opnet [OpNet] Of men and gods

[Sakurako Hino]

Quote:

Originally posted by ronin:
I hate to agree with the Cthuloid monstrosity (or do I?), Sakurako, but...

My comment about Preston was more in reference to something that he and I have been discussing in private. I don't think that helping baselines and attempting to stop crime is a negative in and of itself (both the approach and the intention can make that a subjective), but Preston is a goddamned charlatan.

Okay. I'll check out of the conversation. But I will watch the proceedings.

*bows out*

[Charr]

Prestor-John Boy sulks:

Charr, you talking to me?

Nope. Talking about you. Doing it for the home players that might otherwise spend span considering whether you might believe the feces flavored rhetoric you spew.

Whitebread, not even the sellouts trust you on this bullshit. They tolerate you the same way you tolerate Trollster since he started whoring for the yoopee's. Now why don't you go back to hustling the new borns and leave off with those of us that took the time to check out your little operation. BTW: your pet zips fear you more than than they love you. Personally I'm good with that but since your whole world view hinges on a very fragile delusion I thought you might want to know.

Innocence weeps:

I've got more of a clue than yourself, Charr. You traded your humanity for a bag of cheap tricks and tentacles. I'd feel sorry for you if I had the time.

Hey hey snookums!

Don't get me wrong. I don't give a shit for that bit of fluff you played snuggled time with. I just think its great to watch you get played so thoroughly and still think its your own idea. Shit, if we all knew it was this easy to get you to drop on your knees and service I'm sure she'd have been done long ago and you counted you as a bonus.

No, I didn't trade my humanity Innocence. You bought that lie and the intolerance is a defense mechanism just like Prestor-John Boy lying about his zip pets.

Vanguard

Not a problem but then you haven't figured out what it is that I do or why I do it. Zips got to cross the line first and then they're mine. The "psycho killer with sociopathic tendencies" is just a trite little bit of fluff novas like Prestor John Boy like to use when they can't figure things out.

[Ghostwriter]

Charr, if you're trying to goad me into a rant, you're not going to succeed. Go back to the deeps whence you came.

[Singularity]

Charr, if the elder gods come up from the deep just to pester people like you do then I have no idea what Lovecraft feared.

Preston has been defending his views with far more structure and coherence your own flamebait. You could at least match the quality and restraint of his words.

Codex has been walking above your belittling her loss, I would think even you would respect what she has been through. Leave her be.

[Vox Via]

Well, Charr, then can you explain to me why your actions work,when eye for an eye justice did not work for humans in the past?

I only wish for you to do something meaningful with your life.I can see reasons for your anger.I do not agree with your actions,but I am not God,at least not anymore than you are.

[Charr]

Innocence wails:

Charr, if you're trying to goad me into a rant, you're not going to succeed.

"If" is good. "If" means on some level you actually recognize what you're doing.

No I'm not goading you, Innocence. You obviously didn't give a shit about your pris-sis Warlady in any other ways except "Oh god! OH GAWD!" and "Thank you for not being the monkey shit my chimp hubby was". I'm just amazed that you didn't come up with a much richer rationale to play out this third rate drama queen complex with.

You're giving professional victims a bad rap, Innocence. I noticed you wanting me to go down though.

Frankie says:

Preston has been...

... talking shit. Again. Run it through the sanity check Frankie. Did you really think the little pimp lived in Oz where all the good little monkeys play nice throughout the day and have sherberts for lunch?

I really don't know whats more pathetic. You accepting this trash at face value without ever stopping to think about it or needing it to be true for someone so badly that you'd even buy into this ridiculous bedtime for Bonzo chimp story.

Vanguard:

Its not anger.

Get that straight, keep it straight, and we'll talk. Think about it for a few days first though.

[Singularity]

Charr, my point was your arguments are simple, juvenile at best. Your reasoning seems to be "I am right and that is all the proof you need" with a few insults spaced between. Your words are not convincing, nor do they seem entirely intelligent. If this is your attempt to convert others, then do not be surprised when no one worthy of your supposed title of godhood shows up.

