{"id":4934,"date":"2019-04-24T05:00:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T12:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=4934"},"modified":"2019-04-21T09:38:46","modified_gmt":"2019-04-21T16:38:46","slug":"mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2019\/04\/mark-reads-the-science-of-discworld-iii-chapter-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Science of Discworld III&#8217;: Chapter 5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the fifth chapter of <i>Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch<\/i>, Hex reveals just how astronomically difficult it is going to be to fix Roundworld. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read <i>The Science of Discworld III<\/i>.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Okay, I might be prepared in a general sense for the narrative that links all the science sections of this book, but this was NOT how I expected things to go down. Well, not everything, as this was exactly how I expected the wizards to receive a presentation from Ponder Stibbons:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGentlemen,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI do hope you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve all read my analysis\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n<p>The wizards stared at him.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI worked very hard on it all morning,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 said Ponder. \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAnd it was delivered to all your offices\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n<p>There was more staring.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIt had a green cover\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Ponder prompted.<\/p>\n<p>The staring was quite intense now. Ponder gave in.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPerhaps I should remind you of the important points?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 he said.<\/p>\n<p>The faces lit up.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcJust jog our memories,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 said the Dean, cheerfully.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I know I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve stated that the wizards remain unchanged throughout most of the <i>Discworld<\/i> books, which is one reason why I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tend to like their stories as much. But I will say that their consistency allows for great jokes like this. I know I can start reading a book with the wizards, and I know that at some point, Ponder will have a very important thing he needs to say, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll prepare for it, and then no one else will do anything because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, Ponder always prepares for it. Why waste time? He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll just tell you all the important points <i>anyway<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>So! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with this introduction that Pratchett leads us into the framing narrative for the wizards\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 journey. I was right in expecting that the wizards would have to intervene in the Roundworld they created in order to set things back on track. Here, the Trousers of Time split in 1859 when Darwin wrote <i>Theology of Species<\/i> instead of <i>The Origin of Species<\/i>. There is a LOT more detail given as to why this split has changed the world, too, and namely? Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <i>other<\/i>book provided the perfect opportunity for different social\/cultural groups to <i>compromise<\/i>. The technomancers and the priests could agree on more things than they could disagree, and it pushed the more radical or conservative elements to the margins, which created stagnation. If the vast majority of people agree on something\u00e2\u20ac\u201din this case, Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s position of intelligent design\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthan who is around to challenge it? <i>The Origin of Species<\/i> was a widely challenged book, and that upheaval led to undeniable changes in the world.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a simplistic rendering of history, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the basic idea this is all operating off of. As Ponder puts it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcTechnomancy doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work well in those circumstances. It can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make real progress by consensus. Hah, being led by a bunch of self-satisfied old men who are more interested in big dinners than asking questions is a recipe for stagnation, anyone can see that.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A STUNNING INSULT. So, understanding this, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear they need to fix this and just get Darwin back on track. And this is where the first big twist is laid out for me, and WHAT THE FUCK.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My calculations suggest that <i>Theology of Species<\/i> was the book that he was destined to write. In all the histories of third-level phase space, there is only one in which he writes <i>The Origin of Species<\/i>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One. ONE. A single timeline, a single chance for this to happen. Actually, I have to quote this part because it does such a good job of explaining just how narrow of a chance this was:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In third-level phase space there is only one history where he gets on the boat, completes the voyage, considers the findings and writes that book. All the other alternative Darwins either did not exist, did not stay on the boat, did not <i>survive<\/i> the journey, did not write any book at all or wrote, in a large number of cases, <i>Theology of Species<\/i> and entered the Church.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>WHAT THE HELL. So, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got an almost impossible situation with unimaginably-large-number-to-one odds, which&#8230; how? How did Darwin even get derailed from this path in the first place? Even then, the wizards are the KEY reason Darwin did what he did, so they have to: make sure he wants to get on the boat; stays on the boat; survives the journey; observes the right things; writes it all down; and then completes <i>The Origin of Species<\/i>. All while trying to survive in London during one of the most chaotic times imaginable.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is going to be a hot mess, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m EXCITED.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/youtu.be\/PWdPv_XuGC0<\/p>\n<p><b>Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.markoshiro.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/19\/the-anger-is-a-gift-paperback-edition-is-out-may-7-2019\">The paperback edition of my debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now up for pre-order!<\/a> It comes out on May 7, 2019.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><strong>If you&#8217;d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, <a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/ey636\">sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the fifth chapter of Darwin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Watch, Hex reveals just how astronomically difficult it is going to be to fix Roundworld. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Science of Discworld III.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,559],"class_list":["post-4934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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