update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<h1>Zk | 006</h1>
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<h1 id="codrin-balanemissary-2346">Codrin Bălan#Emissary — 2346</h1>
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<h1 id="codrin-balanartemis-2346">Codrin Bălan#Artemis — 2346</h1>
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<div class="codehilite"><pre><span></span><code><span class="err">Convergence T-0 days, 0 hours, 32 minutes</span>
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</code></pre></div>
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<p>The next note that came from Castor included a block of indecipherable text that was marked as clade-eyes-only for Turun Ka.</p>
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<p>Codrin puzzled over this during a private minute in fast time.</p>
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<p>Normally, clade-eyes-only or individual-eyes-only text for someone other than the recipient appeared as that header of, for instance, <em>Bălan Clade-Eyes-Only Material</em> followed by an indication that such text might be there, but nothing about its contents, including its length or composition. For em, this usually appeared as an ellipsis in square brackets, long-standing traditions of elision being what they were.</p>
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<p>This, however, appeared to be text of the type ey’d grown used to in encrypted blocks. Letters, numbers, punctuation, all crammed into a single unbroken chunk. More, some of the characters appeared to be restless. They strained at their form, as though they desperately wanted to be something else, and when ey looked away and back, they were indeed that other form, and some other character nearby would be itching to change, instead.</p>
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<p>Clearly, one of the delegates from the LV had instructed the Artemisians on not just how to send text back to Artemis, but how to do so in a private way. Artemis itself, however, couldn’t figure out how to represent that, and perhaps that’s what clade-eyes-only text might actually be in the perisystem architecture.</p>
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<p>Clearly, one of the delegates from Castor had instructed the Artemisians on not just how to send text back to Artemis, but how to do so in a private way. Artemis itself, however, couldn’t figure out how to represent that, and perhaps that’s what clade-eyes-only text might actually be in the perisystem architecture.</p>
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<p>Ey recreated the note on a few fresh sheets of paper, eir own message on one and Turun Ka’s on another, and headed back to the meeting.</p>
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<p>“Leader Turun Ka,” ey said, once they were gathered together once more. “I have received a message from your counterpart back on Castor. It is encrypted for your eyes only, though I’m not sure how well that functionality transfers between systems.”</p>
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<p>The firstracer’s head remained still, leaving no clues as to its opinion of this matter, and it accepted the note that Codrin passed over gracefully. It didn’t hold it up to see or bow its head to look down at it, so ey figured that as soon as it changed hands, it must have changed its form. Paper, after all, was only a symbol. Letters, words, and written language only signs.</p>
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<p>“Thank you, recorder Codrin Bălan.”</p>
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<p>“Thank you, recorder Codrin Bălan. The information is intact.”</p>
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<p>As ey expected, this was followed up by a blurred meeting of the Artemisian delegates in fast time.</p>
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<p>Ey spent the time sneaking glances at True Name and Answers Will Not Help, catching Tycho and Sarah doing the same.</p>
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<p>True Name, despite maintaining careful control of her expression, still appeared to be beyond tired. The flickers of her human form came more regularly, now, and, while her appearance as a skunk remained polite, attentive, and receptive, that human face showed only exhaustion.</p>
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<p>Answers Will Not Help, however, was a mess.</p>
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<p>Her form rippled between species, and with it, so too did her expression. She would veer wildly between barely constrained laughter and agony, all while tears coursed down her cheeks or left tracks in fur. She managed to keep quiet for the most part, though occasionally a snippet of poetry would escape her: here a line of the Ode, there a bit of Dickinson. She had even startled Tycho at one point by quoting something ey didn’t quite recognize: “I have sown, like Tycho Brahé, that a greater man may reap…”</p>
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<p>This wild dissociation from the world around her was made all the more unnerving by the fact that ey could tell that she was having a difficult time staying within common time. </p>
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<p>She never veered far from it, only within a range of 0.1 to either side, but even that carried with it a sense of wrongness. They were in a unison room, which ey’d been told meant that she specifically <em>shouldn’t</em> be able to do that — something that she had specifically requested.</p>
