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Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

sseh.uchicago.edu

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Re: Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

#71

Post by Jtsummers »

throw310822 wrote: post #70
mcphage wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but simply the internal contradiction in what the main character says Yes, the entire story has the main character confused about the reality he is presented with.

No, the main character isn't confused at all in his last message, he's very confident in saying that the station "is coeval with the cosmos, and constitutes the cosmos." That's why the "estimated diameter: 15k ly" feel like a writer's oversight. Unless it's intentional, but then I'd like to understand why.

The report writer also failed to realize they'd looped back to their starting location until much after they had done so. They're clearly unreliable, an inconsistency like that doesn't need to be explained by anything other than that the author is losing their grip on reality. The other explanation is that their instruments are indicating a diameter of 15,000 light years and that that is all they are recording (as they were recording in previous reports, the numbers came from instruments), and the report writer has failed to recognize the inconsistency between their belief and the facts available to them.

Re: Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

#72

Post by fatbird »

For a second I was excited that someone had built a space station in Earth's orbit secretly. Perhaps a military station by a world power, perhaps a minor power's attempt to achieve a continuous presence in space, perhaps a private effort.

How it was built secretly, and hidden from discovery until now, and why would make for a legitimately engrossing topic in the news.

Not a bad story, but not as gratifying as my mistaken first assumption either.

Re: Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

#74

Post by nialv7 »

drayfield wrote: post #30

Some interesting parallels to BLAME!, a manga about an ever-expanding colossal city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blame !

Also Yokohama Station SF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Station_SF

Which is about a self-replicating subway station :)

Re: Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

#75

Post by bookofjoe »

Hackbraten wrote: post #11

I can recommend the excellent novels Concrete Island [0] and High-Rise [1] from the same author. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_Island [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(novel)

Also “High-Rise” movie

Re: Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

#77

Post by arjie »

rullelito wrote: post #6

I didn't get anything out of this. Felt very simple and not very mind-bending. Should I feel something?

Clearly a long antecedent and possible spiritual predecessor to SCP-3008 and the Backrooms genre which recently spawned a liminal horror movie called Backrooms. It it feels derivative, that's probably the Seinfeld Isn't Funny effect. If it feels uninteresting, you're probably not into this genre.

Re: Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

#78

Post by m4rtink »

ShadowOfThePit wrote: post #9

Reads like an early SCP exploration log. Although, I'm not sure if I get it. They end up making a religion out of it, but does that have a deeper meaning?

It is a missed opportunity really - they had an exit and and infinite space station.

Imagine the economic possibilities - asteroid mining is for loosers, chair mining and bulkhead disassembly is what it is at!

Not to mention endless free power as long as you can get low resistance (or best super conductive) cables from all the power sockets and light fixtures.

And its already in the form of electricity, no need for steam engines or turbines like when you burn down the Infinite Castle or furniture from Infinite IKEA (SCP-3008)!

Re: Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

#79

Post by xelxebar »

This could possibly be hinting at a hyperbolic geometry. The game HyperRogue[0] gives of similar feels: you'll be walking through a cat invite land and spot a small dot on the horizon, only to discover that it's yet another vast infinite land. The game also kind of goes all in on the different tilings that a hyperbolic plane admits!

[0]:https://zenorogue.itch.io/hyperrogue

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