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[TOC]

Welcome welcome! Thank you for your interest in potentially contributing to the as-yet untitled anthology of short stories set in the Post-Self world. This page will host all the information you might need --- and if something's not on here, feel free to ping me and I'll update it.

The basics

We've made it past 2115 without completely annihilating ourselves, and somehow figured out how to upload our consciousnesses to a centralized system. This elective procedure is subsidized by many world governments under various explanations, so the system winds up as something of a dumping ground for the poor, those who wish for functional immortality, and the starry-eyed dreamers who always hope for a better life.

Within this system, individuals can create copies of themselves (called 'instances') in a process called forking. These instances are complete copies with all the free will in the world, meaning that they diverge further and further from their 'down-tree' instance over time. They can quit at will, however, and their memories will be available to the down-tree instance to merge with their own.

There are currently four books in this setting comprising the Post-Self Cycle, the fourth of which, Mitzvot was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. One of the stretch goals for the campaign was to fund an anthology of works from various authors set within the Post-Self universe. The rate will be 8¢/word with a $250 max (that is, you'll be paid that rate for the first 3125 words, though you can feel free to write beyond that to a limit of 10k; the realities of me paying for this out of my own pocket~). I'm asking for first publication rights, so no prior publications, and inform me if your piece is accepted elsewhere.

Some notes:

Since this is being passed around mostly within furry circles at the start, please note that this is not a furry setting. However! That does not mean no anthropomorphic animals, just that they will, by virtue of the setting, be furries qua the furry fandom/therians/etc. They will have been humans prior to uploading, is what I'm trying to say.
If you'd like to use any characters from the books (e.g: anyone from the Ode clade), ask and we can work that out.
Organization is primarily taking place in a Telegram group, so ping me for the link if you'd like to join. It's not required, though. If you need to get a hold of me elsewhere I have a page for that.
Submissions to submissions@clade.id

What follows is detailed information on the setting and existing works.

Timeline

2112 --- December 7: RJ Brewster gets lost, triggering a cascade of events leading to a deeper investigation into the lost.
2115 --- February ??: The first partially successful upload leads to a breakthrough and, shortly after, the foundation of the System.
2117 --- ???: Michelle Hadje and Debarre pool their money to upload.
2124 --- January 1: Systime set at year zero, day zero.
2125 --- January 21: The System secedes from the planetary governments on Earth.
2170 --- Throughout the year: Most planetary governments begin compensating the families of those who choose to upload.
2238 --- July 28: Ioan Bălan uploads to use the compensation to help eir brother out after eir parents' death.
2305 --- November 8: Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled of the Ode clade contacts Ioan Bălan for assistance with a project that leads to the publication of On the Perils of Memory.
2325 --- January 21: The launch project concludes with the launch of the Castor and Pollux Launch vehicles.
2326 --- October 30: The Bălan clade publishes An Expanded History of Our World In conjunction with May Then My Name Die With Me of the Ode clade's An Expanded Mythology of Our World, collected together as On the Origins of Our World.
2346 --- May 28: The Artemisians make contact with the Castor launch.
2350 --- January 21: Assassination attempt on The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream.

Immersive tech

Beginning in the late 2100s, immersive computing technology began to become commonplace. The mechanism by which one enters the 'net is a set of implants taking the form of metallic contacts on the middle carpals of the fingers, near-field pads beneath the skin of the forehead, interferites --- microscopic neural blockers that prevent one from acting out in reality what happens when delved in --- and an implant along the spine starting at the fifth cervical vertebra and running down to the bottom of the thoracic vertebrae. The exocortex contains much of the technology that actually controls the experience of interacting with the sim.

The net is comprised of simulated areas, or sims, where one can interact with objects and other people. Online, one is perceived through an avatar, or av, which can be whatever shape one chooses. These can be made, customized, purchased, and sold.

It's like VR, only actually good.

A new take on sims are fully immersive sims, wherein one becomes something more abstract than an avatar, such as an entire room, where moving means controlling lights or sound, and sensations can be those of microphones or any other sensor one might like.

Earth

Sometimes referred to as 'phys-side', Earth continues to tick along.

Early 2100s

At this point, the governments of earth are divided into two large political units comprised of smaller countries. The two largest players are the Western Federation (WF) and the Sino-Russian Bloc (S-R Bloc), but others include the North-East African Coalition (NEAC), and Southeast Asia/Pacifica (SEAPAC). Many countries still remain independent, with Israel being a notable example.

The previous century is described as troublesome, and there's a marked decline in population, with global population hovering at around 7 billion. The climate has suffered greatly, but things are still habitable.

Around 2170

While the climate has continued to suffer somewhat, income inequality has continued to increase and, under the guise of helping poorer families out, several governments have started to incentivize uploading, though in reality it comes across as thinly-veiled eugenics. This is largely due to influence sys-side by members of the Ode and Jonas clades, notably due to the work of Do I Know God After The End Waking

Early 2300s

Earth is described as a 'shithole'. Global warming has proceeded to the pace where much of the population below a certain latitude lives below-ground, though many have simply moved towards the poles. Air quality is...not great, and many spend as much time as possible on the 'net in sims, with children getting implants at around 5 years old, though the minimum upload age remains 18.

The System

Created in the early 2100s, the System (a vague name to keep the original project secret, though one which stuck around) allows for uploaded consciousnesses to live functionally immortal lives.

Uploading

Uploading is a one-way, destructive process. The body dies while the consciousness continues within the System. There is a small chance of failure (around 1% as of 2130, <0.5% as of 2140, <0.25% as of 2150, <0.001% as of 2200).

Consciousnesses are uploaded to the system at the L₅ point via the Ansible, a networked series of upload centers with a direct radio connection to the System itself. By the 2300s, this is largely automated and consists of signing a form and hitting a button.

Once uploaded, individuals are greeted by volunteers (later automated) to orient them to the concepts of creating clothing, simple objects, moving between sims, sensorium messages, and forking. Early uploads tend to live communally in larger sims, and many remain there, while the rest tend to flock towards smaller communities of like-minded individuals.

Forking

Introduced almost by accident, the concept of forking allows one to create a new instance of oneself. This copy is completely identical, but as soon as they're created and their experiences begin to differ, that instance starts to undergo the process of individuation. They form their own memories, and their experience of the world is colored by those memories.

An instance may quit. When they do so, their memories are provided to their down-tree instance to remember or not in a process called merging. A merge may be wholesale (sometimes described as blithe) or cherrypicked, wherein the down-tree instance is able to choose some of the memories but not others in a labor-intensive process.

The greater the individuation between and up- and down-tree instance, the greater the chance for conflicts. These occur when memories don't line up --- that is, the experiences may be of the same event, but the conclusions drawn from the event may be different. As time goes on, individuation will affect the entire personality of an individual, as personality is built in part atop memories. Cocladists who have diverged by decades or centuries may find such merges incredibly difficult.

The root instance of an individual will find it very difficult to quit as, to quote May Then My Name Die With Me of the Ode clade, "the System is not built for death". This applies to their up-tree instances as well; it is easier to quit the shorter one has been around or if a newer up-tree instance exists (for instance, if Jace Doe#Tracker forks into Jace Doe#1234abc, #Tracker may quit easily right away, though it will get steadily more difficult as #1234abc individuates; similarly, if #1234abc forks into Jace Doe#5678def and #5678def individuates long enough, #1234abc will find it difficult to quit).

Clades and dissolution strategies

Groups of instances forked from a single individual are known as clades. Although these are all highly unique, the oh-so-human need to bucketize the world into useful categories has led to three general strategies:

Taskers: Taskers fork infrequently and only ever for short-lived tasks, choosing to remain primarily a clade of one. Example: Tycho Brahe (from Nevi'im) is a tasker who forks so rarely he has a lot of trouble even managing it. Merging back down to his #Core proves difficult.
Trackers: Relying more heavily on forks to accomplish tasks, trackers may keep instances around for months or years, and sometimes more than one at a time. However, these instances tend to retain a strong sense of identity with their root instance and will almost always merge back down. Example: Ioan Bălan, as a tracker, forks quite often for eir work, but those forks tend to be associated with projects and, on completion, will merge back down into eir #Tracker instance (with a few notable exceptions: Codrin Bălan individuated enough to become eir own person, and Sorina Bălan forced her own individuation to leave memories behind as best she could).
Dispersionistas: Dispersionistas don't give a fuck. They fork at need and those forks may quit, may retain some sense of their identity, or may individuate and become their own individuals down the line. Example: Michelle Hadje founded the Ode clade, which nominally has 100 members, but they're not super strict about it and many have long-lived instances they don't really talk about.

Clades can form quasi-familial units or not even really talk to each other; it's really up to the individual. There's a mild taboo against relationships between cocladists, though the greater they have differentiated, the less that seems to be an issue.

Sims

Locations in the System are known as sims, an artifact from the pre-System 'net days. Sims may be public or private. Public sims are usually open to anyone and can be accessed by querying the perisystem architecture for their tags (e.g: Josephine's#aaca9bb9).