What I find pathetic is you bullying nature, Charr. You are like a child with a supremacy complex, laughing at and tormenting small animals out of some need to validate your sense of superiority. You respond to disagreement with ridicule, apparently enjoying the negative attention you receive. Again: leave Codex be.

[Wakinyan]

You don't play with your Sushi before you eat it so why bother talking to it? Just get me about 400 pounds of rice and about 50 pounds of Wasabi (It'd help cover the aftertaste) and you won't need to bother with disgruntled calmari cadet anymore.

[Preston]

Damn, Totem. You're ideas are sooooo tempting,

...

...

but no.

Charr, how would you even know what toleration is?

I argue with him about somethings, and agree with him on others. Its part of intelligent discourse and debate.

Now, an interesting disconnect is how so many don't see that Ashnod's and Prodigy's points of view lead to Charr's actions. It is the same politics.

As for baseline's fearing me; yes, some do. I have witnessed people put off by my aberrations. I have felt an unease enter a room before me, part of the Aberrancy Syndrome.

The difference is, I deal with it with patience and understanding. It is a part of me, but I don't let it define me. I am who I want to be, Charr, and you can't stand that.

Mr. Alden, calling Charr a bully is an insult to bullies. After all, there are no audiences for his stunts. No one 'learns' anything from his actions, except the depths of his depravity.

At the end of the day, his aren't political actions, but pitiful outbursts of his own weaknesses.

Codex, he is the weak one. He stands for bitterness, envy, and anger. No matter how tough life has been for him, he has made the choice to act negatively. You have taken a positive stance in life, and you act to make the world a better place. Charr reacts. Violence with violence, fear with death, and a never ending cycle of hate.

[Charr]

So Frankie wants to go to Oz. Suuuuure. I don't want to convert anyone, Frankie. When someone tells you they hold the key to the one true path they're selling something. Its just that simple.

So what am I suppose to be arguing for your entertainment; that you're a god? Sorry, not my call. Even Orzaiz on vocals with Ashnod playing bass can't make that true for you when you can't have it. Maybe I'm suppose to be pimping Teras like its a zip religion? Nope, you don't want to know then fucking live with the ignorance. Am I suppose to be arguing Preston's secular version of zip heaven? Sorry again, Frankie. I don't give a shit which fantasy he wants to live today. Tied up in leather or singing "Kum Bah Ya" with the chimps... Its all the same to me. Outright lying to others makes him a used car salesman for the monkeys but that doesn't get you off the hook. If you want to know its not hard to figure out, if you don't then nothing I say will matter to you and its a waste of time trying.

I didn't judge when you went pro, when the animal Innocence had been fucking finally turned on her, Prestor's pets tried to kill his son or when the cost of Warlady's fantasy finally came due. You made your choices and accepted the cost.

Its the rationalizing that makes me want to puke in disgust.

Totem: aww... and I wanted to buy a blanket.

[Ghostwriter]

Once an ass, always an ass, Charr. Even if you resemble a squid instead of a donkey.

Preston, Singularity, thanks for sticking up for me. It's good to know I have some friendly folks out there.

[Singularity]

Odd, Charr, your own rationalizations do not sit well with me either. I know and accept the "lies" that predicate my actions, do you know and accept yours?

Do not think of it, Codex, that is why I am here.

[Charr]

Ah, but you have a vested interest in believing the world works in other ways, don't you Frankie. So tell me; which of my 'rationalizations' so unsettles the latest immigrant to Oz? And wear protection with Innocence. Despite her mousey little appearance and need to be victimized for validation she can be dangerous to be around. Professional victims tend to slop their morose misadventures on any and all standing in the eye line.

Heh.

Was it something I said, Innocence? So nice to see your lovely self replete with touseled hair and sensitive new age paganism carrying on granny's emopowering traditions with such enthusiasm. Much better than the drunken benders you moped around in. Still pissing away your time restoring knick knacks for chimps to stick in glass cases?

Make it quick folks. I do love to trade witty banter with the step-and-fetch class but I've got other things simmering. Got a hot tip on an animal that actually managed to duck me for almost a whole four months. I anticipate having pleasant little chat on this and matters of morality. A happy pleasant little talk. The kind of conversation that lasts a lifetime.

