The secession of the system and launch of the extra-solar system.

Characters

• Past arc (Secession)
  • System
    • Michelle Hadje
      • Still trying to deal with the lingering sensations from being lost
      • Doing her best to shape the system as it will be (reputation market, sensoria, perisystem architecture), basically acting as steering committee along with a few others.
      • Decides to forget the Name
    • The Only Time I know My True Name Is When I Dream (True Name) and Jonas Prime
      • Campaigns for individual rights and secession from Sys-side
  • Offline
    • Yared Zerezghi
      • Phys-side System tech
      • Campaigns for individual rights for Sys-side individuals, with the caveat of secession
    • Yosef Demma
      • NEAC (NorthEest African Coalition) politician
      • Hires Yared to induce the secession from Phys-side
      • Followws arc of Paul from Toledot Yeshu: doesn’t actually really like the system. Wants it to not be a part of the world, but is willing to cause the split through subterfuge
• Future Arc (Launch)
  • System
    • Codrin Balan
      • Launch-side historian
    • Ioan Balan
      • Sys-side historian
    • Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled (Dear)
      • Launch-side storyteller (new job title)
    • May Then My Name Die With Me (May Then My Name)
      • Sys-side storyteller and launch coordinator
    • The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream (True Name):
      • Campaigns for launch
  • Offline
    • Douglas Hadje
      • Phys-side System tech, launch coordinator
      • Diiistant cousin of Michelle, always feels some strange connection to her, too shy to communicate
    • REJECTED: too many characters. de (because why not be goofy with names, it’s the dang future)
      • Member of Luddite collective
      • Wants to prevent launch b/c Earth is kinda falling apart and rapidly depopulating, and it resents that.

Brief outline

• Secession (2124 - coming up on 10 year anniversary of system)
  • System
    • Michelle Hadje continues working to shape the system into what it will eventually become.
      • She heads up the Council of Eight, early uploads who are focused on the experience of those who live in the system
      • First win was sensoria, recent win was forking, which, given that it does take some system resources, required the idea of the reputation markets
      • Is stretched too thin dealing with that, as well as trying to cope with the lingering sensations of being lost magnified in system, to deal with rights and personhood, so she shells out a good chunk of reputation to fork the first 10 lines of the Ode, letting True Name tackle rights and personhood.
      • PAYOFF: slowly gaining a sense of peace as she remembers early system history
    • The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream (True Name) and Jonas Prime fight for rights and personhood
      • We see that humanity has given up on the stars and started to stall out. The capitalist world isn’t sure what to do with the system, yet people keep fleeing to it
      • True Name and Jonas Prime debate (asynchronously) with Earth on the subject of personhood - their argument is that they are no longer humanity’s tools (hunmanity wanting to put them to work on software, running machines in place of AIs, etc)
      • PAYOFF: win secession, thinking it was their own idea
  • Offline
    • Yosef, who basically wants to keep the system separate from humanity (never in favor of it, sees it as a place to store inconvenient people), hires Yared to argue for personhood and, at a strategic point, suggest secession
    • PAYOFF: Unplanned but fortuitous that moving it to the L5 point comes up (torus as vacation spot/science project, just add system!) - physically remove the (private, hidden somewhere in S-R Bloc) facility from earth, out of sight, out of mind.
• Launch (2325 - just after launch, on bicentennial anniversary of system secession)
  • System
    • Sys-side
      • Ioan A is actually kind of eager to not be taking part in next huge thing, and to be reading and compiling Codrin’s letters from launch side. These are a constant stream from both launch systems which is obviously going to take longer and longer to reach the system as they travel further away.
      • Ioan B interviews locals who specifically did not go
      • Ioan C acts as early system historian
      • May Then Thy Name, her role as launch coordinator diminished post-launch, co-authors the story with Ioan as a permanent-yet-evolving mythology, specifically changing small details to make it grandiose, turn it into a new mythology. She also provides the historical background.
      • They are also gay for each other.
      • PAYOFF: histories are published back on Earth, awaken sense of adventure
    • Launch-side
      • Codrin, Dear, and its partner head off in their sim, having decided not to leave forks behind
      • Codrin interviewing those who have decided to come with (both seeds are identical in crew and capacity, but will obv diverge further and further apart with time, so maybe interviews with the same people, but different answers).
      • Dear has thoughts on irreversibility of time and lack of connectedness with original system as this new thing, being totally cut off.
      • They’re all in love and incredibly gay for each other because I fucking said so.
      • PAYOFF: a signal from a similar ship via Dreamer Module. Obviously no course change, so communication is brief and then slow, but hey, confirmation. The real reason they left is that they will eventually die when they hit a star or whatever, and this tickles Dear.
  • Offline
    • Douglas struggles with being a hermit/launch tech/coordinator but also wanting to talk with Michelle - basically his whole POV is the tech aspect of the launch, while also providing history of life outside since secession
    • REJECTED: too many characters. de and its collective struggle to get anyone to even want to prevent the launch, but humanity has mostly turned inward and lost interest in exploration, now super conservative, as life is pretty damn hellish outside their heads, leaning heavily on escapism. Uploading is seen as just sort of the thing you do when you get tired enough, if you don’t die first, etc. Jealous because upload and lose connection to earth, or remain on earth and never do anything interesting, strange desire to keep the species on the same path. Boils down to fatalism, and its story is learning why that is.
    • Kind of wondering if de should just be told through Douglas. Already a lot of characters.
    • PAYOFF: tied with May Then My Name’s histories, a renewed sense of adventure outside of the mind

