New Cosmogony

Stanislaw Lem, 1971

short_story

Quadrant Scores

Time Structure
LinearFractured
Pacing
Action-DrivenObservational
Threat Scale
IndividualSystemic
Protagonist Fate
VictoryAssimilation
Conflict Style
Western CombatKishōtenketsu
Price Type
PhysicalIdeological
Todorov's Stages
equilibrium
Description of the starting status quo.
disruption
The inciting incident or protocol failure.
recognition
When the protagonist realizes the disruption.
repair
The attempt to fix or survive it.
new equilibrium
The new, altered status quo.

Structural Analysis

1. Protocol Fiction Mapping (Summer of Protocols)#

  • Render a Rule:
  • Rehearse a Failure Mode:
  • Reveal a Human Insight:

2. Actantial Model (A.J. Greimas)#

  • Subject:
  • Object:
  • Sender (Destinator):
  • Receiver (Destinatee):
  • Helper:
  • Opponent:

3. Todorov's Equilibrium Model#

  • See YAML Frontmatter for stage breakdown.

4. The Freytag Pyramid#

  • Exposition:
  • Climax:

5. Propp's Morphology of the Folktale#

  • Applicable Narratemes:

6. Genette's Narrative Discourse#

  • Order / Duration / Focalization:

7. The Monomyth / Hero's Journey#

  • Subversions:

8. Dan Harmon's Story Circle#

  • The Take (The Price Paid):

9. Save the Cat! Beat Sheet#

  • Pacing Deviations:

10. Kishōtenketsu (Four-Act Structure)#

  • Applicability:

11. The Three-Act Structure#

  • Plot Points:

12. Lévi-Strauss's Binary Oppositions#

  • Primary Binary:
  • Secondary Binary:
  • The Mediator:

13. Cognitive Estrangement (Suvin / Shklovsky)#

  • The Familiar Concept:
  • The Estranging Mechanism:
  • The Cognitive Shift:

14. Bakhtin's Chronotope#

  • The Spatial Matrix:
  • The Temporal Flow:
  • The Point of Intersection:

15. Aristotelian Poetics#

  • Hamartia:
  • Peripeteia:
  • Anagnorisis:

16. Jungian Archetypal Analysis#

  • The Persona:
  • The Shadow:
  • The Anima/Animus:
  • The Trickster:

17. Genette's Transtextuality#

  • Intertextuality:
  • Paratextuality:
  • Metatextuality:

Characters9

Professor Alfred TestaSpeaker and Nobel laureate

A mathematician turned physicist who formalized the theories of Aristides Acheropoulos and is delivering his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Aristides AcheropoulosPhilosopher of nature and author

A deceased, marginalized Greek scholar who wrote 'A New Cosmogony' and originated the theory of the Universe as an artificial construct shaped by the Game.

Professor Bernard WeydenthalHistorian of science

Author of 'Die Welt als Spiel und Verschwörung' who dismissed Acheropoulos's work as literary fantasy.

Professor Harlan StymingtonAcademic author

Author of 'The New Universe of the Game Theory', who believed Acheropoulos's ideas would have remained obscure without Testa.

Professor BowmanLeader of a research group

A theoretician whose Brooklyn group hypothesizes that the Players wish to close the rift of the reversibility of phenomena.

Professor Ben-NourAcademic author

Author of 'Intentional Cosmogony', who theorizes Earth exists in a sector of physics oscillation due to uncoordinated moves by neighboring Players.

Academician A. SlyszAcademic author

Author of 'Logic and the New Cosmogony', who explores the ambiguity between Physics and Logic in the Universe's rules.

Slysz
Ronald SchuerTheoretician

Author of 'The Mind-made Universe: Laws vs. Rules', who posits that the Game proceeds in a cyclical loop of growth, memory loss, and chaos.

Professor Ernst AhrensTeacher

Testa's former teacher who offered early encouragement that the Game conception might serve as a blueprint for mankind's cosmic future.

Ahrens