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soc_puppetHappy Pi Day! Unless you're European, in which case... Actually, I'm pretty sure there isn't an April 31, so I think this is the only Pi Day we've got. Well, happy White Day as well, in either case.
I'd do something to celebrate, but by the time I put up a "prompt me with math and/or science! Or possibly chocolate" thing for fic lines (ttly still optional, gaiz), my time on the computer tonight will have run out. So instead (or in addition?), have some more of my homework!
Prologue: Acting Lessons
"I was in kindergarten when I first learned what an Acter was.
"There were twenty-five in our class, the exact median of the acceptable class size range, and three other classes in my grade. Since people with Acting ability occur at a rate of about three percent in the population, it couldn't be said to be unusual that there was one in our class.
"We all noticed there was something different about Jeremy, of course; he was better at the Facial Cues game and oral history sharing but slower with everything else, like algebra and trigonometry. We'd all already been taught that slight learning style variations were perfectly normal, so he didn't have too much difficulty socially, but he still stuck out.
"About a third of the way through the academic year, the Standard Acterial Aptitude Tests were given. I scored slightly higher on the bell curve than most of my classmates, which I suppose is why you've chosen me to talk to, but Jeremy was off the chart, standard deviations out of range from the rest of us.
"I learned more about what being an Acter truly implied as the years went on: the psychological, and emotional, weight, and the Acters having to bear the brunt of it because of their ability to feel more strongly than we can, and considering their assigned career on top of that, well. Let's just say I'm not too surprised about the life failure rate among Acters. At the time, though, we were only given the standard explanation from our instructor: how Acters, because of their capacity for feeling, were trained from an early age to make the decisions that governed the population, to Act for us. We were told it was an honorable position, and that those with the empathy required for Acting were to be respected.
"From the evidence, though, I don't think this made Jeremy feel honored at all. Instead, I just think it made him feel more isolated."
1: Feeders
Every day, from sun-up to sun-down, information was beamed into the Idea Factory: thoughts, opinions, subconscious desires. Every night, the neural network mass (also known as the Basic Lobotomic Organizational Biomass, or BLOB) inside factory buildings around the country would digest the information and be ready with new products and sharing strategies come dawn. Not a lot of people outside the factory gave much thought to how it was done, but they were all understandably busy interacting with the new innovations the BLOB churned out so regularly, so factory workers and those related to them were among the few who could report on the process start to finish.
The factory executives and managers tried to keep labor positions simple: there were the Drainers, who monitored the public, converting public brainwave readings to much more comprehensible data; the Distillers, who sorted through everything that might contribute to new, better products and strategies; and the Feeders, whose job it was to transport the information condensed by the Distillers directly to the BLOB.
Feeding sounded a lot more innocuous than it actually was. In order for information to be interpreted correctly, the BLOB required a direct neural connection. This typically involved the Distilled information being fed directly into the Feeder's hippocampus. Following this, the Feeders themselves plunge their heads to the nasal and aural cavities into the Biomass itself and hold their posture for up to four minutes.
It was an unpleasant job, and memory damage was not unheard of, but Feeders were well compensated: they received excellent wages, opportunities to switch to either Draining or Distilling at the first sign of mental disorder or misfunction with only a slight paycut, and, best of all, a lifetime fifteen percent discount on all Idea Factory goods and services. After all, the executives reasoned, who could better appreciate the products than those who had dedicated so much of their mind to them?
6: Nature Preserve
When the planet began to warm and saturate, and the air became sweeter, there was no question that it was time for flora to spread, to carry out Manifest Destiny and take control of what was rightfully theirs. Step by slow step, they plunged their roots through the solid quartz-and-limestone mixtures imposed on the earth by the slowly dieing upright ape race, digging into the rich soil beneath. They developed organisms to help them digest various poisons that had been poured out by the primates' tools, to turn the chemicals into usable materials.
Throughout this progress, the spurts of growth, fertilization and pollination, the upright ape population began to dwindle drastically, and their tools ceased working. One by one they turned to other tools, sometimes attempting to fight back against their floral masters, but plantlife would inevitably triumph over fauna. Eventually, the apes were confined to small reserve areas on less fertile land, a decision imposed by a few of the more sympathetic flora.
While some environmentalists were concerned at the rate of oxygen production and sterility in the soil, pointing out that greenery may have already outgrown its pots but continued to grow unchecked, most dismissed their concerns. After all, there was still plenty of carbon dioxide to use up, and if they ever did run out, well, they were already breeding seed pods that would be able to survive a journey beyond the atmosphere to another planet. They could always start again elsewhere.
7: God From the Mind
Long, long ago, when the world was still young and the first organism was still adapting into different creatures, living conditions produced the first people. And the people looked around the world and saw its natural wonders: mountains and oceans, volcanoes and valleys, storms and wind and sunshine. And the people were afraid; they weren't ready to know everything about nature yet, weren't ready to learn what made the world turn. They wanted to know themselves better first, to learn what it meant to be people.
So the people gathered and created beings to give the power of nature to, beings they called gods and goddesses, or spirits, or demons. The beings, the gods, took the power offered them, spreading over the earth and protecting the people until they were ready to reclaim the power they had willingly given up.
Time passed and the people grew and learned. Eventually, they began to feel they knew themselves well enough to start knowing nature and reclaiming its power, but by that time they had forgotten how the gods had been born, and how they had come by the power of nature in the first place. Slowly, draining the gods of belief and stealing knowledge and power from under them, the people began taking back the power of nature that the gods had been given charge of all those eons ago, killing them slowly, until at last they were forced to change form or be uncreated. Now they seek refuge in the walls where the wires run or space where we have not yet reached, clinging desperately to life and remembering when they were believed in.
