can properly interpret it if it is a machine it could be a machine designed to fix broken environments or simply create sustainable ones this would explain why it essentially deleted the rabbits it is also possible that it essentially labeled humans as bad or perhaps something about humans in particular confused or baffled it this would explain why the animals and vegetation of ariex remain MO mostly the same only improved while humans are sometimes remade into doppelgangers that soon die after or sometimes turned into animals or even occasionally stranger forms area X seems to sometimes make mistakes one example being the moaning creature the biologists of the 12th Expedition encounters the moaning creature during her 30 years wandering area X resisting being changed by the place the moaning creature had once been human but had become something utterly monstrous eventually I came into a kind of clearing an island of dirt covered in anemic grass and bound by yet more Reeds at the far end something pale and grub-like and monstrous flailed and moaned its limbs pummeling the Reed floor the speed I had witnessed in the past seemingly now unavailable to it the creature had once been the psychologist of the 11th Expedition her husband had been on the same Expedition even more horrifying it still had his face but distorted unsettlingly the creature was an abomination and this face in its slumber-formed mask of utter uncomprehending anguish the mouth opened in a Perpetual o as it moaned out its distress as its limbs gouged at the ground as it made its wounded halting progress in what amounted to circles the creature was blind its eyes had a white film over them it slept there on the forest floor as the biologist took in the sight of it she recognized that it was different from the other things in area X it seemed to be a fluke as though it was the result of area X failing to react correctly within conjunction with its purpose this Beast should have been a dolphin with an uncanny eye a wild boar that acted as if it were new to its body and perhaps it was part of an intentional pattern and I just could not see those outlines but it looked like a mistake a misfire by area X that had assimilated so much so beautifully and so seamlessly which made me wonder if my brightness was a harbinger of some form of this to disappear into the shoreline into the anonymous reaches of the beach and wind or the marshes did not really disturb me perhaps never had but this did this blind relentless questing had I tricked myself into believing that letting the brightness overtake me would be a painless even beautiful process there was nothing beautiful about the moaning creature nothing that didn't seem a ghastly intervention the current state of the 11th Expedition psychologist in the moment makes you wonder what became of some of the many others who went into area X and never returned what bizarre forms might they exist in it is also possible that area X is a machine designed to communicate but that because of the nature of the species that created the machine we cannot receive the message instead the message itself harms us this would be like humans attempting to communicate with very tiny intelligent creatures on a desk but the mere vibrations of our voices destroy their cities and kill them another metaphor would be a child reaching out and touching a creature in a tide pool that simple innocent curious act could cause damage to the life in that tide pool the Curiosity or attempt to communicate is not malicious and yet it brings destruction simply due to the incompatibility of our existences all of that being said as I said before the ultimate answer lies within the lighthouse's lens it was once the lighthouse used on failure Island it is said that the boat carrying the lens almost sank to Sea when transporting it to the main Shore there was something inside the lens and that thing was area X this is essentially confirmed in acceptance she saw or felt deep within the cataclysm Like A Reign of comets that had annihilated an entire biosphere remote from Earth witnessed how one made organism had fragmented and dispersed each minute part undertaking a long and perilous Passage through spaces between black and formless punctuated by sudden light as they came to rest scattered and lost emerging only to be buried inert in the glass of a lighthouse and how when brought out of dormancy the wire tripped how it had best as it could regenerated and begun to perform a vast and pre-ordained Function One compromised by time and context by the terrible truth that the species that had given area X its purpose was gone the sliver area X or the maid organism as ghostbird calls it here was somehow inside of the Lighthouse Lens on failure island or at least a fragment of it was it is not totally clear how it got there it is possible that it was in a way summoned into the lens by the SNSB or some earlier group it is also possible that the made organism initially landed in the sand of the Haunted Shore and that that sand was later formed into the lens regardless in the end the lens was brought into Saul's Lighthouse the SNSB were experimenting on the lens perhaps in an attempt to communicate with what was incited something went wrong whatever seal trapped the maid organism within the lens was broken and the sliver infected soul it is possible that Jackie Severance could have properly interacted with the sliver avoiding what ultimately happened but because it was Saul who would take whatever it was inside him he became the crawler this is just speculation however it is just as likely that Jackie would have had no different of a reaction than Saul nonetheless he was