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<p>She never veered far from it, only within a range of point one to either side, but even that carried with it a sense of wrongness. They were in a unison room, which ey’d been told meant that she specifically <em>shouldn’t</em> be able to do that — something that she had specifically requested.</p>
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<p>Iska had hardly taken their eyes off her since they’d noticed as well, as though they were trying to puzzle out just how it was that this was happening.</p>
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<p>They were only two and a half days into the conference and, while both sides had learned much about the other, ey wondered if they’d even be able to make it to a week.</p>
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<p><em>Or even the end of today,</em> ey thought. <em>Answers Will Not Help looks like she’s about to explode.</em></p>
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@ -61,14 +64,14 @@
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<p>The silence at the table was absolute. All delegates on both sides held still, and Codrin suspected that all of the emissaries from Castor were holding their breath. All had experienced the laser-focused wrath of at least one of the Odists in the weeks leading up to the conference.</p>
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<p>Answers Will Not Help hunched her shoulders, cowed. Every ounce of control she had remaining seemed to be dedicated to keeping her crying as quiet as possible.</p>
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<p>“Leader True Name,” Artante asked, voice just as soothing. “You do not need to answer, but may I ask what just happened?”</p>
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<p>“I will not answer, representative Artante Diria,” she said, voice once more slipping into exhaustion as a wave of human form washed over her features. “It is a private matter between me and her. My apologies.”</p>
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<p>“I will not answer, representative Artante Diria,” she said, voice once more slipping into exhaustion as a wave of human form washed over her features. “It is a private matter between me and my cocladist. My apologies.”</p>
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<p>The fourthracer bowed her head. “I understand. Would you like to take a break?”</p>
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<p>“Perhaps a brief break would be nice,” Sarah said, nodding. “We can collect ourselves and perhaps move onto a separate aspect of the history of the System.”</p>
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<p>True Name nodded.</p>
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<p>“Your break-respite need not be brief-short,” Turun Ko said. “We are able-to-permitted skew the unison room to allow for longer rests.”</p>
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<p>“No!” This time, Answers Will Not Help did shout. “Sorry. No, please do not — motes in the stage-lights — please do not modify time. No, no no no, please…”</p>
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<p>Iska’s expression had steadily grown more and more alarmed, at Codrin’s guess, throughout the proceedings. “I do not–“</p>
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<p>“We will reconvene in fifteen minutes,” Turun Ka said. Nothing in its voice changed from how it normally spoke, though it having spoke was enough to quell Iska to silence. “Representative Artante, representative Iska, please convene to address this issue moving forward from a technical and psychological standpoint. When we return, we will indeed move on to another subject.”</p>
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<p>“No!” This time, Answers Will Not Help did shout, voice shifting slightly as she slid this way and that away from common time. “Sorry. No, please do not — motes in the stage-lights — please do not modify time. No, no no no, please…”</p>
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<p>Iska’s expression had steadily grown more and more alarmed throughout the proceedings. “I do not–“</p>
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<p>“We will reconvene in fifteen minutes,” Turun Ka said. Nothing in its voice changed from how it normally spoke, though it having spoke was enough to quell Iska to silence. “Representative Artante Diria, representative Iska, please convene to address this issue moving forward from a technical and psychological standpoint. When we return, we will indeed move on to another subject.”</p>
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<p>Iska bowed their head in assent.</p>
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<p>Answers Will Not Help was sobbing in earnest now, stifling it as best she can with her face hidden behind the notebook she had before her but had yet to touch.</p>
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<p><em>“I cannot feel em”? Feel who?</em> Codrin thought, frowning.</p>
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@ -78,7 +81,7 @@
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<p>“Now, I would like to lie down during this break. Please accompany me so that I may dictate this letter.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-11</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-16</p>
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</footer>
