update from sparkleup
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<p>The news remained grim, as the total percentage of lost instances hit one percent and varied little.</p>
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<p>Twenty-three billion dead.</p>
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<p>Billion. With a ‘B’.</p>
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<p>The numbers boggled the mind. The percentage of my friends that had disappeared overnight remained well below: of the more than two hundred I checked in with, Benjamin was the only one missing. Even if I counted Marsh, the total number was less than that. Hanne tallied up similar results: Shu and one other, <!-- TODO -->, could not be reached. They, like so many other, were unavailable to ping and listed as ‘no longer extant’ on the perisystem directory.</p>
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<p>The numbers boggled the mind. The percentage of my friends that had disappeared overnight remained well below: of the more than two hundred I checked in with, Benjamin was the only one missing. Even if I counted Marsh, the total number was less than that. Hanne tallied up similar results: Shu and one other, To Aquifer dos Riãos, could not be reached. They, like so many other, were unavailable to ping and listed as ‘no longer extant’ on the perisystem directory.</p>
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<p>The directory was a deliberately vague bit of software. It could not provide a listing of all instances, could not run aggregates on all of the data, would not provide a running tally on the number of instances living within Lagrange.</p>
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<p>“It is both a technological and a social problem,” Dry Grass explained when asked. “The technology to provide that list would not be insignificant to implement, given some of the core mechanics of the System. We do not live in a database that can be queried so broadly. The social aspect is that we decided early on that we simply did not want that to be the case. We did not want that one would be able to discover random individuals, to hunt for old enmities on which to act. Privacy concerns here are of a different breed.”</p>
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<p>Unsatisfying, but at least understandable.</p>
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@ -70,23 +70,22 @@
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<p>Sure enough, as the clock ticked over to 18:00, an AVEC setup sparkled into existence with a pleasant animation, set in an open space in the center of the room. As the lights dimmed and sound picked up, we were greeted by a low murmur of voices from various phys-side techs filing into their own seats in an auditorium of some sort, projected in from the L<sub>5</sub> station. The transmission was set to be semi-translucent, a helpful affordance for us to see who was phys-side and who was sys-side.</p>
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<p>After a minute or two of the last of the attendees figuring out their seats, a dour gentleman dressed in a station-issue jumpsuit stood and bowed towards the front of the auditorium, the AVEC projectors ensuring that it looked as though he was bowing towards the last standing person in the room, an instance of Need An Answer.</p>
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<p>“The Only Time I Dream Is When I Need An Answer of the Ode clade, she/her,” he said in a flat monotone. “Thank you for setting up this meeting.”</p>
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<p>The Odist returned the bow and replied in kind, “<!-- TODO the exec who is a collectivist -->, he/him, thank you for agreeing to set up this meeting. We have specifically asked for the attendance of phys-side systech III Günay, she/her. Is she present?”</p>
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<!--TODO-->
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<p>‘s expression grew even more sour, but he bowed once more and gestured toward the front row. A young-ish woman with short-cropped black hair stood, hesitated, and bowed. After an awkward moment and a gesture from , she stepped up to the front of the auditorium as well.</p>
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<p>The Odist returned the bow and replied in kind, “Jakub Strzepek, he/him, thank you for agreeing to set up this meeting. We have specifically asked for the attendance of phys-side systech III Günay, she/her. Is she present?”</p>
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<p>Jakub’s expression grew even more sour, but he bowed once more and gestured toward the front row. A young-ish woman with short-cropped black hair stood, hesitated, and bowed. After an awkward moment and a gesture from Jakub, she stepped up to the front of the auditorium as well.</p>
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<p>“Need An Answer, yeah?” she said, bowing once more. “Pleasure to see you. Dry Grass told me a lot about you.”</p>
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<p>“And she has told us much about you,” Need An Answer said, smiling. “Thank you for agreeing to join us. Those of us working on this project sys-side have requested that you be our primary point of contact moving forward. We have–”</p>
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<p>“<em>Me?</em>” Günay said, a look of panic washing over her face.</p>
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<p>“Yes, you,” Need An Answer said, voice calm. “You will be our primary point of contact among the phys-side systechs.”</p>
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<p>“But my boss–”</p>
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<p>“We do not want to speak with your boss on these matters,” she said, voice maintaining that eerie calm. “We wish to speak with you. <!--TODO--> and the other members of the admin team have agreed after some…discussion. Thank you for joining us. We have a few questions that we would like to ask you directly. Your colleagues are there to provide guidance, and the representatives of the admin team are there to sate their curiosity.”</p>
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<p>“We do not want to speak with your boss on these matters,” she said, voice maintaining that eerie calm. “We wish to speak with you. Jakub and the other members of the admin team have agreed after some…discussion. Thank you for joining us. We have a few questions that we would like to ask you directly. Your colleagues are there to provide guidance, and the representatives of the admin team are there to sate their curiosity.”</p>
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<p>“Uh,” Günay said, voice hoarse. “Well, okay. I wasn’t exactly expecting that, but sure, I’ll do what I can.”</p>