in no way prepared to receive whatever message or to do whatever thing this entity wanted of him his human mind was broken and he was ushered Along by his sermon which was the only way he had to interpret the strange purpose of whatever was inside him the fact that it appears as a sermon is clearly related to Saul's past as a pastor the religious connotations of the word sermon which is used several times in the book is another element that is reminiscent of the work of Lovecraft the sermon almost sounds like something that would be written in the Necronomicon or scribbled down by someone who had borne witness to Eldridge Horrors in their final moments of sanity when you examine the words of the crawler they in Eerie terminology basically describe the purpose of area X but interpret it through the lens of Saul's brain where lies the Strangling fruit that came from the hand of The Sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the Dead to share with the worms that Gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dim-lit hulls of other places forms that never were and never could be writhe for the impatience of the few who never saw what could have been in the black water with the sun shining at midnight those fruit shall come ripe and in the darkness of that which is golden shall split open to reveal the revelation of the Fatal softness in the Earth the Shadows of the Abyss are like the Petals of a monstrous flower that shall Blossom within the skull and expand the Mind beyond what any man can bear but whether it decays under the Earth or above on Green Fields or out to sea or in the very air all shall come to Revelation and to Revel in the knowledge of the Strangling fruit and the hand of The Sinner shall rejoice for there is no sin in Shadow or in light that the seeds of the Dead cannot forgive and there shall be in the planting in the shadows a grace and mercy from which shall Blossom dark flowers and their teeth shall devour and sustain and Herald the passing of an age that which dies shall still know life in death for all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated it shall walk the world in the Bliss of not knowing and then there shall be a fire that knows the naming of you and in the presence of the Strangling fruit its dark flame shall acquire every part of you that remains the implications of all of this are relatively clear area X seems to be a fragment of another world it could exist both on Earth and in another dimension but it is at least tied to another dimension in some way its origin is unknown its creators a long dead alien race destroyed by a great cataclysm it is possible that it came here by accident or was drawn here by the actions of the SNSB or some prior group The sliver which infected Saul was like a seed the sermon is a manifestation of Saul's own limited interpretation of the sliver's purpose and goal essentially the sermon is the result of Saul's human brain attempting to put the Unspeakable into words the exact meaning of what he is experiencing cannot be expressed in words I said earlier that the birth of the crawler could have happened parallel to the event which created area X but I think it is likely that it is the event itself the purpose of area X is to construct slash rebuild its own ecosystem but it is encountering problems interacting with Earth it is possible that whatever the driving mechanism behind area X is is broken this could be the reason that it is struggling to properly integrate this would explain the moaning creature and the doppelgangers that die of cancer area X is some kind of machine a made organism it came here either from deep within outer space or from even further realms an interesting moment in the series comes in acceptance when Saul the Lighthouse Keeper encounters the doppelganger of Henry who has attached mystical characteristics to area X and God said let there be light God set that song and he has come from so far away his home is gone but his purpose remains would you deny him his new kingdom the original Henry was intent on there being a mystical nature to all of this so he interprets it mystically referring to area X as he with a capital H he clearly sees it as a God he understands it in his own way but he is somewhat correct on a fundamental level area X is Orphan technology it was given instructions and his intent on carrying them out area X continues to expand throughout the series it is never clear if it ever truly stops part 4. what she became ghost bird and the biologist I mentioned earlier that the biologist from the first novel spent 30 years within area X in the few weeks in between Annihilation and Authority some of the details about her experience during that time are the most interesting in the series it was during this time period that she encountered the moaning creature the biologist somehow resisted the brightness inside of her as it attempted to change her for 30 years before she decided finally to let it overcome her but before doing so she wrote down her last will and testament which detailed her time within area X within area X she came into contact with an owl but the animal did not behave like a normal animal she came to believe that it was her husband who had been on the 11th Expedition this was the form that area X had changed him into spends decades with him until his death and once he dies she finally allows the brightness to overcome her she becomes something never seen before on Earth or possibly even in this Dimension ultimately she appears before her doppelganger ghostbird who has developed a separate identity of her own of course the book describes the biologist's body as coalescing out of the