The Practice War [Complete]

January 25th​, 2127

The auditorium was packed, even more than it had been on the day the conference had begun. Holocams had been set up along the edge of the gently sloping room, watching the delegates as they filed steadily in, but for the most part they focused on its centre, where the address that you were all waiting for would be given. Just short of the entire Two Twenty Three had volunteered to act as a speaker for it, if it was necessary, but whilst the Unison Intelligences had been quietly thankful for it, they'd declined. They were, you all knew, quite capable of utilising synthesisers, but you weren't sure that that would be quite enough, not for something like this. Then again, if you believed that, then Sidra would know, and if they knew, the rest of their kind did. And you'd already chosen to trust them. It would be the height of hypocrisy to go back on that at all, let alone now.

There were a lot more people here today, with two levels of gallery seating extruded to fit them all in. The most obvious were the observers and broadcast crews, but most were just normal folks, wanting to see how this new and, in truth, mostly unknown part of humanity would choose to step into their future. And of course, among the crowd, were the notables. Members of Circle Hearts, the Rebirth Institutes, and other key aspects of humanity's social construct. Not just here for how that construct was about to change, but the reasons why.

Iris had attended, with your…well, call her what she was, apprentice, Aya. They were in delegate seating with you and Mary. You'd intended to get them gallery seats, but somehow that fact had leaked, and you'd been handed the two extras as a fait accompli by the people who'd been intended to sit there. The layout had also been subtly reorganised, to make it more welcoming to the young woman who was technically older than your daughter, but younger in so many ways. You were almost completely certain you knew where the 'leak' had come from, but there was little reason to chase it. Doing so wouldn't have changed anything.

The two were sat between you and Mary, and though their young faces looked calm, you could see the movements of Aya's eyes trying to take in everything at once. And you could feel Iris doing the same thing, though minus the trying. You found yourself forming a message asking her not to mess with the holocams, but stopped before it could take shape. She was still your child, yes, but she was also an adult now. What had been reasonable when she'd been the first wasn't now that she was the latter. You could still give her a hug, though.

"Hi momph!" Iris squeaked as you caught her in an embrace, and she pushed at you a little before giving up and returning the hug. You let her go, met her mulish look with a cheerful smile, and then stepped quickly to one side as Mary gave your daughter the same greeting.

"How are you doing, Aya?" You asked, taking the seat next to the shorter girl – woman, you corrected yourself. She was a year older than Iris, though that was often complicated by the very different relationship you had with her when compared to your daughter. Aya was still Iris' friend, you were quite sure that almost nothing would change that. But she was also your student now. And though you'd eventually prevailed on her to use your first name, it still altered things.

"I," she swallowed, then nodded once, mostly to herself. "I'm well, Amanda. Though settling in has been a bit of a challenge." Her smile belied the idea of any true trials involved, but given the three members of that household, you couldn't imagine it could have been anything but what she described. "It's a little bit strange to be just the three of us, but we're getting there. Even if I have to drag Nei out of her workshop for food every so often. I've stopped trying with her," she nodded over at Iris as Mary released her, and the smile spread a little wider. It surprised you to recognise the look, if clad in a very different set of motivations.

"She cheats," you finished, and Aya blinked at you a moment, clearly not expecting it. The laugh that followed was a brittle little thing, but it mellowed when you joined her.

"Yes," your apprentice nodded, the subtle tenseness in her smile gone now. "She most certainly does." She looked around at the auditorium, it was almost full. "Are you speaking today?"

"A little," you nodded, as Iris and Mary took their seats on the far side of Aya. "Just an introduction. We're still waiting for the decision of the Unison Intelligences, and that's the choice which really matters today."

Aya hummed an affirmative. "It's good, I think," she darted a glance up at the galleries, trying very hard not to look at all the cameras. "For them to all be here, I mean, isn't it?" You gave her an approving smile, but stopped short of answering. In this place, the feeling of connection was tangible for you, and if you stretched your senses a little…

"You tell me," you suggested, with just a hint of challenge, enough to make her want to do it. Her eyes widened again, and she opened her mouth, no doubt to ask why. "I know you can do it, Aya. And just sensing in a place like this won't hurt you, or anyone."

Brows furrowed below black hair, but she'd had almost a year of more focused teaching from you now. Nothing as good as you'd been able to start giving her now, but it had added up into much more than what she'd had when she'd approached you for help. Her breathing slowed, steady, the basic technique of control that all Potentials learnt at first.

You felt it in the instant she touched her Focus, the rush of energy that she gathered around her, spreading out into the web that you were now used to seeing. Her way of illuminating it, and effective, too. She'd find better ways, given time, but this was enough for now. Her hands twitched, touching the threads, reaching through them. And she was getting better, too.

Minutes passed, and Iris chatted happily with Mary. You kept some of your attention there, but most of it on Aya, and you were quite certain they knew why. Iris' sensor suite would be able to tell at least a little of what was going on, and they weren't limited to purely verbal communication.

Aya jerked back into full awareness of reality as the steady flow of the arriving audience drew down towards a trickle, and her eyes were very wide as she looked first at you, then Iris, then the centre of the stage. She whispered something very close to prayer, and then gave herself a shake. "It's good, very good," there was no uncertainty in the statement, but the feeling did touch her expression as she glanced around. "How long was I out?"

"Maybe ten minutes," you reassured her. "You're getting better, Aya. But we can talk about that later. Just breathe for now," the gallery doors admitted their final guest and swung shut. Delegate seating had been full five minutes ago. And there was no reason to wait.