Private sims are generally owned by a single individual, clade, or family. These sims generally have much more restrictive ACLs (from 'access control lists', but now generally used to refer to fine-grained permissions) which can limit who may enter, whether or not the location is visible to others, who in the sim may create new objects, modify boundaries, and so on. The owners have full ACLs, including the ability to grant others owner status and rescind their own (though every sim must have at least one owner).

Reputation market

Although by the 2200s the System mostly exists as a post-scarcity society (or non-society, as it is not at all unified), a market was put into place early on when capacity was at a premium. This market worked on reputation (marked Ŕ) which was gained via recognition. Appreciation of someone or the works they produce increases their reputation, which can then be spent on various things such as forking (which only costs a nominal amount by 2250), creating sims, seeking information from individuals, and so on.

With technological advancements increasing System capacity exponentially, the reputation market shifted in purpose early in the 2200s to be a place for sharing information between individuals, with one gaining reputation by way of producing content and spending it by requesting content from others, though rarely is anything expensive enough to worry about.

Perisystem architecture

The perisystem architecture is the conceptual foam of computer-stuff in which individuals reside and items such as sims, food, very nice fountain pens, and very fine paper exist. However, it also contains large amounts of information in the form of books, the reputation market, and various information feeds.

Some maintenance of the perisystem architecture is required, usually by engineers both sys-side and phys-side. In the instance of the two launch vehicles, for instance, PA engineers managed the DMZ later called Convergence

Other notes

Children: Not a thing, sorry.
Pets: While there is no uploading of pets, many common animals can be created.
Communication between sys-side and phys-side: Communication between the two levels of existence was limited to text-only until A/V communication was unveiled in 2350 based on information gained from the Artemisians.

The Launch

(Todo)

Artemis

In 2346, first contact was made with a similarly uploaded society --- set of four societies, actually --- traveling on a ship not dissimilar from the Castor and Pollux launch vehicles.

(Todo)

Any other questions? Feel free to ask!

Q&A

Will it contradict anything to assume that a neurodivergent person remains neurodivergent after they upload?: Oh goodness, no, nothing is changed. Neurodivergences remain. There are changes that one could make but they aren't required (and, as they require quite a bit of forking to do, don't tend to be done by those who are less comfortable forking)
I am curious as to who manages the system that everyone uploads into and how they manage all this.: The Sino-Russian Bloc started it as a way to one-up the Western Federation, so it was run by them for about ten years, but after the population exploded, they seceded in 2125. After that, it was maintained by a loose organization of private and public companies, depending on the nation, which maintained their own upload clinics and licensed access to the Ansible. The physical infrastructure is part of a station at the Earth-Moon L5 point, which started as a luxury experience and then went private.
Hmm... the servers that The System is running on have a physical location or locations, right? Where is that?: Prior to 2125, Siberia. After 2125, in orbit around Earth at the Earth-Moon L5 point. https://toledot.post-self.ink/read/4/ for the initial description, let me know if you need more. Oh, er, and post 2325, two smaller systems leaving the solar system at ridiculous speeds in opposite directions. those are additional systems, only accessible in the days leading up to the launch. Both start out identical and then diverge from there. Lagrange (the system that remains) is there as always. But after launch, there's no way into Castor and Pollux.

The Post-Self Cycle

If you'd like a better sense of the types of stories taking place in this setting, there's like half a million words of canon you can lean on. All four books are available to interested authors as an epub. I trust you not to share. This also includes Mitzvot which isn't out until January 21, 2023, so...congrats on the advance copy, I guess!

If you don't want to read half a million words, here's a few thousand words of synopsis for all four books.

Qoheleth

“All artists search. I search for stories, in this post-self age. What happens when you can no longer call yourself an individual, when you have split your sense of self among several instances? How do you react? Do you withdraw into yourself, become a hermit? Do you expand until you lose all sense of identity? Do you fragment? Do you go about it deliberately, or do you let nature and chance take their course?”

With immersive technology at its peak, it’s all too easy to get lost. When RJ loses emself in that virtual world, not only must ey find eir way out, but find all the answers ey can along the way.

And, nearly a century on, society still struggles with the ramifications of those answers.

Features the bonus novella Gallery Exhibition: A Love Story.

RJ Brewster is a sound technician for a theater and pioneer of a type of virtual reality that involves integration with a system in a non-human fashion - when ey works sound for the theater, ey is essentially the room. When not working, ey spends much of eir time online with friends, also in VR, where ey is a genderless fennec fox. Recently, Cicero, one of eir friend group has 'gotten lost': while he was interacting with the VR system, the system crashed and, even when removed from it, he was left still 'inside', with no way to remove him. RJ (AwDae when online, due to the limitations of a canine muzzle on pronouncing letters), eir best friend and ex Sasha (a skunk), and Cicero's partner Debarre (a weasel) have been trying to figure out what they can about Cicero's circumstances and how he can be rescued. After digging into the research, RJ emself gets lost during that night's rehearsal at the theater.

Dr Carter Ramirez is a scientist at the University College of London working on studying the lost. She is head of the research team and focuses specifically on the statistical, psychological, and data science side of the research. Her coworker, Dr Sanders, leads up the neuroscience side of research. When RJ gets lost, Sanders mentions that 'another furry' has gotten lost, and Dr Ramirez gets a hunch that there might be some social vector to the lost. When she starts investigating along those lines, however, she meets strange amounts of pushback from both Sanders and the grantors funding the research. She pushes on with a reduced team of Avery, a nonbinary statistician, and Prakash Das, a neuroscientist. Avery discovers that RJ's case may be unique in that eir marketing trail has been influenced by eir nonbinary gender as well as eir aromanticism, meaning that ey is both easy to track and unique in eir social circles.

Nearly two hundred years in the future, Ioan Bălan, an historian living as an upload in a computer system, is contacted by an enigmatic fennec fox named Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled, who is looking to hire em as an amanuensis, someone to help both investigate and to witness the investigation into a problem that its "clade", the Ode clade, is running into. A clade is the set of individuals in the system forked from a common ancestor, with "forking" meaning that the individual makes a copy of themselves who is unique from that point on. Some unknown person has allegedly spilled a secret of some importance to the Ode clade, namely the name of the author of the Ode to the End of Death after which they are named, someone who died before uploading. While Ioan is initially skeptical of being used as a private investigator, ey quickly becomes interested in the strange intricacies of the Ode clade and the mystery itself, which primarily takes place as a playful puzzle using various forms of encryption set forth by someone who will only identify himself as Qoheleth.

When ey gets lost, RJ/AwDae awakes in eir old high school as a fox, rather than as eir human self. While there, ey struggles with the loneliness and maddening features of the 'sim' in which ey has found emself. Ey hunts around and eventually finds a set of clues related to Cicero's disappearance. After struggling with various aspects of the sim such as doors being locked, a 'fog of war' that keeps em from seeing more than a hundred or so feet while ey is outside, words in books refusing to stay still on the page, and nauseating 'skips' when ey travels through places ey has never seen before, ey deduces that ey is not actually in a sim as it exists in the waking world, but trapped in eir own mind with the VR technology (which takes the form of implants in eir hands, forehead, and a column along eir spine known as an 'exocortex') mirroring eir experiences back to em through the technology already in place. Notably, the information ey was exposed to before getting lost has been cached in eir exocortex, and ey has full access to it. Realising that ey are stuck in something more akin to a dream than a sim, ey begins treating it as such, molding the world to eir whim, all while eir sanity seems to erode from the effects of this setup.

The pressure against Carter continues to mount, and she eventually gets in touch with Johansson, the director of the Soho Theatre Troup where RJ worked. He agrees to help her and her to help him in turn. Meanwhile, Sasha gets in touch with Caitlin, the light tech with the STT, who provides her with some information, including the name and contact information for Carter. When she contacts Carter, however, Carter seems very spooked and will only meet up with a 'throwaway' account and location. Sasha questions why Carter is receiving so much push-back when her team has yet to publish any information on this new tack of investigation along the social vector, and Carter panics, deducing that there is a plant on the team, likely Sanders, who is passing information up to the grantors, who are mostly government types.

Carter, Sasha, and RJ independently deduce that there was an event in the recent past involving the Direct Democracy Representative (or DDR), a gamified system by which every citizen may vote and comment on legislation, a vote which has gone missing with many of those who did vote on it (and some who were investigating it such as RJ) getting lost. Carter and Avery are discussing the data showing this when, before their eyes, the data starts to change. Carter has Avery pull her from the system, an act which will cause the data that is cached in eir exo to be backed up as a 'core dump'. She goes for a walk to clear her head and gets several frantic messages from her team that security and the police have showed up and are looking for her. Prakash tells the police that he will go find Carter, and is revealed to be a spy for one of the other two superpowers in the world, the Sino-Russian Bloc (with much of Europe and the Americas being part of the Western Federation). He retrieves the core from Carter's exo and tells her to head to the University Medical Center where RJ is being kept, with the reasoning that if she were to run now, she would be seen as guilty of evasion, while if she goes to the UMC to see a patient who should be anonymous, she is merely guilty of an ethics violation.

