First Engineer Discussion

In my most recent posts in The First Engineer I got pretty abstract. I think it could use a bit of explanation so that others might be able to appreciate it as much as I do. (I thought it was brilliant. But you don't have to feel the same way. )

I'll start as Maggie and Atnem approach the portal. They find that there are no sounds to hear, and can't even talk with one another. The earth becomes barren and the sky is red. Most of this destruction, the portal included, was all caused by the battle with Sin that is mentioned in the description of The Calm Lands.
The silence is caused the the area's proximity to the portal. A few properties of the portal are beginning to leak into the world, complete silence is one of them.

After crossing into the portal Atnem finds that his rope is gone, but the rest of his gear is still there. It's impossible for something to be in two places at once, so the rope must've chosen to stay with Maggie. Or, perhaps it is trapped between worlds. Maybe Atnem simply didn't want the rope to be there, so it wasn't.

I like to think this part of the story is very similar to the episode of Futurama where Bender gets shot into space. He becomes an omnipotent being to a group of tiny aliens, watches them, helps them grow, and destroys them before heading home. Similarly, Atnem gets lost, finds a blank slate of pure creative energy, builds a world, and destroys it before heading home.

In Atnem's new world, he is only limited by his own thoughts. He thinks it would be a bad idea to create other conscious beings, so he doesn't. He thinks that it is impossible to create a portal within a portal, so he can't. This is why his camp, and then everything else, disappear in the end. He goes outside and thinks about the time he met Maggie. He thinks about how he turned around and the camp was gone. As he's leaving, he thinks his world doesn't matter anymore, so it goes back to its original state of nothing.

The strange human-like being that talks with Atnem was sort of based off the same Futurama episode. Bender finds an entity that might be God, and has a casual conversation with it. The God gives no more information than he needs, and sends him on his way.


I'll be the first to admit that a lot of this doesn't make any sense. That's okay. I had fun with it. And that's what FFR's all about.
If you have any questions about the thread, feel free to ask me here. I'll make up something else that doesn't make any sense and give it to you as an answer. I hope you all enjoyed the story. It's almost done.

The last post feels really messy to me. I was eager to wrap up the story so I could start the next one. Oh well, no big deal. I had fun with it. Hope you enjoyed it too.