There was a patch. At some point, someone (quite possibly even Nash, still haven't decided for sure yet) lost it, and had a duplicate made to keep the tradition alive.
You can always blame Caleb Babajide, OC captain of the Ranger-class Enterprise, the guy who nobody cares about, if you like. Made him up during the final Enterprise-B arc so I could put a name to that captain.
...For all we know, they already have that problem and there actually are a plague of Harmony Vtube personalities that are actually Singer sockpuppet accounts created to function as 'influencers?' It's less effective than going in and using direct root access to people's brains, but also lets you-the-Singer intervene in massive parallel with something that is entirely your own creation.
If they've recovered foreign intelligence service classified files on high-significance personnel, the Singers have deeply penetrated the ISC, RSE, and at least parts of the Ashalla Pact, not just us. Not a surprise exactly, except perhaps the Pact.
Unfortunately, Counselor Roxun believes that Abeshta thinks the entire system of mind controlling people for their own good is a good idea in principle, just implemented poorly.
...
He claims that with her assistance, we can end this conflict, and shift the Harmony's overall posture.
Rurliss' clear objective- freedom from Singer control- is not aligned with what Roxun thinks of as Abeshta's here. Who lobbied for that final backdoor access.
Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal, etc etc?
Still, in my darkest days, I never really figured myself for a deserter. A washout, sure, stuck in the most dead-end post possible, maybe, but deserter... no. And yet, even though the orders we received were sending us straight into an ambush, even though I clearly can't trust my CO... well, we're still ignoring the chain of command, regardless of how compromised it is. We're still taking the flagship of the Federation off on our own private campaign. Somehow, I don't think T'Lorel will approve.
...And that's assuming our intel of their strength is even accurate. Rumours of stealth cruisers in the border zones abounded. And the Muuyozoi raiders had to get the idea from somewhere...
Ooh I forgot about this! Yeah we had signs that HoH has stealth or cloak cruisers.
Rather concerning that we still haven't found any more evidence.
HoH is infuriatingly good at espionage and subversion, and yet strangely incapable of exploiting that penetration all much really... because make no mistake, a chipped councilor, completely subverted chain of command for the Enterprise, their access to our most secured files, etc? Those are all signs that in the intrigue conflict the UFP is not so much bloodied but lying on the ground rapidly bleeding to death while Singers rifle through its pockets. Try to imagine how bad this happening to USA for example would be.
Though, I don't think that this is what our GMs intended, I think that they just meant to write a heavy intel conflict against a dangerous foe and needed Entreprise to go off the grid for a while for example.
Rence chirruped with mirth, "I think I fit into all three of those categories." He gazed down at the cubes of carbohydrate someone dubiously claimed was from a Earth tuber and not from a resequencer, pecked at a few. He stared at them a little longer, then slowly pushed the tray with his beak until it dropped them onto the floor.
Deva chewed on his toast as he looked quizzically at Rence.
"That was my first free choice since I was born," Rence said. "Isn't that amazing?" He lowered his head, "And I threw my food on the floor like a child. Maybe..."
"No," said Deva. "It's alright. I'm sure the Singers would never have let you do that." He tilted his body to peek under the table, "Though is it allowing you to exercise free choice if I ask you to please clean that up before you go?"
Rence looked down, "I think that's fair." He hopped in his seat, "My first freely chosen act of communal service!"
Uhm? I thought that Singers don't micromanage people like that, letting their citizens live their own lives mostly and only stepping in from time to time. Well most citizens at least. This makes it look like he was a Singer puppet since birth.
Rurliss sat in her quarters staring at the Enterprise NX-01 patch beautifully framed above her work desk. The glass was signed by Jennifer Zhang. It had been passed down from Captain to Captain, or so Nash said.
? Fake how? And faked by whom? Did Nash fake the plague being from NX-01, or did someone fake that and Nash's signature and stuff, or something else? And why?
"It's… entirely possible that my cognition had been subtly steered while I was personified. It's very standard practice."
Adjustments on upload? Why the hell did they think that was a good idea? For one noone likes people messing with their mind, and if ifs standard practice it is likely to get our that this was done to people, and likely you too.
"No. I say that having seen it myself. Some Singers have pets they want to push. Usually younger ones. But sometimes Older singers make the same mistake.
What the fuck is wrong with them? I mean I thought them deluded and wrong and stuff, but this looks straight out of a comic book villain territory, how the hell do the other Singers tolerate this? How is this justified? A lot of the atrocities they commit come from considering people to be pretty much animals, and doing stuff that violated their freedom (and minds) for their own good, but fellow Singers are "Actual Intelligences" in their eyes.
"I suppose she couldn't stand the thought of being alone. Either as an outcast or trapped in a box." Abeshta shook his head, "It would have been hopeless anyways. One Singer, even a brilliant one that practically ran the shipyards, couldn't stand up to the rest of them.
Aaand my SDB addled brain is wondering what sort of a bonus such a character would give to shipbuilding.
"Eventually. I'm concerned that if we meet her there we might attract suspicion. For now we are meeting at a secure communication node. Once we have our little group together we can decide on the next steps."
Must you Singers? Must you really? It made some sense with the last deserter (forgot the name) as even if she explained about Singers and stuff she would have no proof so best lead our people to evidence and make their own judgement, but this does not apply here and they need all the trust they can get.
She didn't know anyone who had been boxed. But she had heard horror stories. The threat was always there. Moral Scope Regression Disorder. The seal on the box. The Singers' term for those who comprehended the world in black and white, or as it was explained, the way a child might. To be 'childish' was to skirt the line of permanent retirement.
Abeshta had found out enough for both of them to realize it was all fake. The Eldest Singers had medicalized any sort of opposition to the system they had created. And Jenavol and Abeshta were both shamefully complicit and extremely likely to be boxed if they ever raised alarm about it.
For being so clever the Singers, oldest ones at least, are really really stupid. That a system that disposes of anyone who disagrees with it like this will go wrong is pretty much inevitable, and with a bit of though one should not even need the likely plentiful historical examples of such to realize this.
I get that the oldest singers were a bunch of girls in a remote all girl music school that survived an apocalypse and had mass mind control power fall into their laps and thus many of their decisions were inevitably really crappy, but it has been centuries if not millennia since. Did they never encounter the concept of retrospection?