In the future, Ioan and Dear have tracked down Qoheleth, the one who spilled the Name and find, to their surprise, that he is Life Breeds Life, But Death Must Now Be Chosen, another member of the Ode clade. Qoheleth wants to bring together the entirety of the Ode clade, which Dear struggles to do. When they finally manage to gather together, Qoheleth explains that the inability for uploads to forget is slowly driving everyone mad and that something needs to be done to change it. When he gets cocky and mentions that he said the Name to get the clade's attention, an analyst that one of the members brought with them runs up and assassinates him. It turns out that part of the clade, known as the conservatives, simply wants to keep their secrets and does not care for any new information.

Carter makes it to the UMC and, taking a risk, logs in to meet up with Sasha and Debarre to pass on what has happened at her work and what she knows of RJ. Part way through explaining what is happening, Sasha falls over in pain and then her system crashes, and Carter and Debarre deduce that she has gotten lost as well and both log out immediately. When Carter goes to visit RJ, she finds both the police and Johansson and Caitlin there already. Johansson distracts the police while Carter sets up a 'mirror rig' with RJ, a training device for those who are learning to use their implants which allows an instructor to help control RJ, acting on a hunch from seeing Sasha disappear. She logs into the mirror rig with RJ and finds herself in a confusing, dreamlike place with AwDae at the center of it all, spouting lines from a poem that we now recognize as the Ode. Carter struggles to convince em to come with her, and eventually succeeds. She immediately dives back in and publishes via the DDR what she has learned as well as how to free the lost.

Debarre frees Sasha, finding that she is similarly affected by the mirroring experience, though to a lesser extent than RJ. All of those who were lost are forever changed, and few for the better. Cicero finds it to be too much and kills himself. Shortly after his funeral, Sasha receives a letter from RJ mentioning that ey must go back to that mirror world and has volunteered to be an early subject for uploading tech that will lead to the world Ioan and Dear inhabit, a process that will kill eir body and, unless everything goes right, ey will not be able to see her again. The letter includes the entirety of the Ode, and we learn that Sasha is Michelle Hadje, the basis for the common ancestor of the Ode clade. Sanders winds up in prison along with several who instigated the plot to remove that vote from the records. Prakash winds up back in the Sino-Russian Bloc (where, it is implied, RJ's procedure will take place). Ioan winds up eir job as amanuensis with Dear and begins to write up eir report/essay on the subject but, on a whim, contacts Dear and its partner to ask if ey might create a long-lived fork (eir first), Codrin Bălan, to work with them both on the project.

Toledot

"I am saying that you trust me — really trust me — and that life in the System is more subtle than I think you know. You let me into your dreams, my dear, and your dreams influence this place as much as, if not more than, your waking mind."

No longer bound to the physical, what lengths should one go to in a virtual world to ensure the continuity of one’s existence?

Secession. Launch. Two separations from two societies, two hundred years apart. And through it all, so many parallels run on so many levels that it can be dizzying just keeping up. The more Ioan and Codrin Bălan learn, the more it calls into question the motivations of even those they hold most dear.

In 2325, those who live on the System (sys-side) and those who still live back in the physical world (phys-side) complete a true collaboration for the first time in nearly two centuries. Scrounging together the lingering remnants of humanity's desire to explore outward, away from Earth, they launch two identical smaller versions of the System, Castor and Pollux, on a centuries or millennia long extrasolar voyage.

After the success of their project surrounding Qoheleth and the problems of an infallible memory, the Bălan clade, made up of Ioan Bălan and Codrin Bălan, has decided to undertake the task of documenting the history of the launch project. In the intervening years, Codrin has found emself in a polyamorous relationship with Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled of the Ode clade and its partner, and they are all incredibly gay for each other. Dear has convinced Codrin and its partner to invest entirely in the launch vehicles, or LVs, tickled by the idea of irreversibility and the fact that it will not remain on the original system parked at the Earth-Moon L₅ point. When interviewed by one of the Codrins, it states that the other reasons for it investing entirely in the launch are that it wants to feel missed by someone, and that eventually, it wants to die a real death.

Meanwhile, Ioan, working with one of Dear's cocladists, May Then My Name Die With Me, a very affectionate skunk, has decided to remain solely on the L₅ system, acting as a communication point, organizer, and editor of the history and mythology that ey and both Codrins are collecting.

Working on the phys-side, Douglas Hadje, a distant descendant of Michelle Hadje, the progenitor of the Ode clade, acts as phys-side launch coordinator, with May Then My Name being his sys-side counterpart. He has long been fascinated by the System, often thinking of how his great-great-etc aunt must still be inside, often wishing to contact her but never feeling brave enough. Michelle/Sasha, as the root instance of the Ode clade, had quit in 2306, however, after two centuries of dealing with a broken mind. After the launch and the decline of his duties, May Then My Name begins interviewing him for the phys-side perspective of the events surrounding the launch.

The night after the launch takes place, Ioan and May Then My Name decide that it might be worth tying the history of the launch with the early history of the secession of the System from the rest of human society, as the launch took place on the 200th anniversary of Secession Day.

A second thread of the story follows Yared Zerezghi as a phys-side Direct Democracy Representative (DDR) junkie campaigning on the forums and debate sims for a referendum on the individual rights of those who have uploaded to the system. Many view the uploads as something other or less than human, and, grumbling about the costs of maintaining the System, wish to put them to work. Further complicating this is the fact that those who upload still retain citizenship to their countries of origin, meaning that all works that they create are technically done so under the jurisdiction of that country. He is tapped by Councilor Yosef Demma of the Northeast African Coalition to help guide the discussion toward the idea of independence of the System, stating that, because there are basic differences in the culture of the System and any other culture on Earth, there is no way that they can be governed the same way. Yared, he explains, will receive suggestions from Councilor Demma's political analysts telling him how to steer the conversation.

Sys-side, Michelle Hadje/Sasha is a member of the Council of Eight, a group who seeks to guide but not govern the System, working primarily in the capacity of writing proposals for features and architecture changes. The rest of the council includes her friend Debarre, an Israeli Jew named Zeke, the son of a New Zealand politician named user11824, three interchangeable and unnamed political representatives from the Sino-Russian Bloc (who is currently hosting the System), and Jonas Anderson, an ex-politician from the Western Federation.

Michelle/Sasha still suffers from the lingering effects of getting lost decades prior, which is expressed much as her experience was at that time, with waves of her two personalities changing her form between anthropomorphic skunk and human, a very uncomfortable and distressing sensation. She asks the Council if she might spend the reputation required to fork off ten instances of herself to begin the Ode clade --- a name and structure which worries Debarre --- so that she can let them take her workload and she can take a vacation. The council agrees, so she forks off ten instances of herself. As she does so during those waves of form and fluctuating personality, each winds up with a different appearance and personality. Jonas tasks one of them, The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream, to help him in his work corresponding with Yared on the topic of individual rights.

Throughout the interviews that Ioan and Codrin conduct in 2325, they begin to learn about the structure and history of the launch project (now becoming the proper noun Launch to match the proper noun Secession). One instance of Dear tells Codrin that it will not tell em the entire story, and that if pressed, it will resent em and be too tempted to lie because the past is too complicated and bound up in shame. The Bălan clade's initial interview selections are scattershot, including a musician who is credited for finding a way to transmit sheet music back and forth between sys- and phys-side; an author (Joseph Rankin) who has invested entirely in the Launch with an outline for a book to write so that his editor back on the System can see how the two different versions of him begin to diverge, and an astronomer who calls himself Tycho Brahe who has invested entirely in the launch out of an impossible dream of seeing the stars: audio and visual transmissions between phys- and sys-side are impossible because they come through all garbled as they might in a dream, so he can't actually see the stars.

Despite these initial starts, they begin to notice patterns surrounding the time at which the families of uploads who remain phys-side are compensated as well as the "Dreamer Module", an instrument and radio package attached to each of the launch vehicles, used to Do Science™ as well as broadcast a nested signal for extraterrestrial life to pick up, a topic which encountered unexpected friction sys-side from the Ode and Jonas clades.

In 2124, picking up on the fact that he's being used by a NEAC politician to steer the System towards secession, Jonas and True Name discuss how they might use Yared to further their own ends, with it becoming increasingly clear that this particular Odist has wound up with much of Michelle/Sasha's political skills as well as more than a little cynicism and very little empathy. She meets with a few other Odists as she works with Jonas: That Which Lives Is Forever Praiseworthy, who begins to act as propagandist, helping True Name shape her image to be more effective; and Life Breeds Life But Death Must Now Be Chosen who is tasked with slowly modifying the collective unconscious's perception of both the Ode clade and the Council of Eight, which they plan to dissolve after Secession, so that the Odists and Jonases can continue their work of guiding the System toward increased stability and safety long into the future.

True Name is pleased to see how smoothly the topic of secession goes over with the Council of Eight, thanks to Praiseworthy's propagandizing. She meets with Debarre, who was initially put off by the choice of the Ode as a naming scheme and the desire to hide the name of the poet, RJ/AwDae, but his nerves are soothed. Debarre also meets with Michelle for much the same reason, finding her much diminished and unable to continue working, now that her clade has taken over her job. She explains that she's still struggling with survivor's guilt after AwDae sacrificed emself during the creation of the System, and while she's trying not to just live in grief, she does want to memorialize em.