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</main>
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@ -52,7 +52,7 @@
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<p>After True Name and Answers Will Not Help tottered off to their rooms, each leaning on the other, Codrin, Sarah, and Tycho sat on a pair of beds, heads down and running in fast time in order to discuss the last segment of conversations.</p>
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<p>“I wasn’t expecting her to be that open about political machinations,” Tycho said. “I’d think she’d want to keep it under wraps. If her and Jonas and their friends have been working to shape our past so much, you’d think they’d want to be a bit more subtle about that.”</p>
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<p>Codrin shrugged. “Maybe, though it could be many things. Could be that they’re aiming to show the whole of us, positives and negatives, as the Artemisians don’t have the context of the <em>History</em>. Perhaps she wants to show that we have a society strong enough to handle manipulation without slipping into authoritarianism. The fact that we use language so consciously is probably a sign in our favor, in the end.”</p>
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<p>“Or she could just be slipping,” Sarah added. “She’s hardly winding up in word salad territory, and it’s hard to tell how much of that was telling the truth, being a politician, or actually getting into the territory of grandeur.”</p>
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<p>“Or she could just be slipping,” Sarah added. “She’s hardly winding up in word salad territory, but it’s hard to tell how much of that was telling the truth, being a politician, or actually getting into the territory of grandeur.”</p>
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<p>“No reason it can’t be both, I guess.” Codrin sighed, buried eir face in eir hands, and rubbed eir face vigorously. “She might be working on some level way above our pay grades and still having a hard time keeping it together.”</p>
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<p>Tycho frowned as those fears once more floated to the surface. Something was going on in these talks that he simply didn’t understand. Things were being said with so many different meanings and the subtext felt completely disconnected from the text.</p>
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<p>“Is it always like this?” he asked.</p>
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<p>“Working with them. Working with any politician.”</p>
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<p>Codrin grinned. “Well, I can certainly confirm that the Odists work in ways that feel distant from what we’re used to. Dear will occasionally say something that makes no sense in context, but then a week or two later, I’ll realize what it actually meant, or that it was a suggestion that I’d subconsciously started following without really thinking about it.”</p>
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<p>“They’re incredible at reading people,” Sarah said. “At least with Dear, I can see it being sort of a positive — or at worst, playful — way of influencing. I’m not sure with True Name, and have no idea what Why Ask Questions might be doing otherwise.”</p>
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<p>Tycho looked to Codrin, who gave him a subtle shake of the head. “Me either,” he said at last. “Hell, I have no idea what’s going on with them either, other than what Codrin’s told me. Have you heard anything else from the delegates back on the LV?”</p>
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<p>Tycho looked to Codrin, who gave him a subtle shake of the head. “Me either,” he said at last. “Hell, I have no idea what’s going on with them either, other than what Codrin’s told me. Have you heard anything else from the delegates back Castor?”</p>
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<p>“Just a little bit about language,” ey said thoughtfully. “We actually touched on it today with that bit about ‘old Nanon’, so I’ll write em back. I’d asked em a question about the Odists and what their roles had been because I was having a hard time piecing together memories, and ey confirmed that.”</p>
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<p>“What sort of question?” Sarah asked.</p>
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<p>Ey hesitated. “Well, I was asking about the difference between Why Ask Questions and Answers Will Not Help since we’ve worked with both of them. Ey confirmed that both worked on shaping sentiment, just different areas of expertise. My guess is that if Why Ask Questions were feeling better, she’d have a lot to add to the conversation we had today.”</p>
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<p>Ey hesitated. “Well, I was asking about the difference between Why Ask Questions and Answers Will Not Help since we’ve worked with both of them. Ey confirmed that both worked on shaping sentiment, just different areas of expertise. My guess is that if…well, Answers Will Not Help were feeling better, she’d have a lot to add to the conversation we had today.”</p>
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<p><em>Wonder how the Artemisians would react to that?</em> Tycho thought. <em>True Name was honest, but not enough to bring up this little bit of trickery.</em></p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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