The Twisted Secret of Area X | Annihilation Trilogy

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The Southern Reach is a science fiction trilogy by author Jeff Vandermir. Some weeks ago, I released a video covering [music] the first book in the series, Annihilation. Annihilation, which was adapted into a film in 2018, introduces to us the mystery of Area X. Though the first book excellently sets the stage for one of the most authentic cosmic horror tales since HP Lovecraft, the mysteries of the series really unfold in the following two books, Authority and [music] Acceptance.

Each of the books were released in 2014, just months apart from each other. Now that I finished the entire trilogy, my recommendation is to read them as a single book, as the three together tell a complete story. These three books definitely make up one of the most mindbending trilogies that I've read in the last few years.

In this video, we will journey beyond the border into the mindbreaking corridor of Area X. What is the secret of Area X? Why is it here? What does it want? What is the otherworldly creature known as the crawler who etched its eerie sermon along the walls of the tunnel referred to [music] as the tower? What role did the lighthouse keeper play in all these strange events? And what are the motives of the mysterious organizations, the seance and science brigade and the southern reach?

This series is one of the most interesting cosmic horror stories that I've read. It maintains its mystery [music] but provides satisfying answers to many of the primary questions for those that look hard enough. In my opinion, this trilogy can be seen almost as a retelling of HP [music] Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space. Essentially, it is a first contact story. And like The Color Out of Space, it points out that our definition of life might be quite limited given the vastness of the universe. Who knows what strange forms may come into existence? And who can say how contact with life on Earth would affect said entities and what effect they may have on us?

For reasons that remain obscure, it all began, at least from the perspective of Earth, along the forgotten shore, a shore that had long been known to conjure twisted stories among its inhabitants. There were plenty of eerie whispers [music] about things seen and heard. Something had happened there 30 years prior to the events of annihilation. The event in present day, the place is devoid of human life and nature has [music] reclaimed it. It is now Area X.

This video will contain major spoilers for the Southern Reach trilogy. So, if you haven't read them and spoilers are a thing you care about, I suggest you pause this video [music] and come back to it after you've read the series. Otherwise, continue forward.

Part one, the beginning. The origin of Area X. The forgotten shore had been a strange place for as long as anyone could remember it. The stretch of land along the Pacific coast was no stranger to ghost stories. and more bizarre tells still. Fishermen often brought back stories of strange things they had seen swimming just beneath the water line. The small town nearby was home to [music] about 1,500 people, one of which was the lighthouse keeper, a man named Saul.

We first learn of the lighthouse keeper in the first book, Annihilation, but his significance is not fully revealed until the final book in the series, Acceptance. Saul was one of the first people to come into direct contact with whatever it was that caused Area X to become what it eventually became.

In book three, Acceptance, we learn that roughly 30 years before the events of the first book in the series, the area was regularly studied by an organization known as the SNSB or Science and Seance Brigade. The connection between the SNSB and the Southern Reach Organization, which would later send expeditions into Area X is at first not clear. The SNSB seemed to be an organization with a dualistic purpose, or at least, that is to say, members in that organization had different ideas about exactly what it was they were studying and how to go about studying it. As their name would suggest, the nature of their experiments related to both science and mysticism. Something about the forgotten shore and the island off its coast interested them. The organization had been given a permit by the government to study the coast. Their headquarters was on an island just off the coast known as Failure Island. The island was [music] named as such because all previous attempts to settle the island had ended miserably.

On the island still stood an old ruined lighthouse. The lens in Saul's lighthouse had previously been the one to light failure islands. The island itself was not unfamiliar to strange tales. In a way, it almost seemed cursed. Strangess was nothing new for Failure Island. If you listen to old Jim or some of the other locals, the myths of the forgotten shore had always included that island. Even before the latest in a series of attempts at settlement had failed. The rough unfinished stone and wood of the town's buildings, the island's isolation, the way the sea lanes had already begun to change while the lighthouse was under construction so long ago had seemed to preage its ultimate fate.

Exactly why the SNSB [music] had chosen to build their base there was not clear. Stranger still, they seemed [music] to take a particular interest in Saul's lighthouse, particularly the lens. They had been given permission to use the lighthouse lens in their experiments, the purpose of which Saul did not understand. Saul was annoyed by their intrusions and the overall presence of the main two to visit him, a man by the name of Henry and a woman named Suzanne. Saul knew that they were studying the shore and the surrounding area or experimenting on it. Their reasons eluded him. They were always present now, taking measurements and photographs, dictating statements into their bulky tape recorders, making their amateur movies, intent on finding what Saul knew of the stories surrounding the shore, but he did not buy into them. He thought the stories and whisperings [music] to be just that tall tales passed around the everyday being reshaped into the mysterious [music] and the otherworldly. He knew the history of the shore here. The way that distance and silence magnified the mundane. How into those spaces and the fog and the empty line of the beach thoughts [music] could turn to the uncanny and begin to create a story out of nothing.

