update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<p>“Are we your constituents?” ey asked. The words were out of eir mouth before ey had time to consider it.</p>
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<p>Jonas laughed, shaking his head and tugging that fiber on the couch all the looser. “In a way, yes. We may be a separate legal entity, but we don’t work the same. We’re not a government. There are no representatives. We don’t vote. Better to say that the System is our singular constituent. You are our constituents only in the sense that there are still some who have to work on keeping the System going. We’re the ones who organize with the phys-side engineers to keep everything ticking along. We’re the ones who ensure that new uploads are smoothly integrated. We’re the ones who ensure that the System keeps growing.”</p>
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<p>“Keeps growing? Can you expand on that?”</p>
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<p>“It’s nothing complex. The larger a system — that’s system with a lower-case ‘s’ — is, the more stable it is because it tends towards stasis. This applies to political systems, as well. The Western Fed and the S-R Bloc kept their stalemate for god knows how long because they were too large to do anything but, and the only reason they stopped was that they were each subsumed into even larger political entities.”</p>
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<p>“It’s nothing complex. The larger a system — that’s system with a lower-case ‘s’ — is, the more stable it is because it tends towards stasis. This applies to political systems, as well. The Western Fed and the S-R Bloc kept their stalemate for God knows how long because they were too large to do anything but, and the only reason they stopped was that they were each subsumed into even larger political entities.”</p>
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<p>“So, if I’m understanding you right, keeping the population of the System growing over time–“</p>
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<p>“Not just the population,” Jonas interrupted. “The capacity. The complexity.”</p>
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<p>“–the more stable it is because it tends toward stasis?”</p>
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<p>“It’s certainly intriguing. You’ve given me a lot to think about, and I’m sure Ioan will agree.”</p>
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<p>“Of course. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to ask.” He smiled to Codrin, and the smile was the least earnest ey had seen yet. “And I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”</p>
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<p>It wasn’t until Codrin was back at the house on the prairie, back with eir family, back where ey was comfortable enough to work on transcribing eir notes, that ey came across the phrase that had left em so wrong-footed during the interview.</p>
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<p>Ey frowned, stood up, and paced around eir office for a few minutes, stopping at the end of each circuit to stare out at the prairie beyond the windows. Ey was starting to feel as though there were coils of some sort wrapping around em. Thick, fleshy things that squeeze around eir middle, bound eir hands, held em silent. They did not kill em, did not force em to move, to watch. They did not force em do do anything. They just held em there, letting em know that, at all times, they were present.</p>
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<p>Ey frowned, stood up, and paced around eir office for a few minutes, stopping at the end of each circuit to stare out at the prairie beyond the windows. Ey was starting to feel as though there were coils of some sort wrapping around em. Thick, fleshy things that squeezed around eir middle, bound eir hands, held em silent. They did not kill em, did not force em to move, to watch. They did not force em do do anything. They just held em there, letting em know that, at all times, they were present.</p>
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<p>So ey sat at eir desk and wrote a footnote for eir transcript that ey’d send back to Ioan and May Then My Name.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Check my work, Ioan. As you have read, Jonas asked what each of our stressors were, and I mentioned a sentence or two about each of us and what we’d been doing that had been keeping us busy.</p>
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</blockquote>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-17</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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<p>“Bear with me. What your partner showed me was an alternate telling of this story. Sometime back in medieval Europe, a Jewish community started circulating an old story called “Toledot Yeshu”, which means something like the ancestry or generations of Jesus. Much of it is a retelling of the gospels with Jesus as a trickster magician. But Paul in this story becomes something more interesting, apologies to present company.”</p>
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<p>user11824 rolled his eyes and finished his wine.</p>
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<p>“In Toledot Yeshu, Paul is actually hinted at being a plant from the Jewish authorities, though it is vague as to who, whose goal was to introduces enough changes to the budding religion to cause it to split away so that it wouldn’t remain a sect of Judaism.”</p>
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<p><em>“Many viewed Jesus as a rabbi,”</em> Dear interjected. <em>“And had that lasted to the point where Judaism headed into a rabbinical tradition, his teachings would have become part of the faith.”</em></p>
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<p><em>“Many viewed Jesus as a rabbi,”</em> Dear interjected. <em>“And had that lasted to the point where Judaism headed into a rabbinical tradition, his teachings would have become part of the faith and Judaism would have looked very different.”</em></p>
