I will disclose my involvement with this up front — I was a critter for this piece. I will keep this review spoiler-free as much as possible though.
I'm kinda… disappointed with this one. The conprocs set up this massive, world bending idea, with a lot of complicated words to imply that this is very big and very important, but when it comes to the dialogue, it just drops the ball. It doesn't want to take itself seriously, despite in the conprocs demanding you to take it a lot more seriously.
To me, this has the same energy of a Marvel movie. It can have great themes, it can have good plot, but its incredibly annoying to see something that tells you that it wants to be taken seriously, but… doesn't. The humor doesn't work here — it feels like it's trying to distance itself from its very serious concept, like its saying "oh no don't worry this won't be the serious article you think it is, haha!". This very much feels like two characters talking over each other, and I don't know, it's disappointing to see an article with a great concept squandered. Maybe it was my expectations keeping in mind the previous draft, but still, it's disappointing to see the author handle a topic well, then just drop the ball entirely.
Overall, the first part got me excited to see either a high-concept entry or a personal one, and it just drops the ball with its dialogue. -1