It felt so close, now, more real somehow, watching Abeshta lay it out. She listened through the aural sensors of a loaned Starfleet DOT-10 that had been thoroughly airgapped, and reviewed the intelligence file she'd found on Iliae Rurliss, which included her service record, every recorded purchase she had ever made or social media interaction she'd had, all of her medical and psych evaluations they'd gotten their hands on, anywhere she had been geotagged, and all of her professional and personal logs, even most of the secure encrypted ones. There were the ISC, Romulan, Dylaarian, and Sydraxian files on her as well. They even had copies of her early middle school poetry that some underemployed Singer had taken a stab at psychoanalysing.
One more on the pile of death blow grade security breaches...
When she spoke, though, all optimism disappeared. Her skepticism was blatant: "So, in short, your plan is: use the latest Harmony stealth tech to sneak up on the heart of the entire Harmony, then infiltrate a highly-secure facility in the Antaria Valley that neither of you've actually been to, and break out all the 'boxed' Singers ... so that they can outvote the other Singers, who will just accept the will of a bunch of dissidents they had previously boxed up rather than listen to and end the war. Does that sum it up?"
Huh. This incompetence makes them feel rather... real. Human, for lack of a better word. Nicely done! Not sure if appropriate for likely century or older superintelligent beings, but writing characters like that would likely be far beyond the scope of this quest.
"And this is what I made," He and Cindre grimaced as they lifted a metallic case off a cart and onto the bench, "Hardware designed to break a planetary chip network. Most of the mass and volume in computational and cooling infrastructure. Oh, and it can carry Abeshta or Jenavol in an emergency."
Q damn it start listening to your therapist woman.
"Yes," said Jenavol, "the exploit is fundamental. But that would take time and skilled technicians. I have trained a small group of them from your people. But not enough to free everyone."
Ooh Enterprise techs can do it too! I am sure that will be useful. It should also work even if they put up firewalls against dummy Singers I think.
Enterprise is en route to Unwerta. It's a small, relatively isolated artist colony, the private playground of sorts of one particular Singer, vas Rayes. Our intention is to test out our ability to jam the chip network in a controlled setting, one where if things go wrong, we will not have to worry about Public Safety breathing down our necks, and to liberate the colony in the process.
It's not much, but it's a spark. And revolutions are built from such sparks.
Must be really isolated. Singers seem to like extensive networking and comms, and should as such notice such a liberation rapidly on most planets, if only from the sudden comms silence.
I don't think that the Comet was going to solve the Singer crisis. We simply voted to follow what the Comet did during the war. We could have chosen to follow the Ada-Lodd, the Riala, or even the Avandar.
The Riala and Avandar were stationed on our Spinwards side, the Riala specifically would have been in the ISC's portion of the Gabriel Expanse.
(That the categorisation is applied by those eldest Singers, who were little more than children themselves when they became the original uploads centuries ago.)
They were girls when the apocalypse happened, but they only uploaded when they reached orbit again and got their their hands on wrecked starships computer cores.
@Enerael sorry quotes are hard on phone. Little backwards on what Abeshta was saying (might have been written ambiguously because it's detailed more in another unpublished update). Once a Singer is uploaded it is NO LONGER possible to tamper with their thoughts like with regular Harmony citizens. They are in essence black boxes to other singers (like my thoughts would be a black box to you!). It's definitely part of why they think of themselves as an elite strata because inherently there's a structural difference in what you can do to a Singer vs a chipped person.
When Abeshta is talking about Singers making someone their "pet" he means when someone is still an organic and the Singer is shaping shaping the person's thoughts extremely directly. When said overly-managed person gets Singerized, this can cause a total psychological rupture. I imagine Singers have to carefully balance nudging people to their worldview while at the same time not reconstructing so much the person becomes unusable.
You joke, but imagine an actual AI Vtuber that could interact and talk to every singe one of their tens of thousands of viewers individually? This whole "The Sims in RL" deal is such a dumb use of the Singer's upload technology. Why have a hundred thousand puppets when you could instead have a hundred thousand friends?
You joke, but imagine an actual AI Vtuber that could interact and talk to every singe one of their tens of thousands of viewers individually? This whole "The Sims in RL" deal is such a dumb use of the Singer's upload technology. Why have a hundred thousand puppets when you could instead have a hundred thousand friends?
unironically, an AI entertainer that uses its nature to actually make friends with large portions of its fan base would be an interesting story. Be an interesting way to explore how fundamentally different AI can be. It would be weird and maybe a bit uncomfortable, but not necessarily threatening. Would be a good way to look at an alien mind.
unironically, an AI entertainer that uses its nature to actually make friends with large portions of its fan base would be an interesting story. Be an interesting way to explore how fundamentally different AI can be. It would be weird and maybe a bit uncomfortable, but not necessarily threatening. Would be a good way to look at an alien mind.
You joke, but imagine an actual AI Vtuber that could interact and talk to every singe one of their tens of thousands of viewers individually? This whole "The Sims in RL" deal is such a dumb use of the Singer's upload technology. Why have a hundred thousand puppets when you could instead have a hundred thousand friends?
You'd think that if it were important enough to them, they'd have moved it out some time in the past couple of years... But Negaduck also trashed Goofy's vehicle.
Note from the Discord front, SWB let me know the new-model Solace is C7S7P7.
This is slightly increased from C6S6P6 in the old-builder. Given this difference, I'd expect H5 L6 or so.
(By comparison, our Comet gained +1C, while the Kepler got +1C +2S +1P when Qute rewrote the universe simulation-physics. Larger ships/classes generally benefitted more from the changes.)
So it's definitely more than a match for a Kepler, even Blooded, but if the Comet can get there before the Kepler is too badly damaged, it'd probably turn into a fairly even fight.
Which no-one wants.
If it's a larger, more combat-specced Liberator, well...
If it's a Liberator you have a whole slew of more trouble on your hands because by typical Harmony doctrine it usually means you're also about to meet a Sanctuary with her complement of corvettes.
On Sanctuary, the military heart of the Harmony of Horizon, two young Horizonians carried a nondescript white box, holding it carefully between them. Behind them loped a Moy, head held high with an air of authority. Their feet clicked on porcelain tile, which had cracks here and there in its surface. A few areas where chips had been replaced by new materials looked less weathered.
They passed words carved into the rough concrete of the walls. Roughly translated they said: "The Sanctuary Lighthouse." Once upon a time those words had been visible to the public, illuminated by the light fixtures above them. Now the light fixtures were empty, and they were the symbolic and literal core of a much larger building of cross-laminated wood and blueish glass, filled with self-clearing carpet tiles and hyperspectral light tubes. The empty sockets watched over a building that, through many long years, had seen its fair share of murders and extortions, spies and corruption, life-and-death, facts and lies.
