435 young Cyrils lighthouse moment
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Friday, July 25, 2008 and Forever After
Thus begins my godhood. If you will excuse this wording: I have literally an astronomical amount to learn, think about and do. To start with, consider the VERY big picture:
I haven't yet learned enough about the present Universe, but when I've done so I'll start delving into the past, making myself into an archeologist on the largest possible scale because I want to understand what happened to all the past alien species that should have reached advanced levels of civilization. From what I've already learned from the existing species, some of which are in trouble, it appears that the drives that cause each species to succeed also contain the flaws that lead to their eventual destruction. The most obvious example of that being the aggression that allows one species to triumph over all the others in its environment. When there are no longer any competitors, that aggressive instinct still continues to act, but against its own species. Or if that species does get into space, its aggression will sooner or later lead it to attack a species that it really shouldn't. From what I can see, interstellar wars don't last long because ecosystems - usually planets - are too easily destroyed or rendered uninhabitable when the combatants have advanced technologies. Another obvious psychological driver that can build a species up but also harm it, is greed. Both of those examples are very evident in humans. Some alien species seem to have quite different psychologies, such as being highly cooperative, but I'm beginning to see that they are experiencing the same "Initially good, eventually bad" progression.
I definitely want to do more research on this issue. If the seeds for success are inevitably, or even just usually, also fatal flaws, should I interfere with that process? And if so, how? There are MANY possibilities, some of which are strange at first thought but must be considered, such as preventing any species from achieving dominance. As a god I can very easily ensure that every species is exposed to a superior one, even if it's a fake one. But should I? Humanity's arrogance will give me great delight in bursting, but it's not clear that I should do that to every other successful or near-successful species throughout the Universe. If not, then maybe I shouldn't do it to humanity in as many dimensions as I'm currently intending. I think bursting humanity's arrogance will help it considerably, but the long-term effects are unpredictable so maybe I should play safer by leaving more dimensions alone as insurance against my misjudgment.
I've already seen that evolution operates throughout the entire Universe, with species coming and going as a result of their successes and failures. Until very recently I had never thought to question whether evolution was a good thing, so my initial thought had been that it'd be best for me to let that natural process continue unhindered, possibly even if humanity eliminates itself. (I don't want to lose my loved ones, not even millennia from now, but there are many ways to ensure their survival including ways that don't depend on humanity's survival. There's no reason why my loved ones can't be transplanted into another species. By then we should be so familiar with many other intelligent species that we will likely know several others we'd prefer to be part of, especially if humanity is so stupid as to destroy itself.)
On the other hand, it has recently occurred to me that evolution is literally a stupid system, as there is absolutely no guiding intelligence involved anywhere in the process. Whether or not a species does well is literally a matter of luck, and given that bad luck only needs to strike very badly once to wipe out a species, evolution surely can't be the best way to run the Universe. That's especially true because it is such an incredibly slow process, so it has a dangerously lagged feedback loop to environmental changes. (For those of you who don't understand what a "delayed feedback loop" means, imagine driving your car, but after you turn the steering wheel there's a ten-second delay before the wheels themselves turn.) Evolution is terribly slow, taking many hundreds of generations to have any significant effect on a large population, which renders evolution unable to react fast enough to reinforce successful behaviors, or punish unsuccessful behaviors, in a rapidly changing environment such as humanity has now. Evolution is therefore not selecting the best characteristics, so it's creating humans who are increasingly bad fits for an increasingly complex world. Maybe it's evolution's deficiencies that have been causing civilizations all over the Universe to collapse? Which immediately creates the question: What is the best way to run the Universe?
I don't believe the Universe has a purpose. It exists and can be used, and that is all. It's effectively just a big box so has no intrinsic goal of its own. It is now up to me to choose how I will influence what happens inside that box.
I could write: "It will be my use of the Universe that will define whether it is used for Good or Evil," but I suspect that even those two concepts don't apply to the Universe as a whole. That seems like a very strange claim, but I believe it could be true. My intending to be a Universal archaeologist is largely motivated by wanting to get some perspective on the Universe, but as interesting as the task will be, I suspect I'll never get enough perspective. That's the fundamental problem.