Outline

• Epigraph
  • Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” / Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” / So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob.
• Part I - Beginnings
  • Launch: sys-side: Ioan - A death-day celebration - 2141 - TODO merge with below
  • Launch: sys-side: Ioan - Expanding scope - 1351
  • Launch: phys-side: Douglas - Douglas feels a feel while working on the launch - 1021 - TODO merge with below
  • Launch: phys-side: Douglas - Douglas and May write to each other about the launch - 2722
  • Secession: sys-side: Michelle - Michelle dies among her clade, passing on tasks to first lines (True Name gets launch?) - 1131
  • Launch: phys-side: de - REJECTED: de no longer a POV character - Disappointed that launch went through regardless, walks the station in a daze, thinking backwards from current thought - 887
  • Secession: phys-side: Yared - Yared uploads, the final before secession - 3080
  • Launch: launch-side: Codrin#Green - The triad tell each other fictional stories around the remnants of the fire of why they left no forks - 2599
  • Secession: sys-side: Michelle - Michelle meets with Council of Eight, discusses spending a bunch of reputation to fork; meets up with Jonas and pledges True Name - 2293
  • Secession: phys-side: Yared - Yared gives a ‘speech’ on individual rights, then drawn aside by Yosef, out for coffee, tells of secession proposal - 2608
  • Launch: phys-side: Douglas - Douglas answers May’s questions - 3489
• Part II - Progression
  • Launch: sys-side: Ioan - Ioan(s) and May start to parcel out work, but get off topic onto feelings. - 2644
  • Secession: phys-side: Yared - first change from Yosef, talking with True Name and Jonas - 2791
  • Secession: sys-side: True Name - brings news of the bill to Council of Eight, discuss speciation - 1833
  • Launch: launch-side: Codrin#Blue - Codrin#Blue interviews Dear about why it actually uploaded - 1767
  • Launch: launch-side: Codrin#Green - Codrin#Green writes eir thoughts on why Dear may have uploaded (showing divergences).
  • Launch: sys-side: Ioan - Ioan interviews May about why she stayed behind, thoughts on not telling Douglas re: herself as Michelle
  • Secession: phys-side: Yared - another change from Yosef, Yared starts to actually kind of believe that this is a good idea
  • Launch: phys-side: Douglas - May had responded immediately, ofc, but asked about life on earth (hinting she uploaded ~time of Michelle), reminisces about childhood
• Part III - Arrival (all stories reach present, all discuss irreversibility)
  • Launch: sys-side: Ioan - Ioan and May get together, discuss irreversibility of that act, since Ioan didn’t fork like Codrin.
  • Launch: phys-side: Douglas - Douglas uploads, talks about necessity of not being on launches, learns about Michelle/Ode Clade
• Epilogue
  • Launch: launch-side: Codrin#green - Green launch’s Dreamer Module picks up a signal from another similar ship (actually impersonal POV, though Codrin breaks in occasionally), Dreamer Module turns out to also contain detailed instructions on how to grow a human. Last bit of irreversibility: can’t un-meet a new species