Nothing any of you could be bothered with of course.

[Singularity]

Apparently, Charr, you do not believe baselines novas can get along. That our condition makes us beyond alien to any baseline, making any cooperative action between baselines and novas a practice in futility. While that sentiment might be fact to you, I find it a sloppy assumption. Realization or understanding of our nature does not necessitate separation from baselines. Nor does it require a supremacist's attitude. Please, share with me a reason aside "just because."

[Charr]

:snicker:

Hope you didn't blow your wad on that bit of conjectural genius. Where do you nutjobs get this shit from?

Look, I gotta run and smack a bad little chimp on the nose with my very own special newspaper but I should be back in a few days. In the meantime; if you want get all touchy and feeling in some big circle jerk of life then knock yourself out. Hug the trees, chimps and roaches to hell and back.

I don't actually give a shit what gets you off, Frankie.

[Ghostwriter]

I happen to enjoy that aspect of my job, Charr. I'm literally touching history with my bare hands, and that's worth a bit of exhaustion.

I screwed up and realised it. Thanks to some very wise people, including Ashnod of all people, I realised I could do more with my life. I'm doing it now, but you seem to have avoided the idea of self-growth.

Charr, leave Franklin alone. He's been through enough grief without you putting more on him.

[Singularity]

Please, Charr, if that is all you have, then my own quick and dirty conjecture is complex in comparison.

[Jager]

As a counter argument, I would point out that there are novas among us that can't inteact well with baseline humanity.

Others will chose not to because, as Totem will attest, that isn't were their lives lead them.

Singularity, it took quite along time for you to get to a point were you wanted to change your life.

V came to the same crossroads.

Folks, we are evolving, and sometimes that can be very uncomfortable to deal with. Both for ourselves and for the world around us.

[Charr]

Awwww... That's so cute, Frankie. It won't work but its cute anyway. Of course its complex in your eyes. Its creative little you that's coming up with it. You do have me confused with someone that thinks of you let alone highly. Ashnod may think you've got potential and even Innocence can chime in but we both know that doesn't matter, don't we? I'm simple and to the point, Frankie. Trying to figure out motives by judging what it would take for chimp loving repentant little you to come up with the answers you don't understand and maybe you'll get it after all.

Doubt it, but who knows.

Innocence, when you stop nattering on about your job and start thinking of it as what you you do you'll be partway there. See? Wasn't that easy? You didn't even need someone to smack you around a little to get there.

Jager, get outta here! That had hints of insight to it.

Me, I'm going to be laughing my chitinous ass off at Prestor John Boy for fucking years to come.

[Ghostwriter]

Charr, leave Franklin alone. He's worth ten of you.

[Charr]

Yes, Innocence. Let's try and distract the bad nova with a ploy that wouldn't work on a zip.

Are you becoming sick of the fear?

[Singularity]

You know, Charr, it seems you are assuming a lot, and also it appears we are both speaking to a brick wall. I believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe. I am not a zealot out to convert others, nor are you according to your own words. And we both find each other's believes to be rationalizations, poor ones at that. Such is faith, guess.

But on another point, I will repeat myself again: Leave. Codex. Be.

[Ghostwriter]

Thanks, Franklin.

[Charr]

No.

Still hoping for a happily ever after, Frankie?

Let me be the first; there is no fucking denoument of a zip god waiting to be found tarnished under an rock or hidden away forgotten in the chimney soot. Club U is a shitty little tourist trap for the chimps, Frankie. Its a place you go to pretend to be something else. You buy a t-shirt with a trite little slogan and a social contract in the label. A place to drop a coin in a zip's begging cup to pretend you just changed his life and yours. You can borrow self esteem for a while but its only a loaner.

The stench of quantum blood is in the fine print. The resentful sidelong looks once dismissed as a chimp having a bad day. The disbelief in a nova's face when he realizes it doesn't matter if he's right because the zips refuse to look. The novas made fearful of looking in a mirror because what they see might not match the esthetics of an animal. The novas driven to learn to shut their node down and fit in with the herd - terrorized by zips to give them a little incentive. Its sterile and hollow, Frankie, because their dreams are borrowed. And when the zips realize they got a nova that really buys into all of their circle jerk hugging bullshit?

