This is not fiction! Use the table of contents to get back to the story. This is a reflection after having posted 4 generations/chapters so far.
The first section of Those Who Knew Earth, Ascension, Part 1 dropped onto Substack on December 19th, 2026, to mild fanfare. The first chapter was a short, 3-installment story designed to introduce the reader to the character of John Alexander, his motivations and flaws, and to the mechanics of the story, as afterwards we took the now familiar generational timeskip. Over the course of which we got to play with the ol’ “AI escape” scenario with a suspenseful arc.
I fear this chapter might have given the reader the impression it was an “AI novel”, focused on adjusting to or fighting against AI. While that has definitely been present, it wasn’t the focus of Those Who Knew Earth. As the title implies, the focus is on the human characters, and Selection made this clear. This transition may have been too sharp, bounding from one end of the genre to another, and the ten installments of Selection function almost as a coming of age story. I felt it was important to get to know the crew, their motivations and relationship, before we moved onto the actual flight.
Chapter 3, Impact, began in the thick of it, skipping over the early adjustment of the voyage with the awkwardness of pairing up and starting lives aboard a tiny rocket mostly hinted at. Events occured in the in-between time, though, and the causal links from those times kickstarted this chapter’s plot, with the two threads of Dimitri’s ennui and the children’s entablements. Both of these were “resolved” by John’s meddling, engineering a crisis to bring the crew together, at the immediate cost of Dimitri’s life. John secretly took his payment in the form of Gabriel’s comatose brain, setting up the explosive revelations of Chapter 4.
Succession opened with signs John was getting old, which is fair because this was 75 years after his creation, but this was compounded by running data through a human brain and expecting fidelity from it. As Tao put the pieces together, we saw other ways the events of Impact, well, impacted the crew, particularly in Alex and Temperance’s deaths and the fallout from that on Wei and Nicole’s marriage. These life events also served to distract the crew from what should have been their primary duty, raising their children to believe in and execute their mission. Sun is evidence of the deficit of this task. Gabriel’s awakening throws the crew into tumult even as it deprives John of resources, leading to a transgression that a formerly complicit Captain Phil sees as one step too far. That takes us to that fateful scene spread over parts 7 & 8, and then last week’s twist in part 9.
Going into Revolution, we’re all anxious to see what the fallout will be, or rather has become, as we’re again skipping 25 years, bringing the in-flight time to 75 years. A very ripe age for an astronaut. The society that once knew no death is now seeing it’s founders fall regularly, while living under a panopticon that sees into their heads. Is Jewel better than John? And how has time changed her? What will spark the eponymous Revolution? I hope you’re eager to find out.
Regardless of the price paid for this revolution, time marches on, and after nine installments, Revolution will close and Arrival will open. This will surely be cause for celebration… right? But after 100 years and the fall of various digital tyrants, the culture as evolved to something new. Drama demands defeat threatens to clamp victory in its jaws, and we’ll not spoil that conclusion, other than to say that these 14 scenes are some of my best, that this chapter, too, gets to live up to its name, and we even get one last glimpse of Those Who Knew Earth.
I’ve been gracing the Substack posts with pictures as of chapter 3, usually public domain images from astronomy or Neuroscience. I hope this concession to the algorithm isn’t too distracting. More usefully, I’ve been including genealogies from familyecho.com as well, as of chapter 4 (when the tangles are less spoilery).
Here’s a what these looked like in my notes, before I made use of that site:
That’s a lot of names, isn’t it? Not all of those made it to character status, and there’s some who don’t show up on there, like Elijah’s family. Curious just how many? There are:
64 named characters that are mentioned at least twice.
34 male, 30 female
19 different points of view, some with only one scene, John leading with 19
Who gets the most mentions? Here’s a chart that I found interesting, showing the top characters (along with “Cyonics” “Ship” and “Earth” for reference.
The early characters have an advantage, and John definitely has more than his share. But some characters we’ve never met are quite high in the rankings despite that! Hopefully you come to love Vanya, Aether, Solaria, and their peers.
This chart is interesting for the rise and fall of characters from different generations, graphed by mention per chapter:
Chapter 5 is going to be a big one for Sun! Minor spoilers? Also odd how Wei has that blip in chapter 6. Hmm…
Here’s a silly chart showing how I personally rank the scenes:
With the caveat that this is relative and I wouldn’t give you something I thought was literally bad… clearly some of the best is yet to come. I’m really looking forward to reading the ending with you.
Now for the full disclosure time. Here’s views and likes by post, as of today:
I’m grateful for everyone who gave it a chance and decided it wasn’t for them.
A few more decided to stick out chapter 1, and checked out after that. Fair, as said above, it’s a bit of a style shift.
After that’s we’ve got about 50 regular readers. Awesome!
Whether you’re reading through the site, the app, or e-mail, you can click that heart button to let me know it’s worth continuing the story beyond Chapter 6’s conclusion. It’s also a lot easier to pitch to new readers if there’s an indication current readers appreciate it!
Feel free to comment on this post with reactions to the work as a whole up to now.
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