update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/neviim/local/tycho/007.md

@@ -10,23 +10,23 @@ The transition from System proper to DMZ was as seamless as any, though when he
 
 He wasn't able to sense anyone other than True Name and Answers Will Not Help. There were no options for a sensorium message with any others. He strained as hard as he could to sense Tycho#Tasker or Codrin or anyone else he could think of. There was simply nothing there. The sim was immutable and the disconnection complete.
 
-True Name stood for several minutes in the shade of a tree, looking thoughtful as she ran through some internal checklist. At one point, he felt a sensorium ping from her.
+True Name stood for several minutes in the shade of a tree, looking thoughtful as she ran through some internal checklist. At one point, he felt a sensorium ping from her, which he returned.
 
-"Fantastic," she said, nodding. "Exos all there, no access to sensoria, no transit, nothing. Reputation market looks on track for the DMZ as well."
+"Fantastic," she said, nodding. "Exos all there, no access to feeds, no transit, nothing. Reputation market looks on track for the DMZ as well."
 
-Tycho checked his reputation, pegged at a simple *1000 Ŕ*, and then the costs. Sim creation into the tens of thousands, forking well into the millions. No possible way he could afford either. "Will they arrive with the same amount?" he asked.
+Tycho checked his reputation, pegged at a minuscule *1000 Ŕ*, and then the costs. Sim creation into the millions, forking well into the tens of millions. No possible way he could afford either. "Will they arrive with the same amount?" he asked.
 
-"Yes. We could not think of a way to decouple reputation entirely from the core functionality of the System," Answers Will Not Help said. "But we could at least make everything prohibitively expensive. This will allow us to pool reputation to modify sim sizes if need be, but forking will be well out of reach."
+"Yes. We could not think of a way to decouple reputation entirely from the core functionality of the System," Answers Will Not Help said. "But we could at least make everything prohibitively expensive. This will allow us to make small changes if need be, but forking will be well out of reach."
 
 "Really? Isn't that kind of fundamental to our existence here?"
 
-"Allowing them to fork might prove dangerous, Tycho."
+"Allowing them to fork might prove dangerous, Tycho. We do not know how large their consciousnesses are."
 
 He shrugged. "Well, sure, but if our goal is to provide an accurate representation of ourselves..."
 
 The two Odists frowned at each other before True Name said, "You make a good point. We will take it under consideration.
 
-He nodded and began prowling through the courtyard. It consisted of a large, square area, a fountain in the center, and a large table beside it --- "I will have enough reputation to modify this if need be," True Name explained --- all surrounded by a ring of trees, and that with a ring of covered walkway.
+He nodded and began prowling through the courtyard. It consisted of a large, square area, a fountain in the center, and a large table beside it --- "I will have full ACLs to modify this if need be," True Name explained --- all surrounded by a ring of trees, and that with a ring of covered walkway.
 
 He paced around the perimeter, watching the way the sunlight shone through the trees and cast dancing shadows on the ground. They had been his idea, a lingering remnant from his dream. At two opposite corners, hallways led off to rest and sleeping areas. He walked down the one that led to the humans' quarters, turned around, and looked back toward the courtyard. The view was much the same as in his dreams, though here, the columns from the covered walk offered regularly spaced shadows along the wall.
 
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ He laughed and tossed a pen at her.
 
 "Are you regretting your decision to stay behind?" True Name asked.
 
-"Does it count as regret if I've always wanted to go with?" He grinned, shrugged. "But it's a good setup you have. Only one set of cocladists, only one politician. It gives them a wide gamut to experience."
+"Does it count as regret if I never wanted to go with?" He grinned, shrugged. "But it's a good setup you have. Only one set of cocladists, only one politician. It gives them a wide gamut to experience."
 
 The skunk nodded. "Perhaps we will open it up at the end and you will get to meet them. Maybe some of them will stay behind and live within the DMZ."
 
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ True Name grinned all the wider. "Which automatically makes them better."
 
 "That's mostly the point, though," Answers Will Not Help said. "They do not have a superfluity of words for war, weapons, fighting, of course, but they also do not have words for discussion that are so fine-grained that we will be out of our depth. They will talk much like us, which makes them easier to predict."
 
