Would it surprise you to learn that the author of the story largely agrees with you?
Canonically, by word of the author, the ending is fake. It's building on the Death Contract idea - Caroline and Lawrence get their own simulation where PI pretends not to exist, but extra detailed and convincing, and it lasts for at least Caroline's lifespan. What's novel for PI is that Caroline didn't explicitly request the scenario or the timetable - but she seems to want it, and beforehand she was trying to get PI to do something rather like killing her, or at least that's how Caroline tried to portray it. Maybe PI hopes if she gets a full lifetime of playing Eve, she won't be too angry when she wakes up in Cyberspace after a reasonable facsimile of death? Maybe she'll even feel like she's finally really lived, and have gotten it out of her system?
Maybe part of PI's titular metamorphosis is how it must contort its reasoning to satisfy such unreasonable people as Caroline, whose desires clash starkly with many others'.
There is a small short story set after the events of MOPI, but it is not the planned eventual full sequel, and does not focus on Caroline or Lawrence. It suffices to confirm PI's continued operation, though. https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/79crty/oc_upgrade/
That is a delightful surprise -- I have occasionally been active on /r/HFY (indeed, I can remember when HFY as a genre was first coming into existence, elsewhere) but I do not remember ever reading that story. I appear to have upvoted it, though. The fallibility of my memory is shocking.
I am gratified that the author appears to agree with me! I do wonder, though, if there were textual hints that I missed. Perhaps not. But the mini-sequel (which, again, I have no memory of reading, even though I must have upvoted it, all those years ago) was great. I'm glad that the aliens are alive again; the fact that Prime Intellect has evolved its position on such a thing (or, perhaps, has developed appropriate safeguards that would allow the aliens to live, eliminating any threat to humanity) is a fascinating bit of worldbuilding.
I hope, in this far future with its development, that Caroline is finally at peace.
Would it surprise you to learn that the author of the story largely agrees with you?
Canonically, by word of the author, the ending is fake. It's building on the Death Contract idea - Caroline and Lawrence get their own simulation where PI pretends not to exist, but extra detailed and convincing, and it lasts for at least Caroline's lifespan. What's novel for PI is that Caroline didn't explicitly request the scenario or the timetable - but she seems to want it, and beforehand she was trying to get PI to do something rather like killing her, or at least that's how Caroline tried to portray it. Maybe PI hopes if she gets a full lifetime of playing Eve, she won't be too angry when she wakes up in Cyberspace after a reasonable facsimile of death? Maybe she'll even feel like she's finally really lived, and have gotten it out of her system?
Maybe part of PI's titular metamorphosis is how it must contort its reasoning to satisfy such unreasonable people as Caroline, whose desires clash starkly with many others'.
There is a small short story set after the events of MOPI, but it is not the planned eventual full sequel, and does not focus on Caroline or Lawrence. It suffices to confirm PI's continued operation, though. https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/79crty/oc_upgrade/
That is a delightful surprise -- I have occasionally been active on /r/HFY (indeed, I can remember when HFY as a genre was first coming into existence, elsewhere) but I do not remember ever reading that story. I appear to have upvoted it, though. The fallibility of my memory is shocking.
I am gratified that the author appears to agree with me! I do wonder, though, if there were textual hints that I missed. Perhaps not. But the mini-sequel (which, again, I have no memory of reading, even though I must have upvoted it, all those years ago) was great. I'm glad that the aliens are alive again; the fact that Prime Intellect has evolved its position on such a thing (or, perhaps, has developed appropriate safeguards that would allow the aliens to live, eliminating any threat to humanity) is a fascinating bit of worldbuilding.
I hope, in this far future with its development, that Caroline is finally at peace.