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<li><a href="#the-launch">The Launch</a></li>
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<li><a href="#artemis">Artemis</a></li>
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<li><a href="#the-post-self-cycle">The Post-Self Cycle</a><ul>
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<li><a href="#qoheleth">Qoheleth</a><ul>
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<li><a href="#summary">Summary</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#toledot">Toledot</a><ul>
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<li><a href="#summary_1">Summary</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#neviim">Nevi’im</a><ul>
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<li><a href="#summary_2">Summary</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#mitzvot">Mitzvot</a><ul>
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<li><a href="#summary_3">Summary</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#qoheleth">Qoheleth</a></li>
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<li><a href="#toledot">Toledot</a></li>
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<li><a href="#neviim">Nevi’im</a></li>
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<li><a href="#mitzvot">Mitzvot</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p>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.</p>
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<p>And, nearly a century on, society still struggles with the ramifications of those answers.</p>
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<p>Features the bonus novella <em>Gallery Exhibition: A Love Story.</em></p>
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<h4 id="summary">Summary</h4>
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<hr />
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<p><em>RJ Brewster</em> 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, <em>Cicero</em>, 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 <em>Sasha</em> (a skunk), and Cicero’s partner <em>Debarre</em> (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.</p>
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<p><em>Dr Carter Ramirez</em> 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, <em>Dr Sanders</em>, 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 <em>Avery</em>, a nonbinary statistician, and <em>Prakash Das</em>, 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.</p>
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<p>Nearly two hundred years in the future, <em>Ioan Bălan</em>, an historian living as an upload in a computer system, is contacted by an enigmatic fennec fox named <em>Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled</em>, 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.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>No longer bound to the physical, what lengths should one go to in a virtual world to ensure the continuity of one’s existence?</p>
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<p>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.</p>
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<h4 id="summary_1">Summary</h4>
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<hr />
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<p>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.</p>
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<p>After the success of their project surrounding Qoheleth and the problems of an infallible memory, the <em>Bălan clade</em>, made up of <em>Ioan Bălan</em> and <em>Codrin Bălan</em>, 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 <em>Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled</em> of the <em>Ode clade</em> 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 L<sub>5</sub> 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.</p>
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<p>Meanwhile, Ioan, working with one of Dear’s cocladists, <em>May Then My Name Die With Me</em>, a very affectionate skunk, has decided to remain solely on the L<sub>5</sub> system, acting as a communication point, organizer, and editor of the history and mythology that ey and both Codrins are collecting.</p>
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<p>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.</p>
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<p>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</p>
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<p>Growth is colliding with memory, and the cracks are showing.</p>
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<h4 id="summary_2">Summary</h4>
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<hr />
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<p>As a prologue in 2114, <em>RJ Brewster</em> meets with <em>Dr. Carter Ramirez</em> and <em>Prakash Das</em>, 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.</p>
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<p><strong>Part 1 — Anticipation</strong></p>
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<p>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.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Even the grandest of stories can feel small and immediate when it’s just one person’s life.</p>
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<p>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.</p>
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<h4 id="summary_3">Summary</h4>
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<hr />
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<p><strong>Part 1 — Conversation</strong></p>
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<p>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.</p>
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<p>During those three years, <em>Ioan Bălan</em> wonders how this has become eir life: ey has been getting coffee with <em>The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream</em> 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 <em>May Then My Name Die With Me</em> 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 <em>want</em> to move forward, but they can’t yet find a way.</p>
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