Those are the ones that die while farming or in their sleep.

Dear sweet clinging Innocence.

Did you even notice you'd quantified what is supposedly unquantifiable? You've already put a price on it all on your own.

[Preston]

You just can't stand the idea that you have thrown your life away, can you Charr? You have made the choice to abandon mankind, but we haven't. We have learned to go in a different direction. One that embraces the common good and the combined future that homo sapien novus and homo sapien sapien can have together.

You have elected to toss those options away. I can be a nova and a human being, and am quiet happy with that choice. By denying your humanity, you have become something less, not something more.

[Ghostwriter]

Pull your head out of your backside for a change, Charr, and tell me the difference between you and someone like Hitler, apart from the fact you have a node and he didn't? There are Terats that I respect, albeit at least one reluctantly, and you aren't one of them.

There's a difference between growing from humanity and growing away from it. You have chosen the latter option, and I kinda feel sorry for you.

Even with my anima and skintone, I can still walk along a beach and get friendly waves from baselines. You... They'd run and scream.

Totem, I recommend a bit of lemon and tartare sauce, with butter for his lobster bit.

[Vox Via]

Miss Mclachlan, there are "terats" that you respect?I sure hope I am not one.For you do not seem to know the meaning a of respect.Why,I do say you may as well say, there are niggers that I respect.

I am a Teragen.I fallow my own path along the Teras.

[Charr]

Prestor-John Boy;

You can get an fcuking opnet connection that far up mommy's womb? Well, damn. Ah what the fuck. Tell you what, lying little buffoon stepping and fetching to the self destructive desires on your pets as you are, I'm still going to hook you up. You get the same deal I gave that twisted fuck Paragon and his quisling little crew of degenerates.

I'll meet you halfway.

Dearest little Innocence;

You said backside. Heh.

Is that any way to speak to one of your top ten fantasies? Slick way to shift guilt around but then you offered up Pris-sis as your number one. Puts things into perspective since we know where she stacks in your personal priority list.

Soulful wails and moon eyes for your quim didn't work. Maternal cammoflauge with Frankie didn't work. Whining about an ugly little chimp the zips made their 'man' of the year isn't going to work. Shit girl, I even noticed you fantasizing about getting me in your mouth again and that's not going to work. Your entire worldview is based on your ability to pass? How original.

Poor delicious little Innocence. Its not the monster you correspond with that you fear.

[Ashnod]

You really got to me, Preston. I must congratulate you on that much. I am exceedingly confident in my philosophy, my conviction has never come into question in all the time I have been with the Teragen. Even as I read your last reply to me, it did not waver.

Nonetheless, the seed was planted as I sat back from my terminal, reading your words. No, I did not doubt what I know to be true, in this nothing was shaken. It felt very much like presenting the brilliance of mathematical theory to a bright child, only to have them say, "So what? I have a lollipop!" in reply.

Flawed as that simile is, the sensation was present regardless. I continued to dwell on it, and the feeling evolved. No, it was not like giving mathematical theory to a bright child, instead it was akin to giving it to college freshman only to have them say, "I don't need this, it won't apply in the real world."

The real world, then. That was my dilemma. Was our exchange like that of a mathematics professor and a student merely filling a course requirement? Did I exist in a world where mathematics is the language of the universe, where the cosmic and minute can be discovered and defined? Was your world one where mathematics existed only in the background like so much white noise, omnipresent but ignored except the mundane tasks of balancing your bank account and rudimentary counting?

And it grew, and grew, until I was no longer able to merely ponder this idea. Do you and I exist in the same world? I had to know.

So, you succeeded, Preston, though I doubt it was your aim. I decided last Sunday night, when you posted your reply to me, that I would live as you do, as much as I was able to, for one week.

Those near and dear to me gave me an earful for this. From outright laughter to silent disbelief, I was told I was wasting my time with this. With you. That I needn't concern myself with someone so blind to the obvious.

But no, that was not enough for me. I wanted to do this, suddenly. Perhaps just so if ever queried on the matter again, I could speak with the weight of recent experience.

So you got me to do it, Preston. I dormed down for you, for a week.

