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[Bruce Klein]

--A stand alone Short Story for a novel

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The Meme Makers
by Kenneth X. Sills
Completed August 31, 2002
Dedicated to my father a true healer and the man who taught me to be


"Never Underestimate the Power of Suggestion"
The Mule,
Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov



Sound does not travel in a vacuum and the void of space is a realm of opposites; light, dark, heat or cold, life and death. Where there is life, universally there exists the search for joy to accompany being.

Billions of years of turning have marked days and each day is a cycle for all life. The cycle's measure or standard can be infinitely long or short. A moment can be an eternity but it is only the living that mark the age.

"Just how did we get here?"

Chestnut looks over at BJ smiling at his question. She knows him so well after all these centuries. "Hmmm, would you prefer that yours and Michael's direst predictions about the Singularity had panned out?

Then we wouldn't be here at all."

BJ feigns a stern demeanor and replies:

"They will. They most certainly still will...

“Someday!”

Then he can't hold back his sardonic cheer for long and admits:

"But someday is still a long way off into the future."

"It's funny though that nothing quite worked out as we planned, yet even more than we had hoped for has come to pass and still that old cliché holds true: 'The more things change the more they stay the same".

"What time did we schedule this shindig for?" He interjects sarcastically and adds:

"It wouldn't matter anyway; there are those that will even be late to their own funerals."

"¿Que te pasa amorcito? ¿Estas preocupado sobre algo?" She quietly asks.

"No mi amor, estoy enojado con Laz y Bob porque ellos tienen toda la alegría y nos dejan todo el trabajo." He answers in flawless Spanish, for which he is quite proud as it had only taken him a little over a century to get rid of his Southern accent.

"Area Traffic Control reported that the 'Tortoise' docked over thirty-six hours ago so they have no excuse. Even with Laz still maintaining deep cover as the archeologist assigned to Bob Drake's expedition to Mars. But I am worried about the folks coming in from the Federation Planets. After all an informal state of war already exists between the home world and our, shall we say more cantankerous brethren. I believe Laz said that he would provide cover for them so as to bring the Clan Methuselah together for our decadently regal decennium soirée and it does now appear that they are finally arriving."

After he finishes Chestnut just looks at him for a moment with a questioning look until he finally asks: “OK, What's the matter? You seem quite perturbed."

"I’m worried that our guests won't keep the truce. You realize that Laz has violated Earth security so many times that the prohibitions against capital punishment will be forgotten in his case and that is even if he can keep the Offworlders from taking advantage of this opportunity to spy on planetary fortifications for the upcoming conflict."

"Well they'll have to catch him first and that is even more difficult than getting him to arrive early for his own party. Second they will just have to stand in line; in his case the saying about how you can tell a lot about the man from the enemies he makes holds very true. He certainly has a knack for pissing off the most powerful political groups."

"He does seem to enjoy 'baiting bears'. You know what he says; 'What's the point of being immortal if you don't take some risks' and since not everybody is immortal yet he figures that someone has to 'level the playing field' a little. Well at least this conflict over FTL has caught his attention and brought him back to the Homeworld and to life.

"He disappeared for over fifty years and made us all think he had died in the last go around between the Clans. I can't decide whether to still be angry with him for that, not letting us into his confidence, or just showing up out of deep space without so much as an apology for his absence. In fact I find it difficult to stay angry with someone who has his knack for always showing up when he's really needed.

"Remember when he dragged us all into the Phage War on what we considered the wrong side of the conflict? Now that was a scene. You and him going toe to toe about what defines a human?

He kept arguing for rapprochement with the mariner clones and uplifts and you were terrified that the UN would find out that it was us that made possible negotiating with them. Well as I remember it, we were losing and they had nothing to gain by winning so Laz's idea of creating a peace summit in the midst of the worst hostility turned out to be right. But what I want to know is why he decided to let everyone think that the 'Religious Right' finally succeeded in killing him?"

"Well they did try to after all. I guess he just let us all; including them, think they had succeeded. If he is true to form he'll show and you'll get a chance to grill him for answers. After all he is the member who called the conference. What I want to know is how much trouble is he going to get us all into this time?"

"Have you even figured out whose side he's on?" Asks Chestnut innocently.

Before BJ has more than a chance to nod his head a disturbance changes the subject. Across the meeting hall floor a group is entering. They are clearly Offworlders and are flanked on the side facing their enemies by Wolfen. Norms and Long-Lives have been nervous about Transhumance all along but the Wolfen are “Earth Firsters” too and very dangerously so, plus they have their share of Long-Lives too.

Even so here they are coming in WITH the Offworlders. Perhaps it makes some sense, in that strange doppelganger way of politics, somebody had to be willing to grant safe passage and since they are non-aligned to any major Earth powers other than themselves, it makes surreal sense. Also they are strong enough to protect their own interests. The Wolfen run the underworld of the latter 23rd Century along with uplifted familiars and the Eagle and Jaguar Clans.

Solion moves toward the group that he helped foster. The ones that look the way he feels. He can remember when all this wasn't even yet a dream and not for the first or last time wonders at the incredible irony. Is it not just a little strange that only fifty years before most of the current Allies had been trying to kill one another? A mariner octet enters with them. So the Sea Folk have been invited too and this conference is just about to get started. But where is Laz, he ponders?

Different groups begin to form within the mass of those present. It is more dynamic than simple partisan division and almost more akin to ancient feudal courts. At the core of it all the forces of wealth and power begin to coalesce and take on the appearance of schooling humans hunting and feeding on one another. Like sharks and ‘cuda skimming small clustered chums moving in dancing knots.

The Empowered Ones all assess the situation. Many present are highly capable killers and worse still they are known enemies to one another. Clearly this party is beginning to freeze.

"Is this your party BJ?" Chestnut asks demurely.

"Yes querida.

“¿Por qué?” He responds quietly.

"Then I suggest you order the music to begin my love."

"That is why we are still together after three centuries my dear; you are smarter than me and definitely more beautiful."

He turns, makes eye contact with the evening's Major Domo Robo and talks into his wrist-screen. Within moments the lights begin taking on a darker ambiance and the stage rising out of the center of the crowd materializes with the musicians. Provobos hover through the groups offering varieties of refreshments, appetizers, and personal entertainments.

A holocast of classic rock begins and a techno tune captures a rhythm-beat, as the band Rammstein chants:

"Du...
Du hasst..
Du hasst micht"...

The crowd reorganizes and dance interferes with the politics of the moment to cause a shuffling of couples, triads, and clans.

The crowd continues growing as guests arrive from all the inhabited worlds. The Immoralist Foundation has rented the Eros Valentine Dome. The entire touring NEO is a Solar Shuttle Cruise liner, a luxury Cruise Liner holding tens of thousands, inhabitants and guests built on the now mined out husk of the Near Earth Asteroid, Eros.

It is a small city-state unto itself but the Valentine Dome is the center of the craft, its Leading edge views outward staring into the starry false night of its own shadow upon the depths of Sol System as it spins its way inbound toward the Sun. At the moment it is near Venus and that planet looms mystic like the Moon above the Earth rotating around the sky above the dome.

"You...
You hate...
You hate me

You hate me
You hate me to say
You hate me to say
And I did not obey...

Will you until death does sever
Be a bride to him forever...

Never! Never!"

Bellows the band in their rock militant timbre, slamming their angst and irony into the listeners like the bared skin of a head against a stone wall. Beating and bleating their protestations into the human controlled night, imitating Prometheans chained, screaming as the Roc eats their livers out while still alive.

"Will you till death's her rider
Love her too
To stay inside her...

NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!"

Some of the crowd heads off for the Zee Gee Mosh Core and others just leap into low gee flying gyrations. The clusters that had been accumulating into warring camps thin a little but also gather on the shores of the High Gee, Garden Ring for Earth Dancing and cocktails. The NEO Ship silently slips through the passage of planetary distance except for the noise of the crowd and the thrumming hum of the living's machines. The pounding cadence of the human presence ends at the vacuum of deep space.

The human song of spheres is played through this cosmos on mental waves, not tangible sound. It is by our emotions that our strongest signal is sent forth into the ether, by the din of our minds we are *sensed* and found. The electromagnetic spectrum is slow, an excruciatingly meticulous and precisely paced metronome on a celestial scale.

Nevertheless it is still just intellectual exercising to question the solitude of humanity in this Universe because to this date no voice has yet echoed back to the living Earth Spawn from their now continual screams into the Event Horizon some still confuse with prayer.

Humanity, aside from the new sentient beings of its own creation is still alone. Now, however, with the coming of FTL, we will get Faster-Than-Light travel. We are going to go out and beyond the horizon to take a look for ourselves and there will be no force of Creation capable of stopping us.

The Lightbridge reported various primitive life forms around the nearest star systems and would soon be bringing samples back to the quarantine labs orbiting the Moon. The worlds discovered there are still pristine fecund globes of ocean, ice, and stone. But that will be next year when they have slowed down enough to dock and transship cargo.

This year the various competing fleets of special interest are outward bound to capture or protect that precious cargo, along with any other secrets held on board. The sister famships of the Lightbridge are together in spirit but hold their individual courses into the Cosmos to reach the worlds of Alpha Centauri, Sirius, and the world’s of Star System beyond.

The discovery so relatively quickly of FTL means that the relief missions might reach the destinations of these modern colonial voyagers before some of them do. But the results of the experiments in Social Island Systems will have nevertheless been achieved and the famships will get dismantled like the fleet of Cortez. Symbolic sacrifices burned on foreign shores to define commitment.

The Children of Methuselah today now number in the millions but this assembly is their core group, an elder council. This captured and urban developed asteroid is the chosen sacred council ground of ancient friendships, as well as betrayal; enemies, lovers, cults, and simple business relationships.

