update from sparkleup
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<p>I must admit, I’m really not sure what to say about all of this. Thank you for waiting until you have a substantial amount to send to me, at least. Dear threw a little tantrum about about this “We have received messages over the last few days” bit, but I appreciate having an initial digest to work with so that I’m not left a fretting mess (as you say you were) by the simple news that, oh look, aliens! I threatened to bundle it up in blankets until it was immobile for a few hours, though, and it calmed down. I may do so anyway.</p>
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<p>Four races! Five thousand years! One language! Have you learned any of that, yourself? And yet maybe it’s all a dream! Truly fascinating. As you can imagine, Dear latched onto that quite quickly.</p>
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<p>How is May Then My Name taking it? You mention True Name, but have you heard from any other Odists? Any other friends? If Lagrange is anything like Pollux, people are talking about little else.</p>
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<p>The news broke over here much as it sounds as though it has done on Lagrange: with tightly controlled excitement. There is no doubt that the powers that be continue their work across all three Systems, but it’s always fascinating to see. The amount of bafflement was outweighed by the amount of excitement. The excitement also outweighed the amount of fear. Everyone’s eager for every scrap of news that they can get.</p>
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<p>How much of the delay in sending word to us was due to True Name and her friends? I imagine she had words about the first message, at least, but a whole week’s worth of messages feels like a good deal.</p>
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<p>The news broke over here much as it sounds as though it did on Lagrange: with tightly controlled excitement. There is no doubt that the powers that be continue their work across all three Systems, but it’s always fascinating to see. The amount of bafflement was outweighed by the amount of excitement. The excitement also outweighed the amount of fear. Everyone’s eager for every scrap of news that they can get.</p>
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<p>How much of the delay in sending word to us was due to True Name and her friends? I imagine she had words about the first message, at least, but a whole week’s worth of messages feels like a good deal must have been going on.</p>
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<p>No matter, though. We’re all eagerly awaiting every little snippet that we can get from you. I know that you won’t get this for another, what, seven days? Eight? And that seven or eight days from when you sent it! I know you won’t get it for a few weeks, is what I’m saying, but please know that you’re free to pass on information directly from here on out! We’ll be learning plenty from the news we’re allowed to see over here, anyway, so any juicy tidbits in addition to that will be greatly appreciated.</p>
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<p>I am continually confronted with the ways in which we have diverged. May Then My Name and Dear#Castor mentioned how upset they were by the idea of time manipulation, but my Dear…well, it did not seem pleased with the idea, but its reaction was not nearly so visceral. It simply got a sour look on its face and said <em>“I do not like the idea of a place where I cannot fork. Can you imagine a place so boring?”</em></p>
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<p><strong>BĂLAN CLADE-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</strong></p>
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<p>The last few years have seen a drastic reduction in the amount of times that Dear has overflowed. I don’t know if ey’s been passing on every instance from Castor, or if you have been passing on every letter in turn, but it sounds like the same is true of Dear#Castor as well, for which I’m thankful.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry to hear about May Then My Name, though. Discussion of ‘cracks showing’ always seems to crop up whenever one of our loved ones goes through a rough period such as this, and your news spurred a conversation between the three of us plus Serene, and despite the relative quiescence of Dear’s symptoms, such as they are, we have noticed an uptick of oddities in Odists over here, as well. Not just Odists, of course, but a few of the older clades. Hell, a Jonas even went haywire a few weeks back.</p>
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<p>Still, I’m happy to hear that everyone’s tallies are lining up well: far fewer old clades over here are experiencing such symptoms than feared after the publication of <em>Perils</em>, for which just about everyone is happy. No one wants to deal with an impending burden of insanity on one’s two hundredth birthday, so to hear that it’s only a fraction and that maybe there’s something that can be done (or so we hear; has there been news of psychotherapy as a treatment over there? I’ve been hearing whispers) has kept the population at large from freaking out. I imagine you have it worse, though, given the relative skew towards dispersionistas on the LVs; I bet early taskers are freaking out.</p>
