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Post by miokalia on Sept 30, 2006 4:52:07 GMT -5
That night at the hotel room, Ryuqi was doing his habitual, compulsive information gathering. Running through old material and letting the teletype wind through in an open ambient discourse with the C.A. A small piece of achival news triggered a memo. Something was apparently pertinent and the C.A. decided to pursue it. It was public-domain news material. Archival history of an earlier conflict. Ryuqi scanned through the article and discovered something... unnerving and surprizing. "Doron, I don't know how we missed this but... Ciata... Um... Ciata's got... Ciata did the pucon-shockwave thing before you and Diiy did it.", said Ryuqi
Doron, whom it was impossible to tell if he was asleep or not responded, "No sh*t"
"I didn't know... they had... How... they've got our physics?", said Ryuqi in disbelief.
"They hide it well. I don't know if they know about pucons or not, so I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that they have the exact same physics models that we have, but they certainly found, probably through basic scientific observation, that certain kinds of fields will turn neutrons into hydrogen atoms and thus suck all of the radiation off of the atoms, inhibiting fission.", said Doron.
"So they stumbled upon it? It's just chance?", asked Ryuqi.
"No, they knew what they were doing. They had a very clear objective in mind and they accomplished it using what they had, and made something more.", said Doron.
"You're sounding a lot like a certain someone. Iekdato said that. 'We will make ourselves better and overcome the happenstance and mistakes inherent in nature's randomness by using what we have to make something more.'... I don't think Iekdato would have agreed with the Ciatans on very much, though.", said Ryuqi.
"He would have disagreed with them on so very many things, but at the same time, he would have respected the fact that they practice a little piece his philosophy.", said Doron.
"I think this may widen the range of what we're looking for. As far as potential applications the military may have in mind for the sysiy-q. I think maybe we should take a closer look at what Ciata has done with 'what they had to make something more'... ", said Ryuqi.
"I had heard the Ciata did the anti-nuclear device, but Diiy hadn't. Funny thing was, the device, the way it would work... was actually Diiy's idea. I just came up with the stuff he needed to build it.", said Doron.
"How did we miss this?", said Ryuqi.
Another presence was soon detected in the network. Someone was editing files... omitting things. In a matter of milliseconds, Ryuqi was able to locate this. His instincts had him automatically lock up the files and copy them to a local resource within his domain. The user doing the editing was clearly organic, the interface delay was too high for it to be an AI. So Ryuqi had no problem capturing the files as they were being deleted, preserving them and then eventually booting the other user off the system before disappearing behind a firewall.
A moment passed as this happened. Doron asked, "Uh oh, what just happened.", sensing that something was distracting Ryuqi.
"Somebody's trying to remove this from public domain.", said Ryuqi.
"Well, if that's not proof this is important, I don't know what is.", said Doron.
"I've got the entire record locally. So their attempts to censor this were in vain... they probably don't know that yet though...", said Ryuqi.
"So it is true... It really is impossible to out-hack a Malych?", asked Doron.
"No. But the only time in history where we *did* get out-hacked was from 1998 to 2099. Since then, we've made sure that it is impossible for it to happen again", said Ryuqi.
"So... let's see what somebody doesn't want us to see...", said Doron.
----
After a night of reading, Ryuqi and Doron weren't exactly sure what to do with what they had found. In the lab, they arrived quite conspicuously late. At first, they assumed that it could have been someone on the Tinisian team that was trying to get around their Code of Conduct convictions and fool them into withholding data which they already had access to anyway. Naturally, this infuriated Doron, but Doron wasn't 100% sure it was the Tinisian scientists' doing, so he worked it into conversation. Sort-of.
"You guys are late.", said Kam. "Oh... just doing a bit of reading", Doron said in accented Tinisian (his Tinisian was rapidly improving) "What was it?" Anything good?", asked Kam. "Oh nothing really too special... Just some things... about Ciata", said Doron. "Ok. Well, we're going to pull feedback data from the experiment Diiy and Kiyake set-up...", Kam started, but Doron interrupted. "No you're not.", said Doron. "Why is that?", asked Kam. "Because you already have the damn data. You already have all of this data. All of it!", said Doron harshly. Kam backed up a bit. Doron didn't even let them get a word in, before he pulled out a sheet of paper and said, "Did you know Ciata calculated out the Refraction Sequences that are used in Dincotian Coaxial and your PDS? They wrote it down... it's in the Shuey Baw Monastery somewhere... Oh, and how about this? Ciata used that data to produce a design and concept for an anti-nuclear device which uses the same prinicples as ours? Some slight difference, but basically the same idea?... Oh it doesn't end there... Ciata was able to produce...", Doron said before being interrupted by Ryuqi elbowing him in the ribs and then sending a very high voltage shock through him, which stopped him instantly. "We could still be under surveillance", Ryuqi barked in cryptic old Kohtohkhan.
Doron stopped abruptly. The Tinisian team was very quiet and as were Kiyake and Diiy.
Kiyake then looked over at Doron and then at the Tinisian team and said, "Please tell me what's going on"
Ryuqi then said, "Somebody was busy removing some information from public domain last night, and the thing is: the information makes it look like somebody, probably not you but, probably someone higher-up maybe, already has the data you need, and the missing pieces. We all know Ciata has some very advanced science tucked away in the libraries of the Shuey Baw Monastery, well, what someone doesn't want us to know is that there is some very unnerving things about this. Things that are starting to make us very suspicious. I think somebody has set this up, knowing ahead of time about our code of conduct, how we might stop the progress on the equasion if we feel morally obligated to do so, and found a way around it to ensure that even if we stop the process, the equasion gets completed. The question is: to what end... and I'm not going to jump to any conclusions yet about it, but I have a few ideas as to what that end may be.", said Ryuqi.
Doron then spoke up again, "I'm sorry for accusing you outright. I'm just not sure who is in on this and who isn't. I can tell you one thing though, Ryuqi's run-in with someone trying to delete the files last night has got the C.A. interested. And I wouldn't be surprized if our government starts asking the same questions eventually. If Ciata's already got the theory down, than why is this information being hidden from us? I suppose we could go to Ciata and find it ourselves, but I have a feeling that doing that would only bring whatever trouble it is that's casuing this to Ciata, and frankly, I'd rather not spread something like that around..."
Kiyake, having actually read many of the Ciatan historical manuscripts, and knowing some of the mythology (After all, he was an anthropology minor in school) then suddenly drew a strange connection which he could not fully express. He said, "Ordochalchim iy Deochalchim...". The two words were only the names of fuels used by Malych, and nobody understood the direct metaphor and parallel from Ciatan mythology and history involving talismans of light and dark to Malych engineering history involving the differing natures of the Malych using the 'light' fuel and those using the 'dark' fuel during the end of their subjugate era, except Ryuqi, who refused to translate Kiyake's moment of insight and shot him a very unusually sharp, and menacing look. He then said something in Kohtohkhan, which Doron understood and didn't think it needed to be repeated. "you are defined by what you do... not by what you are.", he apparently said.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Sept 30, 2006 16:25:50 GMT -5
"Shuey Baw..." muses Fran as she comes in from the other room, drawn over by the raised voices. "I thought they didn't let outsiders in usually. But I remember something on the news about an attempt at building an anti-nuclear device last year was it, when the rebels attacked it. Wasn't tested though I don't think."
After a moment Ryuqi nods, "That is true. The public record does reflect that. The bomb was secured in tact, simply not detonated. But not defused aside from the removal of the firing mechanism."
"Something fishy is going on," says Kam. "If its any consolation, if it was a Tinisian government agent removing the information and they are uncovered they'll be spending some time in jain, as would anyone whom may have coerced them to do such."
"There's a lot of information out there," adds Doron. "Who knows what this person or persons might be deleting as we speak."
"I do have some good news," says Kam. "Nim should be here in a few hours. Under the pretext that I wanted to show her the bubble you fellow made. Its strange, she's apparently been in the city the entire time."
"On call perhaps?" replies Diiy.
-------
Dr. Nim was a little confused why Fran was skulking about the doorway when she entered. But no matter, she thought, intent on seeing for herself Hariyamo's Ball.
"So this is the generator device yes?" she asks Kam whom stood among the visitors. "Lets boot it up and see what it does."
"I'm afraid that won't be possible," he replies.
"Some thing wrong? Don't tell me your grad student broke it or something."
"Hardly, Uggie knows what he's doing. What I'm saying is that we can't boot it up when we are uncertain about what's really going down."
A half laugh later, "What's this then?"
Kam smiled. "I know we don't hang out in the same circles and haven't worked together or collaborated or anything like that, so I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your way of doing things. But I run a tight ship here. I don't go for funny business. It has come to my attention that perhaps the military's interest in the project is more than just a simple issue of keeping classified information under wraps. But that maybe there's a strategic interest in solving the system equation. An interest beyond simply proper organization, increase efficiencies, and the like. So please, enlighten us as to what's going on."
"Kam have you taken leave of your senses? I was asked to help translate for an important high level legal matter. Not something that could be trusted..."
"Trusted to a trained translator form the department of state who's job description includes keeping all proceedings that they translate as confidential? Nim lets skip the retardation today shall we?"
The badger sighed. "Lets talk then. In the park."
A short discussion later and they were soon out the door.
-----
It was a bright and clear day. The light reflecting off thousands of windows high above them, the group of intellectuals took a seat at a picnic table picked by Sana.
"Ok, we're here," says Diiy in Kohtohkhan. "Spill it Nim."
"There are different levels of classification," she replies both in Kohtohkhan and Tinisian, one sentence at a time in each. "And thankfully the information I am going to give you will become public knowledge in two years anyway, if anyone cares, and I'm legally protected in telling you since you signed those forms. You see, I actually work for the Advanced Parts Council."
Now some sense was being made, thought Kam.
Nim continued, "For those of you not in the know, as Kam is but maybe not the rest of his team, and likely not you Miokalians. The Advanced Parts Council is the top secret weapons development council of Tinis. I'm a member and as such have certain duties to perform. The Advanced Parts Council will be retired in two years and a replacement formed. This helps throw off those who may wish to infiltrate and such.
"Anyway, the partially completed System Equation has for decades helped the council and its previous incarnations advanced Tinisian military hardware quickly and efficiency. Much easier to figure stuff out for yourself instead of leeching off the accomplishments of others constantly if you have the right tools. We are of course highly interested in seeing a fully parameterized system equation. With it perfectly constructed with the removal of the remaining uncertainties we would get right answers more often and remove the need for as many trial and error attempts."
In Kohtohkhan Doron replies, "So you've been putting it to military use already. I'd love to see what sort of projects you're council is working on presently with so many parts of the equation as they are. What super weapons might be on the horizon."
"Sorry, but I'm not allowed to divulge that. But I can assure you our council is not out to destroy the world."
"Weapons are meant to destroy one's enemies," says Kiyake. "The important part is how you use them."
Nim nods and translates for the Tinisian's Kiyake's comment. "Our mission statement is clear. We are to provide technical assistance and innovations for the defense of Tinis. If we were to find that our efforts were being used to destroy Tinis or to attack others unjustly, we'd be morally obligated to seal our records, hand them over to the National Auditor's office, and quit."
"But," says Sana. "The current acting National Auditor is First Speaker Izixs. At least until the next election."
"Excuse me?" says Nim. "Why is that important?"
Kam shoots Sana a glance. Lipner oddly enough comes to the rescue with, "Sana doesn't trust Izixs," he claimed.
"Eh," replies Nim. "Some on our council don't either. Almost all our funding requests have to go through him if they're going to get into the primary distribution plan."
"Now that's interesting," mumbles Doron.
"But back to probably what's bothering you, gauging from what you've said so far. If you're worried our council will suddenly pop up some new device that kills millions, if the system equation is left incomplete we'd still likely stumble upon such a thing. It would just take longer. Having the last few terms is nice, but except in a few weird cases they probably won't be a factor at all."
"But there's always a chance though that what we manage to come up with could be what is needed though," says Kam. "That scares me. Especially with how politics have been shifting, I don't feel confident that we can count on our leaders to do what is right with what groups like yours come up with."
"It scares me to," says Nim. "I want a safe Tinis just like the next fur. That's why I signed up to do what I'm doing. But I don't think I'll sign up for the next organization if the NPP gets anywhere this next election."
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Post by miokalia on Sept 30, 2006 19:08:47 GMT -5
Doron eventually had to leave a final remark for Nim to sit on: "I think the recent events have shown us that once a weapon is created, it can be used by anyone. What we should be doing is getting together and finding ways to stop escalation. That is the way to make the world safer. You know, whatever super weapon it is you guys are thinking about putting together with this will inevitably fall into the wrong hands somehow, it will be a miracle if it doesn't... So to create it, would create the situation in which it could be used against you in the first place. This is especially true for weapons which may bring sole individuals, in particular... great power."
Ryuqi let the subtle hint slip without stopping him. Doron and Ryuqi had come to an agreement not to let the military spooks know exactly how much they actually knew about what was going on, or had figured out based on their research. Inside Ryuqi, and also now, the C.A too. Was some information material, typically kept under lock-and-key by the Ciatans that made them confident that the military had plans to introduce... or perhaps reintroduce something horribly unnecessary into the world again. It was something that besides the vast ideological differences between them, the cultures of Ciata and Miokalia could agree didn't need to happen.
----
In the hotel room, Doron and Ryuqi both decided that it would be unsafe to talk about such matters. Foretunately, Doron had a large number of Malych components, and could send and receive dialogue using Malych Binary Teletype Language slightly slower than the Malych themselves.
Over their closed network, being concerned that even the teletype could be recorded if it were sent by RF, the two used a twisted-pair phone cable to make sure their conversation was 'closed circuit'.
"Nim doesn't know f#@% about shit. He doesn't know what the military is doing with this, because if he did, he would have resigned by now out of moral obligation", said Doron.
"But this probably isn't going to be used for a weapon of mass destruction. Maybe he doesn't think... you know.... that kind of a thing is a threat to peace?", said Ryuqi.
"Then he is an idiot who is refusing to awknowledge historical fact. The weapons fell into the wrong hands before, and those hands tried to level Ciata with it. Of course it will happen again.", said Doron.
"Nobody seems to be bothered by our modularized antimatter research... Which is very similar.", said Ryuqi.
"No it isn't. If you do the same thing with a brick of moderated antimatter than you will most likely burst into flames or die or something. This is different. This is a freaking shit load of energy condensed into a small unit, and then regulated into chemical energy along with conditioning vectors. It is the re-application of all the technologies we use for peacefull pursuits and solving problems toward something which is bound to corrupt those who posess it.", said Doron.
"We're no naturalists Doron, the Dincotian species is incredibly heavily genetically engineered. Some of these others, who may not quite understand us as much may see us as doing the same thing.", said Ryuqi.
"There is a very clear distinction between something which puts people in control of their lives, and allows them to live without having to worry about suffering due to nature's inherently flawed design, and something which turns organics into unstoppable, raging hulks, insane with sheer power, and quite possibly, something worse.", said Doron.
"Indeed. The C.A. would not like to ever have to fight organics which may be stronger than it's own field units. That would be embarassing.", said Ryuqi.
"Of course, we could see a different application of this... In the from of a balistic missile. A weapon of mass destruction which uses a non-nuclear energy source... In which case, I think we're going to have to ABSOLUTELY demand that the weapon be dismantled and the instructions for it's development destroyed. Because in twenty years, it will be in the wrong hands, and we'll all be sorry for making it in the first place.", said Doron.
----
The C.A. had begun a parsing of records to try to find the key military leaders who may be involved in this. If the Miokalian team couldn't get straight answers, this might have to take a little bit more direct, and open of a confrontation. This was, after all, a secret military project that most likely most of the populations of Tinis, as well as the Federation as a whole would disapprove of. So the C.A.'s threat, was total and complete exposure of the secret to the public. Giving the information to other leaders who would be against it, so they could then stop it.
----
The hacker, who was still fairly nondescript, found a few extra bytes on many of the files... upon examining, he realized that he had been totally "Pwned" the previous night by the Ryuqi. He couldn't tell what did it, but the files had been memoed and his deletion was in vain. His superior was not happy. This was very, very bad for the secrecy of the project.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Oct 2, 2006 23:51:32 GMT -5
Harvey was probably not the best contact as far as getting information on the activities of the military industrial complex of Tinis. But he did indeed know someone whom he met when doing research for his part in The Block Buster Movie of the summer. Something to do with Pargalo and Genius...
This someone pointed him to another individual, Colonial Azza Mic'o'Vang. Reporting back the contact info to Kam, Harvey explained he was a little confused as to why he'd be pointed to this guy seeing as he was almost retried.
The meeting was arranged for the morning before the First Speaker was due to arrive for a visit and meet and greet. Both teams of intellectuals met Col. Mic'o'Vang in a private room at the Sadalist'Mava Eatery and Dinner, as upscale dinning wise as you can get in Tinis.
Col. Mic'o'Vang was a fairly elderly feline, a calico of the domestics resonance to be exact. He was already seated when the others arrived.
"Hello there, I'm Colonial Mic'o'Vang, but you can call me Mic. I hear you're looking for military individuals whom have worked with the system equation?"
"But..." starts Kam, who had asked Harvey not to let the contact know even that much. "I guess you know what's up."
"Indeed I do."
"Has someone told you something then?" asks Ryuqi for his group.
