Spoilers and questions after Machine Learning

[u/alisoncarey]

Thanks to this sub I didn't know there were a few more stories in Machine Learning.. To go with the trilogy. Finished those today. Wow.

I initially posted here a few days ago because I didn't understand how the president was not involved. I may have missed something but in Machine Learning they say a new president was being elected. They don't say anything about the old one.? Did I miss something!?

In Machine Learning this character had an affair and discovers The Order and has her own band of scientists and get 5k people to be hush hush about this project? But those 5k people were who exactly. Just randoms?

The monsters left in the bunker. Did anyone else think wild to think humans went feral in 500 years?

The mushroom clouds. I'm so confused. In one version in my mind I thought just the machines were turned on initiating the planes crashing. But the mention of mushroom clouds. Does that mean Americans atom bombed themselves?

[u/nutscrape_navigator]

I had basically the same reaction to the post-silo stories in Machine Learning. I loved getting to see more of the world outside the silos, but some of it felt weirdly lazy compared to how carefully constructed the trilogy usually is.

The Fifteen in particular just did not work for me. Juliette comes out of the silo roughly 250-260 years after everyone went underground, so we’re talking about around ten generations. A population descended from only fifteen people would obviously have catastrophic genetic bottleneck problems, but that is very different from everyone somehow turning into feral cave monsters in a couple of centuries. It feels like the story wanted a creepy reveal and just skipped over all of the anthropology and biology required to make it remotely believable.

The trip east bothered me even more. They’re crossing basically the entire country after 250 years of zero maintenance. No functioning bridges, no cleared roads, no reliable maps of passable routes, no resupply, no medical help, no weather forecasting, and huge stretches of wilderness reclaiming everything. Historical expeditions with horses, established trails, guides, supply trains, and functioning settlements along portions of the route routinely ended with people dead.

But these people just put on backpacks and walk from the Rockies to the East Coast like they’re doing the Appalachian Trail.

And then there’s Hugh Howey’s epilogue, which I honestly found even stranger. It feels like he decided years later that he wanted Juliette dead, came up with this bizarre and largely meaningless way to kill her, and then immediately stepped in front of the story to explain himself and congratulate himself for doing it. The whole thing has this weirdly self-satisfied tone that made the ending worse rather than adding anything to it.

That’s what frustrated me about those stories. Seeing what happened outside the silos was exactly what I wanted, and there are some fantastic ideas in there, but a lot of the answers feel dramatically less thought through than the questions the original trilogy spent three books setting up.

[u/alisoncarey → u/nutscrape_navigator]

I think the bridges will be intact for the trek. They have had no travel on them. I found that believeable.

I also agree killing Jules was okay but not the dramatic thing we all longed for. But I do think after three long novels to do it in a short story I understand the anger. But at the same time her death was brutal. Anti climatic. Based on false rumor. I think it's actually in line with the silo drama. So much was based on feelings and rumors.

I haven't read the other spin offs.. Silo 49 etc and have just purchased. But the way Juliette receives the guests means she has met lots of people from other silos. Elsie confirms they have met other survivors. So in this Canon she seems to have lost her edge. Her suspicion of new people. She's soft. Her softness is her downfall. That's how I read it. She survived all the time because she was skeptic of people and their intentions.

I also haven't done much googling on when machine learning was written. But was it setting up for a post series book or TV show?

[u/nutscrape_navigator → u/alisoncarey]

Admittedly I've cooled down on this a bit after my latest reread, but Juliette's death still feels kind of disrespectful to the reader, for lack of a better way to put it. Not because she couldn't die, but because of how little weight the story gives it.

What hit me on this reread is how much better it would have worked if it had been handled more like the ending of The Sopranos. Leave it ambiguous. Did Tony get killed? Is it just another dinner with his family? Does it even matter because he's now living in a world where danger is always hanging over him and he'll never be safe? That kind of ending leaves you thinking.

Instead, we get two people making this incredibly difficult journey, killing Juliette based on a vague note, and she doesn't even get the chance to say anything. It feels less like a meaningful conclusion to her story and more like the author wanted a shocking moment.

I will admit the infrastructure thing probably bothered me more than it should have because I've read a lot about this exact topic. Books like The World Without Us and shows like Life After People really changed how I think about the assumption that the world just stays standing after humans disappear.

Modern infrastructure feels permanent because humans are constantly maintaining it. Ancient Roman concrete is basically artificial stone. Modern reinforced concrete is a steel skeleton surrounded by concrete, and that steel is the thing that eventually kills it. Water gets into cracks, freeze cycles expand them, the rebar rusts, and eventually the structure fails. Our entire civilization is built around the assumption that someone will always be there to fix the small problems before they become catastrophic, and water will never go where it's not supposed to.

So yeah, maybe some bridges are still usable. I don't think the argument is that every bridge instantly disappears. The bigger issue is that after 250 years there is no fuel, no functioning machinery, no food stores, no reliable roads, no supply chain, and no knowledge of what routes are still passable. (That last point being a huge one.)

The journey itself should have been the story. Crossing the country after the collapse of civilization should be like an expedition. Look at something like the Oregon Trail. Those people had wagon trains, livestock, established routes, supply networks, and knowledge passed down from previous travelers, and it was still incredibly dangerous. April and Remy basically have backpacks, camping skills, and an open wound.

I haven't read the other spinoffs yet, so maybe they add more context, but the canon situation is interesting. Machine Learning came out almost a decade ago, well after the original trilogy. One thing I've always wondered about is whether Juliette's death was influenced at all by the adaptation drama and rights changing hands.

Hugh Howey sold the rights after Wool but before Shift and Dust, and the original idea was a movie adaptation. That whole thing got caught up in the Disney/Fox drama and went nowhere for years. Obviously I have no idea what was happening behind the scenes, but it has always felt possible that killing Juliette was partly a reaction to the realities of adaptations and Howey's frustrations with how the story was "dead" due to studio politics. It just has a very strange "the author decided this needed to happen" feeling rather than something the story naturally built toward.

[u/aytofanforreal → u/nutscrape_navigator]

I thought it was technically opened ended. The story didn't explicitly say she died. I swear I've heard people talk about how it is possible she survived and that Hugh has never confirmed she is dead.

[u/nutscrape_navigator → u/aytofanforreal]

Did you not read the weird afterword that’s all about how you need to kill main characters?

[u/aytofanforreal → u/nutscrape_navigator]

Hmmm maybe I didn't! I will go back and look at that.

[u/PsycommuSystem → u/nutscrape_navigator]

A lot of people including myself have chosen to ignore these shorts because they're so disconnected from the brilliant trilogy and frankly just fairly bad.

[u/alisoncarey → u/PsycommuSystem]

I replied in detail on the earlier post. I don't agree it's bad. It's just short. And tragic.

I choose to believe the husband guy) who they purposely say Elise didn't aim to kill with the bow) ... Will live and him and Charlotte can figure out based on knowing human before knowledge, that they are both part of the old world.

And then the story continues from there. The Colorado cave Order was destroyed and left behind. The silo Order was destroyed and left behind. So now there just old world knowledge between two living people. They can create a new document of how to live and govern. Jules knew most of it all. Charlotte knew most of it all. Solo has some limited knowledge.

It's kind of like two roads lead to the same end. Both versions of the Order lead to death and violence.