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<p>Either way, Ioan, I am concerned for you and your partner. Our lives are informed by trauma, and the trauma that we hold in particular leads to a sort of conservatism that is particularly focused on our loved ones. I know that you want nothing more than to see May Then My Name continue to thrive, and I know that seeing her struggle is incredibly painful as it touches on the roots of those very same traumas. I know that the two of you will make it through alright, but, as this is in the clade-eyes-only section, do remember to keep yourself safe. You have Douglas. You have Debarre and End Waking (are they back together? Please say yes). You have A Finger Pointing. You have so many delightful friends I’ve yet to even meet. When you need, nudge May Then My Name to her support network and lean on yours on your own.</p>
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<p>Either way, Ioan, I am concerned for you and your partner. Our lives are informed by trauma, and the trauma that we hold in particular leads to a sort of conservatism that is particularly focused on our loved ones. I know that you want nothing more than to see May Then My Name continue to thrive, and I know that seeing her struggle is incredibly painful as it touches on the roots of those very same traumas. I know that the two of you will make it through alright, but, as this is in the clade-eyes-only section, do remember to keep yourself safe. You have Douglas. You have Debarre and End Waking (are they back together? Please say yes). You have A Finger Pointing. You have so many delightful friends I’ve yet to even meet and some I’ll have have the chance to. When you need, nudge May Then My Name to her support network and lean on yours on your own.</p>
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<p><strong>IOAN BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</strong></p>
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<p>The following is in strict confidence with you and you alone, Ioan. I’ve received permission to share from all parties involved.</p>
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<p>I don’t know how much of Codrin#Castor and my messages between each other that you’ve read, or if that would even have helped, but watching the slow individuation of a loved one is an experience unique even from watching oneself individuate. The Dear I am in love with feels much like the Dear I fell in love with decades ago, and yet slowly the Dear on Castor begins to feel like a stranger to me.</p>
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<p>Dear#Castor sounds so much more conservative — in its approach to life, of course, rather than that of the division of the Odists — than what I’ve grown used to. The prairie remains the same. The house remains the same. Codrin#Castor’s struggles with agency and directedness in life feel as unfamiliar to me as you have mentioned. You have taken control of your life as I have taken control of my own, each in our own way. To put this on the Odists feels at once unfair, unfortunate, and totally accurate. May Then My Name has changed you in so many irreversible ways, just as Dear changed me so many years ago. Changed you, too, for when we merged and then diverged, you were no longer the same Ioan that remained behind. You were the type of Ioan who could fall in love with May Then My Name in the first place.</p>
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<p>So when Dear gave up the prairie and dragged Serene over to build out our little world into something grander, a place more well-rounded than just flat plains, we were both ready because, hey, this was Dear, right? So we built out our little world of plains and hills, forests and lakes. And then that spur-of-the-moment shift redirected our lives in unforeseen ways. With the acceptance of variety, Serene moved in to continue her work, and then her elliptical orbit passed through our lives for a while before she drifted away again.</p>
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<p>Despite lingering taboo, I am not ashamed of having wound up, for that one short year, in a relationship with two members of the same clade. None of us are. Not even Dear and Serene, they promise us. It’s not shame that keeps me from telling those on Castor about this. It is the completely alien way that those who feel as though they ought to <em>be</em> us interact with the world that leads to such. I as though I am unable to tell Codrin#Castor about what happened because to do so feels like explaining the alien to someone who really, truly, in all ways ought to know. Ey ought to be able to feel the same things that I feel, correct? Ey ought to also love Serene, oughtn’t ey? Ey must, for ey is me, is ey not?</p>
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<p>Despite lingering taboo, I am not ashamed of having wound up, for that one short year, in a relationship with two members of the same clade. None of us are; not even Dear and Serene, they promise us. It’s not shame that keeps me from telling those on Castor about this. It is the completely alien way that those who feel as though they ought to <em>be</em> us interact with the world that leads to such. I as though I am unable to tell Codrin#Castor about what happened because to do so feels like explaining the alien to someone who really, truly, in all ways ought to know. Ey ought to be able to feel the same things that I feel, correct? Ey ought to also love Serene, oughtn’t ey? Ey must, for ey is me, is ey not?</p>
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<p>And yet ey is not. I cannot bring up our relationship with Serene because Codrin#Castor — that is, specifically <em>me</em>#Castor — does not have the same thoughts around intraclade romantic relationships that I do, and by virtue of the direction that the Odists steered us (or, as feels more accurate, crashed with us headlong and heedless) into this future, we are now completely different in that way. </p>
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<p>The Dear that I live with has, in comparison to Dear#Castor, relaxed and moved on to an approach to life that is far more laid back. As a result, we <em>all</em> have, me included.</p>