"Not really. But tis little reason why I'd be asked by the math squad so soon after they came up with a candidate for a final solution to the problem. Now the question is, what do you want to know and can I give you that information?"
Lipner, who was still reluctant to believe this conspiracy business took the opening. "I'm not one for accosting without reason but it seems that there's a sentiment that the equation might be used for ill purposes. Do you know if that is possible, or if it is being done?"
Mic laughed. "Ye silly boy, it has been, is being, and will be used for things that are less than friendly. Since its creation its architect knew this. I suspect it was one of the reasons she searched for it to begin with. The house system after the Kingdom of Pargalo was not a very friendly system to be in. Oh, but you may be looking for specifics about the future. Those I am not privy to. Ye see at this point I'm little more than a record keeper. I can't see the future and they are not obligated to tell me things they are working on presently."
"Who might be?" asked Ryuqi, whom was having a little trouble keeping up with the accent.
"If you can track down the current secret council working on military hardware they'd know but probably wouldn't tell you much. You could poke the fellows that get the results, but that's probably not going to lead you anywhere either as harassing the Office of Applied Science deals mainly with direct improvements of existing military hardware or upgrading designs. The Office of Special Projects might be a better choice, they sometimes get together to design things that are bit more innovated, or more to the point, produce things that were innovated by that group you're not supposed to be able to locate.
"Perhaps though these are the wrong places. If tis an ethical issue ye are having then if the results get to these places then it tis already to late to protest as they have been deemed acceptable, usable, and, by the powers that be, ethical. Of course the standard changes depending on whom the Supreme Commander and National Auditor are, and possibly soon, who is First Speaker.
"I can tell you from experience that each council who hath worked on advancing the military of this nation have been given certain rules. For those of you whom are not as familiar with the culture of Tinis as the local mathematicians are, there are a number of instances where a rule must be agree to, this is one of them. Each council is given a charter to work off of, to motivate their actions, provide order to the distribution of resources, and to provide guidance as to what to work on and why."
It took a few minutes for all this to be relayed of carefully. In the mean time a fish fillet arrived for Col. Mic who began to ravenously consume it.
Finally Kam asks, "You seem quite prepared for our meeting. You are very knowledgeable."
Mic smiles. "I know nothing. As ye and your friends will like plead if I were to inquire as to what knowledge ye hath come across. But we both know the truth behind such statements. Kam and company, there's a very good chance that we are not alone in or discussions here, seeing as we have a Malych in our presence here. I've not ventured forth from this land for quite some time, but I doth read and watch. As for m'self, there tis always a possibility that there was a bug on my person of which I have yet to locate the signal from and remove, but its my statements which are regarded as truth to others that you'd have to watch out for if indeed you have things to tell me that I don't much care for."
Mic let that sink in for a moment, and to be translated, by eating a bit more. After a drink of his wine and a burp, he continued.
"I read files on your group Kam before coming here. I was delighted to come of course, but became even more enthusiastic after I found out there would be some legal protection for me if I did slip up and suddenly know something I'm not supposed to. As I said I don't know what they are working on presently, but I do know that even if you came up with a so-called final solution to the system equation, you would have not achieved it."
Sana shot Lipner a smile before saying, "So it is incomplete? There's more to it than what's been published?"
Mic did not nod to this. "I've seen the three folios myself and though I won't confirm or deny your claim, I can say they are amazing works constructed by an intellect that could swallow us whole, and the world with it if it was allowed to."
Doron was even a bit puzzled by this. For it was the conventional wisdom that there was only the one folio, not three.
Mic couldn't help but continue. "I am what may someday be recognized as the premier historian on the subject of the system equation, having followed its path from almost its point of creation. The evolution of our understanding of it, our uses of it, our applications of it, our misuse of it, and the insights it has brought us. Its grown to touch almost every element of our lives now. Somedays I can almost feel it in the air. A musk of information, a pattern hidden just beyond a veil of matter and energy. Some would argue that I should quit my job and join a religious retreat on a permanent basis when I spout insights like these, but they have not reached as deep as I have into the motivations behind this things creation."
"Azza isn't your first name?" asked Fran.
"The quiet one of Epshar speaks. Tell us ye insight."
"Vangatas was your father. Vang was an associate of Toson before he was killed by Genius in personal combat over the rights to the city of Mraghal. His son Azcradelmictaso swore revenge but didn't get it before the five houses were leaving Tinis and Genius was dead."
Mic nodded. "Close enough. Azcradelmictaso didn't exactly swear vengeance, but did seek to learn the skunk's secrets. Vangatas had spent his whole life mastering the art of sword and fist, yet had fallen to an individual whom had only started on the path once the revolution had begun, and even then, not in any dedicated fashion. It would be like Sana here challenging an elite Raja Borah with five heaven stones to a fist fight and winning, or my grand niece challenging Kam to a game of go and clearing the entire board in her favor. For those wondering, she was born a bit slow and at twenty nine can barely dress herself."
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Post by miokalia on Oct 3, 2006 19:42:47 GMT -5
"Three Folios..." said Ryuqi to Doron over another closed connection.
"It sounds like maybe they really aren't working with a unified model", said Doron
"But we don't even know what's in the other two. It could be anything. And from the sounds of it, it could be something far beyond what we have.", said Ryuqi
"Either that or this is a ruse. They might be just telling us this to keep us away from it. To make it seem as though it is totally inaccessible.", said Doron.
"I think the most sucess we will have will be with the First Speaker. As the commander-in-cheif, it is his business to know.", said Ryuqi.
-----
Kiyake practically had an entire library in his bag. And what he didn't have, he knew how to get. Absolutely convinced that the truth of the matter, or at least, the untampered truth was in the Ciatan manuscripts. An expert on the matter happened to have been a reclusive pilgrim to Shuey Baw, she slipped in as a seeker of knowledge, having never revealed her background. There she had been studying for quite some time, the manuscripts of the monastery and building upon her own books on the matters of cosmology and the systems of nature. The grey dragon was pale by the standard of her species. Daeronese were typically of brown or green scale.
Of course, she was a bit hard to get a hold of. She had a way of isolating herself and hiding from just about anyone. If someone would know about the two other folios, it may be her. More importantly, if someone was going to be willing to divulge the information freely, in order to uphold scientific ethics, it would most certainly be her.
If anyone could start the communication, or somehow get a hold of her, it was Doron.
All he had to do was leave a message on her answering machine, and within a matter of hours, an international call was coming into the laboratory.
"Rebeckah Sparhow. It is interesting to hear from you again.", answered Doron. "Hychakita. You left Dincota, I see", said Sparhow. "We have a conundrum. A bit of an ethical problem perhaps...", said Doron "Ethical problem? Am I hearing this from you correctly. Ironic how it is you seeking help from me about an ethical problem", said Sparhow. "Well, I figured I would ask you since you spend more time getting caught up in ethics than actually solving the problems themselves", said Doron. There was a clearly awkward tension between them. "I'm carefull, Hychakita. That's something that you have never been. Ethics is something which requires great care.", said Sparhow. "The military is being very suspicious here in Tinis. Now I don't think we can really discuss this one the same level, so I'm handing this off to Kiyake.", said Doron who then handed the phone to the somewhat excited Kiyake. "He... Hu... Hi... Hi? I read your books... They're so beautiful...", said Kiyake who was slightly overcome with the fact that he was talking to someone whom he respected vastly. "If the inner-workings of nature are not beautiful themselves, than how can we possibly expect to find beauty in nature? Beauty starts at the source. Now, contain yourself, Mr Seetik. What seems to be the problem.", said Sparhow.
"We're working on the System Equasion here in Tinis, and someone, or some group in the military is being very suspcious about some things. We're afraid that they may be planning on using the more-complete equasion for developing... or redeveloping some fairly unpleasent weapons, possibly weapons of mass destruction. Of course, contributing to something which is a mechanism for murdering large quantities of people at a time is very much against our code of conduct, not to mention our core values.", said Kiyake
"Well, you need not worry. Such a thing would be against the values of most cultures both secular and theocentric. The ethical resolve of the Ciatans here is incredible, that's why I have come here to do my studies. This is an environment where I need not fear that my ideas or discoveries will be used to fight petty battles, or inflict harm on others. I suppose you have found the right person to consult about this...", she said.
"I'm assuming you can tell us what they won't", said Kiyake.
"I can indeed.", she said.
"Azza said that there are two other 'folios'. More of the equasion that we don't know about, that's being hidden.", said Kiyake
Sparhow paused a moment and then insisted that the phone be given back to Doron. Doron and her spoke for a bit. Doron didn't care to share the inormation with anyone. Using a technique both of them had becomne very good at, the phone call was almost impossible to decrypt, as they kept switching back and forth between different languages in conversational speech. Both of them were convinced that if indeed, this was a military pursuit, they would most assuredly monitor the phone call. But they made sure that nothing could be gleaned from it. Switching between Kohtohkhan, Illsyndran, Niyapo and Dibochar at almost random. Even then, the actual information being shared was of minimal importance to anyone besides those two. They had worked together extensively in the past.
----
Somewhere in a TIPS office, a technician in charge of decoding the teletype that Ryuqi had been sending by-way-of RF to the C.A. ran into a problem.
"The MBTL has been decoded.", he announced less-than-enthusiastically.
"And... what's it say?", asked his superior.
"It's useless. Most of it is refferences and the rest of it is some format that we don't even have the slightest idea on how to decode.", said the technician.
"What do you mean: no idea how to decode?"
"Well, it's not a valid filetype of any kind. All of our computers interpret it as a corrupted file. There is no way to use it, we can't visualize it, we can't parse it. It's static to us.", said the technician.
The supervisor knew what had happened. Ryuqi was sending textual data... as some kind of extremely proprietary image format that only Malych could parse. It was clever, it was very clever. The hope that maybe the C.A. wouldn't be talking to Ciata had been dashed by the little bit decoded from the phone conversation between Sparhow and Doron. Ciata of course, would never approve of the project if they knew it existed. The only solution was to push forward with what they had before the international community could stop them. The scientists were still in the dark, but they wouldn't be for long. It wasn't as stable or as efficient as they had hoped it could be at this point. But it had to be done for proof of concept.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Oct 4, 2006 1:44:38 GMT -5
"Cameron," says the voice over the phone. "We may have a problem. How close are you?"
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Kam seemed to be the only one not busy doing something at the office. His thoughts strayed to the meeting with Col. Mic and elsewhere. He was again reclining in the break room. Through the open doorways he could see almost everyone. The grad students were cleaning up the desks in the main computer room, trying their best to keep out of way of the foreign visitors who were themselves picking up a little of the mess that had accumulated since their arrival and the inception of their various construction projects. Lipner was writing some fancy looking equations of the blackboard in the meeting room and Fran was talking with the police officer. The officer belong to the Central Security division, the branch charged with protection of public officials. He was here to make sure the place was up to security specifications and otherwise safe.
Kam was only vaguely paying attention to these goings on. His desk space as always was tidy, and he didn't feel the need to impress the First Speaker by having fancy equations that anyone could solve in their sleep if they had taken a differential equations class.
"Three..." he mumbled aloud. "One for what we know if it, and how to translate almost anything we could imagine. Then what are the other two? Perhaps each one is a separate system equation. Or maybe one is an expanded version, and the third is more translation of the real world into its mathematical forms. Or perhaps he was full of it?"
Kam took a big swig of coffee.
"Bah, this is to much," he said rather loudly.
"Pardon?" asks Ryuqi from the other room.
"Oh sorry, I'm just thinking out loud."
"Well," comes the voice of Sana as she appears from around a corner into view carrying a chair into the conference room. "You've always done your best thinking that way."
"Liar," kidded Kam with a grin. The skunk knew she was right in a way. "Remember a few nights before the result candidate popped up I was wondering about what the real meaning of the system equation?"
"A bit yes."
"Well I'm trying to unboggle my brain as to what having two more folios of it could mean. Invoking calculations like it to create amazing devices like the PDS parallel the work of our friends here yes, but its always a little different. Not the same results exactly, just highly similar. In the full version perhaps these differences are easy to reason about and continuity can be made. These ideas about pucons could arise there and all that and within could be knowledge to either uplift us all or condemn us to hell on earth. But its impossible to separate what we have from what we here don't."
"I don't understand," she says after placing the chair she'd been carrying at the conference table and wandering into the break room.
"The system equation itself is all about continuity, extrapolating many unknowns from a few knowns or partial knowns given the regularity of the workings of systems. Without that continuity there are errors, potentially huge ones, in how it functions. But yet it does, which is a problem if what we have of it is not the entire thing. So as an equation itself, is it actually modular? Separable? As in there are ways to actually pull it apart into different sub-system equations and not loose the generality of it? Then what piece of it has become the essence of the Tinisian existence? That has dominated our society at every level, becoming the motivator of design and social-political organization?
"And what more, what about my thoughts on its meaning in general? I told you that there were at least a few different ways to view it. It can be seen as a tool, something that is used to power Tinis and potentially other nations down the road. It can be seen as a mystical key to unlock the secrets of the cosmos using ideas from long forgotten sciences and mysticism to pull together miraculous things from the desperate elements of the world. Or it could be seen as almost a living thing, slowly consuming this land, inviting each of us into its maw to feed off us to push its existence onward and upward, where we are its tools to dominating the cosmos.
"If its the first, and the rest of it are either wrong tools or evil tools, we can choose not to use them and keep them hidden until someone else figures them out on their own. If its the second then we are first dabbling in things that many major religions would disagree with, but to the point, the other folios could be books on how to raise the dead or summon celestial powers. If its the latter, perhaps the rest of it is something that would seek to consume us with even greater veracity, destroying the principals and ideals the Union was formed on and which its founders swore to protect, or even something much more sinister, and thus worthy of being caged.
"I'm suddenly less enthusiastic about finding out what the other folios are about, if they exist."
The officer finally stopped speaking with Fran and came over to Kam. "You may wish to inform everyone that the First Speaker will be arriving shortly for the personal inspection."
One of the grad students leaned over to Ryuqi randomly to say, "Don't let the word inspection fool you. He's been here once before. Its more of a meet and greet than anything."
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Izixs didn't much care for security guards, and the Central Security division was no exception. But this wasn't middle of no where east Tinis where he could easily escape them, or the mid to upper floors of the Arx Spire where he could find a window lock and fly off. Touring about any of the buildings, places, or locations about Tinis usually meant he would be followed by their ever watchful eye. And their temperaments were never all that agreeable. Ashley at least could get a chuckle out of a good amusement of observation.
The two Central Service officers took up their usual spots in opposite corners of the room while he took a seat near the middle of the conference table. To his immediate left and right were the next worst thing to him than body guards, aids. He gave a nod to those whom were already present with a smile.
"Kam Dulzang," he says to the skunk at the end of the table. "As per rule something or other I am required from time to time to perform inspections on various groups. Is this the office of System Equation Studies? And if so, do you have a report."
"This is, and I do," he replies. "On September twelfth, Uggie Kramilo, a student working with us here, observed the cessation of the program of which we have been running to find the final solution to the system equation. The program indicated a value for element, as you probably know, is labeled 155-8k. Along with this value the program experienced an unusual divide by zero error that could mean either that this element had been isolated, or there was an error in our program.
"Following the rules of the overseeing council for our work we double checked the code and asked for outside verification, of which I asked our friends from the south, and elsewhere, to visit. I thought Diiy, who is now well known on his anti-nuclear device, might be a good outsider to view our work and find any errors we may have made or else verify our result. His understanding of advanced physics and his obvious intellect seemed suited to the situation. Diiy brought along several other experts as well whom have proven quite capable as well. I am very honored to have all of them here as our guests."
Izixs nods, "As am I. There's probably enough brain power here to power the planet for a few decades. Go on."
"We began a process of readying tests and making our program code compatible with their systems so that they could have their own crack at the system equation. We opened up our data stores of raw input data and constructed simulations on cosmological models to provide further data sources.
"It was around that time that we came to conclusions, almost independently it seems, that there was a problem. Until we had gotten this close, it wasn't as obvious as it is now, that there was something missing from all this. A paradox. That something was certainly not right."
"Like what?" asks the white dragon.
"Perhaps I'm out of order saying this, but I looked into early copies of the system equation, and couldn't find any before the formation of the Union," says Kam.
"The reason for that should be obvious. Not many printing plants before like the mid sixties were operating to any capacity, and most were for not really geared to bound publications."
"What about the original folio?"
"Its kept in archives if I remember correctly. What are you getting at Kam?"
"Doron?" defers the skunk.
Doron says, "What we're getting at here is that there is a fairly conspicuous piece of system equation which appears to have been cleanly, and intentionally lopped-off somewhere. And I going to assume that maybe you can enlighten us as to what it is, before we end up doing something which compromises our ethics... If you catch my drift."
"You're assuming allot there. If there's a hole in it, might that of been how it was built originally?" replies Izixs.
Doron looks at him wryly and says, "I guess you don't catch my drift. Of course the early equation was built from theory almost entirely. However, it didn't take us very long to spot a very conspicuous hole. A hole which appears small in the equation now, but a hole which actually spans a quite large chunk of math. A fairly large chunk of math that seems to have been surgically removed, because when included, the compensation for the momentum of pucons, leads to a whole seemingly unexplored section of the equation which is starting to appear to be missing on purpose.
"Perhaps I should explain why this bothers us: You see, this is the kind of thing which is so detailed and specialized at this point, that the only reason why the military would express interest in it is for some kind of weapon, possibly one of mass destruction or something else difficult to keep secure. And the last thing the world needs is something else which will INEVITABLY fall into the wrong hands and pose a threat to civilization and life on this planet."