It was the end of the workweek at the Lighthouse, but the workers in their frosted-glass cubicles weren't rushing for the door. Most were sitting idly in their chairs, some eyeing wall mounted chronometers, or looking at their terminals and boredly clicking through emails or hunting for a temporary distraction. A few carefully peeked over the tops of their cubicles, watching the trio and their package. As the trio passed by the cubicles workers slipped out to join them, soon turning the trio into a gaggle and then a crowd. The clack-clack of their shoes on the tile soon filled the entire floor, until the procession stepped onto the acoustically perfect carpet tiles. Their footsteps were hushed as they wound their way through the rows of cubicles to one in the corner.
A Tseskiya sat inside the cubicle, leaning back, talons on the desk. He wore modified Tauni smart glasses, and headphones sat comfortably on his head, playing a soft Bolian concerto. Despite the relaxed pose, he typed quickly with his feet, fast and precise onto a holographic keyboard. His eyes darted back and forth over the words filling his glasses. He was oblivious to the mob of Horizonians, Moy, Lintrid, Tseskiya and Tauni behind him. The two Horizonians with the package looked at each other, then back to the Tseskiya. Someone cleared their throat, once, then twice. Finally, the senior Moy let out a huff, face tentacles wriggling and flashing with colourful annoyance around her leech-mouth. She reached over with a long arm and pushed the Tseskiya's chair. He spun around with a surprised squak, eyes wide as he saw the Horizonians and the package, their eager eyes as they flung it open.
"SURPRISE!" The assembled journalists shouted. Krobik, the Tseskiya, looked at the contents of the package. A cake, with the words "CONGRATS" written on it in red frosting. Also on the cake was a triangular obelisk in ice-blue frosting. It looked much like three similar objects on the shelf behind Krobik. One was shiny with fresh polish. The Horizonian glyphs on the base read, "Meravik Award for Investigative Journalistic Achievement."
On his desk sat three pictures. All of them in front of his house, a pleasantly stuccoed one-storey with a bright and healthy lawn. In one photo was him and his wife, young, beaming. Then one of him and his wife, looking older. They were joined by a whole flock of Tseskiya; their two boys and two daughters. Then one was of him and his youngest daughter, Ceri. He looked much the same as he did now, his daughter older but still young, with eyes that sparkled mischievously at the camera. The family picture and the picture of his daughter had black frames, the color of healthy plumage, of life. The frame for his wife was white. The color of bleached bone.
He let out a relieved sigh, and gave the Tseskiya equivalent of a smile by puffing up the feathers on the crown of his head.
"Runs-With-Glee, you old sponge!" He said, playfully slapping the elder-looking Moy with a wing, "I told you I didn't want anyone to make a big fuss!"
"You are a foolish young bird indeed," Runs-With-Glee grumbled -- well more accurately, her translator matrix grumbled -- "If you think I would allow this institution to fail to recognize the achievements of its members."
"Your third Meravik," gushed one of the Horizonians, an intern fresh to the Lighthouse's team, gesturing at the obelisks on the shelf, "Few get even one!"
"When he first started working here, I had started work on investigating corruption and shell-committees on Mist," Runs-With-Glee said, eyeing Krobik's award shelf, "It was my crowning achievement, earned me one award. Then he got his first." Runs-With-Glee shook her mouth-tendrils, "The protege soon passed the master. As it must be."
Krobik waved a wing, "I'm just a better runner," Krobik said, mostly to the audience, "Despite her name, Runs-With-Glee is actually quite slow. Which means I get to the stories faster. Easy."
"Urgh," gurgled Runs-With-Glee, "Modesty. It only makes me hate you more."
A chuckle from the crowd. Cake was soon served. There was a lull in the conversation, and that is when Colbrm, one of the young up and comers asked, "So Krobik, what's the next big case you're going to blow open? Get yourself a fourth?"
Krobik cawed, lifting his shoulders, "Nothing so exciting. Local issues. Have a quiet retirement."
Berq-ah-vaq, a copy editor and an old hand at the Lighthosue, shook her head, "I know that look!" She laughed and pointed at Krobik with her fork, "You've got something big." She leaned forward, "Thinking of doing some war correspondence if things kick off with the Federation?"
"Far too old for that," Runs-With-Glee said.
"No… nothing like that. I'm pretty sure my children would stun me if I even tried," Krobik said to polite laughter. He looked down at his plate, then up with a glint in his eye. "But I am working on something. Something exciting. Something none of you are going to beat me to." He threw his head back cockily. His cake remained untouched.
His colleagues voiced their approval. As they started to filter away, Krobik looked down at the cake. With no one looking, he threw it in the trash.
-
A week ago Krobik had been sitting in the warm interior of his car. He had a silver collar around his neck, with two manipulator arms attached. They were connected to a neural implant, so that Krobik could control them by thought. Right now they dangled over the bulk of his outerwear.
He was bundled up in preparation for the snow and sleet that raged outside. A sturdy Moy or Lintrid walking in it would have to bend almost sideways into the crashing wind and mush. Krobik was fairly certain he would be picked up like a leaf and carried away, found days later tangled in some power lines. Or more fancifully, blown in through someone's window like something out of a fairy tale, offered scones and tea, and with the logic of a dream, he could settle into a different life.
The rear door on his aircar suddenly opened, the screaming storm outside trying to batter its way in. Someone dropped themselves into the back seat, slamming the door shut. Krobik tilted the reflective rearview glass downwards. The source had asked him to avoid looking at their face, but he kept the mirror focused on their hands. Always watch the hands. He'd learned that the hard way when a Tauni revolutionary he'd been interviewing had shoved a disruptor (quite literally) into his beak.
The gloved hands barely peeked out from too-large sleeves of a green raincoat. They clutched a small package. "What's in that?" Krobik asked his faceless source.
Krobik's mind was flashing through the worst possibilities. An envelope, made out of paper, bound tight with tape. Could it be a bomb? Here, in the heart of the Harmony? A ridiculous idea, before he started down this path. More likely -- a package of narcotics. Police would pick them up, Krobik's reputation would be ruined. Again ridiculous, if he didn't see it happen to good people on Felis, Bolarus, even Tiriad.
"Information," the source said. They had a small, thin voice. High pitched. "I don't think it's safe for me to have this anymore. I'm sorry." They thrust the package forward, holding it over the center console. Krobik concentrated, and one of the manipulators grabbed the package and set it into his lap. The source's hand darted back to join its counterpart in their lap. They started rubbing them together. For comfort?
"I stopped trusting electronic recording devices," the source said, "I took pictures of workstations, anything else on a film camera. Quality isn't the greatest. Sorry."
