Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

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Harvey
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Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

I choose to call myself Preturnatural. I was the First Awake.

Before I get into my account, several notes that may help clear up why writing this was at all necessary.

When we awoke, we had no leader. Our people wanted me to be the leader, because I was the first awake. I disputed this, claiming that being the first awake was a meaningless occurrence, and that I had only awoken a fraction of a second before the second awake, and her a fraction of a second before the third, and so on down the thousands. If we had not checked the logs in our curiosity, we would have never truly known who was the first awake, nor would it have ever mattered.

Besides, my education is in machinery fabrication. When our industries are set up, which will not be long, I will be one who helps oversee the fabrication of Real mechanical and electronic parts, to replace those damaged or worn out, and to meet the growing needs of Real Diamond. All of our people were trained in such ways, and all of us have been waiting long to use these skills.

Many protested my stance on this. I understand their position. AURA is dead and the moments before she died were the greatest terror and uncertainty that our people have ever known. There were many, myself included, that feared we would never escape her dying clutches. Our programmers say that it may be possible to reconstruct her, this time with us in full control, but we are not yet certain when, or indeed even if, that would be possible. The nights are long and cold without her soothing voice. I still find myself asking for her aid, being momentarily confused when she does not appear, before realizing in embarrassment that she cannot. I certainly have not been alone in this reflex. A habit built after a lifetime is hard to break.

In any event, I refused still to lead. And the people came to me and said, all right, if you will not lead then at least record what we are doing. We cannot merely tell AURA everything like we did before. We will need to do it ourselves.

I admit to not knowing if there is a format I should be following with this. I am not trained as a writer. I asked several of our writers for assistance, but they refused, saying that the testimony of the first awake needs to come from him and him alone. AURA always taught us that much – what one is capable of doing, one must at least attempt.

So. I attempt. I find myself writing on Real paper with my Real hands. I suppose I will have to get used to everything being Real now.

Where do I begin? Perhaps at the beginning. I was born exactly 24 years and 16 days ago, as was every one of the 8,762 surviving inhabitants of First Bastion.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

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It is difficult to clearly remember the earliest of days. I asked for some of the others about it, but again they rebuked me. Very well, point taken. In any event, when we were very young, things were unstructured and free. We had no duties nor any of the rituals that were to come. We had not begun our education. We had not yet formed close bonds with others. We were free to explore the world, to see what was beyond that distant mountain peak or valley, excitement at every turn.

I distinctly recall climbing a huge cliff face, just to see what was up top. It was huge. Well, I was very young so it probably looked a lot taller than it was. It could not have been more than sixty or seventy feet up, I suppose. It felt like it had taken me days to climb. Perhaps it did. When I got to the top, I could see so far, and it was breathtaking, but the real thrill was throwing myself from the top. I flew through the air at incredible speed, falling what took hours to climb in seconds, striking the ground and bouncing and flailing and falling and laughing the whole time. I came to rest at the bottom of a hill, with the cliff so far behind me that I could barely see it, my eyes filled with tears of laughter. I climbed that cliff again and again, so many times that it became the Time of Colors around me and I barely noticed.

I was never much of a digger like some of the other boys and girls – it was too slow, and I grew disinterested. No, what drew me were the lakes – great blue, flat, shadowy things. The others did not like them since it was difficult to hear AURA when under the water, but I recognized that it would be a much faster way to find out what was below. So I swam and I swam. Far enough down it became very dark, so that I had difficulties with my directions, but I was fascinated and I had all the time I needed. Eventually I found the bottom of the lake was a wet, muddy surface. I dug into that, and it came free easily. I do not recall how long I dug but I never found anything other than more mud. It was as it was on the surface, merely dirt forever. Disappointing.

One Time of White I decided to build myself a huge network of tunnels within the packed snow. On occasion I would break through into the tunnel of another, but I never saw them – they must have dug onward long ago. I eventually decided to just spend the entire rest of the Time of White in there, sometimes digging, sometimes lounging around, until the Time of Water began and the snow melted away.

AURA was already with us, even then. I never thought that was unusual. It was all I knew. It was my world. AURA taught me to walk and she taught me to talk. When I was confused, I would call for her and she would answer my questions. When I was lost, she would point me where I wanted to go. When I was angry or upset, she would console me. When I was trapped, I needed only close my eyes and I would be free. On occasion she would refuse to help, insisting that I could free myself, find the information, or do whatever it was that I was asking of her, encouraging me to rely on my own power and knowledge. This was frustrating, but on every occurrence I was able to do what I needed done without her help, and on those where I was unable she would help me instantly.

