| The Tri-Part Convergence pt. III |
[Jul. 18th, 2004|01:46 am] |
(The Tri-Part Convergence, concluded)
Epigram: "But I'm not scared, I live in hope for better or for worse.
There must be light beyond the void, yes, I know there must...
I'll be yours and you'll be mine, at the end of history.
Through the darkness we will shine, never lose your love for me."
-- Momus, twentieth century music artist, "The End of History"
Acceleration and Ascension
As the world began to blister and the previous convictions of our own survival becoming more fantasy than fact, such philosophical issues became, in essence, moot.
After the first few successes at Ascension to the Eighth Dimension, (and after three times as many failures, though few scientists boasted those statistics), humans worldwide with even the most primitive informational connections became enamoured with the idea of eternal reality. Since researchers failed to actually communicate with successfully uploaded individuals, but could prove their "safe" transition through a variety of tests, wild speculation abounded regarding the sorts of experiences one could have in the magic world of the Eighth. Initially, the cost of Ascension remained exorbitant, and understandibly so, as the complex machines cost bilions, if not trillions, to operate and develop. But furthermore, the Ascension became fetishized, as do most innovations in late capitalism, and advertisements boasted the Eighth as a new and exciting Disneyland, complete with an endless supply of games and adventures for both children and adults. The late-twentieth century's promise of the delights of virtual reality were suddenly actualized by the investment of human imagination on the possibilities of extra-dimensional living:
"Imagine: a world with no boundaries, a playground of your own imagination.
The sky is no longer the limit.
Let your family be one of the first to trailblaze in the Eighth!" (Self, 2077)
Though invoking the long-past Western New Frontier ethos with words like "trailblaze," may have been a brilliant and evocative advertisement strategy by Harrison-Techmatic, the lure of the Eighth needed little further provocation. People across the globe sold all worly possession in droves in the hopes of negotiating their "spot" in the new dimension and Harrison-Techmatic soong became the most powerful conglomerate in the world. Financial gain and economic power, though, hardly seemed to matter when the electrical storms began in earnest (circa 2095) and the poor inhabitants of a planet on the edge of ecological disaster frantically scambled into the sterile control rooms, mob-like and beyond logic. PR reps for Harrison-Techmatic initially reported a modest number of casualities, five hundred at the most, but later rescinded these figures, admitting the sum of "unsuccessful" Ascension candidates attempted approached closer to the tens of thousands. Most of these "failures" were children and elderly people, who seemed not to have the mental stamina for the transition. Indeed, many parents uploaded themselves frantically in an attempt to return to some semblance of normality, only to find their families dead and themselves isolated in a strange new reality, disembodied and disempowered. Still, the terror of remaining on a deteriorating and hostile planet more than likely outwieghed the risks in determining decision-making for the majority. Indeed, the general consensus of intellectuals and plebians alike insisted that no life, homan or otherwise, would survive the cataclysm.
Gene-Mods and the New Commandos
The decoding of the human genome in the late-twentieth century paved the way for a century of alteration of the conventional sense of humanity. Indeed, the philosophical questions raised about the mind and body with reference to Ascension achieved near-irrelevancy as our past conceptions of the "human" body were deemed reactionary and fated for extinction.
Even the lowest of classes of the globe were injected at birth with Syrene Fluid, an innoculation which rapidly increased the potential for genetic mutation and sped up the evolutionary adaptation process. In essense, adaptive changes which would previously needed several thousands years to develop occurred, almost nightmarishly, over the span of one human life, fundamentally altering the DNA, and indeed of the outward physical characteristics, of "human beings."
Those with more economic power opted for direct genetic modification (Gene-Mods), enhancing their mental functioning, IQ, eyesight and hearing, immune systems, physical beauty, reflexes, and, most importantly, succeptability to disease and aging. By the end of the twenty-first century, when the Earth seemed a lost cause, a small core of renegades opted to take their chances amidst the destruction and death. This group, who affectionately referred to themselves as the New Commandos, but who fell more strictly under the ideological doctrine of Markaism, adopted several survival strategies, in order to pioneer the molten terrain:
1. Excessive Gene-Mods and body-machine integration (i.e. cybernetics)
2. Habitual Serum consumption
3. Retreat into caves and mountains for protection from radiation
The New Commandos, and Markaists in general, used the catchphase "Truth and Goodness" to imply that scientific experimentation and the search for the perfectly designed human being were ethically feasible goals as long as the overall "goodness" of society remained constant, that such alterations need not lead to human strife and stratification so long as the core Commandos maintained a benevolent attitude toward the population at large. Almost instantly, though, the "haves" became dominant over the "have nots"; the Commandos took their shelter in the caves and built their elaborate computer networks, supping almost constantly on serum, and those forced to survive in the wilds of the blighted Earth, soon losing all written record, forced to invent and reinvent their culture to suit their newly trepidatious needs, fell behind on the technological learning curve. "Truth and Goodness" as an ideology later applied to only those within the inner structure of the caves, the select, the privileged.