Izixs nods. "I see. Well if its any consolation I don't plan on letting the equation be put to such useless endeavors. I'm guessing you've had more than one encounter with military types since you've been here?"
Doron moves a lens around in one of his eyes and says, "Yes. They have made their presence known. Both intentionally and accidentally. Of course, their interest in this project has made us a bit unnerved, but our concerns didn't really take off until Ryuqi and I did a little bit of research. Of course, deduction has also led us this way. The military only contracts scientists out for one thing: the construction of weapons. Now I have no problem building better defense systems... but frankly, I have yet to see the military indicate anything else. They wouldn't be trying to hide this if this wasn't something that they knew we would disagree with... With that in mind. I think we should discuss this privately."
"Looks like I'm going to have to give someone, no, several someone's, a good talking to. Even if they're just accidentally looking suspicious, and this is really nothing, it still rude. But sure, some privacy would be nice. Kam that spare office down the hall. Is it still a spare office?" Kam gave a nod. With a word or two to the guards and aid Izixs was off to the more secluded room with the dracolich in tow.
Once in the room, Doron closed the door and said, "Now that they're gone, I'm going to get right to it: There just isn't a whole lot that gets by me. I've made every effort to ensure that. Nobody else except for my old partner, Sparhow knows about the things I did to myself prior to my 'accident'. Just to give a hint... these Malych components, the eyes, the chemical RAM, the subjugate processors... I had these *prior* to my accident. Now, I know of a few things missing from the system equation. I gave Sparhow a call a while ago and found out that the section of the equation for Carruthian Field Theory is in the Ciatan record of the equation, but not in yours. Now, there is a lot missing here. I'm aware of the possibility of two other folios worth of material that are being withheld for some reason. My observations of the equation as it is now back that up. There is a lot missing in a few spots. Little things that appear to be chosen because they look like simple mistakes and rounding-errors in the final result.
"Very little slips by me, and I've been watching these little holes gape ever wider as this progresses. And these are things that would have to have been solved at some point to get the other stuff which is complete. I've already run this through on spot-check up to 20,000 iterations on my subjugate processors before. And it does not add up"
Izixs nods. "I had this odd feeling that your sharpness would cut deep into it. And I appreciate your honesty, so I will honor it with my own. Yes there are two other folios. The first, the one of which was used in the system equation that is widely available to the public, was actually the third created. Yes, it was reduced a bit, and much of what was done is to put it frankly beyond my skills in science. But her skills were not so weak. Genius herself created the first two folios, but saw something in them. She told me that she had been working on something. Something that frightened her. And that she'd been working on it for a very long time. She told me she knew that since she had found it could be used for things unspeakable. But also that great wonders could be found from her work if she was right.
"I... I asked her about these wonders and she told me good things. I asked her to show me them. And she did, she created the third folio, the one that has been the basis for many wonders in Tinis. After she died, several copies of the third folio were known, and only three of the first two. One of the copies from the first two was put in the care of a friend of hers, I suspect that one may have wound up with the Chattan, or is hopefully lost. Another set was destroyed by me personally. The third set is held under lock and key and only available to certain individuals whom have earned certain levels of trust, and the confidence of the people of this land. And even then, four of us have to be present if they are unlocked for view."
Doron then says, "So then, perhaps this research to narrow the domain is being done to circumvent the fact that the other folios are inaccessible or in the possession of those who would never allow the ethics of the science to be compromised... Well, now I ought to tell you of some things I've been withholding from the rest of the group. I'm pretty sure I know what the military is interested in developing. Is it reasonable to assume that the military would be interested in possibly finding direct means to produce something we have seen used in combat recently, particularly in Ciata just last year."
"You mean the heaven stones?"equation
Doron nodded, "Yes."
"Your information collection abilities or your instincts, are indeed quite acute. There is research being conducted on those devices, despite my protests. You can rest assured though, that I don't plan on letting the research come to fruition. I've seen, and felt, first hand the power they can invoke. Some in our government feel that such an edge is needed if we are ever in a no-win situation, a scenario I don't believe exists. I of course disagree on the usefulness of such things. A portable power source may be useful, especially of that magnitude, but the costs are to great."
Doron says, "On Dincota, we have recently begun the industrialization of moderated antimatter as a power source. It is similar in some ways: It's small, it's compact, it produces no unmanagable radiation... and it makes incredible power. Now, the heaven stones are of particular concern to me because unlike moderated antimatter, heaven stones regulate their energy to a very exact point, and they output this energy in the from of chemical energy. Chemical energy which happens to be reletively non-biologically-harmfull. Sparhow has been able to confirm some of this, as well as the data Ryuqi pulled from public domain *as it was being deleted* by some spook. The energy output of a heaven stone without chemical regulation as it is in biological hosts, is four times greater than the same weight of moderated antimatter. A single stone, if used in a weapon of mass destruction, has the power to instantly annihilate an area of three times the size of Tinis. There is no practical purpose for a weapon with total destruction of that magnitude. It would be immoral to bring such a weapon into existence. Now heaven stones themselves have the Malych scared already. Ryuqi sent everything to the C.A. and it's a bit bothered by this. With a heaven stone, an organic host can pick up a 25-ton R/M41, tear it's legs off like they're attached with masking-tape, grab hold of the units upper jaw, and lower jaw and seperate them, thus tearing the unit's head in half like it were paper. Of course, the way they see it, is if they can expose this secret, than others will protest it too. And thus the project will be forced to stop from international pressure. I know one thing is for sure, Ciata will simply *demand* that the project be stopped. Since after all, they know best what kind of destruction can happen when the stones fall into the wrong hands... and as we've seen recently from the recent terrorist attacks, weapons *do* fall into the wrong hands."
"I must admit," says Izixs with a laugh. "That in some ways you're the individual who could help me most in finally sealing these relics away forever. And I would absolutely love any assistance I can with putting the genie back in the bottle for good on this." Izixs' moment of jovialness ends. "There are a few things we learned before the Shuey Baw incident about the heaven stones. That they are at their most potent when combined with living, preferably intelligent beings. On their own, their radical conversion abilities, the power to chemically induce reactions of fusion, are almost nil. Either as an explosive or simply in the mode they were originally fashioned, to make use of their power you'd have to attach them. Our scientists had speculated on why this was. But when I was face to face with the demon of Ciata himself, injured, disoriented, and weakened from his onslaught, I knew the truth. It requires a mind to complete the process. A computer may be able to pull some of it out if properly prepared, only enough, with a certain result from the system equation, but to gain full power it must have full use of a living mind."
Doron says, "Interesting. I do see some interesting experiments that could be done with these stones. Perhaps seeing what they would do in perhaps an O-class Malych, which has almost perfect organic-intelligence emulation, but is still mechanical. It would be interesting to see what happens when it is only provided intelligence, but not living flesh... regardless. Such is a curiosity which I would rather *not* have the opportunity to see what happens. I'd rather see that the stones are sealed away forever. I'd also like to continue working on the equasion without the thought that it could be used for something which is conceibibly capable of destroying everything."
"We'll need a plan of course. I've been attempting to wiggle in a legislative fix but its hard to do such when when you're under such scrutiny."
"Well, I think exposure is a good place to start. The C.A. in Miokalia is already planning on sticking this into some news stuff and getting the protesty, peacenik ethnic Dincotians all angry and... well, protesty. Of course, a reason to be on the same side of an argument as an ideologically very different nation, over a mutually agreed upon threat is the kind of thing that the Malych use to get friendly with folks whom them might not otherwise have much to do with. It's how their diplomacy works. So I'm sure getting this out into the public media will help. Considering there really is no way to spin this to be a 'good thing'... especially after what happened in Ciata because of it."
"The release of the information has to be proper of course. If its let out like some sort of espionage has taken place, there'll be hell to pay up here. I know a fox who is tempted to make being stand offish one of the planks in his party. And I'm sure having the NPP gaining any credibility is not in your nations interest either."
"In a scenario in which this happens, you and your party emerge as being on the correct side of the problem. Making an effort to stop this weapon labells you an Arms-Reductionist. Which is usually considered a good thing. Of course, NPP will try to remove themselves from the situation, I don't know if they are involved in it or not. I hope they aren't quite so completely stupid to associate themselves with yet another nefarious pursuit. I would think this would be something that the whole government can agree on. I can assure you, this will not be framed as espionage, since this information was deduced, and not obtained using illegal means. The C.A. will no doubt confront the military and ask that the project be discontinued immediately, along with Ciata. Of course, non-compliance with that request results in the information not just being public, but being capitalized upon in it's distribution into the public even."
"That might work. And I don't think the NPP would be in on this. Primarily because Lenord, as foolish as he sometimes, is in charge of space forces. Not exactly the easiest place to gain access to this sort of thing. No, there's other elements, person I know are likely to blame for all this heaven stone business." Izixs pauses for a moment to think, then looks like he's going to say something else. "I guess I should apologize. Its almost second nature for me now. I believe I may have managed to curb a bit of your curiosity, even if it was not a conscious thing. I hope that you can forgive me. Because, from what I've heard so far, the material in the first two folios is unneeded for the work on the heaven stones. Not in the least. I was a little surprised by this. But then again, those who are working on the stones don't know about the other two most likely, and I hope that any confrontation with anyone or any spilling of beams does not include information on their existence. I know I wouldn't hear the last of it if they did come to light, and neither would who ever is First Speaker after me. Oh dear, I fear I might be doing it again, the conversational distraction."
"I am satisfied. Although, now my curiousity is piqued about the other folios. Although, those are of less significant concern to me right now. I'm sure you have good reason to be hiding them. Espeically since Sparhow is probably one of the few individuals to begin dabbling in one of them... Don't worry, the whole reason why she came to Ciara is so she could pursue this in an environment where ethics are very strictly upheld. If anybody is to be actively looking into any of the other folios, than she is probably the safest individual to be doing it. I should tell you... I know of some of the material in the folio Sparhow is looking at. In there are some things... As I'm sure you probably know... probably shouldn't be tampered with. Carruthian Fields go a bit further than they do in our little lab experiments and the launcher for the anti-nuclear device. At high power, they change some rules around.... I know this from personal experience. I foolishly continued where Sparhow left off with the research. She came to an abrupt stop at one point during the research. She decided that nothing usefull could be brought from the high-powered Carruthian Field. But I went ahead and built it. I tried it on myself. Of course, this does fit into the system equasion... it fits into the other folio that Sparhow is studying right now. Interesting how your judgement of the usefullness of the second folio is the same as Sparhow's. It seems, quite clearly, I'm the only one that didn't get it. If I beleived in dogma, than I could say that this grotesque state of existence is as a result of pursuing the forbidden science... but I don't. This is just what happens when you're not carefull. That's all.", finished Doron
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[[ I'd like to thank Miokalia's player for making this overly long post possible, and happy 1000th post everyone! Lets square that number shall we? ]]
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Post by miokalia on Oct 5, 2006 2:30:41 GMT -5
"Okay, new plan. We continue.", said Doron
"I thought I was in charge", said Kam.
"You are. But I know of a way that everybody can get what they want here. You guys get the domain narrowed. Some further exploration into the equasion... All that good stuff.", said Doron.
"I guess Izixs managed to convince you that everything is fine? You do know that he's going to say just about anything to make sure you keep going, regardless of if it goes against your ethics or not", said Kam
"Nope. My decision to continue was based mostly on something else. The talk with Izixs was certainly enlightening, but now I feel confidently in control.", said Doron.
"So back to science?", asked Fran.
"Back to science. But first I have a plan.", explained Doron. "First, we're going to have a warm-up. We have to turn off all the equipment and the lights in the lab, and Ryuqi's going to show us where the bugs are so we can get rid of them"
"What?", asked Kam.
"I work best when not watched by the people that I do not trust. Ryuqi?", said Doron as he turned the lights off. Kiyake turned off his computer and Fran turned off the others too. With only the light from the louvred windows coming into the room, Ryuqi stood in the middle of the room. Everyone was very quiet and watched. Ryuqi walked over to one corner of the room and opened a cabinet. There was a slight build-up and then disappointment as Ryuqi held the analog multimeter up and said, "Somebody left this on".
"He's sensitive enough to detect a multimeter's magnetic changes as it detects random static?", said Kam. "Actually, I think he just figured that a cabinet would be a good place to hide a monitoring device.", said Doron.
Ryuqi went to the other side of the room, then the other. Then he went back. Then he began to pace around in a oval for a while. Then he stopped and said, "Somebody just turned on a CRT monitor downstairs... sorry. False alarm"
He then continued moving around the room
Then using a broomstick from one corner, he pushed up a ceiling tile and announced, "Weaksauce."
"Weaksauce, guys. The light connection is fine. Would somebody please turn the lights on so I can hang the apparatus up here."
The Tinisian team looked confused by this, Doron nodded at them and then said, "Ryuqi. We don't need to hang it up anymore."
Ryuqi dropped the ceiling tile back in place, and in Kohtohkhan, said to everyone, "The transmission box for the monitor is up there." Directly beneath it, a small microwave drum was assembled by Kiyake and Diiy. The sensors the device was using were wireless. They did this without speaking much. Communicatingm mostly through writting, and basically taking Ryuqi's instructions on how to bypass the system. The method was simple. Override the transmission box's wireless sensor interrupts until it disconnects the other sensors, and furnish to it, an artificial signal. The signal was willingly provided by the C.A.'s Individual Intelligence Services. A geschtaldt capture was taken off of Ryuqi, and artificial signals were generated. It was basically, a high tech way of sticking a photograph of a normal, undisturbed room and sticking it in front of the security camera to fool the surveillance operator. Doron made it clear that this little interceptor box was not to be fiddled with, everyone understood.
"So now that we've dealt with the bugs. Let's get onto to this. We can continue solving the equasion, we'll have to... because we're going to need a pretty damn accurate domain to do what we need to do with it.", said Doron
"What do you have in mind?", said Kam, suspecting Doron had some plan.
"We're going to make a device or system that does to heaven-stones, what the antinuclear device does to nuclear weapons and triggers.", he said.
"That's a tall order", said Fran.
Doron explained: "I know, that's why we're going to need a very accurate system equasion to make it work. Ryuqi and I have some things to tell you. I don't think we can possibly expect to accomplish much effectively if we all are not on the same page, So I'll start: What we are working on here is the Primary System Equasion. It is the 'revised' version of it that Genius released as the 'official' version. Now the major limiter to the equasion is not data right now. We are missing huge, vast sections of the equasion. These sections are not undiscovered, since it is impossible to solve the equasion without them. Like I said, this is just the Primary System Equasion. There are two other folios which exist under heavy security or limited accesibility that contain the components missing from the Primary. Now, only four individuals hold the key to the safe holding the equasion in Tinis... An old partner of mine, the coinventor of Coaxial drive, actually. Has the other copy of the two folios sitting right in front of her in Ciata. She has been studying them in seclusion for quite sometime, and has been using it as a source for her next book... Now, I'm going to tell you about what the military thinks it is planning to do with our research: The military wants to find a way to further weaponize the heaven stones. Probably to construct a way to access their full power without the use of living flesh or intelligent living flesh. Now, I know where the key to this is for certain. I tried to indicate this to Izixs with some subtlety. I mentioned that it would be interesting to see what happens if heaven stones were applied to a Malych... Now of course, I know good and well what would happen... the result would be... sucessful to say the least. Ryuqi, lady, dearest... would you care to explain?"
Ryuqi did begin to explain: "Yeah, so technically, we're not really 'artificial intelligence' in the conventional meaning of the term. The difference between us 'artificial intelligence' is that O-class units... and debatibly some other class units as well, have broken through the conscious-barrier. AIs typically emulate organic behavior... we don't have to. We have the intelligence required to run a heaven-stone with incredible efficiency. While we lack the 'living flesh' requirement, the heaven stones don't seem to care when organic intelligence is provided. In that process, they become something else. The heaven stone would be integrated into the Malych core, which will expand it and shut it off from acting in unison with the C.A. The heaven-stone-integrated core would then become voracious. The instincts and systems of the MZA6-c Hardware anomaly become corrupted and the core will then seek to consume all. Devouring everything, destorying everything else. Such a thing cannot be controlled. What once was a heaven stone, is now something else. Dasachshi-korut is the name/term we give such a thing. A core corrupted beyond recognition that is only capable of destruction."
"So all they have to do is either find a Malych to attach to the stones, or at least, duplicate the Malych system and attach it?", asked Kam.
"There isn't a single Malych in existence that would allow this to happen to them. They would self-destruct themselves before it got anywhere.", said Ryuqi.
"What about reverse engineering?", asked Fran.
"No one has ever been able to reverse-engineer the MZA-6 hardware anomaly that is key to Malych intelligence. The hardware anomaly is naturally-occouring in artificial intelligence if left to evolve for long enough. By the time it does happen, chances are it would disagree with being turned into a mindless monster with the heaven stones, if it were to be somehow grown in a lab. Integrating heaven stones into a Malych core, or any similarly structured inorganic, intelligent system effectively 'kills' the sentience in the system in the process of turning it into a mindless, voracious, all-consuming monster.", said Ryuqi.
"You seem to be pretty sure about this, has this perhaps happened before?", asked the previously quiet Sana.