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<p>Codrin frowned. “Are you suggesting that Secession was engineered to keep the System from remaining a part of society, phys-side?”</p>
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<p>There was a tense moment of silence before Yared nodded. “I was the tool of Paul. I was the tool of <em>two</em> Pauls, one in the form of a representative of the phys-side government who used me to steer public opinion toward permitting Secession, and one in the form of True Name and Jonas who wanted the System to be independent for their own reasons. It was not enough to ensure the System’s continued existence for them and it was not enough for the System’s participation to be limited from the phys-side point of view. It needed to become its own entity.”</p>
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<p>All eyes were on Yared now, who sighed. “It needed to become its own entity by any means necessary, as soon as possible, and with as much plausible deniability as could be managed.”</p>
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<p>They all watched as Dear and Debarre drank to each other and those who were gone.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-21</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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<h1 id="true-name-2124">True Name — 2124</h1>
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<p>True Name was early to her meeting, and that, she figured was okay. On a whim, she had picked, the same pub that she’d met Jonas in some time back, the one that reminded her of The Crown Pub from years ago, with the flat beer and the uncomfortable booths. She figured that Debarre, of all people, would appreciate this.</p>
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<p>She ordered herself one of those beers that she loved to hate, sat down in a corner booth with a commanding view of the entrance, tail flopped over the edge, and waited.</p>
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<p>While she waited, she thought about all of the different reasons that Debarre might have asked to meet. There was always the possibility that the weasel had figured out just how deep she and Jonas had gotten in their work, though she suspected that that wasn’t the case. Debarre was smart, yes, but political adroitness was not his strong point. That had been the root of the worry — shared by him — that he had been let onto the council merely by his proximity to Michelle and connection with the lost.</p>
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<p>While she waited, she thought about all of the different reasons that Debarre might have asked to meet. There was always the possibility that the weasel had figured out just how deep she and Jonas had gotten in their work, though she suspected that that wasn’t the case. Debarre was smart, yes, but political adroitness was not his strong suit. That had been the root of the worry — shared by him — that he had been let onto the council merely by his proximity to Michelle and connection with the lost.</p>
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<p>It could also be that he had further questions about why it was that Michelle had chosen the Ode as a clade scheme, and that perhaps he wanted to discuss why it was that all of the clade seemed so averse to mentioning the author of the poem.</p>
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<p>And, as she hoped, he could simply just want to hang out. Spend time together like friends, like they used to.</p>
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<p>With that in mind, she focused on composing herself into a state of friendly alertness, so that when the weasel walked into the pub and spotted her in the corner, she would be primed to guide him toward that last possibility, even if he had come expecting the first two.</p>
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<p>“How are you, Debarre?” True Name finally asked. “Aside from work, I mean. I know that we have not had much of a chance to just sit and talk, recently.”</p>
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<p>The weasel doodled lazily on the tabletop with a claw. “For all my bitching, I’m doing alright, actually. That’s why I wanted to meet, though. Just catch up.”</p>
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<p>True Name smiled. <em>Perfect.</em></p>
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<p>“You know,” he said thoughtfully. “I was thinking about Cicero a few days back, and how, after he hung himself, I thought thought that the grief would never end. Like, I thought that I had been completely redefined from ‘Debarre the weasel’ to ‘Debarre who grieves’, and that’s just who I was from then on out.”</p>
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<p>“You know,” he said. “I was thinking about Cicero a few days back, and how, after he hung himself, I thought thought that the grief would never end. Like, I thought that I had been completely redefined from ‘Debarre the weasel’ to ‘Debarre who grieves’, and that’s just who I was from then on out.”</p>
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<p>She hid a sudden surge of emotion behind a sip of her flat beer, nodding. “It was hard. Both of those losses were hard.”</p>
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<p>Debarre nodded. After the reference to both losses, he seemed on guard, or ready to jump out of the booth at a moment’s notice.</p>
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<p>“I am sorry that I snapped at you a while back,” she said, reaching out to pat at the paw that had been poking absently at the grime on the tabletop. “That is a name that I would like to keep close to my heart and prefer not to say out loud. Also, given that ey was not strictly supposed to defect to the S-R Bloc, it still feels risky. The spooks definitely should not hear it.”</p>