Thus, as even the most egalitarian of human societies eventually deteriorated into stratification and moral decay, so too did the New Commandos, no longer "human" in the strictest sense of the world, but apparently still bound by the petty desires of greed, envy, and the impulse toward dominance.
Technological Remains: The Machine
What the Markaists lacked, however, was a healthy respect for the lessons of history and intellectual discourse. Obsessed with their own physical perfection process and establishing their empires in the caves, much of the impressive technological advances of the previous few centuries soon became lost through fire or neglect. The Commandos soon realized the machinery which had been preserved was severely lacking in certain vital capacities, and that they were essentially stranded like rats in a cage, dispossessed of libraries of knowledge previously accessible by the now-defunct Internet now buried or elusive. The Overlords, as they now called themselves, began to yearn for the lost past, and not only for nostalgic reasons; they believed that if the memories of their ancestors, including those made of machinery, could be unlocked, than total mastery of their domain could be achieved.
But where could such memory be unlocked in the absence of communication with the large libraries? The Overlords began to turn to the remains of the past global civilization, embodied in the the disembodied spirits residing in the Eighth. The technology required to Ascend human beings had long been lost, but one Overlord engineered a master Machine which could interface with the Eighth, capture memories from the minds of those wandering aimlessly in that realm, and feed them back into the system, to which all surviving "humans" were connected. This Overlord, dubbed MK as shorthand for Markaism, became iconic for the Machine itself. MK, being the sole designer and technical support for the Machine, jealously guarding its secrets and hording its memory troves, simultaneously became the acting ruler of the Caves, and the rapidly-developing Valley outside, but also became less and less engaged in human politics, preferring to surf the Eighth via deviced known only as Tubes. For hundreds of years, MK became the uncontested ruler by virture of his access to knowledge (not to mention surveillance), managing to achieve that delicate balance between bodily existence and pure mind represented by the Ascension. But his integration with the Machine could never be completed; he lacked the secrets of the Master Code, dubbed Kaytal after the acronym KTL, a defense the Machine, in a moment of human-like innovation, created as a protection against MK and any other invader.
Imagine the pique of MK these many years, defied by his own creation, sent into the corner to pout like an narcissistic child. And yet, he surfs the tubes, tearing frantically through the memories of those who will cooperate with him, hoping for the keys to unlock the Master Code, to reconstruct a long-lost civilization merged with this new and strange Machine. Rumors abound within the caves about a set of Scrolls which hold to code to unlock Kaytal, but why would the Machine leave instructions for its own undoing? Alternately, can we truly interpret the behavior of a purely synthetic entity as being human-like, even if infused with millions of shards of human consciousness?
Reflections from Immortal Ennui
I often wonder at the use of such ponderings as I persist unnaturally, and yet through "natural" means, if not those technically borne of nature. I've managed to accumulate this version of events through endless interactions with others here and with the modest amount of research I was able to complete before my late Ascension (I was one of the last to leave my body, and with much reluctance, for the reasons which I hope I've made apparent above). I wonder if I should give into MK, to allow myself to be mined just as the Commandos hollowed out the caves. Surely my existence has become hollow. But I wait... wait for the emergence of a reason to allow my precious individuality to be penetrated.
After all, I have nothing if not time.
Advertisement for Harrison-Techmatic. Self, vol. 8, no. 35, 18 Jan 2077: 21. |
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| Memory Capture of David Kaleb III |
[Jul. 13th, 2004|06:42 pm] |
Strange, how centuries have passed in a distracted flurry and yet I still remember
the searing of my eyes
that screeching sound emanating from what I later realized was my scorched throat
the spike of impossible agony
lancing my skull and then...
Stillness.
How grateful I was that the process of ascension occurred in a swift fashion. I'd overseen hundreds of such procedures and some went far smoother than others. The mind simply refused to be separated from the body, the processes of each so intimately connected and and yet so philosophically disconnected since Descartes and even Jesus.
We soon discovered the mind needed "prep work" before the upload, which early on consisted of extended sabbaticals on mountain retreats where the wise expounded on about relinquishing our psychological need for the physical, encouraging us to reach beyond our sense data and examine our inward "soul," if such a thing can be said to exist.
As the situation became more severe, of course, we desperately needed to speed up the process, and most inhabitants of the Eighth received no more "training" than a recitable pamphlet paraphrased from The Tibetan Book of the Dead or similar such texts.