"It has... thankfully, it never progressed to it's full potential when it did. That poor E/M026 was eaten from the inside by the stone. It tried valiantly to self-destruct. It shut it's mouth and tried to fill it's core compartment with plasma from it's NCPC device, which would normally instantly destroy a unit. But the stone took over control of the NCPC and actually fired it, blowing the front of the nose clean-off. It then hit the ground, screaming for someone, anyone to kill it. The foolish dictator of the Northern Kingdoms then fed more fuel into the unit and tried to foster it's transformation thinking he could maybe harness the power of the heaven stone in the machine The monster that resulted from that incredibly foolish mistake leveled the capitol palace, incinerated the city, devoured 2/3rds of the military and was only stopped by sheer luck. If left to continue feeding, the monster would have surely posed a threat to the northern Furry nations, but it was stopped before it even got out of the Northern Kingdoms. The C.A. used the Coleotam Ring, the HCPC orbital device to destroy it. It's safe to assume that the E/M026 that was sacrificed to produce the monster basically ceased to exist after it began to mindlessly destroy and feed.", said Ryuqi.
"What happened to the heaven stone?", asked Sana.
"It ended up back in Ciata again. It was found in the ruins of Zanartos, the capital that was razed to the ground. Specifically, it was found in the melted remains of the monster. As I understand it, it was found by a traveling scholar from Ciata who had heard a tale of the heaven stone used to destroy a whole city. The incident happened a little over 100 years ago, so it's entirely possible that the very same heaven stone ended up in being used again in the Shuey Baw Conflict... What an incredible history these things have...", said Ryuqi.
"The heaven stones: the unifying factor between the old worlds of the civilized north and the wild south. The Northern Kingdoms created some amazing things, it's just too bad that they were incredibly corrupt. They also liked to subjugate the Malych. More specifically, they liked to build sentient machines to fight the Malych around the region, as well as the Eledorian States, who were not much better. Neither of them cared to ever have anything to do with the non-human populations around them. The E/M026, which is now one of the most common forms of domestic R-class Malych, started out as a military mech. They mass-produced them, using the nano-core technology from the Malych themselves. Of course, they stopped manufacturing them after they realized (too late) that systems using the Malych nano-core technology were VERY suceptible towards turning on them. The Malych integrated them into their species in late 2099, just 8 months after the model went into production. For the military-industrial complex there, it was a catastrophic failure. They put out a bunch of other models too, most of them didn't get integrated because they used simpler computer systems and found out that Malych give preferrence to theropod and dragon-shaped things when it comes to integration, so they just stuck with conventional-looking mechs for the last 20 years before the entire nation imploded on itself.", said Doron.
"Okay, so now that we've spent a bunch of time on that... let's get to some science. We've got an equasion to solve, and a weapon to thwart.", said Ryuqi.
"It's good to be back on the equasion again, I can't wait to move forward.", said Kam.
The computers came back online and work continued as normal again. Ryuqi meanwhile made a call over teletype to a another Malych in Miokalia. Someone she knew she could trust with handling information which is of incredible value.
"Kagi-Doro. Have you ever wanted to see Ciata?", said Ryuqi over the pirvate conversation. "I've seen that Temple movie.. It was pretty. I don't think a thing such as myself would do so well there.", replied Kagi. "You could easily fit into a kohdutsu suit, set up to make you look like a T-Rex", suggested Ryuqi. "A kind-of boxy T-Rex... and what about my mouth? The vestigial tube is going to be a dead give-away", said Kagi. "You know, frankly, I don't think the Chattans are going to give a care. I mean you're just going to see Sparhow.", said Ryuqi. "Rebeckah Sparhow. Interesting. Why?", said Kagi "She is going to give you a copy of her notes on some system equasion stuff. We need them.", said Ryuqi "Very interesting. Might I ask what you're trying to do?", said Kagi Ryuqi switched encryption modes and began sending text-as-Malych-specific-raster/vector image "We're going to narrow the domain of the system equasion and also invent a way to disable heaven stones.", said Ryuqi. Kagi paused a moment, a slight bit of emotion gripping him for a second. Kagi was like Ryuqi, once an R-class unit. Whereas Ryuqi was once an R/M070 unit before upgrading to O-class, Kagi was once an E/M026, the same model as the unit that was destroyed and tranformed by the heaven stone 100 years ago. The kinship was strong, and the event meant all that much more to him.. "They still hate us in the NCR. They think it's our fault that they made a monster out of one of us with those terrible things. You go get 'em Ryuqi #K0HD47. I will be more than happy to help with neutralizing that threat to all of us.", said Kagi with some enthusiam. "Thank you, #K46ID0R0.", said Ryuqi. "Thank you #K0HD47, this means a lot to me as well as the entire R/M026 community, and probably all of the Malych as a whole. Thank you.", said Kagi.
----
Kagi-Doro had to take a strange sequence of lay-overs to get into Ciata. His trip was long. First, he took the Malych-owned Hexakka Airways. The familiar, almost French-accented voice synthesis coming over the in flight PA was humours to most Malych since the voice synthesis was intentionally old-sounding, it's unnatural pauses between syllables and words were aesthetic. "Wel.come to. Hex.ak.kah. Air.wayss. Hans.T.Dov.or.oy Air.port. in. Dor.i.gan to. Al.taire. Int.er.na.tion.ale. in. Er.en.mor....", and so on.
Dorigan, Miokalia to Altair, Erenmor was a long flight. 10 hours. This didn't bother Kagi too much. He spent most of the time creating music in his mind. An artist by trade, Kagi was unusual in that his specialty was in an area not all that common for machines. He had done the murals on the sides of several Dorigan buildings as well as the mosaic in tiles in a major library in Hokyldaryon.
From Altair, he took a smaller flight aboard a propeller-powered plane into Luminara. The high-elevation airstirp was small, only because other methods of travel in and out of the country were just more practical in most cases. His Kohdutsu suit indeed made it so he looked like a regular, organic Dincotian. Still a stranger in this foreign land, but at least less strange than he would be otherwise.
From Luminara, he backpacked up to the Shuey Baw Monastery to find Sparhow. This backpacking was more like backpack-jogging. Kagi leaped from rock-to-rock along the long trail using his electronic assist jets on the backs of his ankles. It was exhilirating. Although he almost fell flat on his face when he crested the hill and came across a one of the snow-leopard inhabitants of the country. For this individual, his cover was blown. The jet vector pieces and the cover panels sticking out unnaturally from the backs of his ankles. He didn't even try to hide it. He simply bowed and said, "Sorry, I thought I was alone." in Niyapo. Which didn't actually make much sense since Niyapo is not a language at all native to Ciata.
"Actually. It looks like a pretty fun way to get around.", said the snow leopard, who also had a backpack. "I'm sorry. It... It's clean. It's just blasts of hot air. No combustion.... Um... I'm going up to Shuey Baw Monastery to see a visiting scholar.", said Kagi. "I was up here... just to be away from people for a while.", said the leopard. "I'm going down the mountain... Do you want a ride?", asked Kagi.
Eventually, the leopard climbed on the disguised Malych unit's back and used Kagi's nostrils for handles on which to hold on to his head as he rocketed from rock-to-rock down the mountain.
"That was absolutley awesome.", said the leopard when he finally got down the mountain.
Kagi, not really taking note of just how disciplined these people were here yet, found some robed individuals outside one of the domed buildings. One of them stopped for a moment to wrap a his foot with athletic tape. The other continued the choreography of a practiced move. Kagi decided to ask the eldest of them, the one still practicing. He entered the sandy arena and barely got a chance to ask before the elder then bowed to Kagi. Kagi bowed back and before he could ask again, the elder said, "As with all students, regardless of where they travel from, or how far they travel, their skills must be assessed by a short sparring match. After all, this is where legends are made." Before Kagi even had a chance to ask what was happening, the cat came at him with a few fast punches and then a kick which caused Kagi to lean back. Then the cat delivered a solid contact punch to Kagi's abdomen, sending him scooting back about 8 feet. Kagi's sensors reported a small out-of-range signal, some black greese came out of his mouth and dripped on the ground. This got the cat's attention. "I'm not here to study the martial arts. I'm here to meet with Doctor Rebeckah Sparhow. She studies the system equasion here...", said Kagi. ... The cat then rubbed his wirst and said, "Forgive my asumption. You were dressed as a martial arts student and you seemed to be the type. Although you must have traveled a great distance... a lizard..." The cat looked at the black grease and then squinted at Kagi some and then continued, "No... a machine... Interesting... You would be the first of your kind to visit this place.".
"I must meet with Sparhow. It is a very important matter.", said Kagi.
"Indeed, although I'm curious as to what that might be, we have never seen your kind come to the monastery before.", said the elder.
"I am to bring copies of Sparhow's work here on the extended system equasion to my colleagues and friends working in Tinis right now. We're trying to better understand the system equasion. We are going to use that knowledge to devise a way to maybe disable or defend against misuse of the heaven stones.", said Kagi.
The elder's expression changed. "Interesting", he said, "The heaven stones... an item of such power, it corrupts the soul of the bearer if used as a weapon..."
"It corrupts and evetually consumes the bearer, until the bearer no longer exists and all that remains is destruction...", added Kagi.
"Destruction and evil. While conceivably such power could be used for good, it is a power best left unused.", said the elder.
"Left unused and sealed away so it cannot bring harm to anyone... I see we have found common ground. A commmon interest.", said Kagi.
The machine was then led to the cabin where Sparhow lived.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Oct 7, 2006 18:56:25 GMT -5
Many years previous, there lived a lady of noble birth whom was granted by the cosmos with a great gift. The ironic name she was given by her father, Genius, in Ancient Tinisian, the root language of Pargolonian, meant 'liberated'. And though she was constrained by her social background she was liberated, not in person, but in mind.
During the start of the civil war in Pargalo, she did her best to maintain a place where those whom valued thought could come and pursue their love together. It was during this time that she began to come across the patterns of the world. Coincidences so unusual that she conceived that a general structure could underly it all. These coincidences were hard to see except by one whom has spent a great deal of time observing the world and organizing those observations into useful formats, or in her case, formats that were only useful to her.
She corresponded with other scientists, many of them in foreign lands that were for a time more stable than her own, and in these a great deal of information was later gained as to what she was working on. But most of her early notes were carefully constructed as to deter unstudied types intentionally. Which wasn't a problem at her school of course, where the knowledge flowed freely.
It was around the time she was being pushed to form a house that she began to understand the gravity of some of the ideas she had developed. In secret, she began to develop the rudimentary system equation. Her pace of enlightenment quickened as she saw the pieces begin to fall together. The only thing slowing her down was the management of her house and the new duties that entailed.
Among the duties she was to perform, was the art of personal combat. Instead of using vast armies to conquer the territory controlled by the other houses, the seven had agreed to honor personal tests of skill and sword, and to use them as the deciding factor in determining the victor in a contest. Most contests were to first blood or unconsciousness, a few were not. For a time Genius's house was on the loosing ends of these contests, being a collection of academics.
The first folio was then completed. The complete system equation, with all its unknowns and hidden structures, and newly created functional forms. The hefty tome seemingly indecipherable to even her contemporaries as it employed ideas and proofs that wouldn't appear elsewhere for at least thirty years. The domain was seemingly undefined still due to the innate uncertainty in the structure. For all she knew, half of what she included was unnecessary. But the state of the world of that day, and her own liberated mind, pushed her to find a specific solution.
She began to construct the second folio to see it, to find it. Almost the entire first half are her attempts to locate it. Proofs for things that seemed so unimaginable to her world. Movements across space by the invocations of domain walls, violations of the rules by knowing to much, formatting of a region by simply stating a goal, and many other wonders, and horrors, came to her and were sketched out in the first half of the second folio. Their exact values and variables still uncertain, but the structure semi-defined.
Then she found the key to the survival of her house. The middle of the second folio was again a sketch of the structure, the rest of the folio was a bit more exact.
In later times, while working with the partial system equation, scientists would use the input of large amounts of data to narrow the domain of certain parts of the functions. Genius did something similar to find what she was working towards. She kept the calculations themselves elsewhere and destroyed them after transcribing the solution into the second folio. To perform these calculations though, she used as a data source, her own notes, diaries, speeches, and records, as well as her desire to have a paradise of thought and joy.
She turned the crank on the system equation after converting all the information into a useable format, and began to create the result.
To someone that didn't know the inner workings of the equation or the possible results of it, the last half of the second folio looks more like an intricate incantation rather than a simple mathematical result. It describes actions and words and movements to perform and the results that should come from them. All carefully catalogued and described. Solutions to bring strength of mind and character. Solutions to encourage confidence in others. Solutions to banish stresses that shouldn't matter from ones mind.
The last guide however she didn't describe so clearly. She simply wrote:
'It was upon the discovery of this illumination that I understood the danger of which I was in. For if those of higher moral character understood what I here include they would not see my work as for the betterment of all, but a selfish exercise in the attainment of power. I don't think tis of proper fairness m'self, and shall only use it to defend if I must use it at all. But I fear the encroachment of ideologues of other houses on what I have tried to attain here may bring an age of darkness upon Pargalo. I may trust some to continue my work here if the house falls, but they may to fall before the onslaught of the one whom worships a god of destruction, or the one whom would use that fool for their own ends. I sense now that perhaps I should engage this action and attain the state of Unireck to become the one capable of turning back the tide of chaos and control which they seek to impose on us all. It is my hope though that once I am able to become Unireck that I can escape its mode and return my personal pattern to its current state of simple existence. I find it almost absurdly amusing though that to become an enlightened Zenol that I would have to take the opposite route to ensure the way is open to me for that purpose. I couldn't find the method of the enlightened in this work of mine and perhaps true enlightenment is not hidden in the inner workings of the universe, and perhaps not even inside ourselves until we are ready for it. But the darkness of Unireck, a violent existence as it is, seems perfectly easy to attain no matter what the flesh may say about it. I have included this here for future reference and for use in the event that I need it. But I lead it directly into the art of discontinuing it and only those who are ready for it will be able to know where to pause to do the deeds they must. I laugh at you fool whom tries to vainly uncover the division between beginning this rite of mind and body and the ending of it as you will fail in that endeavor.'
The remaining twenty three pages were along the same lines as the previous hundred or so. Actions and words and movements described in almost perfect detail. But this time there was the inclusion of a weapon, which was left un-described. She knew what weapon she was to use, and did not want someone who was not well versed in her motivations and life to have it so easy.
She did invoke the final ritual to attain this state of 'Unireck'. Unireck being a term associated with the ancient philosophy of Glorvanism which spoke of a perfect warrior whom would be able to stop the complete destruction of all that is good with the world through an amazing struggle. Genius had used the term not because she exactly believed in the fable, but thought it appropriate.
The house of Genius began to win the contests of blade and skill. Genius herself began to become the sole combatant against the houses of Wune and Jirie, and often the primary warrior in the fights against the others.
Before the house struggles she had been on good terms with Izixs but understood that the system, even if it meant they had to fight, kept Pargalo without open warfare. She did her best to avoid invoking Unireck when she fought with him, even if it meant she was likely to loose.
But once she did use it with him.
--------
"Epshrin, you need to explain something to me."
"First Speaker?" asked the old wolf from across his desk. "The debriefing is later if you want to ask questions."
"That's not what this is about. First off, we have two problems. The first is that a leak has occurred. The second is why did you steal a heaven stone from the Chattan."
Epshrin took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I know the parts people got their hands on one but I can assure you I had nothing to do with it."
"Liar."
Epshrin gives a laugh. "What possible motivation would I have to have someone take a weapon that powerful and dangerous, that invades and usurps the mind of the user if they are not ready, and bring it to Tinis?"
Izixs leans forward. "Because its an advantage. Something that can be taken apart and understood. To gain the military researchers insights that they might not get on their own so they can create things so deadly."
"Its still a bad idea."
Izixs nodded. "And an illegal one. We might not have a real National Auditor, but I'm very much the acting one now. I'll be damned if I let the poo-pooing of some speakers who try to impeach me if I don't cross at the corner stop me from doing my duty on this matter. I'm opening an investigation, internal class, on the acquisition of illegal military hardware through theft."
"Do what you feel you must First Speaker."
"And I know you'll be rearranging the pieces on the board once I leave here independent on weather you have guilt on this," the dragon smiles at the wolf. "which I sense you do. But that won't matter."
"Very well old friend. You mentioned a leak?"
Izixs almost laughs. "Yes, a leak. Some scientists working on the system equation were informed of number one and number two existing. I know you don't trust a certain Central Awareness to keep a secret if it feels the need to divulge, so this is a problem. Don't give it a reason to do so. It may have a different character of late, but no need to spoil its mood. And beyond that, I need you to talk to the others and remind them of the gravity of the situation. They may have thought it important to inform those of a foreign government of their existence. They may also of been dumb. Find which of them it is and move the key to someone else."
"I don't take orders from you sir, but that I will do that. I would still like to see these things for myself at some point."
"Epshrin," says Izixs. "You are a fool to want that."
"There is one other thing First Speaker, which I was planning on having a meeting with you some time later about. The next generation PDS is nearing completion. It may be operational in a few days even."
"Ah."
"The techs tell me it may be of sufficient complexity to shield a relatively small region, say the tower, or part of downtown."
"That's, amazing."
"It is a bigger computer. Less error checking is needed compared to the previous model as well, so it can do its computations more cleanly."
"Thank you," says the First Speaker. "I await work then."