Good and Evil certainly apply within the box. For example, every organized religion has clerics who do good and others who do evil. But there's no perspective from which to apply the concepts of Good and Evil to the box's entire contents as a whole. For example, I could create and spread life throughout the Universe, so there would be FAR more of it than there is now. Or I could identify what I thought was the 'Good-est' species and spread it throughout the entire Universe, removing all the lesser species to make more room for more of the best one. Or I could continue to let species naturally succeed and/or fail according to their own merits or lack thereof. Or I could take the perspective that life is damaging the Universe (certainly humanity is damaging the Earth's surface itself and its natural life), so I should destroy all life, or perhaps just tool-using life, to leave the Universe 'pure'. Or I could remove all of the Universe's existing life and repopulate it with life that I would create from scratch, perhaps solar-powered life. Is any one of those mutually incompatible options more Good or more Evil than the others? I simply can't judge because judgment requires a perspective of some sort; usually a goal or at least a guiding principle. Mom and Dad are good parents because that goal is defined externally to them; a god of the Universe can't be Good because there's no external definition. The god's actions can only be judged from internal perspectives, and just about everything with a brain has different ideas.
I certainly don't have a goal and suspect I never will have one that I believe is essential to pursue throughout the entire Universe. Although I can easily think of dozens of possible guiding principles that I could adopt and pursue, such as "Maximize the number of intelligent species in the Universe," choosing one of those would simply be my pleasing myself rather than doing something because it is "The Right Thing To Do". There's simply no way for me to tell what is "Right".
That doesn't mean I won't be doing Universe-wide things to please myself. The possible guiding principle of "Keeping the Universe pure by removing all intelligent life," won't even be considered simply because I don't want to do it. In my selfish desire to have a Universe full of interesting creatures, whether that principle is Right or Wrong doesn't matter to me.
I would feel easier if I knew what to do, but I don't believe that's ever going to happen. Whatever I choose to do with the Universe, there is no way to get an outside perspective on my actions because there is no outside. I don't see any alternative to my simply doing whatever I like. That, as much as anything else, defines me as a god.
If I knew what "The Right Thing To Do" was I'd probably do it in all the dimensions, unless I selfishly didn't want to, but I like to think I wouldn't be that selfish. In the absence of knowledge of "The Right Thing", I'll worry about what I'm doing but I'll have a lot more fun because I'll be able to do many different things all over the Universe, many of which will be done just for the heck of it. All things considered, my families and I are going to have some very interesting times, especially me.
As well has having fun, I want to do a good job of being a god, although that's a bit tricky given that I can't tell what "good" means on the largest scale. On the smaller scale, things which make more people happy are probably good (once again putting me in opposition to the Christian God). Because I refuse to risk breaking Time I will be actively running many large- and long-term experiments to help me determine what makes the most people happy. I admire the Scientific Method and it's going to be put to use on a scale never before imagined. It'll be interesting to come up with many possibilities and to test them.
I'll make sure I memorize snapshots of various w-dimensions' versions of Earth and humanity every fifty years or so, for possible use as templates if I ever want to recreate my species. I'll probably also do that for other species that I become very interested in. Recreating old copies might be preferable to all the choices contemporary to whenever I'm having a problem with humanity, or it's having a problem with itself. The templates might also be useful if I set up a new w-dimension, or simply want humanity to meet itself in some interesting ways, for example, imagine if the first spaceship Earth sent to Alpha Centauri arrived there to find an Earth IDENTICAL to the real Earth but from fifty years before, including younger versions of people who are still alive on the real Earth. I could have some fun with that, especially if I revealed myself as a god and gave some useful explanation for what I'd done, such as, "I believe your rampant greed and political corruption is about to destroy life on your planet, so I've made an earlier copy just in case." That should cause some potentially useful social upheaval.
The several preceding chapters were mostly about ideas I could use on humanity, with this chapter touching on some very large-scale concepts in part to explain why I don't have any strong reason to hesitate in my dealings with humanity. My not knowing what "The Right Thing" is, my suspecting there is no such thing, and wanting to enjoy myself, mean different humanities will be heading in some very different directions. Even with just the single species that is humanity, there are millions of experiments to run over many lifetimes, by which time I'll have thought of innumerable more ideas that I want to test. Then there's whatever I will decide to do with all the Universe's many other species. Evolution has had its uses, but intelligent guidance of life must be a better idea - or will be as soon as I work out what my guiding principles will be. I should give that a lot of thought because guiding the Universe must be a lot of responsibility for an 18-year old boy.
