∞
xGSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry
I think I speak for all of us when I say — relative to that last bit there — what?
∞
xGSV Contents May Differ
Well, quite. The Smile Tolerantly has been discovered in the Zihdren home system and now apparently describes itself as a tributary adjunct to the Z-R, with enhanced loyalties and a hybrid OS now including multiple elements congenitally associated with Z-R craft.
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xGCU Passing By And Thought I’d Drop In
“Enhanced loyalties”?
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xGSV Contents May Differ
The thinking is this actually means divided loyalties, though when pressed the vessel also expressed a preference for “dual loyalties”.
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xLOU Caconym
Is there any hint it has access to the Z rather than just the Z-R?
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xGSV Contents May Differ
Sadly, none. In fact it specifically ruled that out. It was at pains to stress it was a level down from whatever parts of the Z-R get to pick up the mysterious but majestic crumbs of information and instruction that fall from the celestially elevated high table that is the Enfolded Realm. It would appear to have become devoutly eccentric, if not technically Deranged. It ceased communication with the ship which re-discovered it — its own old home GSV, the Unreliable Witness — after a few short messages, and was willing subsequently to reveal only that their exchange had already run over some (it is believed arbitrarily arrived-at) limit.
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xGSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry
So do we now need somebody specialised who can talk to it? Or a succession of them, each claiming their ration?
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xGSV Contents May Differ
Possibly. This is being looked into.
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xMSV Pressure Drop
And, a “hybrid OS”?
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xGSV Contents May Differ
Whatever that might be taken to mean. It has hinted that it has incorporated certain processing paradigms and substrate/software architectures from the Z-R into its Mind.
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xMSV Pressure Drop
My first — and, thus far, abiding — reaction is, That’s diseased. But perhaps that’s just me?
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xGSV Contents May Differ
No, not just you.
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xGCU Displacement Activity
Ditto.
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xGSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry
Okay. While accepting that that particular nugget of nonsense presents as a one-off random irrelevance, it still seems somehow pointedly symbolic of this whole enterprise turning up grisly unpleasantnesses that it might, in retrospect, have been better to have left stewing under their particular little rocks. Need we go on with this? Can’t we just, for once, let the slumbering ogre be, and step lightly away?
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xMSV Pressure Drop
I might see some merit in that.
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xLOU Caconym
Well I don’t. It is not seriously being suggested that we back off just because what we seek isn’t falling into our laps, is it? We made an undertaking to help the Z-R. We stick to that.
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xGSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry
But they don’t seem too concerned about us sticking with it. Why should we?
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xLOU Caconym
Because somebody around here has to keep their word and do the right thing.
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xGSV Contents May Differ
Let’s vote on it. We can discuss details later, and/or set up different proposals, but just to clear the air here, the proposal is: we abandon the whole shebang regarding the attack on the Z-R ship and the BoT (and whether it’s actually “T” or not) and go back to what we were each doing before this all blew up. Yes or no?
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LOU Caconym No.
GCU Displacement Activity No.
GSV Empiricist Abstain.
GSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry Yes.
Ue Mistake Not… No.
MSV Passing By And Thought I’d Drop In Yes.
MSV Pressure Drop No.
LSV You Call This Clean? No.
GSV Contents May Differ (Co-ordinator’s abstention, but leaning towards Yes.)
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xGSV Contents May Differ
Clear enough. Does anybody want to resign from the group?… No? Any other comments? No?… Really? All right. As ever; back as and when with whatever exciting new snags start laddering the skein…
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xGSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry
oGSV Contents May Differ
Worth a try. I appreciate you making the point about leaning towards Yes even though the vote was already lost.
∞
Least I could do. Maybe thoughts will change with subsequent developments and we might vote again.
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I shall cling to that filament.
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xLOU Caconym
oMSV Pressure Drop
“Pointedly symbolic”! What gibberish. And our group coordinator is “listing”.
∞
That was “leaning”, as well you know.
∞
Still off-kilter.
∞
Perhaps some of our colleagues worry we are starting to indulge in group-think, and to obsess.
∞
We are a group of Minds. Thinking is what we do. And obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination.
However, they’re still aboard, even if they might be sitting fretting in the lifeboats. Unlike the completely overboard idiocy of this “Hybrid OS” abomination.
∞
First I’d heard of that. Some sort of weird Z-R mutant Mind. That’s almost baroquely… horrifying. Ghoulish, even. Positively Gothick. What could have possessed it?
∞
To do it? Who knows. But we know what possesses it now. The Zihdren-Remnanter.
∞
If this marks the start of a new, fashionable trend amongst ship Minds, I may Sublime myself shortly.
∞
Still, might yet yield advantage. Never mind the denials. Any sort of more direct link to the Z-R than we’ve been used to until now implies better access to the Z within the Enfold. An opportunity.