The library in Ingenuity was strangely familiar.
No, seriously—it was a massive building filled with shelves of books and plenty of comfortable places to sit. Artworks and murals covered the walls and corners. The floor was carpeted, people in uniforms helped you find specific volumes, and there were several high-end digital screens. It was a regular, fancy, Old World library.
"Hmmm..." I hummed to myself, scanning the spines. Diana walked beside me, observing the sculptures and artworks scattered throughout the hall.
"So this is the Library of Ingenuity..." Diana muttered with a hint of amazement.
"What's it like in the City of Love?"
Diana grinned. "It's an entire fleet!"
"Really?" Holy shit, that sounds impressive.
"Yes! Five ships floating on the surface and four underwater archives."
Damn, Love sounds amazing. Can I go there instead?
I walked toward one of the shelves out of curiosity. I realized the sections didn't have the usual 'fiction' and 'non-fiction' labels. In place of 'non-fiction,' they had 'Records,' 'Theories,' 'Reports,' 'Practical,' and 'Autobiography.' Instead of generic fiction, they had the usual genres like 'Fantasy,' 'Sci-Fi,' and 'Drama,' but they also had categories like 'Circle,' 'Trailblazer,' and even 'Fae.'
Huh... that's strange.
I walked toward the Records section; it seemed to be the most popular area. The shelves were half-empty, and I could see people constantly walking by to grab one volume after another. I picked one up. It was a chart of some sort, packed with dense information. Looking over at a nearby table, I saw a guy surrounded by stacks of records. A researcher, I guessed? There were plenty of them, meticulously transcribing records into their own books.
Are they developing theories? I wondered. I checked the Historical Records; they were also half-full. Apparently, people here really cared about history.
I decided to check out the Circle section for some lighter reading. I pulled a book titled Black Ink. Even in this world, vague titles that told you nothing about the story still existed. The summary on the back described a story about four artists in a Circle dealing with a strained relationship and the main character's efforts to keep them together.
Interesting. I guess 'friendship' and 'found family' replace romance in this world.
Diana grabbed a book from the Practical section regarding star navigation. A bright, wistful smile appeared on her face as she read the cover. "Aww... they have it."
"What is it?"
"It's a book on how to use stars to navigate," Diana replied. "The author, Maleon, was... my caretaker." her eyes drifted shut. "He died not long before I moved to Ingenuity. It's part of the reason why I left."
Damn... what a lore drop. "What was he like?"
Diana tilted her head. "He was a teacher. In a way, all caretakers are teachers, but he also taught at the Sailor Academy." She opened the book. "He was a great navigator and engineer. He'd been through so much and seen so much, yet... he always looked at my drawings like it was the first time he'd ever seen the ocean."
She sounded so proud of him. I wondered if I should ask what happened. God, I was curious.
"The Storm got him," Diana said, as if reading my mind. "His fleet... it was a terrible accident." She closed the book and returned it to the shelf. "The ship's power core malfunctioned before they could sail to safety."
Ah... so that's what happened.
"According to most people, anyway," Diana added. "Ships lost to the Storm are just... gone. No wreckage, no records left behind. We don't really know what happened. The core malfunctioning is just the story I prefer. It's better than 'my caretaker failed to see the storm coming.' He was a great Storm Forecaster."
Wait, huh? I was about to say something, but I clamped my mouth shut. This was the first time Diana had ever opened up to me like this, and I didn't want my insensitive, Old-World-alien self to ruin the moment.
"Sorry," Diana sniffed, wiping her eyes. "I wasn't trying to make things sad all of a sudden." She turned to me. "What about you, Viel? What were libraries like in your world?"
I blinked. "They were... about the same? Shelves for books, a bunch of reading spots, computers... honestly, this is the most familiar part of Ingenuity I've seen so far."
"Oh, that sounds lovely." Diana smiled. "We should hang out here more often."
"Yeah, that sounds nice." I was genuinely curious about all these books, too. "Also, how come Trailblazers have their own section?"
I walked toward that area and found rows of seemingly identical covers. I realized these were the same types of Trailblazer autobiographies Deva had mentioned—the ones all Trailblazers are meant to keep.
"Maybe they're just that popular?" Diana grabbed a book titled Altera Grace. She opened the first page, revealing a beautiful, colored drawing of a woman. She looked like an anime protagonist posing for an ArtStation or Pixiv trending post. "Oh, she's beautiful."
"Is that what she actually looked like?"
Diana giggled. "It's how she wants to be remembered. And we should respect that."
We both read a bit and... honestly, it read less like an autobiography and more like a self-insert fantasy. It was total AO3-level stuff. She was a complete Mary Sue: misunderstood, all the people who disliked her were assholes, and everyone who loved her was perfect.
"Wait, what the fuck?" I paused, rereading a passage where she had an incredibly intimate and emotional scene with Deva himself. It described Deva crying on her shoulder and...
Diana giggled beside me. "Ehehe... it's just an autobiography, Viel. She most likely made at least some of it up."
I bit my lip. "Yeah... she definitely made that up." The image of Deva crying on a girl's shoulder just wouldn't compute. "So, are any of these factual? Or does everyone just make shit up in their life stories?"
"I mean... why wouldn't you?" Diana asked. "Is the alternative even possible?"
"What?"
"Well, most humans can't remember every single detail of what happened, right? If you're going to have to make things up to fill in the blanks anyway, why hold back? Why pretend it's 'real'?"
Huh. That's... interesting. Wait, does that mean all the autobiographies in my world were made up, too? I mean, we at least tried to be truthful about them.
"So... if an autobiography is basically just fanfiction, how do you learn from history? How is anyone held accountable for what they've done?"
Diana looked up. "Hmm... that's a good question. We use the Coherence System."
"Coherence System?"
"Yes." Diana looked at me. "Measuring Record Coherence is a skill we all learn. It's a semi-quantifiable way to measure how close a story is to a verified record. An ideal record has a Record Coherence of one, or one hundred percent. A work of fiction has a Record Coherence of zero."
She gestured to the autobiography. "You learn from things that have a Record Coherence of seventy percent or higher. Most Trailblazer autobiographies stay between thirty and fifty percent. Does that make sense?"
I blinked slowly. "Huh... but what if conflicting theories both have high Record Coherence?"
Diana looked away, her expression falling. "We learn from all of them. After the disaster that took my caretaker, they researched the ship's core and added backup generators. But they also made it a law to have more than one Storm Forecaster on every voyage. We use every version of the story that has high coherence."
That's... a strange way to see the world. I still find it hard to understand.
"So what about lying and being trustworthy? Is it okay to just lie, since there is no objective 'truth'?"
Diana looked up. "A lie is just something you made up to decieve someone, the problem is the deceit, not the lie," she shrugged. "Anyway, let's head deeper,"