Or is it? Responsibility is something I am imposing on myself, and already I can feel myself being casual about it. There are so many dimensions and I can reset any errors so easily that I don't feel that I have to be ultra-careful before influencing them. Perhaps I'm just excited about all the possibilities, or maybe I'm just lazy and prefer to make it up as I go, but I'm already starting to make things happen on many Earths. I might never make any plans for those Earths, just nudge them from time to time in whatever ways appeal to me at the moment. Is that irresponsible? Who's to judge? What criteria are they judging me against?
^
"Guiding the Universe must be a lot of responsibility for an 18-year old boy" is a true statement in respect of my being an 18-year old boy. I AM a teenager. Admittedly a very powerful one, but currently a very inexperienced one who's very happy to have his families to provide him with guidance.
I'm looking forward to seeing how my families and I develop over the years, centuries and epochs. I can easily make my families' minds larger, more powerful and network them, possibly all the way up to my level of power. I don't currently intend to take them all the way - although I might change my mind about that in the future - but I do intend for them to develop some of the way. They'll have so much knowledge of the Universe that keeping their lives small will likely be dissatisfying for them. We will make a diverse team:
Prof and I are very interested in science, which will clearly be of paramount importance in the future.
Ava is interested in nature, which is also of great importance.
Julia has a natural affinity for management. We're going to be doing a LOT of that in the future. (Yet again I differ from the Christian God: as gods go, He was a truly pathetic manager.)
Carol is very nurturing. At the moment that just applies to her relationships with us, her best friends, and soon to our babies, but as her capabilities increase, so will her horizons.
Nevaeh is very interested in art and design. She has described her artistic tastes as "wide", but she ain't seen nuthin' yet! She's going to be amazed at some of the "width" of art that the Universe's creatures create. In terms of her contribution to my pantheon, Nevaeh's perspective is quite different from ours, which will add nicely to the mix (everything she does with us is "nice"). I did momentarily think about excluding her from becoming a demigod on the basis that she hasn't done anything to deserve it, but neither have I. Although Nevaeh's dependency on us would be trivially easy for me to reverse and I could make her happy to return to her family, there's no reason for me to do that. It wouldn't be fair to remove her just because I was more successful than I had expected to be. Besides, my other girls would mutiny, which would make our pantheon all too Greek- and Roman-like.
Donna is into sports. I can't see any benefit to our pantheon or to the Universe's creatures in that. My having the perspective of a god hasn't changed my opinion on the near uselessness of sports. [I have a theory that sports developed WAY back in prehistory when mankind wandered around in little tribal or family groups. The groups were so small and survival so perilous that 'warfare' between the groups could result in their failure, even for the winners if one or two of their hunters were injured. So mankind invented sport as a way of showing off prowess to discourage injurious conflict: "Our men can throw their spears better than your men, so you'd better leave us alone!" The instinct of supporting the home team is bred into us so strongly because it truly was suicidal not to do it for most of our history. In short: sport is a VERY out of date, unnecessary adult activity, even if it's still instinctively compelling for the primitive members of today's society.] Donna has yet to develop any adult interests, besides sex, and we can't guess what she'll pursue when pointless competitive entertainment ceases to be her main focus. Despite her 'adult' interest in sex, I can't see her as any sort of Sex Goddess since she's too interested in doing it herself to be interested in other people's behavior. Besides, treating her as such a goddess would be applying the classical meaning of "pantheon" too much to us. I don't mean that to be literally true; it's just a somewhat illuminating comparison.
Friday, September 2 to Sunday, September 25, 2005 (Continued) I announced that we didn't have time for another group Cutie-Duckling date before school restarted. Although I had a lot of other things going on, such as the Target Game's coming to a head, there would've been time for another Cutie-Duckling group date if I'd wanted one, but I delayed it while I waited to see if there was any fallout from the last group grope. At the speed the Cutie-Ducklings were running ahead of my plans,...
Sunday, May 1, 2005 (Continued) Julia started the meeting off with, "I'll begin by saying that I had a few wrong ideas when I started the Liaison system. The biggest error I made was wanting every suitable girl at school to fall for Mark, to want to chase him, and to treat him the way I thought they should. That caused me far too much frustration and work. So many girls failed to understand how wonderful he is that I felt I was banging my head against a brick wall most of the time. I...
Friday, July 25, 2008 and on There aren't an infinite number of w's. They are finite, just as the x, y and z dimensions are finite and bounded. The w's tend to have evolved thematic commonalities as a consequence of the properties of the synchronization process, but some random events have caused diversions which no practical amount of synchronization can bring back toward the average. There are w's where Earth is empty of humanity. In some cases Earth is no longer habitable because it...