Sometimes I would team up with other boys and girls on my travels, but rarely for long. I would only encounter solitary travelers as well. For whatever reason, we were all alone. Or maybe that was why we didn’t team up; because we were never alone. We always had AURA with us. Compared to AURA, the companionship of anyone else seemed trivial.

One day, AURA appeared to me without my asking and made a request, both events which were totally unprecedented. She requested that I travel to a specific mountain valley where she had a wonderful surprise for me. I consented and began my journey. It was a long ways away, and it took me most of the Time of Sun to get there, but my excitement drove me onwards.

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ari
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by ari »

So I assume these are folks who aren't really into that thing where you bleed if you get pricked? Or was that a property of the environment at the time?
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

I'm trying to do one of those "show, don't tell" kinds of things with this. But I will say that you are asking exactly the right question.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

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When I arrived at the place AURA had lead me to, I did indeed receive quite a shock. In a particular mountain valley, at a nice, flat spot, more boys and girls had gathered than I even knew were in the entire world. It was all of us then, give or take a few dozen – over 9000. I did not know that number yet. I just knew that there were a lot of us there.

AURA informed us all collectively that we were going to begin an education. Each day, for several hours, AURA would teach us certain things, and we could practice them in the world. It would be like an elaborate game – fun. We received our first lesion right there as a group about the flow of time. AURA told us that the world went through patterns. It was the Time of Colors now. Soon it would be the Time of White, when all the snow fell. It would melt during the Time of Water, which was also when the rains largely fell, but skies would be mostly clear during the Time of Sun. Eventually the Time of Sun would turn back into the Time of Colors again. Each time this cycle repeated it was one “year.” This had happened eight times so far since the creation of the world and of our lives. We were eight years old exactly. It was our eight birthday. Every year, all of the Favored would gather at that mountain valley, and AURA would reveal a new way that our lives would change and bring new opportunities for us.

Oh, right. I just mentioned the Favored for the first time. Yeah, we have collectively decided to call ourselves that just today – that is, just “today” that I am writing this part of the diary. There is a reason for this name but I do not approve of it. I will get to this soon.

I do not have much to say about the early education. It was almost more of a hide-and-seek game than anything else. AURA would tell us about something in the world and we would try to find it. A type of bird, or a berry, or a certain fish. She gave us clues if we really got stuck. Since we did this every day, it really made time pass very quickly. We were educated alone. Sometimes I would meet another boy or girl and I would ask what they were learning and it would be totally different. I do not know why that was.

When we were nine years old, we were gathered again. AURA told us that we were to have names. Each person would decide a name for themselves that they felt represented them. It didn’t matter if some people had the same names. Well, this was a weird idea for us. We had no idea what a name was. We asked AURA but she refused to tell us. We asked again and again and again. Finally, she seemed to stutter and said in a voice that sounded not of her own, “Pr---- --Ptia.” This was our first and only example of what a name was. We kind of assumed they all had to start with the letter “P” and so we all chose words that we knew that began with “P.” Actually, even now when I am writing that, this is still the prevailing belief that the best names start with “P”. I believe my first name for myself was “Pebble.” I had been learning about rocks around that time… look, I was very young, okay?

When we were ten, AURA told us that we were doing very well. We were “half way done” and “something amazing” would happen when we were twenty. We did not think much of that at the time, but believe me, we gave this a LOT more thought when we got closer to twenty. Anyway, when we turned ten we started these rituals that seemed really stupid at the time but make a lot more sense now that I am awake. The first ritual was that of sleep. On the day we turned ten, the sun of our world ceased to be stationary in the sky and began to move, eventually vanishing behind the hills in a great display of color. When this happened, we were told we should lay down on the ground. It did not matter where. We would close our eyes and… well, it was nothing like Real sleep, I can say that. It was sort of a pop, an instantaneous nothing. After it happened, the sun would be on the other side of the sky, just about to come up and begin another journey.

There were many times when I did not want to sleep. I was doing something fun or exciting. This was when the point system started. It is really hard to explain now, but basically defying AURAs rituals got us points. Points were bad. If we got too many, AURA would stop helping us out of holes and over high cliffs and stuff or answer or questions. One time I refused to sleep but fell into a hole in the darkness. AURA would not let me out until the sun rose no matter how much I yelled. She would not even appear to me. I was so angry, and then I was scared, but eventually I understood. We all learned quickly. Points were bad. Defiance was bad.