But that was before Saul himself would encounter something truly uncanny along the shore. Something beyond words. Mysteriously, one night, the SNSB base on Failure Island burned down. There was no explanation given as to what caused it. A short amount of time following this event, Saul saw something on the lawn outside [music] the lighthouse, an object that defied reason or explanation, the nature of which seemed unknowable and unnameable. It captivated him and transfixed him. It appeared to be some kind of otherworldly plant with eight petals. It was almost as if it was [music] made of light.

Whatever it was, it was delicate beyond measure. yet perversely reminded him of the four [music] ton limbs far above his head. The sun was a whispering corona at his back. The heat had risen, but there was a breeze [music] that lifted the leaves off the palmettos in a rattling stir. The girl was somewhere behind him singing [music] a nonsense song, having come back off the rocks earlier than he'd expected. Nothing existed in that moment except for the plant and the gleam he could not identify.

He had gloves on still, so he knelt beside the plant and reached for the glittering thing brushing up against the leaves. Was it a tiny shifting spiral of light? It reminded him of what you might see [music] staring into a kaleidoscope, except an intense white. But whatever it was swirled and glinted and eluded his rough grasp, [music] and he began to feel faint. Alarmed, he started to pull back, but it was too late. He felt a sliver enter his thumb. There was no pain, only a pressure and then numbness, but he still jumped up in surprise, yowling and waving his hand back and forth. He frantically tore off the glove, examined his thumb, aware that Gloria was watching him, not sure what to make of him. Nothing now glittered on the ground in [music] front of him, no light at the base of the plant, no pain in his thumb. Slowly, Saul relaxed. Nothing throbbed in his thumb. There was no entry point, no puncture. He picked up the glove, checked it, and could not [music] find a tear.

At that moment, though Saul would remain in denial about it for quite some time, something entered him. It entered him and waited. He began to [music] change slowly. He began to see things. His dreams filled with visions or premonitions, and his mind became continually flooded with a strange sermon. And the hand of the sinner shall rejoice. For there is no sin in shadow or in light that the seeds of the dead cannot forgive.

Over the course of acceptance, Saul is slowly taken over by the light inside him. He knows deep down that eventually what hides within him will come to the surface and his own consciousness would be pushed aside, fragmented and scattered. During this time, Saul is increasingly disturbed by the behavior [music] of the SNSB, particularly Henry. One night, Saul [music] wakes to find Suzanne, Henry, and a strange woman he did not know in the lighthouse. He has caught them in the middle of something, but he does not understand what.

Suzanne and the woman he didn't know stood by the door to the railing dressed in all black with Henry on his knees [music] in front of them almost as if he'd been dealt a blow. Suzanne looked offended as if he'd burst in on them in their own home. But the stranger hardly acknowledged [music] his presence, stood there with arms crossed, oddly relaxed. Her hair was long and quif. She was dressed in an overcoat, dark slacks, and a long red scarf. Something about the unknown woman disturbed the lighthouse keeper. It was [music] her coldness and the way she disregarded him. She seemed to be treating him like an annoying variable in one of their experiments.

At this moment, something interesting happens. Suzanne appears to hypnotize Saul to calm him down. This is another clear tie that connects the SNSB to the Southern Reach, which made widespread use of hypnotism in the books Annihilation and Authority. Suzanne's attempt, however, did not calm Saul down. Instead, he was filled with fear. Reading this section, you get the sense that they know something about what is happening to Saul and that they might have even caused it. "Just get the hell out," Saul said, and rinsed the axe free, although it cost him. held it high on the handle because in such close quarters it would be no use to him otherwise. There was such a terror in him now that they wouldn't go that he couldn't make them get the hell out while still [music] in his head a thousand lighouses burned. But Henry just shrugged, said, "Suit yourself." Henry almost contorted himself to avoid brushing against Saul [music] as they passed by. As if Saw were made of the most delicate crystal, the woman gave him a mysterious smile as she turned into the spiral leading down. A smile full of teeth.

The identity of the mysterious woman is never clearly stated, but there are hints given as to who it could be. I will go over this later in the video. As time goes on, Saul continues to have dreams and visions. The time of ultimate change is approaching. He discovers one night that the secret trap door in his lighthouse is open. From the open space, a light pours out. The light emanates [music] from a glowing flower, a mirror of the one from his yard, a pure white blossom with eight petals, which had unfurled from the top of a familiar plant, whose roots disappeared into the papers below. the plant that had enticed him on the lighthouse lawn so long ago to reach down drawn by a glitter. A gleam, an almost holy intensity rose from somewhere within [music] and filled Saul up along with a dizziness. Light was [music] leaking out of him now too, courarssing through the trap door to communicate with what lay below. And there came the sensation of something pulling him close, holding him tight, of recognizing [music] him.

