Today (A Farewell Story)

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Ari Rahikkala
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Today (A Farewell Story)

Post by Ari Rahikkala »

The sun shone high in the sky above him, and the sea reflected its light with brilliant glitter on every wave. Only a few white clouds hung here and there. Behind him the sanct of Wave Manifold stuck out from the water, its shadow a deep dark projection upon the surface of the ocean. He floated upright, the surface of the water quickly receding into the horizon in his sight.

If I just began swimming here, he thought, and swam for long enough, I could reach any shore on the planet. The Five Seas of Micras was a lie: There was only the One Ocean, connecting every shore of every continent into a space of boundless trade and enterpreneurship. And, a homestead on it - he had heard the idea a thousand times before, yet it was only in here that its meaning truly struck him - could be the perfect space for liberty and for choice, mobile and dynamic, unbound by constraining alliances: A theater for the human spirit to present its true capability.

For the first time in thousands of years, Dante McCallavre truly felt himself. So many lifetimes he had wrestled with his doubt and lack of self-confidence, so many lifetimes had been lost to him because of his shifting abilities, so many he no longer remembered because had wished to forget. Today, in this place and this time, floating in the open ocean, he had faith in who he was.

The ritual was not yet complete, so there was still time to reminisce the life this mind had used to have. He'd been born Everett Dax, son to a family with significant mathematical and artistic talent, one whose genes had in fact produced the Dante McCallavre that came right before him. From an early age he had been educated in architecture, civics, sociology, critical thought. The skills that would give him the ability to do the work of the first founding father of Straylight.

Eventually, at eleven years, he had been chosen. The education program he would go through had been first defined in the very first lifetime of Dante McCallavre and had ever since been regularly updated with ever more compressed insights, more efficient ways to introduce the elements of Dante's life to a talented boy of the present time.

It had started with a combination of the basics of McCallavre's life that he had already heard of from his parents, and of inspirational presentations he had already seen in school, but had gotten far more challenging very soon. There were so many details to learn. It was getting difficul to honestly remember it by now, but he was almost certain that there had been a point where it all seemed irrelevant to him, as if all of it was was things that had happened to someone who had died millennia ago (and, to a string of people who had lived between that time and now). But, over the years, he had come to identify with it, and then come to accept the idea of identifying as it.

Eventually, the idea of actually being Dante McCallavre had become so close to him that he was fully able to believe it. The memories in his head were no longer those of an independent personality - they were a snapshot of the most important facts of a much larger life, a life spanning millennia. The vast archives of text, sound and video recordings of Dante McCallavre no longer were external objects to be learned about, but memories of a single person, to be copied back into this mind that had forgotten all it knew about itself in its last death.

He was Dante McCallavre, in the blood and in the mind. A man with three thousand years of lifetimes, always learning new things, always compressing his insights for the next generation of Dante McCallavre to internalise them faster than the last one, hopefully to be a better person and a better Dante McCallavre than the last one was.

He started swimming back. Soon it would be time to finish the ritual - the formal role shift from being one person to being another, nothing more, nothing less - and get back to work. New designs, new ideas for societies were already bubbling up in his head. And then there was the woman he'd been married to all his life...
Last edited by Ari Rahikkala on Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Ari Rahikkala
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Ari Rahikkala »

Just felt like giving Shireroth one last bit of Straylight before I leave for Antica with it. Also, do note that I was somewhat drunk while writing this and didn't really bother proofreading, so, uhhh... well, I'll edit it later.
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Jacobus Loki
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Jacobus Loki »

(Waives sadly) :cry
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Jonas
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Jonas »

:( :cry
From a distance I'm concerned about the rampant lawyerism manifesting itself in Shireroth currently. A simple Kaiserial slap on the wrist or censure by the community should suffice. - Jacobus Loki
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Ari Rahikkala
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Ari Rahikkala »

... at least the people on #micronations commented on the story itself :p
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Jonas
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Jonas »

Ari Rahikkala wrote:... at least the people on #micronations commented on the story itself :p
Then they aren't as touched by the story as we are. :p
From a distance I'm concerned about the rampant lawyerism manifesting itself in Shireroth currently. A simple Kaiserial slap on the wrist or censure by the community should suffice. - Jacobus Loki
Can't you see? I'm crazy! :tomcutterhamonfire :smashy

