> 📗 The following story stands alone and can be read without any knowledge of my prior works, but does involve story elements that appeared previously in [Acumen](https://eleanorkonik.com/acumen/) %% ( [[2022-01-12 Acumen]] ) %%, which touches on idolatry, divinity & the debasement of dead kings.  Wealth and immortality were easy enough to acquire, once Savali understood the nature of his magic. Even love was trivial, in the end; hormones were simple to manipulate once you knew the trick. "There'll be a war soon, if the council doesn't agree to let the breeders have their way," his wife said at dinner. "Are you sure you want to keep going with your project?" He told her the truth. "Avateine, I'm a lot more afraid of ennui than the council." It wasn't until later that night, when he found himself talking to a particularly stubborn rooster, that he realized that even if he defeated every enemy and answered every question, he would never run out of _goals_. There would always be some new absurdity to dream up, he was suddenly sure. "Ain't that grand?" he asked the rooster, laughing with delight. The rooster, sarcastic to its bony core, clacked its beak in the pattern that meant, "Sure, boss. I'm thrilled to hear you're happy. You're happy I don't want to climb into a blood-stained box and go visit your friend the allegedly-very-nice mindmage. All so that she can teach you how to turn me into a brand _new_ species of magical monstrosity." "Come on," he said, tapping the box again. "It'll be fun." The rooster disagreed, but Savali took it as a challenge. Practicing his diplomacy was nowhere near as boring as forcing things, and he wasn't in a hurry, not yet at least. It would be years before the council nerved itself up to try and stop his experiments, no matter what rumors Avateine overheard. ## Afterword I've written [stories about the downsides of immortality before](https://eleanorkonik.com/the-offer) %% ( [[2021-08-18 The Offer (DRAFT)]] ) %%, but not since I’ve read some of the new research coming out on that front. While I don’t personally identify as a rationalist (a trait I’ll admit I’m told is common to rationalists 😅), I read Scott Alexander‘s newsletter Astral Codex Ten pretty regularly and a [book review he wrote last year for Lifespan](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-lifespan?s=r) has been sticking in my mind. The author, David Sinclair, thinks that aging will be "remarkably easy" to tackle. Yet philosophers, alchemists and scientists have been seeking the secrets of eternal life for a long time, and storytellers have been warning about the side effects for what I assume is just as long. The one that always springs to my mind when the subject comes up is [the Greek story of the goddess who asked for her husband to have eternal life, and wound up married to a grasshopper](https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2004/03/the-ubiquity-of-the-tithonus-error/). She forgot to ask that he have eternal youth, which would make immortality kind of suck. If you haven't read it yet, _[The Offer](https://eleanorkonik.com/the-offer) %% ( [[2021-08-18 The Offer (DRAFT)]] ) %%_ (my other immortality story) deals with a guy who isn’t really enthusiastic the whole "living forever" thing. I thought it might be fun to write about Savali, since he’s very intellectually driven — essentially the opposite of _The Offer_’s protagonist, who is driven only by a son’s love for his mother and willing to sacrifice his happiness to keep her from suffering. Immortals show up pretty often in stories, but most often it’s just inherent to the nature of the creature — like the gods who were trying to get their human paramours to share their lifespan and nature. Or elves, who never die and simply sail away to quieter shores when they’re done with the pace of life among mortal-kind. Or vampires, who _do_ die but continue on with just a few inconveniences, like an aversion to sunlight and a ravenous thirst for blood. A lot of fantastical immortals are of the “can be killed but can’t die of natural causes and don’t age much past a certain point” variety, which makes sense for creatures like werewolves who are “turned” but leads naturally to the low fertility rates of the fae, since the elderly actually play a key role in child rearing in species that experience menopause (i.e. humans and elephants). Three of my favorite authors have functionally immortal protagonists; Kate Daniels (written by Ilona Andrews) comes from a very magical bloodline; her father was born in the Fertile Crescent during the very early days of human civilization. She was born into postmodern Atlanta and is able to “eat the apples of immortality with impunity.” Otherwise, though, she presents as a fairly normal 30ish woman who marries, has kids, and deals with leaving the shadow of a frustrating parent. L. E. Modesitt’s _Forever Hero_ is, by contrast, a genetic freak born into a post-apocalyptic Earth, rescued as a brilliant but feral child by a spacefaring human civilization, and is basically the only one of his kind. Robert Heinlein’s Lazarus Long (born Woodrow Wilson Smith in the early 20th century and, in some timelines, the first man on the moon) is also a genetic freak, but he’s not totally unique in his longevity, either. He’s an early product of an outright breeding experiment aimed at producing long-lived humans; the Howard Foundation pays qualifying members to make babies with other qualifying members. Early qualifications consist essentially of having had your grandparents and great-grandparents live to a certain age. Lazarus Long lives for hundreds of years (and potentially hundreds or thousands more) through a combination of excellent genetics and rejuvenation techniques developed by a population convinced that the Howard families were “keeping the secrets of longevity to themselves,” i.e. lying about it just being good genetics. He "stays alive" for thousands of years, actually, but a lot of that is because of space travel near the speed of light, and otherwise wonky effects of time dilation. _Time Enough for Love_ is the book that centers on the long, long life of Lazarus Long, and the premise is that after many years and many fine adventures, Lazarus is bored enough to want to experience aging to death. He refuses rejuvenation techniques and finds a flophouse where he can go out in peace. The only problem is that although he does his best to protect his anonymity, the Howard Foundation leadership has a top-notch spying apparatus and a great deal of interest in keeping Lazarus’ excellent genes around. After all, he’s an ancestor or cousin (many times removed) to most of them basically the last witness to most of their history, and a living legend. So they haul him out of the flophouse and illegally refuse to honor his suicide attempts and finally manage to get him into a sort of reverse-Scheherazade deal where as long as people keep showing up to listen to his stories, he’ll agree to live while Foundation leadership (and their emerging AI) figure out some sort of new experience worth staying alive for. The book is structured as a series of short stories within that broader framing story. Lazarus has all of Savali’s disdain for bureaucracy and political hangers-on and the slow wheels of political change, but underestimates the Chairman’s willpower and the cleverness of the Foundation’s computer. She cracks time travel and even how to hop into parallel universes. They wind up all falling in love, of course. The AI spins her personality out into a meatspace body, leaving behind a bud or twin who also achieves sentinence. Then there’s a lot of incest; he hooks up with his twin clone daughters as well as his own mother (nearly with his toddler self in the back seat of the car). In between boffing and raising babies, Lazarus and his family found some sort of Time Corps. Anyway, _Time Enough For Love_ was the first time I was exposed to the idea that the worst part of living forever as a highly competent Renaissance man all but worshipped as a god might be sheer boredom. My take on The Realmwalker is in a lot of ways a more sciency homage to Lazarus Long — without the incest and polygamy. --- 📗 If you found this interesting, check out this list from Tor of [five books about achieving immortality](https://www.tor.com/2017/04/11/five-books-about-achieving-immortality/). 💚 If you learned something or just enjoyed this edition, consider forwarding it to a friend and encouraging them to [sign up](https://eleanorkonik.com/membership/) for more very short stories and their afterwords. 🥔 Who's your favorite immortal? Please reach out — I'd love to hear about it, either via email or in [a comment](https://eleanorkonik.com/potatoes/#cove-comments) %% ( [[2022-02-28 Potatoes]] ) %% where other readers can see.