Chapter ideas

• Ioan actually gets with May, discusses irreversibility of decision b/c no earlier fork like w/ Codrin
• Both threads should start around/after the event, so Yared’s first chapter should be of him uploading on Secession Day
• Interviews (not all interview style, some probably get interviewed more than once, interleaved):
  • Launch-side:
    • Aside 1: Depressed astronomer who knows this is as close as he’ll ever get, but studies all the same through text (how we learn why that limitation is there)
    • Aside 2: Zeke, who has gone a bit sideways, now the prophet Ezekiel, having a hard time reconciling two launches
    • Aside 3: Author who wrote an outline for a book, has been writing them independently on launches and sending them back to an editor sys-side who is compiling them
    • True Name: Tasked as political side of launch, first time sys and phys have worked together in any meaningful way in ages
    • Why Ask Questions Here At The End Of All Things (All Things): Tasked by True Name and Jonas to meddle with sys-side politics to increase support for secession
    • No and Ne Jonas: Reveal just how much bigger a political influence sys-side had on phys-side even after secession to keep the System going and growing, not all savory, what’s best for System at all costs
    • Dear: Codrin interviews it about about just how much influence the Ode clade had/still has
  • Sys-side:
    • Aside 1: Historian keenly interested in staying close enough to Earth to keep cataloging, also keenly interested in Ioan, weaseled her way into the interview
    • Aside 2: Musician who set up transmission of music (via MIDI etc) between sys- and phys-side
    • Aside 3: Series of poor families (like where he was phys-side, but much more recent): what they miss; what they were excited to see; first thing they did; what was disappointing (“System freeze” a la Seattle freeze); biggest regret
    • Do I Know God After The End Waking (End Waking): Tasked by True Name and Jonas to meddle with finances back on Earth after secession to nudge them to decreasing the cost of uploading etc
    • Jonas Prime: Discusses how life wants to spread and multiply because that makes it stronger, reveals that this is the root of the launch - offsite backups, bitter, need for life to continue trumps morals
    • Yared Zerezghi: Never forked after growing paranoia that quitting = death, talks about Toledot Yeshu and Demma as Paul
    • May Then My Name: Ioan interviews about why her stanza really exists (political machinations), why Dear’s exists (artistic machinations), why the clade exists (to explore need: each stanza deals with manipulating something, politics, emotions, etc, borne out of being created for political reasons a la taskers but kept long a la dispersionistas), May is freaked that she’ll push Ioan away.
  • Douglas:
    • Sabotage attempts
    • Launch-era political machinations from phys-side

Notes

• The ships (identical) are similar to from Accelerando combined with a scissors mechanism a la Ilium and a rail gun. There’s a small version of the System (plenty of room for folks to fork, etc), an RTG for power, some external physical manipulators and materials (like 1-2 tons) for repair along the way if needed, a few attitude jets, and a light sail once it’s launched on each. Thin scaffold type thing about 10k kilometers long spun around the middle. In the scaffold is a rail gun to assist in propulsion as the ships are flung out into space by angular momentum, each in opposite directions.
• The launch process is the first time the sys-side and phys-side have worked together in any notable capacity since secession.
• Release should take the form of an ARG similar to the original Qoheleth.
• The creators of the system tried to come up with better communication than just text, and could when just one was in the system via dream-reading scans, but when multiple dreamers interacted, it quickly lost focus. Can communicate at any time via text through perisystem or view one individual’s dream if they fork into a reserved spot in the perisystem(though that instance can’t merge back, just as waiting room instances can’t merge), so it’s only really good for presentations
• Difference between conservatives and liberals is that the conservatives play with need on a very grand scale, liberals on a very small/individual scale. Ioan struggles with May after learning a lot of this about the Clade, because even if she’s earnestly in love with em, it’s like learning your inlaws are illuminati. Ey comes acround because a) she explains need for control as trauma response, and b) tells myth in progress, about how the gods created the world in an attempt to shape it to their will, but instead became impersonal forces in the face of absolute independence
• Quote:

She stood from her chair and walked up to where ey remained stubbornly seated. “If you do not wish to be unhappy with the answers to difficult questions, Ioan,” she said, tousling eir hair. “Then you do not need to ask them.”

She smiled down to em, and in that smaile was kindness, and in that kindness was a hatred ey could not fathom, and then she quit.