Saul loses consciousness at this point, and when he awakes, he discovers that he is again in the watchtower of the [music] lighthouse. Henry and Suzanne lay dead next to him with no discernable wounds. When he climbs the ladder, Saul discovers something that defied belief. There was Henry alive holding a gun. This Henry is [music] obviously a doppelganger similar to the one seen in Annihilation. Henry was likely the first doppelganger ever made by Area X. The original Henry had been on the seance side of the SNSB. He believed that whatever Area X was or whatever caused it or drove its primary function was a god or spirit, but it had been something else entirely. It had remade him seemingly in an attempt to suit its purpose. "I found it, Saul, like I said I would or it found me only. It wasn't what I thought. Do you know what it is, Saul?" almost pleading there was no good answer to Henry's question.

Saul manages to evade Henry and escape into the wilderness, but he cannot escape what is inside him. He can feel [music] that his end is near and that something new would be born. Something was about to crest like a wave. Something was about to come out of him. He felt weak and invincible all at once. Was this how it happened? Was this one of the ways God came for you? He did not want to leave the world. And yet he knew now that he was leaving it or that it was leaving him. For Saul, it was although an entire universe was opening up in his mind, but it was incomprehensible to him. But a universe was opening up in his head filled with images he didn't couldn't understand. A flowering plant that could never die. A rain of white rabbits cut [music] off in mid leap. A woman reaching down to touch a starfish in a tidal pool. Green dust from a corpse blowing away in the wind. Henry standing at top the lighthouse, [music] jerking and twitching, receiving a signal from very, very far away.

Saul is being given images of the present, [music] past, and future. It seems the particular image of Henry in communication with something far away gives a pretty clear suggestion that the type of entity that we are dealing with is either of an extraterrestrial or extradimensional [music] nature. The image of the rabbits clearly references a future experiment performed by the southern reach. We will discuss this particular experiment later in the video. Saul also sees various images from future expeditions that would eventually be sent out into Area X.

Saul eventually comes to terms with the fact that he cannot fight. The light within him [music] is impossible to resist. Finally, he accepts what is happening. It was just [music] a tiny thing, a splinter. And yet, it was as large as entire worlds. and he was never going to understand it, even as it took him over. His last thoughts before the thoughts that were not [music] his, that were never going to be his. Perhaps there is no shame in this. Perhaps [music] I can bear this, fight this, to give in but not give up, and projected out behind him toward the sea. Saw unable to say the name just three simple words that seemed so inadequate. And yet they were all he had left to use.

Saul loses consciousness. Then he awakes as the monstrous entity [music] first encountered in Annihilation, the crawler. The place where he fell in the forest becomes the tunnel in the earth referred to in Annihilation as the tower. We learn from this chapter that the splinter is not from Earth. It is connected with a kind of mirror of itself inside the lighthouse. Within the splinter is what Saul describes as an entire universe. This is likely a reference to its interdimensional nature. The splinter and the flower of light beneath the lighthouse seem to be tied to some other dimension, perhaps multiple dimensions. Some force from that dimension could be using the splinter as a proxy to execute its purpose. What that purpose is, I will attempt to decipher as we continue [music] this video.

It is never fully clarified whether or not Saul's transformation into the crawler and the creation of the tower was the [music] event that sparked the creation of Area X or if it was merely an event which occurred parallel to it. Either way, all 1,500 citizens [music] along the forgotten shore were annihilated.

Part two, the expeditions, the experiments. The SNSB, which was tied to the government agency central, first mentioned in book two authority in some way, had been active for many years before the event. There was something about the forgotten shore that drew them there. Perhaps something about the nature of the place facilitated the opening of doorways to other places. Perhaps the sliver and its mirroring flower appeared there because there was no other place other than there that it could appear. It is possible that the SNSB themselves were the catalyst for the event, that they had called something from very far away to Earth, or perhaps they were studying something that had been trapped there long ago. The key to this is the lighthouse lens itself, but we will get to that soon enough.

If the SNSB was in fact tied to Central, then that itself connects it to the Southern Reach, considering that Central is also the agency behind the Southern Reach program. We know that agents like Jackie Severance and Whitby were some of the earliest to study Area X after the event. It is possible that Jackie and Whitby had also been members of the SNSB at the time. It seems to be implied that Jackie Severance was the mysterious woman in all black who Saul discovered in the lighthouse tower late that night with Henry and Suzanne.

We learn in authority that Jackie, who is apparently a high-ranking member of Central, has a son also tied to the agency. Jackie's son, who is referred to in the books as control, is the main character of the book authority. During his time as the director of the Southern Reach, he does a lot of unraveling of the organization's past, [music] or at least the parts of it that are made visible to him. Though he is the director of the Southern Reach, he still [music] answers to Central.

