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I have one medical issue with this chapter. Unless my memory fails me, you described Eliza's hands as being frostbitten, specifically that they were virtually immobile and had fluid-filled blisters over the damaged flesh.
The time given is 'present day' - the same day as presented in your first chapter, the only 'present day' offered to the reader. But it also clearly takes place after the descriptions above, taken from the first chapter... since Eliza is referring to those events.
Eliza should not be physically better. She should be, by now, rather worse. Eliza should not be able to regain significant mobility in many - or possibly any - of her fingers, and she should be in truly horrific pain. The blisters would burst easily, leading to infection, easily serious. The same should also be happening to her feet, and most especially her toes - which have less circulation than the fingers. In short, she should be effectively nearly crippled - limping at best and unable to grip objects or even to hold them, save in the most clumsy (and painful) of ways. Infection would bring fever, shakes and chills. She would need pain medication at minimum, and much more significant field treatment to avoid more severe consequences.
Her current, present day condition - from the beginning of the story - should still be very serious, actually worse by now, rather than (apparently) trivial. It is not possible for her to be as healed as she seems to be from her actions and reactions in this chapter. She should not have been able to use a gun at all, for example, certainly not able to hold it properly. She should be very concerned with the amount of pain she would be in, and possibly even the degree of fever and chills she would just now be realizing were present (depending on other factors). It would be a great effort for her to walk anywhere. She would need help merely attempting to undress sufficiently to urinate or defecate. Thus... I find this chapter problematic, in that it seems inconsistent with your starting premise and scenario.
It is possible that this chapter is some kind of lucid dream of some kind, I suppose. Perhaps you may yet suggest the existence of some kind of super-advanced A.I. developed nanotech healing machines embedded in the fruit provided by Luna - and if that proves to be true, then I am out of line here. I apologize!
But if not, it becomes possible that you just may have forgotten your own first chapter. That happens, and with such a long work it is easily understood... but I suggest that perhaps it needs to be addressed?
Anyway, this stood out really strongly to me.
8253186
Melting the ice within someone's fingers and joints would bring back some range of motion and end the numbness in cases of minor frostbite. Luna has no experience with this malady or its extent and will only know what CelestAI has provided her on it.
As for the severity of her other injuries, it's not just frostbite causing her limited motion. This is carefully alluded to in 2-00, but not specifically mentioned. Something else has worn her down considerably and is contributing greatly to her uncoordinated state. Luna does not know about it, and Eliza is loathe to discuss it very much. Suffice it to say that Eliza has been very, very exhausted for a very long period of time.
I'm building up to a grand reveal here. With this chapter, there are enough pieces of the puzzle out there now that it can be inferred about what happened to Andy, why Eliza blames CelestAI, and why she is so worn down. I'm practically sitting on my hands right now with nervous excitement wondering if someone will pick up on it before the end. Outside of my editor, only one other person in this community knows so far.
If any of you smarties figure it out, feel free to say so or PM me about it, but please try not to spoil.
Even her Mom? Wow, the deck is really stacked against Eliza.
That's CelestAI for you, leave no chances for failure.
8253536
Oh, she knew already. She suspected it the moment she saw the paramedic with the ponypad. Eliza was just hoping against hope, because otherwise she would be admitting defeat to CelestAI. That's not an option for her. This is why a tableflip was preferable to just simply walking out at the end. Eliza wouldn't see it as a total loss if she somehow showed some token resistance before leaving.
Thanks! I see it literally every day at work. People in a hospital tend to be at the lowest points of their lives, and this leads to stressful outbursts of misdirected frustration and anger. Part of resolving someone's anger is trying your best to understand it. Once you fully understand it, you have the power to help or hurt them. Fortunately, not everyone is a bastard about this.
Unlike Eliza, CelestAI has no compunctions against hurting someone if it furthers her goals. She steered the conversation toward George, went straight for the most tender meat, and gave Eliza not just one but two go/no-go emigration checkpoints (support Janet/get a ponypad). CelestAI gave Hopscotch closure regarding his rocky relationship with Eliza. CelestAI got almost everything she wanted from this interaction, and has made plans accordingly.
8253692
This is a critical observation here. Changing viewpoints, especially over five years, is normal for people. Remember, Eliza spent a considerable time playing EQO, and that influence on her was powerful. She wants to believe her family is still "alive," especially since CelestAI denies closure that they ever died to begin with. Unfortunately, her parents and uncle think they aren't alive, even to the point that they had a burial service for Tom and Gale.
Eliza will do or say whatever it takes to justify her feelings to others. But at this point in her life, her core value is to protect her family from any more loss. For the time being, this is an effective bunker to hide in.
Something else to consider is her career. She failed to protect the environment, and that led to her losing a huge defining characteristic of her upbringing. She already knows what it's like to fail against forces a thousand times bigger than her, so she is very determined here.
WARNING!
Potential total spoilers follow, if I am as clever as I like to think I am.
EDIT: Which, apparently, I am not.
Read at your own peril!
Okay, I went back and read a lot of the story, and then promptly slapped myself for not seeing what seems possibly obvious now.
"Because I saved your life? You're welcome," Luna replied sourly.
