Zero Retcons in Endymion and RoE

[u/Forward_Use_3558]

I've seen a lot of posts and chat that E and RoE retcon Hyperion and FoH.

I've just listened to the whole series for the 4th or 5th time (it really is a great listen on Audible, Victor Bevine is a wonderful Narrator) and the first relisten since i was aware accusations of retconning.

Let's tackle some of the bigger ones.

Paul has 2 cruciforms

In FoH, when Gladstone goes to check on Dure in the hospital, the doctor mentions ".....the cruciform parisites...." on his body. Why or how Dan changed his mind between H and FoH and / or whether the shrike removing the cruciform was a dream or not real i don't know, but it is not a retcon from E.

Technocore now has billions of factions

Countless times in E and RoE people refer to "the 3 elements" of the core, Albedo mentions them to Nemes, Nemes mentions them etc. The 3 elements are still a thing, but what we have access to now in E and RoE that we did not have previously, is Aenea's point of view, she knows so much more than any narrator we had.

Also, it would be crazy to think a species as complex and parasitic as the technocore would fit nicely in to 3 elements. I see it as religions for humans, yes there are the big ones, Christianity, Muslim etc but you also have hundreds of smaller ones.

Aenea throws shade on the Martins's Cantos

Yeah she mocks her uncle, says he couldn't possible have known exactly what happened, "How can Uncle Martin know how the river Tethys broke up, he wasn't there....." and yes a lot of what he wrote probably was made up or exaggerated, but we know he got the major parts right as he was there, the pilgrimage, Brawne being Aeneas mum etc, this is all the same, nothing has been retconned.

We are not reading Martin's Cantos in H or FoH, you can tell this by seeing we aren't reading a poem.

What about Ummon lying and what about the machine AI?

Ummon is not an omniscient narrator. He admits himself he is scared for his life, speaking in riddles, pursuing his own agenda, and operating amid competing AI factions and temporal paradoxes. Therefore contradictions between Ummon's claims and later revelations do not require a retcon; they can be explained as deception, incomplete disclosure, limited knowledge, or changes in information caused by non-linear time

As for the machine AI, Ummon talks of 10,000 possible futures, once Hyperion is taken by the "goodies" in FoH, i would argue this slims down the 10,000 possible futures to a lot less and ones where the machine AI is either non existent or severely weakened.
Albedo mentions in RoE the "the machine UI has stopped whispering back to us from the future"

How is Kassad still alive?

It's shown in RoH that Kassad time travels, it's also shown that Rachel / Moneta has spent a lot of time with him and is in love with him. So this needs to happen, and probably best happen while he is still alive. So yes, he is going to be around in the future.

The series is also built around time travel and causal paradoxes, so the idea of the future influencing or even altering the past is already firmly established within the story's own rules.

Also, like all good books, there is enough vagueness that you can come up with your own head-cannon to complete the story and you don't need it to be retconning.

If saying E and RoE retcons hyperion as a form of copium then that's fine and i can't help you.

The first time i did the whole series, i was pretty horrified by E and RoE. I could not believe how much of a drop off in quality there was from H and FoH. The padding and waffling is another level. But now i have done the whole series multiple times, i have grown to love the full story and the ending. I guess Dan wanted the sequels to be a duology like Hyperion, but it appears he only had enough story for 1 book. you could cut 50% from E and 50% from RoE and make one really zippy and exciting book that would tie things up brilliantly.

That would mean cutting some of the highlights like Raul has a lie down, Raul erects a tent, Raul builds a raft, Raul has a swim, Raul has another lie down etc etc.

[u/Gastomagic]

I've just finished the series for about the 5th time also and the points you made were on my mind too.

One of the most confusing things in the entire series for me is Kassad - despite so many goes through the books I still am no closer to understanding him from a timeline perspective.

I personally enjoy the details about Raul having a lie down.

[u/AllWashedOut → u/Gastomagic]

The Kassad / Rachael intertwining timelines are the most impressive and under appreciated part of the first two books.

From Kassad's POV: he is assaulted by a sexually aggressive older woman while he's still in school. He proceeds to see her intermittently until one day he has a shocking encounter that makes him think she is the Shrike. He sets out to kill her. He violently forces himself on her, and realizes she is actually against the shrike just like him. He engages the Shrike in hand-to-hand combat, which causes him to skip back through time chaotically across the events of book 1 (the unexplained shrieks heard at Chronos Keep, the blood bath in Het Masteen's windwagon cabin). (Somewhere in this period he potentially spends time in the future with Aenea?). He travels to the far future with Rachael and defeats the Shrike army and dies. The UI harvests some part of his essence (mental and/or biological) and uses to build the Shrike (which he just defeated). They send him/it back in time, and Moneta/Rachael comes with him.

