update from sparkleup
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<p>“Allowing them to fork might prove dangerous, Tycho. We do not know how large their consciousnesses are.”</p>
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<p>He shrugged. “Well, sure, but if our goal is to provide an accurate representation of ourselves…”</p>
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<p>The two Odists frowned at each other before True Name said, “You do make a good point. We will take it under consideration.</p>
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<p>He nodded and began prowling through the courtyard. It consisted of a large, square area, a fountain in the center, and a large table beside it — “I will have full ACLs to modify this if need be,” True Name explained — all surrounded by a ring of trees, and that with a ring of covered walkway.</p>
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<p>He nodded and began prowling through the courtyard. It consisted of a large, square area, a fountain in the center, and a large table beside it — “I will have full ACLs and enough rep to modify this if need be,” True Name explained — all surrounded by a ring of trees, and that with a ring of covered walkway.</p>
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<p>He paced around the perimeter, watching the way the sunlight shone through the trees and cast dancing shadows on the ground. They had been his idea, a lingering remnant from his dream. At two opposite corners, hallways led off to rest and sleeping areas. He walked down the one that led to the humans’ quarters, turned around, and looked back toward the courtyard. The view was much the same as in his dreams, though here, the columns from the covered walk offered regularly spaced shadows along the wall.</p>
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<p>He nodded approvingly and made his way back out to the central meeting area.</p>
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<p>A copy of Jonas had also made his way into the sim and was poking his way around the table, inspecting pads of paper and pens. As he watched, another Jonas appeared and then quit.</p>
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<p>“Alright,” the Jonas said. “Transmission across the border works as expected. Memories transfer without loss, and merging is the same as always. No radio, no textual transmission, so you’ll have to rely on a fork transiting the border to relay news.”</p>
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<p>“Wait, so neither party will be able to communicate outside of here?” Tycho asked.</p>
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<p>“Nope, all locked down. You’ll have to rely on the grapevine. We can open it up later if we want.”</p>
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<p>“Nope, all locked down. You’ll have to rely on the grapevine; Codrin has volunteered an instance. We can open it up later if we want.”</p>
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<p>“But if we’re using forks and they’re not allowed, won’t that look strange?”</p>
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<p>“You ask a lot of questions for a tasker,” Answers Will Not Help said, laughing. “But yes, your point stands. Perhaps we will allow them one fork, maybe limited to their rest area. Thoughts?”</p>
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<p>Jonas shrugged.</p>
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<p>“Six weeks sounds like a long conference.”</p>
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<p>“We do not know how long the conference will last,” True Name said. “It could be over in an hour if they prove to be pests. All we will need to do is shut down the Ansible, leave the DMZ, and wipe everything within it.”</p>
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<p>He frowned. “Wouldn’t they be able to leave, too?”</p>
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<p>“The border is governed by the same ACLs we are used to. One must have permission to transit.” She grinned. “But I do not expect that we will need to do this. With all of the chatter we have done in the last few weeks and with what my cocladists say about the language, they sound like a nice enough group.”</p>
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<p>“The border is governed by the same ACLs we are used to. One must have entered via the System in order to exit again, which they will not have done.” She grinned. “But I do not expect that we will need to do this. With all of the chatter we have done in the last few weeks and with what my cocladists say about the language, they sound like a nice enough group.”</p>
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<p>“How do you figure?” Tycho asked. He prowled through his memories of the language that he’d learned in the interim. “It feels mostly…uh, normal, to me, if that’s the right word. They’ve got all the same concepts for what we have. Bunch of words about fur, seems like.”</p>
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<p>True Name grinned all the wider. “Which automatically makes them better.”</p>
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<p>“That’s mostly the point, though,” Answers Will Not Help said. “They do not have a superfluity of words for war, weapons, fighting, of course, but they also do not have words for discussion that are so fine-grained that we will be out of our depth. They will talk much like us, which makes them easier to predict.”</p>
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<p>Tycho nodded.</p>
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<p>“And before you ask why that does not make it more difficult for us,” True Name said. “Them having a varied culture means that there are at least some some that might be sympathetic to us.”</p>
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<p>“Or susceptible to,” he said.</p>
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<p>He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. He felt in a precarious position, surrounded as he was by three politicians. Calling them out on their machinations was a dangerous move.</p>
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<p>He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. He felt in a precarious position, surrounded as he was by three politicians. Calling them out on their machinations was surely a dangerous move.</p>
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<p>Answers Will Not Help giggled. Even True Name and Jonas were grinning. “You continue to amaze and delight, my dear,” she said. “But yes, it does make them susceptible to our wicked ways.”</p>
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<p>He smiled cautiously. “Well, if you say so.”</p>
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<p>“Come on, let’s head back,” Jonas said. “We’ll reset the sim, grab some dinner, and then we can go back to planning.”</p>
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<p>Throughout dinner, he remained quiet, and no matter how hard he tried, he was not able to focus on the food. It was good, of course, as much of the food had been during his stay, but some part of his mind remained elsewhere. It remained back in the sim, back focused on the conversation that he’d had with the politicians of the team.</p>
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<p>Since he’d arrived — even before then, even before the message from Artemis — he had felt in over his head. There was something about these people, something about the world that they’d set up that showed how they worked on some higher level than him. Their minds were so fundamentally different that, no matter how much they tried to explain the political ramifications, no matter how much they showed him their work in shaping the response to the news, he just couldn’t take it all in.</p>
