{"id":6236,"date":"2023-01-23T22:00:34","date_gmt":"2023-01-23T22:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6236"},"modified":"2023-01-23T22:00:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T22:00:38","slug":"beyond-the-dragons-gate-by-yoon-ha-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6236","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Dragon\u2019s Gate<\/em><\/strong> by Yoon Ha Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Beyond the Dragon\u2019s Gate<\/em><\/strong> by Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com, 20th<\/sup> May 2020) opens with Anna, an ex-academic who used to work in AI research, arriving at an orbital fortress after being abducted by the military. After seeing the wreckage of several spaceships she learns from the Marshal commanding the military that the AIs that control these vessels have been committing suicide. He then tells her that he wants her to communicate with them mind to mind to find out why (even though her academic partner Rabia died from this process during their research).
When the Marshall takes her to see one of the surviving ships, Proteus Three<\/em>, Anna sees how radical the previously discussed modifications have been:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

They\u2019d emerged above what Anna presumed was a ship\u2019s berth, except for its contents. Far below them, separated from them by a transparent wall, the deck revealed nothing more threatening\u2014if you didn\u2019t know better\u2014than an enormous lake of syrupy substance with a subdued rainbow sheen. Anna gripped the railing and pressed her face against the wall, fascinated, thinking of black water and waves and fish swarming in the abyssal deep.
[. . .]
\u201cYou\u2019re going to have to give me an access port,\u201d Anna said after she\u2019d taken two deep breaths. She stared at the beautiful dark lake as though it could anesthetize her misgivings. \u201cDoes it\u2014does it have some kind of standard connection protocol?\u201d
The Marshal pulled out a miniature slate and handed it over.
Whatever senses the ship\/lake had, it reacted. A shape dripped upwards from the liquid, like a nereid coalescing out of waves and foam, shed scales and driftwood dreams. Anna was agape in wonder as the ship took on a shape of jagged angles and ragged curves. It coalesced, melted, reconstituted itself, ever-changing.
\u201cTalk to it,\u201d the Marshal said. \u201cTalk to it before it, too, destroys itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The story ends (spoiler) with Anna communicating with the ship until she starts having convulsions. The Marshal breaks the link and then, after Anna recovers, she tells him the modifications that they have made to the spaceships have left the AIs with suicidal levels of dysphoria.
This story has a colourful setting and some interesting detail (the background war, the fish-dragon pets, the orbital fortresses, etc.), and the amorphous, water-like spaceships are intriguingly strange\u2014but the resolution is too abrupt, and leaves the story feeling like an extract from a longer work. I\u2019d also add that the reason for the AIs\u2019 suicides reduces what is here to a simplistic trans message.
** (Average). 3,900 words. Story link<\/a>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beyond the Dragon\u2019s Gate by Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com, 20th May 2020) opens with Anna, an ex-academic who used to work in AI research, arriving at an orbital fortress after being abducted by the military. After seeing the wreckage of several spaceships she learns from the Marshal commanding the military that the AIs that control […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[406],"tags":[17,296,487,1442,12,644,116,407],"class_list":["post-6236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yoon-ha-lee","tag-17","tag-296","tag-ai","tag-dysmorphia","tag-short-story","tag-spaceships","tag-tor-com","tag-yoon-ha-lee"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6236"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6253,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6236\/revisions\/6253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}