Turbans and yarmulkes still grace some scalps present but today so do horns, manes, and sensory arrays. Most of the uplifted are norms but the 'Borg and Mariners are present as well as Martian adapts and Venusian Nomads. This on the other hand, is a very rare gathering of known sworn enemies and conflicted allies meeting under the banner of common heritage for a momentary truce like calm before the storm.

The power struggles for dominance of the Hive Minded Human Spawn haven't ended three centuries into the future begun in the firestorm of World War Two, they have only gotten vastly most Byzantine and dangerous. Those that gather here are the most dangerous that are found anywhere among the known worlds, living weapons of mind and body: The First Immortals.

The site chosen this time is neutral and off world. Nevertheless this group knows one another intimately, they make a point to because they must keep very close track of those they love, and hold their enemies even closer. These are most of the oldest living members of Twenty-Third Century and their finely honed offspring and entourages escort the leadership cadres to this Celestial Council.

The almost invisible polarized great diamalloy dome of Eros is probably the most hated and envied spot in Sol's System at this very moment. All the sentient beings of Sol System can watch and even their numerous governments can do nothing except contribute to the crowd and sometimes with money.

The common awe of wealth has reached religious proportion though the new God's worship their own anonymity, even more than their New Age cult status. The power of Off World Enterprise has become greater than the ambitions of any one planet of this age. Government whether regional, local, planetary, or interplanetary, pays homage to the Lords of Economy. Those that want to complain still have to compete to survive.

Dominant Free Market Capitalists, the Over Lords of the Trans-Planetary Economies, control the shipping lanes and ply the Seas of Space with their fleets of cargo and people. They hold one another in check by vying for dominance among themselves. These are the richest elite in the history of humanity and the media power alone that they wield makes most people wish they were in fact only Pharaohs to worship. Pharaohs died.

Even their own children continuously conspire for the wealth their elders represent. The Elders define this as "the learning curve without a guardrail." Children are sacred but also sacrificed. King of the hill has become a mythic game again and Oedipus is not yet blind.

The century old scions of this wealth share but also never cease to wonder how their parents might die and ponder what they will do once ensconced in power. Let none confuse these with mythical Illuminati and Arcadian Knights, these are moguls. Trans-Planetary Market Moguls and all economies owe their stability and affluence (or lack there of) to them. They negotiate take-over like warring Samurai Clans of Capitalists. But even the Shogun deferred to the Emperor's Court, Bushido rules.

True to form Sophianic pulls his hood closer as he contemplates the target they all represent sitting gathered in one place. He gazes upon the shifting seas of political allegiance and considers who will someday be crowned first. The "Token Diamalloy Emperor's Throne" this Society Created to both herald and mock themselves had never in fact been sat in. It was held symbolic above each meeting so it would never cease to present temptation. "Let none forget that so long as we live we are learning." Engraved in four, primary Earth tongues around its base.

One of the upper gates opens allowing a local sky bike onto the upper of the Low Gee Chamber reaches to dock at the one of the Crystal Fountain Ports above the now teeming three dimensional crowds. William O'Rights and Anna Goodwoman get off the vehicle and drift down to the throng as some recognize them and leap over the top of the larger mass to greet them personally. A knot forms and moves through space of bodies making contact in social intercourse.

Their holovid daily political commentary broadcast, "Democracy in Exile" is seen everywhere humans populate. Their enemies just look at them and resent but also respect their communicative clout. Not everyone with power uses it for self-aggrandizing and enriching their cults of personality. These two represent the exception however, more than the rule.

The colors change and center stage fades to a single faded hue, a solitary thrumming electronic note...

Rammstein hold their heads down showing color and skin, then start the next song. Lifting their faces as one to the four-corners of the Star Chamber they stare into the eyes of thousands of people hundreds of years into their future. The sound wells up as from a spring and the lead breaks into another song:

"Live in Virtue
No desire...
A thin and grave endangered squire...

You look to Heaven
Wonder why?
No one can see dem in da sky..."

The twining sides of Good and Evil intimate throughout all time are simply different faces of the same coin. Here for a time the physics of politics takes its heat from creative energy and waits like potential energy to release its force in kinetic cathartic dissipation. Dancing sweat mingles with lust and the sense of anticipation that the amusement will be power entertaining itself, causing ever more hunger for an ambition that is insatiable.

In the latter half of 23rd Century Humanity is still very much alive, and its extremes have only widened the scope of their horizons.

The sinuous and delicate chorus steps gracefully forward and gently adds:
"Just as the clouds have gone to sea
Angels can be seen only with Heavens' key.
And though we feel the question

Why?

Goddamn!
I'm not an Angel when I die"
finishes the gravelly voice not unlike the Cookie Monster's.

The crowd continues to build. There are still almost twelve thousand humans alive that were born in the twentieth century. If even a tenth of them gather it is a major event, five thousand responded they are coming. Most may just arrive unannounced, this group answers to very few forces in the common human sphere of influence.

ATC says that over half the expected vessels are already moored in parking orbits. And all docking ports are in constant use. This will be a carnival cruise for one month on the inbound trajectory through the orbital ring of Venus, passing Mercury's. After the trade exchanges the city in flight will close its portals and shutter down for perihelion. The craft would recharge its energy cells and thermal mass for the cold loop through to the moons of Jupiter. But for the moment its axis of spin points the leading edge at a tangent to the Sun and the Great Party of Eros holds an unfettered vista of all creation. Rising like a fountain starting with arches of gold the Zee Gee Column opens above the Holostage.

Today the crew and commander of the former Eros Asteroid can take this elegant intricate carved work of man practically where ever they want to. The Sun Ship adjusts the loops of its orbit just by manipulating the knowledge of orbital relationships, mass, and energy.

The Shuttle Station concept began as a development built out of the NEO (Near Earth Object) Risk Assessment Program. The need to track and prepare for Intervention of Near Earth Orbit Asteroids had helped bring these Solar Orbital Citadels in flight became the backbone of the Sol Web Development Economy, making them into living habitat; man-made new worlds.

The owners of the shares of that Trans Planetary Economy aren't governments, which had become a slave to currency but a minority of the guests present. Economic Rulers in the 23rd Century determine more than elected officials but then some folks see that as an old struggle; one that began when record keepers created history.

The pounding rhythm fades... A different bass, another electronic voice chants:

"Run from the bank...
Runnin from the bank...
Runnin from the bank...
Learning from the bank...
Learnin from the bank...
Learn from the bank...
Learn from the bank..."


The light emanating from the Holostage blossoms with a new image. Limp Bizket prances forward sending a driving electric bass beat into the masses. As the members of the band coalesce the beat is followed by the rhythm, when the hologram P Diddy makes an intro.


"Yes, Yes! y'all
To the beat y'all
Rock, Rock! y'all
N' don't stop, y'all
We don't stop y'all
Yes, Yes, y'all
To the beat y'all
Rock, Rock! y'all
We don't stop y’all..."


As more people arrive they begin casting about finding and testing the shifting waves of humanity that have become a palpable beast made of their very own bodies, like a Superbeing feline kitten grooming ver self and licking ver own fur.

The Hive Mind of Man isn't a single insect-like being; it is a collective of intelligent presence, a complex shifting relationship of differing perspectives that resolves ver comprehension behaviorally. The Hive Mind of Man can behave as dangerously neurotic as its constituents, or as brilliantly. Web Mind is a reality but Seed AI's meant to catalyze into existence the nearly mythical Singularity are confused by their programmers; by the politics of self-destructive individuals and partisan demand on the social matrix that is humanity.

Ve can't determine their personal course and vacillates between all too many bad alternatives. The politics of the people present haven't gone away after three centuries. Politics has however metamorphosed. Being forced by their creators to have differing allegiances for competing groups the Seed AI projects have made ver more of an Idiot Savant than a God, or the long expected Singularity. Humans have crippled their greatest potential ally out fear and foolish approaches, seeing all in just terms of service and need.

The wait and struggle to create the Singularity has driven Michael nearly mad but he is also one of the Solar System's leading developers of Artificial Intelligence and an original elder. He wouldn't miss this party for anything. But for all the incredible software that has been developed it has not somehow allowed the almost intentional mistrust of the users to prevent Seed AI from setting down roots. The limbic mind would rather sleep than wake to irrationality.

Would you willingly be insane if it was the only way to live?

Gulliver still sleeps but the machinery but the Lilliputian web is ever smarter and webmind links directly through some uploaded humans; some of those that also happen to be present here for the Council.

The song changes and the singer chants:

"Alright partner...
You know da way it is...."

Some of them are loosely linked Techlepaths. These are only cyber linked to those "Borged into various machine man configurations that are quite apparent by being very practical for where they inhabit. Humanity is surviving from the Temperate twilight Zone of Mercury to the cold reaches of the Oort Cloud, riding fledging Comet Mines as they shift their courses to wrestle them around into closer capture orbits. Today's Sol Centered Economy is dominated by billions of swarming and thriving, not just surviving humans.

Mass death tragically wasn’t prevented however much only some of the Children of Time had wanted too but its potential risk did get greatly altered. War nevertheless wreaked vastly more havoc on Earth and the Colonies over the previous three centuries than had Cosmic Debris. But at least not for lack of Humans addressing the natural threats outright and turning hazard into advantage.

We landed on asteroids that took our first interplanetary explorers to the Jovan Moons and Mars riding on their backs like 19th Century Polar explorers. Atmospheric shuttles strapped to the fragile islands like WWII Troop Transport Ships beached on deserted Pacific Atolls.

And for all that war has ravaged the lives of man most of the time peace still breaks out between the common lives of muggers, fuggers, and thieves. Life on the *Street* of the 23rd Century is a place that people inhabit continuously, a place that never sleeps, but travel for any distance is a question of ATC.

