update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/marsh/004.md

@@ -408,7 +408,11 @@ Hold My Name also appeared hand-in-paw with a skunk, Which Offers Heat And Warmt
 
 I nodded and started to reply before cutting myself off as a few more Odists showed up in quick succession. Another skunk, looking far more prim and proper than the others, arrived and shot Dry Grass a quick glance. I couldn't quite read her expression, but she certainly didn't look happy. If she was Then I Must In All Ways Be Earnest, it perhaps made sense, as the next Odist to arrive was a human introduced as The Only Time I Dream Is When I Need An Answer.
 
-She was the first to speak, calling aloud to the twenty or so people on the field, "Thank you all for coming, and thank you as well to those who have set aside differences enough that we may meet."
+From what I gathered both from my knowledge of the history of the System that I'd picked up over my hears on Lagrange as well as the memories of Tule's relationship with Dry Grass, there had been a schism within the Ode clade some fifty years back surrounding the political elements of the clade — of which Need An Answer was one — and those who disagreed. This included both Dry Grass and In All Ways. Beyond those such as Lily who held resentment, even some Odists mistrusted — or even hated — some of the Odists.
+
+I just hoped they'd be able to set that aside for now.
+
+Need An Answer was the first to speak, calling aloud to the twenty or so people on the field, "Thank you all for coming, and thank you as well to those who have set aside differences enough that we may meet."
 
 Scattered mumbling.
 
@@ -418,13 +422,13 @@ Scattered mumbling.
 
 More muttering — darkly, this time.
 
-"There have been more than two hundred thousand instances of downtime throughout the history of Lagrange. Most amount to a few seconds or minutes, with the longest being approximately two weeks, which took place during the Lagrange station's insertion into the L<sub>5</sub> orbit in which it currently resides.We usually do not notice any downtime unless we are specifically paying attention to systime. However, in this instance, when the System returned to functionality, several instances were missing–"
+"There have been more than two hundred thousand instances of downtime throughout the history of Lagrange. Most amount to a few seconds or minutes, with the longest being approximately two weeks, which took place during the Lagrange station's insertion into the L<sub>5</sub> orbit in which it currently resides. We usually do not notice any downtime unless we are specifically paying attention to systime. However, in this instance, when the System returned to functionality, several instances were missing–"
 
 "Several!" one of the Odists said, snorting.
 
-"–several instances were missing. At this point, the missing instances number about one and a half billion, though that number continues to climb.
+"–several instances were missing. At current count, the missing instances number about one and a half billion, though that number continues to climb.
 
-"I have re-acquired my sys-side engineer credentials through an expedited process, which has led to me talking to a phys-side engineer on the Lagrange station named Günay. While she appears to be somewhat restrained in what she is willing or able to tell me, she was at least able to confirm or deny guesses as I made them. She has confirmed that the missing instances are due to corrupted data, that Lagrange experienced full downtime, and that phys-side engineers were finally able to get it running at full capacity just last night."
+"I have re-acquired my systech credentials through an expedited process, which has led to me talking to a phys-side tech on the Lagrange station named Günay Sadık. While she appears to be somewhat restrained in what she is willing — or able — to tell me, she was at least able to confirm or deny guesses as I made them. She has confirmed that the missing instances are due to corrupted data, that Lagrange experienced full downtime, and that phys-side engineers were finally able to get it running at full capacity just last night."
 
 Dry Grass paused, taking a deep breath. "Here are the things she was not able to confirm, but which I do not believe were outright denials. She was not able to confirm the reason for the downtime and did not respond to any of my guesses. However, as this discussion took place over AVEC, I was able to see her as she spoke. I asked if there was any physical damage to the System hardware: no change. I asked if there was any permanent damage to the System internals: no change. I asked if there was any trouble phys-side that led to the downtime: she looked down to her hands on the desk. Finally, I asked if this downtime might have been intentional, whether there might have been malice behind it: she looked off-screen, her expression appearing tense, perhaps frightened."
 
@@ -440,7 +444,7 @@ By the end, many of them were in tears.
 
 "Why?" In All Ways asked. Her expression had shifted from upset to unnerved.
 