-"Besides," the skunk continued. "You have read all of the messages we have received. They sound excited to meet us. They keep talking about how long it has been since they have had one of these 'convergences'. I am picking up the sense of an ulterior motive behind all that they say. Or, well, perhaps not an ulterior motive such as a deeper version of their explicitly stated motives of having these talks. I think that they might want something out of it that they are not stating outright."
+"Besides," the skunk continued. "You have read all of the messages we have received. They sound excited to meet us. They keep talking about how long it has been since they have had one of these 'convergences'. I *am* picking up the sense of an ulterior motive behind all that they say. Or, well, perhaps not an ulterior motive such as a deeper version of their explicitly stated motives of having these talks. I think that they might want something out of it that they are not stating outright."
 
 Tycho pulled out one of the chairs at the conference table and sat down, the others following suit shortly after.
 
@@ -116,13 +116,13 @@ It took another forty seconds to transit the DMZ barrier going the opposite dire
 
 Throughout dinner, he remained quiet, and no matter how hard he tried, he was not able to focus on the food. It was good, of course, as much of the food had been during his stay, but some part of his mind remained elsewhere. It remained back in the sim, back focused on the conversation that he'd had with the politicians of the team.
 
-Since he'd arrived --- even before then, even before the message from Artemis --- he had felt in over his head. There was something about these people, something about the world that they'd set up that showed how they simply worked on some higher level. Their minds were so fundamentally different that, no matter how much they tried to explain the political ramifications, no matter how much they showed him their work in shaping the response to the news, he just couldn't take it all in.
+Since he'd arrived --- even before then, even before the message from Artemis --- he had felt in over his head. There was something about these people, something about the world that they'd set up that showed how they worked on some higher level than him. Their minds were so fundamentally different that, no matter how much they tried to explain the political ramifications, no matter how much they showed him their work in shaping the response to the news, he just couldn't take it all in.
 
 It had seemed that True Name and Answers Will Not Help had loosened their control over him the longer he stayed with them. They paid less attention to him. They spoke more in commands than guiding questions. They smiled less and focused harder on the tasks at hand.
 
-He felt as though he had been adopted as a tool and then simply set in his drawer until it was time for him to be used.
+He felt as though he had been picked up as a tool and then simply set in his drawer until it was time for him to be used.
 
-How much input would he even have in these meetings? Was he to be, as Codrin had said, an amanuensis? Was his job simply to be there, observe, and pick up on the science aspect? Would he be allowed to take part in the conversations? Would he get to know the Artemisians?
+How much input would he even have in these meetings? Was he to be, as Codrin had said, merely an amanuensis? Was his job simply to be there, observe, and pick up on the science aspect? Would he be allowed to take part in the conversations? Would he get to know the Artemisians?
 
 There were far more questions than there were answers and, apropos to the situation, none of the answers were helping, so the cynical part of him kept thinking *why bother asking?*
 
@@ -134,8 +134,8 @@ After dinner, he begged an hour of rest alone in his quarters and paced, composi
 
 "Hell, I'm starting to feel like they wish that's all I'd do. They're nice enough, and they seem confident in their decision to use me as the science representative, so it's not like I'm off the team, I just don't know that I'll have any say in any of this, and I guess I'm just feeling lost.
 
-"I'm sending this to you rather than em so that you're up to date, but also I just feel like you ought to know some of my thoughts since you're...well, you're me. If I were any more confident in my ability to fork and merge, I'd just do that, but that also feels way outside my realm of expertise.
+"I'm sending this to you rather than em so that you're up to date, but also I just feel like you ought to know some of my thoughts since you're...well, you're me. If I were any more confident in my ability to fork and merge, I'd just do that, but even that feels way outside my realm of expertise.
 
-"Get back to me if you can, but if not, at least let Codrin know so that when ey arrives tomorrow for orientation, he's got this knowledge, too.
+"Get back to me if you can, but if not, at least let Codrin know so, that when ey arrives tomorrow for orientation, he's got this knowledge, too.
 
 "Anyway, uh...thanks, me. I hope you're sleeping better than I am."