u/Sensitive-Poet7701

I always found it sad we got such an important part of the franchise adapted as comic and in two short films only, since it seemed like there would have been enough potential for a full-length TV series starting at the development of AI, following its integration into the workforce, the point of technical singularity and ultimately the development of artificial 'consciousness' leading up to the machines claiming their own rights and cities...

The Second Renaissance laid out a pretty good base for an extension to the franchise, yet it was never really fleshed out.

And partially I feel this is due to the second part just being so disturbing (like, we literally see how the machines operate on the human body / brain to implement the "jacks", dead humans being 'disposed' of, children being abducted and connected to the pods, and so on) that it would be at the very least a difficult take to pull off, and likely end up becoming R rated lol.

Still, regarding what developments we currently experience in the real world, I feel like a revive of the first part at least – which is much more harmless and actually relevant to current gen AI – as live action movie or series would be a very interesting trope to explore...

Any thoughts on this?

It's rare for me to feel that sort of emotional attachment to a track that Stillness in Woe evokes in me. There's only a handful of other ballads I could point out, which have both great sound and also lyrics that feel like they describe returning struggles / events / desires I keep on facing in my own life.

Now, regarding Stillness in Woe... I don't know, I just don't get this thing out of my head, and I also never did like five years ago as I last started listening to their Another Eternity album.

It's a beautiful synth ballad all-over. Probably not something unique enough to call it a masterpiece, but I still connect to its bits and pieces from the lyrics / themes, which I never could really make a completely coherent sense out of though.

As they're cryptic as hell I decided to feed them into Claude, and from what it gave me it, the songwriting now makes much more sense, but I'm still not able to grasp the meaning behind all those lines.

At its core it appears to be about the singer describing a relationship that is built on mutual suffering / "woe", which she is partially acknowledging ("I'm seeing double", e.g. both persons' worries) and partially attempting to fight (all those "Don't be afraid" lines). She also seems to somehow feel 'responsible' for this very situation ("built a castle out of shovels", e.g. devices meant to dig, rather than to build).

But there's still lots of cryptic stuff in there, that's interesting to think about.

Idk, do we have any official confirmation by Purity Ring what the track is about? (probably not)

Or is there any community consensus?

Happy to hear what you think about the mesmerising songwriting here :)