Thoughts And Connotations

Please bear with us here. Fiction reflects life. We will start with life (or something like it), then return to fiction. 

Imagine: a sensitive recording, computing and communicational device which detects and records electromagnetic radiations, sounds, other vibrations, chemical compositions, nuclear reactions, gravitational waves etc, computes and calculates about these inputs and communicates with other such devices. Imagine further that this device randomly replays previous recordings, computations and communications and continually interrupts its own operations with further random and disjointed repetitions. If we add the single extra mysterious ingredient of consciousness, then this device becomes a superior human brain albeit with a very enhanced sensory apparatus.

What has gone wrong with the device to cause these constant replays? Well, we have been not artificially devised but naturally selected and therefore are primarily motivated not just to record and assess data but also to preserve, promote and gratify self. This motivation generates many additional mental processes, including regrets, recriminations, apprehensions, anticipations etc. 

This has consequences for both life and fiction.

First, some of us meditate, i.e., practice awareness of our own incessant and involuntary thought processes, not from narcissism but in an attempt to gain some handle on what is going on.

Secondly, a chapter or a narrative passage in a novel can locate a character in a particular time and place but can then mainly comprise that character's thoughts and reflections. This can inform readers either about the character or about his knowledge of the background situation without necessarily advancing the action of the novel. Thus, on pp. 317-324 of SM Stirling's The Winds Of Fate, CHAPTER NINETEEN, the Chinese agent, Black Jade, hears her superior, Colonel Liu, conversing with Kushan aristocrats and, at the end of p. 324, we know that she is:

"...trying to decide to do..." (p. 324)

- something!

We guess, correctly as it turns out, that the something is defection to the Americans and here we must divest this word, "Americans," of its connotations. In this context, "Americans" means not White House, State Department, Pentagon, CIA, aircraft carriers, military bases or boots on the ground. It means only five individuals of very high expertise and very good intentions.

Both the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and his chief advisor, the American, Artorius:

"...agree that being Emperor is a burden, not something for which a sensible, self-controlled man would strive! Unless duty compelled, of course."

-CHAPTER TWENTY, p. 325.

The Emperor can trust Artorius because he knows that the latter is not scheming to replace him. A perfect setup. Things can get done:

"...Artorius...is genuinely uninterested in rank for its own sake. An unusual man. He values it only for what can be done with it, as he does with money. He labors ceaselessly for Rome, as I strive to do." (p. 329)

Really, it is for the world with Rome as the instrument.