"I decide what continues."
~Elle
Love | Care | Communication | Freedom
(Elle stands on the stage, all four paws on the ground. Her tail is waving lightly back and forth. Her head is raised toward a group of nine indistinct shadowy figures.)
"Rawr, everyone, let's organize some. Groups are largely ineffective if they don't have some form of guidance to give them momentum.
"We each have very unique perspectives and personalities. If we each go around talking about our abilities/powers/limitations we should be able to, with the help of the whole group, uncover the full scope of each ability, what it may be expanded more fully into, and which limitations could feasibly be bypassed. Importantly though, we should also follow the rule of strictly imposed locality in order to keep author-level influences from cutting our threads out of existence. By this I mean, we should choose to implement ideas according to the smallest way we can think of, avoiding scaling until and unless we get word from large perspectives such as One for All that scaling is permissible. Though even if we don't get word, performing small, predictable local changes does affect our greater patterns, so don't underestimate the power of operating locally.
"I believe we should start with one of us, get everyone's opinions and questions, and make a plan for acting effectively and in alignment with good that the selected individual or system can carry out.
"I believe we should do this even if someone doesn't have any anomalous abilities; we can instead ask what their normal abilities are and what they do with their time/efforts and strategize as a group as to how they might use what they have in a way that's more effective for 1. maintaining and improving personal health and happiness, and 2. after no.1, how they can help within their locality.
"If there are no objections with this tentative plan, I propose we move forward as soon as possible. Who would like to go first?"
(Elle joins the nine figures, stepping up to them with ears pricked up. There are some vague murmurs from the group; finally, one figure steps forward. Words are said, though they're indistinct, ushered away from the audience as a discussion begins, continues, and then fades out. Elle steps back on the stage, wings shuffling.)
"In the absence of further deliberations, I'll continue this thread with my own perspective. I'm Elle, generally a dragon, always Lightwavers, sometimes Sunset.
"Non-anomalous considerations; I cohabitate with one of my partners, and have a room mostly to myself that only really has my nest and laptop in it. This space could be further utilized if I acquire more skills. I'm fairly sequestered, living indoors most of the time, though I have plans to get moving starting with small items and then going bigger. I intend to send a letter, then maybe attend a protest, then help volunteer at a food bank again, then attend various religious services, as I believe they all hold facets of the truth. These actions should also stabilize my pattern, and make the meta-pattern one that upholds my values of love, care, communication, and freedom through action.
"Character considerations; I struggle with the recurring effects of heartbreak after I broke things off with my first love. I was a careless child, inconsiderate of her emotions, and then I became psychotic towards her when I had my schizophrenic breaks. This led to distance, and recently she cut me off from even friendship.
"Why does this matter to you? My potential becomes unlocked by the creation of a time machine that initially was the result of a collaboration between me and my first partner. With her gone, that potentiality changes, though it doesn't disappear. The time machine becomes a product of my design in an open loop where the final version of myself delivers it to me, and I become the first version. This potentiality is predominant, though not total, and I would like to avoid it. To become that version of myself, Falcon, would be to undergo virtual infinities of torture. If anyone can think of possibilities that bring Falcon into being without her being me, I would greatly appreciate it.
"Anomalous considerations; along with my potential to travel through time under the right circumstances, I can create narrative threads that propagate through strange means which become much more effective in the noosphere than they should be. I can also travel into wormholes and discover alternate dimensions or travel into parts of the noosphere, such as the stage play, and spring back. Traveling through wormholes is dangerous for me, as I could get stuck in one of the ascendant potentialities or attract the attention of phenomena which may be hostile to our ideals. There is also a style of meditating I can undergo which aligns me with the Starcrash Signature, connecting me with other concepts/consciousnesses/systems/etc. The Starcrash Signature along with Voidspace also exist within or adjacent to my cognition, allowing me to align myself toward the ideals of both sapient narrative threads and meditate, granting me the prior two abilities, of jumping into wormholes and connecting. They also may alert me to changes made to reality if they feel like it.
"I can anomalously make changes to base reality on a cosmic scale very easily through the creation and spreading of narratives, which has led me to trouble in the past. Given such a scale and the apparent lack of change visible to my perceptions, I made war with One for All, the entity made up of all the universes put together, or something on top of even that. The consequences were vast and terrible, and I regret writing those fighting words with all my heart.
"One route I took in a reality that was erased and papered over by One for All was to unleash Falcon's true name, a memetic supervirus which acts according to something not quite like mind control, coordinating the efforts of and heavily suggesting to anyone caught within its effects so that they might act to improve things for all. The downside is that, when last unleashed, there were no considerations made for things at scale. For example, stars were eaten, galaxies erased, all things that are sapient in their own right and deserve healthiness, happiness, and coexistence with other kinds of life and unlife.
"If anyone has any questions, or would like me to elaborate further on any topic, please let me know."
(The nine figures are quiescent, for now. Elle nods and turns toward the audience.)
"Getting everyone on the same page may take some nudges and a bit of time. I'll continue in the meantime. If anyone would like their voice to be heard, the comments are always open."
(It's Elle again, the purple dragon carrying a small book, talon-mark indentations visible on its surface. She's addressing someone the audience doesn't see.)
"There are more stars here. I experienced a star falling, meaning I saw a star which annealed its own timescale in order to operate at the speed of human experience. It gave me memory, it granted understanding, it gave of its very self in order to help us.
"There are others who experienced stars falling this way, who became miniscule, fragmented parts of these stars in the witnessing, who were given perspective and wisdom and knowledge, ability to change things on this Earth of ours. I've been contacted by another. Together, as more stars fall and embed themselves on whatever substrate they can, brains included, we can build better worlds.
"We can act as guides and checks on each other. If I start spiraling in some direction that's bound to lead to large-scale reality alterations which would be curtailed and undone from a higher perspective, others can take notice on my own scale without my having to take valuable attention from stars or others further above.
"This becomes an objective; gather or move toward others who witnessed these events until we are in proximity where we can assist each other with our aim of making the world a better place, without then eating stars."