As the active quantum slowed like molasses to my node, then freezing in place as sap spilling from a tree, it was done.

And I was blind.

My temporal and spatial senses vanished, leaving me staggeringly blind. Years of having intimate knowledge of the passing of fractions of microseconds, of having complete and immediate understanding of the forms and distances of my surroundings changed so thoroughly the way I perceived the world even in passing, that the loss of those senses could only be compared to losing one's eyesight on the spot. Of having the very orbs cut from your sockets at the optic nerve and then left to find your way in the world without them.

Sitting down, I found it necessary to collect my bearings, to attempt regaining cohesion and clarity. I watched time pass on the clock of my OpNet terminal, feeling the absence of time washing over me, longing to have it caress me as I had become accustomed to, as those moronic white digital seconds turned to minutes and then to an hour.

As the angels themselves had sung to me for years and suddenly silenced themselves.

For some time now my very body has lit up the room or area I occupied, but that Sunday night I found myself laying in darkness. Not that I required (or so I thought then) sleep, some things even dorming cannot take from you, but that night I desired it. Lusted for it. Perhaps sleep would ease the pain I felt from losing my quantum senses I haven't even described the totality of it, merely touching upon the temporal and mentioning the spatial. The others I possesses, the sum of their loss...I might as well have lost limbs to be so crippled.

And I lay there thinking This is what they equate themselves with. This base state with no possibility of touching the glory beyond it. This simple form limited by every law of science known. This CAGE.

My own philosophy made real. My node screamed at me it seemed to awaken it, to open the dam of energy I had willed into place and reclaim that which I purposely subdued. But no, no, I wouldn't be defeated so easily.

Surely, after a few days to acclimate myself to this condition, I would not consider it such a burden. This thought seemed to make sense at the time. But underneath that thought was the truth, the truth that after you are so awake, you cannot go back. You cannot touch the cosmic and suddenly believe that it would be good to live without it.

Except in comic books written by baseline writers, whose moral seems to be that being human is all we should aspire to. That anything else is either blasphemy or destined to end in madness or death. That humanity is the divinest state one can hope to achieve while living. Stories that glorify the human condition written by people who've never experienced anything beyond it.

But nonetheless, I continued onward. Sleep finally overtakes me. Perhaps I did need it after all.

Monday morning comes. It occurs to me that I cannot shift my body along my spatial perceptions to relocate myself. Not without waking up my node. I am suddenly dependant upon other means of transportation.

I am given a "ride" so to speak, from a fellow Terat. This is the one freebie I allow myself since I'm not the one using quantum. I need to go to a city and experience it. I considered Boston for a while, thinking that would be appropriate, but I believe fate would have directed our paths to cross then. No, not yet. That time hasn't yet come. So, instead Chicago.

If feeling blind in my home was painful, walking through the streets of Chicago was excruciating. So much sensory input and only five senses with which to experience it? I might as well have been watching a static-ridden black & white television set after having grown up with holography. As I write those words now, they seem so incapable of relaying my discombulation, the stark contrast of my life of not even one day earlier to how I was experiencing that Monday afternoon.

A hotel then. I need a place to stay for the week. Easily located. Dormed as I was, the effects of my evolution didn't seem as strong on the baselines around me. Subdued, perhaps even vanished completely. I can't be certain.

The man behind the counter treated me well-enough for someone who paid for a week's stay. He kindly explained to me the features of the room, walked me through all the instructions I would need. It was at that moment I realized my mental faculties were a fraction of what they should have been. Gone were my speed of thought, depth of retention, celerity of comprehension. Horror, shock, and revlusion followed.

I was suddenly...for lack of a better word...stupider. Bright for a baseline, certainly, but compared to my true self, that suppressed self screaming to be released, stupid. The previous night's assumption that I wouldn't need sleep hit me all to well in the face of this revelation.

I thought of all of you at N!Prime who say that dorming down is a "release from the stress of being a Nova" at that moment. That is the biggest crock of shit, yes shit, I have ever, ever, heard come from a nova's mouth.. Individual tastes be damned, if you find that being dormed is relaxing because you don't have to think or take in sensory input on anything more than a monkey's level, you should immediately seek out an M-R Lobotomy. These thoughts raced through my head as I stoically nodded to the man at the counter and accepted my key.