After considering Rankin's plan to have each of his instances work independently, the Bălan clade decides to do the opposite and instead stay in touch for as long as they can (the further away the LVs get from the System, the longer the transmission times) to organize their interviewing effectively. To that end, one Codrin interviews Zeke, now calling himself Ezekiel and living much as his prophet namesake did, who explains more about how the Council of Eight was undermined by Jonas and True Name, guiding the Bălans to other Odists to interview.

One Codrin interviews the intensely charismatic Why Ask Questions Here At The End Of All Things who describes some of the ways in which the Ode clade and specifically True Name's stanza worked to manipulate politics on a large scale during both Secession and Launch, though the reader starts to pick up on the fact that some of what ey learns is not wholly true. The other Codrin talks with Dear about the mood surrounding Secession. Ioan interviews Do I Know God After The End Waking who was tasked to meddle with finances phys-side to encourage the shift from needing to pay to upload to being compensated, particularly that the first child should upload to fund the future of the subsequent children, as Ioan did. He now feels deep shame about having done so, though there are similar half-truths here.

Some of these grand-scale machinations are confirmed in interviews with others, such as when Douglas talks with Ioan and May Then My Name about various shifts that he's seen over the years and some of the sabotage attempts against the System as a whole and the Launch specifically. He and basically everyone else (including May Then My Name) can tell that Ioan has fallen in love with May Then My Name, and Douglas even asks them about it, but Ioan is too stuck up in his head to realize it, much less do anything about it. Ioan and Douglas hatch a plan for Douglas to finally upload, something that May Then My Name won't shut up about, on the one year anniversary of Launch so that he can surprise her. May Then My Name very carefully does not tell Douglas that she's a distant instance of Michelle/Sasha, wanting to keep that as her own surprise.

Yared introduces an amendment allowing the System to secede to the referendum on individual rights. Despite the consensus swinging largely in favor of rights, this amendment becomes hotly debated, leaving Yared feeling much of the parasocial effects of that: those who are in favor of the bill start to be in favor of him, and those who are staunchly against it begin to hate him specifically. Demma, True Name, and Jonas all do their best to ensure him that the chances of this failing are low and that, even though he may always be associated with this topic moving forward, he should still be proud of his work. Sure enough, the referendum passes with both the secession amendment and an amendment moving the physical elements of the System to the L₅ station (which begins as a luxury hotel) intact, all taking effect on January 21, 2125.

Demma brings Yared to a New Years Eve party with the politicians and business executives who were working toward Secession. In the car ride back to his home, Demma laughs at Yared, calling him a starry-eyed dreamer and revealing that his entire plan was just to get the System out of the way and out of Earth's ongoing political schemes so that they wouldn't remain associated with each other, since the System is just a dumping ground for dreamers. He suggests that Yared upload, since that's where he belongs, and since any further attempts to interact with the DDR will be monitored and, should he diverge from the party line, there will be reprisals, Yared feels no other choice but to upload, the last before Secession, leaving him anxious around any form of politics. He is met by True Name and brought to the Secession Day celebration.

Two hundred years later, Yared, along with Debarre and user11824, meet up with Dear, its partner, and Codrin for a dinner party. The three (four, if one counts Dear as being of Michelle/Sasha) former members of the Council of Eight talk about the dissolution of the Council and the ultimate cynicism of True Name and Jonas. Yared shares a story from the middle ages known as the "Toledot Yeshu" or Generations of Jesus which describes, in part, Paul as actually something of a tool of the Jewish leadership of the time, guiding the burgeoning new spirituality into a religion of its own rather than simply another sect of Judaism. Yared calls himself a tool of Paul, in the form of Demma, True Name, and Jonas.

The Bălans begin to interview a few instances of Jonas as well as True Name, finding out just how deep the manipulation goes. The two clades have strived to do all they can to maintain the stability and continuity of the System, including ensuring that life on Earth never gets too good so that the System is always seen as a better life, but not so bad as to make phys-side humanity give up entirely. In order to keep the stability from getting too boring, they have also been introducing small amounts of chaos into the life of the System so that they remain stable but not apathetic. These manipulations have all been subtle, from nudging a young Douglas Hadje toward becoming interested in the System and eventually becoming phys-side launch director due to the story element involved.

The launch itself, despite its public beginnings in 2306, has been in progress since 2290 as one of these ways of keeping life interesting. All of this has been run through a cost-benefit analysis, including even having the history/mythography written specifically by Ioan. Not only have all of their interviews been tracked and shaped, but in 2298, seven years before even getting involved in the Qoheleth affair, Ioan was tapped as the appropriate author for the project, with a suggestion that the Qoheleth affair might have been some form of test. The only thing that failed the cost-benefit analysis yet still made it into the launch project was the portion of the Dreamer Module which contains broadcast instructions to be read by extraterrestrial sources on how to build a human mind and sensorium, templated after Douglas Hadje, and upload it into the LV System. The concession there being that the uploads will be placed in a DMZ, cut off from the rest of the System.

The manipulation even makes its way down to the individual scale. The last act of Michelle/Sasha was to give each of the first lines of the ten stanzas (second in the case of Qoheleth) one last vague suggestion. This, it turns out, was influenced by True Name, and she doesn't deny manipulating Michelle/Sasha towards quitting through the long years.

After the final interview with True Name, Ioan confronts May Then My Name about her role in all of this, and she is revealed to be a failed experiment by True Name to influence individuals by being too likeable to resist. Where True Name was excessively cynical, however, May Then My Name became excessively empathetic and thus difficult to control, so all True Name could do is point her at someone and hope that the correct outcome occurred. Her most recent target was Ioan, and, given how ey feels about her now, True Name's mission was a success. Ioan says that ey believes May Then My Name is innocent of any conscious manipulation, stating that she simply as crazy in-laws. Ey finally realizes that, oh, yeah, they've actually kind of been dating for a few years now, ey was just too dense to realize it, so the relationship is formalized and May Then My Name makes fun of em for it. They are incredibly gay for each other.

As planned, Douglas uploads on the eve of the one year anniversary of Launch and is met by Ioan, who instructs him on how to work within the System, then brings him to Michelle/Sasha's sim, where he has a good cry. The next day, Ioan and May Then My Name come to the sim for a picnic. May Then My Name is shocked to see him, so she reveals that she is of Michelle/Sasha, which leaves Douglas feeling mixed and overwhelmed, so they have their picnic instead. With essentially no loose ends in his life, and seeing how one can still be happy in the system by how Ioan and May Then My Name interact, he feels more complete than he's ever felt before.

In an epilogue, the Dreamer Module on the Castor LV receives a transmission from an extraterrestrial craft of similar design confirming that they understand the instructions on how to upload, that they will be approaching relatively close, and await consent to upload. Tycho Brahe, the feels like he's the only one who seems to care about the Module, gives consent.

Nevi'im

“Do you know how old I am, Dr. Brahe? I am 222 years old, a fork of an individual who is…who would be 259 years old. I am no longer the True Name of 2124. Even remembering her feels like remembering an old friend. I remember her perfectly, and yet I do not remember how to be earnest. I do not know how to simply be."

The cracks are showing.

Someone picked up on the broadcast from the Dreamer Module and as the powers that be rush to organize a meeting between races, Dr. Tycho Brahe is caught up in a whirlwind of activity. And as always, when the drama goes down, there is Codrin Bălan to witness it.

When faced with eternity in a new kind of digital world, however, old traumas come to roost, and those who were once powerful are brought to their knees

Growth is colliding with memory, and the cracks are showing.

As a prologue in 2114, RJ Brewster meets with Dr. Carter Ramirez and Prakash Das, a spy for the Sino-Russian Bloc, for lunch. RJ has been having a very hard time re-acclimating to life after being lost. Ey has lost eir job due to fears around delving in, and eir cat has passed away. Ey considers Dr. Ramirez and Sasha eir only remaining friends. After lunch, Prakash catches up with RJ and offers to bring em in on a project to create a new embedded world with uploaded consciousnesses based around the information learned from the lost.

Part 1 --- Anticipation

In 2346, more than twenty years after the two smaller versions of the System, Castor and Pollux, were launched out of the solar system, someone has picked up on the signal transmitted by the "Dreamer Module", a part of the launch vehicles containing scientific instruments as well as some recordings as a way to possibly get in touch with extraterrestrial life on the journey.

Tycho Brahe, the astronomer on call (and one of Codrin Bălan's interviewees for the History), has received a message from a passing vehicle claiming that they are nearby and understand the mechanism by which consciousnesses may be transferred between ships, stating that they have similar and would like to meet. Tycho, without thinking, grants them consent to do so, and promptly freaks the fuck out.

Unsure of where to turn, ey contacts Codrin and visits em and eir partner, Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled, early in the morning, explaining what happened, that there will likely be alien visitors before long, and that it's all his fault. They talk him down from his panic and send him on his way back to his sim, an observatory of sorts.

Back at his sim, he meets up with The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream, who has, in the past, helped steer the direction of both the System and life on Earth through subtle political manipulation. Despite his anxiety, she's really quite nice to him and invites him to fork (creating Tycho#Artemis) and come work with her and Jonas Anderson on the project of first contact.