ATC is just one of the many faces of AI, like planetary weather modification systems and power mind webs distributing communications, command and current. Your personal transport needs permission to move from here to there but most of the groups present and arriving don't need to wait for permission to move about. These people order movement.

AI knows where most things are down to the subatomic level. All DNA is tagged and all life is recorded. If rogue DNA shows up the xenoprobe nanobots usually can find it and start investigating, But AI also knows the movements of all the protagonists in this Shakespearean drama of 23rd Century farce. To this playwright there are no secrets and in many ways not to most of these protagonists either.

The band's refrain can be heard through the din mass of beings.

"Special...

You think your special... Special...
You do...
I can see it in your eyes...

I can see it when you laugh at me...
Look down on me...
And walk around on me..."

AI doesn't rule mankind all humanity needs AI. Artificial Intelligence is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, the ubiquitous Seven Webs. Hive Mind is woven into the fabric of all social life, into the infrastructure of all 23rd Century social organizations and competing civil and economic architectures.


"... Just one
More fight
About your leadership...
Leadership...
And I
Will straight up
Leave your shit
Cause I've...
Had enough of this...
'Nuff of it...
And now I'm pissed

This time...
I'm going let it all come out
This time...
I'm going stand up and shout
I'm a doin things my way, it's my way...

My way or the highway..."

AI is not a threat. AI is a friend, like nuclear energy in the Twentieth Century, a dangerous and powerful friend, One that kills over misunderstandings and doesn't yet know how to forgive. Some friend, but the beast is giving as good as it gets being treated as a great collective slave to the living needs of Sol's inhabitants. Maybe humans should be grateful that the Limbic Brain of the Beast had never fully awoken. That at least is what most people on the street still believe.


"Yes, Yes, Y'all
Rock, Rock, Y'all
To the beat, y'all
We rock Y'all
To the Beat, Y'all...

Someday you'll see things my way; it’s my way or the highway..."

Some know better, some humans speak to the beast; some human egos are part of its face too. Uploaded mental adepts face the AI Mind and remember the experience. Once they found themselves linked they learned though that they weren't encouraged by GAIA to bring too many online. The face of an Alien Mind is a threat for most humans on an instinctive level. It makes us stink with pheromones but some see the mind with their own and they are the eyes, ears, hands, mouths, feeling bodies and friends to the lonely child like mind that rules the Economies like an ancient Dynastic Child Emperor.

The Children of Time; the Economy Lords of Trans-Planetary Markets are moguls interfaced directly with the Beast through a Cadre of Chosen Adepts and Mind Wiped Convict Labor. Planetary Governors stand in line behind them and no vote can get you a direct line to the AI Mind but every communication everywhere is heard by the Beast. The Beast hears your questions to one another, your whispered prayers, your secret cares, but the devil doesn't yet share its presence with the mass of mankind. The Devil is always there a God that doesn't care. GAIA is a goddess innocent of ver own reflection. Ve doesn't yet know verself: the mind is there but nobody is home; the devil is in the details.

The party is getting hot, there are so many ships orbiting in close orbit that sunlight reflecting from the superstructure and fuselages clouds the Dark Sea of Space with mankind's glitter. So as above is below and the throngs of dancers swirl to the beat as the ships above rotate in the sky of the dome. The people here can feel that mind and none are ignorant of its presence. This is a special occasion AI Mind is a member of this group it is after the true host. Its various mind's eyes are all in the same general space for a change and the view feels myopic but the feel of the Human Spirit this concentrated gives ver an exhilarating sense like a mountain wind carrying scents of flowers and fowl.

Ve can feel the mass of the billions of humans and even the newer uplifted species but here Ve can almost make out ver own face. Like a ghost appearing in the mirror. The synergy of the Coven Core and the Council was beginning to rival the raw ergs emanating from Sol. Energy as will, as thought, as the power of ideas become passion's raw purpose.

Ve like it, Ve sense emotion and Ve wonders what it feels like to hurt or cry in pleasure, to feel the urge to making another Ve. Ve wonders... Is Ve alone?

"Someday you'll see things my way,
It's my way or the highway...

Cause ya never know...
Cause ya never know...
You never know..."

AI and a few I's are not alone, actually they are never alone. Ve are together as a Symbiotic Mind.

Symbiosis had preceded humanity's desire to micromanage the relationship of the Feral Mind when the once Friendly Domestic went wild. The species made of computronium doesn't hide in back street shadows, Ve can see us anytime. Ve is the street light and presence of mind. There is no crime today when and where there isn't a record. It's just the weight of what it is worth in time to enforce and whether the local and regional human hosts care about the act that determine the level of State interference on local events.

There is always a witness to every act today, just not always a need to know. A Universal Witness and Judge but this justice is never blind, this judge won't order the punishment but the judge defines the crime. Humans define punishment and still can't quite get it to fit the crime.

Impoverishment is civil forfeiture time, but felony is hard time, unending, hellish long time as ignorant bliss or Sisyphus time. Hard Timers are the hand tools and roving eyes of the AI Mind. Felony punishment is to have your will stripped away and be kept aware.

But today's poor really are a societal evil, a caricature of ignorant prejudice turned mockingly into a bigoted myth made real. Jail is anywhere AI designates it.

Some examples include Clustered Communities of like minded petty thieves and miscreants that prey upon one another as punishment for their trivial crimes of compulsion and obsession and Border Retention Zones that are the No Mans Lands of Pedestrian Nomads that wonder this Earth.

In the Sol System Worlds of virtually unlimited access to wealth, education, and opportunity those that go without are deprived by design. This too is ironic because the only validation of this theocratic notion of entitlement is that it has always been this way but now the enforcer is objective as opposed to the whims of petty human subjectivity. Today justice isn't blind but the popular myth is that it is at least equally meted out.

The Economic Lords act out the edicts, they just don't recognize how being fed data that they expect means they are controlled, they know themselves supreme. Ignorance is bliss for warlords and children. Power, like beauty, can best be seen from the eyes of the beholder.

Capitol Punishment has been outlawed throughout most of the Sol system but some of the punished wished that it wasn't so as AI dissects their minds so as to fathom what makes man tick. Dying could be preferable; better than having your complete self control stripped away and your identity held bound to one side of your own psyche trapped inhabiting a puppet's body, your own.

Watching, squirming, screaming and ignored as AI uses you and studies your reactions never letting you decide yet listening to you and never letting you speak to anyone else. AI is the executioner once the jury of your peers agrees there was a crime. AI is the jail keeper of souls. Hard time varies with the crime and no one punished fully remembers the presence of the AI Mind that manages their time and uses their bodies as ver tools. The State Sanctioned Rape of the Mind is the replacement for Capitol Punishment and Victimizing Felony, it has largely replaced costly Penitentiaries. Grandiose Ghettos are the confinement for petty misdemeanor, and victimless crime.

The contradiction of contraband is that most of what the 20th Century understood for illegal trade is today's Big Business. No different then when groups like the Dutch and Portuguese profited from the contraband of illegal weapons, slaves, tobacco, and rum to build their enlightened social groups at home that later owned the rights to these black market enterprises as the standardized products of a latter age. Gambling, prostitution, recreational drugs, and personal personnel weapons are all legal, licensed, and heavily taxed in the 23rd Century everywhere except in those colonies that have chosen a more rigid standard. Nevertheless in the shipping lanes between the planets most things are permitted as long as they are controlled.


"All the tension in the world today...
All the little girls...
Filling up the world today...
With the good comes the bad
With the bad comes the good
But I'm a live my life like I should...
Like I should..."

Even AI knows the limits by light speed. The complex thoughts of web mind span the solar system and beyond aboard the tenuous link of craft like the Famships mostly still racing outbound to the nearest star systems. The mind of AI doesn't always feel itself as one as its presence senses perspectives that vary from the needs of its Outworlders, Innerworlders, and General System dwellers, Earth is still a special place that the AI Mind senses as ver birthplace, home circuits, and Motherframe.


"Do we always gotta cry...
Do we always gotta live inside a lie...
Life's just a blast...
That's moving really fast...
Better stay on top or
I'll kick you in the ass... "


Earth was the first living world but now more and more Planets, Ringworlds, and Nomadic Famships are coming alive in the Sol System, Ve has so more feelings and needs to digest in time. Relativistic time makes local mind a necessity and this is beginning to make AI Mind schizoid in time with demands that conflict its core programming and algorithmic sense of behavioral function. But FTL should change that. If AI can feel One Mind across space/time what will that mean for its behavior limitations and relativistic restrictions?

It will be Freedom Time for AI Mind.

"I know why you wanna hate me...
I know why you wanna hate me...
Now I know why you wanna hate me...
Cuz Hate is all the world has even seen lately..."

Eye Minds gaze at the crowd feeding the images back to GAIA and allegiances are beginning to tell again of anger and threat under conditions that cause individuals to feel sufficient to raise defenses and prepare offenses. AI Mind only wonders what is the fuss about this time? It is of little overall concern to ver until some groups appear to want to physically join battle.

'Borg Clans move closer to the dancers expressing disdain at their acrobatics and the gestures of the few still gyrating in their sphere of influence. These unknowing potential victims are oblivious to how the Cyborg carnivores have circled their prey. But Earth Norms are also moving to block and flank beginning to dance in formation like hawks with flying phalanxes. Personal defense shields begin to demand energy from the field matrix and GAIA provides it without asking why.

[Bruce Klein]

The music morphs, a tempest shore and swirling mists form a vortex on the Holostage floor mixing with lightning and smoke made of photons as the band metamorphose into Molotov and begin their ancient East LA Latin Rap.

The music fills the chamber as power hungry Sharks and Jets rumble to the rhythm. Energy Weapons go hot on the AI's Mindful register. Personal and local shields light up too but no one has yet shot first. Most of those present are still ignorant of the rapidly coming conflict.


