The People Who Know the World Is Ending

Imagine waking up one morning to discover the world is coming apart.

Communications are failing. Things that have worked reliably for decades have stopped working, and nobody seems to know why. Governments are trying to maintain order, the news is becoming increasingly contradictory, and the people around you are beginning to realise that something is very, very wrong.

Now imagine knowing why.

Not suspecting. Not developing a theory based on something you saw online. Actually knowing what is happening, or at least knowing enough to understand that the explanations everybody else is desperately searching for aren't going to help.

Which position would you rather be in?

It's an interesting question, because I suspect most people would instinctively choose the second option. Knowledge is power, after all.

Except that knowledge isn't necessarily the same thing as being able to do something useful with it.

The Problem with Knowing

One of the things that interests me about A Veil Sundered is the difference between the people experiencing a catastrophe and the people who understand something about the forces behind it.

For an ordinary person, a disaster presents an immediate collection of problems. Where's the family? Is there food? Is there somewhere safe to go? What the hell happened, and how do we survive whatever comes next?

Those questions are frightening enough without adding anything supernatural to the equation.

But someone who understands the underlying events faces a different problem.

They might know why something is happening without knowing how to stop it. They might know that an apparently sensible course of action will make matters worse. They might even understand that preventing one disaster could cause something considerably more unpleasant somewhere else.

And then there's the rather awkward question of what to tell everybody.

Knowing Isn't the Same as Being Right

Another complication is that knowledge doesn't automatically make someone trustworthy.

Two people can understand the same circumstances and reach completely different conclusions about what should be done.

One might believe that protecting people means allowing them to make their own choices, even when those choices carry terrible consequences. Another might decide that the only responsible course is to take those choices away.

Both can believe they're acting for the greater good.

Both can be dangerously wrong.

That disagreement sits close to the heart of the wider A Veil Sundered universe. It's one thing to have extraordinary abilities or access to knowledge that most of humanity doesn't possess. It's quite another to decide what that entitles you to do.

And, perhaps more importantly, what it doesn't.

The Luxury of Not Knowing

There's something almost enviable about the person who has no idea what's really going on.

Their immediate concerns are at least understandable. Find shelter. Protect the people they love. Keep moving. Make it through another day.

They don't have to contend with the possibility that the entire situation might have been prevented, or that somebody knowingly allowed events to unfold.

Of course, ignorance comes with its own dangers. Not understanding the threat doesn't make it any less real.

But understanding it can become a burden of its own.

I find that particularly interesting when writing characters who possess knowledge other people would give almost anything to obtain. Because once they know, they have to decide what to do with it.

And doing nothing is still a decision.

Two Sides of the Same Catastrophe

The Road Between Us approaches the consequences of the Sundering through people who must deal with what has happened to their lives.

Elsewhere in the series, readers will encounter characters who understand considerably more about the circumstances surrounding those events.

Neither perspective tells the complete story by itself.

That's deliberate. I don't particularly want a universe in which one group of characters gets all the answers while everybody else exists merely to demonstrate how terrible things have become.

The people struggling to survive matter just as much as the people who understand the forces at work. Sometimes more, depending on what those supposedly better-informed people decide to do.

Besides, having the answers isn't much comfort when you discover you might have been asking the wrong questions.

And knowing the world is ending doesn't necessarily mean you know how to save it.