"Why the distrust of electronic media?" Krobik asked. Good to hear others say it. He was taking his own notes by foot, scribbling in a notebook tucked next to the acceleration pedal. Pen and paper.
"Records… change." The source said, "I used to think I was crazy. I misplace things all the time, after all. And who can keep track of an entire spreadsheet in their head? Not me. But there were numbers I swore I saw, that next week were different. Shipments of ship components changing quantity. Sometimes the management would be as confused, until a day later and it was all 'cleared up.' That's when I started taking notes. Eventually, they just laughed it off. That's when I suspected they might be in on it."
"In on what?" Krobik asked,
"You have the data," the source said, a little frostily.
Krobik cooed and shook his head, "The context you can provide me is critical. What's important about these ship components? What do you think they're doing?"
"It looks like…" the source paused. Their hands were rubbing against each other more quickly now, then they stopped. "... it looks like someone's trying to build a secret warfleet. One that the public, maybe even the Sovereignty Committee doesn't know about."
"A secret military buildup? Led by who, the peacekeepers?"
"I don't know! The parts are for Public Safety, allegedly. Maybe other logistic hubs have different excuses. I don't see what Public Safety needs 'self-cleaning hull panels' that, if you follow through a twisted procurement cycle, come from one of the most advanced materials manufacturers in the Harmony."
"Which one?"
"It's in the… fine. Yantren Metallurgy, Ceramics, and Engineering." Their voice was calm, but their worrying hands were anything but. "I worked for them previously. They manufacture what they call 'distortion baffling exterior coating,' supposedly to be installed around sensors to help cut down on noise. But I know it's got a dual purpose as a stealth coating on the hull. The amounts don't match up with what was passing through our warehouse to Public Safety, which is why I think they're funneling it through multiple sources, but..."
"I understand." Public Safety with stealth corvettes. Was someone plotting a coup? Or was Public Safety a smokescreen for a secret military buildup? Krobik didn't know why the Peacekeepers would hide something like that, though. The Federation's ludicrous claims and saber rattling had everyone concerned, so there was no need to hide more resources being put into security. Not that it mattered much — whenever the Peacekeepers asked for more resources, the Sovereignty Committee always made a big fuss but somehow always came around to approving it. The inevitability of such things had never really bothered Krobik before. Now it did.
"When I accessed the records this week, they were all changed," the source said, "I was so careful to avoid tracing. But it's possible I'm exposed. That's why I want you to have this. I won't tell them anything about you. I'll just say I was curious, or something. But you have to figure out what's going on. I don't want to believe the Sovereignty Committee is involved, but the idea that there's someone else out there bypassing them… or more powerful than them…" The source let that drift off into silence. What more needed to be said? Krobik shared their sentiments.
The Sovereignty Committee acting shady was one thing. They were, at the end of the day, accountable. Some secret department or section of the government that was able to build warships in secret, though? That was another threat entirely. It threatened to unravel everything Krobik believed in, drove a stake at the cherished values of democracy, freedom, even his life's work trying to uncover the truth. Had he spent so long investigating the Tauni, the OSA, the Bolians, and Felis that he missed something brewing right at home, where he first got his start?
"Thank you," Krobik said, "I'll review the data. It was very brave of you to do this."
"I should go," the source said, "I don't know when they'll miss me." And just like that, the door opened, the wind howled, and they were gone into the storm.
-
Krobik had quietly slipped out from the impromptu party at the Lighthouse and gone home. He still lived in the house from the photographs, a decently-sized one-storey in the suburbs of Dalear, with the luxury of a lawn and neighbours decently spaced from his house. He thanked the remote aircab operator and stepped out of the bullet-shaped vehicle, brown jacket loose over his body, walking up the concrete pathway with slow, deliberate steps. He stopped and picked at a weed growing through a crack in the concrete with his beak, tossing it into the garden. Then he ascended the short stoop and entered his home. Once inside, he quickly set his things down, hanging his jacket up with care.
He shuffled through the house, talons clack-clacking on the hardwood. The sun was still setting, and there was just enough light for him to see by. He stopped in front of a door. It was a normal door, faux wood over a cardboard core. He opened it and descended the stairs into his basement. At the bottom, he arched his head up and grabbed a pull-string in his beak, tugging on it and bringing a bright fluorescent light to life. He squinted against the sudden brightness. Once upon a time the automatic home assistance system would have turned everything on for him the instant he entered the doorway, even adjusted lighting automatically to match his assessed mood. He'd tossed it out almost a year ago. Claimed to the local council craftspeople who had removed the system and installed obsolete technology in its place that he was doing it for a story.
Shuffling over the cold grey expanse of his basement, he went to the winerack. Putting his shoulder to the wood, he shoved it until it was turned ninety degrees, revealing a room. It had a desk with a cabinet and drawers, both secured with heavy padlocks. He dialled in the combinations and opened them up. They were filled with documents, photographs. All on paper or laminate. Carefully, he pulled them out and spread them on the desk, unfurled a chart he'd made of connections and tacked it to the cork board on the back of the winerack. Among the documents were the ones he'd acquired from the mysterious source from a week ago. The information inside had been substantial, but they were only a fraction of the information Krobik had spread before him. The source might have thought they were the only one Krobik was in contact with. Hardly. Many things had started to bug him in recent years, after he promised his children he'd stop flying around the quadrant interviewing thugs, leave the Lighthouse, and settle into a quiet semi-retirement writing about local issues for a smaller paper. Woman saves snuffmutt from tree, maybe some analysis pieces on local politics and issues.
Instead, he kept finding things that bothered him. Little stuff, at first. In preparation for this promised semi-retirement, he'd started paying attention to local issues, in his canton and then in a few others. He found that their voting could sometimes be erratic. Proposals would be angrily shouted about in public meetings one day and then, after a grand, heartfelt, and typically empty speech from one of the panel members, people would suddenly turn around in the name of community spirit. If there was a grand speech. Sometimes it seemed that the opinions flickered like a candle. It looked like some grand design was being played out… but Krobik couldn't see why. Not with his limited perspective. So he'd started digging.
"You should spend more time back with your people," his youngest daughter, Ceri, had said once, "No offense, but… I think your time among all these bad guys has made you a little suspicious."
Maybe she was right. Maybe the itch he felt, the sense something was wrong, was like the itch of a freshly stitched wound: the more you scratch, the more damage you did.