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<p>Also, as an internal postscript, I should note that the three of us are all still deeply in love with Serene, and she with us, so please do not misconstrue the past tense above, but good Lord. Two foxes in the same house? Never again.</p>
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<p>Also, as an internal postscript, I should note that the three of us are all still deeply in love with Serene and she with us, so please do not misconstrue the past tense above, but good Lord. Two foxes in the same house? Never again.</p>
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<p>This is the end of the private content of the letter. Please redact this in its entirety should you pass my thoughts on to Castor (though of course you may talk about it with May; she’ll understand the sensitive nature of the topic).</p>
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<p><strong>END IOAN BĂLAN INDIVIDUAL-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</strong></p>
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<p><strong>END BĂLAN CLADE-EYES-ONLY MATERIAL</strong></p>
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<p>Ioan Bălan</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-03-16</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-03-28</p>
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<p>Tycho had spent his share of time in conferences, both phys-side and sys-side. They all came with their exciting parts and their boring parts. They all came with peaks that left him completely rapt, and valleys that were so excruciatingly dull that he had, on more than one occasion, feigned illness to step out of a talk or away from a panel discussion or a lecture.</p>
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<p>This was different, though.</p>
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<p>It wasn’t that it didn’t have its peaks and valleys, for it surely did. There were more sciences, he had been reminded several times, than astronomy. He knew it, too. There was no reason that the LVs and home System would not benefit from a knowledge share on biology or psychology, and certainly there could be much to learn about the construction of an embedded world. All that knowledge, all that history — so many centuries! — was enough to convince him of the reality of the Artemisians, or at least enough that he could drown out that niggling voice in the back of his head thinking in terms of dreams. There was more than enough to learn, so that wasn’t it.</p>
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<p>It was that, even during the boring parts, there was Stolon sitting directly across the table from him, the thirdracer looking just as antsy and restless as he felt. He knew that he and Stolon could talk for hours about the stars, that they would if only given the chance, and yet he had to sit here and, however rightfully so, listen to Why Ask Questions grill the Artemisians on parallel evolution.</p>
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<p>It was that, even during the boring parts, there was Stolon sitting directly across the table from him, the thirdracer looking just as antsy and restless as he felt, even though it was only the third day. He knew that he and Stolon could talk for hours about the stars, that they would if only given the chance, and yet he had to sit here and, however rightfully so, listen to Why Ask Questions grill the Artemisians on parallel evolution.</p>
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<p>Throughout the talks, no matter the science, there lay a thread of five thousand years of history. Hundreds of years would go by, and then a sudden jump in knowledge. Biology, language, astronomy, psychology, physics; sciences hard and soft would wind up with sudden injections of knowledge throughout each of the convergences.</p>
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<p><em>Except,</em> he kept finding himself thinking. <em>That’s not all.</em></p>
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<p>It would be of no surprise for a sudden leap of knowledge to occur every handful of decades. Some new way of looking at the world brought about by some spurt of genius, even in the functionally immortal.</p>
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<p>What was surprising was these renaissances in <em>all</em> sciences that had happened a total of five times that he’d counted so far. Three for convergences, that made sense, but what of the other two?</p>
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<p>What was surprising was these renaissances in <em>all</em> sciences that had happened a total of five times that he’d counted so far. Three for convergences — that made sense — but what of the other two?</p>
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<p>This wasn’t supposed to be his job. This wasn’t supposed to be any of their jobs, here in the DMZ. History as a topic belonged to the emissaries sent to Artemis. He’d only started asking how long ago various tidbits of knowledge had been gained on a whim.</p>
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<p>And so he sat and he waited until there was a time that he could speak, and even when he probably should have been paying attention, he spent much of his effort on trying to figure out how best to word his question in such a way that wouldn’t get him in trouble with the Artemisians or, worse, True Name.</p>
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<p>His cue came in the form of Why Ask Questions racking her sheets of notes into a neat pile before slouching back in her chair.</p>
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<p>“I have a quick question about science in general, if I may,” he said, preempting comments from any of the others.</p>