-"The goal is to use us as a synecdoche for the System. By tallying the percentage of missing instances within our group, we may have a guess as to how many on the System may be missing. We are working with other clades who are doing the same thing, and by averaging, perhaps we will wind up with an approximate number for Lagrange as a whole."
+"The goal is to use us as a synecdoche for the System. By tallying the percentage of missing instances within our extended clade, we may have a guess as to how many on the System might be missing. We are working with other clades who are doing the same thing, and by averaging, perhaps we will wind up with an approximate number for Lagrange as a whole."
 
 Another, longer silence followed. By now, more of them were sitting in the grass. There were more tears, more open crying.
 
@@ -472,13 +476,13 @@ The other Odist's shoulders sagged. "Two."
 
 "Should We Forget and–"
 
-"*What?!*" Warmth In Fire said, clutching tightly at Serene's paw in one of hers, the other grasping for Beneath Your Tongue's once more. "No. No no no..."
+"*What?!*" Warmth In Fire said, clutching tightly at Serene's paw in one of hers, the other grasping for Hold My Name's hand once more. "No. No no no..."
 
-"I am sorry, Heat And Warmth. I know that you two were close."
+"I am sorry, Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. I know that you two were close."
 
 The skunk didn't reply other than to continue whispering 'no' quietly.
 
-"The other lost line is No Longer Myself. She no longer associated with the clade, but did maintain her identity as one of the lines of the first stanza. Of the others I know who have rescinded their clade membership, Sasha, E.W., and May Then My Name all remain in some capacity."
+"The other lost line is No Longer Myself. She no longer associated with the clade, but still maintained her identity as one of the lines of the first stanza. Of the others I know who have rescinded their clade membership, Sasha, E.W., and May Then My Name all remain in some capacity."
 
 A Finger Pointing spoke up, casting a careful sidelong glance at her partner, Beholden. "We have spoken of the Ode, yes, of the two lines, but we should not omit those long-lived instances that were lost. I have lost one of my own up-trees. I have lost A Finger Curled."
 
@@ -488,13 +492,13 @@ At this, Beholden burst into tears, eventually rolling to the side to slip out o
 
 "Do we have enough information to ask about whether or not they'll be recoverable?" Cress asked. "Serene said we'd need some questions answered first."
 
-Dry Grass tilted her head thoughtfully. "None of my forks have reported any success along that front. Most, however, are still processing. When I asked Günay, she simply shrugged and said, "I do not know. Perhaps there is something that can be done sys-side, but best efforts were made in recovering lost data phys-side.""
+Dry Grass tilted her head thoughtfully. "None of my forks have reported any success along that front. Most, however, are still processing. When I asked Günay, she simply shrugged and said, "I do not know. Perhaps there is something that can be done with more hands sys-side, but best efforts were made in recovering lost data.""
 
 "Are any of your forks working on that, love?"
 
-"Working on recovery? Yes, I have an instance working on collating information on that topic. Need An Answer?"
+"Working on recovery? I have an instance working on collating information on that topic, but the data itself is inaccessible to me, if it exists at all. Need An Answer?"
 
-She nodded. "Several, yes, and from across the stanzas."
+She nodded. "Several of us are working on that, yes, and from across the stanzas."
 
 "*Yitgadal v'yitqadash sh'meh raba,*" one of the gathered, From Whence Do I Call Out, began to chant. "*B'alma di-vra chiruteh...*"
 
@@ -508,13 +512,13 @@ Dry Grass lowered her head as several of the other Odists joined. After a moment
 
 Cress's expression fell, and it wrapped its arms around her. "I'm sorry, I didn't know..."
 
-"I did not say," Dry Grass said, shrugging. "We will talk later, my love. More of me remain at home, too."
+"I did not say," Dry Grass said, shrugging. Whatever confidence she had been leaning on before was gone. She looked to be struggling to hold herself together. "We will talk later, my love. More of me remain at home, too."
 
-We all took turns ensuring that she got a hug from each of us, then stepped away, this time to the pagoda that I had discovered earlier that day before sleeping.
+We all took turns, ensuring that she got a hug from each of us, then stepped away, this time to the pagoda that I had discovered earlier that day before sleeping.
 
