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<p><span class="tag">writing</span> <span class="tag">fiction</span> <span class="tag">scifi</span> <span class="tag">post-self</span> <span class="tag">qoheleht</span> <span class="tag">novel</span> <span class="tag">chapter</span></p> <p><span class="tag">writing</span> <span class="tag">fiction</span> <span class="tag">scifi</span> <span class="tag">post-self</span> <span class="tag">qoheleht</span> <span class="tag">novel</span> <span class="tag">chapter</span></p>
<p>On the formation of the clade</p> <p>Interview with: Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled<br />
On the formation of the Clade<br />
Ioan Balan<br />
Systime 181+338 1644</p>
<p><strong>Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled</strong>: What, specifically, do you want to know about the clade?</p>
<p><strong>Ioan Balan</strong>: Other than "start at the beginning, and when you get to the end, stop?"</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: [laughter] Yes. I could do that, I suppose, but it wouldn't make for a very good story.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Right. I suppose start at the beginning, specifically with your decision to upload.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: You understand that there will be portions of that story that I cannot tell you, yes?</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Of course.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: [thoughtful silence] Okay. Did you ever come across...well, no. When did you upload?</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: 2238.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: [sighs] No. Okay, well, in your research, did you ever come across mentions of "the lost"?</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Yes! Lots of turmoil around then. Early 2100s, right?</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: [nods] Yes. Though it's strange. The turmoil at the time felt very small and personal. While there was all this grand scale stuff going on around us, we were dealing with friends and acquaintances disappearing. There were so few cases at first that it was just this thing the news would publish as a sort of curiosity. "Look! Isn't this strange? The scientists are working so hard!" [laughter] It wasn't until after that the turmoil began.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Okay. Did you upload during?</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Oh goodness, no. That had been something scientists and such had been considering, but that no one had yet to accomplish. Or, well, perhaps someone had accomplished. Some had claimed to, at least. The consensus at the time is that, while it was likely possible, there would be little chance of having systems large enough to house more than two or three individuals. [pause] It was the lost who started it, in a way. The things we learned from them when they came back--</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: How many-- sorry for the interruption. How many came back? Of those you knew?</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Oh, all of them came back! Just that some of them didn't last long, after.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Including the...uh, the owner of the Name?</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: [pause, tense] Yes.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Okay. Back to the uploading side, then. The lost taught you...</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: [visibly relaxing] Right, yes. When they came back, many of them talked about what they had learned while...uh, in there. The things that they talked about and described are what sent folks down new avenues of research, and that eventually led to the first uploading tech. From there, there was the usual "too expensive" hand-wringing, but it all marches on, you know? [laughs] It got cheaper, the tech got better, the L5 station and ansible were set up. Population was getting out of hand again, and some wag decided to pitch uploading as a solution.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: I remember that, yeah. The posters were all over the place.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Yes. Notably, as the cost came down, it was pitched as something for the poorer classes to take advantage of.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: And were you...I mean--</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: [laughs] Poor? Not particularly, actually. It appealed to me for...different reasons. I'd prefer not to get into those at the moment.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Alright.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Yes. Well. [pause] Okay, right, I uploaded in the 2130s, shortly after the L5 station was set up. It had become sufficiently cheap that It was something I could afford--</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Cheap? How much?</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: It was...well, still a considerable portion of my savings.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: I see.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Why do you ask?</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: We were --- our families were, I mean --- paid for us to upload.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Oh? Fancy that! [laughter] Anyway. It had become something that I could afford, and I leapt on the chance. It had been around long enough that it still felt relatively established, but was still a far cry from what it was now. This was probably early systime 10+, I mean. Folks knew what they were doing, but much of the society --- what we think of society --- here had not gelled into what it is today.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: You mention that it cost to fork, yes.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Yes. The reputation markets were already set up by then, but since this was before the system's proper expansion and some tech that came later --- I couldn't begin to understand it --- it was gently discouraged by the market.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: It hadn't reached this...post-scarcity, you mean?</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Right. There was still a scarcity of resources and we were still sufficiently...uh, still sufficiently human, perhaps, socially human, that this was used as a lever, a measure of one's class.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: We still have the markets, though.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: [laughter] Not like we did then.</p>
<p><strong>Ioan</strong>: Fair, yeah. Don't suppose you would be able to do what you do today back then.</p>
<p><strong>Dear</strong>: Not at all, no. It does still cost some minuscule fraction of credit for one to fork now, but I digress. We began as Michel and did the things that Michel did </p>
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