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<p>True Name frowned, nodded.</p>
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<p>“It’ll come in the form of an astronomy question, but bear with me. Can you tell me a bit more about your path from firstrace’s home world to our system?”</p>
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<p>Stolon sat up straighter, head tilting far to the side in what Tycho had decided was a sort of gesture of intense interest. “Artemis comes from firstrace system, aims for nearest stable star, performs, <em>lu</em>…gravity assists and extra maneuvers, solar sail, magnetic <em>irr</em>…” After a moment’s silenced discussion with the other Artemisians, they returned with, “Magnetic field hydrogen collector — you call ‘fuel scoop’ maybe? — and then final adjustments to next prospective star.”</p>
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<p>Stolon sat up straighter, head tilting far to the side in what Tycho had decided was a sort of intense interest. “Artemis comes from firstrace system, aims for nearest stable star, performs, <em>lu</em>…gravity assists and extra maneuvers, solar sail, magnetic <em>irr</em>…” After a moment’s silenced discussion with the other Artemisians, they returned with, “Magnetic field hydrogen collector — you call ‘fuel scoop’ maybe? — and then final adjustments to next prospective star.”</p>
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<p>“And how many times has Artemis performed this act?”</p>
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<p>“Seven times, scientist Tycho Brahe,” Turun Ko said.</p>
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<p>“Three of which were convergences, yes?”</p>
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<p>“<em>Anem, anem,</em> scientist Tycho Brahe,” Stolon said. “I only was…<em>suhernachi…lu…</em> living-embedded for third convergence, but yes, three convergences.”</p>
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<p>“Okay,” he said, pausing to compose his next sentence carefully. “As we talk about the way that we learn, I’ve heard of more than three jumps in scientific knowledge during the millennia that Artemis has been travelling. Do these maneuvers around system…I don’t know, make everyone curious enough to start doing a bunch of research?”</p>
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<p>“Okay,” he said, pausing to compose his next sentence carefully. “As we talk about the way that we learn, I’ve heard of more than three jumps in scientific knowledge during the millennia that Artemis has been travelling. Do these maneuvers around systems…I don’t know, make everyone curious enough to start doing a bunch of research?”</p>
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<p>Until this point, True Name looked as though she were about to nudge Tycho to move on to the next topic, perhaps sensing that he was veering closer to history, but as he finished his question and the Artemisians set up a cone of silence for a very animated discussion, he could see nothing but intense focus on the skunk’s face. Even Codrin and Why Ask Questions were furiously scribbling notes at this point.</p>
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<p>Sarah gave him a grin and a subtle nod. It was nearly five minutes before the cone of silence around the Artemisians dropped, during which he’d received nods of approval from the rest of the delegates as well.</p>
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<p><em>Looks like I asked the right thing,</em> he thought, doing his best to tamp down the sense of pride that had begun to grow within him. They were all here for a job, and when that job is learning, there are no right questions, just on-topic ones.</p>
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<p>All five of the delegates took notes as quickly as they could while the firstracer spoke. Tycho made a note to himself to ask what sorts of things they tended to learn when passing close to a star, as well as a note to ask Tycho#Artemis to bring up similar on Artemis, focusing instead on the history of their course.</p>
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<p>True Name leaned forward enough to catch Why Ask Questions’s gaze, sharing a meaningful look. Codrin frowned, scratched out another note in eir notebook.</p>
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<p>“Leader Turun Ka,” True Name said with a hint of a bow. “Thank you for your answer. Would you be amenable to a short break? I would like to sync up with our delegation.”</p>
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<p>The firstracer lifted its chin in assent and the table stood, exchanging bows before making their way each to their own rest area.</p>
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<p>The firstracer lifted its chin in assent and those around the table stood, exchanging bows before making their way each to their own rest area.</p>
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<p>Once they’d made it around the corner into the common area, the skunk grinned toothily at Tycho. “Good catch, Dr. Brahe.”</p>
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<p>“I was a little surprised, myself. That gives us a good idea of their speed and perhaps their traj–“</p>
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<p>“Shut up, Tycho,” Why Ask Questions said, laughing. “We will get to all the delicious science you could ask for soon enough. Your question went more than a little beyond that.”</p>
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<p>“Well, I’ll leave the politics to you all,” he said, grinning and shaking his head. “I’m going to write my own note while we have a bit of time.”</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-03-28</p>
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