Back to Monday, June 30 to Thursday, July 3, 2008 There are about 3.5 billion dimensions in Category #5, in which Mark had single-mindedly and ignorantly remained out of my ascendancy adventure. I wrote at length about the first category of dimensions, those that had 32-minded Marks, and I'll write at length about this, the last category with any of my loved ones in it. In the first category, my families knew more about my uniqueness than my families in any other type of dimension. In this...
Wednesday, April 6, 2005 (Continued) We lay on Julia's bed, holding each other with our faces an inch apart. It's a wonderful position to talk with your girlfriend in. Julia asked me, "How has your evening been?" "Some things stand out. First, learning 8-ball so quickly was interesting, to put it mildly. Your brothers were shocked, so that was fun. Dad and Prof bet on me before my first game. Talk about having faith in me! When they gave me half their winnings your father said I...
Saturday, May 7, 2005 (Continued) Toward the end of the meal, I discovered one thing about Chinese culture that was most welcome: they take it as a compliment when you eat a lot of their food. They were VERY complimented by me! Mrs. Cheng took considerable pride in how much I put away, and she joyously encouraged me to keep adding to it. I did my best, but even I have a limit; a highly complimentary limit, but a finite one. Shortly thereafter, I discovered another thing I liked about...
Friday, July 25, 2008 and on The Universe is a truly AMAZING place. It offers countless sources of beauty, wonder and excitement. It has a depth of ... I'm sorry, but you'll never understand; your minds are WAY too small. But take it from me, you're living in an awesome creation. You'll have to take it from me because I'm not letting you follow me. I've already adjusted the laws of physics so the W-Dimension synchronization process is weaker. Partly because I want the dimensions to be...
Saturday, May 7, 2005 By this time I'd told them my story too, which had mostly been a matter of me saying, "While you were doing that, I was driving to X," where "X" was about the only part of my story that changed from day to day. There'd been a few interruptions to the smooth flow of story telling. The first occurring early when Prof remembered to ask me where my fake ID and disguise was. I told him I'd hidden them in the car, and he made us go out and get them immediately, "In...
Sunday, September 25, 2005 There's a bunch of small points I'll take care of here. I'd had eleven déjà vu's in the 125 days since my last merge, which was starting to be a statistically useful number. That meant an average of eleven or twelve days between déjà vu's. When they occurred didn't seem to be totally random. I'd never had two close together, for example, which a truly random frequency would've given sometimes. They appeared to have a normal distribution, as they most...
Monday, May 9, 2005 (Continued) At the base of the stairs I called loudly for Julia, who answered from the kitchen, which was only a few steps away. I jogged into the kitchen. Julia was in the kitchen with Robert and a couple of the bug sweeper guys, who were doing their thing with an impressive looking bunch of equipment being wheeled around on a trolley. Despite my being dressed in only a towel, I'd been hoping that Julia wasn't alone, figuring that Chloe would behave herself better in...
Monday July 2, 2007 (Continued) Because of her gullibility about God, seducing D-Cup had gone even better than I'd expected. Possibly even so well that a bit of caution might be a good idea in case we overreached ourselves because of how easy this seemed. Applying an even more determined go-soft after her wonderful throwing of herself at me, I said, "Thank you, Nevaeh. I'm impressed by your commitment, but I still want to ask you some more questions to get a better understanding of you....
At each person in the line we asked them is a very loud voice if they had tickets and then told them to take the lanes to the right, they would get through faster. Almost everyone pulled out tickets to show me. Closer and closer we got to the two; Doug was making his way from the back and having some success opening up the distance between them and those behind the two. When there were just ten people between Ching Lee and me and the two, I had told Paige to tell my people inside to open up...
Deep Space – The Alien Ship The First Officer stood next to the Chief Engineer while he intently observed two of his sub-engineers as they finished inspecting a generator. When the inspection housing was closed and locked down again, the Chief finally turned to the other. “And what can I do for our fine Captain?” he said with what passed for a grin on his face. “I told you that comments like that are not funny,” the First Officer groused. “Oh, we are touchy today, I see,” but the grin...
This little ditty is compliments of john; I joined a support group for procrastinators group a year ago. we haven't met yet. This is compliments of the 'Shy One' the subject is Beer!!! Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, "It is better to drink this...