-----
There was going to be one more here, but I thought I'd reached a page limit, so I haven't written it yet. I may yet get it up.
And now, I must flee! *flies*
I'd do something to celebrate, but by the time I put up a "prompt me with math and/or science! Or possibly chocolate" thing for fic lines (ttly still optional, gaiz), my time on the computer tonight will have run out. So instead (or in addition?), have some more of my homework!
Prologue: Acting Lessons
"I was in kindergarten when I first learned what an Acter was.
"There were twenty-five in our class, the exact median of the acceptable class size range, and three other classes in my grade. Since people with Acting ability occur at a rate of about three percent in the population, it couldn't be said to be unusual that there was one in our class.
"We all noticed there was something different about Jeremy, of course; he was better at the Facial Cues game and oral history sharing but slower with everything else, like algebra and trigonometry. We'd all already been taught that slight learning style variations were perfectly normal, so he didn't have too much difficulty socially, but he still stuck out.
"About a third of the way through the academic year, the Standard Acterial Aptitude Tests were given. I scored slightly higher on the bell curve than most of my classmates, which I suppose is why you've chosen me to talk to, but Jeremy was off the chart, standard deviations out of range from the rest of us.
"I learned more about what being an Acter truly implied as the years went on: the psychological, and emotional, weight, and the Acters having to bear the brunt of it because of their ability to feel more strongly than we can, and considering their assigned career on top of that, well. Let's just say I'm not too surprised about the life failure rate among Acters. At the time, though, we were only given the standard explanation from our instructor: how Acters, because of their capacity for feeling, were trained from an early age to make the decisions that governed the population, to Act for us. We were told it was an honorable position, and that those with the empathy required for Acting were to be respected.
"From the evidence, though, I don't think this made Jeremy feel honored at all. Instead, I just think it made him feel more isolated."
1: Feeders
Every day, from sun-up to sun-down, information was beamed into the Idea Factory: thoughts, opinions, subconscious desires. Every night, the neural network mass (also known as the Basic Lobotomic Organizational Biomass, or BLOB) inside factory buildings around the country would digest the information and be ready with new products and sharing strategies come dawn. Not a lot of people outside the factory gave much thought to how it was done, but they were all understandably busy interacting with the new innovations the BLOB churned out so regularly, so factory workers and those related to them were among the few who could report on the process start to finish.
The factory executives and managers tried to keep labor positions simple: there were the Drainers, who monitored the public, converting public brainwave readings to much more comprehensible data; the Distillers, who sorted through everything that might contribute to new, better products and strategies; and the Feeders, whose job it was to transport the information condensed by the Distillers directly to the BLOB.
Feeding sounded a lot more innocuous than it actually was. In order for information to be interpreted correctly, the BLOB required a direct neural connection. This typically involved the Distilled information being fed directly into the Feeder's hippocampus. Following this, the Feeders themselves plunge their heads to the nasal and aural cavities into the Biomass itself and hold their posture for up to four minutes.
It was an unpleasant job, and memory damage was not unheard of, but Feeders were well compensated: they received excellent wages, opportunities to switch to either Draining or Distilling at the first sign of mental disorder or misfunction with only a slight paycut, and, best of all, a lifetime fifteen percent discount on all Idea Factory goods and services. After all, the executives reasoned, who could better appreciate the products than those who had dedicated so much of their mind to them?
6: Nature Preserve
When the planet began to warm and saturate, and the air became sweeter, there was no question that it was time for flora to spread, to carry out Manifest Destiny and take control of what was rightfully theirs. Step by slow step, they plunged their roots through the solid quartz-and-limestone mixtures imposed on the earth by the slowly dieing upright ape race, digging into the rich soil beneath. They developed organisms to help them digest various poisons that had been poured out by the primates' tools, to turn the chemicals into usable materials.
Throughout this progress, the spurts of growth, fertilization and pollination, the upright ape population began to dwindle drastically, and their tools ceased working. One by one they turned to other tools, sometimes attempting to fight back against their floral masters, but plantlife would inevitably triumph over fauna. Eventually, the apes were confined to small reserve areas on less fertile land, a decision imposed by a few of the more sympathetic flora.
While some environmentalists were concerned at the rate of oxygen production and sterility in the soil, pointing out that greenery may have already outgrown its pots but continued to grow unchecked, most dismissed their concerns. After all, there was still plenty of carbon dioxide to use up, and if they ever did run out, well, they were already breeding seed pods that would be able to survive a journey beyond the atmosphere to another planet. They could always start again elsewhere.
7: God From the Mind
Long, long ago, when the world was still young and the first organism was still adapting into different creatures, living conditions produced the first people. And the people looked around the world and saw its natural wonders: mountains and oceans, volcanoes and valleys, storms and wind and sunshine. And the people were afraid; they weren't ready to know everything about nature yet, weren't ready to learn what made the world turn. They wanted to know themselves better first, to learn what it meant to be people.
So the people gathered and created beings to give the power of nature to, beings they called gods and goddesses, or spirits, or demons. The beings, the gods, took the power offered them, spreading over the earth and protecting the people until they were ready to reclaim the power they had willingly given up.
Time passed and the people grew and learned. Eventually, they began to feel they knew themselves well enough to start knowing nature and reclaiming its power, but by that time they had forgotten how the gods had been born, and how they had come by the power of nature in the first place. Slowly, draining the gods of belief and stealing knowledge and power from under them, the people began taking back the power of nature that the gods had been given charge of all those eons ago, killing them slowly, until at last they were forced to change form or be uncreated. Now they seek refuge in the walls where the wires run or space where we have not yet reached, clinging desperately to life and remembering when they were believed in.
-----
There was going to be one more here, but I thought I'd reached a page limit, so I haven't written it yet. I may yet get it up.
And now, I must flee! *flies*