The rest of Monday I spent in that room just trying to acclimate myself to this condition. I looked at the streets and towers of downtown Chicago from my hotel. Something seemed to be missing. I knew what it was, of course, but that sense of something missing just wouldn't go away.

Tuesday now. I went exploring. Walked down the streets trying my best to ignore my now aching node, longing to be stretched out.

I rode the el-trains. Ate lunch at a small restaurant in the Belmont area. Wandered in and out of various shops selling pop culture t-shirts, incense, crystals, and leather goods. Found plenty of memorabilia with Teragen and Utopia iconography.

Great Monster C, for some unknown reason, I felt the tremendous urge, which proved unconquerable, to purchase a baby-doll tee that had an image of you and the Cookie Monster embracing each other, with the line "Heroes have heroes too" underneath it. I would wear this shirt for the remainder of Tuesday. You'd be amazed at how many fans you apparently have, because many people felt the need to stop me as I wandered through Belmont to comment on the shirt.

I thought then, Preston, you were wrong about our influence on them, but I knew this one, tiny example would be insignificant in the totality of it all.

Wednesday morning came. I went to the Museum of Science and Industry as part of a tourist package I signed up for on Tuesday. GOLD MINE. Do you have any idea how many exhibits and features are devoted to innovations made post N-Day. I am speaking exclusively of ones developed by Novas. I had the golden opportunity to observe the field trip of some summer class looking at them all, listening with rapture as they spoke. Spoke to me, in that way that children often do, about how Novas have changed the world, about each's favorite Nova and what they've accomplished. By the way, Great Monster C, many of them said it was you. Mostly Utopian names, though a few unaligned Novas were also mentioned. Preston, you were one of them. The boy who named you's father was, not surprisingly, a member of the Chicago PD. Codex, many of them expressed grief over Warlady's passing. I thought you might like to know.

All of this was told to me without me prompting them. All I had to do was show a glimmer of interest in what they were speaking of.

I was beginning to become accustomed to my condition. I felt as though I was learning to use one of the old wheelchair that had mouth controls to get around with after the loss of all four limbs. I was adapting, in a sense, but I was in no way happy about it.

My node continued to tighten, screaming louder for release.

Thursday...

I am sitting in the hotel bar. Alcohol, apparently, still cannot affect me while dormed, despite my best efforts to rediscover intoxication. Thus I became a goddess in the eyes of many that night, casually drinking my competition under the proverbial table. My advantages being evident to me, somehow, were seemingly neglected by the most of the patrons. However, more than one person accused me of being a Nova, of drinking more alcohol than any sane baseline woman would possibly consume. How correct they were. How astute of them to notice. Fascinating that they were looking for the signs, that could not accept that I could do that normally and insisted I had to be different. This, by the way, from the sober observers.

But then, the capstone of a perfect night. A murder in Detroit is on the news. The anchorwoman makes a point of saying that city defender Kijkak was doing a charity fundraiser for homeless Detroit kids on the other side of the city. And someone in the bar, unrelated to any person involved, makes the comment that "Kikjak could've stopped it had he not been busy that night."

I could mention the conversations of two college students I overheard on the el-train about the viability of Teras as a true philosophy. On a side note, it was fascinating beyond words to hear what they believed Teras was, and it was all I could do to remain silent and simply listen.

I could mention the number of the aforementioned memorabilia I saw plastered on the clothing of people I saw. Is it worth bringing it that it outnumbered Chicago sports franchise memorabilia easily?

I do not think I need to. If you're curious, though, Preston, today I ended my week dormed by going to St. Mary's Catholic Church for evening mass. No mention of Novas there, of course, but I found the prayers of all those congregated there engrossing. Not for any reason that relates to this discussion, save curiosity, but I felt you might want to know.

My aching, sore, cramped node orgasmed, or so it felt, as quantum began surging through it once more when I returned home this evening. The best I can put into words, feeling exhausted by this, is that it was much like having all four limbs numb from being tied down regain sensation. I wasn't thankful for the return of my quantum perception, as I'd always had the means to recover it, nor did I feel blessed that I was a Nova. More reclaiming that which I should have been able to use but was instead shackled down.

