MetaOrion
By
Ben
Orion
Orion
did everything. He reclaimed the city of Sarengarth (a city of whos
that was a tree outside my house) from its corrupt ruler, he fought
off the first swarms of louse attack against the city, he journeyed
to the distant west to find the secret of the war's origin in the
ruins of the ancient capital. This character looked like me, thought
like me, the definition of a self-insert, but that helped me get into
his head. It helped draw me into the story. I remember waiting in the
parking lot of a movie theater when I was fifteen or sixteen,
imagining a siege by the whos against a louse stronghold, and Orion
watching the dots of missiles and ships, thinking about how such an
enormous war of thousands of nations against a war machine beyond
comprehension, might last thousands of years, but the whos would win
because they would always come back from defeat, even the smallest
resistance cell. It was dumb shit like that.
The
story was always sort of cathartic and when shit went badly in my
life it came out in the story. Sarengarth fell to the lice after
years of siege. The story became almost post-apocalyptic as Orion was
captured by the lice, eventually escaped and wandered the wasteland.
Eventually he had some children. Then before they were born he went
off to defeat a louse superweapon that would spread their terrible
virus all over the planet. He had the idea to create a virus that
would bypass the louse immunity to it, and "infect" the
weapon with it. Which he did. He then dueled Timeless one last time.
Timeless' body regenerated incredibly quickly, so Orion did the one
thing Timeless would not expect: he threw both of them over the edge
into a vat of energy, after telling Timeless he would never
understand sacrifice. So Timeless burned to death, and (in the
written version at least), Orion crawls away, badly burnt, before
expiring.
Fast
forward twenty years in story. His children, Leo and Andromeda, have
become main characters. Two problems here. One, Leo just wasn't the
same as Orion. He was a good character but he just felt different,
and once he was that way I couldn't change him to just be another
Orion. Second, I now divided attention between Leo and his sister.
Andromeda swiftly became a more interesting character. She was an
aberration of the weird intuition the Green family seemed to have. If
you have read Children of Dune, insert Alia here. Or, hell, Andromeda
was basically like the kwisatz haderach, but she didn't happen on
purpose. She had much crisper glimpses of the future than her
ancestors, and in times of need could "sense" where enemies
were and shoot them through walls (she used a sniper rifle). She also
became obsessed with meeting her father (whom she had never known but
for a radio message of his voice from a million miles away, minutes
after she was born). She began to "feel" him in the spirit
world, and became convinced he was alive. Thus began the quest to
resurrect Orion.
I
approached this cautiously. The story was fantastic and unrealistic,
taking place on a planet 1,000 times the size of ours, hollow, with
an ancient race of supertech bad-asses living on asteroids in the
center, and armies of billions waging war on tree-cities miles tall
that had the defensive capabilities of the entire United States
advanced a few hundred years in the future. Not to mention people (at
least two) activating "IRL wallhax" and similar bullshit.
But resurrection was a new thing.
My
family was taking a vacation so the timing worked out. And I felt as
though bringing back Orion… even if he didn't resume his role as
main character, felt right. He had been through so much, done so
much… fuck, he didn't deserve to die. The Greens could live
hundreds of years without aging, it was part of their "Chosen"
lineage.
I
had already tried bringing in a new male bad-ass by introducing their
cousin, Adrian, who was the son of Peter's sister who went missing
but actually didn't die and ended up commanding fleets against the
lice in the deep south. He never fit and just confused things more.
He ended up leaving to head back to his family after helping Leo and
Andromeda for a year or so.
The
time came and I became more and more nervous. The story was building
up to it. I agonized over how to rationalize the biggest hackiest
ass-pull I'd ever done. At last, it was revealed that the lice had
preserved Orion's burnt corpse (for whatever reason at the time), and
now Dauntless (Timeless' successor, spawned from the Malevolence in
the louse capital) was looking for the ancient Resurrection Chamber
to the far west. Only problem was, he didn't know where it was. So he
followed Andromeda, whose visions guided her to its location.
Finally
they make it, after having to go into some ancient archive to point
them in the right direction, and joining a fight with the western
whos against the gathered louse fleet of the west. Also learning of
huge louse cities on the west coast, comparable in size to Casa
Novak, the capital of billions. They land on the rocky cliff, miles
tall, and head inside. In short order they are ambushed by a
helicopter, which shoots them as they run through the trees on the
winding trail down to the Resurrection Chamber.
Andromeda
makes it; the others are pinned down. The lice have gotten there
first as she dodged bullets. Dauntless dumps Orion's corpse into the
pool of grayish fluid (nanites). Andromeda shoots all the lice dead,
then shoot Dauntless several times before engaging him in a knife
fight. She loses, and ends up disarmed and pinned down, Dauntless
slowly choking the life out of her. Suddenly Dauntless is grabbed
from behind, told to "get your hands off my daughter" then
beaten to death. Orion has returned to life.