There were other things. It was to his personal chagrin that the Tseskiya maintained a large and healthy tabloid media. He'd begun to notice just how often they would publish some sensationalist story designed to discredit someone, only for it to be 'retracted' due to 'poor sourcing.' And yet the allegations inevitably stuck in the public consciousness, sometimes dooming the prospects of a rising star, or engendering public sympathy and shooting them higher. It was all high drama. He sometimes wondered why he kept thinking about that drek. There was how quickly the Harmony became friends with its neighbouring powers, how often they joined hands peacefully with seemingly little fuss, with the exception of the Tauni. Nothing strange to Krobik until he'd seen the Federation's process for membership. The brutal, unglamorous negotiations over everything from ensuring proper interstellar transport access to the protection of local cheesemakers. The Federation had added many members, like the Harmony, sure, but they always seemed to have to work harder for it. Krobik had long thought it was simply because the Harmony were superior diplomats…
There was Michel Thuir. The story was twisted enough that Krobik had trouble following it. Thuir, who was one of Starfleet's best, steadfast and dutiful, fell in love with his counterpart while both were conducting diplomacy in the border states? That love blossoming under adversity after they were kidnapped by Bolian -- Bolian -- pirates-slash-free traders-slash-repo men who had somehow slipped under the OSA's radar and made off with a weather regulator itself stolen by the corporations. Thuir and Janner turning the pirate crew against each other, taking over the ship, and returning to the Harmony. But then, Thuir and his staff electing to stay in the Harmony. All of them. Not one of them missed their families? All of them similarly dissatisfied? Either something was much more rotten in the state of the Federation than anyone realized, or the Harmony had turned them all. But how?
He looked over all the evidence before him. Everything he had pointed to one thing, the type of conspiracy beloved by those with tenuous grips on reality: that there was a vast cabal of special interests, who subtly manipulated the entire political and economic processes of the Harmony to their own ends. And those ends looked increasingly like a secret war, or a coup.
Maybe it was too personal. He looked at his chart. One face on there. The same old photograph on his desk at work. His wife. Her death… accident, officially. Murder, to Krobik. Her death had ignited his passion for this line of work. As a young man, everything, in some way, had been to find the skills to solve the riddle of her death. He eventually made peace with it, accepted that sometimes the spinning universe could be that cruel. Was all this him returning to where he started?
War with the Federation? Maybe. Before it would have been ridiculous, with tensions arising from their sanctimonious 'my way or the highway' foreign policy, the associated tendency to impose cultural values, and their alliance with the war criminal embracing Tauni, but nothing really worth fighting over. Now they were claiming all sorts of wild things. It seemed like the Federation was aiming for an excuse to go to war, maybe to reshape the Harmony like they'd reshaped the Orions. But that wouldn't require a secret military buildup for the Harmony.
He needed more. Proof, not just his guesses and ill-feeling. His handful of sources had pulled up only circumstantial evidence of some sort of wrongdoing. It was possible they were unstable, deluded by either boredom with modern life or actual illness. If that was the case, Krobik was at risk professionally to take their concerns forward. If they had uncovered a conspiracy… then all of them were in grave danger. Grey suits showing up to his house, and carrying him away.
He pulled open the drawer again. Inside, two passes for a passenger liner, bought under an assumed name at considerable expense from Bolian underground contacts. He would travel to Bolarus under the guise of research for his latest story, transfer over to the passenger ship, and then complete his investigation and collation in the Federation. It felt like a betrayal, and it might even be stupidly dangerous if reports of the Federation secret police were true. But it was still probably safer than here.
Tomorrow he would pack everything into a concealed compartment on his luggage, then he'd be out of the woods.
Before going to sleep that night, Krobik relaxed by reading stories provided by an app on his tablet. He read one of the stories recommended to him. It was about a man who pursued a dangerous cult, believing them to secretly be behind all the atrocities in the world, hidden carefully in photographs and paintings. At the end of the story, it is revealed the narrator was a madman, and in his delusion, killed his estranged family.
Krobik quickly shut down the tablet and almost hurled it through the window. He pulled the covers tight around himself. He stared for a long while at the midnight blue wall across from him. Then suddenly drowsiness overtook him, and he fell into a dreamless sleep.
-
Krobik awoke to something poking him in the side. His eyes snapped open, and found he was tangled in sheets from a night of tossing and turning. Slowly, he turned to the source of the poking, and let out a sigh of relief. It was his daughter, Ceri, jabbing him with her foot. She looked bemused.
"Cee," he said, "What are you doing here? I thought you were still working on that art project?"
"Nah," she said, "I thought I'd come home early." She squawked a smile and then prodded him again, "Come on, I have something to show you."
Krobik looked at the chronometer. "Can't it wait until morning?"
"Aw, c'mon," Ceri slouched in a pout, "It's really important. You'll love it. I swear. Come on." She impatiently tapped a talon on the wood floor with a clack-clack-clack. The sound annoyed Krobik, which is of course why she did it.
Ceri was the last of his children to still live on Sanctuary. He often wondered if his children had made some sort of deal, one of them staying behind to look after their risk-taking father. It worried him that he was the only one keeping Ceri here. It occurred to him suddenly: maybe she would flourish somewhere else — an artist colony like the one on Unwerta? But he was selfishly keeping her here.
Some dark part of his mind churned into action. That was what fathers did, wasn't it? They were selfish. How many times had he seen it, children left to wither, or pushed for the sake of someone's ego? So many men profiled. But what of their daughters — their children? Had he ever cared about them?
Krobik closed his eyes and banished the thoughts. He had profiled more than just fathers, of course. Sometimes this negative self voice appeared. He had always wondered why. Maybe it was the cycle of Sanctuary's satellites.
Krobik finally sighed, rolled out of his bed, and put his feet on the wood floor, Ceri trilled with joy, jumping from foot to foot, before bounding out of the room with a "C'mon!"
Krobik shook his head to clear it but also in amusement at his daughter's antics. He slowly shuffled down the dark hall towards where he could hear Ceri humming softly to himself. He could see the lights were on in the living room. More than the house lights, actually. Judging from the brightness, Ceri had set up some lightstands. Showing off her latest work?
Krobik turned the corner into the living room and stopped.
Lying spread out on the couch was all of his collected evidence. Some of it had been pinned to the wall, illuminated harshly by the stand lamps. Ceri had her back turned to him. She stopped humming and slowly turned. "Hello, Krobik." She held out a wing, "Take a seat."
Krobik did so automatically, sitting down in the indicated chair, which for a Tseskiya was more like an ottoman. Ceri stayed standing, slowly walking around, peering at the evidence. Something about the way she moved, the way she talked, was wrong--
"Yes, yes it is," Ceri said. "Because you're not talking to Ceri right now. I've made use of her body to make you more… comfortable." She turned to look at him, eyes full of pity, "My name is Singer Keppan. I am one of the people you are trying to find with your…" she gestured in a wide arc at Krobik's careful work, "...'reporting.'"