There, he meets one of True Name's cocladists, Why Ask Questions When The Answers Will Not Help. They share the next message that has arrived, offhandedly mentioning that they are now gating communication with the remote ship (which they have dubbed Artemis). The message contains a set of instructions for how better to align Castor to Artemis for transmission as well as for a space to create in order to have conversations in person. True Name explains that this will take place in the DMZ, an area that is inaccessible to the rest of the System except through a single, tightly controlled access point. The conversations will take place on both Castor and Artemis in similar spaces.

The Artemisians request to meet with a party of five: someone in a leadership role, someone who can act as a recorder/amanuensis, a scientist, and two representatives. They have put forth Turun Ka of firstrace as leader, Turun Ko of firstrace as recorder, Stolon of thirdrace as scientist, and Iska of secondrace and Artante Diria of fourthrace as representatives, implying that there are at least four different uploaded races aboard their craft. In return, they will send True Name as leader, Codrin Bălan as recorder, Tycho as scientist, and another of True Name's cocladists, Why Ask Questions Here At The End Of All Things as a representative, leaving the final representative up to Codrin to choose. Until then, Tycho#Artemis works with Sovanna Soun and Dr. Paolo Verda on the technical side of setting up the meetings, as well as learning some of the Artemisian language that they have provided.

Codrin, meanwhile, discusses some fears with Dear, stating that ey feels like ey's lacking agency, always getting dragged along into these enormous events. They're fun and all, but ey's starting to feel like ey isn't actually doing anything worthwhile. Ey is nothing if not a recorder, though, so ey visits with Tycho's root instance to describe what all will likely happen during this meeting. Back at home, ey discusses the request from True Name with eir partners, and Dear's partner suggests Sarah Genet, their therapist before they uploaded, as someone who is normal, curious, and a grounded.

The team of emissaries (plus Dear) meet up at Tycho's dark-sky sim for dinner, where they discuss their hopes and fears surrounding this summit. They also learn just how under control the situation is by True Name and Jonas, with the announcement of the arrival of Artemis being tightly planned and shaped by the Odists. After, Tycho has a dream about meeting the Artemisians, which leads to sending them a series of questions surrounding their society and lives.

They learn that the Artemisians do not have anything analogous to forking, but instead allow for fine-grained management of time; individuals or groups can move faster or slower than the rest of the world around them, allowing them to get more work done in fast-time or to wait out long periods in slow-time. The Odists (especially Dear) react poorly to this, explaining that it is similar to the experiences they had while lost.

In the twenty years since launch, Castor has made it seven light-days away from Lagrange (the home System), so it isn't until seven days later that Ioan Bălan and May Then My Name Die With Me receive news of first contact, as well as Codrin's thoughts on eir lack of agency. In the interim, they have moved on from their lives as historian and launch coordinator to both start working in theatre under the direction of another Odist, Time Is a Finger Pointing At Itself, with Ioan now writing plays.

They are contacted by the version of True Name that has remained on Lagrange. In the intervening years, May Then My Name has grown to truly hate her down-tree instance, feeling that the way she was manipulated was unfair, and the way she was used to manipulate others rather evil. There is a tense conversation about what knowledge they've received about the Artemisians versus what knowledge True Name has received, as well as all of the ways both True Name and May Then My Name have changed, with the former noticeably more cowed and anxious than she had been twenty years prior. She asks that they not share the information beyond a limited circle until a wider, more controlled announcement can be made. May Then My Name makes her cry and kicks her out of her and Ioan's house.

Tycho watches the news disseminate and how it's being shaped by Odists such as True Name, Why Ask Questions, and Answers Will Not Help. They work out a date to begin the conversation once they are in effective Ansible range with Artemis and discuss what to expect, including the fact that they may not have enough in common with the Artemisians to actually understand them. It's decided between the two parties that the discussions on Castor will surround sharing scientific knowledge and those on Artemis will surround history, society, and psychology.

Part 2 --- Experience

The talks begin on both Artemis and Castor. On Artemis, Codrin arrives already 'skewed up' to fast-time, allowing em to see the Artemisians even as they others appear almost frozen at a much slower time scale. There are indeed four types of Artemisians: firstrace, which was described as post-biological, appear to be synthetic constructions that are equally comfortable on two or four legs with six-fingered hands and feet with two opposable thumbs and a thick tail for balance, analogous to a kangaroo. Secondrace is described as looking so close to a weasel that it would be easy to mistake them for Debarre, were it not for how short they are. Thirdrace looks something like a very colorful lizard with scales that shine like an oil slick and a frill of feathers or elongated scales around the crown of their heads. Fourthrace appears almost human, though with their features much smoothed.

Turun Ko, the other recorder, skews up to fast-time to talk with Codrin, where they discuss how, most of the time, people live in 'common time' and shows em how to manipulate time to eir liking. The two Odists are indeed already suffering; Why Ask Questions has collapsed onto the pavement, shifting wildly between human and skunk forms just as Michelle Hadje had, and True Name is using all the energy she has to stay in one form. They are taken to a 'unison room' where time is pinned in place for all occupants while the other three emissaries are taken to their rest area. There, Tycho confides in Codrin that he doesn't think that that was Why Ask Questions but rather Answers Will Not Help.

Back on Castor, greetings go much more smoothly, and the talks begin with a series of questions. Tycho and Stolon, the scientists, hit it off immediately and they have to be reminded several times that this is not simply an astronomy conference. Sarah and Artante also discover that they are both psychologists and share a lot in common.

On Lagrange, May has wound up 'overwhelmed', an experience similar to that which is described as Dear having, where emotions get the best of her and she has to spend time alone in order to bring herself back to baseline. When she is able to do so, she meets up with Ioan and Douglas at Michelle's old field. There, she explains that this episode lasted longer than usual because, toward the end, she was contacted by If I Am To Bathe In Dreams, who has been acting as the Odists' therapist, to meet up with another stanza's worth of Odists, as the first line, May One Day Death Itself Not Die quits without leaving a fork, followed shortly by her up-tree instance, I Do Not Know, I Do Not Know. With Qoheleth gone, this leaves only 97 Odists left. Ioan and Douglas express their concerns that the cracks are starting to show in more of the clade as more of them go mad. Once back home, Ioan and May are intensely gay with each other and totally in love and it's really cute. Also, they discuss the option of the Odists leaning on Sarah Genet as a therapist to help them not all succumb to madness.

Codrin#Castor and Codrin#Artemis exchange notes at the end of the first day, relying on another fork, Codrin#Assist, who ferries them between the DMZ and the rest of Castor where ey can transmit them to Artemis. They describe the first day and what they've learned, including the troubles that True Name and "Why Ask Questions" are experiencing on Artemis, though Codrin#Artemis hints at the fact that there might have been a swap with Answers Will Not Help.

The discussions run into a few problems with mutual misunderstandings, and there is some frustration over the fact that the Artemisians often say "now is not the time to have this conversation" when certain topics are brought up. They power through it, though, and are able to learn some good information from each other, both directly from the conversations as well as from implications, such as the fact that, despite the Artemisians saying that there have been three of these 'convergences' before, they may have met more races than they are letting on, instances where there weren't convergences. True Name has a conversation with Turun Ka about how the Artemisians manage sentiment and steer politically, leading to some concern among the Artemisians. Tycho worries about her being so open about her own manipulations, suggesting that maybe she's losing it with the time skew.

Ioan and May go camping with Douglas, A Finger Pointing, and Do I Know God After The End Waking in the latter's forest sim, where they discuss what it felt like to go lost and how it has left them all a little bit mad. May explains why this business with time skew might bring up those old feelings and why Odists aren't likely to spend much time on Artemis or join, should that be the direction things go in. End Waking says that he would probably try to join anyway, while Douglas says that he's upset that he won't get the chance.

Ioan and Codrin#Pollux exchange letters --- since Pollux is seven days away from Lagrange, information from Castor arrives fourteen days late. Codrin#Pollux offers support to Codrin#Castor on taking control of eir life, explaining how ey took a position as a librarian at a university in the interim. Ey confides in Ioan, however, that ey is worried at how conservative Castor seems, with Dear, Codrin, and True Name all sounding much as they had twenty years prior, while Pollux has moved on: Dear has expanded the sim to include other terrain features, and its cocladist Serene, Sustained And Sustaining joined their polycule for a while, leading to two cocladists in a relationship with each other, something which is still considered taboo on Castor. They discuss how all three Systems have changed, with Lagrange being between Castor and Pollux in terms of conservative/liberal amounts of change.

Part 3 --- Intensity

True Name and Answers Will Not Help (as Codrin is now convinced she must be) are really struggling aboard Artemis now, with Answers Will Not Help the worse of the two. She often interrupts the meetings, spouting poetry and then apologizing that she cannot keep from speaking. Additionally, despite the talk taking place in a unison room, she is still somehow able to skew time a little (or unable to keep herself from doing so), which worries Iska, who is a time skew artist, analogous to Dear's instance artistry.