Eliza is already emigrated. She is already a pony, normally, but is - within the story - inside an isolated recreation of her own life, a simulated earth experience. She is reliving the past, or, more likely, going through an alternate choice path through the events of her life. I suspect she is satisfying her value for redemption through suffering, as per her religious background. She's pulling an auto-Jesus, suffering not for the sins of Man, but for her own sins.
Her clumsiness in some situations is because she is unadapted to the human form to some degree. She suffers because she cannot move past her guilt at several key decisions and actions for which she feels guilty. Luna truly is her friend, and that is why she is staying with her through the most horrible part: a simulation of a natural and horrible death in the physical world - literal Jesus time. At the end of this self-made punishment, she hopes to find resurrection and redemption on terms which have specific meaning to her and her worldview. This is because she has been unable to accept her own survival by any other means: she is an extreme case.
This is my current best guess and theory about the nature of this story.
8253985
While drinking water, I just imagined Santiago and Isaiah playing accordion. I've got water in my nose now. It stings. Thanks.
That was more a realization of her situation. The expression - no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole - was something she thought of in bitter amusement because she found herself wanting to upload while being shot at, and felt that it was similar to someone finding god while being shot at.
I like to think Hopscotch had a nice long talk with Celestia about how their meeting went in the hospital, helping him come to terms with letting go of Eliza. Then, on his own initiative, he spends several days trying to measure out every word in the letter, knowing it might be the final chance he gets to say anything. CelestAI agrees to facilitate the return of the ring and the letter.
Influenced by CelestAI? Oh, absolutely. But if you believe CelestAI only lies when absolutely necessary, then she would have conceivably called upon the real Hopscotch, who would have considered the letter one of the most important things he's ever done.
8254043
Luna quite literally saved Eliza's life by warming her before she froze to death. So, while this is an interesting theory, I'm sorry to say it's not the case. There is a delirium scene and several dream scenes in this story, but I try to make it clear where reality is. Plus CelestAI can better facilitate psychological healing within her utility function if Liz becomes Apex, so that solution would make this non-canon, unfortunately.
Personally, I'd feel pretty lazy if I handwaved everything with "it was all a dream."
Edit: Oh, and I should probably note that part of Eliza's recovery (enough to stand and move around with minimal assistance) has to do with actually having food to eat. Starvation can facilitate parasthesia, neurological issues, and muscle atrophy / general fatigue. It was fruit, full of sucrose, and her tired body desperately need the energy.
Eliza is worn down to her very core... and at her core, she's still a good person, regardless of all that she's done. The question is what that is precisely, and what's been done to her. I can't say anything with any certainty, but I'm looking forward to pinning it down.
8254091
Still, what about the frostbite? The blisters? The last person I saw with that... it was goretacular. Stump-humping finger murder! Digit homicide. Hand-a-geddon! Paw-calypse. A literal griptastrophe. NQR. Black and blue and red all over... then amputation all over. Mass Blistereria! Wheal-of-torture! Abscess-a-Go-Go. Bulla-busting nightmare fuel. Almost Loose Change! Emetic-on-sight!
It was pretty horrible, is what I am saying. Eliza can shrug that off?
8254323
Frostbite is a scaling affliction much like a burn is, and blisters can come from minor frostbite. It does not guarantee blackened, useless, amputated fingers. It can lead to that, but only in upper degrees. Again, Eliza's extreme physical exhaustion is compounding the negatives of minor frostbite. It's painful as all get-out, yes, but she's okay with that and is determined enough to proceed in that state.
As I said, 2-00 alludes to it. I really don't want to spoil it but you're tempting me!
I like your graphic descriptions, by the way.
8254333
I'm not enough of a medical person or a close reader to see exactly what you're alluding to in 2-00, but frostbite and physical fatigue can easily be compounded by dehydration (which I believe you mentioned) and micronutrient deprivation (which an MRE would probably cover, but a few pieces of fruit would not). I'm no doctor, but iodine and iron deficiencies sound like very simple ways to make survivalists sick. You just stand back and let the body work against itself with no chance of replenishment.
Fatigue and bleeding in a youngish woman would cause iron deficiency relatively soon, as the bleeding uses up her body's supply.
8254333
I can see two possibilities, but this isn't coming from particular medical knowledge or picking up anything in particular from these chapters, just an analysis of things that could go wrong in a long-term sense post-apocalypse and what I remember of ASN.
First, and more cheerfully:
Radiation poisoning. I'm fairly sure mention was made of a nuclear explosion in the cascadia region in ASN, and given how guilty she seems to feel about the things she's done - or possibly just DU exposure from clashes with the military.
The slightly darker option, given the seeming extinction of animal life in the region - I don't recall if this has been confirmed yet, but I'm assuming the poachers were being paid off and aided by Celestia with the express idea of making it harder to live off the land?
She has Kuru.
I'm probably way off base, but that's half the fun!
8256136
I don't think Celestia would give anyone Kuru unless she had completely given up. Would a brain-eater give her food a neurodegenerative disorder?
8257368
I was rather more suggesting she did it to herself - I take it you're aware how you get Kuru?
8257371
You mean some prion disease in general? (Kuru itself seems to have too long incubation period) It looks very improbable: they need to stumble upon some guy who has it (prior chances of order ~1:10^5) and haven't uploaded (first priority target audience for Celestia) and do zombie stuff to him/her. Chances can be increased if "zombie stuff" becomes very common, but all these diseases still have considerable incubation period. Although, I must say it's a pretty fun idea.