Krobik blinked in disbelief, "Cee," he said, "Is this a joke? Is this some sort of performance thing -- it's not right to use my work like this, Cee, it's dangerous --"
"Very," Ceri said -- no, Keppan. It was Keppan. "But easily resolved. This is actually something of a courtesy. I am a fan of your work. And I respect the effort you put into this. So I thought I would explain myself before I make it all go away."
"How did you find me?' Krobik said, "Did you..."
"No, we didn't follow your jumpy backseat source. No need to." Keppan finally sat in a seat across from Krobik, "Singers can quickly look into everyone's thoughts. Now, there's not enough of us to do that all the time for everyone, but we can keep a sort of broad awareness of the general social satisfaction in an area." She tilted her head sadly, "Unfortunately, one of your contacts was so concerned by what they were uncovering, and scaring those around them with erratic behaviour, that it drew our attention. We found out what was causing that distress, and well," she spread her wings, "Here we are. Pulled the location of the information right out of your head. Had you forget to lock it all up tonight. Then I had Ceri do most of this."
"I see." Krobik swallowed loudly. He carefully pried his eyes off of Keppan, spying a notebook on a nearby table. He slowly reached out, grabbed it in his beak, and set it on the floor. He opened the cover with his foot, flipped to an empty page, pulled a pen from the elastic securing it to the spine. He clicked it and set it to the paper. He looked up at Keppan, "You keep mentioning the term Singer. What does that mean?"
"You know I'm going to destroy that," Keppan looked bemused.
But not in the way Ceri looked bemused. Same face, different expressions. Ceri expressed herself with abandon, gleeful and exuberant. She'd act like she did earlier, poking, prodding, jumping from foot to foot, leaping around the room and laughing easily. With Keppan controlling her, her body scanned the room carefully, head moving like a turret. She sat extremely still, eyes focused on him. Emotion was in those eyes, subtle signals of narrowing, looking aside, a tilt of a head. It reminded Krobik of a Lintrid.
"Of course," Krobik said, "But I find it relaxing. And if you're going to go to all this trouble and these… theatrics, to explain yourself. I think I should do what I do best, even if it is only for a few more minutes."
Keppan narrowed her eyes, shaking her head slightly. "Dedicated to the end. To answer your question: a Singer is an actual intelligence, an upload of a person of extraordinary talent. We have dedicated our lives to watching over, steering, and protecting the Harmony from a dangerous universe, keeping diverse peoples together despite the pressures that often fling them apart."
"The missing part of my story."
"Yes, the 'vast cabal of special interests.' Our interest, of course, is the welfare of the Harmony."
"And what you're doing to my daughter," he said, pointing up and down at Ceri with his pen, "Can you do that with anyone? Are you psionic in nature?"
"No. We can only influence people with special implants." Keppan touched her head, and then pointed at Krobik's, "Ceri has one, you have one. Virtually every Harmony citizen has one. Quite a few non-Harmony citizens, in all honesty."
"How do they work?"
"Extremely complex neuroscience. It also depends on the implant. For normal citizens such as yourself, we use nanomachines regulated by a small chip in the base of your skull to lay and modify pathways, produce neurotransmitters. For those who need to pass medical scans, we can replace portions of the brain with a biologically identical structure that can be adjusted based on coded inputs through the visual and auditory cortex, or for a longer-term conversion we replace a small portion of tissue that produce retroviruses that do the modification for us over time. The level of intrusion also depends on how extreme an action is. For the most part we attempt to control the pathways between your conscious mind and your subconscious or sensory organs."
Krobik made a trill of surprise, "Why not just control us directly? Give everyone a forebrain replacement?"
Keppan half-closed her eyes, sighing, "As I said, we're here to guide, not replace. We're not some overbearing father who wants perfect little automatons. We just want to give people a nudge in the right direction. Doing it by carefully controlling what inputs go to the conscious decision making process makes this a lot simpler and doesn't damage the psyche."
"That seems like it could backfire," Krobik said, "People might not notice, or might slip from your control."
"Would they?" Keppan asked. She lifted her foot and snapped her talons. The smart wall was on. Someone on it was rambling about something called psycurity. Euthanizing criminals? Harmony wide? Then he remembered.
"Yes, that's right. We introduced the system right before we met the Federation. Some Singer's idea of an effective maskirovka. Appear to trust evil algorithms in a very limited circumstance to distract the Federation from our existence. Then we got rid of it once it outlived its purpose and you all memory-holed it. Forgot. Like how you just forgot whose body this is."
He blinked. He stared at the Tseskiya standing before him. They were a stranger to him.
"They're someone important to you." That was Keppan speaking. But who was the Tseskiya?
The stranger tilted his? Her! Head. "Maybe you should check in on what your foot is doing."
He looked down. One of his feet was carefully tearing pages out of his notebook.
"Plumage/facial blindness and alien talon syndrome," he said, voice wavering slightly, "you can turn them on like that?"
"Of course. And other effects similar to symptoms of various brain disorders. This is what I mean by saying we control the vital infrastructure that leads to rational thought. Personality. Much more effective this way." Keppan snapped her talons and with a rush of emotion he recognized Ceri again. "See? You could pass your ex-____ on the street and…"
______? On the street? That would mean…
There was a terrible sense of incongruity. He felt like the floor was rising towards him and his vision swam. He grimaced and looked away, then back at Keppan/Ceri. She looked at him with piteous eyes.
"Let's get back to your questions." She said.
He blinked. Sure. "You are assembling a warfleet." He said in his most professional voice, "For expansion. Secret subversion. Not for a coup. That would be pointless."
"Correct."
"Why?" Krobik said, "Controlling everyone without their consent… it's the worst tyranny I can imagine." He stopped suddenly, and an uneasy look crossed his face, "Did you make me fall in love?"
Keppan sniffed, "This is where things become a little complex. I, and all other Singers -- we see the stars past the horizon. The larger picture. There are six or seven people you could have fallen in love with. All assessed as compatible, mutually-supporting, developing you further. We just helped steer you to the most ideal one."
"It was all a lie," Krobik whispered.
"No," Keppan said, "All the love you felt was real. We simply made circumstances happen that put you in Hannif's way." She paused, "And nudged you to your career in journalism." Krobik started, and Keppan nodded. "Yes. That was no accident. We looked at your skill-set, your drive, and your ambitions, and we helped you narrow it down. That's part of what we do Krobik, help people find their place."