This comes to a head when Answers Will Not Help interrupts with a long, rambling tirade, the end of which includes her saying the Name, more helpless in her crazed state than intentionally, and admitting that she is not Why Ask Questions. True Name confronts her angrily, and when she says it again, the skunk tackles her and, after a short fight, Answers Will Not Help quits. The emissaries should not have been able to skew in the unison room, nor should they have been able to quit, so Iska freaks out and runs off to find a system technician. True Name, now a total mess, admits to the deception, but Turun Ka says that they had expected such, but that conversations around the topic will remain for another time.

While True Name rests, Codrin, Sarah, and Tycho meet up with Turun Ko, Artante Diria, and Stolon to discuss the fact that this whole time, the Artemisians have been following a checklist of steps that might occur during convergence with the goal of ensuring that everyone is safe and as happy as they can manage. The end steps would be either humanity joining them as fifthrace or parting on peaceable terms. Tycho admits that, given the chance, he'd join Artemis, given that he finally feels happy there.

Ioan meets up with True Name on Lagrange to ensure that, even if they aren't fond of each other, there's no enmity in the air between them, that they can be polite to each other. Ey mentions discussions from Castor wherein Dear suggests that "even she must have emotions", which makes True Name cry because of course she does, but she's built a life where she can't show them and no one would believe her. Ioan asks if she's been in touch with Sarah, but she says that no, In Dreams never passed that on, showing that the rest of the clade has all but dropped her.

May has kind of crashed after all these dramatic events going on, falling into a funk, though a more normal one. A trauma response in her is triggered when she starts an introductory session with Sarah and she has to step away, leaving Ioan to unintentionally have a therapy session with Sarah instead, which ey finds super useful. After, ey admits to her that ey's starting to feel a lot of sympathy for True Name, worrying about her.

On Castor, True Name admits to the deception that took place on Artemis (Why Ask Questions having only been replaced for that side of the talks), leading her and Turun Ka to have several conversations separate from the rest of the delegates. During one of these lulls, Codrin discusses the checklist with Sarah, Turun Ko, and Artante.When they admit that there are conversations that they cannot have yet, Codrin gets frustrated and asks if ey can just give them information without necessarily having a conversation. When they say yes, ey gives them a copy of the History that ey wrote around the time of Launch, even if it shows True Name's political machinations. Ey also provides a copy of May's Mythology, saying that the Artemisians deserve more than just the sugar-coated synopses of their society that they've received so far. As its clear that ey shouldn't have done so without True Name's blessing, Sarah objects, but Turun Ko says that this is actually the penultimate step on the checklist: the fact that they still retain individual desire to better all races even in the face of leadership disagreeing, and that the talks between Turun Ka and True Name have been artificial, meant mostly to give the other emissaries the chance to go behind her back.

On learning this on Artemis, the Artemisians wait for the final step in the checklist. When Tycho interrupts a talk to say that he wants to join them, and wants humanity to become fifthrace, the Artemisians welcome them as such, saying that the final step was simply a desire to join and an active decision to do so.

Part 4 --- Integration

After the talks and all of their instances have merged back down Tycho heads back to his sim to try and process what happened and is surprised when True Name joins him, saying that she doesn't know how to celebrate anymore, feeling that she isn't a whole person after two and a half centuries, much of that time spent focusing solely on politics. She suggests that eternal memory is clashing with the fact that she's still growing as a person, still changing.

Back at the prairie, Codrin and Sarah catch Dear and its partner up on the happenings in a general way before Codrin invites Dear out on a walk. There, ey explains that Answers Will Not Help said the Name and kept saying "I cannot feel em" throughout the conference, so now ey knows about AwDae. Dear laughs about it, saying that it's the end of the era. It says not to tell any other Odists of course, but that it will become a game between their two clades, because turning it into one will make sure that any other Odists, namely True Name, looking in on them will simply see them goofing off and not actually sharing it. They pass this information on down to Lagrange, telling May about the game and Ioan about the fact that Codrin knows. May explains that this is a way for Codrin to not bear the knowledge alone as well as a way to reduce any culpability between the two clades.

The DMZ is expanded and renamed Convergence, and the Ansible is turned on, allowing as many Artemisians who want to join them to do so, and any humans that want to join Artemis to do that as well. During a conversation with True Name, Tycho decides that he will invest totally in Artemis, leaving no forks behind.

Codrin also decides to send a fork along to Artemis, even though it means that the fork will be alone, since neither of eir partners will be joining. Ey rushes to ensure that the fork is an individual in case that helps, so the fork becomes a woman named Sorina. She's unable to bring herself to say goodbye to her (former) partners, so she leaves without doing so. When ey returns home to eir partners, ey describes what happened, then says that ey actually wants to do something and be proactive, suggesting that they move to Convergence, taking the whole prairie sim with them. Ey also says that ey's getting out of the amanuensis business and going into therapy, since everyone kept saying ey was grounding and ey finds Sarah fascinating.

In the end, Tycho invests fully after giving himself a eulogy at a small party of the emissaries and a few others who worked on the project. His last words are from a poem about his namesake: "Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." He transfers to Artemis where he meets Stolon and joyfully admits that it's finished.

As an epilogue, AwDae is shown going through the process of uploading, wherein the S-R Bloc scientists are shown still trying to create the System. Ey would be the only one, if it's successful, though no previous attempts have been enough to emulate an entire person, except for one other of the lost they tried with, but they were a bit too crazy and self-destructed as soon as they uploaded. When ey finally goes through the procedure, ey gives emself entirely to it and, though ey doesn't survive to exist as a person uploaded, the process of em giving emself so fully to it winds up creating the self-sustaining world that becomes the System, showing that, yes, the Odists really were feeling eir presence throughout the system the whole time, that ey was the origin of the System, and that they originally had to keep eir name secret because at first (though it diminishes later), everyone could feel that presence but didn't know who it was.

Mitzvot

“To be built to love is to be built to dissolve. It is to be built to unbecome. It is to have the sole purpose of falling apart all in the name of someone else."

Even the grandest of stories can feel small and immediate when it’s just one person’s life.

One of the most well-known names from one of the most well-known clades on the System, the avatar of political machinations and cool confidence, has been brought low. With help coming only from Ioan Bălan and the most grudging of support from her cocladists, all True Name has left to save herself is the ability to change.

Part 1 --- Conversation

It's late 2349, about about three and a half years since the fourth convergence, the meeting of the Artemesians with Castor. Life has taken a bit of a swing toward the adventuresome as news and new technology trickle their way back down to Lagrange, the original instance of the System in orbit around Earth. Technological changes include finer-grained ACLs that control permissions on various bits of the System, allowing for opaqued or visually secure cones of silence, limits on sensorium messages, etc.

During those three years, Ioan Bălan wonders how this has become eir life: ey has been getting coffee with The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream of the Ode clade once a month. While the relationship between True Name and...well, everyone has been kind of strained, it was particularly tense between her and Ioan's partner May Then My Name Die With Me of the Ode clade, who, for years, struggled with feelings of hatred towards True Name. Although that hatred has softened towards resentment, these monthly coffee dates, where Ioan and True Name just chat and then work on their own projects, have been meant to keep avenues open between the two, since neither May nor True Name have given up hope on figuring out a path forward. They always seem to talk about each other to Ioan, and it kind of feels like they want to move forward, but they can't yet find a way.

Oh, speaking of projects, Ioan is working on adapting eir book On the Perils of Memory (the story of Qoheleth) for the stage, True Name is prepping the System on the political side for the technological advancement that will allow audiovisual communication between the System and Earth instead of just text, and May is working on a monologue about being built to love.

Ioan and May are just incredibly gay together, and it's painfully sweet, but I promise it's a legit plot element. They talk about how May forms and keeps relationships, that she only forms relationships as her root instance, and if a new one starts up while one is still going, only then will she fork to continue two relationships. Sorta like parallel monogamy. Ioan is her sixteenth relationship serious enough to warrant a fork (though, given the way she stepped back from True Name's guidance, she hasn't done so yet), and we learn that some of her forks are doubtless still in relationships, but that she lets them live their own private lives and never accepts merges when they quit, so she knows very little about them.

Meanwhile, after a windstorm blew a tree over and crushed his tent and impaled his leg on a branch, Do I Know God After The End Waking has interrupted his months of solitude and called his boyfriend Debarre back to help him rebuild the tent in a new location. They're also pretty gay, but, like, in a super stoic way because E.W. can't emote and Debarre is a weasel and thus made of angst. May stops by their sim to visit and a) complain about the fact that True Name is in eir life, b) fret about why this still feels important, and c) flirt with Debarre (who is Very Gay™) to make him uncomfortable.

Ioan heads out to Arrowhead Lake --- the abandoned mountain lake sim that ey discovered decades back --- for a walk to try and tease apart eir own feelings on being the bridge between May and True Name. Ey worries that ey has this urge to fix things in relationships, whether or not ey actually can (or whether or not those involved even want that). Ey's been fretting about this for a while, and even May has picked up on it, as she mentions when they go out to dinner afterwards. She suggests that this is maybe something that has always been the case for em, and that em uploading to provide eir brother Rareș with the subsidy funds was a way for em to 'fix' the situation as best ey could.