night and flickering and stitching its way into existence she was an immense otherworldly creature that luminesced in the night vast bulk seething down the hill through the forest with a crack and Splinter as trees fell to that gliding yet ponderous muffled Darkness reduced to kindling by the muscle behind the emerald luminescence that glinted through the black the smell that presaged the biologist thick Brine and oil and some sharp crushed herb the sound that it made as if the Wind and Sea had been smashed together and in the Aftershock they are reverberated that same sonorous moan the nature of the biologist current being was essentially indescribable she had been elevated to a level of existence that no one born human had ever been before ghostbird was drawn to her though she should have been terrified at the mere sight of the biologist in her present form she communicated with her counterpart through a kind of telepathy the mountain that was the biologist came up almost to the windowsill so close she could have jumped down onto whatever served as its back the suggestion of a flat Broadhead plunging directly into torso the suggestion far to the east already overshooting the Lighthouse of a vast curve and curl of the mouth and the flinks carved by dark ridges like a whales and the dried seaweed the kelp that clung there and the overwhelming ocean smell that came with it the green and white stars of barnacles on its back in hundreds of miniature Craters of tidal pools from time spent Motionless in deep water time lost inside that enormous brain the scars of conflict with other monsters pale and dull against the biologist's skin it had many many glowing eyes that were also like flowers or sea anemones spread open the blossoming of many eyes normal parietal and simple all across its body a living constellation ripped from the night sky her eyes ghostbird's eyes staring up at her in a vast and unblinking array as it smashed into the lower floor seeking something as it sang and moaned and hollered at this moment ghostbird comes to the realization that the biologist now existed across countless places she had been redesigned by area X transformed into a creature who could Traverse endless Landscapes land sea or stranger she was not a monster but a marvelous creature whose existence was unparalleled nothing monstrous existed here only Beauty only the glory of good design of intricate planning from the lungs that allowed this creature to live on land or at Sea to the huge gill slits hinted at on the sides shut tightly now but which would open to breathe deeply of seawater when the biologists once again headed for the ocean all of those eyes all of those temporary title pools the pockmarks and The Ridges the thick sturdy quality of the skin an animal and organism that had never existed before or that might belong to an alien ecology that could transition not just from land to water but from one remote place to another with no need for a door and a border staring up at her with her own eyes seeing her this is a pivotal moment thematically in the series because it essentially clarifies that area X was never trying to destroy anything in its own way it was trying to help in this series we see the terrible things that humans are willing to do in order to investigate area X the endless Expeditions ending in the loss of countless lives the brutal animal experiments area X was merely attempting to not only make the things it encountered compatible with its own ecosystem but to also improve upon those things and when it worked it worked beautifully the biologist essentially evolves into what is the opposite of the moaning creature whereas the moaning creature seems like a fluke a mistake a result of area X's inability to work properly with human material the biologist essentially becomes a perfect being hypersintient and capable of unimaginable things at the very core this is a story about humanity and its conflict with the natural world nature is reclaiming the Earth it is a new kind of nature a nature never before seen by humans but nature nonetheless is this nature inherently bad or evil simply because it does not include us at least in our current form the answer is good and bad are relative But ultimately it is bad for us specifically and that is the nature of true Cosmic horror the Eldritch horrors of lovecraft's work aren't Horrors because they specifically want to harm humans there is no cause to assume anthropocentrism here they act out their business indifferent to us and if their business harms Us in the process then so be it area X and the changes that it makes to our environment can be seen in some sense as a metaphor for Humanity and our effect on the environment in the real world through our existence we alter the nature of things around us to suit our own purposes this sometimes has devastating effects on certain ecosystems and species the key difference here is however that area X operates presumably not knowing the effect that it is having on Humanity while humanity is aware of the effect on its environment there's a lot going on in this Trilogy so there is bound to be some things I didn't cover in this video like what are the actual motivations of central what is the end result of area X I will likely cover these other topics in future videos thanks for watching guys all right guys it's time yet again for patreon questions now if you want to ask me a question and be featured in one of my videos you can sign up at patreon.com ideas of Ice and Fire supporting the patreon helps support the Channel first question I've just read Larry Nevins the moat in the God's eye and would love to hear your thoughts on this or any of