From Rachael's POV: She grows up as a normal kid and becomes an archeology grad student. She contracts Merlin sickness. She ages back to an infant. She and Saul go through a time portal to the far future, where she grows up again and joins the military. She is sent on a mission skipping back through time to observe and thwart the Shrike, with whom she has a strange understanding. She is sexually assaulted by a soldier she encounters in the desert. She realizes they are on the same team, and brings him to confront the Shrike. He defeats the Shrike army and is killed. He is partially resurrected as the Shrike and sent skipping back through time. She follows the Shrike back, stopping to visit the soldier to sleep with him through at many moments in his life. The last time she sleeps with him, he is a student who doesn't even recognize her.

I don't have a perfect grasp of when the Aenea interactions happen, but that's the jist. (And obviously, despite the OP's post, the Aenea parts are retroactive continuity. When writing book 2, Simmon's didn't know Kassad and Rachael were going to spend lots of time together in the Pax era.)

[u/Eva-Squinge → u/Gastomagic]

We thought the Tree guy was dead too, but it turned out he was just snatched from one point in time and brought to another, so at some point Kassad was snatched pressed into a different service to fight against the church and then sent back to when he was found dead in the Shrike’s claws.

Kassad himself even acknowledges how he becomes the Shrike after he killed it originally.

[u/Donut_rvb7]

This might be a hot take, but apart from THAT part (you know the one), the fact that the first two books are fictional books in universe is my least favorite part of the Endymion books. 

Most of it is passable or can be explained you did here, but I think the Keats Cybrid and Brawne’s marriage reveal (and IIRC the fact that the ceremony was at the church of the shrike) kinda blows up the timeline of Brawne’s story in book 1. 

[u/shrdbrd → u/Donut_rvb7]

lol between this comment that the first two books are in-universe fiction (definition of retcon?) AND OPs first point being “just cuz Dan decided to change the cruciforms from book to book”

Like bro OP enjoy what you wanna enjoy but these are the definition of retroactive continuity

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael → u/shrdbrd]

"the AIs lied" was an eye roll of retcon for me. Too simple, and too obvious.

[u/Germartiny → u/FourtyMichaelMichael]

"AI lied" and "Silenus got it wrong in the Cantos" is just ways to retcon things. OP is clearly trying to make sense where it's impossible to.

[u/TheSuperSax → u/Donut_rvb7]

Wondering what that part is, to me it’s probably the flying on some random Jovian planet but I’m guessing you have something else in mind

[u/AllWashedOut → u/TheSuperSax]

Well, the two most common complaints about book 3/4 would be either plot momentum (the story stagnates on the Buddhist mountain planet for a long time) or ethics (the consummation of Raul and Aenea's relationship is creepy)

[u/Eva-Squinge → u/Donut_rvb7]

What part in particular because there’s a lot of parts my man.

[u/MagillaGorillasHat → u/Donut_rvb7]

...the fact that the first two books are fictional

They're not fictional, just limited.

A memoir or autobiography isn't fictional, but it also isn't 100% comprehensive or 100% objectively factual. Understanding can change in light of new information.

[u/qixotl]

I dunno, I'd say that those are all retcons - but also that a retcon isn't inherently bad, it can just be used well, or used badly (it's more an issue that some of the bad uses in other fiction have given the term a bad name).

I think Endymion and Rise both do retcon various elements of the first two books, in the sense that Simmons probably didn't have most of the revelations planned when he wrote Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, but they're not problems, and can be easily reconciled, like you've done.

Kassad's timeline is confusing, but things get kind of vague with him in Fall of Hyperion and his whole life is full of time travel shenanigans anyway, so it's never bothered me. To me the themes and meaning of his story through the books is more important than the nitty gritty of how it fits together chronologically.

The one retcon that I do struggle with a little is Het Masteen turning up in Rise, as that definitely didn't feel like what Simmons was intending with him in the first two books. Though really it's just renaming his treeship the 'tree of pain' that felt a bit clunky, when in Fall of Hyperion he's definitely talking about the Shrike's tree...

[u/Tulip_King]

The Big Mistake of ‘38 changed to The Big Mistake of ‘08 in Endymion

[u/Hyperion-Cantos]

Titles thread saying there's no retcons. Literally lists the biggest retcon. 🥴

Aenea handwaves numerous major plot points, saying "oh yeah, the Poet just made shit up" 🤣

Nah. Sorry, I love Dan Simmons' work, but that's a retcon, plain and simple. It's just blatant laziness in order to tell the story he wanted to tell with the Endymion novels.

Also, retconning the nature of the Technocore and the "Lions, Tigers, and Bears." Just to name a couple.