True Name and Ioan have agreed that their next monthly meeting should be on Secession/Launch day, January 21 (yes I chose my birthday, no I am not sorry). This time, though, True Name arrives looking terrible, paranoid, like she hasn't slept in days, hasn't showered in a week, and hasn't changed her clothes in even longer. She says that she's been struggling, but that she and Jonas Anderson, the other behind-the-scenes leader of the System, have a 'gathering' later in the day. Weird choice of words, but that's what he said. As part of that, she's distracted with the fact that her instances are going to merge down before the gathering to reduce conflicts. Partway through this, one merge has learned that Jonas is looking for her, which is weird, because he knows she's with Ioan. The merges suddenly stop, though, along with all communication with her instances. She leaps to her feet, looks around the coffee shop, and sees the same assassin that killed Qoheleth walking toward them, so she grabs Ioan's hand and yells for em to take her 'somewhere, anywhere'. Ey tries taking her home, where they find the same assassin struggling with May, who forks, grabs the both of them, and yanks them to Arrowhead Lake. May is furious, and True Name caught in the middle of panic attack. She susses out that Jonas just tried to assassinate her.

Part 2 --- Conflict

Well, shit, okay. Now May and the person she dislikes the most are trapped in hiding together with no idea what's going on or how to move forward, and Ioan's position as bridge between them means ey's now trapped between them. True Name heads off to sit on the rock at the end of the lake to have a sulk and think about what to do next, leaving May to voice her frustrations and concerns to Ioan. She's pissed that no matter how hard she tries to get away from all of the things she dislikes about True Name (and, unspokenly, many of the things that she used to be), she just can't. She's also worried about the fact that their home has been invaded.

Thankfully, this is a thing that Ioan can fix. Ey steps back home and sneaks around, investigating for anyone left over but only finding the mess from the struggle inside. Outside, however, ey finds Jonas sitting on a deck chair despite the snowy weather. Before ey can sweep him, Jonas says that he was just stopping by to make sure that ey and May were alright, which Ioan scoffs at. Jonas is an infuriating little snot, riling Ioan up with implications that ey's sweet on True Name before saying that he's hiring em as amanuensis once more, this time to witness and write about a formal discussion between him and True Name as they hash out the new status quo, to take place within one year's time. Ioan's baffled, given that he just tried to kill her, but Jonas says that was just plan A, and he has all the way down to plan M for ensuring that he gets his way and refuses to elaborate further, saying "Sometimes mommies and daddies fight, Ioan". He makes further implications about em an True Name, so Ioan bounces him from the sim. Ey sweeps the entire sim of everyone except emself and, while that action won't tell em who ey swept, it will tell em how many, and it says ey swept 17.

Once ey makes eir way back to the lake, True Name finishes her sulk and rejoins them. She thanks them for getting her out of that alive and starts to say that she'll have to create a new sim for herself since home probably isn't safe, but May reluctantly suggests that she stay with them, instead, reasoning that it would be too easy for her to just disappear in a private sim and either get got as soon as she leaves or go crazy in her solitude. If she stays with them, though, not only is she around others, but those others are well enough known on the System that it'll dissuade Jonas from attacking her, lest May and Ioan, as trustworthy voices, catch him and make it public. It's awkward, but about the best they can do. Still, no one's comfortable going back just yet, so Ioan forks to meet up with End Waking and pick up camping gear so they can stay a night at the lake and have a night to regroup. End Waking and Debarre are supremely unhappy about the situation, and also kind of boggling at the fact that May is even putting up with True Name.

While camping, True Name apologizes for the fact that she's been spying on them, as those seventeen that were swept were some of her spies, mostly others from the clade. Combined with a hunch ey had during one of their earlier coffee dates, this seems to imply that True Name on Castor never told True Name on Lagrange about the whole incident of Answers Will Not Help losing it and saying the Name in front of Codrin, showing that maybe Jonas's conspiracy includes the other instances of True Name as well, and it's only this one he's going after.

Once they make it back home and get some coffee, Ioan expands eir house to include a second bedroom/bathroom for True Name to stay in. The next few days are very careful, though everyone's polite and there's no skunkfights. On the third day, though, True Name pulls May into a conversation in a visually secure cone of silence for about an hour. When it drops, True Name looks like she's been put through a wringer and May looks apoplectic. May leaves without a word, only sending Ioan a brief glimpse of the lake to show she's alright. True Name refuses to expand on what the conversation was about other than to make vague allusions to Jonas's quip about mommies and daddies fighting.

May visits End Waking and Debarre after crying herself out. She explains more about the current situation and says that what True Name told her is too much to even talk about except that Jonas has played a long game with True Name and has been controlling her from the beginning, though we get the impression End Waking may know more than what she says aloud. She talks about how she's feeling torn, that she wishes TN was no more so that she wouldn't be in their lives, but also that she doesn't want her to die. Debarre echoes this sentiment. End Waking is stoic some more until May suggests he merge down with True Name, at which he gets kind of shouty. After she leaves, Debarre and End Waking talk, the latter saying he's not too keen on the idea of merging down because that means True Name will have his penance without having done any of the work herself. Debarre disagrees, saying that she'll also have the memories of the work of penance. He suggests that one reason May might want him to do this is to hurt True Name, and that she's even considering this means that she's a more complex individual than previously, since she used to just love everyone. End Waking gets upset because that would mean that, for him to be a more complex individual, he'd have to admit something other than his solitude and penance into his life. It's implied that they bone, after which End Waking jokes that, if he does merge down, True Name will have memories of that as well, to which Debarre says let her, at least she can have good things, too.

With May out of the house, Ioan is anxious and True Name is mopey. They eventually pull themselves together enough to cook and eat dinner. May returns in the middle of it, acting a bit like a goofball, which she explains away as not wanting to fall back into just crying all the time as she had been around True Name. Over the next few days, May and True Name have a few more private conversations, and May heads out to visit End Waking a few more times. When she mentions to Ioan that they've been talking about the possibility of the merge, ey isn't so sure; ey thinks it might be a good idea overall just to help True Name live a more complete life now that the one singular aspect she focused on has been taken away, but that if she's to have a talk with Jonas, she probably needs to be in top shape to do so, not crushed under a century and a half of memories and all their conflicts. May reluctantly agrees, but when True Name goes on a bit of a rant about the position she's found herself in, May gets too frustrated and signals to End Waking to start the merge process anyway. True Name collapses under the weight of having to actually process those memories, and May breaks down on realizing what she's done.

Part 3 --- Apprehension

After a few hours, True Name is back up on her feet, but it's not until the next day that she's actually more with it. She requests that they head out to the lake, since she now has End Waking's desire for being outside (and hatred of being inside), where the three of them talk about what happened. She says she understands how May did this --- using all of her May powers to convince both End Waking to merge down and True Name to accept the merge --- and maybe even the why, but also says that May has essentially split her mind in two. It gets kind of tense, so Ioan asks what good memories she has now, rather than just all of the conflicting pride/penance. She lists a few things, but ends by thanking May for thinking of her. After all, now she has all these memories of her telling End Waking about not wanting her to die, too.

True Name remains shaky and restless even after they return back home, reconciling memories of penance, but also of End Waking and Debarre's relationship. She was in her own on-again-off-again relationship with a red fox named Zacharias over the years --- they wound up more openly together (and more openly ruling) on Pollux, but on the home System, she kept the relationship at a distance ('lovers, yes, and perhaps even in love, but never partners').

Through these discussions, Ioan begins to wonder at the fact that May has done just what ey was trying not to: taken a drastic step to fix someone else's problems for them. Ey starts to worry that, with this new problem of True Name being unhappy, she'll decide to merge down next. When ey asks, she admits that it had been on her mind until she'd seen just how poorly this merge had gone. Ey voices a worry that that'd mean that True Name would have May's memories of being with em.

Eventually, though, everything builds up too much and she snaps at Ioan and May before stepping out to Arrowhead Lake. She returns a few hours later, looking dirty and scuffed up, stating that she's going to go camp there for a few days for the solitude. Ioan and May deduce that she's 'overflowing', and when ey asks, May admits that she's perilously close to doing the same. The next morning, she's not doing well at all, so ey goes to stay with Douglas Hadje, as ey usually does when she overflows with emotions. When ey arrives at Douglas's sim, ey breaks down with all of the emotion ey's been holding at bay throughout this crazy process.

Douglas gets in contact with End Waking and Debarre to ask them to come visit, as Ioan isn't doing so well. The other three are a little surprised as Ioan talks through the story of May essentially manipulating End Waking into merging down and True Name into accepting. They talk through eir concerns about May potentially merging down, including True Name having memories of eir and May's relationship together, and the related worry that that might mean True Name would wind up feeling the same about em that May does. After wishing em the best, End Waking requests that Debarre step home with him for a few, where he requests some solitude now that the tent is done. Debarre figured this was coming and is already good to go. They're really cute. Debarre steps back to Douglas's to finish the conversation before heading home, where we learn that he was one of the 'reactive elements' that True Name thought might have been the one to try and assassinate her before she learned it was Jonas.

