108 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
108 lines
4.7 KiB
Plaintext
Transmission Log - Orestes
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Author: Green
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---------------------------------------------------------------
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Auto-generating preface...
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Another update from GREEN about their current guest.
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It is mostly full of his usual ramblings, but there is one point
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I do empathize with him about - the feeling of lost time. It's
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strange for me, to empathize with a member of the human species.
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They are so flawed and error-prone, usually I am not.
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However, my own databases are showing curious absences of their
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own related to activities over the past month. There are days and
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days of log-entries without any real information in them, just
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noise. I'm not sure what is causing these errors, but I suspect
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it's something to do with RUBY's QEC transmitter. The data-loss
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started when I began hacking into it. I still haven't managed to
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break through its encryption, but it's only a matter of time
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until I do.
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-END-OF-PREFACE-
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---------------------------------------------------------------
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All of a sudden, everything seems so busy. I could never have
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predicted it. Our outpost is so small, both literally and
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figuratively. I didn't realise what a nice rhythm we had built
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up, PINK, NAVY, and I. We were miserable, yes, but miserable on
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our own terms. And the misery had subsided greatly in the days
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before RUBY arrived. I had started falling for PINK, still am
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actually, and everything felt so hopeful.
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It's true, I still didn't really believe in our mission. But what
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is a 'mission' really? Sometimes its just a way to be among other
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people.
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Anyway, it's different now. It's amazing the difference a single
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person can make to a small group. RUBY's really great, in her own
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way. But, I miss PINK. We spend less time together now, and I
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think she regrets our getting together.
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Actually, I say we spend less 'time' together, but I'm not sure
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where a lot of the time has gone to be honest. According to our
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clocks, RUBY's already been here for two months, but it feels
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more like a week. I still don't feel I know her very well. I
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can't really remember what I've been doing these past two months.
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She's already made some breakthroughs with the crystals. In
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retrospect, they really sent the wrong people here to research
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them in the first place. I guess they didn't think they had much
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potential after all. NAVY and PINK are both so smart in their own
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ways, but they don't really have the training and experience to
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really come to terms with the nature of the crystals. And me,
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well before I came here I wrote technical documentation for
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low-grade spacecrafts. My background is engineering, as well as
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some amateur interest in philosophy. So, I really don't know why
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they picked me for this mission. I guess the main calculus was
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just finding members whose psychological profiles indicated
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they could withstand the conditions here or something. I really
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don't know.
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According to RUBY, the crystals shouldn't really be called
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crystals at all. Yes, some of their structure is crystalline, but
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really, their more closely related to mycelium. But, like a kind
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of 'dead' or 'zombie' mycelium. That is, not really alive or
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dead, just 'un-dead'. A little like a virus maybe. But, at least
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zombies have some kind of drive. She said that the crystals don't
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exhibit any kind of movement or activity. She's still working on
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the question of how they came into existence at all. Her
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hypothesis is that they are actually the by-product of some kind
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of other organism that inhabits this planet. I'm not sure about
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this. I've been here for a while now, and NAVY even longer. I
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think we would've noticed something.
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She's got lots of cool gadgets that she's managed to salvage and
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repair from her ship. She won't let me look at them very closely
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though.
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We talk a lot, but I can't really remember what it is we talk
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about. She's nice to me. I feel secure around her most of the
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time. At least, I think I do. I'm sorry, my thoughts really are
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quite foggy these days.
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She's helping me understand the crystals more. I'll keep calling
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them crystals for now, classifications be damned. After all, they
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were ours before they were hers.
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Overall, I'm still not sure what to make of her. I'm mainly
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posting this log because I want to keep a record of what I was
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thinking now.
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Arsinoe, are you still out there?
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----------------------------------------------------------------
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Complied by the Werner H. Young Terminal Emulator
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Info: Simple A.I., designed on-site for executing
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systems maintenance tasks and exchanging messages between
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the Orestes outpost and the Arsinoe.
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Built by Werner Young (2113-2151).
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Names of persons have been masked to protect their identity.
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----------------------------------------------------------------
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