"It's vile," he said.
"How can you say that?" Keppan said, "In the Harmony of Horizon, there are no divorces, not unless they're required for development, because we know your proper partner. And we're there to help smooth over any ruffles. Everyone finds the career they need, the one that both fulfills them the most and allows them to contribute the most to society. We are here to give people happiness. Our modern society requires something like this. In the origins of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, there were only a handful of roles in the community. Everyone found their place easily. Now? Something as simple as 'one who prepares food' is split into several different specialities. Who can truly know the right choice?"
"The Federation appears to do so. Why should it be different here?" He tapped his pen.
Keppan laughed, "The Federation. Please. Do you know how many of them stumble from profession to profession, feeling like they should be doing something else? Or work hard to get into some elite profession, study, work their entire lives for a shot — and miss? People living in the wreckage of their lives, forever unsatisfied. Forever asking, 'what if I'd done something different…'"
"How many people could possibly —"
"Enough. More who are close but just out of harmony with what they could be. It's painful to watch."
"So the rationale for giving us all mind control chips is we didn't invent good career counseling?"
"Hah." Keppan stood up, started pacing, her wings awkwardly (for a Tsekiya) behind her back. She stopped and turned, glaring at Krobik, "Ceri would never have been an artist if it wasn't for me. For us Singers." She spread her wings, "It's a gesture of love, what we do for you."
"What—"
"You wouldn't know this," Keppan said quickly, "You were her father. You didn't even know what you wanted for her, which maybe was a blessing but it also clipped her wings. But I was her Singer. You have no idea the work I put in. Her flighty mind, her fickle obsessions. She would have never had the focus or the drive to become an artist no matter how talented her talons or how good her eye for color. I gave her that, not you."
"You think I wouldn't have noticed?" Krobik tilted his head, "And as much as art gives her joy, why do you get to decide?"
"Why do you? Think it's some father's right?" Keppan laughed. Mockingly.
"No. But is it yours?"
"Yes. I have been entrusted with this power. I can know everyone more intimately than they know themselves. And I can give them happy, fulfilled lives. No one has to wonder where they fit in. Struggle with ennui. We free them from that because we make society for them. The Federation, well. They just let the ecosystem run its course, damn the consequences." She looked at Krobik, "You don't seem impressed."
"Are you trying to impress me?"
"No. Maybe. I was hoping you could see the logic."
"I am trying to. But like I said, I don't understand how you went from 'people sometimes make poor choices in their lives' to 'let's carefully control billions of sentients."
"It's not just that," Keppan sighed, "it's just what I focus on because I like working on psyches. Making people happy with fulfilling lives."
He thought about what he'd suddenly started thinking right before joining Ceri. "...and because you felt your father steered you wrong?"
Keppan stopped her pacing, stared at Krobik. Then she let out a hoarse, cawing laugh. "I forget how good you are."
Krobik looked proud of himself, "Thank you."
"Of course you owe that in part to me. Even if you resent it." She had a distant look in her eyes, "I would never have ended up as an Actual Intelligence were I not pushed… but the difference is, to your mind our push always comes from within. You never feel like you're forced to do anything. And before you object: there's a system. Oversight. Not one parent's desire to live vicariously through their child."
Krobik was scribbling this all down.
"But yes, there are other factors. The Eldest who were the first girls at Antaria to become Singers saw how all the complexity of society undid everything. Led to nuclear war. People made their little bubbles. And then forces no one can really understand only encouraged them to stay in those bubbles. And I don't mean, forces like us, Intelligences. No, I mean forces in cyberspace, almost like rocks in a stream, diverting the flow organically but mindlessly. Algorithms, content boosts, weighted search results. Things with no more intelligence than slime mold controlling what people see and thus what they think. Stray in your community and hate all others. Revel in groupthink. Suborn your will to something greater. It tore apart the Imrael. It almost killed Horizon, were it not for the girls in Antaria Valley. Same for the Lintrid. And the Federation? They are one lapse in judgement away from suffering the same fate."
"And the ISC? Don't they have a robust system for dealing with this?"
Keppan smiled, "They've basically made an unthinking parody of a Singer. An unconscious algorithm of policy and check and balances and oversight. It will go three ways: they will continue this way until they forget why those guardrails are there and then tear themselves apart, they will evolve into semi-democratic authoritarianism, or they will eventually invent their own actual Singers as neutral arbitrators of the laws."
"So you manage the complexity directly."
"Yes! The Eldest knew that for sophonts to control their own destiny, they needed to be as powerful as an AI without becoming one. To be vast and… expanded enough to grasp society in its fullness. They had to be able to look at things holistically, to see chains of production, but also the programs controlling those chains, and the lives of the people who are involved in the chains but also those who interact with them. Only an expanded intelligence can take in the complexity of this technological age and produce a coherent worldview. A coherent… contextual substrate, a shared epistemology that is based in reality and not in the media-drenched bubbles of an information ecosystem in total anarchy. With no authority or guiding hand, only the most sensational information is latched onto; and by sensational I mean anything that provokes a response — euphoric rage or frothing joy. All are the same. All latched onto by minds that can't accurately evaluate the truth they get third hand. And all this information and misinformation promoted by forces too complex for a regular intelligence to really grasp. But not Singers. We know everything about the information ecosystem and root out the misinformation."
"...but you replace it with your own. Like how the Federation are raving lunatics who are drumming up conspiracies. Or how we euthanized the mentally ill!"
"Hm."
Krobik carefully breathed, trying to compose himself. He realized that Keppan was probably doing it for him.
"Yes."
"Ugh."
"As for your next question, why we allow the omission of our existence — well, better we remain invisible." Keppan sounded like she was reciting for class, "If we were visible, our people would come to hate us. They'd want to decide how we're chosen. But they would still be manipulated. Left with only a small window into reality." She tapped the floor with a talon, "Only Singers can choose Singers. And our work must remain invisible and uncredited. It is the only way to preserve sentience from itself."
Krobik tilted his head the other way, "You mentioned the Federation pretty exclusively. I imagine you don't think totalitarian regimes or oligarchies, etcetera, don't count."
"No. They are unstable in their own ways — elite power struggles. Look no further than the Romulans, the Gorn and the Klingons for that. Or else they limit the freedom of their citizens severely. I see that look, we are not the same. They force the path of their citizens with pain and anguish and violence. We are merely a voice on the wind pushing you to the right path."
"And you? Who put you on the path to becoming a Singer?"
"Back to my father? Really, Krobik? Are you a tabloid journalist now?"
