update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/sys/Ioan/004.md

@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ She nodded approvingly. "Good. There may be hope for you yet."
 
 "Wrapping me around your little finger, indeed." Ey finished eir current line of scratchy notes. "You say that it tickled you to remain behind. Can you talk more about that?"
 
-"Of course. Many of the clade --- many of the liberal side, at least --- enjoy using our functional immortality as a plaything. If we are to live forever, then, it is worthwhile to find as many things to keep it interesting as we can along the way. It is interesting to me that I have acted in a very intentional way such that I will not get to experience our three societies begin to diverge that directly. There is no going back to change that, because there is no going and there is no back. It is already fun to see the differences between Castor and Pollux through the eyes of both Codrins, and to realize that the L<sub>5</sub> system contains neither, and then realize in a flash of insight that there is no May Then My Name Die With Me to witness directly. Do you experience the same?"
+"Of course. Many of the clade --- many of the liberal side, at least --- enjoy using our functional immortality as a plaything. If we are to live forever, then, it is worthwhile to find as many things to keep it interesting as we can along the way. It is interesting to me that I have acted in a very intentional way such that I will not get to experience our three societies begin to diverge that directly. There is no going back to change that, because there is no going and there is no back. It is already fun to see the differences between Castor and Pollux through the eyes of both Codrins, and to realize that the L<sub>5</sub> System contains neither, and then realize in a flash of insight that there is no May Then My Name Die With Me to witness directly. Do you experience the same?"
 
 "Maybe a little bit," Ioan hedged. "But if what you tell me is true, I'm not nearly old enough yet to be so concerned in finding fun in the little nooks and crannies of experience."
 
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ Ey shook eir head. "Weird, perhaps, but your thoughts and actions are consistent
 
 "Yes, well, Michelle was not. She was a being of irreconcilable contradictions, and we are lucky that she did not pass that on to us when we came into existence."
 
-"If she hadn't quit as she did, do you think that she would've remained on the system, invested entirely in the launches, or split between the two?"
+"If she hadn't quit as she did, do you think that she would've remained on the System, invested entirely in the launches, or split between the two?"
 
 May's features fell and she averted her eyes. "She could not do but what she did. You were not there at the end."
 
@@ -178,7 +178,7 @@ They both shifted to a cross-legged position before this brand new plant in the
 
 "This is a dandelion. It--"
 
-A memory clicked into place for Ioan and ey laughed. "Oh! Of course! I've been here too long, haven't I? Here in the system, here in the house with its perfect yard. Almost ninety years now, I think. They were all over back phys-side, though."
+A memory clicked into place for Ioan and ey laughed. "Oh! Of course! I've been here too long, haven't I? Here in the System, here in the house with its perfect yard. Almost ninety years now, I think. They were all over back phys-side, though."
 
 May nodded and beckoned for em to continue.
 

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/sys/Ioan/007.md

@@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ It just felt an awful lot like those who had helped the most with Secession used
 
 And so here ey was, hunting down those who had uploaded specifically for the money that it would leave their families and friends back phys-side. Their stories were, ey figured, just as valid as anyone's. They were just as valid as eir own, for had ey not done the same? Here ey was, interviewing those like emself.
 
-These were the people who had moved to the system out of some sense of not just a better life for themselves, but one for those they had left behind. Ioan had had few enough ties back to eir family phys-side after uploading --- only enough to ensure that the payments had gone through and that eir kid brother was alright --- and then none since then. If any of eir family had uploaded since then, none had gotten in touch.
+These were the people who had moved to the System out of some sense of not just a better life for themselves, but one for those they had left behind. Ioan had had few enough ties back to eir family phys-side after uploading --- only enough to ensure that the payments had gone through and that eir kid brother was alright --- and then none since then. If any of eir family had uploaded since then, none had gotten in touch.
 
 Eir hope in undertaking this exercise had been to learn a bit more about the time between Secession and Launch, about what had lead to the demographics of a System that had decided to hurl large portions of itself out into space. Was it something perhaps borne of the sentiment of the population that had grown in the intervening years? Was it something that had always been there?
 

writing/post-self/toledot/launch/sys/Ioan/010.md

@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ Ioan hesitated, then lifted eir own glass to return the toast. "To boldness. You
 
 Ey scribbled quickly in eir shorthand, doing eir best to take down verbatim what Jonas was saying. Ey'd be able to remember, for sure, but through writing, ey might better process and use what time ey had with the founder while ey had the chance.
 
-"It could've meant so many things," he was saying. "It could've meant just "clone the system and leave a copy at the Earth-Sun L<sub>5</sub> point". It could've meant "break the physical elements of the system up into much smaller ones and scatter them around so that damage to one did not beggar the others". Both of those are still on the table, by the way.
+"It could've meant so many things," he was saying. "It could've meant just "clone the System and leave a copy at the Earth-Sun L<sub>5</sub> point". It could've meant "break the physical elements of the System up into much smaller ones and scatter them around so that damage to one did not beggar the others". Both of those are still on the table, by the way.
 
 "We took it in another way, however, given news that we've been reaching from Earth. In particular, we were noticing a tendency to move from the excesses of capitalism back to the day-to-day hardships of feudalism and even, in some cases, subsistence farming. The problem, I'm sure you can imagine, is that when you're stuck being a peasant or scraping by to earn the most meager living, you aren't all that keen on space. It's only by dint of a few dreamers and the impossibility of retrieving it that the System remains up here in the first place."