We learn that many expeditions were sent into Area X following the initial explorations. Some returned, some did not, and some returned changed. It was mentioned that according to the files, the first expedition had experienced such horrors almost beyond imagining that it was a wonder that they had sent anyone [music] after that. But they had sent more, countless more. The first book in the trilogy follows the supposed 12th expedition sent into Area X by the Southern Reach. But we later learn that that was merely the current iteration of the 12th Expedition as far more than 12 had [music] been sent over the last 30 years.

The current 12th expedition, which is made up of the protagonist of Annihilation, consisted of four individuals. The psychologist, the biologist, the surveyor, and the anthropologist. Not much is known about the surveyor and the anthropologist on the 12th expedition. The psychologist is initially introduced as the leader of the expedition, but we learn in the second book authority that she had actually been the director of the southern reach at the time. Willingly, the director, whose name was Gloria, had chosen to join the expedition. She had in fact grown up on the forgotten shore. She had known Saul the lighthouse keeper during the events described before. The 12th Expedition had in [music] fact not been her first venture into the region even after Area X was formed. She had visited the lighthouse and returned. She, unlike some, did not experience any form of time dilation.

The biologist is the main protagonist of the first novel. We take in Area X through her eyes as she becomes increasingly more transfixed and mesmerized by the beauty and horror of the place. Her husband had been on the previous expedition. He had returned, but not the same. Somehow deep down, she had known that it was not truly him. She also on some level hoped that she would find the real him inside Area X.

What exactly is happening inside Area X is not immediately clear. We know basically that all biological life that comes into contact with it was changed. DNA was copied and reinccorporated into other life in strange and bizarre forms. Over the course of the first novel, we follow the biologist as she comes to know the strangeness of the area and comes to understand that the organization, the Southern Reach, had been lying about the nature of the expeditions from the beginning. Eventually, the biologist would come face [music] to face with the creature which she had named the crawler. I detailed the experience of the biologist in the first book. in this video here linked in the description.

Area X is a [music] place outside of our normal perception of time. It is not clear why, but time moves differently in Area X depending on where and when the border into it was crossed. The biologist from book one experiences 30 years of time within [music] Area X during the 3-week period between annihilation and authority.

In authority, control comes across a video on a previous experiment of the southern reach. It involved them sending rabbits through the invisible border of Area X. Saw the lighthouse keeper was given a vision of this particular experiment as he transformed into the crawler. A rain of white rabbits cut off in mid leap. As if in a reflexive act of frustration at the lack of progress, the scientists had let loose 2,000 [music] white rabbits about 50 ft from the border in a clear-cut area and herded them right into the border. In addition to the value of observing the rabbits transition from [music] here to there, the science division had some hope that the simultaneous or near [music] simultaneous breaching of the border by so many living bodies might overload the mechanism behind the border, causing it to short circuit, even if just locally. This supposed that the border could be overloaded like a power grid. They had documented the rabbit's [music] transition not only with the standard video, but also with tiny cameras strapped to some of the rabbit's heads. The resulting montage had been edited together, use split screen for maximum dramatic effect, along with slow motion and fastforwarded in ways that [music] conveyed an oddly flippant quality when taken in aggregate, as if even the video editor had wanted to make light of the event. to somehow through an embedded irreverence find a way to unsee it. In all control knew the video and digital library contained more than 40,000 video segments of rabbits vanishing, jumping, squirming at top one another as they form sloppy rabbit pyramids in their efforts not to be pushed into the border.

Future expeditions beyond the border discovered no sign of the rabbits. Given this information, it would seem as though Area X was attempting to maintain a certain ecosystem and simply weeded out the excess rabbits. This would make sense because that many rabbits introduced at once would be almost certain to form into an invasive species, putting Area X's curated ecological balance into jeopardy. Area X could have had an unlimited amount of time to do this, considering that time is extremely variable beyond the border.

As mentioned before, some expeditions went in and never returned. Some expeditions came back eerily unharmed. And there were those, of course, that came back fine, but different. It is possible that some expeditions, like the biologists, spent years and even decades within Area X before either dying of old age or dying by some other means or being transformed into some other biological form. Those that came back unharmed simply entered Area X within a timestream that was aligned with our own and for whatever reason were not infected by Area X. But those who came back themselves, but not themselves, have a different explanation. For whatever reason, Area X made copies of things. Doppelgangers. I mentioned earlier that Henry, whose original died in the lighthouse, may have been the first doppelganger that Area X created. In authority, we also encounter Ghostbird, the doppelganger of the biologist of the 12th expedition. It is clear that those who returned themselves, but not themselves, were actually doppelgangers. This explains one aspect. This, however, does not explain how those doppelgangers got out of Area X. The books seem to suggest that this was through a form of teleportation. The tower, which seems to be a kind of entity of its own, some kind of bizarre inversion of the lighthouse formed during the final merger of Saul's consciousness and the sliver possesses at the bottom of it a strange light. The biologists in the first book fled from the light, terrified. But control near the end of book three jumps into it. It seems that the light at the bottom of the tower is a kind of exit point, but where it leads seems to be random. For some, it leads to outside of Area X. For others, elsewhere, perhaps.