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<p>“So,” Life Breeds Life said, once pleasantries were out of the way and the cone of silence had been set up. “Why did you want to meet today?”</p>
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<p>“During discussions with Praiseworthy and Ir Jonas, I started to realize that there were some steps that I might need to take when it comes to the historical view of the clade. There is already the forceful de-emphasizing of AwDae’s name, thanks to Praiseworthy. She thought it a good hook, and it has already proven its utility. None of us want it out in the open, anyway. I guess, given your interest in history and memory, you seemed like the most likely to be interested in helping continue that effort.”</p>
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<p>He grinned. “You guess correctly. I have been considering some aspects of that, as it is. Before I go off on that, however, I would like to hear your ideas.”</p>
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<p>True Name nodded, absentmindedly brushing fingerpads over the spines of law books and case files. “Firstly, there are some aspects of the clade that I would like to remain within the clade. The Name is an obvious example, but I would also like to keep the impact that we have had within the Council minimized to a level more believable for Michelle’s initially stated goal.”</p>
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<p>True Name nodded, lazily brushing fingerpads over the spines of law books and case files. “Firstly, there are some aspects of the clade that I would like to remain within the clade. The Name is an obvious example, but I would also like to keep the impact that we have had within the Council minimized to a level more believable for Michelle’s initially stated goal.”</p>
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<p>“To confirm,” he said, looking thoughtful. “You want to ensure that it appears that each of us did a tenth of the work that she was doing previously and that our voice was only as loud as any other council-member’s. Correct?”</p>
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<p>She nodded.</p>
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<p>“That should be doable.”</p>
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<p>“It will require a bit of fudging, at least for myself, as to how many instances actually exist for the clade. I believe that it would reflect poorly on us to say that we were initially ten, and then for someone to dig up that I had already forked three or four times less than a year after Michelle’s decision.”</p>
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<p>His laugh was kind and relieved. “Oh, good. I am glad that I am not the only one.”</p>
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<p>His laugh was kind. “Oh, good. I am glad that I am not the only one.”</p>
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<p>“Not by a long shot,” True Name said. “It seemed like a good thing downplay.”</p>
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<p>“Yes, it is, come to think of it. There are enough concerns about capacity as is. It might seem as though we were already aiming to test that so early on.”</p>
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<p>“Mmhm. The second thing that I was thinking was more of a question for you.”</p>
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<p>Life Breeds Life laughed. “Of course not. If we are to think long term, we must think in terms of decades to work in centuries. If we are lucky, we must think in terms of centuries to work in millennia. We have plenty of time.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-17</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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<h1 id="true-name-2124">True Name — 2124</h1>
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<p>The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream walked.</p>
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<p>She walked from sim to sim, finding intricate ways to build up a sign, a sigil from them. Finding ways for disparate streets to connect, finding alleyways to open into deer paths, finding breathlessly exposed parks that, when a corner was turned around a tree or perhaps a low hill, might open out again into the lobbies of libraries, the shelves of which couldbecame a hedge maze.</p>
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<p>She walked from sim to sim, finding intricate ways to build up a sign, a sigil from them. Finding ways for disparate streets to connect, finding alleyways to open into deer paths, finding breathlessly exposed parks that, when a corner was turned around a tree or perhaps a low hill, might open out again into the lobbies of libraries, the shelves of which could become a hedge maze.</p>
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<p>Perhaps there was more to the sims that she walked, but she did not notice. As soon as she felt herself drawn to any one particular place, any one particular feature of any one particular sim, as soon as she began to feel anchored, she left. All of the things that people — her people — built passed beneath her feet, passed before her eyes.</p>
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<p>And all the time, her thoughts soared above her, watching her path, the steps she took. They watched all of her left turns. They viewed the sigil that her walking drew and imbued in it new meaning.</p>
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<p>A thought: <em>What dire emotional need caused one to build an office building in a place of no corporations?</em></p>
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<p>“2143. Got it.” True Name smiled. “Thank you for this. I think it will work out quite well for us in the end.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-10-22</p>
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