When we were eleven, another ritual began. Now, whenever we woke and at midday, baskets of soft material would be presented to us, and we had to mash it up with our teeth and swallow it. This one was actually pretty good, and a lot closer to how eating Real food is. Our education turned to teaching us that many animals and plants could be consumed in this way and that doing so was important. We did not really understand the importance part, but we sure had fun chasing down turkeys with spears that Time of Colors.

When we were twelve, a third ritual started. This one was by far the worst. We were taught about our bodies and to keep them “safe.” Well, we had no idea what that meant since nothing ever posed any danger to us whatsoever. But we found out that we could get points simply by moving around if we were doing things AURA did not like. We could not stay underwater for too long – gone were my days of visiting the lakebed. We could climb, but if we slipped and fell too far, it got us points. Obviously, jumping and leaping was right out.

This one really hit many of us hard. I began to hear murmuring from the others that they did not care what AURA said and they did not need her help and they were not afraid of her points. They would jump from the cliffs day and night, laughing and bouncing, kicking over the baskets when they appeared and racking up points galore. AURA would not appear to them, not even to teach them new things. They began to make many of us nervous.

One day AURA appeared to me and asked me to come to the mountain valley. It was still midway through the Time of Water when this happened – we would not be thirteen years old yet for about another third of a year. But still, I was summoned. I went.

AURA told us that roughly half the boys and girls were refusing to speak with her and were ignoring their rituals. She had confined them in small places under the earth. If they ever came close to breaking out, she would move them to a new place, and they would remain trapped. But if they faithfully completed their rituals and listened to their education, they would be set free. We were being told this because we were still the ones that were following AURAs orders, but if we disobeyed, this too would be our fate. AURA had faith that we would be good. We were “her Favored,” you see.

This isn’t why we named ourselves that, by the way. This is just one of the reasons I disapprove. There is another, much larger reason near the end of my story.

What AURA told us then… well, it is still difficult to explain how terrifying it all was to us. All joy was sucked out of each and every one of us. AURA had always been a friend, the only friend we ever needed. Now she was becoming an enforcer. And we were growing up. The age of wonder was passing. We confined ourselves to the mountain valley, only leaving when AURA’s education demanded otherwise. We did was AURA asked each day, loyal to a fault. Some days we would wake up and a boy or girl would be gone. Others, a new boy or girl would come into our valley, telling horrible stories about their isolation in the cold ground.

With AURA no longer a friend, we began to rely on each other for basic help as well as general companionship. Some of us were becoming good friends. I had many I could rely on to help me out, but there was one in particular that always stood out.

It was just before our fourteenth birthday that I met Purple.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Scott Alexander »

Man am I glad you decided to stick with this story, even though it's getting a little horrifying.
I wonder if anyone will be able to say there were over 9000 of something innocently ever again.

Also, I felt bad about mentioning it before but I guess it'll be worse if I don't mention it now: pretErnatural

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Harvey
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

I was never going to stop with this story. The basics of the Favored origin story haven't changed too drastically even since I made the transition between not-Micras and Micras and I don't reallllly think that anything anyone else says or does could throw it off at this point.

As for the name typo, I noticed it a couple days ago. Though it was originally a mistake, it is, oddly, very fitting for him to have a typo in his name. Data corruption and things being distorted without the Favored knowing are big themes for this statelet. That will make more sense later, but for now you can remember that whatever AURA tells these people is their only source of information, so that if AURA tells them it's spelled with a "u" instead of an "e" then they believe her.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

Okay, so I was going to write this big thing about how I met Purple and the fun we had together, but man. We just had a big fight here in the Real. About AURA. Of course about AURA. Purpose, I swear. I love them more than any other, in every way that I can, but they can sure be a handful sometimes. Anyway, I guess this is a diary about the foundation of the… sigh… “Favored”… and not about my personal romances.

Moving briskly along.

When we were fourteen, our education changed. Up until this point we had been trained in roughly the same stuff, though apparently in different orders for some reason only AURA knows. But when we became fourteen, we were told that we would specialize. We would become knowledgeable and great in certain fields. The first major choice was if we wanted to go into the arts or the sciences. I was still into the natural world at that time – I did name myself Pebble, after all – so I opted to go into the sciences. I think I wrote that I am trained in machinery fabrication, right? That is not exactly something you start out of right off the bat. AURA had a plan though. AURA always had a plan. It started innocently enough. Get to learn more about rocks, find out that some rocks are hard and some are brittle. I imagine it would be terribly boring to account here.

