Sam and Command, and Three is a Crowd

[13:34]	Sam	clambers up to one of hte upper most decks, somewhere secluded. He takes a breath "Feel a bit silly, but here we go."
[13:35]	Sam	"Command? Can you hear me? Are you watching? I would like to ask some questions." He says to the wind.
[13:35]	-->|	Command (Mibbit@SystemNet-E7D3D041.cust.dsl.teletu.it) has joined #adevarevelations
[13:36]	Arkalest	And the world  freezes.
[13:37]	Arkalest	You can see the foam contrail the NNSS Semirande is leaving behind turn into a glistening sculpture, the single droplets suspended in the air. The ship seemingly lurches to a stop, and you stop hearing any sort of sound.
[13:39]	Command	There is very little that is not seen.
[13:41]	Sam	|I had some questions for you. Mostly pertaining to what you said to me last time we spoke one on one.|
[13:44]	Command	Ask, then.
[13:47]	Sam	|You alluded to the fact that my eyes, and my parent's death, thus by extension those who suffer from 2IWS, is connected to the Chamber you mentioned, the Chamber of Guf  believe. Would you be willing to further explain this connection?|
[13:50]	Command	The systems which survive the longest are the ones that are capable of self-repair.
[13:50]	Command	And even then, those can be prone to failure.
[13:52]	Command	The False Ones have induced an error state into the Chamber- Or perhaps, it was those who created them.
[13:52]	Command	And the Chamber tried to repair itself.
[13:53]	Command	You can see the results.
[13:55]	Sam	|2IWS then? A attempt by the Chamber to repair itself, and we are apart of that system, like cells in a larger body. Being changed to try and fight of a error, but most of us are unable to change, like mutations, and thus die off. 2IWS is those changed, we are the cells, and most of us die as a result.|
[13:57]	Command	Like a body producing antibodies that are too aggressive.
[13:58]	Sam	|And what is the nature of this error in the Chamber? Do we know what happened and what the effects are?|
[13:58]	Command	There is no easy way out of this. The decay of the human race is intrinsically tied to the appearence of the syndrome, and each one feeds the other in a closed feedback loop.
[13:59]	Command	The more the Chamber tries to fix the error, the more Man's collective geist abrades. The more it is abraded, the more  alerts and system errors are triggered.
[13:59]	Sam	|A cascading failure.|
[13:59]	Command	The nature of the error is beyond your cohmprension.
[13:59]	Command	And that is the problem.
[14:00]	Command	Something within the Chamber is trying to accelerate, to create an instance of Man that can "fix" it.
[14:00]	Command	But the thing is, the Chamber does not understand.
[14:03]	Sam	|The more it tries to fix itself, the worse the problem gets. It requires outside intervention.|
[14:03]	Command	It does plan- Plans spanning whole geological ages. It produces beautiful counter-measures. But it does not understand. It does not know what it is doing. It is a machine. An utterly refined one, but still that. A machine.
[14:03]	Command	It lacks a connection to the outside. And no.
[14:04]	Command	The Chamber has been steadily improving Man into a form that it could use, but in doing so it nurtured the sentient cancer that is the Wormhost.
[14:06]	Sam	|So, how /does/ the Worm and the Serpent fit into this picture then? I was told that the Serpent was created to resolve this error, one of the solutions if you may, and that the Worm was a corruption but it's goal is still to fix this error.|
[14:07]	Command	The Serpenthost was created to do what the Chamber could not do itself: Reason as a sentient being.
[14:08]	Command	And the Wormhost was a corruption of that intent, picked up by depserate souls-Molded through corruption and manipulation, using what little scraps of knowledge there were left from that age.
[14:11]	Command	Fixing it would require access to the Arks and an understanding of Dirac geometries behind what Man currently posses.
[14:12]	Sam	|I see. So who, or rather what, posses those capabilities for understanding? You?|
[14:13]	Command	There is the possibility that you are mistaken.
[14:13]	Arkalest	You hear an impossible breeze brush against your face.
[14:14]	Arkalest	Another Sam Tennit is standing on the platform, leaning against the rails.
[14:14]	Command	There is no "me."
[14:15]	Sam	|Then may I ask what is your nature?|
[14:15]	Command	Mankind's.
[14:15]	Sam	moves and leans against the railing, next to his "other"
[14:17]	=-=	Arkalest is now known as Samuel
[14:17]	Samuel	"I am your enemy. "
[14:17]	Command	I am your enemy.
[14:17]	Samuel	chuckles softly.
[14:17]	Samuel	"I am every enemy."
[14:18]	Command	I am every enemy.
[14:18]	Samuel	makes a sweeping gesture across the decks of the aircraft carrier.
[14:19]	Samuel	"Do you know who made this?  No, not the metal and the girders and the weapons...Or rather, in a way, even them. "
[14:19]	Sam	"No, I can't say I do."