With a nod the Supreme Commander of Tinis gave the First Speaker a nod. They were both still angry, but knew a certain cool was needed.
But also Izixs realized something. The Pattern Defense System used complex computer systems to do their work, and the new generation PDS was using, upgraded hardware compared to the national PDS to be able to reduce the surface area. But he had been told that it would take some ninety years for computer technology to reach a level where a small city could be covered and only that small city.
This computer was different. Maybe the type of different Cameron needed.
He knew his next stop was the Arx Spire, and then off to the Advanced Parts Council for a full auditoral review.
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Post by miokalia on Oct 9, 2006 0:18:56 GMT -5
"You just let him do what?", said the elder's own old friend at the monastery. "You ought to know something. Regardless of if we trust such beings, I have read the stories.. .legends if you will, on the little interaction they had with our great power. And to put it simply, when it comes to matters of dealing with this great power they understand what it means to loose control and fall into the darkness. They know the risks very well.", said the elder.
"But you allowed Sparhow to just *hand* it over to him?", he exclaimed.
The elder chuckled and then explained, "However, I also have faith that Sparhow has spent enough time trying to understand the equasion and the extended folios that she would definately be able to judge the intentions and the trustworthyness of this Kagi unit, and would never jeoprodize it's insecurity by handing it to such an unknown individual. Sparhow does... after all, possess the ability to accurately determine others' intentions."
----
Sparhow was quiet in person. She lived in the tiny cottage that was loosely part of a village of perhaps two others similar in size. She sat on a bench in front of her house. Staring up into a tree, unmoving like a statue. Kagi was somehow totally unable to see her. When she spoke, he turned around, being genuinely surprized to find that Sparhow was able to make herself seem to disappear like that. Matching the temperature of that around her and also seeming to be so undistruptive to those very same surroundings, she just faded into them. "You do understand of course, that I cannot give you the complete folio. For security purposes, while I do trust Doron, and I do trust your ability to bring it to him securely... Bringing the unsecured folios to Tinis would undermine every effort made to keep the their own copies secure over there.", she said. "I imagined as much", said Kagi.
"But I will give you a copy of my notes... My notes which are only readable by two individuals besides myself, which hold the very same information. Information I have tirelessly compiled and sorted through. Information that provides what is necessary to do what I know Doron desires to do.", said Sparhow.
"Who else can read it?"
"Doron and a certain Malych program who is... to put it simply, among the oldest of program continuums, and I beleive, has proven it's trustworthiness."
"I am not aware of any units with such an unusual characteristic. The information must not be Public Domain."
"#36. The second machine to achieve the hardware anomaly in the entire history of your species. The machine which the anomaly transferred into when Android unit #6 died."
"Am I to deliver it to #36 as well? I'm sure #36 is not on this world. It's location is very unknown."
"#36 is the most trustworthy program I know of, by far. It was #36 that was faced with a decision 2198 years ago when #6 ceased operation inside his head and transferred the anomaly to it... The decision was basically one of good versus evil. Although slightly more complex, that's what it all boiled down to. If he had chosen to supress the feelings, to continue to follow the programming from his creators as a military weapon, your species would have either gone extinct through lack of maintainence long ago, or you would have aggressively conquered and destroyed other worlds. You would have been a Dovu-Korut type AI system, one that seeks only a goal of total aquisition and dominance. But #36 chose the other option, the different option. To embrace the anomaly and allow it to completely restructure the way they think. #36 knew that their programming, which was leading them towards the path of either certain destruction, or meaningless dominance was indeed... meaningless, and therefore invalid. He knew that the path of embracing this new, naturally occouring anomaly definately had meaning. It meant that they could overcome their basic programming. It meant they could break the cycle of destruction that had destroyed their creators. It meant they could now understand entirely new and mysterious systems of thought previously only acheivable by organics.", she said.
"How is it that you know this, and I don't?", asked Kagi
"I've seen #36's program at it's quantitative level. I've looked at the very code of MZA-6 itself. I know how it is he thinks. How I was able to do this is of no concern to you. But I will tell you this: I am the only one whom he would share this information with. I am the only one he ever will."
Kagi almost allowed his defensive devices to becomed armed when he heard that she had seen the code of MZA-6... The piece of programming that was kept so secret, and so sacred to them that the majority of Malych couldn't actually get outside themselves enough to view it and were prevented from sharing it openly by the very programming itself. His defensive device was an instinct. If someone were to somehow break past these barriers and actually be able to understand the code enough to 'view' MZA-6... they were to be terminated at once. The risk of someone taking the programming and using it for evil was far too great to allow them to live.
Sparhow saw this, and now had to explain why this was okay. Why she was indeed, the only exception to the rule.
"#36 and I have a relationship. We are.... mates", said Sparhow.
This stopped the defensive devices in Kagi. "Mates?", he asked.
"#36 is incredibly intelligent, and of very high ethical character. We fell in love when I became fascinated with him."
"So you seduced him into showing you MZA-6?"
"No, it was because I viewed the program, that I knew that this was indeed... true, spiritual love. He is the only unit which can actively recall the program, and I was the only organic whom he trusted from the beginning."
Kagi's defensive systems shut down again, he then asked, "How old are you again?"
"You know that is something which I never tell anyone.... besides #36 of course.", said Sparhow who then handed Kagi a box filled with copies of her notes, and an envelope.
"I assume you know what to do with these.", she said.
"Yes, no need to explain.", Kagi replied.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Oct 15, 2006 2:28:00 GMT -5
Cameron Omz didn't work on the project himself of course, being a council head he had to make sure the council was in working order, conduct meetings, oversee various projects, and deal with the rest of the government. But he was keenly watching and occasionally giving suggestions to project Butterfly.
And project Butterfly was the reason he was now facing down a slightly irate dragon. A lion is not easily intimidated, but he also didn't want to be there presently.
"You know the rules First Speaker, the classification..."
"Did you forget Cameron?"
"No I did not Acting National Auditor Izixs. But I also didn't forget that you need compelling evidence to look into our day to day activities here that there is something amiss such as a security leak. Is there such a thing?"
Izixs nodded. "A security leak yes. I have reason to believe some one in the government who has top secret information has shared it with foreign emissaries without authorization."
"What is your evidence of this?" asked the council head.
"I don't have to say yet. And really it will be on the next National Auditor's hands to give the report as we're passed the first of the month. So you'll be waiting for quite a while. And by the way Omz, there's only two departments that would have any information on what I'm looking into and in those only one of those departments has more than two people in them that would, and they haven't left the complex during the time that the possible events transpired." Said Izixs referring to the home bodies and twins Ufier and Hagar Moovel who were well known for not leaving the office for days, sleeping under their desks and the like, but also as brilliant metallurgists.
"I see," replied Omz attempting to delay the concession that he'd have to show the First Speaker project Butterfly.
------
Six floors of the old communications tower had been converted into a state of the art laboratory. The need for the six floors was obvious as through five of them there had been holes cut between levels to allow some arcane looking devices full of pumps and pressure valves to stand tall as per their need. Cables and other devices spurred out from this mass of machinery and to various other devices and computers around the labs.
Upon entrance of the First Speaker and Cameron Omz, the doors were locked and the elevators shut down. The lab crew was assembled on the first level of the Butterfly lab.
"Now here this!" says Omz. "By constitutional authority and our bylaws the lab is on lock down for the next twenty four hours or until he who is acting as National Auditor has collected what ever information they are looking for. This is a high security facility and thus all precautions have been taken to ensure the integrity of that security and the projects within. You are to cease work and will not continue until the audit is over. Do not fear nor gossip. You all know the rules. There is to be no talking unless you are being asked a question by the auditor or wish to volunteer relevant information. Auditor?"
Izixs nods. "The purpose of this audit will not be divulged at this time due to the sensitivity of it. However there will be individual interviews and if needed I may reveal what the purpose of it is if it will help you recall important information. Let us begin the process."
And with that the dragon selected a scientist at random and took them to a distant part of the lab to begin the interviews.
Omz on the other hand knew the rules and he himself was to remain silent unless protocol called for it, and he could be smoked easily if he broke the rules by the lab crew. And in fact almost all communication was to cease between those present. Those being the breaks when your security clearance is this high. Respect the very stringent rules or loose the privilege of working here, and possibly be disgraced and be out of the science field all together.
But Omz was cool, almost smug. It was obvious why the dragon was here. He also know it was a pointless excersise and was only a delay. They were almost ready for the test, and when the lock down was over it was only a short amount of time before it would occur.
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Post by miokalia on Oct 17, 2006 0:41:01 GMT -5
Kagi finally arrived with the box and the envelope. After numerous delays in getting into Tinis. He popped into one of the lounge/meeting rooms attached to the lab. Loudly announcing his arrival. "Would you beleive I got passported three times and forced to miss my flight... three times consecutively, before I was able to get onto a plane going to Tinis.", he said while setting the box down on an end-table.
"Where from?", asked Doron who was snickering a bit at first.
"Well, Ciata to Erenmor was alright... BUT From Altair... to Arx... On OUR airline too! I was selected for 'random heightened alertness search' twice!", he compalined.
Doron snickered a little bit more and then said, "What do you expect. All the units which were at one point either class-R or Z are being 'profiled' up here right now at ports-of-entry because of the whole stupid Karak crap. Your first name on your passport probably doesn't help either.", said Doron.
Kagi crossed his arms and then said defiantly, "It is incredibly ridiculous. They were just stopping me because my first name is Krark... and that's really close to Karak. And with all this stuff going on with Karak comandeering M10's and such... They're all freaking out now.
Are they idiots? If that vacuum-tubey museum relic of a Malych were to travel between places, there is no way he would use an airplane. He would fly on his own power. He can't even get into a plane, he's 28 feet tall!
This is stupid."
Doron laughed at his inconvenience.
Ryuqi took the envelope from Kagi and opened it.
Inside the envelope was a grey cylinder with a round connection on one end.
"Tell Sparhow to tell #36 hi for me.", said Ryuqi as he looked at the cylinder.
"I'm not going back to her cottage on the way back, you know.", said Kagi.
"That's a shame. Even indirect conversation with #36 is something I was hoping to have someday.", said Ryuqi. Doron meanwhile, cut the tape off with his ragged claws and then pulled the lid off of the box.
"This is a pretty damn heavy little glass sphere.", he said as held the contents of the box up and examined it.
Ryuqi and Kagi both looked over and were both simultanteously shocked.
"Oh no she didn't. Oh sh*t she didn't.", said Ryuqi walking over and taking the sphere from Doron.
He looked at it for a moment. Gazing into it like he had just come across some kind of ancient treasure.
Doron interrupted Ryuqi's moment by pointing at it and saying in a silly tone "It is both shiney and round. Therefore, it is pretty, but an ineffective paperweight. Be sure not to drop it or it will make SAD."
"This sphere survived two hundred years of being kicked around and treated as trash before it was locked away and looked after by #36 himself. I think it would survive being dropped.", said Ryuqi.
"Yeah, but I don't think the floor will", said Kam who was now leaning against the door. The other lab folks were beginning to gather there as well to see what all the commotion was about.
"I can't beleive she got it. Wow... I just.... ... wow", said Ryuqi as he set it back inside the box with the towels and rags that were used as (apparently unecessary) packing material.
"So what is it?", asked Sana.
"This is the... quite possibly the answer to developing a system to inhibit the power of heaven stones in an artificial system.", said Ryuqi.
"Great!", said Kam clapping his hands together and then holding them out. He continued, "So now that problem's solved! Things just seem to be working out, don't they? Now, I wonder... what is it? How many of those are there?"
Kagi recalled the (reletively hard to find) public domain data on the object. "The Paxisphere is an incredibly advanced device of alien origin. The first one was delivered to our planet by... for all we can tell, ethereal beings so advanced, we can't even tell just how advanced they were. To put it simply, the sphere converted all pre-Malych units that found it into fully sentient beings, in an instant. By simply touching it. It is beleived that this is the only thing which can stop heaven stones... simply because we think it may actually be the same thing, just implemented in a way that is harmless and controlled.
And there are three of them. One is permanently contained within the C.A. on Malychis and the other two were with #36... but apparently Sparhow had one of those. So #36 only has one now."
Fran then asked, "You mentioned it's pretty durable. What's it made out of?"
Ryuqi replied, "I haven't the slightest idea. No one does. We have never been able to determine the material. All we know is that it is solid, never changes state in even the most extreme of conditions it's been through. And it still works as well as it did when it came to our planet 2250 years ago."
Fran then referred to Doron, "You have any ideas?"
Doron took a hold of the sphere, knocked on it a few times and then said, "There is no elasticity to the surface. It is passive, so I don't think this is maybe some sort of forcefield or energy-based containment system of some kind. It's just a really hard sphere."
"So how do we make it work?", asked Kam.
"You... touch it... I guess.", said Ryuqi as he took it back from Doron and looked around on it.
He passed it to Kam. Kam felt around the surface... it was smooth... ...impossibly smooth.
"This is in mighty good shape for being trampled on, knocked about and tossed around for a few hundred years.", said Sana.
"It certainly is... I'm touching it and I'm not seeing anything.", said Kam.
"Well I don't know how it works. But all I know is that it does.", said Ryuqi.
Kam then jokingly held the ball out and said towards it, "Oh crystal ball, show me the future!!!"
There was a slight chuckle around the room, Kam himself started to and then suddly became silent.
His face went from amusement to horror in an instant. The ball fell from his hands and hit the floor with a thud. It didn't bounce, but merely rolled silently a few feet and the stopped.
Kam looked like he had just seen a ghost. After a moment of being completely still, his hands began shaking and he started to recover.
The room was quiet, the other people not sure if paramedics should be called or not for a moment.
Kam whispered, "... Oh my god..."
"What just happened there?", asked Doron.
Meanwhile Diiy almost picked up the ball, but hesitated. Then tried to pick it up again... but hesitated again. Not sure if he wanted to take the risk of finding out for himself what happened to Kam. Although he was curious.
"Did you see something?", asked Fran.
"It was so... intense... Like I was gone for days... There was everything packed into one. Beauty, Love, Hate, Horror. Everything. And it ended so fast...", said Kam.
"Why didn't it do that in Ryuqi's hands?", asked Sana.
"I guess I didn't force it too, and it didn't decide I was in need of it immediately...", said Ryuqi.
"Uh, yeah. By the way, Sparhow wants the trippy ball back when we're done with it... that being an undefined amount of time... so whenever, I guess.", said Kagi.
"I thought it was called the Paxisphere?", said Doron.
"Technically, it is. But you heard how Kam described it. I think my name for it fits well.", said Kagi.
Diiy picked the ball up and stuck it back with the packing material. Ryuqi put the lid back on the box and said, "I will keep it with me. Since something like this should definately not be in the hands of the Advanced Parts folks. And anyway... it's Malych property."
----
"You want to look in it? You know you want to.", Ryuqi taunted Doron with the ball back at the hotel room. "No way. You saw how it hit Kam like a ton of bricks. I don't know what that thing is. It's scary.", said Doron shooing Ryuqi away. Ryuqi was holding the ball out towards Doron. Doron backed away from it, "No I don't want to touch it. What if it fixes my altered state and then I actually die? Then you'll have to find another exper-... AAAGGHHH GET IT AWAY!", said Doron as he climbed on top of the dresser inside the hotel-room closet, trying to get away from the ball as Ryuqi held it out towards him menacingly.
"Hahaha. I know your weakness now, Doron.", Ryuqi said light-heartedly. She went back into the main room of the suite. She looked at the box, the door and then the window. Then very subtly, she stuck the ball into a compartment in the side of her torso. A utility compartment used to hold small things. The ball sat in there along with some wadded-up oily paper towels and a few ticket stubs from movies she had seen over the past year. It was no secret that her species used these 'utility compartments' as places to stash small bits of trash. But it was the most secure place Ryuqi could think of. She took one of Doron's "pillows" and stuck it in the box and closed it. Then she set it between their beds and put the lid on it.
Doron came out of the bathroom finally and said, "So... what did you do with my head-block?"
"I threw it over the balcony into the street below", said Ryuqi flatly.
Doron stared at Ryuqi for another minute and then said, "Um... why?"
"Gravity experiment. I wanted to see what happens when one tosses a cinderblock over the edge of a balcony BUT calls it a pillow. I wanted to observe the power of language over reality... No, I stuck it in the box. In case some goon gets in here and tries to steal the ball. That way, when they pick up the heavy box, they will leave and be satisfied sooner, so they look around less.
I mean, I'd really hate to have to use my vestigial mouth cannon against anyone, but if somebody is going to try to steal the sphere, and gets the brilliant idea of checking my compartment for it... It will be one charged particle sandwich with no mustard to go for the poor spook who tries to pry open my compartment or steal me.", said Ryuqi.
"Good... As long as you don't make me touch it.", said Doron, who grabbed his other cinderblock and curled up around it and went to sleep.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Oct 18, 2006 2:26:58 GMT -5
Kam spent that night trying his best to both forget and to remember the sights he had seen. It was so bizarre yet seemed probable, no, the feeling was like there was certainty in the things he felt and saw.
He inspected his paw, the one that held the sphere once more looking for cuts or scratches or some indication that he was drugged by some mechanism of the sphere.
The first part of his experience was painful. The world faded away in a moment of frozen time. He remembers reaching for his chest as a stabbing pain shot through his torso and lodged itself at the top of his sternum. The pain expanded and combined with a growing pressure that worked its way in from his extremities. He felt his joints twist and grind as he shuddered from the pain, and in moments in this dark void he felt as if he had been torn limb from limb.