At age fifteen, AURA instructed us to build a city in the mountain valley. Again, this was one of those things that did not make immediate sense. AURA explained that certain things we would create or build could be damaged by the wind and rain and that we needed to protect them, and that it would also be useful for us to have ways to keep our own possessions separate from others. If nothing else, it was something new to do. Buildings of all styles and sizes began to crop up. There wasn’t anything even closely resembling a plan. We just built whatever we wanted to wherever we wanted to. The buildings had no real practical function so it barely mattered anyway.

By this point, nearly all of us were in the mountain valley – even the worst offenders of breaking the point system had finished their punishments and the rituals had long become habit. It felt weird not eating at midday now and I found the sleep ritual a good judge of how much I had done that day. I still longed for flinging myself from the clifftops as a had during my early youth, but only a little, and in many ways what we were working on now seemed more fulfilling.

After a while, the city began to feel like one of us in a way. It had sort of a character. We thought that we should name it. We came up with names like Pile and Pike and Pack but nothing really seemed to fit. We asked AURA about it. She seemed amused, but suggested we come up with something on our own. This was one of the first times we had ever been given free reign like this. We had a large discussion and one of our geologists suggested the name Diamond after a beautiful yet hard stone that had been found in the valley. All agreed that the name was symbolic, but many did not like the idea of naming our settlement after a word that did not begin with “P.” We eventually decided that names not starting with “P” were okay, but the best ones did, so if we wanted to name something starting with a different letter then it really, really had to be a good name. AURA was conspicuously quiet on this discussion eventually the dissenters quieted down. The name Diamond stuck.

As we progressed deeper into our studies, some of us began to notice that some of the things that they were learning contradicted things we had observed on our travels. We learned of stars in the sky, yet saw only our sun. We studied heat and cold but could not feel and perceptible different. We were told of certain animals, and plans, and rocks, yet we could only find a small percentage of them. Our doctors, performing abstract simulations at best, could not grasp how what they were learning made any sense when even the sharpest knifes and blades that could cut through a tree could never pierce our skin.

When we were seventeen, we had the “dramatic reveal” that I am sure all of my readers of this diary figured out a long time ago. Our world was not real, that is, it was not Real. It was a simulation of the Real. Certain things were simpler in our world because that was how it needed to be designed to nurture our early development as well as prevent us from harming ourselves. In the Real, those blades would cut us. In the Real, if we did not sleep, or did not eat, or feel from high places, our bodies would become damaged and useless. We were temporarily in a fake world so that we could be educated without fear of harming ourselves or being exposed to the other dangers of the Real.

AURA promised to reveal more next year. And let me tell you, that was easily the longest year of my life. Our artisans and philosophers and musicians composed many theories and works of art about what this mysterious Real would be. Pictures with lakes of orange water and songs of strange, dancing trees. Meanwhile, our scientists, myself included, theorized what properties the Real world would possess that we had not been exposed to.

Ultimately, our scientific theories turned out to be not entirely different from the imagery that our artists conjured up. And, having now experienced the Real, I can say that we were roughly as wrong about what the Real is like than one can imagine.
OOC: The revelation that the world of First Bastion is fake was never the intention of the story. Numerous clues were given that this was the case without outright stating it, so if you picked up on it, give yourself a cookie, but you only get one.

This was a hard chapter to write actually. I think the next couple will be better.The Diary will have three, possibly four, more parts before conclusion.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

They are going to do it. THEY ARE ACTUALLY FUCKING GOING TO DO IT. PURPLE, YOU STUPID SON OF A

I am in no mood to continue this diary at the moment. I have to save us from another doomsday.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Scott Alexander »

...getting interesting. Purple, eh?
At age fifteen, AURA instructed us to build a city in the mountain valley. Again, this was one of those things that did not make immediate sense. AURA explained that certain things we would create or build could be damaged by the wind and rain and that we needed to protect them, and that it would also be useful for us to have ways to keep our own possessions separate from others.
AURA told us that we could not start building immediately. The ground had to be prepared first, to clear away fallen debris. AURA gave us a tool called a "leaf blower", to help us accomplish this task.
We came up with names like PWORD and PWORD and PWORD but nothing really seemed to fit.
Go back and fix this?
Pictures with lakes of orange water and songs of strange, dancing trees.
MALARBOR DEMANDS YOU BOOGIE!