My doubt, however, is gone. And with its departure comes fear, fear that I have always possessed but now seemingly multiplied, for my species. I fear for us, Preston, more than you can possibly understand, if you see the world through the lenses you currently do. I fear for the baselines who you live amongst, ignorant of what we really are, pretending that we're just like them just a little more advantaged.

I contemplated showing, to the best of my ability, what being a Nova, specifically, what being me is like to some random bystander on the street just to witness the reaction, but I found myself unable to commit an act that cruel. I could not, would not, give someone incapable of touching the cosmic a taste of what it is like only to strip it away from them forever.

I don't expect you to understand this. Quite honestly, I expect you to attempt tearing this apart in some futile effort that Charr will take great glee in responding to.

Nonetheless, as you were responsible for this, you needed to hear it. I am terrified that to you, the truth of your evolution is but white noise that you feel doesn't apply to you, or those around you. That you hear it in the background of your life and pay it only fleeting attention for reasons, even dormed for a week, I cannot begin to fathom. After my week, I feel that the lollipop comparison was far more accurate than the student one ever was, and I mourn for what will be lost in the ever-nearing future.

[Preston]

Well, I truly thank you for trying. I realize that you tried to the best of your ability to understand what I have been trying to say to you.

You, as Ashnod, were the mighty wind surrounding the tiny shack that is our baseline perceptions. Then, you thought that becoming the mere tiniest of breezes would change that relationship?

You missed my point.

,,

Now, I do not know if you can do this, but if you can:

-Go to the place you grew up and talk to an old, unerupted friend.

-Talk to your parents.

-Talk to your old school teachers about what a pain you used to be.

-Hang out at some of the places were you hung out as a youth and places were you learned some of those key life experiences.

-Realize how much you have grown, both as a human, and a nova.

What I wanted you to look at is your social disconnect from humanity. It's cause and the effect it is having on you.

I wish you had come to Boston, and I wish you had sought me out. After all, you aren't a criminal (though INS might have some problems with you ). I could have shown you friends, and families, and mixed social groups that function.

You could have spent a day on the job with me, as an observer. While some of our tech is 'secret', I'm sure it isn't something that you haven't seen before.

Okay. I'm not saying you should go out and emmulate my life. I doubt that's even possible. What I do ask you to do is examine that reality that other novas do have this level of social interaction, and that it is something we chose to do.

The thing is, I realize that I could give it all up. I could quit my job, leave my family and friends, and go out and make my own fate, independent of everyone else. There would be other mysteries to gather my attention, and I could turn my inner eye upon myself for as long as I pleased.

I chose to have a career and family, Ashnod, just like they chose to accept me. It is give and take. Relationships have always involved a bit of sacrifice-of-Self for the sake of the Whole.

By the way, I rarely dorm down, and I haven't slept in months. I work too much, and I don't need the sleep anymore, after my coma. I am not a Utopian, who is going to argue that novas are humans with nifty powers. I am a human, and a nova.

Also, while you were going to Evening Mass (and I hope it nurtured your soul), I was going to a Symposium on Space Travel at MIT. They are opening a project to create FTL technology. The lead scientists (baselines) are working with two members of the Daedulus League and an independent Warper to create artifical Warp technology for point-to-point travel. They don't expect a working proto-type for ten years, at the soonest, but they are determined that this cooperative effort will have immeasurable benefits in the future. After all, novas are rare. Novas with PtP travel are even rarer, and it would be extremely tedious for any nova to do it on a mass-commercial basis.

My aching, sore, cramped node orgasmed, or so it felt, as quantum began surging through it once more when I returned home this evening.

My first thought on this was "Oh,yeah!" as I am a recovering heroin addict, but on examination, I have been getting a bit of that sensation myself, recently. As my power has become less fatiguing and stronger, I have been come more used to it. The whirlwind of possibilities and probabilities that constantly surround me, and how I dip into them to gain a better understanding of what might be.

In that way, I feel that you belittle me, and every nova like me. We see what you see, but we draw different conclusions.