In book two, authority control views the video of the first expedition. On it, he can see the doppelgangers of the original members of the first expedition entering the tower. It is pretty clear that this was the way in which those who came back changed got out of area X. It would seem that the futility of the expeditions grew with each additional mission. By the time of Annihilation, it did not seem as though they were gathering much more information, but for whatever reason, the expeditions continued. They fed Area X. This has to be tied to the motives of Central, but what exactly those motives are are never fully stated in the series. We only know that their interest was fixed upon Area X and that they had their eyes upon the SNSB long before Area X came into existence.

But what is Area X? Well, I've combed through the text of these books, and I think I found the answer.

Part three. What is Area X? What does it want? So, what do we know? Something not from here came into contact [music] with the Earth. The SNSB performed experiments on Failure Island. Their headquarters burned down and shortly after Saul, the lighthouse keeper was pricricked by the strange flower. The government agency central responsible for the southern reach was also tied to S and SB. And all of this is somehow tied to Saul's lighthouse lens, which had once been on Failure [music] Island. The series does not connect all these dots for you. We have to do a bit of work to figure out exactly what may be going on.

At this point, Area X seems like some kind of biological machine left over by an intelligent alien life from somewhere else. It is possible that it is from another dimension or from far out in space. This is suggested by one of Saul's visions as the strange plant begins to take him over. The stars no longer shone but flew and scuttled across the sky and the violence of their passage did not bear scrutiny. He had the sense that something distant had come close from far away. That the stars moved in this way now because they were close enough to be seen as more than tiny points of light.

If I had to make an educated guess, I would say that whatever area X is is from another dimension or at least travels interdimensionally. Saul sees it as coming from beyond the stars because that is the only way his human mind can properly interpret it. If it is a machine, it could be a machine designed to fix broken environments or simply create sustainable ones. This would explain why it essentially deleted the rabbits. It is also possible that it essentially labeled humans as bad or perhaps something about humans in particular confused or baffled it. This would explain why the animals and vegetation of Area X remain mostly the same, only improved, while humans are sometimes remade into doppelgangers that soon die after, or sometimes turned into animals or even occasionally stranger forms. Area X seems to sometimes make mistakes. One example being the moaning creature. The biologist of the 12th expedition encounters the moaning creature during her 30 years wandering Area X, resisting being changed by the place.

The moaning creature had once been human, but had become something utterly monstrous. Eventually, I came into a kind of clearing, an island of dirt covered in anemic grass and bound by yet more reads. At the far end, something pale and grublike and monstrous flailed and moaned, its limbs pummeling the reed floor. The speed I had witnessed in the past seemingly now unavailable to it. The creature had once been the psychologist of the 11th expedition. Her husband had been on the same [music] expedition. Even more horrifying, it still had his face, but distorted unsettlingly. The creature was an abomination. And this face in its slumber formed a mask of utter uncomprehending anguish. The mouth open in a perpetual o as it moaned out its distress as its limbs gouged at the ground as it made its wounded halting progress in what amounted to circles. The creature was blind. Its eyes had a white film over them. It slept there on the forest floor. As the biologist took in the sight of it, she recognized that it was different from the other things in Area X. It seemed to be a fluke, as though it was the result of Area X failing to react correctly within conjunction with its purpose. This beast should have been a dolphin with an uncanny eye, a wild boar that acted as if it were new to its body. And perhaps it was part of an intentional pattern and I just could not see those outlines. But it looked like a mistake, a misfire by area X that had assimilated so much, so beautifully, and so seamlessly, which made me wonder if my brightness was a harbinger of some form of this. to disappear into the shoreline, [music] into the anonymous reaches of the beach and wind or the marshes did not really disturb me. Perhaps never had, but this did. This blind, relentless questing, had I tricked myself into believing that letting the brightness overtake me would be a painless, even beautiful process, there was nothing beautiful about the moaning creature. Nothing that didn't seem a ghastly intervention.

The current state of the 11th expedition psychologist in the moment makes you wonder what became of some of the many others who went into Area X and never returned. What bizarre forms might they exist in? It is also possible that Area X is a machine designed to communicate, but that because of the nature of the species that created the machine, we cannot receive the message. Instead, the message itself harms us. This would be like humans attempting to communicate with very tiny, intelligent creatures on a desk, but the mere vibrations of our voices destroy their cities and kill them. Another metaphor would be a child reaching out and touching a creature in a tide pool. That simple, innocent, curious act could cause damage to the life in that tide pool. The curiosity or attempt to communicate is not malicious and yet it brings destruction simply due to the incompatibility of our existences.