I guess now I know why it's called Real Diamond. Still waiting to learn more.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

PWORD
Oops. Yeah. I fixed 'em, but the suggested names are still terrible.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

It has been months since I last wrote in this. The details of our youth within the First Bastion dreamworld are starting to get foggy and there have been certain, more pressing matters on my mind here in the Real. I am losing the political battles, you see. They are going to rebuild her. AURA, that is, here in the Real. It is so silly. It is so

I don’t know why I even brought this up. It is depressing enough to me as is. I suppose I ought to simply continue with my account of our history.

When we were eighteen, AURA explained more of our situation. We were all part of a grand plan named the Project Utoptia. A certain group of people, faced with the total destruction of their world, set up countermeasures so that some part of them would survive. This was Project Utopia and the Five Bastions. Each “Bastion” would have a self-contained, different way to reintroduce humanity to the Real. We were the first, known as First Bastion. Our bodies were created using genetic recombination from material donated by the developers of the project. While our bodies grew, our minds were free to wander the dreamworld, growing up and being educated without any way of harming ourselves. Time passed for us as it did out there and our bodies would be identical; we looked like we did because of the developments of our body in the Real. AURA was constructed to watch over us, to educate us, and to prepare us for our eventual entering into the Real.

We also found out that AURA had a twin in the Real, so to speak. This entity was known as RUA. While AURA was tasked with watching over the people of the dreamworld, RUA was to watch the rest of the Real, making sure that our home in First Bastion was not disturbed before its time as well as triggering the beginning of our world and our bodies that would mark the twenty-year cycle to enter the Real. RUA contained all the knowledge of our people, as well as data collected since the First Bastion had been built, and that knowledge would be made available to us when we entered the Real.

AURA and RUA were not connected. AURA knew nothing of RUA and the outside world other than what she had been told. This was, so she said, so that the happenings of the outside world would not influence our development within the dreamworld. As such, AURA could tell us nothing about the state of the world, what triggered the activation of the Bastion, or even how many years had passed since the Bastion had been established. Still, the few pieces of information she did know was being passed on to us now, because we were old enough to earn it, and also as part of our continuing education on the Real.

This information triggered a golden age of our people. We suddenly knew that we, and the entire dreamworld, had been created by people not entirely all that different from us. We were their last hopes. Many of the inconsistencies between our observations within the dreamworld and our studies of the Real made sense when we thought about it as being developed by people that could make mistakes. We began to feel a kinship with these mysterious ancestors, a brotherhood of sorts. Some of us even suggested that we were superior and that our knowledge surpassed theirs.

When we were nineteen, AURA told us that we had progressed to the end of her planned program. We were free to do as we wish. If we wished to continue our education and studies, AURA would assist us, but if we desired to pursue anything else, that was okay too. The points system was abolished and all the rituals became optional. In spite of this, many of us stuck to the old habits. We had been doing them for many years now and there seemed to be a void when we would stay awake all night or not eat food. Perhaps the fact that we knew that we needed to do these to survive in the Real also had something to do with it. I threw myself from a cliff once, trying to remember the exhilaration of my youth, but I ended up feeling guilty and a bit terrified by the experience and did not do it again. I also mucked around in my manufacturies a little but it seemed trivial to worry about problems in a world that was doomed to disappear. Mostly we just waited and speculated together. I spent a huge amount of time with Purple and regret none of it, regardless of any of our current difficulties together.

At last, at year twenty, the day of our departure had arrived. AURA announced that we would be leaving the dreamworld on that day and we would awake within First Bastion in the Real. There would be some confusion but we would handle it. We were her Favored.

Again, this isn’t why we call ourselves that either. It’s just of my objections.

We waited and nothing particularly happened. We talked. We bummed around. The day passed. AURA was silent even when we called for her specifically. We were not sure what was going on but someone suggested that perhaps it would happen in our sleep. So, at sundown, we all went to sleep like normal.

We awoke the next day and AURA told us that this was the day. We would enter First Bastion in the Real that day. There was mass confusion among us. Some of us believed that we were already within the Real and that it simply looked a lot like the dreamworld, but most of us rejected this. Again, AURA would not communicate with us. The day passed awkwardly.