One from Dorsetmike, answer the questions in your mind, then read the answers. No cheating!!!!! An Aussie lady who was kind but not very well-educated was sent on her way to Heaven. Upon arrival, a concerned St Peter met her at the Pearly Gates. ‘I’m sorry, ‘St Peter said; ‘But Heaven is suffering from an overload of godly souls and we have been forced to put up an Entrance Exam for new arrivals to ease the burden of Heavenly Arrivals.’ ‘That’s cool’ said the lady, ‘What does the Entrance...
Time to make more friends before I meet this unknown enemy. “Get your girls out of here as fast as they can. Something is coming that puts them in danger. I don’t want them used as pawns for this person who doesn’t fear what they should,” I told Mr. Big. “Whatever is coming will be in the area outside of town where I am going to have a meet and greet with them. At their current rate of speed, your girls should be at a safe distance by then, I hope. I’m not as I was when they last got near...
Sunday, May 25 to Wednesday, June 18, 2008 On my next déjà vu, I gave my link partner an overview of my situation and discoveries, waited for him to calm down, told him I thought I could painlessly upgrade him to 352 minds, waited for him to calm down again, then I explained my "Second-Tier Helpers" idea in detail, including that he'd be letting himself in for some possibly risky work on my Voyage. I couched my description as being an invitation to him that he could refuse, but I knew he...
Thursday, July 28 to Thursday, September 1, 2005 Back at home, there was a great deal of catching up required. For example, Katie West had been laid low by her treatment, but had bounced back (that's what it was supposed to do), and now seemed fine. She wasn't fine, as the chemotherapy had only been a delaying action, but she looked better if you ignored that she was wearing a wig. Carson was also booked in for something similar soon. We'd talked to Ava every day while we'd been away,...
Monday, June 27, 2005 This chapter has jumped ahead four days. Not much happened over summer that was relevant to my ascendancy, so day-by-day reporting isn't needed. ^ A couple of days after Savannah's test ride in my new car, I invited my soccer team to Julia's, excluding the guys who'd just graduated, had serious girlfriends, were virgins, or were too immature for what I had in mind. That left five of them. That many because they didn't actually have to be mature, just be able to...
Monday, June 27, 2005 (Continued) Our sex session was interrupted by my cellphone receiving a text message. Unlike the phone Dad originally bought for me, the one I have now is state of the art, including being able to assign different ring- and text-tones to different people. I recognized the tone for Carol, and stopped what I was doing to read it in case she was having trouble with Logan. Nothing like that, fortunately for Logan. Carol was just letting us know that when she'd gotten...
Saturday, August 18, to Friday, September 7, 2007 The following Saturday was Julia's nineteenth birthday party. It was a VERY formal affair, with a string quartet, lots of flower arrangements, weird finger-food, fancy wines, and - of course - elegant dresses. My girls all needed new ones, with Donna really needing one because none of her existing dresses had a high enough neckline in Mom's opinion. The girls in Corvallis take fashion very seriously. Having the right attitude - the one I...
Wednesday, May 7 (Continued) to Saturday, May 17, 2008 One Of MarkB (continuing to use the A, B, C pre-merge naming convention): One Of Us: [[In the dimensions that Mark B and Mark C were based, nothing had happened. Copies of A's minds...
Friday, July 25, 2008 (Continued) In the two chapters above I briefly described some of the things I will be doing with and for humanity now that I'm God. They were just some of my initial thoughts rather than definite plans - apart from the few things I've already started - but they should have given you an idea of the types of things I'm capable of and interested in doing. They're CERTAINLY not a complete list of everything my trillion plus minds have thought of. Even though my minds...
Friday, July 25, 2008 (Continued) Before I started describing the Grand Tour of Refuge, I categorized my family circumstances across the W-Dimension as follows: I am alive and well, with up to thirty two minds. I had been alive and well, but I'd told my families that I was going on a Voyage of Discovery. My body died in either the Casino Kidnappers' basement or the CIA's underground lab. I suicided as a depressed kid, either in the bathtub or menswear store. I remained alive and...
Tuesday, July 1 to Thursday, July 10, 2008 It was much easier to get the non-Mom members of my family onto my side. I went running with Donna the next afternoon. We had a long conversation about topics that I knew were important to her. Naturally there was a lot of talk about sex, as Donna was very curious about it anyway and had been bursting to ask me about what she'd observed. She already knew enough about sex to know that she'd seen something very unusual. She was also amazed that...