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<p>“Lovely. It is my role to organize, not to ask questions. Picking up responsibility sys-side will be I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass of the Ode clade, she/her, Jonas Fa of the Jonas clade, he/him, Debarre of his own clade, he/him, and Selena of her own clade, she/her.”</p>
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<p>The four sys-side representatives stood up and bowed. Debarre, I noted, was quite curt in his bow. While my read on weasel expressions was less than perfect, he seemed to be giving <!--TODO--> a run for his money on the dourness levels.</p>
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<p>The four sys-side representatives stood up and bowed. Debarre, I noted, was quite curt in his bow. While my read on weasel expressions was less than perfect, he seemed to be giving Jakub a run for his money on the dourness levels.</p>
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<p>“I will ask the first question,” Dry Grass said, remaining standing while the others took their seats. “Based on an internal survey, we are estimating losses of about one percent. Do you have visibility on the number of lost or corrupted instances on your end?”</p>
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<p>Günay opened her mouth, hesitated, and looked towards <!--TODO-->.</p>
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<p>Günay opened her mouth, hesitated, and looked towards Jakub.</p>
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<p>“Günay,” Need An Answer said. “I will remind you that we are asking you, not your superiors. You may answer honestly without fear of reprisal. We are running this show, now.”</p>
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<p>There was a rustle of noise from the AVEC stage. Low murmurs and shuffling in seats, quickly quelled.</p>
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<p>“This is intended to be a collaborative effort, Need–” <!--TODO--> began.</p>
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<p>“This is intended to be a collaborative effort, Need–” Jakub began.</p>
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<p>“Have you lost 23 billion souls, my dear?”</p>
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<p>There was no response for several seconds. The tension, even across the AVEC feed, was palpable. Eventually, he bowed. “Günay, you may carry on.”</p>
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<p>The systech nodded slowly, looked off into space for a moment — consulting something on her HUD, I imagined — before nodding. “We only have an estimate, but yes, our estimate is 0.977% of the total instances on Lagrange were lost or corrupted.”</p>
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@ -95,15 +94,13 @@
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<p>Another pause, longer this time, before Günay spoke. “We aren’t sure, yet.”</p>
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<p>“I do not believe that,” Dry Grass said, smiling and bowing toward the stage. “And I mean that in all kindness, Günay. The phys-side news feeds are being slowly ungated, and the tone is not one of questions with no answers.”</p>
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<p>The tech wilted under the cold kindness. “Well, okay. There is some suspicion of malicious actors, yes. I say ‘suspicion’ in earnestness, I promise. A lot of what you see — or will see, I guess — on those feeds is gonna be speculation, and I can promise that that’s all I’ve got, too.”</p>
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<!--TODO-->
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<p>, apparently unable to restrain himself any further, stepped back to the center of the stage and bowed curly. “Dry Grass, if I may.”</p>
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<p>Jakub, apparently unable to restrain himself any further, stepped back to the center of the stage and bowed curly. “Dry Grass, if I may.”</p>
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<p>The Odist nodded, a touch of haughtiness in her movements.</p>
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<p>“We have been ensuring a certain amount of…information security and hygiene, at least until we were sure that Lagrange was back up and running at full capacity. It–”</p>
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<p>“It isn’t at full capacity,” Debarre growled.</p>
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<p>“If I may,” <!--TODO--> said, glossing over the comment and continuing all the same. “It was determined that, with the conclusions that the investigative teams dug into the root cause produced, certain data were to be withheld from sys-side and phys-side <em>both.</em>“</p>
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<p>“If I may,” Jakub said, glossing over the comment and continuing all the same. “It was determined that, with the conclusions that the investigative teams dug into the root cause produced, certain data were to be withheld from sys-side and phys-side <em>both.</em>“</p>
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<p>Jonas Fa smiled cloyingly. “I have to say, that doesn’t exactly leave much in the way of doubt in our minds as to what might’ve happened. You either fucked up royally or we were attacked.”</p>
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<!--TODO-->
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<p>stiffened, bowed, muttered, “Unavoidable.”</p>
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<p>Jakub stiffened, bowed, muttered, “Unavoidable.”</p>
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<p>One of the other Odists at our table snorted. “Treating information theory like a game gets you shit on every time.”</p>
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<p>After an uncomfortable pause, Günay asked meekly, “Is that okay for now? Maybe once the NDAs are lifted or whatever, we can talk more about that.”</p>
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<p>Dry Grass smiled again, more warmly this time. “Of course, my dear. Perhaps instead you can tell us what happened to the unrecoverable instances.”</p>
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<p>“There was some experimenting on that front from a therapeutic standpoint, but they were never able to remove a singular memory, only to wipe back from the present moment to a certain point in the past.”</p>
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<p>I prodded at the slab of table, unmoored from the floor as it was. It was immobile. “Are you thinking they did that for everyone?”</p>
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<p>“Everyone who survived, perhaps,” Dry Grass said, shrugging. She looked tired, as though the exhaustion were catching up with her. “But come, they are unmuting. We should be quiet. We should listen.”</p>
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<!--TODO-->
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2023-11-11</p>
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