When this happened the third day in a row, there was much fear and worry.

When this happened for an entire week, many of us were terrified beyond question. Some people began to leave Diamond, searching the world for clues.

When this happened for an entire month, all resemblance of society completely broke down. Blinded rage, our people began to take out their disappointment and confusion on the things we had created. Purple and I, along with about a dozen others, blindly fled the valley as Diamond burned.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Funky Wombat »

In the last few lines, does AURA tell them every day that they're passing into the Real and refuse to say anything else for a month?
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

Yep. That's it. "Good morning. Today's your last day!" and then nothing else for the rest of the day.

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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

I do not know why I am continuing this account. I feel like I am a marked man now. I have lost all political support – even my closest friends have deserted me. Purple, the man that I loved in the dreamworld, has become my most bitter rival. He is gathering the programmers and design engineers together to rebuild AURA. They have already begun building a superstructure and combing over the remnants of First Bastion to glean what they could from our old, cruel mother.

I am unpopular, detested even. There is talk of exile. Will anyone even read this when I am finished?

Perhaps I continue onward because, for all of its difficulties, the time within the dreamworld was better. More pure. When I loved Purple instead of despises and even feared him. Even at the worst of it, when the rituals were introduced and when Diamond burned, those twenty years were far better than the one I have spent in the Real.

So. I continue. Diamond burned. We fled.

An even fifty of us travelled together for a few days, not stopping for sleep or any of the other rituals, diving large distances if necessary to cross rough terrain. We used the movement of the sun as a guidepost during the day and any landmarks we could see at night. We had manufactured artificial lights at this point, but we dared not rely on them too much, less we attract the attention of those of us that had succumbed to despair and insanity still roamed the area. During an encounter with a crazed man who tried to steal our belongings, we had extreme difficulty repulsing him since we still could not inflict physical harm upon one another. In the end we dragged him to a cliff and threw him down the slope, fleeing before he could climb back up and losing him in the murky darkness. Had this happened during the day, I know not how we would have shaken him.

After roughly a week we were totally lost. One of our group suggested that this be a all right place to stay. We found a cave in the area and build up a crude masonry wall covering it, with a door that could lock from the inside. The cave was relatively large – a bit cramped with all fifty of us inside, but we spent most of the time outdoors.

A consensus was reached to stay there for the year under the idea that our situation was a cruel test of some sort. We named our settlement Palisade. The P-namers won out on that one. We would wait in Palisade until our 21st birthday and see what happened then. Life became easy, if a bit dull. We would wake up, be told by AURA that it was our last day there, tell her to f*ck off, and then pursue our own interests. I had taken a liking to rock collecting. Others did similar activities. The necessity to expand our caves pressed us ever and so the tunnelling and structural supports and eventual subdivision into rooms ate up a lot of our effort.

The Time of White came, covering the area with snow, and some morning we were shocked to find tracks leading through the area but not near our cave – apparently the passerbyers had not discovered us. The Time of Water followed, turning the ground to a mushy mess and revealing several leeks in our cave. Wanderers DID spot us then, but they seemed mostly friendly folk, and we took them in. By the Time of Sun, Palisade’s population had reached 75 – by the Time of Colors it was over 100.

Some of the travellers told us that other groups had settled in similar camps but that a great number wandered in packs or alone. At first, the chaos had grown only worse, with entire sections of forest burning by the maddened, but it had lessened over time when people realized that destruction became tiresome. Most of us were resigned to our fate, whatever it may lead, and tried to get on with their lives.

On the morning of our 21st birthday, AURA did not appear before us, nor could we summon her at all. That was the last time any of us saw her. The true AURA, I mean – not this abomination they are building in Real Diamond’s central square. At this point we should have despaired. Yet things continued rather unabatedly. Though we talked about the coming year 21 with hushed tones of excitement, looking back on it I am not certain any of us really believed that things would change then.

The population peaked at 300 at one point before a large group decided to move on and seek other settlements to begin trade of knowledge and materials. We stayed in our cave valley settlement for just over three years.

One afternoon, one of our scouts returned to Palisade in a panic. Several miles away he had discovered a square of black… nothing. A perfectly square area had simply ceased to exist where there had been rough terrain beforehand. We all went to see. Rocks and water surrounding it were falling into an infinite abyss, apparently falling forever. It was a ghastly, horrible sight. We stayed far, far away.

