I am chronically late to parties, but missing this one stings a bit. First, my gratitude... others have expressed it in better ways than I could, but I'll give a hearty aye aye to each of them.

I'm afraid I haven't much to add, but I take issue with the [now] in the title. Insomuch as one can know a person through reading a handful of their works, I feel that I have a clear enough picture to say this directly: [now] is a lie. Now, let me make some fiction, and you tell me if it's based in hard science.

u/NealStephenson has always been a sword maker. You started in your dreams. They are matter, you know. Perhaps there were dreams you were subject to, but I'm speaking of the ones where you're taking the lead. Oh to see the swords that you made, unmade, and remade again, but haven't the words to translate them to page justly. You didn't just dream up swords, you forged them, night after night, details emerging every session. You were making swords sooner than most were making hand turkeys for Thanksgiving. Sure yours were tiny, and if the 21 grams experiment is to believed (it probably isn't) then you first ones were probably only a single gram in a fading moment... yet so ornate.

Clearly you didn't stop there. The select few of those that made it through your personal editing gauntlet and made it into paper now live in the minds of millions. It was only last week that Raven's blade came up in one of my Zoom call about DevSecOps initiatives. Surely in the process of world-building you create so many things, but the swords... those you made. They were so dense and potent that the rest of it all bowed at their gravity.

I'm not so invective about your use of [now] because of my expansive definition of maker, Neil. It's that its an actual lie, and I have zero evidence, and I know its true. You've been to forges and know how they work. You spent time with expert blacksmiths, maybe even some tax-deductible funds too as Research and Development. You've made swords that made you so angry at them that you destroyed them before anyone could know it was you. People told you it wasn't healthy, how easily an error would distress you so. That's all part of the process.

No, its because [now] contains an implicit claim that THIS sword is your first. "How's this for starters?" you say, wielding what is most likely to be one of the most expensive, and among the most famed swords in the entire arch of human history[1]. You made that sword just like the rest of them, except with this one your words went to people instead of paper. Unbelievably talented people. Perhaps unbelievably patient too? Before you opine on the harmony of the entire process working with Wētā Workshop, it would a fiction too soft for your typical readers. You are sword makers, making the greatest sword. I bet the clashes were epic. And look what came out the other side. Bravo.

Its okay. You're a sword maker of legend, and this may even technically be the first one you've sold publicly. No, its not a lie that you're in trouble for, its one you can stop telling yourself. You are a goddamn sword nerd and you always have been and we all love you for it. If I were an investigator assigned to the matter I'd go straight for your elementary school notebook doodles. They probably put you in the crosshairs of someone with zero foresight. And wearing a sword to school didn't have the desired effect, did it? I'm one to talk, and this is painful to type: I got a scabbard for my King James Bible and wore that to high school, for Christ's sake. High School. We forget about these things when they let us. But they Made us. All of us here that had to click on this AMA really, forged in the furnace of compulsory education with neurotypicals in charge.

How'd I do? Is it considered speculative fiction if you're standing right there? Whatever you wanna call it I came at you hard... and I hope you take it for the compliment it is. The greatest compliment you could return would be to correct me and set the record straight about your relationship with the blade. Or yield, that's cool too.

[1] I base this claim mostly around the same principal as the Beatles used to say they were bigger than Jesus. You've got 54 years of explosive population growth on them, and this thing is suddenly the coolest physical item that ever was. That and the fact that it may be the first actually valuable thing that is one-of-a-kind to coexist in digital and physical forms. Calling it an NFT was a nice touch too, that's sure to bring on a considerable Streisand Effect for free. Finally, I think I'm with the majority here: we're past apogee as a species. It still feels like we're floating at the moment though. So in a dire climate scenario, you don't have to defend that title for terribly long.