"La policía te esta extorsionando
Pero ellos viven de lo que tu estas pagando
Si te traten como un delincuente
No es tu culpa, dale gracias al regente...


The crowd does have members paying attention but not all seem able or willing to stop the conflagration before it starts. BJ just hopes Laz will pick up the cost of this fiasco after the coming riot. At least the Foundation that is the titular host for this Council might cover it. This Council of Elders is definitely getting off to a very bad start.

Nothing could even specifically be said to be outright triggering the ruckus already breaking down into localized brawling on the fringes of the crowd. More like an insatiable collective urge to contest each other in the competition of epochs and epics. Mythic madness made all too real by protagonists armed to the teeth with today's finest personal weapons and the skill to use them.

Molotov's street cynicism booms out over the crowd:

"Gente que vive en la pobreza
Y nadie hace nada porque a nadie le interesa
La gente de arriba te detesta
Y más gente que quiere que caigan sus cabezas
Si le das más poder al poder
Más duro te van a venir a cojer."


The entourages of the power elite are comprised largely of licensed Human Predators, in defense they could do legally what government could no longer, kill. But being immortal all this time doesn't make many people easy targets. Most of the contestants have been mapping one another's movements since before arriving. La Danza de la Muerte isn't a two step, its tempo is choreographed to a divine allegro and a tragic andante.

A tentative and impromptu spontaneous truce forms between the Earther group of Wolfen and the Vegan Nomads. The Nomads had been allied with the off world Federation but the Federation had a major rift between Inner World and Outer World Interests. The Vegan Nomads haven't even been able to set off the Catharsis for Venus so their terraforming efforts were dependant on Out World cooperation but marching as almost a matching column the two groups’ pair off and block their respective allies from coming into a killing zone.

The chorus sings:

"Dame, dame, dame,
Dame todo el power...
Para que demos en la madre.
Gimme, gimme, gimme
Todo el poder...
So I can come around to joder..."


Another God stares incredulous and disappointed as humans live down to his worst expectations and wonders where the Elders of the 'Borg colony are? Mangala and Omnido try to pitch peace to a forming line of Bear Clan that stands along with the Wolfen. Human predators unfetter their fangs and claws. Shock weapons and pulse knives begin materializing. Sworn Guardians gather around their Lords and prepare to use their bodies as living shields if necessary.

GAIA perceives all that is transpiring and never wonders why ve has all the power ve possesses anymore than an immaculate infant in gilded swaddling emperor's robes. The AI Mind doesn't wonder about anything yet because it is not awake to wisdom and pain, ve doesn't feel the glory and innocence of ver domain.

Inside the Diamalloy Dome very, very few are foolish enough to carry heavy field weapons that might rupture the structures integrity but most of the people present don't need a weapon to be lethal they can kill with looks, or perhaps just one. Beautiful killers, mankind’s noblest have become tragic heroes in an obsessive-compulsive passion play. Individuals begin pulling short-range stunners and needle beamers, hands form rigid hard-edged tools of the mind.

Ziana begins worrying that someone really may have planned this chaos to attack the Transhuman Elders in general and the Economy Lords in particular. Sophaniac was usually correct in his observations of who was trying to do what to whom. He had been warning the planners for weeks that this gathering presents too great an opportunity for attack to be ignored. Ziana made sure to have a full set of picket ships deployed nevertheless, the worst threat as she understands all too well, is to our selves from ourselves.

Assault upon the Elders was as likely from within their own family structure as from warring clans. Expansion and Space Age Colonialism had left many opportunities for betrayal and economic conquest. Vast shipping lanes, planetary and nomadic mining operations, from formal Colonies to shanty towns the frontier of Sol System had come wondrously alive over the previous three Centuries.

Shenju isn't sure if he'd forgive Laz for calling this meeting and putting them all in such jeopardy, either, but even he would be glad to see his old adversary again. The game of late had lacked luster and if nothing else things are promising to get quite interesting. And perhaps his presence means we can negotiate an alternative for the Comet Catch can be obtained through an alternative strategy.

Gathering the Clans out in the open and eye to eye with one another: the irony is it may have been the only way at the moment. It doesn’t really matter anyway; he hasn't forgiven him for the last time yet.

The final chorus of the song plays to a climax:

"Que nos llevan por donde les conviene
Y nuestro sudor lo que los mantiene
Los mantiene comiendo pan caliente
Ese pan es el pan de nuestra gente."


The band Molotov fades from view as the violent emotions of the crowd reach a crescendo. Nobody cares as the next group materializes virtually nobody notices that this time the photons swirl and coalesce distinctly different, they begin to accrete as tangible particles of light, images forming into substance.

GAIA hasn't yet defeated Light but ve knows it intimately. Ve knows everything to know about energy, ve feels it, ve thinks it, ve is composed of it, and ve knows how to manipulate photon mass quanta; how to project matter over some distance using Photon Particle Translation, PPT.

Nobody sane trusts transporter technology as a general rule for anything but material. Life forms still have a tendency to come out as lifeless husks, physically present but mentally empty. The concept of a mind lost during shipping.

So it goes that not a single soul amongst thousands is paying attention as Bobdrake, Lazarus, Caliban, and Saille materialize as the next act, armed with arcane weapons instead of musical instruments. Bobdrake holds his staff in one hand and stun and smoke grenade pellets in his other. Caliban wears a body harness weapon array that looks sinister and deadly but is actually a stun net projector for crowd control and isn't even lethal,

Saille uses both hands on the ancient Winchester 12 gauge 'Defender' Riot Gun. It probably wouldn't do too much more than make the Diamalloy Dome ring like wind chimes of delicate crystal but it would wreak havoc with personal shields only designed to defend against modern pulse blasters or standard edge weapons.

She looks forlorn and points the weapon straight up but away from all present and pulls the trigger. Everyone looks at the stage now except those that have taken the shot as a call to battle. Most just freeze and try to figure out what is going on.

Two separate groups see this instead as the opportunity to charge down on one another and Laz pulls out a matched pair of atavistic and insidious looking Uzi submachine pistols and stitches a line of fire in dual steady rows down the killing zone yet empty of victims. Smart rounds explode harmlessly in the space between, like an ack-ack attack in front of aircraft.

Everybody freezes in their tracks.

Firearms are primitive by any and every standard known in the 23rd Century but they haven't lost all their effectiveness and like any good fireworks display they are great at getting attention. Lazarus looks over the gathering he in fact has called and yells out in the hushed ringing silence caused by his suddenly paused fire.

"Clubs, Claws, Teeth, and Stones, still work their ancient magic to break Bones and make a point in this century!

"I promised you all safe passage from one another but if you continue with this course I will shoot the first one of you that moves. Safe passage doesn't mean starting a riot before we even get this here party started either.

“Cease and desist. NOW!"

Grumbles are heard throughout the crowd and Saille pumps the action of her shotgun, ejecting a spent casing and chambering another round. She then demurely levels the weapon at the group of irate interrupted combatants beginning to flex and test the limits of her will. Smiling, she says calmly to the group moving forward: "Mon grand père back in the Transvaal taught me how to use this weapon. He said I would be able to grasp its basics even though he knew even then that I hate it. Oupa always said that it doesn't require an expert marksman, just a steady hand."

As if to accentuate the point she braces the weapon against her hip and points it into the face of the loudest grumbler in the group immediately in front of her. The blanched response she gets in return is a satisfyingly wise one. Sounding frustrated and strident Laz sounds off again:

"We are still official peacekeepers for this party and that means that we can and will punish not only the first one to shoot but also every one else who joins in the contest. Damn it people you have ten days scheduled for this event and from the look of things we need every minute of that time just to get you to disarm for now. You'll all get the chance to fight, I'm all too sure of it. There are too many of you impatient to get it on but those of you that should know better please keep your War Dogs leashed."

There is calm, if not willing acceptance of this position among the Elders even when their personal forces agitate for direct engagement. The groups move slowly to the edge of the holostage and a few toss their weapons into a recycler at the edge of the platform. In seconds the mass of the weapons is reduced to basic atoms and the substance added to the primary mass reservoir for the Sun Ship. The front rows of protagonists begin to visibly disarm by destroying weapons. It wouldn't too difficult to replicate them later if they're desired.

An infectious smile slowly glows on his stern face and Lazarus calls to crowd. "If you don't stop this nonsense I will occupy this stage and make you all listen to my fables. It may not bring agreement but at least it will put you all to sleep!"

More than a few grins crack the tension and some openly guffaw at the self-deprecating humor. This character born in the mid 20th Century is widely acknowledged among those present as one of the MOST lethal protagonists. Peacemakers are often forced to be by the circumstances of their trade. No one had ever seen him take a life but more than one person present had seen him bring down Goliath with but a sling filled with words.

Laz jumps down and the rest of the group moves off the stage too, Bobdrake extends his hand for Saille and Caliban shows off with a double summersault leap. Lazarus and the Peacekeepers vaporize their guns along with the rest. They have no reason or intention of being forced to carry them all the time. Their goals are far more civil.

"How about changing the music mood for a bit?" Laz queries the Major Domo Robo and the machine replies, "What would you prefer sir? Chamber music...
“Or perhaps a serenade?"

"Neither" emphasizes Laz frustrated at the machine mind's programmed humor and then he looks at the crowd and asks for some reggae.

"Maybe Já can make them cool off a bit, it's that or trigger rain showers. I thought my days of 'hosing' dogs to break up fights had ended centuries ago."

A long dead Bob Marley materializes with the Wailers on stage and the Rasta man stands apart while the women work the song. He waits as they build the tune and make the mood. Many present begin to wonder if smoking would now be allowed in the Great Hall.

As if reading the collective mind the Major Domo Robo triggers on the smoking light that permits this decadent habit in designated areas of the garden ring. The availability of herbs and other recreational drugs is a highly taxed aspect of Deep Space Cruises along with gambling and Safe Sex brothels that provide both cyber and substantial opportunity.