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<p>It had seemed that True Name and Answers Will Not Help had loosened their control over him the longer he stayed with them. They paid less attention to him. They spoke more in commands than guiding questions. They smiled less and focused harder on the tasks at hand. Even Why Ask Questions, who he’d found himself liking quite a bit after working with her on the letter, had grown busier and busier.</p>
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<p>He felt as though he had been picked up as a tool and then simply set in his drawer until it was time for him to be used.</p>
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<p>He felt as though he had been purchased as a tool and then simply set in his drawer until it was time for him to be used.</p>
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<p>How much input would he even have in these meetings? Was he to be, as Codrin had said, merely an amanuensis? Was his job simply to be there, observe, and pick up on the science aspect? Would he be allowed to take part in the conversations? Would he get to know the Artemisians?</p>
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<p>There were far more questions than there were answers and, apropos to the situation, none of the answers were helping, so the cynical part of him kept thinking <em>why bother asking?</em></p>
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<p>It was almost too much, sitting there at dinner, trying to chat amiably, trying to enjoy the food, while all these questions and so many more circled around inside his head, finding some release, but there was no way that he could hope to ask anyone at the table that night, none of the True Names, none of the Answers Will Not Helps or Why Ask Questionses, and certainly none of the Jonases. Perhaps he could ask Sovanna or Dr. Verda — now all but obsolete — but they were busy enough with their own worries that didn’t surround acting as emissary to an alien race to bother with the social engineering going on around them.</p>
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<p>It was almost too much, sitting there at dinner, trying to chat amiably, trying to enjoy the food, while all these questions and so many more circled around inside his head, hunting for some release, but there was no way that he could hope to ask anyone at the table that night, none of the True Names, none of the Answers Will Not Helps or Why Ask Questionses, and certainly none of the Jonases. Perhaps he could ask Sovanna or Dr. Verda — now all but obsolete — but they were busy enough with their own worries that didn’t surround acting as emissary to an alien race to bother with the social engineering going on around them.</p>
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<p>After dinner, he begged an hour of rest alone in his quarters and paced, composing his message in his head.</p>
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<p>“#Tasker,” he said at last, beginning the sensorium message. “Can you talk to Codrin some about just what it is to be an amanuensis? I know ey talked to you about that and all, but I’m really not sure what it is that I should be doing, or what I even can do. I know I’m supposed to listen and record along with em, and I know I’m supposed to ask all the fancy science questions, but I’m starting to feel like that’d be better served by writing down a list of questions for one of the Odists to ask.</p>
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<p>“Hell, I’m starting to feel like they wish that’s all I’d do. They’re nice enough, and they seem confident in their decision to use me as the science representative, so it’s not like I’m off the team, I just don’t know that I’ll have any say in any of this, and I guess I’m just feeling lost.</p>
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<p>“I’m sending this to you rather than em so that you’re up to date, but also I just feel like you ought to know some of my thoughts since you’re…well, you’re me. If I were any more confident in my ability to fork and merge, I’d just do that, but even that feels way outside my realm of expertise.</p>
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<p>“Hell, I’m starting to feel like <em>they</em> wish that’s all I’d do. They’re nice enough, and they seem confident in their decision to use me as the science representative, so it’s not like I’m off the team, I just don’t know that I’ll have any say in any of this, and I guess…I guess I’m just feeling lost.</p>
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<p>“I’m sending this to you rather than em so that you’re up to date. I feel like you ought to know some of my thoughts since you’re…well, you’re me. If I were any more confident in my ability to fork and merge, I’d just do that, but even that feels way outside my realm of expertise. But also…even Codrin feels klicks above me. I don’t want to make em explain every little detail to me just because I’m so socially dense.</p>
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<p>“Get back to me if you can, but if not, at least let Codrin know so, that when ey arrives tomorrow for orientation, he’s got this knowledge, too.</p>
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<p>“Anyway, uh…thanks, me. I hope you’re sleeping better than I am.”</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-01-16</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-12</p>
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<p>Others were more cautious about the venture, however. “Is a danger not a danger?” they said. “Is a risk not a risk? We must also consider that we might ourselves be overcome by their might. Is it worth it to stoke that fire?”</p>
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<p>Still others spoke thoughtfully, “It is a danger here, as well. There are wild animals in the dark, and there are those who might fight against us here. Perhaps the goal of exploration is also to ensure the security of ourselves! Could we not also use this as a chance to ensure that we live on?”</p>
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<hr />
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<p>And so they sat around their campfires and talked and discussed and argued and strove and fought and laughed and wept. They sat around the campfire and raised their hands in vote, and it was decided that an ark was to be created and sent to explore, and any who wanted to go to see those campfires would have the chance. Those who dreamed of the opportunity chose universally to travel. Those who saw the risk as overwhelming did not. Those who knew that this might be an opportunity for them and those who might consider them ancestors decided as they would, to go or to not.</p>
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<p>And so they sat around their campfires and talked and discussed and argued and strove and fought and laughed and wept. They sat around the campfire and raised their hands in vote, and it was decided that an ark was to be created and sent to explore, and any who wanted to go to see those campfires would have the chance. Those who dreamed of the opportunity chose universally to travel. Those who saw the risk as overwhelming did not. Those who knew that this might be an opportunity for them and for those who might consider them ancestors decided as they would, to go or to not.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>And so the ark was sent out into the sea of the night, making waves in the black fabric and leaving a wake of dreams new and old behind it.</p>
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<p>And still, they dream.</p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-12-27</p>
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<p>Page generated on 2022-02-12</p>
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