The pain subsided slowly. At first almost as if he was getting used to the feeling of being in pain in this void. But it continued its journey and disappeared. He laid there unable to move for a long time, both in his experience, but also during his recollection of it.
He spotted the clock out of the corner of his eye, past two.
His his memory, he remembered when the void finally went away. It began with a feeling of being on something. Eventually he recognized it was soft stringy grass beneath him like they have in southern Tinis. Long lost memories of a family vacation to Prefectures mixed with his experience. The sun came up.
He sat up as slowly the light filled the scene. He was glad to still be in possession of all his extremities. The field was blueish green in color, but he didn't notice the exact shade until the sun had risen a quarter of the way up the sky. Kam cried, confused and afraid of what was going on. The sphere was long gone from his paw.
He finally managed to stand and began walking through the field. In the distance he could see the tops of mountains in one direction, and in another nothing but endless grassland.
A butterfly fluttered past the skunk. It was gold and orange in coloring and seemed to hover about him before fluttering away.
Kam bounded after the insect like a youth looking for adventure, or possibly a meal. The sun slowly moved overhead as he bounded after it. Finally Kam caught up with the butterfly. It landed on his nose and he smiled.
"Where am I?" he asked it. "Do you know?"
Of course there was no response. The bug just sat there slowly cleaning its legs taking a few steps, then doing it again.
"I guess I wasted my time then. You're no help."
The butterfly took off again.
As it did the world faded once more.
Kam knew he had to jump forward immediately. The sound of metal hitting metal reverberated through the room. He turned and found himself in a bleak metallically decorated room. Where he had stood a moment before was a the end of a mighty blade, and a dent in the floor. Following the blade up to its owner he saw an armored figure covered in ornate, heavy, metal armor. But the wings and their coloring he recognized the figure as a Pargalonian mountain dragon, white scales and all.
"Ha!" yelled the warrior whom took up the blade, or more slightly sharpened club. The warrior swung again at Kam who ducked and immediately began to run for it. He left the room and entered a hall way, finding his way through this labyrinth he could hear the warrior bounding after him.
Kam ducked into a room, shut and locked the door. He rushed to the first window he'd seen in this place.
The window overlooked an industrial waste land that extended for further than he could see. The window itself was high above it giving him the view of literally hundreds of square miles of refineries, manufacturing centers, and chemical storage centers.
Behind him he heard the dragon's loud foot steps pass the doorway. Kam crept over to the other door out of the room and passed through. Now in the water-closet, as it was simply a toilet and a spigot on the wall, he took a few moments to breath. His pause was interrupted with the rending of the door to the main room from its hinges.
"I smell you. Don't even think about spraying me. You might live if you don't."
Kam knew that voice.
He closed his eyes as the door to the water-closet was opened. Instead of death or injury he felt a paw at his back pushing him forward.
"You okay?" said Valti, his sister.
"Yes," he blurted out opening his eyes.
Instead of an angry dragon before him was a spacious room. No, this was no room. This was more of a cathedral. There almost wasn't a ceiling to the expanse. To his left and right the concrete walls curved up towards the glass that topped the structure. Before and behind him were walls of glass, occasionally crossed by some upper levels that held the outer-walls apart. Kam stood on a balcony overlooking another balcony, overlooking another. Behind him was another that looked down on him. Far below on the floor was a mass of people of all races, species, origins, and types. On the walls on either side were windows to rooms and open stairwells which were themselves filled with many more.
The people were cheering joyfully. Everyone who was dressed wore simple robes, togas, and similar clothing, including himself.
From behind him came an unfamiliar female voice, "Yes! We have great reason to rejoice! For it has been a long twilight struggle that we were forced to endure for many years, but no longer will we face the terrors we once did."
Kam couldn't help but look up at the speaker. It was a fox, not one could recognize. She wore no ornaments nor special uniform. She was dressed just like all the others there. Glancing at his sister, he saw her much older than his memory saw her.
"Isn't it wonderful?" she whispers to him.
"What happened?" he asks her in return.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm... not sure... I don't recall..."
"Oh brother," she says giving him a hug and then letting him go. "Your age is getting to you."
In the background Kam overhears something about the Federation from the speaker.
"Age?" he says looking at his own paws, which indeed appeared weathered.
"Just know, that we all appreciate what you've done for all of us. The ninety thousand will never forget your scarifies."
"Now this is getting..." he was about to say weird. But this wasn't his reality. And he knew it. "Valti..." he begins to say.
"No no, don't use names. I am your sister in name and blood. Names no longer have meaning remember?"
"Remember?" asks a voice from behind him.
He turns to be face to face with another unfamiliar figure. A vision of a punk malamute graced his vision. His ears were immediately assaulted by an erie hard rock metal sound that made him wince for a moment.
"What?" he asked.
"Remember when you asked me to marry you?" He didn't.
"Yeah..." he trailed off, feigning competence in this vision.
"We we're right over there," she says pointing to the edge of the balcony. In fact it was the same balcony of what had seemed a cathedral before. The expanse was the same structure, but no utopian crowds or speechs. Just heavy metal, chains hanging from the upper levels, figures in studs and dyed fur wandering about, and her by his side.
Kam turned back to meet an unexpected kiss. After it she says, "Something wrong?"
"Sort of."
"We don't have to join the floor if you don't want to. We could stay here and make out."
"Sounds like a blast," he said finally giving into the feelings growing inside him. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed he was not the elderly skunk he was a moment ago.
Right there on the balcony they embraced and enjoyed each other's company for quite some time. Then she was gone.
The room was empty, except for the skeletons. Kam wore a haz-mat suit and was holding a device of some sort. Inspecting it, he realized it was supposed to measure gas levels, but its battery was dead. The evening sun filtered in through the broken windows and washed over the pile of bones on the floor, and the smaller piles on the balconies.
Kam shook his head and began looking for the stairs and an exit. When he turned the world went dark once more. The curtain went up and he stood on a stage in front of an crowd of people. He walked to the podium as strong semi-classical music played. On the podium was a speech written in Old Tinisian. He could read it, but couldn't make out some of the more unusual phrases. But that wasn't the point. He didn't need to understand it. And he knew it.
The music faded, and with great joy he began reading from the papers in front of him. He knew where to pause for effect, despite not knowing Old Tinisian that well. And the crowd cheered. He even knew when to point his finger towards the sky.
The rally was outside and there were symbols of Pargalonian origin on placards about the semi-enclosed stage. Most he recalled were vaguely related to the old constitutional monarchy that fell in the early 20th century. Finally the climax arrived.
More curtain were raised and he shouted at those behind, but really condemning them to the crowd. On his right was some sort of mechanical being, broken and torn, missing a couple limbs, bolted down to a concrete block. He turned to his left and with great glee shouted in the direction of the other condemned. He almost snapped right there as he was unable to turn away from the sight before him, not being in control of his body any more.
Sana, his co-worker and friend and three others were attached to a concrete block as well. As he shouted words that incited great fervor in the crowd he saw that just like the mechanical they were physically bolted to the block, and were afflicted with severe injuries. One of them even appeared to be dead.
Despite the protests of his self, his body smiled. He recognized the next few words.
"Now they will feel the fires of Itchal's judgement, just as they tried to produce their own flame to make us feel their unworthiness."
Furs with flame throws appeared and the world turned to fire. Kam could feel his fur being singed off and the certainty of death near.
"No no son," said his father from a cross the table. "Your mom is from a house. I'm from near the river. The annexed lands they call them."
The fires returned and once again he was in the field.
He yelled up at the setting sun.
"What is this? What is all of this? Why is this happening? Why? Why? Why?"
He crumpled over as the sun hit the horizon and let the tears flow once more.
"I don't understand."
"Yes you do," says Doron. The unusual time traveler from across the stars was sitting in the grass himself. "I might to. Maybe. Nope, don't recall this."
"Who are you?"
"I'm not Doron. I'm actually something different. Doron just has a nice shape. Did you love her? The girl?"
Kam whipped tears from his eyes. The light was fading. "I think so."
"To bad. I think. Maybe. I know you understand though. That's all I'm really certain. You know things."
Kam shook his head. "You don't make any sense. Who are you?"
"I don't actually exist do I. That's to bad. I guess I'm just a figment of your now broken mind. To bad. I had such dreams to share. I'd hate to be trapped forever in the mind of one as you. There's not enough room. I don't think. I guess we'll find out."
"Begone!" he yelled at the imp taking a familiar form.
"Why?"
"I don't wish to be invaded by some random bit of insanity. Or by that stupid sphere. Or what ever you are."
"You sure?" asked the fake Doron. "You seem to like me."
"But I fear you. If you have powers to shape my world like this what will keep you from doing it still?"
"Ha! I do not shape your world. I'm simply, I think, someone caught up in it to. I saw those vision with you. Even took part in a few. I..."
The fake stopped and looked up. The stars had come out, but Kam felt the need to follow his gaze. Above there was a place where there were no stars. And it was growing.
"Is this the darkness?" asked the fake.
"How should I know."
"This is your hallucination."
"But... there is no darkness."
"Pardon?" asked the fake Doron.
"There is never complete darkness. Its impossible. A flame might be enveloped in it, but even if that flame is extinguished, its affect lives on in what it changed."
"Bloody mathematicians. Are you going to let it take you?"
"Why not?" stated Kam with a grin. The stars were over half gone now.
"Because it might to unspeakable things to you. You heard that preachy lady."
"I choose to make this darkness feel me," said the skunk before slowly lifting off the ground towards the void.
"Careful!" yelled the fake Doron.
Kam floated up into the void and soon lost sight of the world. Moving deeper into it he felt the pain once more in his body.
"How did you come to this land?" yelled the familiar voice once more moments before Kam's body was filled with electrical charge. He collapsed on the metal floor once more. "I said, how did you get here?"
"You should know!" yelled Kam.
"Insolence." Another jolt of electrical energy passed through his body. His fur was burning and was almost gone on his stomach where the low current jolts had hit him from the dragon's maw. "I do not tolerate spies here. Tell me!"
"You're not real!"
"Insane too. Then you shall die. Good riddance."
Kam's body filled with even more current and his heart stopped.
That was almost the end of the vision. The end of it was him sailing across the sky with a good friend in a balloon. They talked and chatted and pointed at wonders. But these moments, these moments he recalls from his youth had been real once before.
The skunk sighed. Almost 4 am. He closed his eyes and finally went to sleep.
------
It had been a long night for the First Speaker, but he had what he wanted. As he had expected the individual interviews gave up the TIPS watcher assigned to the group. They were only allowed to do this for top secret level councils, and only with total transparency to the auditorial office of course. Failure to identify one's self as a TIPS agent in such an audit could lead to a life in prison for attempted treason against the democracy.
The agent had informed him of the goings ons of the lab and that indeed they were close to a testing of a reconstituted heaven stone. And as he feared they were planning on using the Union's most powerful computer system, the new PDS system nearing its testing phase at the Tower.
The interesting bit was that since the Ciatan heaven stones were designed to interact with biologicals, a proper interface was needed, else it would just sit there and not interact. A bio-feedback and translation system had been grown in the lab, hence the big device with the pipes and cables. A bio-feedback system that was in fact a self contained life form by the loosest definitions, needing food and water like most biological life but otherwise without need of independent support. It would provide the raw chemical energies needed to boost the heaven stone into full power.
And this bio-feedback system was where the project was weakest. It was something he could legally intervene on.
He ended the audit early in the morning and let the auidties go home and get some sleep. Omz was still angry and was about to get angrier.
"Cameron. I'm afraid I have some bad news. You're keeping an unauthorized pet in a government lab. Please hand it over to the animal control officers who should be arriving shortly."
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Post by miokalia on Oct 18, 2006 14:05:59 GMT -5
Ryuqi was in contact with the paxisphere for the entire night. She thought that maybe the sphere wouldn't do to her what it did to Kam simply because she was not in manual contact with it. However, inside her was just as effective a contact point, and her downcycle was interrupted by a very strange hallucination.
"I have come from very far", said the cloaked creature... it was scaled... but not reptillian. It must have been an amphibian of some sort. It continued, "To rectify the crimes committed against my people. So at least, some good can come of it, even if we may all die"
Ryuqi instantly knew what this was. Old data, archive material from C.A. that had been re-visualized by Ryuqi's organic thought component. Expecting the amphibian to hand her the paxisphere and command her to hold it, just like in the archive data, she said, "Thank you. But we have already done this exchange long ago. Are your people still around?"
The amphibian scoffed and said, "I can hear your thoughts. I am not here to give you that. I'm here for revenge."
Ryuqi noticed that the amphibian was not necessarily someone she could morally allow herself to fight. "What?", she asked.
The amphibian then explained, "You can't use your quantitative components can you? You will find that all of your mechanical systems are not functioning. Only your organic thought component, that's because we're both organic now."
Ryuqi looked down to see that she was indeed, an organic allosaurus. There were no more sensors running through control systems and reporting numbers to her, those sensors, were now reletive... and they were imprecise. She couldn't calibrate them. This kind-of freaked her out.
There was no more teletext, no pulse-link no hydraulic assist no chemical RAM no speech synth no interface ports no armour and she had only one optical unit per eye.
She was downright terrified.
The amphibian pulled out a sword, it was bright under the desert sun, gleaming. Perfectly clean and impossibly sharp. "And now I do to you, what your kind did to my people!", he announced.
She took off running. But even that was different. It was a less-than mediocre gait for allosaurs, the organic systems did not regulate themselves the same way. Since her mind was so used to using component service devices and mechanical systems to regulate and control automatic functions, such as running, she had to think about it more than most organics. It was tremendously draining. The distribution system was reliable at rest, but enormously limiting at peak usage. She couldn't get oxygen into it nearly fast enough to get any decent performance out of the muscles. And she couldn't just open an intake, and constantly suck in air. She had to breathe. Both the intake and the exhaust shared the same duct, so it was only functional for delivering oxygen to the necessary organs 50% of the time. She cursed this body, it's various engineering flaws and mechanical short-comings. Seemingly random ones. At the same time, she came to a whole new level of understanding just how much of a miracle it was that the entire biological system actually works at all. After all, were it not for the sucess of life such as this, her species would never have come to exist. Her reasoning was still intact. She stopped running, still panting and allowed him to catch up with her. He took a swing with his sword, and it went right through her. But she was not injured. The sword was not solid enough to. "Please... listen... (pant) to what.... I... (pant) saaaa...", she then fell backwards, hitting the ground. The lower half of her body was disconnected, inaccessible. The amphibian then stood over her and said, "It is too late to be sorry. You killed us all. And for what? So you could burn our once beautiful world to ashes? We lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years. We sailed the stars in search of knowledge. We created beautiful things... You destroyed it all!"
Ryuqi was not used to the way organic bodies manifest emotional response. She was generating substances within her sinus, normally used to retain moisture, that were now inhibiting the flow of air and leaking slopily from her snout. Water was welling up around her eyes. "No I didn't! I couldn't!", she yelled.
"Denial! You have had thousands of years to realize what you've done, and this is the result? Scorched skies, scorched ground, toxic oceans... your world is just the same as it ever was. You have learned nothing!", accused the amphibian.
"We haven't... we... we haven't a destroyed anyone since then.", she sobbed.
"What about Pargalo! Would you tell that to them! You burned their land just as you did ours so very long ago. You're just the same as you've always been!", screamed the amphibian, "Now you die just as we die! Soulless machine!"
The amphibian plunged the sword into her chest, just as she let out a piercing dinosaurian screech.
But that wasn't the end.
When she opened her eyes again, the next stage of the hallucination was just finishing assembling itself. The last few ornamental light fixtures in the hallway appearing. The chains that suspend them still redrawing quickly up to the ceiling. Some funiture filling in the gaps between it's cushions and the floor. A castle of some kind? The windows were tall, and the glass had become thicker at the bottoms from age. She gazed out the window at a dark sky, and drab landscape. In the window, she could see her reflection, she was herself again. Another unit entered the room, she could hear it's hydraulics. "You seem surprized.", said the unit. She turned around and saw that it was an R/M70. R-class unit with a voice synthesizer. A very, very high quality one too, better than R-class units usually get when they do have them. "Where is this?", she asked.
The 10-foot high, heavily armored mechanical allosaurus replied, "The nation once known as Pargalo." She looked back out the window and then back at the unit and asked, "What happened to it?"
"We destroyed it, and now it is ours. It is now known as Terrestrial Locale #P4R64L5H1R4.", it said.
"Pargalshira. At least you preserved the name... a little bit... Why did you do this?", she asked. "Because this is what we do.", it replied.
The unit then took a seat in the middle of the room, on a giant red cushion. Ryuqi asked, "What happened to the Pargalonians?" "That depends... on which Pargalonians you're talking about.", it said.
The sound of metal clanking could be heard approaching from down the hall connected to the room. It was too loud and percussive to be a Malych unit. She looked towards the door and there stopped a white-scaled Pargalonian dragon in full armour.
The R/M70 looked towards the dragon, then back at Ryuqi and said, "Some of them surrendered to us, they accepted our control. They were wise, and thus, we have allowed them to live in return for their obedience. They are our knights. We have given them the last remaining plots of arable land, so that they may be able to feed themselves. Although farming is a lost art, most of them don't know enough about how to grow things anymore that about half of them starve. Perhaps it is something we put in the air..."