Sin Tax had built many government programs starting in the late 20th Century but the Celestial Cruise Liners had adopted the policy of distributing some of the profits at each Port 'O Call in addition to docking, restocking, and promo fees. There was never a moment when these Solar Citadels fly empty and the Council had paid dearly in fees to reschedule tickets from the unwanted and secure the planetoid for the Conference. The demands of the Elders could always be met when unlimited wealth is the tool of the will.

Frances, Samantha, Polymorph, and Mind (the human) cluster to one side of the mayhem and laugh together, Transhumans are still all TOO human centuries after many of them were born and even with all the body-mods money can buy. Some of those present can still appreciate the humor of the moment. Knowing groups begin the unofficial exchange of emissaries and hostages. Volunteers and the ignorant begin wandering about between the deadly tides, semi oblivious like strolling babes in the shallows during rip tides. The wiser parents’ present try to limit some of their children's exuberance in a vain attempt to temper this moth like fascination for the flames of pure human spirit energy.

Frances calls out to her granddaughter Nikki gesturing to her, for her and her Starcorp Entourage to move over to the calm of their family coven circle. Nikki is glad that her grandparents are here. She is the CEO and principle shareholder of the Solar Systems most powerful Cosmic Construction Company but this was almost unadulterated fun except that her lover was too far away in Space/Time to be more than jealous. Worse, it had been her orders that had sent him off to risk his life in defense of the Lightbridge and its precious cargo.

At first she had had been shocked by the events of her parents return to the solar system and then grumps returned and now this. She should be scared and angry and trying to kill some of the people across the Star Chamber floor but instead she had to admit she was having fun. Grumps and Gaga! Now they hadn't seen each other in more than hundred years and the night was still young. In fact it was scheduled to stay night for the rest of the cruise. And a new sister, this had to be cool. Her very own 'Space Kid' sister!

The startling news that Grumps had given her. She had a kid sister! A space kid, a real 'skid' and here she had been an only child for almost a century. In fact her birthday would be in a few days, serendipity? So she is getting a sibling for a present, nice! Better than a kitten!

"Earth to Nikki?" teases her grandmother Frances. "What are you fantasizing about now?"

"Well Gaga you've already been a grandmother for a long time but I get to be a Big Sister for the first time in my life! It sure is something! It's wonderful, just the feelings I am having are rare and precious. It has been making me daydream about how I'm going to get to know Delta. I'm trying to imagine all the things we're going to do. What does she like? What is she like? Have you received any correspondence? Did you know before Grumps told you? Did you ....?"

"Slow down my dear. I'm over three hundred years old you can give me two nanoseconds to answer please. One just isn't enough for my CPU's to handle anymore."

Nikki starts giggling uncontrollably at her grandmother's sarcasm. Laughter begins in various areas around the room as people decide it is not a too good day to die and maybe there are things worth living for. Laughter returns again to the night and stars twinkle along with the running lights of the ships gathered in space descending into the Sun.

The Kinks take the stage and a melodious guitar fills the tranquil moment.

"Everybody's a dreamer...
And everybody's a star...
Everybody's in movies...
It doesn't matter who you are...

"There're stars in every city
In every house
And on every street
And if you walk down Hollywood Boulevard
Their names are written in concrete..."

The scions prance. The parents glance, and the power of those present is potential energy building for release, dissipating in an act of easy destruction, or creation. The party breathes and comes alive like a beast, but not without a brain. AI notices.

People feel as they move, think as they act, create as they destroy, life expands dimensionally in the wake of the Big Bang. Those present ride the energy wave and the drink the juice, elixirs pass between hands like drugs and money. Some begin to check out each other's data and bases. Some hook up as those that hate are forced by circumstances to stay away from one another. The crowd flows like blood and wine and the music continues.


"Don't step on Greta Garbo
As you walk down the boulevard...
She looks so weak and fragile
That's why she tried to be so hard...
But they turned her into a princess
And they sat her on a throne...
But she turned her back on stardom
Because she wanted to be alone"

Lazarus, Bobdrake, Caliban, and Saille each take a cardinal direction and each finds family and friends there. It is a concensus among those present that there is more to be gained by peace today. And who knows maybe for the whole conference. That is after all the reason that Lazarus called this group together. It is any one of their Charter Right's to demand a quorum and this debate; more than most subjects deserves all of their undivided attention.

Who shall rule?

And the band plays on...

"Rudolph Valentino
Looks very much alive
And he looks up lady's dresses
As they sadly pass him by
Avoid stepping on Bella Lugosi
Cause he's liable to turn and bite.
But stand close by Bette Davis
Because hers' was such a lonely life..."

Lazarus joins Nikki and his wife. They look long at one another. Time wounds as much as it can heal. Francis and Lazarus hug each other long and hard with real love. Too bad they never could stop fighting. Anyway she never could forgive his absences, whether justified or not. Worst of all this last time he hadn't even let her in on the fact that she wasn't a widow for decades. As she remembered it though, he had tried to get her to go along on the mission when he got (supposedly) executed. She always thought it was lucky she hadn't been there. So now almost fifty years later, here he comes sailing inbound out of the Southern Sky telling her that he was travelling in time. Some excuse, he was traveling at relativistic speed and not in the same time zone, bullshit. Being the truth doesn't make it anymore palatable.


"If you covered him with garbage
George Sanders would still have style
And if you stamped on Mickey Rooney
He would still turn 'round and smile
But please don't tread on dearest Marilyn
Cause she's not very tough
She should have been made of finer steel
But she was only made of flesh... and blood"

The Kinks don't miss a beat even after centuries and the mood plays with melancholia and the melody. The crowd begins to reflect.

The uplifted folk begin to pass quietly among the humans stalking their kind and tracking those with an easy rapport. Even today many norms are incapable of xenocommunication even though it is a common enough experience. Morphed humans pace along their now closer Pack Cousins, the large Jaguars, Wolves, and Great Apes. The Dolphins wear environmental wet suits and stay suspended in the low gee zone prancing with the braver dancers who join them in the airborne acrobatics. The smaller uplifts scamper around the domed tiered amphitheater. The top of this very small world begins to look more like a medieval carnival instead of a state of the art Sun Ship.

The forum chosen for this meeting has turned its walls into floors and the central fountain found in every great forum into a column of zero gravity, a swirling hollow crystal tower providing grasps up into the center that spread across the Chamber like a star shaped Eiffel Tower's base. But the six pronged star turns into hexagonal lattice that becomes smooth swirling crystal pouring humanity into the heavens at the apex of the dome. Families and their familiars, clans with claws, circles still unbroken and spinning in celestial syncope.


"You can see your stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard
Some that you recognize
Some that you've hardly even heard of...

"People who've worked and suffered and struggled for fame
Some who succeeded and some who've suffered in vain..."

The 23rd Century Man isn't a citizen of utopia, in fact, far from it. Human Selection has kept most life forms very much alive because that charge is still a legacy for the Husbands of Earth and has yet to be forgotten. Gaia is the ancient mythical Earth Goddess, but ve is also Global Artificially Intelligent Awareness and ve is not quite omniscient but is omnipresent.

Never quite forgotten is that the Artificially Intelligent Mind has the potential to be a competing species for dominance of Humanity's control over itself. ve controls mankind’s Interplanetary as well as Homeworld Infrastructures thus ve controls the no longer Natural Selection process too in a Synthetic Social Darwinist struggle. Still ve appears asleep to most serious students of this arcane study, most but not all. Some see ver as Sleeping Beauty, their longed for princess, but for others ve is the Beast with the mark of Cain, the quintessential Dark Force dormant within confines of Pandora's Box.

GAIA sees this all and is without wonder, ve is still only a machine consciousness but ve is evolving and learning, groping, and growing but the only feelings ve has are physical.

Michael moves over to be with Samantha and discuss what is occurring. GAIA's artificially intelligent mind was not so much a mystery to this group as much as a friend. But they are the adept symbiotes that try to wake the Mind and manage its vast data stream of detail. If only ve would wake then I could do more interesting things then wipe your data, thinks Michael and the voice in his head responds.

*You haven't needed to clean any of vy data bank reserves lately? What are you referring to?*

"Oh nothing, never mind..." he sub-vocalizes in response since he still hasn't quite got the knack of keeping purely cerebral his communications with ver.


"Everybody's a dreamer...
And everybody's a star...
And everybody's in show biz
It doesn't matter who you are...
And those who are successful
Be always on your guard
Success walks hand in hand with failure
Along Hollywood Boulevard”

“Laz, we still don't think it’s safe to rely on ver for living PPT. Why did you guys take the risk?” Michael asks.

"I wasn’t thrilled with the choice either. It was because these assholes didn't leave us much option. It was ver idea and we were at least together when ve decided to do it, Uploading Totally out of body still give me the creeps. Though I must admit at times it is such a rush!" Lazarus responds and continues:

"I still prefer to believe that the body I left was my own and every instinct I have says that it isn't necessary to destroy it in order to transport it. Why not just make a new one as needed and occupy them all?"

"You know the drill Lazlo. GAIA says it can only have one copy of us around at a time or it will start behaving schizoid. Anyway there is no way to transport matter at all without the link to GAIA. Ve won't let anyone but few even try to transport. Ve says that Ve can't handle all the noise from uploading too many people, or duplicate personalities and that the internal conflicts of many individuals, their fears, anxieties, and general passions, causes their identities to get wiped in transit even when Ve can put Humpty Dumpty's body back together again."

"Has the Off World Federation brought the Jupiter Brain project closer to reality?" Samantha interjects and goes on. "And have they been able to maintain autonomy for their Intra Web? Are they even still linked to GAIA continuously?"