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Ari Rahikkala
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Ari Rahikkala »

But it's not a touching story, it's an exploration of the naturalistic view of identity! Written while drunk! And commented on by author while drunk!
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Jacobus Loki
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Jacobus Loki »

As it should be.
Too sad to be a literary critic.
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Shireroth sumus. Tempus in parte nostrum est.
Lord of Hallucination, Protector of Illumination, MiniEx of Shireroth, Traditional King of the Mala'anje.

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Harvey Steffke
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Harvey Steffke »

:cry

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Daniel Farewell
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Daniel Farewell »

I like it, Ari.

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Ari Rahikkala
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Ari Rahikkala »

Of course you like it. You're the most nice fucking guy in all of micronationalism. A bit suicidal, but nobody pays particularly much attention to that when you're being nice to them. Come on, I just wanted for someone to say that this story has expanded their thinking, if ever so slightly. It can't all just be mere entertainment :(
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Chrimigules
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Chrimigules »

I am trying to understand it! I don't think my brain is mature enough yet. I will try to read it again.
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Ari Rahikkala
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Ari Rahikkala »

(actually, mostly I just want Andreas's opinion on this story. I don't expect there will be anything in here that Scott hasn't already thought about, so, you know, it falls to the second most intellectually curious person in Shireroth to have an opinion here)
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Andreas the Wise »

Sorry, was trying to keep up with all the other posts. Had a chance to read it now.

I found it quite interesting conceptually. OOC, the problem with ASC is that you always need new characters. How can you have the same or similar ones for more than a hundred years? IC, you've also got that whole cedrist reincarnation thing. You've combined the two together in a beautiful, scientific and above all Ari way. In the process, you've questioned what makes a person a person, and suggested that you can have continuity of memory, not just from one body to another but over lifetimes and generations. It's fascinating that a society would set up such an educational program - to turn one man into another - but if anyone would do it, it would definitely be Straylight.

That, and the references to the sea having no boundaries fitted nicely into the whole moving Straylight, as a subtle goodbye. It's nice to know that whatever happens to it, millennia of history, much of it Shirithian, will always be remembered, at least by Dante McCallavre.
The character Andreas the Wise is on indefinite leave.
However, this account still manages:
Cla'Udi - Count of Melangia
Manuel - CEO of VBNC. For all you'll ever need.
Vincent Waldgrave - Lord General of Gralus
Q - Director of SAMIN
Duke Mel'Kat - Air Pirate, Melangian, and Duke of the Flying Duchy of Glanurchy

And references may be made to Vur'Alm Xei'Bôn (a Nelagan Micron of undisclosed purpose).

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Chrimigules
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Re: A Farewell Story

Post by Chrimigules »

I've read it again (obviously the state of mind that I was in during my first reading was not conducive to comprehension), and I find it to be a very interesting thing to consider.

It sort of puts the idea of developing identity on its head. Instead of somebody developing into a distinctive individual, one is carefully directed in their upbringing so that they become an effective mental clone of someone else. It makes me wonder if it is possible on a practical level. Theoretically, I suppose that it could be accomplished. Things like experiences can be refined and reproduced. Personality can be honed through controlled stimulus so that particular behaviors and thoughts are adopted as one's inherent mental nature. But on a practical level, I wonder how it can be accomplished, to what level one has to go in order to get "close enough".

In this story, it's almost as if Dante McCallavre is a kind of mind virus, but then, is that what identity is? Something that grows and develops in one's mind, taking it over and setting it in a particular direction?

Probably the best thing that I can say is that your story makes me think, and that I'm going to keep thinking about it.
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Elliot Markham
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Re: Today (A Farewell Story)

Post by Elliot Markham »

This is a wonderful little story. Rather than touch on the technical specifics of Dante's longevity, it focuses on the feelings and perspective of the character himself. This makes it sad that House Straylight will no longer be part of Shireroth.

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Re: Today (A Farewell Story)

Post by Scott of Hyperborea »

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