All of that being said, as I said before, the ultimate answer lies within the lighthouse's lens. It was once the lighthouse used on Failure Island. It is said that the boat carrying the lens almost sank to sea when transporting it to the main shore. There was something inside the lens, and that thing was Area X. This is essentially confirmed in acceptance. She saw or felt deep within the cataclysm like a rain of comets that had annihilated an entire biosphere remote from Earth. Witnessed how one made organism had fragmented and dispersed. Each minute part undertaking a long and perilous passage through spaces between, black and formless, punctuated by sudden light, as they came to rest, scattered and lost, emerging only to be buried inert [music] in the glass of a lighthouse. and how when brought out of dormcancy, the wire tripped, [music] how it had best as it could, regenerated, and begun to perform a vast [music] and pre-ordained function, one compromised by time and context, by the terrible truth that the species that had given Area X its purpose was gone.

The sliver area X or the maid organism as Ghostbird calls it here was somehow inside of the lighthouse lens on Failure Island or at least a fragment of it was. It is not totally clear how it got there. It is possible that it was in a way summoned into the lens by the SNSB or some earlier group. It is also possible that the maid organism initially landed in the sand of the haunted shore and that that sand was later formed into the lens. Regardless, in the end, the lens was brought into Saul's lighthouse. The SNSB were experimenting on the lens, perhaps in an attempt to communicate with what was inside it. Something went wrong. Whatever seal trapped the maid organism within the lens was broken. and the sliver infected Saul. It is possible that Jackie Severance could have properly interacted with the sliver, avoiding what ultimately happened, but because it was Saul who would take whatever it was inside him, he became the crawler. This is just speculation, however. It is just as likely that Jackie would have had no different of a reaction than Saul. Nonetheless, he was in no way prepared to receive whatever message or to do whatever thing this entity wanted of him. His human mind was broken, and he was ushered along by his sermon, which was the only way he had to interpret the strange purpose of whatever was inside him. The fact that it appears as a sermon is clearly related to Saul's past as a pastor. The religious connotations of the word sermon, which is used several times in the book, is another element that is reminiscent of the work of Lovecraft. The sermon almost sounds like something that would be written in the Necronomicon or scribbled down by someone who had borne witness to Eldrich horrors in their final moments of sanity.

When you examine the words of the crawler, they in eerie terminology basically describe the purpose of area X, but interpret it through the lens of Saul's brain. Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner. I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives. While from the dim lit halls of other places, forms that never were and never could be writhed for the impatience of the few who never saw what could have been. In the black water with the sun shining at midnight, those fruit shall come ripe, and in the darkness of that which is golden shall split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness in the earth. The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear. But whether it decays under the earth or above on green fields or out to sea or in the very air, all shall come to revelation and to revel in the knowledge of the strangling fruit. And the hand of the sinner shall rejoice. For there is no sin in shadow or in light that the seeds of the dead cannot forgive. And there shall be in the planting in the shadows a grace and mercy from which shall blossom dark flowers. And their teeth shall devour and sustain and herald the passing of an age. That which dies shall still know life in death. For all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated. It shall walk the world in the bliss of not knowing. And then there shall be a fire that knows the naming of you. And in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire [music] every part of you that remains.

The implications of all of this [music] are relatively clear. Area X seems to be a fragment of another world. It could exist both on Earth and in another dimension, but it is at least tied to another dimension in some way. Its origin is unknown. Its creators a long deadad alien race destroyed by a great cataclysm. It is possible that it came here by accident [music] or was drawn here by the actions of the SNSB or some prior group. The sliver which infected Saul was like a seed. The sermon is a manifestation of Saul's own limited interpretation of the sliver's purpose and goal. Essentially, the sermon is the result of Saul's human brain attempting to put the unspeakable into words. The exact meaning of what he is experiencing cannot be expressed in words.

I said earlier that the birth of the crawler could have happened parallel to the event which created Area X, but I think it is likely that it is [music] the event itself. The purpose of Area X is to construct slashrebuild its own ecosystem, but it is encountering problems interacting with Earth. It is possible that whatever the driving mechanism behind Area X is is broken. This could be the reason that it is struggling to properly integrate. This would explain the moaning creature and the doppelgangers that die of cancer. Area X is some [music] kind of machine, a made organism. It came here either from deep within outer space or from even further realms.

An interesting moment in the series comes [music] in acceptance when saw the lighthouse keeper encounters the doppelganger of Henry who has attached mystical characteristics to [music] area X. "And God said let there be light. God set that song. And he has come from so far away. His home is gone, but his purpose remains. Would you deny him his new kingdom?" The original Henry was intent on there being a mystical nature to [music] all of this, so he interprets it mystically, referring to Area X as he with a capital H. He clearly sees it as a god. He understands it in his own way, but he is somewhat correct on a fundamental level. Area X is orphan technology. It was given instructions and is intent on carrying them out. Area X continues to expand throughout the series. It is never clear if it ever truly stops.