Monday, May 1, 2006 Monday mid-afternoon saw me walking along the long, flat Corvallis-Lebanon Highway, toward Corvallis, on the side of the road that Julia, Carol and Donna rode their bikes on to get home from school. Julia had gotten her license six and a half months ago so had been legally allowed to drive Carol and Donna to school for the last two weeks. Before I'd been taken by the DHS, I'd learned why Julia had not been as eager to get her license as other 16-year olds, and why I'd...
Thursday, April 21, 2005 (Continued) We were cutting getting to class a little fine, so Julia, Lily, a couple of the Liaison rejects and I went straight into the classroom as soon as we arrived. I was thinking about other things (recalling the wonderful stripping race, if you must know), and I automatically paused to let the girls traveling with me enter the room first, then I entered after them. Classrooms are always very noisy places just before class starts. There's lots of catching up,...
Sunday, June 19, 2005 (Continued) Ava greeted us, "Hi everyone! I didn't bring a suit..." "Did you bring your skin?" asked Julia. "I never leave home without it, haha." Ava stripped unselfconsciously, while commenting on my casts being off and asking how my leg and the broken and missing fingers were (or as I thought of them, my "here and not-here fingers"). By now "Giving Someone The Finger" was a well established joke at Dad's work. Dad had told me a couple of stories about...
Thursday, April 28, 2005 (Continued) The trip to the station took only a few minutes. The cops made casual conversation with me, most of their comments being casual questions about recent events. I said nothing. I was escorted to the interview room and had to wait a little while until my lawyer and parents arrived. Soon we were ready to start. With pen poised, Mr. Walker said, "Start at the beginning, Mark. Go slowly and give me as much detail as you can." "You want all the...
Friday, December 1 to Sunday, December 31, 2006 (Continued) Early December, the jury finished their deliberations in our $242 trillion civil lawsuit. The trial itself had gone very much as expected. The DHS had picked me up without a warrant - end of story! That was a breach of my Fourth Amendment rights. The DHS's claim that they had acted under the Patriot Act and so didn't need a warrant was a dead duck of an excuse, and had been openly laughed at when their lawyer advanced it in...
Late-May to Thursday August 10, 2006 The Government's lawyers didn't rush away to get the just-modified agreement signed. It was never going to happen like that, Vanessa assured us. She would've been disappointed had that happened, as this was meant to be just the first round of several. She was hoping to get the Government dancing to our tune, and they weren't on the ropes enough for that yet. Despite Vanessa's saying she'd be very disappointed to get exactly what we had told our...
Thursday, September 7, 2006 (Continued) The assault on my home had been derailed and there was no immediate sign of it restarting, giving me time. Time was good, because sooner or later other people would start arriving and that would prevent the assholes from using deadly force. I decided I needed to quickly read the contents of the satchel to find out how deadly the Government's plan for my families was. If the orders were deadly, I might have to do something extreme now. If the orders...
Friday, July 25, 2008 (Continued) I teleported us to the stable. "Stable" is misleading because internally it's more like a very large, luxurious, natural animal den, although with some internal walls, shelves, etc. I told Donna, "Your new pets are outside." Donna ran for the door. I told everyone else, "Follow her quickly because you'll enjoy seeing the expression on her face." We exited into a lovely highland plateau. It was covered in thick grasses and areas of multicolored...
Sunday, June 19, 2005 (Continued) I made myself a comfort sandwich while I tried to work out what I'd done wrong. I remembered Julia previously telling me off for talking too long. Girls who're already eating out of my palm don't need to be led in tiny steps, which had been what I'd done. Knowing where I'd gone wrong didn't tell me what I should've done though. I couldn't have bluntly told them not to be jealous, not to be early or late, and not to rely on me driving them around....
Sunday, June 19, 2005 I woke, got dressed, and went downstairs for a breakfast. I'd only slept for 2.5 hours, but my last meal was several hours ago, plus my body expects a breakfast after it wakes up and I wouldn't want to disappoint it. Back in my study, the first thing I did was quietly move the scrolling keyboard off the desk to put it on the floor behind one of the computers, where it couldn't easily be seen by anyone in the room, and certainly not by anyone peeking in from the...
Sunday, April 24, 2005 We'd gone to sleep about 11:30, and I woke at 4 o'clock, so about four and half hours sleep. My first problem was figuring out what to do for three or so hours. Get a snack obviously, but what to do after that? Schoolwork, I decided. My basic study plan had been to do my college work in the wee small hours and school stuff in the afternoons. Unfortunately (with tongue firmly in cheek, and elsewhere) Julia had recently been 'making' me have sex every afternoon....
