Difference between revisions of "Defending Elysium"

Jump to navigation Jump to search
m
cytoverse
m (cytoverse)
(9 intermediate revisions by 7 users not shown)
|cover=DefendingElysium.jpg
|released=Holiday 2009
|annotation=annotation-recent-short-stories-defending-elysium
|setting = [[Skyward (series)Cytoverse]]
}}
'''''Defending Elysium''''' is a non-[[cosmere]] short story written by [[Brandon Sanderson]] published on his [[bws: defending-elysium|website]].{{bws ref|happydefending-koloss-head-munching-day-free-short-storyelysium|Defending Elysium announcement|date=2009-12-18}} It is set in the same universe as the [[Skyward (series)|Skyward]] series,{{wob ref|11965}} taking place centuries beforehand.{{wob ref|11990}}
 
== Background ==
The United Governments military had accidentally shot down a Tenasi diplomatic vessel during an embarrassing first contact. Humanity had worried this would throw them into a conflict, then the Phone Company stepped in and, using methods unknown to even humanitieshumanity's intelligence agencies, brokered a peace with the Tenasi. In exchange, the PC demanded they be above the laws of humanity and had since then worked autonomously.
 
Other alien races refused to communicate with humanity unless they went through the PC first. Thus far, humankind has expanded beyond the reach of Saturn but is kept back by the PC's refusal to share FTL travel technology they are suspected of possessing. They are, however, capable of constructing orbital stations from nothing more than inert metal, using their Element-specific gravity generators.
Back at the hotel, Jason convinces Coln to take Denise to Jupiter Fourteen, handing Coln his PC pin so officials at the office won't give him trouble, but only if Jason will tell him if the PC have FTL drives and are keeping them back from humankind or not. As they are about to leave Denise becomes unresponsive and Jason realizes a faint whiff of gas in the room. All three are rendered unconscious.
 
Having his Cytonic Sense disabled, his link to the outside world severed, Jason is trapped both physically and figuratively. Without his Sense the darkness swallows him whole, sending him into a blind panic as he is unable to answer the voice interrogating him from above. IfHe heis doesn'tgiven three minutes to co-operate within three minutesor the girl dies it says.
 
Coln is similarly imprisoned, but unlike Jason he can see the confines of his "prison" for the storage closet it is, with Denise sat beside him. Suddenly, Jason's intercom crackles in his ear and Jason tells Coln to cut the power. Somehow. Not sure if he can trust Jason, Coln does as he's asked anyway, finding a power jack on the wall.
 
;FTL: Faster-than-light travel has been acquired by all species except humankind. The Phone Company possesses this technology but has withheld it from them for so long. The technology is not powered by standard electronics as would be expected, but by cognition. The technology developed from Cytonics.
:Jason is the only character seen actually using this ability in the story, but for Lanna to be on Earth at the end would suggest she had used it too.
:It involves Sensing inwards on yourself and removing yourself from normal space, apparently moving through a different dimension to reappear at a different point in normal space light-years away in seconds.
 
<references />
{{meta/partial}}
{{skyward|de}}
{{Defending Elysium}}
{{books}}
[[category: Defending Elysium| ]]
[[category: list articles]]
Autopatrolled, Editors
8,718

edits

Navigation menu