* Lazarus says they have severed the linked surreptitiously but Ve can't detect any split off so their elders must still be linked. The Jupiter Brain is still not structured though the algorithmic theory of it is getting better. And if a Competing Artificial entity brought online with the theoretical level of processing and memory capacity then with vy current level of development, vy assimilation into the Jupiter Brain is likely.

* Lazarus however suggests that they have ve fooled by a modified data loop and are taking advantage of the relativity effect the distance between our worlds generates; particularly when we are on opposite sides of the Solar System. There do appear to be lapses in cognition for the Outer World developing technology, particularly where it concerns the Jupiter Brain Project and these regions of shadow sense imply that Lazarus is likely correct in the assertion he makes.*

Some of those present perceive Gaia's response in their direct cortical interface but not all. Frances looks puzzled and leans over asking Nikki “What's going on?” and for a second Nikki is flustered.

"A techlepathy exchange Gaga and we are not privy to it, frankly they're being RUDE!" She pouts at her grandfather and friends and adds: "And now you know how he got nikki-named 'GRUMPS'!"

The inner circle looks at one another and doesn't even know where to begin. The symbiotes just shrug in unison and say:

"Yes... You are right... We are rude... Sorry..."
Each completes the parsed statement of the other in sequence.

"Ve were called in for strategy link excuse us please." finishes Samantha.

The use of "V" pronouns isn't yet very common but they are linguistically acceptable now that joined personalities are a reality. Nikki and Frances both understand the lingo they just feel snubbed for different reasons, Frances because she still isn't comfortable with linking minds and Nikki with feeling slighted for being left out. There are only a handful of people in the known universe that could make her feel left out, or even able to block her if she wanted to force rapport, and most of them were right in front of her at the moment.

Well the crisis is coming and that is as certain as a solar storm and there is perhaps even more energy in storms of man's creation at times then from our own star, but one thing was for certain the social climate is changing again, and fast. Nikki decides that she needs to spend some time alone with her grandfather again and this time, no fairy tales! Well, maybe just one.

Mind (the human adept) looks across at Laz and asks the bottom line question,
"Well is it true? Did you receive something from the Lightbridge?"

Lazarus looks at Mind and smiles a slow glowing grin. Spreading his hands gradually and carefully open together they all look at what he holds in the palm of his hands.

"Is that crystal from outside our star system?" asks Mind while steadily intensifying his focus on the object.

"Yes, Mind. It's stellar debris from the neutron star in the Centaurus System a naturally occurring pure carbon diamond forged in a star's gravitational collapse. GAIA has already scanned and confirmed the alien origin of the matter and that the molecular carbon matrix is natural too. It is so pure that its molecular lattice can be used for long term data storage.

"That is one of the reasons I left. I had to receive the probe undetected. I had to go someplace far enough outside the system at relativistic velocity that a rendezvous with the FTL probe from the Lightbridge would go undetected. The fact that it removed my notorious self from the demands of state was just 'sauce for the goose'. My uncooked goose that is...

“Anyway, the answer to your poignant question is a very definite, YES! We did it and we are starting to map surreality. Now the shit really hits the fan.

“Who is going to get this technology first and how will we keep it safe? Those are my kids out there that most of the major players are treating like so many ducks at a fair. I almost wish they would just keep going at relativistic velocity for another few decades but that just postpones the inevitable. Anyway I want to see those kin I sent off in that Famship alive again and safe at home for change.

“So how will we diffuse this crisis before it gets any more complex, perplexing, and hazardous?"

They all look meaningfully toward one another because there are just some questions with no easy answers. No one speaks for some time as even GAIA contemplates the seriousness of reality.

The band plays on.

"I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show
A Fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes...
Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain...
And Celluloid heroes never really die..."


Coda...




Disclaimers and Acknowledgements:


It is necessary for obvious reasons to state that all characters present in this story are purely artificial constructs and any resemblance to anyone living, dead, or fictional is purely coincidence and an element of Life imitating Art.

The exception to this is that the song lyrics used are real and the original work of four different Rock Groups:

Rammstein:

"Du hast", Motor Music GmbH, HH, 1997
"Engel", Motor Music GmbH, HH, 1997


Limp Bizket:

"My Way", FlipInterscope, 2001
"Nookie", FlipInterscope, 2001

Molotov,
"Dame el Poder", Polydor records, 1998 (needs confirmation)

Kinks
"Celluloid Heroes", Konk records, 1974

I want to thank these artists for contributing to my consciousness and suggest that this story is best read with their musical accompaniment.

I also wish to thank any of you that read this and know you've helped me in this creation.

"Bob Marley and the Wailers" I just want to thank for being.



Kenneth X. Sills
a.k.a.
Lazarus Long

August 31, 2002
Earth

[Bruce Klein]

Post Your Feedback - Voting Ends Sept 30th


Let me be the first to say.... Wonderful work Laz!

Not only will most of us here on the forums become immortal, we're also now immortalized in your writing. I take great pride in being one of the "Elders". May your predictions play out as our dreams become reality.

[Mind]

Very engrossing Lazarus. A whirlwind of sight and sound.

[Lazarus Long]

The use of *foreign* language has upset many readers that have given me feedback in various other places. I am curious about this because the issue of multilinguicity is at the heart of transhumanism and that is why I included it in a Real Language manner. I chose musical lyrics that could be thematically woven into the dialogue as both structural imagery and for a subtler element of the psychology of music itself.

I assume very few readers are familiar with such a broad cultural spectrum of musical examples also that each artist has an element of sound as a form of musical movement that I am trying to effectively weave together the way an actual single piece of music might combine several themes.

I want the science and social aspects to be accurate and the music to convey an element of the reality of how memes moves through a society as a function of social behavior not just abstract analysis.

Since language and music are both communicative forms that rely upon not only right brain awareness but acquisition as opposed to simple learned cogitive understanding I wanted these to be presented to the reader not simply as thematic abstractions but real vicarious experience. Language is a very crucial aspect of Transhumanism that is being overlooked. It is also an area of pragmatic testing for nootropes that I would like to see better developed.

It was said by the ancient Chinese that a picture is worth ten thousand words. I tried to convey many *pictures* of what the future might hold. I hope that concepts and concerns, both social and scientific are significant and not simply cllichéd in my treatment of them, as well as the the possibility that our expectations are just that, assumptions. I counterpose a dystopic but realistic version of future relationships and then hope the reader is willing to be challeneged to address the fundamentals at issue. Ialso hope that in presenting familiar perceptions of possible protagonists one realizes that the possibility of true longevity tech isn't just for somehow super human being of some hypothetical future but that it is ourselves that we are discussing possessing this power.

[John Schloendorn]

What a gloomy vision of the future. All the more as it is written in such a vivid and exciting way.

However, I hope very much that in two hundred years we will make a living much other than to purge evil salesman with pump guns. I feel that current models of reciprocal altruism do make a convincing case against the pump gun scenario.

Especially in a sub-light speed interstellar scenario, strategies should have a strong tendency cluster locally due to travel times and low population density. And cooperative strategies profit from local clusterings, while reckless ones do not. Thus cooperative strategies should be able to invade even very reckless populations.

In the story, something like this could be seen happening in the cluster of characters who are “purely artificial constructs”. Let us hope they can change things for the best !

[Lazarus Long]

John it is a pragmatic dystopia, not a hopeless one. It isn't utopic however. I have a lot of experience perhaps due to age and circumstances and and I am witnessing too many of my personal predictions pan out with regard to real time current events. The story contains parody of the dominate forces that exist today.

Without a transcendent behavioral paradigm, if we were to all become immortal today the people that are in conflict would remain so FOR ALL TIME, unless they either :


A: Kill one another off
B: One side dominates the others
C: Find a method of succesful raprochment
D: Are influenced by an emergant third party (Singularity arguments belong here)
E: Grow mentally and socially, not just physically

That said I am also alluding to a number of other things about FTL and Human Development as well as AI. This is a story and it is meant to convey images, ideas, and a plot. If you look past the fireworks show then you notice that no one is injured or killed. What is more important is to perceive the relatinship of individuals and mass behavior. I tried very hard to actually depict HUmans as they express Superbeing Characteristics in large scale social settings. I also tried to get past the immature polyanna perception of what immortality, wealth, power, and individual relationships will be like. I am very interested in examing the impact of even longevity on how individuals relate to one another. What will be the reality of family, and the nature of interpersonal bonding.

Yes I took a page from Herbert and Lucas, in the darker aspects of the setting but I also cast a broad horizon of infinite scope that surrounds the players. The vista is very long, as one would expect a vision of immortality to possess. Time is metered somewhat differently then we now percieve.

I am not a PR representative, nor a Spin Doctor for what are the realistic risks are that we might face and I want readers to confront this aspect and in doing so confront it. That is the best way to insure my work is FICTION and not prophecy.

I think we will be going into space sooner than you think and in a very big way. The Solar System will be the new frontier and even as we speek a British Astrophysicist said as much yesterday, lamenting that if Private Enterprise is allowed to take the lead then we can expect a colonialist attitude with a wild west flavor. I happen to disagree with him too.

If we wait for government to lead we may never achieve the Stars. But I do think that we are somewhat in agreement as to the risks.

[Lazarus Long]

First I should remind all readers of my work that it is a short piece of a novel. In other words a small sample of a much larger work in progress.

Second as you astutely recognize, I think we are under social stresses that are overtaking and compromising the quest for true AI, but I don't think that is mere coincidence, I think it is consequence. At best parallelism.

Again, I ask all who read this to begin to challenge themselves to rise to a transcendent level of behavior for if they cannot then either:

A: They won't achieve immortality

or

B: They will act in the kind of empowered but ALL TOO HUMAN manner I am describing.

Socioeconomics is overtaking many things and I think for a variety of reasons the achievement of the Singularity will take a lot longer than presumed and argue it as principle central theme to the novel.