Saturday, May 6, 2006 (Continued) I overflew home at a safely high altitude. As I'd hoped, there was a media circus besieging our gate, and several extra cars parked inside (lawyers, cops, CIA?). Watching closely to make sure no cameras pointed skyward, I descended enough to see that all of my extended family were inside. They were watching TV and talking a lot to a few suit-wearing men that I didn't recognize. My families didn't appear to be under any duress and Ron Fisher had no...
Thursday, September 7, 2006 (Continued) I had to try to find out what the soldiers intended. My loved ones were all relatively safe in the tunnel, but if I waited for the action to start, by the time I understood what it was that they were doing it could be damned difficult for me to stop it. If the soldiers had lethal intentions - and they'd certainly come equipped for that! - the tunnel safety wouldn't last long. If I took my eyes off the soldiers to get involved in doing some research...
Saturday, June 2, 2007 (Continued) Saturday afternoon was saner for us, but not for some other people. TV showed us scenes at the main access routes into Corvallis, especially the highway bridges over the river. There were many hundreds of cars parked down the Corvallis-Lebanon Highway (the main road into Corvallis, to the east of the river) that had been prevented from getting any closer by the roadblocks. Consequently there were thousands of people yelling at the soldiers to demand that...
Wednesday, June 6, 2007 The second battle in our war was going to be at Beale Air Force Base. According to the very helpful Wikipedia, it's the USAF's (US Air Force's) largest UAV operations center, almost certainly where the UAV that had taken out Mom and Dad's bedroom had been operated from and out of [half right, as it'd been operated from a Northrop Grumman's facility in LA]. The Government, media and public would recognize the appropriateness of the Guardian Angel's...
Wednesday November 21 to month end, 2007 (Continued) The US Government did not drop everything else and make it their number one priority to carry out the angel's orders, but the investigation did go ahead rapidly. The media wasn't given full access and information wasn't made public as fast as it could have been, but quite a lot of access was given and a good amount of information was reported, with more progress being usefully made behind the scenes. It didn't take long for the FBI to...
Saturday, July 14, to Saturday, August 11, 2007 In my following the Sondarm School thread from planning through to execution, I skipped over a few things that I'll attend to now. Carol's birthday was the first event. She didn't want a big bash because she's not really a gregarious person and there were plenty more parties coming up anyway, so she chose to have a small gathering with our families plus three of her best friends from school. It was a very nice evening, and Carol's being...
Thursday, May 26 to Sunday, June 12, 2005 I woke up feeling GOOD. It had been far too long since that had happened. I sent a sight blob to check a computer for the date and time: Thursday at 1am. I checked on Prof. The light was dim, but I could see that he appeared okay. His face had filled out and he looked his normal self. Hoping I wouldn't find them at this ridiculous time, I checked the waiting room. No loved ones, but yet another cop. When I'd cut my hand, my non-kiatsu healing...
Thursday, September 7 (Continued) to Saturday, September 30, 2006 The initial media coverage was excited, uninformed reporting of what they could see, but it only took the reporters a few minutes to learn the essential facts. All the Rangers and cops knew the situation, and they hadn't been too concerned about protecting the CIA. Somewhat the reverse, actually. So from breakfast time on the east coast, and through the nation's breakfasts as each time zone got up, America learned that,...
Saturday, June 9, 2007 (Continued) My families and I discussed our next steps. I suggested my plan, making Mom decidedly unhappy because she's not big on evil ideas. The rest of us worked on her. Prof told her, "They may be Government employees but they're no better than criminals, Felicity. Worse in some ways because they don't have a fear of prosecution to restrain them. They deliberately planned to avoid the local police because they know what they're doing is illegal. Mark...
Friday, April 27, 2007 (Continued) Vanessa parked in the tunnel, the parents went up to the Adults' House to get some cameras while I walked back down the tunnel to get the security guys. We could've summoned them by intercom because it used buried cable that never leaves our property and was therefore almost certainly untapped, but I didn't mind going for a short walk and it'd give me a chance to help ensure there wasn't a traitor in our midst by monitoring their reactions in...
Friday, April 27, 2007 I thought of one idea while I was making like a submarine up the river: the angel said he'd research the candidate list, so it made sense for him to be in the vicinity of the hilltop house and talking to me ("me" being Ron in this case. I juggle so many hats it's sometimes hard to keep them straight). If the Government questions me when I get home, I could say, "I met the angel. He said not to tell you anything." Ideally (fingers crossed), the Feds would be so...