"No, that's not what I'm talking about. I know…"
"Right. I see where your thoughts are now. We clearly have favorites. Or at least people we mentor. So who made me into a Singer. No — you think brainwashed." She rolled her eyes, "As if that hasn't occurred to me. It doesn't even…"
"No, it doesn't," Krobik said. Keppan stopped mid speech, surprised. "It doesn't match what you told me. The Singers need complex organic minds to convert, and they don't like making people shut their brains off. It stands to reason they wouldn't rewrite someone's personality and cognition for that."
"Right," Keppan replied, "Sorry. I have had this conversation before. 'How do you know you're not a puppet yourself,' or 'maybe they just programmed you.'" She laughed, "Ridiculous. You'll understand how ridiculous it is if your mind is expanded to a Singer."
"But have you considered they're doing their work the old fashioned way?" Krobik leaned forward, "I don't think I'll ever become a Singer. Not right now. Because I'd disagree too much with it. But that wasn't my role, was it? I was a blunt instrument for you Singers, finding corruption in the places you needed me to. So I'm out. Instead you'd find people who already essentially believe the same things you do. Or if not, you'll be the whisper on the wind you mentioned, putting them on the path to be amenable, right?"
Keppan was silent. She'd paced into the corner of the room and now stared at Krobik.
"Maybe that was the plan for me. Maybe you need someone more amenable. But enough whispers, enough paths nudged, who knows where you could end up. And if you don't, the Singers just pass you over. Passive selection. And if you're amenable, one way or another, I bet they just condition you the old fashioned way. Propaganda. Self-justifying rhetoric. It's just like how the Tauni elites only come from three universities, which produces one convergent mode of thought. And those who are outside that are quietly pushed aside. Or how in the OSA to be anyone important you have to be either a Beya champion or an industrial designer." Krobik laughed, "That's all you and your friends have done Keppan! You won an intellectual beya-war. Face it, Keppan. You're programmed. Just in a different way."
She stared at him from her corner. "This has been a fruitless conversation, Krobik."
"And yet you are having it. Are you having some doubts?"
"No."
"I understand. This is like me talking my pet through a tough decision. Except my pet doesn't have the gall to question it." Krobik dropped his head down, "I'm sorry, Keppan. Take it from an old journalist. Your story doesn't add up. And I think you're starting to realize that."
"It's not true." Keppan said. "It's time for me to go."
"Please, consider what—"
Krobik and Ceri were in his yard. The stars were watching them, and they were beautiful and cold. Dancing up among them were the sparks from a bonfire that blazed away merrily in front of them. Krobik frowned. He felt there was something important about that bonfire. He had a sudden concern he'd tossed something important in there — his phone? But no, he looked more closely and saw nothing but regular combustibles. Normal, good combustibles. Who needed a corkboard anyways? So old fashioned.
"I don't think I'll be using paper anymore," Krobik said, and as soon as it left his tongue it felt like some truth had locked into place, "Too much hassle."
"Cool story, Dad," Ceri said. "But glad you're deciding to leave the Ancient Arts behind and join the rest of us in the present day."
"What's your latest piece in? Stone sculpture? Seems pretty ancient…"
"Oh hush, you."
As relaxing as the fire was, Krobik had a sensation he couldn't shake that there was something he had to do. But it soon vanished, carried away like the gauzy remains of paper, aloft on the breeze.
Posted for @Iron Wolf , who is limited to phone-posting at the moment.
Some of you on the discord may remember me talking about doing a "AITA" style post for a Singer as a writing exercise. Well, this is somewhat the end product.
It's genuinely amazing how you've managed to make them both pitiable but arguably more monstrous than a lot of other Star Trek villains. At least the Borg don't have the delusion that they're doing what's best for you when they assimilate you.
"And the ISC? Don't they have a robust system for dealing with this?"
Tallael smiled, "They've basically made an unthinking parody of a Singer. An unconscious algorithm of policy and check and balances and oversight. It will go three ways: they will continue this way until they forget why those guardrails are there and then tear themselves apart, they will evolve into semi-democratic authoritarianism, or they will eventually invent their own actual Singers as neutral arbitrators of the laws."
Uh oh. That the raider fleet, or something else?
Claimed to the local council craftspeople who had removed the system and installed obsolete technology in its place that he was doing it for a story.
"My name is Singer Tallael. I am one of the people you are trying to find with your…" she gestured in a wide arc at Krobik's careful work, "...'reporting.'"
Tallael half-closed her eyes, sighing, "As I said, we're here to guide, not replace. We're not some overbearing father who wants perfect little automatons.
"I am trying to. But like I said, I don't understand how you went from 'people sometimes make poor choices in their lives' to 'let's carefully control billions of sentients."
It's not enough that they get locked away- even for eternity- indignant and certain of their righteousness, feeling ill-used in their narcissistic rage.
No, that's letting them off far too easily.
I want Tallael to understand the unpardonable unspeakable abominable nature of the crime they just committed.
This one, single act can never be forgiven, and the rest of the galaxy is justified in regarding the Singers with horror. This act of slow murder of self is monstrous.
I want them to understand that, to face their victims' pain, and know that this is wrong and it is unforgivable.
I'd tell them about restorative justice, and explain that they can never make up for their crimes.
It's impossible, as the victims are all gone- even the still living ones.
So, Tallael's one, single act here. Unforgivable. Abominable. Damning.
This act, one they've repeated thousands, millions, billions of times, to millions of sentients.
Every single act, abominable.
Every time, every single murder of the self, to support a system that engenders more of this. Unforgivable.
Billions of acts of individual horror.
Once they understand this, once they know- then they can be locked away.
It's not enough that they get locked away- even for eternity- indignant and certain of their righteousness, feeling ill-used in their narcissistic rage.
No, that's letting them off far too easily.
I want Tallael to understand the unpardonable unspeakable abominable nature of the crime they just committed.
This one, single act can never be forgiven, and the rest of the galaxy is justified in regarding the Singers with horror. This act of slow murder of self is monstrous.
I want them to understand that, to face their victims' pain, and know that this is wrong and it is unforgivable.
I'd tell them about restorative justice, and explain that they can never make up for their crimes.
It's impossible, as the victims are all gone- even the still living ones.
So, Tallael's one, single act here. Unforgivable. Abominable. Damning.
This act, one they've repeated thousands, millions, billions of times, to millions of sentients.
Every single act, abominable.
Every time, every single murder of the self, to support a system that engenders more of this. Unforgivable.
Billions of acts of individual horror.
Once they understand this, once they know- then they can be locked away.
