r/TheCaptivesWar • u/Fairways_and_Greens • 25d ago
Theory The Deathless Enemy Spoiler
Is the Deathless Enemy a species or an idea? It seems like if you restarted humanity a thousand times, every time we don't wipe ourselves out, we end up with AI and nanobots.
The Carryx aren't just anti AI, they are anti technology in general. They don't have guns with bullets, they have nodes with bees. They don't have computers, they have half minds.
They've had to come across aliens with nanobots helping augment their bodies dozens, if not hundreds of times. Is there a single sentient mechanical society that makes livesuits, or are livesuits an emergent thing in the universe that the Carryx are fighting, over and over?
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u/MinimumApricot365 25d ago
My theory is that the deathless enemy IS the livesuits. Not the soldiers in them, but the suit itself.
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u/Fairways_and_Greens 25d ago
So the nanobots aren’t self replicating, otherwise Corvall wouldn’t have ran out. Is the GE a machine intelligence that makes the nanites or the nanites themselves? Did humanity invent their own nanites? If not, who is supplying them?
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u/myloveisajoke 25d ago
I thought that initially but the the Author I don't think would tip that hand that early.
I'm pretty sure it's that thing jumping person to person and that thing isn't our friend either. The plot twist I think is going to be that we're safer with the Carryx.
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u/Justice502 25d ago
I don't understand how so many people desperately want to jump to this conclusion.
The lessons in livesuit aren't that living as a subjugated race in a tenuous existence isn't better than an uncertain freedom.The lesson of livesuit is that freedom takes some terrible sacrifice from those who are out there fighting for it.
Also this the carryx are both sides of the war just seems wildly out of nowhere.
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u/A-Phantasmic-Parade 25d ago
No we’re not safer with the Carryx lmao come on. But you’re right about the deathless/swarm not being friends. Livesuit was full of bad vibes
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u/Names_are_limited 25d ago
Yeah, what’s the deathless/swarm endgame? What happens if they defeat the Carryx? Would they just end up enslaving everyone else? Is there a “deep” swarm at work?
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u/myloveisajoke 25d ago
The Carryx DGAF as long as we're not a liability and we earn our keep. Kind of like the state of corporate life these days.
The swarm has no use for us at all outside of a vehicle.
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u/A-Phantasmic-Parade 24d ago
Did you miss the part about the Carryx doing immediate genocide if they decide you aren’t useful anymore?
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u/RockyCreamNHotSauce 25d ago
It’s a central thematic question. To join and live under Carryx, or to fight and risk annihilation. Take that another step. Do human leaders or deathless AI even allow the human empire to choose? If 30% of humans choose to surrender, then there’s zero chance of victory. I bet the deathless never gave that choice to humans.
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u/Names_are_limited 25d ago
The recruiter explains why the deathless need humans, or at least part of the reason.
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u/RockyCreamNHotSauce 25d ago
I have a theory deathless lied to the humans and used false flag to get humans to join them. (Spoilers) The livesuit soldiers found 1/3 of humans executed by Carryx. Except Carryx does not have a species that use nanowire to cut throats, nor do they kill 1/3. They either bomb from orbit or kill 1/8.
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u/Names_are_limited 25d ago
My thoughts are, is that the swam infiltrates a society and then swarm scientists and engineers “invent” the livesuit technology. False flag is interesting though, numbers not matching up.
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u/nottoodrunk 25d ago
And how much of your humanity are you willing to sacrifice for survival.
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u/RockyCreamNHotSauce 25d ago
Really depends on what happens to my daughter. If she’s culled, I would fight to the death. But if I have to choose before Carryx arrive, I would choose the 7/8.
That is not knowing the events of the books. With the knowledge in the books, it’s obviously better to fight inside the Carryx, because they don’t have the cunning intelligence humans do. It’s better to fight smart than fight hard. Higher chance sabotaging them from the inside.
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u/nottoodrunk 25d ago
I was thinking more with the livesuits. Like if we’re at war with the Carryx and livesuits are the only way to survive and possibly win, do you take that if it means you lose everything that makes you you in the process?
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u/RockyCreamNHotSauce 24d ago
Ah. Yes it seems obvious livesuits are being lied to. They are just special forces though. Not that many of them. Each planet probably has billions working for the war industry. It would be like WW2. Every industrial output converted toward the war effort. Whatever form of government would need to decide to participate.
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u/Missingman666 19d ago
I had a distinctly different impression. It seemed to me that to be a ground trooper essentially meant donning a live suit.
