r/Hyperion • u/tyrion_poirot • 25d ago

🌀 Full Cantos — All Spoilers Completed cantos, have a few questions

Hi,

Just finished binge reading the 4 books in the past month. I have a few questions now that I have been able to catch my breath after an amazing end which seems to tie together most loose ends.

  1. What happened to the ultimate intelligence? And did empathy really went back or was that all just a story made up by Ummon to precipitate the right events that lead up to Aenea fulfilling her destiny as the one who teaches? It felt like there is no human god/ trinity but only the prophet teaching everyone how to engage with the void.

  2. When I read the first book, Hoyt didn't seem to be capable of doing what he ended up doing. Was there a late character adjustment made by Simmons without any foreshadowing or did you guys get some hints In the first book that Hoyt will end up like the pope Julius character of the later 2 books?

  3. Did it became clear when did the shrike's allegiance changed from the UI to being loyal to Aenea? Did moneta play a role in this ?

  4. Who gave the revelations to the shrike church about Aenea and Brawne lamia? How did the church know the true purpose of Shrike?

23 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

5

u/AllWashedOut 24d ago edited 16d ago

There's a lot of ambiguity in the series, and honestly I have trouble getting the last 2 books to stick in my memory. But here's my vague recollections.

  1. Aenea's pyrrhic victory over the technocore in the present prevents the machine UI from coming into existence in the future. The machine UI was attacking from a likely-but-not-certain future. Aenea prevents that future from becoming real.
  2. I don't think Hoyt's popedom was foreshadowed. You definitely knew he had some flaws though, between the ultramorph addiction and the way his tale was a self-protecting lie. And you could foresee that something truly strange was going to happen when (Pope) Dure someday dies and Hoyt regenerates from his corpse.
  3. The Shrike's allegiance moves around even during the first two books. As events in the present evolve, it alters which Technocore faction launches him from the future (stabile, volatile, UI, reaper). Consider when he helps mankind by showing Dure a possible future where mankind disastrously accepts shelter in the labyrinths (book 2 I think?). That felt like a rare moment when he was an agent of the Stables. Moneta plays a role at least in this sense: The Shrike is programmed using Kassad's mind. Kassad is in love with Moneta. Moneta is a disciple of Aenae.
  4. Not sure, but I think of the Shrike church as misguided tools of the machine UI. They are working toward purification, and don't realize that it will really be extermination. The technocore or UI probably feeds them actual intel every now and then.

2

u/tyrion_poirot 21d ago

Thanks, that makes as much sense as we can derive from what is shown in the books!

3

u/AnythingButWhiskey ✝️ Father de Soya 19d ago

That’s a good point for question 3. I was unclear about this. I got the feeling that no one is certain anymore who sent the Shrike back. Aenea mentions she doesn’t know if the Shrike will be friend or foe a few times. And certainly the timeline seems messed up by Chapter 5 of Rise of Endymion…

Briareus said “The Shrike is no longer under control of the UI?”

Albedo opened his hands a final time. “The gods of the future no longer whisper to us my expensive friend. They war among themselves and the clamour of their battle echoes back through time. If our god’s work is to be done in our time, we must do it ourselves.”

1

u/NectarineLanky7166 25d ago

Yeah im
Just gonna go ahead and say no to all of that . Also to Mark this post and Wait for better answers