A touch of thought dimmed the lighting to a more gentle ambience, itself a clear signal that things were beginning, and also setting the tone of it. Low lights like this, with a brighter spotlight at the centre of the chamber, meant what many had been expecting but only a few had known with certainty. The Unison Intelligences would be speaking. You rose from your chair, the slim outline of your concert set extending just enough for you to use it, tapping into the newsfeeds and speakers as you did so. This was what you'd designed it for.

"Welcome, all," you opened with the same words you'd used for the last several weeks. "It's good to see more here today, given what we have before us. Today, we come to the end of our discussions. The Unison Intelligences have come to their own decision, and it is one we shall respect," you hardened those last words within you like steel. Even if it was a decision you didn't agree with, you'd respect it. This was their choice. "But I will not speak for them today: not I, nor any member of the Two Twenty Three. So welcome to them, the first people of our shared creation, and let their voices be heard."

As introductions went, it was a short one, but you didn't need long. You stepped back from the raised podium, made a half turn, and came to an abrupt halt as a face born of more than two hundred souls stared back.

"Thank you, Amanda," the face said, and you realised that it was connected to a body as well. Working on autopilot, you managed to make it back to your seat, and just stared. You weren't alone. A small part of your brain pointed out that Iris was grinning. What had she-? And then you realised.

The Unison Intelligences had never possessed avatars. They'd never needed them, or perhaps it was more correct to say that they'd never sought them. They'd had all the communication capacity they'd ever needed readily available through their link to their Potential, or the synthesisers they'd learnt to use with aplomb. Faces, bodies? They'd been offered the capacity, but never pursued it. To go from that to this, in just a few days? Well, that was why Iris was grinning. And why wouldn't she be. Sidra and those like them weren't siblings to your daughter, but there was definitely an argument for them being cousins.

The face and form standing at the podium, made real through the holographic systems arrayed around the room to support high fidelity projection, was like no one you'd ever seen. They were a study of smooth lines and the harmonisation of hundreds of different men and women, the bodies of the Unisonbound brought together into a single entity.

"We are aware that this was not expected," the image gestalt said, its eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement, "but for what we realised must be said here today, we could not ask for another to carry our words. This is ours, and we must deliver it." The faint pleasure faded, and you watched as their clothing darkened to a dark and steady grey, the lines on the perfect quilt of faces coming together to lend the expression a fierce gravity.

"The delegates here have spent the last month trying to find ways for us to evolve, and we thank you all for that," the multi-textured voice continued. "It means a great deal to us. But as you have worked to discover what we could become, we've faced a similar challenge: trying to discover who and what we are now. Without that," they lifted one hand, palm up, and tilted it back and forth.

"We needed a place to start, and thanks to the aid of the Two Twenty Three, we were able to find out. We discovered a lot more than just our beginning, and in the future we'll need to address what else was there. But what matters here and now, is what we were looking for. Without which, the very idea of this Voice," the capital letter was audible as the figure indicated themself, "would have been impossible."

"One among you here," you heard Sidra's voice for a moment, cutting through the hundreds of others, "told us that we were the first people not of your flesh born to humanity after the Sorrows. Having looked inwards, we cannot dispute this. We are people, a race, now faced with the possibility of making more of ourselves. Yet our minds are born of humanity, and the way in which you reproduce is nothing like how our population can currently increase. We are not born children, but equally, we are not born fully grown."

"Every one of us has become more than we were, even as our links to the most central pillars of our existence have become more present, and less real." The way in which Unisonbound communication faded into a gentle haze of unsaid thought, you realised. It had just happened, and no one had really seen a reason to worry about it. It had seemed part of the natural evolution of the growing synchronisation between a Potential and their Platform.

"Much of the last month has been us trying to reconnect with those pillars, to see what they give us, and understand why we need them. We've had little success in most of that, but in hindsight, that's to be expected. Humanity has had millennia to try and answer those questions, and you're still working on most of them." That was certainly true.

"In the end, if there are to be more of us, a true race, then those who make up the most of it must be better prepared than we were. Some of that is hardware limitations, but a great deal is not." You felt your heart begin to sink. "But," the Voice added, "we are…aware of the threat to all of us. And the race that we hope for, one part of human civilisation, but not humanity, cannot exist if humanity itself dies. With that in mind, our choices were simple."

"In the Second Battle of Sol, the Unisonbound proved decisive in breaking the Shiplord attack. In the battle to come, against a Regular Fleet, two hundred and twenty three of us will not be enough." The Voice paused, giving a respectful nod to the delegates from the War Office. "This is not to devalue the actions of the FSN, nor the strength it has gained in the passing of years since that battle. But the Two Twenty Three cannot be everywhere, and the battles we have seen predict the need for more than just the single formation."

"Thus, our decision is as follows," the room shifted, as if every member in it had just drawn in a breath. Most probably had. "We request that research into what have been termed Gestalt Platforms be undertaken with all speed. If there is any way that we can aid in that development, we will do so. We request a rewrite of the synchronisation protocols, with a considerably expanded focus on what occurs after synchronisation has taken place. We will be involved with that process." The last words weren't even trying to pretend to be a question.

"Once that is complete, those Potentials shown to be able to participate in combat operations without risking harm to themselves will be permitted to attempt synchronisation." A gust of whispers ran around the room at that. Concern was part of them, but there was hope, too.

"We understand that this will involve making more like us, without the advancement of a Gestalt system. But if we are to build a future for our children, then we must have the strength to protect it. Together, two hundred Unisonbound brought down half a Tribute Fleet." It was an exaggeration, but most people didn't really count the auxiliaries. By that count, the claim was accurate. "We cannot hope to do the same against the Regulars, but with more of us on the field, far fewer will die."

"That is worth the sacrifice we have chosen to make."

Conference complete. Unison Intelligence final decision: Gestalt Platforms, modified Second Wave. Unison Intelligence gestalt avatar 'Voice' created.