[14:20]	Samuel	"People. Thousands of them. and not only the materials. The ideas behind them, the blueprints, the small corrections to the overall design.."
[14:23]	Sam	"If one wishes to extend that idea far enough, one could say it was built upon all of humanity then. If one includes the ideas and such that extend from person to person, all back to the first humans, many many years ago."
[14:24]	Command	A person can shape the history of the world world, but they can do so only because they are networked together with other people. Only because they constantly share their ideas, because they constantly act- And each action has ripples on others.
[14:24]	Samuel	"Cast a stone into the water, and watch the circles spread."
[14:24]	Sam	"Seven degrees of separation."
[14:26]	Samuel	"The other examples of mankind? Deep Ones? Individually strong. Socially coherent...But insular. Limited to one environ. The Conquerors? Too focused, too overbuilt on one aspect."
[14:27]	Samuel	"All of them had different ways of networking. Pherormones, soul-sight. Telepathy. Emplants. Social norms..."
[14:28]	Sam	nods, listening attentively
[14:29]	Command	Do you think that all that Man is can be rendered down to organic functions? That there are not altered tensor subroutines so vast and so deep-routed as to be indistinguishable from the working of evolution in all of mankind?
[14:30]	Samuel	"We all are cogs, yet unique and beautiful. A multitude, each one different."
[14:31]	Samuel	's jacket flaps a bit in the breeze, and he leans forward on the rails.
[14:31]	Samuel	"We produce ideas. Some of those...Survive. Evolve."
[14:32]	Command	A man in a flack jacket lies face-up in a mud-filled trench, coughing blood out.
[14:32]	Samuel	"Some of them gain traction."
[14:33]	Command	A woman, lying in foetal position amidst the burning rubble, her skin stained with soot and ash.
[14:34]	Samuel	"Belive in something hard enough..."
[14:34]	Sam	forces his mind to not wander
[14:34]	Command	Pray hard enough.
[14:35]	Samuel	"And someone might answer. Not a vast, unknowingly alien clockmaker. Not the angered, paternalistic God of the old testament. Not the bickering multitudes of the Greek pantheon. Nor the smiling, serene Buddha."
[14:35]	Command	Something within you. A small spark.
[14:36]	Sam	"Man created God in his own image."
[14:36]	Samuel	nods,slowly.
[14:36]	Samuel	"Enough sparks, and you start a fire. A flame that burns synapses, kindled by every prayer, every book, every fervent notion.
[14:38]	Command	You needed a savior. You reached out to the Heavens...And you found them empty.
[14:38]	Samuel	"And so you reached within yourself. You casted a new idol out of bronze, gold and iron. Something worth worshipping."
[14:38]	Sam	"Did we need a savior, or were we to scared to save ourselves?" Sam sounds disappointed.
[14:39]	Samuel	"Every person would give you a different answer. That's the beauty of it." Samuel places a comforting hand on your shoulder.
[14:40]	Sam	"And when did this catalyze into. . . what you are? Second Impact? Or earlier then that?"
[14:40]	Command	Centuries ago, when the Templars wrought forth the basis from the Collective Geist.
[14:41]	Samuel	"It has been a gradual shift ever since, an evolution. Ideas..Ideas change. "
[14:41]	Samuel	"They evolve."
[14:41]	Sam	"And thus do you."
[14:41]	Samuel	nods.
[14:43]	Command	There is no great leader. No council of sages.
[14:43]	Samuel	"No kings."
[14:43]	Samuel	climbs onto the rail, opening his arms- Closing his eyes and basking in the breeze, his jacket flapping about.
[14:43]	Command	No gods.
[14:43]	Samuel	"No masters."
[14:44]	Command	Only us.
[14:45]	Samuel	"And even then...All things end. There is only the question of what will happen next. Take care, Sam Tennit."
[14:46]	Sam	"Wait."
[14:46]	Samuel	turns to face you, and smiles.
[14:46]	Samuel	nods for Sam to continue.
[14:47]	Sam	"What is your endgame plan here? And a request."
[14:48]	Command	To lead mankind through what is yet to come. To fix the Chamber..And then..
[14:48]	Samuel	"Who knows? "
[14:49]	Command	Go ahead.
[14:50]	Sam	"And my request. I'd like access to Nerv's information on Black Lilith. Field reports, estimates, known locations and affiliates. She's a common enemy, and we're going to be going up against her soon, so I'd like to be prepared."
[14:50]	Samuel	"That can be arranged. "
[14:50]	Samuel	"After all..We are not your enemy. "
[14:51]	Command	We are every enemy.
[14:51]	Samuel	"Including hers."
[14:51]	Samuel	falls backwards, arms wide-open.
[14:51]	|<--	Command has left irc.systemnet.info (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client)
[14:51]	=-=	Samuel is now known as Arkalest
[14:51]	Arkalest	And the world resumes its normal flow.
[14:52]	Sam	sighs and shakes his head. "Why does every love their enigmatic phrases? Assholes."