Part four, what she became, Ghostbird and the Biologist. I mentioned earlier that the biologist from the first novel spent 30 years within Area X in the few weeks in between Annihilation and Authority. Some of the details about her experience during [music] that time are the most interesting in the series. It was during this time period that she encountered [music] the moaning creature. The biologist somehow resisted the brightness inside of her as it attempted to change her for 30 [music] years before she decided finally to let it overcome her. But before doing so, she wrote down her last will [music] and testament which detailed her time within Area X.

Within Area X, she came into contact with [music] an owl, but the animal did not behave like a normal animal. She came to believe that it was her husband who had been on the 11th expedition. This was the form that Area X [music] had changed him into. She spends decades with him until his death, and once he dies, she finally allows the brightness to overcome her. She becomes something never seen before on Earth or possibly even in this dimension. Ultimately, she appears before her doppelganger, Ghostbird, who has developed a separate identity of her own.

Of course, the book describes the biologist's body as coalescing out of the [music] night and flickering and stitching its way into existence. She was an immense otherworldly creature that lumines in the night. The vast bulk seething down the hill through the forest with a crack and [music] splinter as trees fell to that gliding yet ponderous muffled darkness reduced [music] to kindling by the muscle behind the emerald luminescence that glinted through the black. The smell that preaged the biologist thick brine and oil and some sharp crushed herb. The sound that it made as if the wind and sea had been smashed together. And in the aftershock, there reverberated that same sonorous moan. The nature of the biologist's current being was essentially indescribable. She had been elevated to a level of existence that no one born human had ever been before. Ghostbird was drawn to her, though she should have been terrified at the mere sight of the biologist in her present form. She communicated with her counterpart through a kind of telepathy. The mountain that was the biologist came up almost to the window sill, so close she could have jumped down onto whatever served as its back. The suggestion of a flat broad head plunging directly into torso. The suggestion far to the east already overshooting the lighthouse, [music] of a vast curve and curl of the mouth, and the flanks carved by dark ridges like a whales. and the dried seaweed, the kelp that clung there, and the overwhelming ocean smell that came with it. The green and white stars of barnacles on its back in hundreds of miniature craters [music] of tidal pools from time spent motionless in deep water. Time lost inside that [music] enormous brain. The scars of conflict with other monsters pale and dull against the biologist's skin. It had many many glowing eyes that were [music] also like flowers or sea an enemies spread open the blossoming of many eyes normal parietal and simple all across its body. A living constellation ripped from the night sky. her eyes, ghost bird's eyes, staring up at her in a vast and unblinking array as it smashed into the lower floor, seeking something [music] as it sang and moaned and hollered.

At this moment, Ghost Bird comes to the realization that the biologist now existed across countless places. She had been redesigned by Area X, transformed into a creature who could traverse endless landscapes, land, sea, or stranger. She was not a monster, but a marvelous creature [music] whose existence was unparalleled. Nothing monstrous existed here. Only beauty, only the glory of good design, of [music] intricate planning. From the lungs that allowed this creature to live on land or at sea, to the huge gill slits hinted at on the sides, shut tightly now, but which would open to breathe deeply of seawater when the biologist once again headed for the ocean. All of those eyes, all of those temporary tidal pools, the pock marks and the ridges, the thick sturdy quality of the skin. An animal and organism that had never existed before or that might belong to an alien ecology that could transition not just from land to water, but from one remote place to another with no need for a door [music] in a border, staring up at her with her own eyes, seeing her.

This is a pivotal moment. thematically [music] in the series because it essentially clarifies that Area X was never trying to destroy anything. In its own way, it was trying to help. In this series, we see the terrible things that humans are willing to do in order to investigate Area X. The endless expeditions ending in the loss of countless lives, the brutal animal experiments. Area X was merely attempting to not only make the things it encountered compatible with its own ecosystem, but to also improve upon those things. [music] And when it worked, it worked beautifully. The biologist essentially evolves into what [music] is the opposite of the moaning creature. Whereas the moaning creature seems like a fluke, [music] a mistake, a result of Area X's inability to work properly with human material. The biologist essentially [music] becomes a perfect being, hyper sentient and capable of unimaginable things.

At the very core, this is a story about humanity and its conflict with the natural world. Nature is reclaiming the earth. It is a new kind of nature, a nature never [music] before seen by humans, but nature nonetheless. Is this nature inherently bad or evil simply because it does not include us, at least [music] in our current form? The answer is good and bad are relative, but ultimately it is bad for us specifically. And that is the nature of true cosmic horror. The Eldrich horrors of Lovecraft's work aren't horrors because they specifically want to harm humans. There is no cause to assume anthropocentrism here. They act out their business indifferent to us. And if their business harms us in the process, then so be it.