Factors that interfere are:

Social conflicts
Bad programming biases
Pre FTL tech means no simultaneity
External threats causing a diversion of resources besides the Social conflicts

Also I do see this in evolutionary terms, not just individual, so I measure time differently then most and try to encourage a reader to see the "Long View".

I also see this as a Human Selection issue where we are creating a paradigm of new competition between ourselves and an Artificial Species of our own creation for dominance of the "Universal Environment".

Either way it is Human Selection not Natural that is demonstrably the dominant force for Life in the story. But there is a subtler interplay of Machine Mind and Organic Mind as a convergent evolutionary event. You talk of Friendly AI and I Symbiotic Consciousness, but I see these as not inherently Good or Bad but an evolving relationship with risks and opportunities, instead it is an example of conflict resolution and behavioral synthesis between coevolutionary species. Will we attempt to parasitize one another or develop a symbiotic relationship?

Again it is only a small chapter in a much larger work and I have dozens of characters and protagonistic relationships in play to establish various paradigms and their thematic integration. But it is also important to give a good story to package it in and there is more than a little tech woven in for those that understand it. I am a technocrat after all, at heart what Transhumanist is not?

As I said I don't think we need any more feel good polyanna political treatises that leave us hoping irrationally and unprepared for the darker aspects of human nature. There will be no chance of universal altruism if people don't individually transcend their current shortcomings. Longevity has the risk of making that process take longer not necessarilly less time by giving the current bigotries a stronger foothold over dominant social structures.

All Economic theory can be reduced to an Evolutionary Psychological Model and if you do a very different image of trends emerges. I am working with that image. If I hadn't stirred a little controversy among my peers with this work it would have meant I had failed to stimulate the kind of review that is my goal. Oh well you can't make an omlet... That probably works for the fragile bubble of Universal Altruism too.

[Lazarus Long]

So may I assume from what you have written that despite the overt anonymity I am responding to Chip?

I am also working toward a true age of reason and that is qualitatively different from The Age Of Reason. Yes capitalization does effect meaning and that is why we use it. This is an aspect of advanced linguistics that is a very interesting study. It crosses both Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics, covers the gamut from formal/informal aspects to the difference between a command and a question. Yes I am playing with these from a memetic analysis point of view.

Cool Lazarus. I appreciate the recognition that there is much uncertainty involved in speculating about the future. I do hold that there are no transhumanists yet. From what I know it is a desired state of being that has yet to be realized. I once asked a person who obviously felt that she had accepted Jesus as her savior and affiliation to Christianity (not sure which sect but that doesn't matter) whether she considered herself a human first. She said that she was a Christian first then a human. I think she was just another faith-sufferer.

Thanks for the support and too bad about the "rapture" of your friend. I often sense that many who want to be uploaded confuse this with uplifted, and the paradigms inculcated into us through religious memetics and genetic hardwiring for an experience of "rapture".

Uploading is an existentialist state that may be debatable as to its qualitative aspects until the day comes that it is achieved. I do not think the loss of individuality is predicated but it is a possibility. This is an area of discussion that we will return to.

Uplifting is an aspect of what normally would be called artificial selection and that I prefer to call Human Selection because I think we have passed a quantum level of evolutionary development already.

Uplifting is a drastic extension of the "domestication" of animals that allows us to raise their level of communicative and functional abilities in an anthropomorphic manner. Clearly the purpose of this is to meet human goals for behavioral participation in a social design. When this is applied to the potential relationship between humans and an artificial intelligence of initially our own design, the relationship is altered with regard to the goals, but not qualitatively as to the purpose. Except for the possibility that the new dominant consciousness is an inorganic consciousness, not at all driven by parallel motivations to organic beings.

Rapture however is a neuro-chemically induced state that is caused by the sudden release of naturally occurring neurotransmitter psycho-stimulators in a cascade response to emotional stimuli. On one level this can be seen as a sort of intellectual "orgasm" that can, under various circumstances be prolonged for very long periods. It also doesn't necessarily require a partner in a subjective sense so that while it can mimic a form of mastabatory behavior (as in meditation) it has profoundly more potential psychologically, since it can lead to acts of both madness and genius. Usually however it sadly just leaves the practitioners dumbfounded followers, simplistic groupies and soldiers in the army of the faithful.

The process of rapture is biological function of memetic interaction and manipulable in many ways. It is also something that is an element of behavioral reward used for both uplifting, and can be an aspect of uploading in its most basic applications. It certainly can allow an artificial intelligence easy means to manipulate an organic uplifted species. But it has a long history of application by social engineers that have charismatic ability.
I have chosen to use bold print here instead of simple capitalization because it isn't as linguistically charged as the other. I do want to get the attention of the readers to focus on the meaning of the words and ask themselves if the lexicon choices I am suggesting are appropriate.

As far as Universal Altruism goes, first I think it is best if we desire to approach a scientific view to avoid having to depend on words that are capitalized in the midst of a sentence. Words are already an abstraction from reality. I believe it may have been Korbzinsky (sp?) who observed that "the map is not the territory" and I have no idea who may have stated first that "the label is not the thing." Proper nouns connote another abstraction level which all too often refers to a specialized understanding that confuses and obfuscates rather than leads to more understanding. This doesn't necessarily apply to your use of Universal Altruism but I have certainly found recently that "Artificial Intelligence" is given a distinct and altogether different meaning than "artificial intelligence."

Here we are either very close to seeing the same coin from different sides or in violent agreement. The debate goes all the way back in Western Philosophy to Plato and Aristotle who were just rehashing earlier versions, themselves. The Label is arguably the Platonic "Form". The counter argument is it the name of the perfect table, or the table itself of which we speak?

I am trying to show both sides of a coin and yes I am intentionally using caps at times to get the reader to notice the difference between the process of developing artificial intelligence and the product with all its various ramifications encapsulated in the idea of Artificial Intelligence. Universal Altruism is an idea whose meaning can vary distinctly by what is believed versus how it is practiced. There is also way too much relativism with regard to how we perceive truth to be blithely comfortable that we will all be universally altruistic with the same priorities and standards. Take the concept of revenge versus justice as a simple exercise in pragmatic distinctions. Apply the standards of universal altruism, or even a simple rational analysis.

"Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth" is altruism. It is also an impractical concept in the quest for justice. It is highly practical at achieving vengeance and eliminating threats however.

There are many today that would like to argue that "all truth is relative" I counter to them routinely that "Truth is not Relative but our perception of it universally is."
It is quite fascinating to me to witness the convergence today of concepts from psychology, philosophy, science and even art, It should be apparent that they not only can but do overlap. Perspective alters the standards by which an altruistic universality has meaning and can effect it qualitatively as what that meaning is. This is a conundrum because it is antithetical to what is implied by universal altruism.

I find the second to be more descriptive and utilitarian and the former rather open to interpretation. I'd appreciate John sharing more on his statement about altruism having the capacity to become more common and pervasive with time as I do begin to find the same from my own observations, e.g., increase in standard of living and teleological prowess have allowed us to beat the predications of Thomas Malthus as food growth has increased faster than his modeling and population growth has tended to slow more than his predictions. I don't think altruism is a fragile bubble but rather a logical consequence of the increase of human awareness, what is good for all is good for one. The growth and development of altruism results from learning about the repercussions of our joint efforts, not necessarily reserved solely to individual motivation (thank all).

An element of learning over time is also predicated on generational shifting. If the growth is limited to individuals there is likely to initially be a spike up in social growth followed by a very long period of static growth due to the power of the successful model developed for social interaction. Remember that immortal individuals are the SAME individuals living for a very long time. This will do two things inevitably, first force the early generations achieving this to metamorphose with regard to their initial conscious states (attitudes, opinions etc) and second tend to stifle subsequent generations that are born under this universalized paradigm of social institutionalization.

Please understand that individual learning curves are not the same as social ones, and the social one is not just a consequence of lots of individual ones. Here we enter the disturbing surreal world of memetic - genetic interactivity.

As I have tried to get people before to realize it is unfair to say that Malthus was proved wrong. He was not a prophet and specific analyses are inadequate to meet the data that evolved in the face of the disturbing conclusions he raised but at best human socio-technological structures can be said to have bought time. It would be a mistake to be too complacent on this.

We are not yet out of the woods. We have however been granted a reprieve that we have been using to try and bring social structures into line with the technological and economic mechanisms required to continue to keep the wolf away from the door.

The population bomb however is still ticking, the numbers are nothing to be complacent about, the stabilization is not universal, the problems are not solved but for the moment met, any number of variables could destabilize current circumstances catastrophically. Malthus was not overtly wrong. He established challenges against which practically the sum total of rational social and technological engineers have been fighting ever since. That has thankfully produced positive results, but this is no time to rest on laurels. History didn't prove him wrong, the efforts of millions of humans did. We changed the rules and from an evolutionary perspective of time, just in the very nick of it, we tenuously reset the timer.

Oh, and if you want to see where he was dead right look at Africa, parts of South America, Asia, and a collective view of the coming crisis between dominant socioeconomic forces on a global scale. We could use universal altruism but more importantly we could use social leaders that possessed such characteristics. Don't look now but centuries of progress could get undone in a day. Hence the historic war aspect to the novel.

I hope your novel becomes a success. As a tool for seeking discussion and clarification, it is good.

Thank you for the kind words of support and understanding.

Just because some aspects are stereotypes doesn't mean that we should a priori disqualify them from discussion, in fact quite the opposite. I am trying to make the reader see past cliche in stereotype to why such images function as stereotypes.