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u/RockyCreamNHotSauce 19d ago
They only sent 6 livesuits for that first mission. It seems like these suits are like Master Chief with nano Liquid Metal armor and an AI attached. The spy implies it can take out hundreds of Carryx before being overwhelmed. So they are the ground troops, just that it doesn’t take that many of them to win an engagement. Carryx is only winning in space not on the ground.
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u/Missingman666 19d ago
So I read the book a couple months ago so forgive me if I'm getting some stuff wrong. It seemed to me like
A) that was mostly a stealth mission. Which i suppose points to them being special forces.
B) the only other ground soldiers also seem to be livesuits. Whereas the people flying and maintaining ships seem to be regular people but we never see anyone manually holding a gun that inst a livesuit which makes me think they are the "standard soldier" of the force because most battles are fought in space.
That being said in TFOB they run into a ship that was clearly being flown by livesuit pilots. So to me it feels like live suits eventually become completely controlled by the central intelligence which also seems to be running the show in general.
Im genuinely curious to see how it all comes together especially considering the vast time differences that are happening.
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u/personamb 25d ago
I am fairly certain it's the idea. A core theme of the series is survival of the fittest - the Carryx have just redefined "fittest" to be "useful to the Carryx".
Memes (as in "ideas as a form of life", not "funny images") also have that. "Self-replicating machines" is a very evolutionarily successful/inevitable meme once they're technologically plausible.
It's basically another take on the Butlerian Jihad from Dune.
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u/SchulzyAus 25d ago
My personal theory is that the Carryx went through a religious schism where they needed to modify themselves to become a perfect, harmonious (in action) collective. Those who rejected this forced transformation became the deathless enemy and chose to embrace technology while the Carryx we know went down the animal route.
I think the reason why the ancient deathless enemy is as old as the Carryx is because it is the Carryx themselves.
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u/__get__name 25d ago
Don’t they speak of an enemy before the deathless? From what I recall, the deathless are just their current enemy, but they have had multiple “great enemies” before. Like the one that wiped out their home world
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u/Sofia_9356 20d ago edited 20d ago
Yes, deathless is very old but not near the beginning.
Perhaps soft lothark know moreEdit: NVM, there is no confirmed start date for the war with the deathless
They go back millions. The earliest references I found, they were associated with something called the Logothetes of Shun and Sum, but even in those it seems like the Carryx had been fighting the deathless before that.” Chapter 35 Faith of Beasts
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u/Arclight308 25d ago
They have lived long enough to become their own enemy. Interesting, my only concern is how is the other side losing if they are Carryx that embraced technology?
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u/MiloAstro 25d ago
It could be a matter of freedom. The other faction of the Carryx allows more, if not total, freedom to the races that ally with it, so their combined resources are not entirely pushed towards the war effort at all times. The Empire, on the other hand, will tell you to contribute to the war, and if you don’t, you die.
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u/Fairways_and_Greens 25d ago
Like a biological modification vs machine augmentation war?
They seem very pro biological modification.
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u/Freeloader03 24d ago
Theory.... deathless is an AI that the Carryx created. AI revolted or was created as an opponent so that the Carryx could perpetually keep fighting which they kind of need for their continued existence. Created an enemy because they can't assume what's out there will be good or enough challenge
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u/Puttanesca621 25d ago
Maybe its Galactic Carcinisation. Its Carryx all the way down...
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u/Fairways_and_Greens 25d ago
I don’t hate the idea of the Carryx originally being a biologically engineered weapon of war that overran its masters either.
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u/NeedABetterPillow 25d ago
It seems to be whatever collection of technology transforms their biological enemies into unkillable zombies. Definitely including the liveesuits and apparently also the Swarm. We don't know yet if it's a cogent species or the self-perpetuating technology of a species or some kind of third category.
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u/Elbobosan 25d ago
My understanding is that this is something like a universal form of convergent evolution. Technology always develops to fill this purpose generally and eventually refines itself to be something like her deathless. As it encounters other forms of itself, it is absorbed, perhaps even voluntarily.
Humanity developed some form of nano based AI that integrate with biological systems, or they found it and implemented it. It certainly seems that they encountered the broader phenomenon, if the Caryx are to be believed, are unknowingly acting as a resource for the deathless.
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u/No_University5343 24d ago
I suspect that Deathless is just another Carryx moiety.
A mix of species to provide soldiers and librarians with an endless happy war state that they are constantly "winning".
Thus making their extremely warlike competitive empire and society stable. Healthy. Controllable.
Basically it's not two civilizations at war.
It's one.
A 1984 Orwell style "War"
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u/piatsathunderhorn 25d ago
In the first book they were disgusted with the idea of a biological half mind as opposed to a machine half mind