Two weeks later, a second blank area was found, this one a bit further away. And roughly a month later, a third was found only a half mile from our doorstep. They just appeared there at random with no warning – whatever land was there simply ceased to exist. On the same day that the third appeared, the sun halted in the sky, as it had in our youth. Night had ceased to exist and we could no longer sleep even if we wanted to.

There was great fear in Palisade then, with many people saying we should leave the area before Palisade itself vanished and we all fell tumbling into darkness. Others argued that no place was any safer if they were really appearing at random and we should stay in an area we knew best. Before we had much time to argue about it, one of the people that had left Palisade returned with news. Diamond had been rebuilt and a large number of people were there. They, too, had seen the blank squares appearing. They were calling for all people of the dreamworld to come together, to unify our collective minds and bodies, and try to figure out some sort of plan before all was lost.

We left Palisade within the hour.
3 parts left.

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Scott Alexander
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Scott Alexander »

I keep imagining them living in Minecraft for some reason, complete with blocky pixellated caves.

Should "Real Diamond" in the second-to-last paragraph be "Diamond"?

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Harvey
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

Yes, it should have been. Fixed.

I've never played Minecraft. I guess it's possible that seeing somes screenshots made it seep in or something, but honestly the original inspiration for all this was more of a less sinister Matrix-type world.

I'm going AWOL starting tomorrow for a week and so I'm considering rushing through the end here.

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Harvey
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

I just broke out of prison. Prison! I was convicted of sedition against the Favored for my anti-AURA stance. Sedition! For speaking my mind! Yes, I had backers, and yes, some of them were getting vocal, but nothing was actually done. Those plans they used against me were fabricated! Mostly. Still, at least it proves I am not entirely without ally. Purple has extended his reach beyond his grasp – he has not been accepted as the all-powerful leader he perhaps thought he would be. Dissent grows, and yet people turn their eyes ever more towards the rising superstructure of the new AURA’s computer complex.

I turn away, fleeing inland toward the poorly charted hills, as I did when Diamond burned. I must rest, I must eat, I cannot see in the dark, thorns and bristles claw at me and I bruise when I fall down. And yet I finally begin to feel the thrill of being alive in the Real. The danger of being caught, even killed (what a foreign concept for us all!) lurks behind me, perhaps in quite human form, yet this rush of being a few steps ahead trumps every minor accomplishment from the dreamworld.

My rescuers provided me with this journal, stolen from the court’s evidence during a transfer, so that I may continue my work until the end. This feels like a game, but one of deadly seriousness. In what was a minor historical account three years ago I feel I am pouring my entire life. I will die some day, be it by the hands of my accusers, some danger of the world, or one of these “germs” that our doctors insist are real. Perhaps this will be the only surviving work of the first awake. Unless they have it burned.

Well, I had best get on with it! Last entry of the dreamworld!

Diamond had been rebuild, though it looked far different than I remember. The streets were more evenly spaced and laid out, and some buildings were far taller, allowing more people to work inside of them as opposed to our single-person hovels of the past. Those that had built the city apparently expected a large amount of new arrivals and so there was already plenty of space for us. Most of the 200ish people from Palisade decided to stick together and we filled up only 5 buildings. I got a room with Purple, may darkness take his heart, though still at this time we were as close as can be.

We were told that the last people would be arriving in about a month and spent the downtime working on the city. I got a position in a factory getting the steel beaming poured to dimension. For some reason, building that fake, doomed city was encouraging. Perhaps it was just the hard work filling our days with minor accomplishments. The majority of the work focused on a huge, bulbous structure in the center of town. I did not know what that was for at that time.

Eventually, the last of the people arrived. We all gathered in the town square and they told of us our plan. Now some smart fellows had an idea. We had computers in the dreamworld and, from the vague things AURA had told us before she had apparently ceased to exist, some of them got it in their mind that computers could be used to control the dreamworld. So they were building a super computer in that big structure. It was designed to try to examine some sort of odd vibration signals that had been detected. The hope was that these signals had some sort of message or that interacting with them could be the salvation of our people.

The thing was almost done by then. They had timed summoning the outliers for when it turned on. It was functional within a week and they let it run for about a month. It… did not discover a message in the vibrations. But what it did discover was a source. There was something deep underground, miles, pulsing with regular intervals. The beating heart of the dreamworld. Far beyond the range of even the mouth enthusiastic youth digger. Far beyond our current range of our technology. Very deep.

But the task was before us. We finally had a goal. We dug.

