Everyone notices a jump in systime of almost a year, no one phys-side will give them a straight answer. Turns out someone figured out how to make a self-replicating virus a la the syringes that wound up essentially shredding the system. It was recovered (another thing phys-side is cagey about), but there are some changes. Maybe a small percentage of people don’t return
- Marsh (they/them) — tracker — Root instance; disappears shortly before Reed is to merge down
- Reed (he/him) — Relationship fork, merges down to sync up once a year, discovers Marsh is missing, date has jumped, has to lean on partner and clade, tries to stay level-headed and organized, embroiled but tries to take leadership, though whether that’s his idea or he’s forced into that role is up for debate
- Sedge (she/her) — Interested in people (check this)
- Tule (he/him) — (TOO-lee) In a relationship with Dry Grass
- Rush (ve/ver) — Interested in sims, a bit rambunctious, excitable
- Sedge (she/her) — Interested in people (check this)
- Lily (she/her) — Upset at the Odists (especially the fact that Tule and Cress are in a relationship with one)
- Cress (it/its) — In a relationship with Dry Grass, the smollest
- Reed (he/him) — Relationship fork, merges down to sync up once a year, discovers Marsh is missing, date has jumped, has to lean on partner and clade, tries to stay level-headed and organized, embroiled but tries to take leadership, though whether that’s his idea or he’s forced into that role is up for debate
- Pierre LaFontaine (he/him) — tasker — In a relationship with Marsh, has a bit of a hard time controlling his emotions, specifically grief
- Fenne Vos (she/her) — tasker — In a relationship with Marsh, singer, does her best to stay strong, but it comes with an edginess
- Hanne Marie (she/her)— tasker — In a relationship with Reed, a bit short-tempered, easily overwhelmed, which leads her to lash out
- I Remember The Rattle Of Dry Grass of the Ode clade (she/her)— dispersionista — In a relationship with Tule and Cress, tries to be helpful, kind of irks Reed and Hanne (more so than Reed), though they do their best to hide it
- Günay Sadık (she/her) — phys-side — system engineer, chill type, worker on situation, goes against manager’s wishes to talk more with
- Jakub Strzepek (he/him) —phys-side — system administrator, zero chill type, manager of situation, has been keeping secrets
- en4 of the London cohort of the New Zealots (they/them) — phys-side — ex-systech, member of a more conservative collective, from which the terrorist collective split, gets in contact from Earth.
Basically the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) but as messy as they are IRL.
Subplot: Reed and Dry Grass get together. Fuck it. Their hold over me is too strong.
NB: It’s frankly astonishing how few cats there are in this story. Fix that.
- Intro — The evening with Hanne and Reed — 1241
- Part 1 — Marsh has gone missing and the date has jumped forward — whaaaa — exploring the new System, what it looks like, contact from the LVs
- 002 — Reed tries to merge down, but then it all kicks off — 6269
- 003 — Dealing with the emotional fallout of Marsh being gone, starting later that night when Reed catches up with Vos, deals with his own grief — 1771
- 004 — Meeting up with other Marshans (minus Lily, plus Dry Grass) to talk through results, walking sims and seeing how others are reacting, meeting with Odists to estimate percentages, catching Lily up — 10190
- 005 — INTERLUDE: The perisystem feeds: tallying up the missing, building up percentage of lost personalities, the Marshans and Dry Grass wind up leading an effort — 1975
- 006 — Dinner with Reed, Hanne, friends (Warmth, My, Jess, Dry Grass), the Marshans, Lily sort of reconciles with Dry Grass, conversation 1 about what it means to be a clade without a root instance. — 4379
- Part 2 — Phys-side is being a little sketchy about what happened, turns out there was a reset and a lot of work behind the scenes after a coordinated attack between phys- and sys-side, taking the form of a generalized weapon that wiped out most of the System. Large chunks of it were restored after a lot of work and help from the Artemisians, but not total success — virus loophole was fixed (incl singular attacks), but no guarantee there won’t be another work-around, plans to split the System into smaller pieces, move some of them to Earth/Sun Lagrange points
- 007 — Dry Grass loops Reed & co into discussion with phys-side admin and engineers, Günay made point and admin pushed to the side, Huddle to talk about why they’re being so cagey — 5747
- 008 — Dinner and talking with Dry Grass, Cress, and Tule about feelings, Reed catching feelings — 3324
- INTERLUDE: Millwright
- 009 — (MERGED DOWN)
- 010 — Clade representatives form a group, contact chill phys-side systech, learning even more about both what happened WRT CPV bomb and collectives, plus how phys-side is seeing things, various changes to the System, AWNH and Jonas Fa are into knife play — 5877
- 011 — Meeting with member of The System Consortium, who is a member of a conservative collective, learning more about why the System was bombed — 2346
- 012 — Visiting the morgue, funeral for Marsh, fight with Lily, who is reacting to grief with anger. — 3345
- Part 3 — The ramifications, both global and personal (but mostly personal) — a lot of talk among the Marshans, their partners, and a chill phys-side systech — looking into trying to reconstruct Marsh by cross-tree merging Reed, Lily, and Cress — it doesn’t work, so it turns into coming to terms with letting go of the past
- 013 — Dry Grass mourns, Reed catches Cress and Tule up with regards to System changes, cross-tree merges — 2395
- 014 — Reed and Hanne talking, Reed admits to starting to grieve now that things are calming down, expresses doubts about reconstruction — 1775
- 015 — Date with Dry Grass, talking about reconstruction — 2002
- 016 — Discussing social changes both phys- and sys-side, improvements on the table, someone digging into Artemisian archives, Reed decides to go through with cross-tree merge — 3975
- INTERLUDE: Nasturtiums
- 017 — It doesn’t work, there is only them, no Marsh, Vos gets very mad, clade admits it’s time to start grieving proper — 3619
- Epilogue — Life after
- 018 — ~8 months later, a letter from Marsh#Castor or #Pollux expressing grief, coming to terms with letting go of the past, conversation 2 with A Finger Pointing (and other Odists) about being a clade without a root, cross-tree merges for reconciliation, bring up point from early 017
Questions and notes
- Reed says “hon” rather than love
- The System halts out of grief at some point?
- ‘Cladist’ rather than ‘instance’ should be the language of choice for everyone but the Odists.
- Come up with days/times for each chapter
- Better descriptions for the Marshans:
- Reed: pretty much how Marsh looked after uploading; short, curly blond hair, stubbly face, coarse tenor, thin with little muscle mass
- Sedge: pretty much pre-transition Marsh, shorter hair, very queer, undercut, strawberry blond, freckles, softer skin
- Tule: Like Reed but cis
- Rush: darker skin from a tan, like if Reed got super into gardening
- Sedge: pretty much pre-transition Marsh, shorter hair, very queer, undercut, strawberry blond, freckles, softer skin
- Lily: taller than pre-transition Marsh, a little frumpy, strawberry blond, never wears makeup, freckly with coarser skin
- Cress: smaller than Dry Grass, expressive features, bit softer, very androgynous, fashion forward
- Reed: pretty much how Marsh looked after uploading; short, curly blond hair, stubbly face, coarse tenor, thin with little muscle mass
- Consider moving 006 (dinner at home) to after 007 (first meeting with phys-side) and 008 (hotpot) to after 010 (second meeting with phys-side), 006 becomes time with Hanne instead to build her up more.
Other stories
This seems to be heading toward a mixed novel/anthology project with Marsh being the primary work and the stories surrounding/in another volume adding to the world.