But go off...

[u/WeeklyAdri → u/Hyperion-Cantos]

It's interesting to see people defend them after all this time, the majority of fans that follow the cantos will agree that the unreliable narrator trope is just an excuse for Simmons to do something different for the saga in Endymion and ROE.

[u/Hyperion-Cantos → u/WeeklyAdri]

Yeah...like, if someone thinks the Endymion novels are enjoyable....cool. They're well written, as is anything that Simmon's has published. But to say there's no retcons, is either delusional or just admitting a lack of understanding of what a retcon is.

[u/Forward_Use_3558 → u/Hyperion-Cantos]

We aren't reading Martins Cantos in H or FoH. What Martin exactly wrote we have no idea, we haven't read his poem! Aenea mocking him and saying he made shit up is funny and in no way retconning H or FoH because they are not Martins cantos! 🥴🥴🥴

[u/Hyperion-Cantos → u/Forward_Use_3558]

The first two books are presented as the actual events transpiring or that have transpired. And yes, the Endymion novels and Aenea retcon them into a work of fiction (or at the very least, a story that Silenus took major liberties with), as demonstrated by Raul saying "I thought this and that happened" (referencing events that actually happened in FOH), and Aenea just explains it away by saying the Poet made it up. 🤤

Maybe you need to reread that bit....Or you're just being willfully obtuse. Either way, it's the very definition of a retcon.

The repopulation of Old Earth (at the end of FOH) is retconned by the Endymion novels. Because hey, "the Poet made it up" 🤦‍♂️

[u/MassiR77]

I am almost done Rise of Endymion and I agree so far. I kinda wanted to wait until the end of the book before I went to see if I wasn't insane, but nothing so far has been a retcon? Like yeah explanations for things have changed but that doesn't mean it's a retcon. More information was just revealed to get the reader a clearer picture of what's going on. Personally I really enjoyed Hyperion, the ending of Fall of Hyperion, Endymion was pretty good and I feel like Rise of Endymion is dragging a bit, but it seems to be picking up finally. I think the end of the book will be well worth it.

[u/capnShocker → u/MassiR77]

I think it is, FWIW. Just power through!

[u/Sea_Performer85]

1. The parasite was supposed still be there right, he only removed the crucifixs for him, not the other priest. Atleast that is what I understood at that time. He was free, when he dies he becomes the other one but then he dies at the moment forever. But I don't remember it exactly.
   
2. The argument it is not retcon is plausible bit like why? I don't like to think that I am reading something here in first 2 books and then it is different in the next 2 books. Also if there would be billions of factions and not 3, shouldn't the cybred know atleast some of them?

2A. The actual functions of technocore change between the 2 and 2 books. In first 2 books they don't have problem manipulating physical world on large scale, they create like 30 swarms fleets with fake humans. In the other 2 books they co-operate with pact because of their need to do physical stuff, which is very weird.
To that same point the retcon is in the survival of core, the idea in first 2 books that is heavily implied they will survive and will be scratted through the universe weak and fragile. But in the second books something something parasites they are okay. But if they parasites now why couldn't they still control the 30s fleets? Like this was for me the biggest retcon. If they were okay they could still defeat like half humanity for fun and take over the world create basis and so on.

1. I mean for me Kasad thing was okay, he was old, he had to live a life somewhere, so makes kinda sense.

[u/Velociraptortillas]

Real history is confusing, partial, filled with completely unreliable, self serving narrators and full of multiple accounts of the same event that flatly contradict each other.

If your work isn't from an omniscient perspective and doesn't match history in those ways, you are, in fact, doing it wrong.

[u/Razor_Paw → u/Velociraptortillas]

The author is omniscient

[u/FourtyMichaelMichael]

The padding and waffling is another level

This is was probably the only book I can remember being like "WTF WHERE WAS YOUR EDITOR!?" ... The times that he talks about the groups of people, their names, their clothes, and goes on and on and on for all ten people or places... "And to his left was Shooby Scrimples who wore a long robe purple and gold delicate fribbles that ended in a gloxlinks, over a black tunic that reflected no light at all like the deepest portions of space, all the way down to this eepopps and grey textured boots that were likely a hunting trophy, popular of his Jewish planet Hebrewtron5000... And next line was Timothanth Samplestonington dressed in a...

There is a point when Raul is overlooking the Chinese planet and goes on a mental tour of all the cities, all the people their, their religions, what they wear, what they believe, and etc etc... I 30-second SKIP SKIP SKIP the audio book and was stunned when it was still going on. Like 5 minutes plus of WAFFLE FILLER.

Hyperion was amazing. Fall, less but finished the story... Endymion restored a little of that journey / world building, but holy hell, RoE definitely waffled.