 As we stepped into that foggy morning on the close-shorn grass, the sound of a clanking bell or two from the direction of the sheep, we all let out a pent-up breath together. I wasn't quite sure what the breath represented for each of us. Even in myself, I couldn't tell if it was a sigh of resignation, of exhaustion, or of the simple sensation of being just by ourselves again, just those of our clade.
 
-Oh, well, there was an idea.
+Oh. Well, there was an idea.
 
 *"Hey Lily? Want to meet up and talk with the rest of us?"*
 
@@ -526,7 +530,7 @@ Another long pause, and then a sense of a nod.
 
 A few moments after I sent her the address of the sim, she popped into being beside me. Her expression was flat and motions stiff as she walked with me to join the rest of the clade in the pagoda. Even as the rest of the Marshans greeted her, she simply nodded, saying nothing.
 
-If I'd been expecting us all to fall into conversation, I was disappointed. However, there was relief when we fell back into silence, each thinking our thoughts, looking out over the pasture at the fog and the shadows of sheep. The only sounds were those of the sim — a hint of mist further out on the grass, another tinkle or two of a bell — and my own breathing.
+If I'd been expecting us all to jump into conversation, I was disappointed. However, there was still relief when we fell back into silence, each thinking our thoughts, looking out over the pasture at the fog and the shadows of sheep. The only sounds were those of the sim — a hint of rain further out on the grass, another tinkle or two of a bell — and my own breathing.
 
 Once more, questions bubbled up within me. What could I possibly do in the face of such enormity? How could 48 billion people just disappear? What was Phys-side doing about all of this other than hiding the details they doubtless had? More 'how could I's dogging my heels — how could I be sitting here in silence? How could I have stepped away from Dry Grass, the one person I knew who was working hardest on this? How could I not have looped Lily into this whole conversation?
 
@@ -554,7 +558,7 @@ Silence and headshakes around the pagoda. The contraproprioceptive virus — the
 
 "Well, if this...attack or whatever was deliberate and we don't know anything about *how* it was done, do we know anything about who might have done it?"
 
-Sedge leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "There's always been a bunch of people who hate uploading. Sometimes it's because they feel like we've abandoned Earth, sometimes it's because everyone makes out Lagrange like some sort of heaven while Earth is still kind of hellish. Even after all the work they've gotten done using the Artemisians' information, even with a lot of the climate shit either halted or actively starting to get better, Earth has hardly gone back to what it was like back before the industrial revolution or whatever."
+Sedge leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "There's always been a bunch of people who hate uploading. Sometimes it's because they feel like we've abandoned Earth, sometimes it's because everyone makes Lagrange out like some sort of heaven while Earth is still kind of hellish. Even after all the work they've gotten done in the last fifty years, even with a lot of the climate shit either halted or actively starting to improve, Earth has hardly gone back to what it was like back before the industrial revolution or whatever."
 
 "Yeah, but hate it enough to destroy it? Kill billions and billions of people?"
 
@@ -572,7 +576,7 @@ She nodded slowly. "Odists, then? Dry Grass and her clade?"
 
 Ve hesitated, looked to me.
 
-"Yeah, Dry Grass met with us because she's back to working as a sys-side engineer."
+"Yeah, Dry Grass met with us because she's back to working as a systech."
 
 "Alright," Lily said, shoulders sagging. "I'm sorry I'm having a hard time letting go of that, but I'm not exactly disappointed that you're all close with someone who knows about all of this."
 
@@ -580,7 +584,7 @@ Ve hesitated, looked to me.
 
 "I get that. Did she have anything else to say about Marsh? Like...that's why we're all coming together, isn't it?"
 
-"Just that phys-side said they weren't able to recover anyone beyond whoever's still alive now, and that there might be something sys-side could try, but she didn't exactly sound hopeful."
+"Just that phys-side said they weren't able to recover anyone beyond whoever's still alive now, and that there might be something to try now that we're back, but she didn't exactly sound hopeful."
 
 "Hopeful," she mused.