After
tearful reuniting, and the mourning of the deaths of a side character
in the battle, they head home. And immediately I felt like I'd fucked
up. I'd been back and forth on this for months, agonizing. Now there
were three main characters, not two. The "get your hands off my
daughter" triumphant return part tipped the balance, and sure it
gave me a rush to imagine, but it felt wrong. At least the
resurrection chamber was used up, it was one-use Clarkian tech that
couldn't be replicated. This was not without precedent given the
weird glowing sphere that had given Orion visions of the past years
earlier. But it still felt unnatural.
I
imagined less and less of the story, and I feel like I was doodling
something beautiful in permanent marker, made a tiny error, then
scribbled up the entire page trying to fix it. Sure, this story is
cliche as fuck, it's an incredibly autistic habit, but it is also
incredibly precious to me in ways that are hard to explain.
It's
only been a couple weeks and I have not imagined much since their
return. I've taken refuge in some of my other imaginary worlds. I
don't know what to do now. I took the plunge and brought him back. I
did too much build-up, too much else to ret-con it now. Doing that
would destroy what little suspension of disbelief I have left.
Self-awareness and meta-thinking already fucks up so much of this
story.
Orion
back alive… I tried to get into his head, as I used to, but that
world is gone it feels like. It's like trying to ride the Ferris
wheel and experience the same joy you did as a young child. Maybe I
hyped it up too much in my own head. I don't know. It doesn't really
matter anymore.
I
remember looking out from the airplane when I was fifteen, looking at
the clouds, the lights so far below, imagining they were louse cities
of unbelievable size. The fragmented grid of orange lights that forms
Chicago from the air at night, imagining the dread in Orion's heart
as he saw each light as a complex holding a million louse troops, and
realizing the war was unwinnable. The feelings I felt, looking at the
clouds imagining thousands of louse warships heading east to assault
Sarengarth, and that infinite gulf of space….and so many other
memories of the missions Orion led, the victories he had, the losses
he suffered. And I threw it away for some harry-potter-tier
self-sacrifice. Then brought him back and made it even worse.
t's
hard to describe all the feelings at play here. I don't know what to
do now. Killing off Leo or Andromeda would ruin things. Ignoring them
to make Orion the main character again… it's been too long I feel.
There was this whole cycle of inheritance I had meant to happen, as
the war lasted through generations (as it had already, for a thousand
years). It was so engrained that going against it feels like going
against the natural order, like rearranging things with a hacksaw. It
just feels wrong, and I don't even want it.
Unfortunately
there's not a lot of literary precedent for the structure of a
character arc set after resurrection. There is some, especially in
medieval literature and hagiographies of medieval saints, but those
tend to run along lines of the "and then the wealthy but sinful
merchant, having been raised miraculously by the saint, sold all of
his worldly possessions as alms to the poor and joined the
Benedictines, taking a vow of silence; he never revealed the
mysteries of what he had seen of life after death to anyone, but
devoted himself to silent prayer and service to the poor."
Most
of the literary precedent for an after-resurrection character arc
will have to be found in religion, for the obvious reason that
religion is the most serious and mature way most cultures, societies,
and people have historically dealt with death. I am not religious, so
I apologize if this post offends anyone, it may seem belittling or
trivializing for sincere religion to be taken as loose inspiration
for a story.
According
to the Gospel of John, Jesus raised Lazarus of Bethany from the dead,
and that was the final miracle he performed prior to his own
crucifixion. The Bible does not speak of Lazarus after the
Crucifixion, but the traditions of the Eastern Orthodox hold that
Lazarus traveled to Cyprus, and lived on for 30 more years as a
witness, but died and was buried again. According to that tradition,
Lazarus never smiled during the 30 years he walked again amongst the
living; some say out of worry over lost souls, others out of longing
for God. His importance was as a witness and a counsel, but not one
of the leaders and shapers of the early Church, those roles being
held by the Apostles.
I
think the general thrust of this is that when one returns to life,
the goal and obligation shifts from building a legacy to handing it
on to those who have never died, and to prepare and elevate others to
fulfill the role of the heroic main character. The stories of the
Risen Christ are rarely stories of Christ as main character the way
they were when he was working miracles prior to his crucifixion; the
most famous of the Biblical stories are the stories of the Risen
Christ allowing Thomas to feel his wounds, thus simultaneously
admonishing Thomas and establishing his legitimacy as witness and
apostle, and the stories of him filling his disciples with the Holy
Spirit. Thomas and the Apostles are the main characters there, being
given the legacy of Christ and elevated by the legacy of Christ, but
Christ is not the protagonist in a literary sense. The most famous
non-Biblical stories of the Risen Christ appearing to his disciples
are along the lines of his appearance to Peter on the road to Rome.
Peter had been fleeing the Roman authorities, and was about to escape
from the city entirely, but Christ appeared to him. Peter rejoiced
and asked Christ where he was going, intent on following his master.
Christ calmly answered, "I am going to Rome to be crucified
again." Peter, at long last, makes his final amends for denying
Christ during the Passion, and follows him into torture and death.
Peter is the protagonist, the one whose journey the story focuses on,
the one who fulfills the legacy and destiny Christ gave to him. The
Risen Christ is part of the story, a central part, absolutely
important, but not the main character.