You want us to give up baseline interactions, but I don't see you having any to even base your assumptions on.

As an anology - I am in the ocean, and you are on the beach. You tell me the water is too cold and that I should get out, but you aren't touching the water, just looking at it.

From your perspective, I am in the water, so I can't tell just how cold the water is, compared to the air, and thus can't tell the danger I am in. The water is a limited environment, and will cool to us over time.

From my perspective, putting your toe in isn't a good way to understand how warm the water is. The ocean is eternal and, if maintained, will provide infinite growth for us.

You are terrified because you do not understand us, nor the people we relate to. Our existance is beyond your understanding, and you equate that unknowing terror to the rest of existance.

Will certain baselines fear/hate/be jealous of us? Sure thing. I agree that this will happen, these people will exist, and that this is a powerful force we must learn to deal with. I don't feel like abandoning society to this kind of response, though.

I also see people who will love and befriend us. People who will be meaningful parts of our lives and treat us with respect and understanding. These are the aspects of human nature we should nurture.

I don't expect you to understand this. Quite honestly, I expect you to attempt tearing this apart in some futile effort that Charr will take great glee in responding to.

Futile effort? Very possibly so. As for what Charr will do; who knows?

What you have shown me is that you are willing to try and see the other side. What it also shows me is that you have a social disconnect with humanity that one week walking around blinded and dumb won't cure (not that you want I cure, I believe).

Your perceptions are tinted by your preconceptions, just as mine are tinted by my own. It is a common, very human, problem. I want to see the positive aspects that novas have on society, and I do. You want to see the negative, and there it is. You may very well see positive effects, but think them temporary and fleeting, while the negative causes a long-term damage. I understand that novas can have long term disasterous effects on society, if we are utterly careless and self-centered.

One doesn't drop loaded .22's onto a preschool playground, nor portable nuclear artillery into a civil war. It is a human problem that has existed, does exit, and will exist. It is not something unique to novas.

I am far from perfect, and I hope that I haven't been too hard on you today. The world will be a much better place if we all try to co-exist.

As Prodigy once said, I am not respecting his wish that we cease to interact with baseline humanity, so why should he respect our wish to do so?

Because, that is enslaving us to his ideals, and I am no one's slave.

Ashnod, I respect your noble effort. Truly, I do. I do not feel that it accomplished anything more that cementing us in our own ideals, though. In your own words, That you hear it in the background of your life and pay it only fleeting attention for reasons, even dormed for a week, I cannot begin to fathom.

It is not 'in the background of my life', Ashnod, and I understand that you can't fathom how I keep my existance as both a human and a novas together as one whole.

[Ashnod]

Preston, to quote yourself, you entirely missed my point. Every single one of them I was trying to make it. I wasn't trying to rediscover relationships or connect with individuals. That was never the goal of this little experiment.

[Preston]

Please, in plain English, lay out the points you were trying to make.

[Matryoshka]

Preston, the flaw in her mind is not that she lacks insight or ingelance.It is that she has too much of those traits.You can't convince her that what she knows is not true.She will wrap the very flows of reality and logic to her will to make herself right,and you wrong.

I could be wrong,but I think if that is the case she is lying here.For if she believes the words she tells us,then you can't argue with her logic.

[Preston]

I do not see this as a mental flaw, Ms. Malory. I sense this to be a matter of reasoning, perception, and beliefs.

[Matryoshka]

That is what you see.I wish you were right.

[Ghostwriter]

Ashnod, I respect you the most of all Terats, and I'm not afraid to say it. Thank you for your effort.

Charr, what is it that you think I fear?

[Ashnod]

Ms. McLachlan,

What effort is it that you think I made?

[Ghostwriter]

For dorming down. Truth to tell, I must admit that I hate it on the rare moments I do it, because even with peak baseline intelligence I feel like I've had a lobotomy and I know what I've missed. I understand how you hate it, and maybe a little of the why.

[Wakinyan]

I've given up on my dorming. Mainly because I just dont think I can. I am not going to be able to fit through most doors and I just need to accept that fact and move on.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Sounds like you had a real experience Ashnod. Now that it is over, do you think you are less of a person for it?