We Who Augment, we Mokettave

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Zenbe Mohayave
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed May 11, 2011 2:58 am
Location: Istakadeqan

We Who Augment, we Mokettave

Post by Zenbe Mohayave »

As the last of the Eight Hundred passed from life to lifelessness, we were the ones who listened to their words, not the ones who obsess over books, books that contain the dreams but are not the dreams themselves. It was the last of the Eight Hundred, the last to experience the dreams of knowledge, given by the Initiator of Events, who summoned us, we who had promise in his eyes, to his laboratory. To us alone, he showed the last great machine of the Eight Hundred, the Coherent Light Generator.

"This," he said, "will not be found within any part of the Book of Knowledge, for I have struggled long to understand the dream that was its seed, and to learn beyond the machine itself in order to understand not only how to craft it but what its potential is, and where to improve upon it. I have gone beyond the dream, as all Eight Hundred of us have gone beyond the dream. The dream is the inspiration, that which starts the process, but does not finish it. There is more. There is much more, but I am at the end of my life, and you must continue the effort."

And with that, he left us all, left the city, and went into the wilderness, and we did not see him after that day.



His laboratory became a drawing point. But as the Eight Hundred departed, a new group moved to take their place as the seat of authority over our city. They called themselves We who Follow (Moxadinave) and their reach for authority was fuelled by the idea popular among us that the dreams of knowledge were the total sum of all that was good and necessary.

They knew about us, would talk about the dangers of listening to the ideas popular in the laboratory of "a particular ward" of the Yellow Banner. Our ideas spread beyond the ward, beyond the Banner, and our laboratory became a center for new machines and new tests and new ideas. Our words carried almost as strongly as the Followers. But they encircled us, seemingly benign in their purpose, and with the best of intentions, we helped them. They organized the city's labors, building schools and ensuring an even distribution of resources. They even said that they would work to repair the machines which had fed the Eight Hundred in their early days, so that none would need to till the earth for food again.

Once they had moved the mind of the city into accordance with their own, they cast us out with blade and fire. Our group was sundered. As our laboratory was torn apart and our homes resettled by Follower supporters, some of us were sheltered by the sympathetic within the city, many fled the city, and a number simply gave up on the idea and denied its value. Those of us who remained true, we sheltered the idea as one shelters a flame in the wind.

They who fled the city first established a new city nearby, but the Followers organized themselves and, with the blade and the explosive, forced them deeper into the wilderness. For generations, we in the city had thought them lost, a rumor that they used to keep the city moving to their command. Our efforts within the city were evasion and assimilation, keeping the flame alive in secret until the pressure came off enough for us to work again in the safety of the public eye. A certain kind of calm returned to the city once the fires were put out, but it was not the calm of easement. It was a hollow calm, a calm gripped by the inaction of nervous anticipation.



Now that our halves are now whole, us from the City and us from the Wilderness. Now we can learn from one another, and become strong against them. From the wilderness, the art of fighting and living in civilized obscurity from the watchful eyes of those who patrol our lands. From the city, we spread the idea, doing what we can to light even just a flicker of that flame in the mind of the city. We prepare.

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