I myself opted for an excessive, continual stream of Thraxamine. Scientists had no need, nor respect for superstitious psychobabble. 'How little we understood,' I often think... we were kids in a quantum candystore, stretching the possible to infinite proportions. We were treated as gods or priests, but mainly we were merely... curious.
Yes, curious at first. Then, excited. And then, as the planet began its long overdue purge, we were merely terrified.
I still remember the searing of my consciousness from my mortal shell, for that pain was the last sensation my body could be said to have had. Of course, a form of "vision" persists in this realm, through whether such sight is based upon any real coordinates in time or space, I cannot say. We "communicate" as well, in our way... I encounter countless haunts like myself. Some praise me, then after years of enduring the ennui of eternal stasis, the loss of physical pleasure replaced by something I would tend to believe more gratifying -- the open exchange of information through image projection and intuitive brain language.
Brain sex, some call it, though for thos eof us ever-searching for the secrets of unlocking the universe, satiation by such means remains ever-elusive.
But many still send me fury and anguish, projected through symbolic language human beings must have some inner capacity to instinctually understand. Our promises reduced to utopian pipedreams and demanded reinsertion back into their long-since shriveled physical forms.
I occassionally endure such chastisement, well, as much as I can stand. Then, I close the valve and shut them out, preferring to muse and brood in the company of myself. Their anger represents the basest of human desires and such creatures were never meant for ascension. I occassionally snap back at them, condemning the low0minded with such stern admonitions as, "You would have done better taking your chances with the afterlife touted by your primitive religions. Clearly such an exalted state as pure intellect is beyond your ability to fully appreciate." Mostly, though, I offer wooden words of encouragement, and at times, I spy on the most radical members of this bunch.
The ones in collusion with THEM , the archivists, those who apparently managed to buid a machine with the capacity to navigate these torrential waters of ether.
I myself remain despondant when the man the call MK, if a man he truly is, attempts to invade me, but I find myself curious again... in that dangerous manner we forerunners of the Eighth were curious.
...is it possible to be reinserted? Not that one such as me could possibly desire such a fate, of course. Relinquish eternal life? Why? To experience a human orgasm once again? To become ill and die? Ridiculous.
My hypothesis remans constant, that even among humans, the lowly can never hope to aspire the elevated awareness of the elite. In that, it seems, this MK and I quite agree. |
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| WELCOME!! |
[Jun. 2nd, 2004|02:01 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
Hello everyone! I've created a livejournal.com community for kartasi called kartasi_memes... amazingly kartasi was already taken as a username, user since 5-24-2004... hmm :) Fortunately, vergo was not, so that's my alias on there.
THIS IS NOT NEARLY AS DIFFICULT AS IT LOOKS. It took me all of 5 minutes to create a new alias and the kartasi_memes community.
AT ANY RATE, HERE'S HOW TO JOIN:
1. go to livejournal.com
2. Click -- Welcome: Create an Account
3. Fill out as much personal info as you'd like and choose an alias
4. Customize your journal's colors/style/settings if you like under Manage: Customize
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR AN ACCOUNT. But if you'd like to, you get more options that way, including as many pics as you like... as a free member you get 3 100X100 pics.
AFTER YOU'VE CREATED YOUR JOURNAL:
1. Click Manage: Friends. Add kartasi_memes as a friend, as well as vergo.
2. Once everyone starts making accounts, you'll want to add them as your friends as well.
3. You will also have to ask permission to belong to the group. That's done by clicking on the info page for kartasi_memes, and then finding the link: To join this community, click here!
Remember: you can use this journal to post to our special community, or to record your personal journal for the class. To create your own entries, use Journal: Update, and to edit them, use Manage: Entries. If you want to limit who can see your personal journal to The Toms(TM), simply create a Customs Friend Group -- all you have to do is click Manage: Friends. Then click Edit Custom Friends Group, then make a group with those usernames include and exclude all the others.
TO POST ON KARTASI_MEMES USING THE WEB INTERFACE:
Go to the Full Update page (http://www.livejournal.com/update.bml?mode=full) while you're logged in. In the drop-down list titled "Journal to Post in", you can select the community to which you want to post.
LiveJournal has incredibly detailed FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) you can scroll through, but feel free to write me email at singingyoutoshipwreck@hotmail.com if you have any problems. My phone number is 512-736-622, which is long distance, so only call in case of emergency.
READING OTHER POSTS:
You can read posts by clicking Journal: Friends. If you'd like to comment on a post someone else has made (which I highly suggest to get the conversation flowing!) you can do so by simply clicking "comment" at the bottom of the post. Anyone can respond to anyone's comments in message board fashion as long as they're part of this list, since it is a private community.
I'll post this note as the first post to kartasi_memes for reference, and to get us started! Once I approve you to the list, you'll be able to read/comment, so you should join ASAP.
Sarah |
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