Episode 3 has a deeply emotional side to it. Vasa is a genius, but deep down, she isn’t entirely confident in her own abilities. Is her talent truly beautiful, or is it simply useful? Combined with the emotional repression of her upbringing, she has to kill off her old self every so often in order to transform into someone new. She thought she had already killed her eternal child and become strong enough. But that sense of vulnerability never really leaves her.
When I was writing this episode, I worried that I might be digging too deeply into her psychology and making the story overly emotional. Vasa is not an emotionless character, but she does have a cold exterior. She armors herself with a hard shell, while inside, she has an extraordinarily soft side. My own talents are nowhere near Vasa’s level, and I can’t claim to fully understand what it feels like to live as a genius. But this is how I imagine it.
In the story, Vasa says that her greatest fear is: “I know the truth, but the truth doesn’t know me.”
I can relate to this on a profound level.
People like Vasa are not usually afraid of loneliness or of what others think of them. Her deepest fear must be connected to the very thing she excels at most. And what she does best is use her intelligence to understand the world and create new things. She might be afraid of living an ordinary life, but she isn’t afraid of being alone.
To me, Vasa is a truly unique character. I often find her difficult to emotionally grasp. She isn’t as idealistic as Raph, as utopian as Opna, or as cynical as Xom. She is like a razor-sharp blade, cutting through the truth while wounding herself in the process.
She is so cold, so almost inhuman in her outward appearance, relentlessly pursuing efficiency and utility, pushing intelligence and willpower to their absolute limits. She is so close to perfection that sometimes I can barely feel her presence as a character.
When I was writing the eight-book series of The Computational Universe, I went through a similar period when I found myself unable to fully connect with the protagonist, Liang Feng.
Perhaps it’s because both Liang Feng and Vasa are exceptional female characters. I want to become them, rather than simply fall in love with them, as I might with male characters. Self-actualization is something a person pursues only after satisfying their other needs. It is the final destination. The process is abstract, and it is rational.
What I love about Vasa is precisely her inhuman side. She strives for absolute rationality, and that is something I deeply admire.
I don’t believe every character needs to be understood by everyone. On the contrary, it’s enough if a small number of people truly understand them. Vasa is exactly that kind of character.
When writing her, I thought of The Queen’s Gambit. Despite having a female protagonist, I think it is a work told very much from a male perspective. I borrowed a little from that perspective when writing Vasa’s story.
The moments when I truly connect with Vasa are the moments when she confronts her own fears.
I gave her one of my own dreams. In that dream, someone announced that I would have to spend the rest of my life trapped in a sealed room. Then they threw a copy of 1984 at me and told me that this would be my only companion from now on.
But my first reaction was that I had already read the book.
What a terribly boring life that would be.
It was a suffocating dream.
I remember many of my own dreams, and sometimes I let them guide my writing. That’s also why my characters so often have dreams of their own. Dreams can reveal things that are inaccessible to us when we’re fully awake.
I even keep a journal of my dreams, especially the ones that are emotionally intense or particularly bizarre. Just like that dream involving 1984, dreams have given me inspiration for my stories.
Vasa is an incredibly cool character, no matter how you look at her.
Many of the choices she makes are just like the choices I would make. She wants to observe and understand the deepest, most fundamental structures of the world. She is a pure science-minded woman, possessing extraordinary intelligence and a mind encased in heavy armor.
Even when she reveals her vulnerability, there are still sharp edges to her. There is something about her that embodies an absolute force of life.
The story of The Computational Universe: Arrival is gradually unfolding. This is not a simple black-and-white story. It has layers worth contemplating, the seriousness and care that I have always brought to storytelling, and even a touch of dark humor.
I’ve said this many times before: this story represents everything I’ve learned throughout my life. I’ve poured my soul into it.
I want The Computational Universe to be as close to perfect as possible when it makes its first official appearance before players and audiences.
So if you haven’t watched Episode 3 of The Computational Universe: Arrival yet, go catch up now. This story is worth your time.
We’re working hard on both the game and the series, and there’s much more to look forward to.
We’ll keep bringing you new content.
Stay tuned!