Friday, September 1 to Thursday, September 7, 2006 It seemed natural to wait to start the OSU browsing early Monday morning, on September 4, and continue it every morning thereafter. That seemed more orderly and work-like. Plus we wanted the Government's decision makers to be available to act quickly rather than their being away for the weekend. If the Government did act, the quicker the better, because it'd make the coincidence of the browsing starting just before they inquired about Mark...
Thursday, May 12, 2005 (Continued) "Please give me a few seconds to prepare. I need to tie the hair that Diana so kindly donated into a knot." Diana and Claire giggled, with Mackenzie joining in with a small chuckle too. Plus small smiles from the parents. I made a small loop in one end of the hair, then wove the long end around and around the loop, pulling the loop a little smaller as I went, until I ran out of hair. Hair being somewhat stiff, the tension in the loop kept it in a loop...
Saturday, April 1 to Tuesday, April 25, 2006 I was now a white-faced version of Ronald Fisher, also known as "Bomber" to those friends he/I had left, because he'd thought it made him sound macho and cool. I was nineteen years old - one of my important criteria was for him to be old enough to legally ignore his parents - and a high-school graduate. The latter had surprised me, but he'd insisted that his parents had the paper to prove it. Judging by the widespread ignorance the gang...
Saturday, May 6, 2006 One of the advantages I hoped a small video camera had was in not appearing on radar, as I didn't want the Air Force to think San Francisco had fired a missile across the country at Washington DC. Its being detected would be particularly possible when I neared my destination, because the address I'd obtained for the Eclipse Project was VERY close to the White House. I kept my sight blob looking all around for trouble and I flew fairly low - about five hundred feet...
Thursday, June 7, 2007 Almost immediately after I crossed into America, when not diverting around the many missile silos there were, I was searching for the things I needed for my various contingency plans. I had several of those: Three different ways of flying away with my ill-gotten gains afterward: by Flying Sled, by taking over an Air Force plane, or by covertly flying immediately under an independent Air Force plane so our radar images merged. With the loot I was hoping to...
Monday, June 11, to Friday, June 15, 2007 Exam week - blargh! Especially with as many exams as I had. On Monday afternoon, the House of Representatives announced that they were forming the "Special Committee on Resurrections". The plural "Resurrections" amused me, as trying to investigate any resurrection other than mine would be rather difficult, and mine wasn't going to be easy either. They wisely chose not to immediately subpoena anyone, instead telling the media that they would be...
Early Summer Vacation, 2007 I also did a little TV watching while my families slept. The two fires had been VERY big news for a couple of hours, especially with the senior Bushes being missing for most of that time. That Washington DC wasn't a crater, but that the two Bush residences had been destroyed so thoroughly, gave people a great deal of hope that the angel had decided on a different approach from that specified in the "explode 2 W80s" email. That the President's parents had been...
Mid- to Late-September 2007 I'll stop describing the details of my Voyage of Discovery in order to devote some chapters to a "Social Interlude". I'm sure you understand that I - 8B, the just arrived minds - need R&R (Rest and Recreation) even more than I want to experiment with my special abilities, as required by my job as the Voyager. That's especially true for the minds that had rolled the twelve 6s to start the Voyage. R&R and experimentation were both good reasons to pause...
Wednesday, April 13, 2005 I woke and we all immediately thought, After a few seconds of celebrating that imminent event, we became aware that it was raining. Only dummies go running in the rain for fun, so all I had to do was let Donna know it was off, then I could snuggle back into my bed. #1:
Sunday, February 19, 2006 (Continued) For the moment, the ground floor looked ignorable, so I got back to the, "Cause Massive Destruction" task. I lowered myself back down to level 5, stopping there. I floated the clothes I wanted to me, getting dressed in them quickly, then fetched the wallet I was stealing as well as the loose cash I'd pilfered and stashed elsewhere. I left the security tag where it was for the moment, as I was going to be moving around too much for a while and didn't...
Thursday, April 5, 2007 (Continued) I was flying toward downtown LA's tallest skyscraper, the 1,017-foot Library Tower, intending to start a press conference on its helicopter pad. It was about fifteen miles from the pier to the CBD (Central Business District; a.k.a. downtown), and I was flying it at about eight hundred feet and 30 mph, to let people see me reasonably clearly and to give time for word to get out so I wouldn't have to hang around the CBD waiting for the news organizations...