niven's work well I have not read the moat in the God's eye but I have read some of the Ring World Books and I think they're really interesting for their exploration of macro engineering you know the concept of Mega structures and how a society might go about building a megastructure and sustaining a megastructure and how exactly disastrous The Fallout could be if something bad occurs and this megastructure such as a ring world is no longer sustainable so I definitely recommend the Ring World Books so the next question is from Mark Thomas thanks for taking questions have you read or plan to read Gene Wolf's book of the new Sun series I think it would pair well with your Hyperion cantos so the book of the new sun to me is very interesting because it's one of those science fiction series that reads more like a fantasy series especially at the beginning and it's also a series that does not give you very much information about the world or what's going on you have a very limited perspective initially and so does the main character in the book you start off in the series knowing basically what he knows which is virtually nothing and as the book goes on the world expands and you start to learn more about the history of this place and it's very very long mostly forgotten pass and it's an intriguing read for sure that has like a very classic feel to it would recommend alright so the next questions from Donovan Carr have you read Stephen Baxter's time ships it is a sequel to HG wells's fantastic novel The Time Machine it was officially authorized by the wells estate could I possibly implore you to do a deep dive into Wells original time machine followed by a deep dive into Baxter's time ships there are far too many interesting things in these books not to delve into them interesting well I actually have not read the time ships but the time machine was actually one of my favorite books as a kid and I have not read it since I was like 12 years old but I do love the work of HG Wells and it would be interesting to explore some of his work with an adult perspective so I will keep that in mind thank you for your suggestion the next question is from Alexander who are your favorite aliens in sci-fi both literary and on screen and what do you find compelling about them well I feel like this changes on a regular basis for me but I guess right now I've been thinking a lot about the board from Star Trek the Next Generation and it's really because of what they represent the boric are essentially this hive-minded organism that exists only to assimilate and to propagate itself individuality does not exist there is only the Borg and particularly in the Next Generation the Borg always represented such a threat to the values of the Federation which are you know independent freedom and the ability to seek out your own goals in life the Borg also get even more interesting I think in Voyager when the character seven of nine is introduced because she is a character org that is freed from the collective and an interesting thing that's dived into in Voyager is the fact that it's quite lonely outside of the collective because it is kind of like easy to go along with the crowd but once you've been wrapped up in the crowd and going along with the mob so long it's kind of really difficult to become your own person again afterwards so that is part of seven of Nine's character development throughout the course of Voyager season 4 on anyway I just think the Borger is super interesting and there's a lot of parallels uh that I see happening now in real life when I think about the Borg alright so the last question comes from Charles Lee Thorpe a few of the technologies that science fiction has been grappling with for a few years now are practically Upon Us genetic engineering cybernetics AI how do you view these what lessons might we draw from great works of Science Fiction that might offer hope or caution well a lot of it scares me because I wonder if humanity is you know prepared for the onslaught of new technologies and the effects that they're going to have on our society and I get the impression that we're not but it kind of doesn't matter whether we are not because it's here now and the thing is you can't stop scientific progress but I think what's important is you know discussing you know our advancements And discussing the philosophical implications of our technological advancements openly because we don't have open conversations about Ai and how it's going to affect the world then it's just gonna happen and we're not gonna be prepared for it or know how to deal with it so we have to actually have these conversations and I think that's the most important thing I think a lot of people immediately see something that they don't like or that scares them and they immediately want to shut it down we do not like this shut it down but that's the thing you cannot shut it down you cannot put the magic of Technology back in the box once it's been released so we have to find ways to cope and deal with it and that comes from conversation that is the first stop all right so that is the end of patreon questions please check out my patreon and if you're interested in interacting with the community more you can also join the Discord Link in the description all sorts of cool science fiction chats happening there all the time thanks guys peace out [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Quinn's Ideas

Views: 343,818

Keywords: Sci Fi, Science Fiction, Books, Lore, Explained, Annnihilation, Jeff Vandermeer, Southern Reach, Trilogy, Acceptance, Authority

Id: cp85doDIjPE

Length: 60min 4sec (3604 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 07 2023