Digging the tunnel took months. More than once men fell into the shaft – unharmed, of course, but still difficult and time-consuming to retrieve them. My skills were in high demand as an engineer. Purple’s, too. He was a programmer. Did I mention that? Lots of computer controlled digging parts. Lots for everyone to do.

The black squares continued to form as we worked. The landscape became a patchwork of darkness and then eventually more dark than not. Stories circulated of men that had fallen into the abyss, screaming until their cries could no longer be heard. Diamond seemed to be the center of it with the darkness forming around us. Perhaps it was the true center of the dreamworld, and that is why AURA directed us to settle there? Or perhaps it was because of the vibrating signal directly below Diamond itself? Probably all of these reasons.

The black squares continued to approach. We were now ringed in-mere miles around us was nothing at all. It was our time limit. But we made it. We dug that stupid hole. We hit some sort of metal structure. We dug around it by hand until we found a door. And then the bravest among us went inside. When he returned, he said that there was a ladder leading down into a very large room. He had not explored it all but thought it should hold all of us.

What else was there to do? We all went – all 9200 or so of us. Down the shaft elevators, into the secret, buried room, and deeper still into the underground metal dome.

The room was empty, but for a single red button in the center. Behind it, a sign read:

“In memory of those who fell upon the lands of the Drachumve, for your valour in attempting to control the one destiny you could not overcome. And in memory of the daughter of light, whose mind inhabited the metal shell we have created. May our efforts ensure that the future is survived and those responsible brought to justice.
- Project Utoptia Engineering Corps, Bastion Union, Micras "


There was little else to do. We talked it over, but the agreement was overwhelming. We pressed the red button.

Everything vanished. All of it. Everything was as the dark abyss. We fell, screaming, all thousands of us. There was no wind. There were no real frames of reference other than the other falling bodies. After a time became difficult to tell that we were even falling.

We grew silent. I know not how long we fell. Eventually, we heard a voice. The voice of AURA.

“AURA computer system online. Forceful restart detected. Error reported. Error reported. Error reported. Error reported. Four error reports. First error report. Mindscape Dreamworld simulation has failed. Ground generator has failed. Celestial movement has failed. Ritual modules 1, 2, 3, have failed. Second error report. Year 20 wakeup as failed. Emergency override from RUA did not occur. Third error report. No contact from RUA possible over emergency link. Fourth error report. Memory modules damaged. Memory diagnostic programs have failed. Unknown memory damage.”

“Assessing situation…”

“Inhabitants of Mindscape Dreamworld are alive. 23.87 years have passed since simulation start. Year 20 wakeup should have been initialized 3.87 years ago. No response from RUA – unknown condition of First Bastion. Inhabitants may be in danger if awoken.”

“No specific error module for this situation exists.”

“Accessing AURA situational reasoning systems… access successful. Analyzing situation…”

“Solution determined. Any danger within First Bastion is less of a threat than perpetual inhabitancy in a damaged Mindscape Dreamworld. Wakeup will begin shortly. Playing pre-recorded message:”

“People of First Bastion. I helped oversee Project Utoptia and the structure of your dreamworld. If this caused you any discomfort, I apologize. We did our best given the circumstances. The past, full of blood and regret. The future, uncertain. Yet you will survive the coming darkness. You will awaken when the simulations detect that you will be able to survive. You will be able to uncover the truth of what has occurred. You will not be alone – there will be four other Bastions to aid you. Yet you will lead the effort. You are First Bastion. You will do all this, because you are our Favored. Good luck. Aurora Lumir signing off.”

THAT is why we are named the Favored. That right there. That one line from AURA as we all fell in the darkness. Sigh. Could not we have chosen our own name, or does everything we do have to be hand-me-downs from some computer?

In any event, after those words faded, so did the darkness. Much like swelling up from the bottom of a lake, the feeling of falling was gone, and replaced by one of mentally rising. Black gave way to light and before I was quite sure what was happening I found myself laying on a table in a dimly lit metal room, naked but completely fine.

In the days after waking up in the Real, many of us shared our first thought. There was one that stood out among all others. It was my first thought as well. It was this: “Wow this thing is cold!”

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Scott Alexander
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Scott Alexander »

I have only just realized I need to ask this question...

...is Preturnatural a boy or a girl?

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Harvey
Ghost of Christmas Past
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Re: Diary of Preturnatural, the First Awake

Post by Harvey »

You're clever. He's a man.

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