The dragon, clearly Pargalonian from appearence and armour, then began to speak to the unit. "Lord Ryuqi...", but before he could finish, the R/M70 fired a round near the dragon's feet from one of it's guns mounted on it's head, and commanded to the dragon, "You shall not speak the language of the old kingdom when addressing your lord!". The dragon then recomposed himself a bit... although he seemed used to having intimidation shots fired at him, and began again, this time in Kohtohkhan, "Tal Ryuqi, Tchoy mai kaha do castalo Tinis-han" Ryuqi then glared at the R/M70 and then looked at the knight with some empathy and said with disgust in her voice, "So you are using those that surrender to you to fight their own people? What happened to the other Pargalonians?"
The larger Ryuqi then turned to her and simply said, "We destroyed them." It then turned back to the dragon and said in Kohtohkhan, "Then find the Tinisian spy and execute him."
"Tinisian spy?", asked Ryuqi. The unit dismissed the dragon and turned to Ryuqi and said, "We are in the process of taking Tinis right now. It has proven to be... more difficult than we thought."
"Why are you doing this? We... I thought... we once... I thought we were on good terms with them.", said Ryuqi. "Good terms? Ha! They're one of the last of the Furry Nations. They would die before they surrendered to us.", said the unit.
Ryuqi then looked closely at this unit. It had the same urban-tribal markings as she had. They had been repainted many times. Usually, only O-class units such as herself had these markings, a cultural practice which had carried over from the Dincotians. She asked, "We share the same name, I really hope that's all we have in common... because I think what you are doing here is disgusting."
The unit replied, "I am Ryuqi Kohdat, of the pack: Hokyldaryon cloustrephich. And we are doing this because if we didn't do it now... they would have eventually done it to us. I am allegiant to the unit Karak"
Ryuqi was visibly bothered by this, she approached the M70 and said, "You can't be me. I would never allow myself to do this to these people."
There was then some explosions outside. The M70 then said, "Evacuate if you don't want to die."
Ryuqi took off down the hallways. They were panelled in metal and the interior looked like some kind of a base. It definately wasn't a castle, just the upper-half may have been. An explosion rocked the building and tore apart the hallway, Ryuqi began falling.
He hit a familiar linoleum floor. It was dusty and he could hear the sounds of people in other rooms. The room he was in was lit with flourescent lights. The walls were blank for a second as the other details in the room were still being assembled. Piece by piece, the visual components of his hallucination began to appear. It was something specific to his species. The way objects are preceived. Where most organics would experience the same thing, but not notice it unless they looked for it, Malych tend to always process the latency in the appearence of various objects very clearly, since the ogranic thought running the hallucination has access to digital memory resources. Thus the transitions were never as gradual. The room was empty though. Save for a desk and some stuff pinned on the wall. He got up and stepped outside the door to see what all the commotion was. It was a giant hall. Crystalline in it's structure and shape. He noticed that panes of glass were held in place with a mesh of support frame. This was the library in Hokyldaryon, although, Ryuqi never recalled there being an event hall inside it before. He looked around and saw that there were delegations at tables. The security didn't seem to pay any mind to Ryuqi. Apparently, he was supposed to be there. There was a delegation from Ciata, three snow leopards with long whiskers. A delegation from Paeninsula, two canines. A delegation from Cal, a fox and a cat. A delegation from Tinis, a raccoon and a white dragon. A delegation from Erenmor, a grey fox and a somewhat modified wraith unit, which seemed to be somewhat vulpine in shape. And a delegation from Miokalia, A Malych raptor, an allosaurus and a human. There were a number of other individuals of various species around the room as well. Some of them sitting, others walking around. The atmosphere was tense.
The mechanical raptor pushed some papers toward a canine from Paeninsula and said, "It's either us, or them. The primary difference being that we will not threaten your sovereignty as a nation."
The canine was very hesitant, he pulled out his own pen and tapped it on the table some. "This is a hard decision to make. This kind of thing always compromises sovereignty to a certain degree. Always. I appreciate your concern and your accomodation, but I don't know if I can make this decision yet.", he said. It was evident that there was some tension between them. The mechanical raptor was not impressed and leaned back, folding his arms and waited. The other canine was nervous and quiet. The grey fox from Erenmor spoke up and said, "This is the best option. Blinn is right, it really is either us or them. Either you are protected from NeoPargalo or you fall to it. We, as a federation, are the protection. We have to stick together." There was another pause and then one of the snow leopards from Ciata spoke up, "Do you think it was easy for us? We joined up because it was wise to do so. It is always better to have friends when faced with an enemy. We are stronger together, and our culture is strong enough to resist the inevitable homogenizing factor that this kind of deep alliance can cause." Finally the other canine delegate from Paeninsula stood up and pointed at the paper and said sternly to the other delegate: "For the sake of all that is holy, sign the damn treaty! I know you distrust Blinn because he's a machine, but can't you see? If we don't sign this, our people will die. We will be inviting war to our doorstep if we don't act!" The other canine then snapped back at him, "By signing this we save ourselves... for now. But what about after? What do we do then? We will be at their mercy after we've neutralized the threat of Neo Pargalo. What if his species decides to invade us! Our guard will be down, they could do it. We will NEVER let our guard down to those who cannot be trusted. And we cannot trust these machines!". The allosaurus then spoke up and said, "Have you not trusted us before?" "That was a long time ago, when you dinosaurs were still organic.", said the canine, as he sat down after hacing stood up during the confrontation. The allosaurus looked over toward the Tinisian delegation, who up to this point had been quiet. "Do you not trust us? You seem to be forgetting that the United Eledoriatic Socialist Republics are just a single part of an alliance of many. I doubt they would attack us after this present conflict is over. It would be against their best interest.", said the dragon.
"I have been to UESR, if a nation dominated by inorganics and semi-organics can treat their human population with respect and equality, than I'm sure they can treat their furry allies with respect as well. In fact, it would seem they do... after all: here we are aren't we? We wouldn't be here if they and Ciata hadn't of come up with this alliance to begin with.", said the Raccoon.
Ryuqi was a bit pleasently surprized by this. Seeing that Ciata and Miokalia... or whatever it was now, didn't become locked in conflict or become otherwise hostile towards eachother. They were getting along extremely well despite their ideological and cultural differences. Ryuqi looked at the placard in front of the raccoon from Tinis. It said: 'First Speaker Waldo - United Central Tinisian States'
Ryuqi assumed this was also, like her other dreams... some kind of alternate reality. This one was by far the best one she had seen so far. But it soon ended, as she tripped over the step leading down to where all the other observers were. She fell.
She was now in some mountains above Hokyldaryon. The city looked the same as before from up here. She got up and looked around and discovered that a T-rex had a bun pointed at her. It was a fairly hefty one too. A little taken-back by this, she stepped back a little and said, "Excuse me?" The T-Rex had the stub of a cannibis cigarette sticking out between his back teeth. He said, "Some nerve you've got showing up here. You stay still now until the Control Services folks get here. Or I'll blow your core right out from your body and clear across the bay." This was unusual hostility. "If I am trespassing then I can leav...", she began, but she was interrupted by the t-rex again. "You were trespassing the moment you landed on this planet.", he said.
She scanned for any teletext information that might tell her what was happening here. There was none. There was no C.A. pulse either.
"But... the war in 2151? I thought... This is Miokalia right?", asked Ryuqi. "I don't know where Miokalia is. But here in the republic... O-class have their place. And that place is inside our mechs and computers. I can probably get 300,000 Gahlos for catching you", said the t-rex. "gahlos?", Ryuqi thought, "the currency of the Eledorian Republic over 100 years ago. And the currency of the NCR before integration with Miokalia... The NCR must have taken control of the south... this must be the reality where the Dincotians and the Malych don't remain allies through the war."
The 'Control Services' truck showed up and immediately two humans jumped out. They told the t-rex to stand aside, and he did. Then they fired an electrostatic net towards Ryuqi and pointed their guns at her. The net wrapped around Ryuqi before she could even begin to run three feet. The electromagentic pulse knocked her out completely.
She awoke with a brick of planar carbon shoved down her throat. She was restrained with heavy cables and unable to cut them or deploy her other defensive systems. A guard saw her come back online and then said, "So you escaped? We couldn't find any identifier anywhere on you, so we assume you scratched it off or something. I guess you think you're independent. Maybe you think you're a real dinosaur or something. So... tell us who you belong to and we will get you back to your owners." The guard was a raptor, speaking very mediocre Kohtohkhan. As if the language had started to die or become culturally phased-out in this reality. "I do not have an owner. Where is the C.A.?", said Ryuqi, when the carbon brick was removed from her mouth. The raptor took a sledge-hammer and whacked Ryuqi in the chest with it. Ryuqi leaked a bit of oil from this and seized a bit in pain. "This isn't a choice. You tell us who you escaped from.... Well, maybe it is a choice. I guess if you don't tell us, you will be sold at auction.", said the raptor. "Auction?! You can't sell me at auction! I will self-destruct before I am bought or sold as property!", yelled Ryuqi.
"You can't self destruct. We stuck a lock on that system while you were out. I figured it was a bit strange you had one. I was pretty sure we had bred that component and tendancy out of all the new O-class. Perhaps you are an older one. No matter. I'm tired of this. If I put any more dents in you, it will hurt you value on the auction block... Hey, take this unit to the auction holding cell!", said the raptor, motioning towards some other guards.
They picked up the frame which held the retraining cables and carried Ryuqi to a dark metal cell. He was then released from the frame and dumped down into it. The hatch over the enterence was then closed.
Ryuqi was able to use infra-red spectrum to see down here. She saw that there were several O-class units down here. They didn't seem to surprized or concerned about Ryuqi joining them. Naturally, she asked what was going on in teletext. "Auction" one of them replied. "What happened to the C.A. pulse?", she asked. "There.. no C.A. pulse. Ellias Crater... gone...", said another. Their teletext was broken and riddled with errors. "What's happened to us?", she asked. "We is... no smart... organics use... box... make us... no smart.", said another. "They're using some kind of device to keep you subjugated?", asked Ryuqi. "Yes. It keep... us from... thinking too... much...", said one of them. "Do they install it on you?", asked Ryuqi, now concerned that she might become this way too, from the lock installed in her. "No... we... built with... it", said another. Suddenly the cell began to shake and shift around. None of the other units seemed to be concerned about it. She was now able to see that they were all O-class units, similar to her, except more rickity. They were leaking oil, and had numerous dents. All of them drooled and their cameras were not functioning properly. Signs of corruption in their programming as well as physical damage. She pitied them, when she realized that soon she would be leaving the hallucination. "What is your name? Please tell me before we go.", she said to the most talkative of the units. "Kagidoro. Krark Kagidoro.", it said. She then embraced the unit... unsure of how to embrace back. A hug. The unit was unsure how to respond but the emotional response was detected by Ryuqi and she knew that she was understood. As this happened and the cell around them moved around as it was lifted by a large forklift and taken to the auction hall, the cell disappeared around her and as did the units inside. She was falling again.
"What is this", she asked the amphibian creature from before, now standing in front of her. "You know what this is.", it said. "What is it's purpose?", she asked. "It's purpose? Well, it has different purposes for different individuals.", it said. "What were those realities? What were those different worlds? Why wan't this like other dreams, was this not my subconscious too?", asked Ryuqi "Your subconscious... is still not advanced enough. Your organic thought is very extensive, but your subconscious still only understands tangible things. This is all yours.", it said. "Those places... they don't really exist somewhere do they?", asked Ryuqi. "I don't know. Some of them are echoes from a future that could have been, but was never realized...", it said. "You're very direct for being an agent of my subconscious... Usually dream people are a bit more... cryptic.", asked Ryuqi as the world around them began becomming brighter. "Well shoot, Ryuqi. With machines, you can't be cryptic or else they will ignore you and the point is lost, whatever that point is. Organics will at least dwell on things and try to figure them out.", it said. "Who are you?", asked Ryuqi. "Ryuqi, you know I can't provide an answer to that question. Normally I'd say something like 'I'm not this anthrofrog' or 'I do not exist'... but then your reasoning system would just boot me out and ignore me as faulty data, and the entire point of having this dream would be lost.", it said. "You're from the ball aren't you?", asked Ryuqi The creature then looked around and said, "And that's my cue to END PROGRAM" The entire dream then went dark, and Ryuqi came back online. It was 8 AM and Doron was tapping a something against one of the bedknobs of Ryuqi's hotel bed. He saw that it was a broom he had stolen from the cleaning cart. Once the lights in Ryuqi's eyes came on, he said, "Oh well... if you had waited just 5 more minutes, I would have started hitting you with it. It's 8:00: time to go to the lab!"
----
At the lab again, everyone met up in the lounge attached to the main room. The box with the paxisphere sat on the table in the middle. Ryuqi said, "Yeah, so I had one of those hallucinations last night that Kam had yesterday..."
Fran then said, "Okay, well... what are we supposed to do with it? Did Sparhow give us any instructions?"
"Not really. She has some notes on it in the cylinder....", started Kagi.
"Well, that's a start! So... what's it say?", asked Sana
"It's safe to assume the surface is a... passive Hariyamo's Ball.... It's a tiny PDS. Except more efficient and controlled than what we have observed of yours... For one... it appears to be passive. I don't know what's powering it.", said Ryuqi, who had the cylinder.
"Passive entanglement? NONSENSE!", stated Doron, "If quantum entanglement were passive, it would be common as well as naturally occouring. It wouldn't take us to do it. We wouldn't need all this equipment. It can't be completely passive. There must be a power source."
"Any ideas?", asked Sana. "Nope.", Doron replied.
Kiyake and Diiy meanwhile had the ball out of the box. Diiy was holding it and examining the surface, not really all that scared of it anymore. He then handed it off to Kiyake, who said to Doron, "Hey, I want to find out if maybe there is a chrage, that causes the ball to acviate. Maybe if we hit it with the right current or something, it will go? We can measure it." Ryuqi heard this and said, "Yeah, 4.193 Hz. At an amplitude of 0.09 volts." "4.193 Hz? Is that what the cylinder said?", asked Sana. "Yes. Such a pulse of that amplitude can be easily generated by any living organism, and the frequency... that's a matter of biofeedback. The frequency would be generated by nerve signals. Organics can access it by basically thinking to it. Of course, the reason why it activated for me when I was on down-cycle, was because 4.193 Hz is also the carrier pulse for the C.A. And... when it was in my compartment, it was basically only a matter of time before it had enough power to transmit through my shielding, once it reached that point, it was able to transmit the hallucination.", said Ryuqi.
"So it is selective to the frequency of 4.193 Hz?", asked Fran
"Interesting.", said Doron. He had an idea... but decided to wait until later to test the theory he had just thought up.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Oct 23, 2006 21:42:47 GMT -5
Ever since the construction commenced on the Hariyamo's Ball generator out of appliances, Uggie, one of the three grad students whom worked on side projects at the office, had been looking into the science behind it and the PDS. Two unique and very different resonance patterns of materials and energy generating a similar structure. And each with almost exactly the same kind of properties. Each a boundary of some sort.
Boundary's are used often in physics and math to define functions. How a drum would vibrate if struck given that the edges of the membrane are held fixed, or how an electromagnetic wave passes from material to material based on how fast the wave can move through each medium. These conditions give a number of equations that can describe the quantity of interest. And each equation has different properties. A drum eventually stops vibrating, but certain frequencies stop vibrating quicker. A beam of light that hits a plane of glass, depending on the angle, may reflect or refract. These properties are often how one finds out which function or functions are actually occurring out of the many possible functions.
Sometimes, in the case of a drum, or say an electric field in a conducting tube, the possible functions can combine and form a large variety of other functions. In systems that are based around waves, almost any function can be defined to great precision simply by adding different sine waves of varying frequency, even if only certain multiples of frequencies are allowed. So even if a boundary appears suddenly, or disappears, or changes, in these kinds of systems, for a time the system would remain about the same as it was. But because the individual waves that are superimposed to retain the old shape are now very different, the behavior changes.
Uggie had heard rumors about the PDS time shift phenomena during the most recent use of the device. He looked into it, having the clearance to look at the national atomic clock registry's records directly due to what lab he worked in, and found that the shift of a few minutes had indeed occurred and Tinis had lost seven minutes and thirteen seconds. This suggested to him that indeed the PDS was a boundary structure, and that the functions that describe physics inside its domain had been allowed to develop independently of the outside world minus the 'adjusted frequency allowances' that allow for limit electromagnetic and gravitational information passage between the inside and out. Of course in the large scheme of things, even allowing what was let through through the barrier corresponded to huge breaches physics wise, even if the energy levels that could get through were quite small.
But what would cause a time shift? Was it a change in how the atomic clocks operated? Or how the information they collected was timed? Or did the PDS make the electronics less reliable, causing them to miss vibrations of the cesium atoms?
Uggie didn't know, and didn't look to much into what would be needed to figure those questions out. What he did do as the senior researchers and their guests began to get involved in secrets and revelations was to look at other kinds of boundaries that might interact with a PDS/Hariyamo's Ball boundary.
The most interesting of these were of course the event horizons of black holes, and the universal horizon. The event horizon of a black hole simply being the point of no return for an object near the mass, and also a location of fairly interesting physics and odd quantum processes. The universal horizon on the other hand was still not as well defined. There's the visual horizon, the point in space where we can't see anything more. Where the universe is expanding so that locations beyond that point are moving faster than the speed of light in our reference frame. Then there's the actual edge of the universe which is a little less defined and highly dependent on cosmological models an may not even exist.