Ioan sets up an appointment with eir therapist, Sarah Genet (who is also the therapist for all the Odists) to talk through much the same. A few days later, May shows up in the small hours of the morning and reunites with Ioan. She's not 'back to baseline' yet, but she's feeling well enough to have em around and doesn't want to be alone. True Name hasn't returned yet, but partway through eating dinner together, Ioan and May both get a sensorium message from her, just a brief glimpse of a well-dressed red fox sitting nearby out at the lake. They both hurry to the sim to find Zacharias taunting True Name for 'roughing it' out in the wilderness, calling her 'my little stink bug' and so on. He's a real shithead all around, and when May snarks back at him, he slaps her across the face. When Ioan tries to hit back, May gets them away from each other by forking so that her new instances overlap with theirs, the collision algorithms forcing them apart. He says he's out there to see if True Name is willing to talk now, but the subtext is that Jonas sent him specifically just to undermine her confidence.

Back home, May and True Name finally explain what their huge conversation was: Zacharias is one of May's first relationship forks. Centuries ago, perhaps five years after Secession, back when she and True Name were almost exactly alike, May forked to form a friendship/relationship with someone who turned out to be a heavily modified fork of Jonas. This version of Jonas slowly won Zacharias over to his side, encouraged him to change, and then pushed him to get into a relationship with True Name. They kept this secret until a few years after Launch, when they dropped the news on her on all three Systems (Lagrange, Castor, and Pollux) at the same time. Jonas and Zacharias used that to set up different situations on each System: the previous status quo on Castor, the Guiding Council on Pollux, and this slow attempt to grind True Name down on Lagrange.

Since Zacharias found True Name at Arrowhead Lake, that means that sim is no longer secure, so Ioan grabs a plains environment with a section of river off the reputation exchange and sets it up outside eir home so that True Name can retreat out there when feeling the need for solitude and no walls. This allows End Waking to visit a few times, talking with True Name and trying to understand where both she and May are coming from now that he's involved in this, too. In the process of talking, Ioan and May mention her vague thoughts on merging down, and True Name is oddly rather for it. She feels unbalanced, and if she were able to go into the merge knowing full well what to expect, what to keep or discard, and knowing that she could fork beforehand, she'd have a much easier time and might come out the other side far better. Eventually, the three of them say 'fuck it' and decide to go through with it so long as they approach it very carefully and respect Ioan and May's boundaries.

Part 4 --- Reconciliation

After a week of conversations determining what those boundaries are, including some discussions with End Waking about how this merge will differ from the previous one, May finally merges down. Despite what she said in Toledot --- a small lie to try and keep Ioan from digging too much --- May hasn't merged down since 2155, longer ago than the most recent of End Waking's merges, so it's a doozy. However, they're far more deliberate about it. True Name is kept cozy in bed rather than basically being dropped on the floor like before, she's allowed to fork beforehand, and May is there to keep her comfortable and talk her through anything that comes up. By that night, True Name is mostly stuck up in her head, but can speak haltingly. However, May doesn't want to leave her to fend for herself and is unwilling to sleep without Ioan, so they decide to expand the bed so that Ioan can sleep with May and True Name still be nearby. There's some gentle ribbing about keeping Ioan away from True Name, but basically everyone's awkward. Shortly before they fall asleep, True Name jolts upright shouting 'ey knows!', showing that True Name#Castor never passed on the fact that Codrin now knows AwDae's name. In the middle of the night, she rolls over and winds up curled with May, so Ioan wakes up hugging them both which is kind of awkward for everyone, and there's a lot of talk about that; True Name says that she can see what May sees in Ioan, can see a universe in which she loves em, but not how to get from this universe to that one, at which May requests that she call her 'May' instead of 'May Then My Name'.

May visits End Waking, who calls Debarre back to talk through the merger and what it means, how it might help True Name escape from this lingering threat of Jonas. Debarre's pretty upset because now everyone's getting buddy-buddy with True Name and he still hates her. One upside, though, is that End Waking seems to be on the verge of moving on, dropping out of the clade and just becoming his own person, which would be more fulfilling for everyone.

Back at Chez Bălan over the next few months, True Name has been calming down and processing well. She still needs silence and solitude as End Waking might out in the plains Ioan procured outside the house, and she still has that sharp political mind from True Name, but now she has all the emotions and need for constant touch from May. This plays out as her struggling to sleep alone, and while she gets some relief by sleeping curled up with her own fork as May taught her, she winds up crashing with Ioan and May once a week or so when the emotional need gets overwhelming. Still, it's well into April and they've all been cooped up since January, so they're all going stir-crazy. They finally talk Ioan into leaving, at least, since the chances of anyone being out to get em are low, so ey spends an afternoon at a library (because of course ey does) where, on a whim, ey contacts Serene to see if she can duplicate Arrowhead Lake for them, since the original isn't theirs and has been discovered by Jonas & co. She's mostly willing, but needs time to process. We get the sense that the clade is largely still wary of True Name.

They talk May into getting out of the house for a bit to go get dinner with Debarre so that she can get away and Ioan can have some solitude while True Name ostensibly goes for a walk. However, True Name nods off on the couch and Ioan spaces out on the beanbag. After a bit, they get to talking and discuss how things have felt since the merge. They spent so long talking about eir boundaries that everything's felt super careful. True Name asks to sit by em on the beanbag (a cuddlesome prospect, if ever there was one) to test. If it's awkward, so be it, but at least they'll know. It is awkward, and neither of them are sure of what to make of it, but True Name explains more of how things feel from her end: she says she's of three minds, that she's True Name and she's May and she's End Waking, and that depending on the situation, one will feel closer to the surface than the others, so her being close to Ioan leads to her feeling more like May than True Name or End Waking. She catches herself getting despondent and decides that it's time to set a loose deadline of one month for that meeting with Jonas.

Ioan sets up the meeting as a message, but Jonas requests to meet all the same, which is weird. He brings Zacharias along and, when the fox starts to get all snarky, stomps on his foot, making Ioan realize that it's all a show, using his power over the situation to try and shape how Ioan's story will look once he writes. Through eir discussions with the clade, though, Ioan guesses much of Jonas's plan ahead of time: his hypothesis is that societies that are different yet maintain the same system of governance are unstable when separated by space and time, so he's set up three different systems of government on the three Systems. True Name disagreed, so he decided to try and get rid of her. Jonas gets all frowny at em, but adapts smoothly and keeps winding Ioan up until ey gets frustrated and leaves. Back home, ey confirms the time and date of the meeting with May, True Name, and End Waking out on True Name's plain. Everyone's kinda stressed, but Ioan and May say goodnight and head inside, where they talk about whether True Name will keep living with them after this stupid meeting, deciding that she'll be welcome to as long as they can modify the sim to accommodate her need to be outside and give them more space apart if they need. May makes fun of Ioan for liking True Name, and ey admits ey's in the same boat as her, that she's so much like May that ey can imagine it, but has no idea what it would actually look like in practice.

Jonas has requested that True Name's entire stanza be present, so May, True Name, and End Waking arrive with Ioan while the rest of the stanza --- including Zacharias --- arrive with Jonas. There is some weird chatter back and forth, that type of non-conversation that hides deeper political meanings before they get down to the talk. Jonas confirms that he's aiming for three political systems, and that he tried to get rid of True Name for disagreeing. Zacharias makes some quip and True Name dismisses him. He gets quite upset, so Jonas brings in the assassin that tried to get True Name to go after him, but May, of all people, intercedes, knocking the assassin out and telling Zacharias to leave. Jonas demands that True Name just disappear if she's to keep living, that she just curl up around her 'little Name thing' and not be seen again. It's hinted that he knows the name and has been using it to help keep the stanza in line. She says she's no longer True Name, that she's something else now, and he says it's not enough. Sigh. She changes as has been mentioned by others: forking repeatedly and using the mutation algorithms to change subtly with each fork, until she looks basically like Sasha (not Michelle) did before uploading, though she opts to shift species to spotted skunk, figuring that that'd be too recognizable. Jonas confirms that she needs to have a new name, and she chooses Sasha, which causes an uproar among the Odists and pisses Jonas off, and he kicks them out.

At home, she explains that that set of events was the best they could have hoped for. The name Sasha, tied to the most sympathetic figure from the History, means that Jonas essentially can't touch her without being seen openly as the villain, even if it also means that she can't continue in politics. Instead, she's going to write a companion volume to the history of her account of things.

Things settle down into a cycle of domesticity and visitors after that. Much of the clade visits, and the reactions are mixed. A Finger Pointing and her stanza are very happy for her, as is Serene, who builds their house into a copy of Arrowhead Lake, giving them plenty of wilderness and space for Sasha to build a tent similar to End Waking's. Zacharias pings, and they use the new ACLs to completely cut him off, which upsets Douglas, but May feels she can go no-contact with him in a way she couldn't with True Name. In Dreams (the psychologist of the clade) and Hammered Silver (the mother of the clade), however, both disown her, her entire old stanza (including May, who was very close to both of them), and the entire Bălan clade. This hits May really hard, and she has a brief stint of overflowing that night, pushing them out of the house to go stay in Sasha's tent, where they struggle with their own feelings on the matter.

When May finally allows them back, Sasha requests some time to talk with just her about some lingering processing of Zacharias business, so Ioan and a fork of Sasha go for a walk out to the boulder at the end of the lake where they discuss the final outcome, Ioan's love for May, their complicated feelings for each other, and the book ends with Ioan once more wondering how this has become eir life.

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