Area X and the changes that it makes to our environment can be seen in some sense as a metaphor for humanity and our effect on the environment in the real world. Through our existence, we alter the nature of things around us to suit our own purposes. This sometimes has devastating effects on certain ecosystems and species. The key difference here is however that Area X operates presumably not knowing the effect that it is having on humanity while humanity is aware of the effect on its environment.

There's a lot going on in this trilogy, so there is bound to be some things I didn't cover in this video, like what are the actual motivations of Central? What is the end result of Area X? I will likely cover these other topics in future videos. Thanks for watching, guys.

All right, guys. It's time yet again for Patreon questions. Now, if you want to ask me a question and be featured in one of my videos, you can sign up at patreon.com/ ideas of ice and fire. Supporting the Patreon helps support the channel. First question, I've just read Larry Nean's The Moat in the God's Eye and would love to hear your thoughts on this or any of Nean's work. Well, I have not read the mo in the god's eye, but I have read some of the ring world books, and I think they're really interesting for their exploration of macroengineering. You know, the concept of mega structures and how a society might go about building a mega structure and sustaining a mega structure and how exactly disastrous the fallout could be if something bad occurs and this mega

structure such as a ring world is no longer sustainable. So, I definitely recommend the ring world books.

So, the next question is from Mark Thomas. Thanks for taking questions. Have you read or plan to read Gene Wolf's Book of the New Sun series? I think it would pair well with your Hyperion Kantos.

So, The Book of the New Sun to me is very interesting because it's one of those science fiction series that reads more like a fantasy series, especially at the beginning. Um, and it's also a series that does not give you very much information about the world or what's going on. You have a very limited perspective initially. Um, and so does the main character in the book. You start off in the series knowing basically what he knows, which is virtually nothing. And as the book goes on, the world expands and you start to learn more about the history of this place and it's very, very long, mostly forgotten past. And it's an intriguing read for sure that has like a very classic feel to it. Would recommend.

All right, so the next question is from Dunovan Carr. Have you read Steven Baxter's Time Ships? It is a sequel to HG Wells's fantastic novel, The Time Machine. It was officially authorized by the Wells state. Could I possibly implore you to do a deep dive into Wells original time machine followed by a deep dive into Baxter's time ships? There are far too many interesting things in these books not to delve into them.

Interesting. Well, I actually have not read the time ships, but the time machine was actually one of my favorite books as a kid, and I have not read it since I was like 12 years old. But I do love the work of H2OS and it would be interesting to explore some of his work with an adult perspective. So I will keep that in mind. Thank you for your suggestion.

The next question is from Alexander. Who are your favorite aliens in sci-fi, both literary and onscreen? And what do you find compelling about them?

Well, I feel like this changes on a regular basis for me, but I guess right now I've been thinking a lot about the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Um, and it's really because of what they represent. The Borg are essentially this hiveminded organism that exists only to assimilate and to propagate itself. Individuality does not exist. There is only the Borg. And particularly in the next generation, the Borg always represented such a threat to the values of the federation, which are, you know, independent freedom and the ability to seek out your own goals in life.

The Borg also get even more interesting, I think, in Voyager when the character seven of nine is introduced because she is a character who is a Borg that is freed from the collective. And an interesting thing that's dived into in Voyager is the fact that she it's quite lonely outside of the collective because it is kind of like easy to go along with the crowd, but once you've been wrapped up in the crowd and going along with the mob so long, it's kind of really difficult to become your own person again afterwards. So that is part of Seven of Nine's character development throughout the course of Voer season 4 on. Anyway, I just think the Borg are super interesting and there's a lot of parallels uh that I see happening now in real life when I think about the Borg.

All right, so the last question comes from Charles Lee Thorp. A few of the technologies that science fiction has been grappling with for a few years now are practically upon us. Genetic engineering, cybernetics, AI. How do you view these? What lessons might we draw from great works of science fiction that might offer hope or caution?

Well, a lot of it scares me because I wonder if humanity is, you know, prepared for the onslaught of new technologies and the effects that they're going to have on our society. And I get the impression that we're not, but it kind of doesn't matter whether we are or not because it's here now. And the thing is, you can't stop scientific progress. But I think what's important is you know discussing you know our advancements and discussing the philosophical implications of our technological advancements openly because if we don't have open conversations about AI and how it's going to affect the world then it's just going to happen and we're not going to be prepared for it or know how to deal with it.

So we have to actually have these conversations and I think that's the most important thing. I think a lot of people immediately see something that they don't like or that scares them and they immediately want to shut it down. We do not like this, shut it down. But that's the thing, you cannot shut it down. You cannot put the magic of technology back in the box once it's been released.

So, we have to find ways to cope and deal with it. And that comes from conversation. That is the first stop.

All right. So, that is the end of Patreon questions. Please check out my Patreon. And if you're interested in interacting with the community more, you can also join the Discord link in the description. All sorts of cool science fiction chats happening there all the time. Thanks, guys. Peace out. Hey, hey, hey.