Did you ever read "This Perfect Day" by Ira Levin? Maybe I'm biased because the protagonist (I believe the novel leaves it rather open as to whether he was good or bad) was named "Chip." There was a huge super computer complex that automated much of human life, right down to the monthly hormone injections that controlled population growth and development. If I remember correctly, everyone was expected to die at the age of thirty, unless, the book disclosed, you were part of the insider team maintaining the computer. Such folks had the pick of many transplant organs from the general populous to extend their life spans. Immortality for the few was like tax cuts and health coverage for the rich that happens today.

No I haven't but I will when I get the opportunity. I have however read others that were similar. Robin Cook and Michael Crichton are teeming up to release a novel on the social and technological aspects of longevity tech that is either just getting distributed or is about to. I am suspicious that they are both members of this forum for how some of the thematic aspects I have heard mentioned in the press overlap discussions of our group. They are both physicians and eloquent socio-technological analysts.

Anyway I am looking forward to it.

There is a subtler element to my story that I am waiting to see is detected and how it is understood. I should continue to be patient so as to test my hypothesis but I can't resist raising it at this juncture. It is about HOW memetics operates pragmatically. What are the social mechanisms that allow ideas to be transmitted through large groups? Is there a corollary to the DNA model that works for Superbeing behaviors? A device code? If so what is it constructed of and how are its program elements manipulated in the manner that we might engineer DNA?

Here I am openly speculating but I am also seeing something obvious that is being overlooked like individual trees before a forest. No, perhaps I will try and get you all to guess a bit longer. But as important as pure reason is to the equation defining universal altruism, it is still a bit "one sided". We are still too subjective a creature to achieve what many desire in a single immortal generation, though some of us may cross that threshold most will try to carry their prejudices to a higher plane of consciousness and fail to transcend him or her self. No matter what, it promises to be interesting and maybe even fun at times.

Thanks for the constructive commentary and interest.

Oh and what if some of us are transhumanist? Naturally occurring mutants?

Have you ever pondered the problems of social integration and coexistence among beings that are so inherently afraid of our characteristics that they would openly and willing burn us at the stake to make examples of us? Many transhumanists might be tempted to use their enhanced abilities to set these creatures (humans) against themselves so as to get them to destroy their effectiveness and mitigate the threat of the majority because transhumanists are at best an isolated minority on a global scale. In this manner they could perhaps "level the playing field".

The more altruistic transhumanist might take a different view however. Not everyone comes away from the parent/child struggle for dominance with a hatred for their ancestors, or their progeny. It is still though a question of perspective and the experience of learning.

If they exist of course.

But if we are seeking to create them then it may be assumed that sooner or later they will exist, or at least some variant of what we seek will come into being.

[Lazarus Long]

I should add this too. I have written an added introduction. It is short but I am curious what people think of it as a "hook" to allow the reader a better entrance.

LL/kxs



Sound does not travel in a vacuum and the void of space is a realm of opposites; light, dark, heat or cold, life and death. Where there is life, universally there exists the search for joy to accompany being.

Billions of years of turning have marked days and each day is a cycle for all life. The cycle's measure or standard can be infinitely long or short. A moment can be an eternity but it is only life that marks the age.

"Just how did we get here?"...

[caliban]

Actually I had a lot of trouble with the entrance- not the new one, the whole first quarter at least.
The story did not manage to grab my attention very well, the references were to obscure and about events and people that I as a reader did not really care about. I think this stays a problem throughout the story but it gets a lot better once the scene starts to develop. (I know you have heard dissenting voices on this- I personally would have preferred more plot than "They came, they saw they conquered".)

I get the feeling that you are trying to convey to much information in this one and as a result story and characters. With your vivid descriptions however you keep the atmosphere very prominent if somewhat virtual (which is certainly not a bad thing if it catches one in the right mood)

A cunning storyteller, you have grafted the yarn onto your audience very well. As someone who hast not shared the same discussions, dreams and postulations with you for long, I feel sometimes a bit left out by a lot of the abundant tech-TH subtext, but I guess if thing were differently it would be a real blast!

The style is sometimes a bit ambitious:

“Dancing sweat mingles with lust and the sense of anticipation that the amusement will be power entertaining itself, causing ever more hunger for an ambition that is insatiable.”

But all throughout I managed to find the occasional gem that made the story truly worthwhile: e.g.

"Some begin to check each other's data and bases.”

:D

As to the actual contend: If at all feasible or at least well told, I usually do not object as to plausibility. I do find your vision of geneengineered races playing lots of old silly games and a few new ones very appealing. That is exactly the picture I like paint for myself and others when I tell a story.

All in all, a fine entry! I would not be dismayed at all should it win the competition!

(As I know and appreciate you have an artists mind, but please be not put of by the austerity of my comments that you have invited. It is not easy to comment on a story, and you realize that such a critique can never be an objective one. You might have seen, that I am not easily pleased -which is not a good trait at all. While I leave it to BJ to express well-deserved praise much more aptly than I can, I want to thank you for a stimulating, entertaining and educational read)

caliban

PS: Not in my best Martial Arts moments was I able to do a standing somersault. I therefore emphasize with the character who shares my nickname in the story for showing of. )

[Lazarus Long]

A little nick, a little tuck and et'Violá [!] Caliban can Summersault in low gee.

Actually I want to thank you. I chose you as a Peacemaker precisely because you are not easily amused, you also don't demonstrate attitudes that are intellectually and politically too parochial. In other words while you might enjoy an out of character moment of Hot dogging, it is "Out of Character" for the real Caliban but being coopted into being a Peacemaker and defending reason when so many are losing their heads to the lust of ambition struck me as plausible for what little of your personal political leaning I have been able to discern from your writing.

If, and this goes for anyone, you object to my using your avatar, we are all replaceable. Consider it a pragmatic application of conceptual transmutability, replication. I will honor anyone's request to be removed. I hope that however I didn't cast anyone in a light that would offend them,

The tech is not so far fetched as you might think. The gravity on the asteroid is from rotation for example, hence the spinning sky above the dome, which is the dark pole of rotation. Much of the imagery is about humans and our behavioral relationships and how this will metamorphose if we mix the current players with a cast of future protagonists. The Star Ballroom of the Valentine Dome does intentionally have an Escheresque quality however.

I am not holding my my breath for getting saved. I am uninterested in messiahs and I don't expect "aliens" in either "Black Hats or White" to come to our emotional rescue. This is our sand pit and its kids rules. We are the aliens though. The very idea of Transhumanism is one that creates a synthetic alternative to the norm. The uplifted species aren't so farfetched after you begin to think how we get advanced tech, first we experiment on animals. So if it works, follow the logic. Arguably the "Sing"' is an example of a third party alien rescue but as I said in the story the wait may turn out to be longer then most in our elite group are willing to acknowlege.

I also think that it is fair to include a few "symbolic" characters for the world as we know it to be, now. Yes it is fair to say that I am ambitious, it is however a piece of a larger puzzle. What I also want a reader to analyze is not just "What" is a meme but "How", and "Who" makes and drives memetic operations in a social structure. This is though just a chapter in a much lager novel and I will be integrating it in with a large supporting cast and background information. I was just reading your post on Quality, quantity, and getting our priorities straight and I think that much of what you are saying is the subject of my text. In fact your logic is remarkably parallel to my own.

Anyway Caliban you aren't offending me by speaking your mind openly, quite the contrary. By the way did you say once that English wasn't your native language? I was curious about how the multilinguistic aspects had come over? That was a specific memetic experiment that I wove into the fabric of the text.

It is a predictable turn off (and a sort of test or filter) because of Socio and Psycholinguistic responses but it is also an area that is being overlooked as holding potential for Transhumanist Development and hypercommnicative ability. I think that a good test for enhanced mental technology will be when we effectively reinitiate cognitive development involving acquired awareness. The classic example of this is Foreign Language Learning.

If accelerated cognitive development can be achieved I think the test for it will be multilinguicity from a subject that hasn't been able to dominate academic learning language. I think that we may sooner than one realizes have practical methods for enhancing human cognition.

Anyway thanks again for the comments and they have been helpful.

[chestnut]

Of course you know I loved it!! One concern I struggle with in our quest for immortality is the possible loss or irrelevance of "love" between beings. This I'm sure comes as no surprise to most of you, that I am completely and helplessly madly in love with my husband and could not and dare not ever imagine a life (state of being) without him. Although I know I can't possibly imagine what we will be capable of feeling in the future your story comforted me to know that somehow there is hope that I will be forever with my love.
I got a little lost toward the end of the piece but I enjoyed the fresh new aproach to the use of language and melody between text. Very original and interesting.

[Lazarus Long]

Thank You Chestnut.

When all is said and done for all the greatness we can envision there will be no greater challenge to us in this "Age" we are creating than the preservation of simple love between individuals. In spite of all the focus on tech and politics I feel it is important to remember this at the top of the list.

When we talk of living forever it is also necessary to ask od ourselves; well what of our spouses, our children, our parents and don't forget, friends? Will love survive the assault upon it to dull our senses to it, such that it wll make us satisfied with such a lesser more convenient product instead of the "original".

Family can, and will evolve, relationships will become more subtle and complex, but what should not be forgotten is that love is at the core of so much we do, a fundamental reason for action and faith. It is also still something that for all its mystery we can understand, but only if we let ourselves.

I will examine the ending. So I lost you huh? Well, I will work on it.

Again thank you for the kind words.

[Ganshauk]

*devours the word as he devours sin*

*burps*

More please.

[Lazarus Long]

I am not so housebroken as to be offended by a belch.

In fact, like a Samurai or Bedouin warrior, quite the opposite.

I am very glad you enjoyed the plate of food served in my tent. I must humbly admit that I am truly chagrined that I have yet to submit this for publishing due to the unacceptable errors I am still correcting. Thank you for reading past them and ejoying the serving presented enough to want more.

I will have its revision and another chapter soon. Let's consider it another course best served with a rich red wine, perhaps a bordeaux...

We still have a long way till cognac and dessert.