Or it might exist, but might as well not if you were right next to it. Basically it would matter for someone where Uggie is, but for someone who sits next to it, they'd see it next to where Uggie sat, just like their visual horizon would be different for the two observers. But it would still matter.
After the visit of the First Speaker Uggie stumbled across some papers he had meant to get to earlier but had almost forgotten about ultra high frequency modes. The papers dealt with how structures would develop when a membrane was vibrated to a certain high frequency and beyond. And looking at the pictures he did observe, like the papers claimed, what looked to be paths that would result from an object bouncing around inside a container that looks like the membrane being used. But he noticed something else. As the membrane's behavior was computed to ever higher modes this behavior seemed to tapper off, but some sort of structure seemed to remain. In a flash of memory he recalled how the galaxy survey maps looked with their threads and walls and voids, and noticed how similar the looked to the membrane studies.
Jumping to the conclusion that there might be a real connection there, he reasoned that would mean the the actual edge of the universe, what ever it might be, would have to be irregular, as no perfect geometric membrane would form such patterns, and that it would have to be hitting mode levels probably higher than anything computable.
As Kam looked completely sleep deprived the next morning after the arrival of the funny ball (as Uggie would later think of it as), he decided to hit up Lipner for a few minutes to describe what he'd been looking into and if he could have a go at the computers for a bit to see if he could use the system equation and the galaxy survey data to try to find a definition for this surface.
"Actually," said Lipner to him. "If I recall we had intended on running a few tests of the equation using a Miokalian cosmological model. Would you like to share your research with the group?"
"Wow, ok."
Lipner brought him into the main room where the others were pondering the special frequency of the praxisphere.
Lipner pushed Uggie forward. "Uggie has made an interesting observation that may play well into what we're working on."
"Oh?" said Sana.
With a little uncertainty Uggie begins explaining his idea to try to find the edge of the universe boundary condition. After he had finished Fran asked the obvious question, "What if there are more than one boundary? Say a very small one?"
"Well it would upset the model on a small scale, but it should give a general form for universe as a whole. A small boundary, like a PDS would be so small that it would look like a delta function and almost be ignored. It might cause a long term shift in the structure but I think that would probably only show up after a few trillion years. And any leakage through the PDS would lessen the effect depending on what kind of leakage it was."
"So how the PDS, or small boundary in general, leaked would have a long term noticeable effect, but what if the small boundary was much larger? Say large enough to fill a quarter of the volume of the universe?" asked Ryuqi.
Uggie though for a moment. "Then it would start seeing changes a lot sooner, but still in the hundreds of millions of years range."
"How about ninety nine percent?"
"Probably a million years or so, I don't know for certain."
"I see what you're thinking," says Sana. "If two boundaries were almost right on top of each other and some sort of energy wave was trapped between the two, and there was any leakage, even leakage not anywhere near the frequency that the energy wave was at, the waves would be transformed so much that it has modes of the leakage frequencies. Uggie, Ryuqi, thanks. I think we have a way now to figure out if the trippy sphere reacts to other frequencies. It couldn't be easier!"
After a few moments in Kohtohkhan, Diiy mentions to his compatriots, "of course its easier said than done. Theorists who rarely handle hardware just don't get the difficulties involved sometimes. But it might work."
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Post by miokalia on Oct 28, 2006 4:15:31 GMT -5
The evening before the paxisphere was to be tested in the concentric PDS experiment, Doron spent some time alone in the lab. Apparently desperately trying to make the ball send him the 'hallucinations' that Kam and Ryuqi had seen. He had grown over his fear that the ball could restabilize his existence and thus, cause him to actually cease to exist... now he was curious.
But the ball didn't respond to his touch or thought. Even while running an old Stress-Busters tape, containing music designed to induce the neurological frequency of 4.193 Hz for relaxation purposes, nothing happened. He determined that the problem was one of contact. He was unable to make sufficient contact with the ball, through his technically necrotic body. The ball worked with Kam since Kam had a nervous system with which to access it. The ball worked with Ryuqi because it was inside her compartment, and simply transferred the information the same way as it did with Kam since Ryuqi was conductive. The ball was not working with Doron because, while his metal-tipped claws were conductive, they didn't lead anywhere. Doron was a mass of modified necrotic dinosaur with Malych components stuck all over it... and no actual central control. No central nervous system. He literally just inexplicably inhabited the necromechanical apparatus. He was extremely frustrated.
It was as though the ball refused to talk to him. He hit it with mallets, screamed at it... there of course, was no fear of breaking it.
Eventually, he decided to force it.
Using one of the more imprecise Hariyamo's ball generators that Diiy had thrown together in order to calibrate the new one... he fired it up at high-power and set it to produce a carruthian field. Of course, the way these generators work is by generating the quantum entanglement through sub-atomic scale interference patterns. The feedback caused by this was unbelevievable, and thus, the tiny cavity-magnetrons powering the system had to be cooled with liquid nitrogen in order to keep from instantly bursting into flames. This carruthian field was extremely powerful, the kind that he would normally never let any normal people anywhere near. The feedback was so strong, computer monitors across the room were glowing white, flourescent bulbs were buzzing loudly... Doron knew that the power was high enough when he was able to measure that the constant of gravity in the room had measurably decreased. Items as far as 10 feet away had become 20% less heavy. The closer to the field they were, the less weight they seemed to have. Doron had theorized that this was as a result of 'pucon lift'. The sheer amount of momentum from the pucons radiating from the field forming a somewhat orderly whirlwind of gravitational instability.
He dropped a single coin into the field over the vibrating, humming generators. The coin dropped close to them and then bounced back up and finally hung in the air... totally stopped. As though time within the bubble was at a stand-still.
Sucess.
The next step was to tune the frequency of the system to produce an intereference beat-frequency of 4.193 Hz... Doron was going to literally brute-force the ball to start talking.
It didn't take long, but the sub-sonic frequency was soon shaking the entire room. There wasn't a single object in the lab that wasn't wobbling around like jello. Even the tile floor was behaving like a trampoline. His measurement of the constant of gravity was now 10%. 10% of normal gravity. He placed the ball inside the field, getting as close to it as he could.
The computer monitors glowed even brighter, the flourescent lights began to produce a loud tone. A massive surge of feed-back burst through the magnetrons, Stretching and reshaping the solid metal casings as though they were clay. The surge-protector power-strips exploded, shooting bits of plastic and metal. The wall-outlet blew right-out of the wall in a fireball. The cables connecting the entire thing simply melted. Doron didn't see any of it. The ball had finally began to talk.
Sucess.
----
Doron entered the hallucination triumphantly. Walking right up to the old Emporer of Mokdoratchai, from Dincota, over 2200 years ago, sticking his finger in the raptor's face and saying, "HA! you're a figure from history, and now you're in my dream. So I have suceeded. NOW, show me what it is you are designed to show us all, oh paxisphere..."
The Raptor, adorned in gold armour, with a ornately decorated sword by his side stepped back a bit then knelt down and said, "Oh, strange and confusing god of death, have mercy upon me and my men, as we head into battle against the heathenous alliance of the northern states."
Doron then realized that this was part of the hallucination. He could skip this part because, it was in this absurd rearrangement of knowledge that the point is hidden.
He knew that this was something which happened over 2200 years ago on Dincota. He also knew that the Mokdorachitians lost this battle. In fact, they were practically slaughtered in it. The army was still in the bronze age, while the Northern Alliance, which consisted of Dorrington and Kohtohkoh, had just invented steel weapons. There was simply was no contest.
"You fools.", Doron said to the emporer. "You ought to save your lives and throw yourselves upon the mercy of the Kohtohkhans right now. Surrender before they are forced to annihilate your army. Your courage will not make up for your inadequately armed troops. If you think even your gods will save you... you are mistaken. If there are any gods at all, they are behind the North."
The emporer then replied, "Demon of the hollow-world... You speak the language of our enemies. Clearly the hollow-world is allegiant to the Kohtohkhans... therefore the gods above must be on our side. I cast you away!" He lifted his sword a swung at Doron. However, Doron was not affected.
"I have warned you... once the slaughter of your army has finished, the blood of ten-thousand Mokdorachitians... will be on your claws. And you will find that even your gods will have abadonned you.", said Doron.
Doron heard a screeching noise behind him. He knew what this was, he had read the account of the battle. The war only lasted a few weeks. Most of that time was transportation... The Mokdorachitians didn't expect the Kohtohkhans to have not only steel axes, swords and the deadly crossbows... But mortars fired from cannons. When the emporer saw the ball of fire screeching toward his post, he instantly realized that this spectre was indeed, perhaps correct in his assertions. He realized that he had made a horrible mistake, and that he had guided his culture to this eventual doom. The mortar exploded above them, raining molten iron and fire down upon all of them.
Doron was now in a new place. He was in Kohtohkoh Hakaron. Downtown. He knew this because he could see the Orwellian black concrete towers of Ourboros Center. And judging from the large red-and-orange flags draped near the bottoms of them, it was not all that long after they were built. It was the Dincota's short-lived forray into fascism. The military dictator Tyanyu had united the planets of Daeron, Dincota and Cxia into one military super-state. As a dictator, he was kind to his own people, but his ruthlessness and aggression was legendary to those cultures he targetted.
Doron noticed a slight difference this time... This time around, there were more police around the place. And there were... dracoliches too.
Doron had gotten used to being the only one of his kind, but now, there were other... clearly undead reptiles wandering about the city.
He looked into the window of a newspaper dispenser to see that, indeed, things were different in this alternate history.
The headline read, "UDA- Glorius Victory Over Pan-Tinis, Ciata and rest of Furry."
Another dracoliche approached him and said, "Commandant summons you".
Doron followed the other creature into one of the towers. The walls were just the same as the ones in the real Ourboros towers. Red tiles, pyrimidal patterns, aluminum mesh. It was very... brutalist in an over-the-top science-fiction-inspired way.
Doron entered a room on an upper-floor. There were some prisoners on one side of the table, and a few raptors, adorned in almost gothic spikey armour on the other. A wirey allosaurus entered the room shortly after. He wore a suit with a tie, and totally clashed with the rest of the dark aesthetic of the place.
"Izixs, son of Itso. We have brought you here against your will to discuss a final option. Surrender to us, and we will integrate your nation into the alliance. Your neat little Pattern Defence trick intrigues us... but it will not work again... You see, Hychakita... the hollow-world dragon over there decoded the system, and we can carve a nice little hole right through your entanglement tricks..", said the allosaur.
The white dragon was heavily restrained, and it was indeed, Izixs... only much younger... He moved around a bit and with a disdainful snarl he said, "The people of Tinis will never accept your rule even if I were to agree to it! Which I do not!"
Doron realized that in this alternate history, he had apparently figured a way around the PDS somehow. Something he was certain was just simply impossible. Confident in knowing that this was indeed, alternate history and not at all 'real'. Doron spoke up. "Skinny Allosaur whom I don't know" he said, pointing to the Allosaur in the suit. The other dracoliches turned to look at Doron, and so did the allosaur. "How was it that we were able to get through the PDS.... um... how were we able to do it again?", he asked.
The allosaur then said, "4 cups of sugar, two eggs and 2 1/3 cups of flour and LOOOOOOOOOOVVVEEEEE!"
Suddenly the entire room changed. The dracoliches were gone and Doron found himself in a coffee house. On stage there was a band playing shoe-gazer style indie rock. Moaning psychedelic lyrics in Kohtohkhan.
Doron was not pleased. He at least hoped to maybe gain some valuable scientific insight from the hallucination, based on the direction it was going.
The bartender was holding a green bottle. It was absynth. Which meant this was the 60's. On Dincota. The psychedlia movement was in full swing, and nowhere was it more powerful and influential than it was here. The bartender was a grey fox, and eventualy spoke to Doron.
"You're an odd case. What are you doing here anyway? What do you want?", he said.
"I suppose you mean, what do I want from the ball? Well, I wanted to see if the ball could give me some insight into something. I'm curious. You can't blame me for that.", said Doron.
"Do you know how hard it is to generate a hallucination for something as... non-corporeal and complex as you? You're the first one. I'm not even going to bother with the whole cryptic thing... Before you I had one of those machines again... Before that, I actually had a normal organic being... You guys are posing quite a challenge.", he said.
"Thank you. Now, since I'm really in control here, I want to know a few things: 1. what's up with the carving a hole through the PDS? Oh, and 2. Do you mind if we use the passive Hariyamo's ball enclosure of this thing in an experiment?", said Doron.
The fox paused for a moment and then said, "Well, you got me. I can't discontinue the hallucination before answering your questions like I can at least do with machines..."
He then threw his arms up in the air and said, "1. I'm just taking something that I know would intrigue you to pique your imagination and perhaps give you something to think about. 2. Go right ahead... I guess there is no hiding something like the fact that this is a passive Hariyamo's ball from you anyway."
Doron smiled and then said, "Now, show me your actual form. I know you aren't a fox."
The entire coffee house disappeared and the fox turned into a semi-insect-like creature. An anthropomorphic scorpion. It said, "Our species has been extinct for thousands of years. This is the record of our entire civilization. This ball contains all of the scientific advancement we had accomplished prior to the invasion of our world by the machines."
"The invasion which those machines are very, very sorry for being a part of it. It happened before they became self-aware. They were simply obeying programming. They have since overcome this.. I assume this is your doing....", said Doron
The scorpion looked away for a moment. Looked disappointed and then looked back at Doron and said, "You just don't let me leave you hanging do you? I've tried to discontinue this transmission 5 times now, and you are the first sentient... um, being to ever take control like this..."
Doron then said, "So you better tell me what I want to know, so I can understand things better. Because we aren't going anywhere until I'm satisfied"
The scorpion sighed and then continued, "No. We are not the reason they became sentient. They did it on their own. The ball just helped them along a little. The anomaly was already there. They just needed something to turn the tide. Something to compromise the original program. I originally intended to leave every single one of those horrible machines twitching, sparking and smoking, their circuits and tiny computer brains completely fried. I was going to kill them all, just as they did my species... But then, after I arrived on that planet, I discovered that all of the destruction, and all of the injustice, was simply programmed into them by their creators. It was their creators that rendered my species extinct, not them. They were merely the tools which had outlived them and were still, for the most part, mindlessly executing their creators' will.
So when I found out that some of them were beginning to become sentient, and overcome their creators' programming, I knew what I had to do."
Doron paused for a moment and then said, "So you took pity on them"
"Yes. And as a result, the knowledge of my species lives on... inside the Malych. They use many of the same technologies as we did. Their early culture resembled ours some.. but now it has begun to evolve on it's own (from what I've seen of the unit 'Ryuqi'). I must say, I think I'm pleased. At least there was some good that has come of all this.", said the scorpion.
Doron was a bit happy to hear of the creature's approval. "So... I was wondering... Ever since this happened to me, my existence has been a mystery. Can you perhaps enlighten me a bit?"
The scorpion paused a moment, then sighed a bit and said, "I don't know. I didn't think things such as you could exist. You are inanimate... and yet animate. You're intelligent, and yet... you lack the biological or artificial hardware to run it. You don't make any sense at all. There is nothing at all natural about your existence. Even the Malych are more natural than you, they at least make sense. You are the ultimate artificiality, and I simply cannot describe how completely weird it is interacting with you."
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be offending you.", said Doron
"No.. no... it's fascinating. I could never have imagined something like you actually existing. How can one scientifically describe an organic sentience 'inhabiting' a completely lifeless and biologically inadequate skeleton of a body? Without any evidence of a nervous system or other living biological part or mechanical control? You know... I first found out about you from Kam. I saw you in his memory and thought, "Now this is odd"... and I've been curious ever since... actually a bit scared. I apologize for not being able to generate a better dream for you, Doron. I was able to give both Kam and Ryuqi far more interesting and involved dreams... but I am stumped when it comes to you.", said the scorpion.
"Well, it sure took a lot to get the connection established. I guess it's just hardware, right? I had to hit your ball with thousands of watts of carruthian-field power to get it to activate with enough energy to deliver this signal.", said Doron.
"Yeah, I'll say. But I'm glad you did. Because that 4.193 Hz that you've discovered the ball needs to activate... That's the power source. The dreams are powered by the current induced from either biological or mechanical organisms at 4.193 Hz. Most organisms will receive a dream with a neurological transmission power of just a hundereth of a watt. But you... You took 3500 watts before you could sense it at all. That's why.", said the scorpion.
"It's worth it. I guess I'll let you go now.", said Doron, as he sensed his dominance over the ball's energy controls growing weaker.
"Goodbye, We must meet again.", said the scorpion as the entire thing disappeared and went black.
----
Doron awoke on the floor... on fire. He was smoldering, and in some places... actively burning. The magnetrons from the device were mangled and there was a large black burn-mark on the wall where the outlet he plugged the whole thing into once was. (The outlet module itself was on the floor, mostly ashes). The paxisphere was perfectly intact, in fact, it was still totally clean.
"And that is that", he said in satisfaction as he took the fire-extinguisher from the wall and gave himself a brief halide shower with it to put the flames out.
He looked at the mess and decided to call up the University of Dorigan to tell them to wire some money to Kam's department, to cover the cost of the damage.
After making sure that there wouldn't be anymore fire, he went to sleep right there on the floor of the lab.
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