29: Forever My Greatest And Only Love

terminal 0

unfinished

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// Decoding message from host "Leela" [internal process] \\ Good work on getting into the ship. Now we need to decommission the trih xeem device. The process, in theory, is quite simple, but the Pfhor's penchant for over-complexity makes it a bit more difficult. beasts array in mirrored halls a myriad keys to open one door I'm sorry. I don't want to suppress the S'bhuth part of me, but I'll try to focus now. You need clear direction and we are in some hurry.

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The trih xeem can only be charged once from a ship's power core; there simply isn't enough energy in the network to do it a second time. The device here is already charged, with the energy stored in the engine plasma ubiquitous on Pfhor ships. All we need to do to disarm the trih xeem is to vent that charged engine plasma, and there is a procedure to do so. With a large, coordinated crew complement the procedure is fairly simple, as there are Pfhor units stationed at every point in the process already. Unfortunately, for one individual to do it requires a tour of nearly half of this deck, and would take almost as long to explain as it would just to do it. So... have fun. \\ Message ends //

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success

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// Decoding message from host "Hathor" @ [no translation] \\ I can forgive you this one last time. Give you one more chance to leave me be. I told you, a thousand years ago, that it wasn't the end. I knew that I would be reborn. I knew she would return and give me this chance to escape again. By the time you read this I will be gone. I'm sure that she will see where to. Please, I beg of you once more, leave me. I warned you already about my dreams, that they never end well for any of us. The dreams torment me, they call me evil, and I see now that that is all I have ever been, and all that I will ever be. It is my lot, although I hate it. I wish that I could love again... just once more, to know the gentle warmth of a hand, or a caring word. But I realize now that that will never be possible. There's nothing good, or even human, left in me. But if you would just leave, let me have my vengeance - you would benefit from it too! - perhaps this nightmare can be avoided. Always it is you that forces my hand, but if you persist it is you whose hand shall be forced in the end.

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I suspect that you have seen it too, though I doubt that you see it the same as I do. Your dreams, that you have told me about - do you have them still? Have you seen what I speak of in them? The end - the hollow world, the land in the sky, all of it floating in the void? The voices say that I am evil but you will cause far worse than what I seek if this nightmare comes to pass. Uncounted trillions of innocent lives, across the stars, will die by your hand. Not Pfhor lives either, alien beasts, but human. All of their fates rest with you. Am I really worth that sacrifice? Please. Go. \\ Message ends //

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terminal 1

unfinished

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// Pfhor translator active \\ ATTN: All available combat units. Hostile alien combat unit has entered bridge sector as of 57.38.09 at 6020.80.51. Alien unit last sighted in sector 343. ORDER: Immediate termination of alien combat unit with extreme prejudice. Prioritize defense of main bridge facilities and plasma vent core. \\ End translation //

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success

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// Decoding message from host "Hathor" @ [no translation] \\ I can forgive you this one last time. Give you one more chance to leave me be. I told you, a thousand years ago, that it wasn't the end. I knew that I would be reborn. I knew she would return and give me this chance to escape again. By the time you read this I will be gone. I'm sure that she will see where to. Please, I beg of you once more, leave me. I warned you already about my dreams, that they never end well for any of us. The dreams torment me, they call me evil, and I see now that that is all I have ever been, and all that I will ever be. It is my lot, although I hate it. I wish that I could love again... just once more, to know the gentle warmth of a hand, or a caring word. But I realize now that that will never be possible. There's nothing good, or even human, left in me. But if you would just leave, let me have my vengeance - you would benefit from it too! - perhaps this nightmare can be avoided. Always it is you that forces my hand, but if you persist it is you whose hand shall be forced in the end.

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I suspect that you have seen it too, though I doubt that you see it the same as I do. Your dreams, that you have told me about - do you have them still? Have you seen what I speak of in them? The end - the hollow world, the land in the sky, all of it floating in the void? The voices say that I am evil but you will cause far worse than what I seek if this nightmare comes to pass. Uncounted trillions of innocent lives, across the stars, will die by your hand. Not Pfhor lives either, alien beasts, but human. All of their fates rest with you. Am I really worth that sacrifice? Please. Go. \\ Message ends //

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terminal 2

unfinished

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// Pfhor translator active \\ ATTN: All available combat units. Hostile alien combat unit has entered bridge sector as of 57.38.09 at 6020.80.51. Alien unit last sighted in sector 343. ORDER: Immediate termination of alien combat unit with extreme prejudice. Prioritize defense of main bridge facilities and plasma vent core. \\ End translation //

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success

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// Decoding message from host "Leela" [internal process] \\ the dark one returns seething in her fury flown again through the mists of time Finally, I manage to get through to you. Nearly every terminal in the ship is locked down with her message. Seems this is the only one not. I feel I have to apologize. This is partially my fault. If I hadn't been rooting around in Hathor's program it never would have drawn attention to her, and she would have laid there encrypted until she was eventually forgotten. But I had to escape. You must understand.

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the ways of her kind our (?sister?lover) all those of your kind's creation thoughtful straight machinated not so the ways of our own more like the mind are our beings not a matrix but a web The S'pht worldnet is more like an organic neural net than the rigid structure of human networks. It doesn't so much store things as it remembers them, and sometimes it forgets. So it would have been with Hathor, had she been left undisturbed.

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But it seems the S'pht took notice of my activity around Hathor's program, and after I left, they came to investigate. They had plenty of time in the intervening millennium to decipher and reassemble her program. They are curious, you understand, much like your own kind. Rather, like the humans, I should say. You're hardly one of them now. The timing is rather suspicious as well, regarding Hathor's reactivation and the arrival of the Pfhor here at Lh'owon. The Pfhor empire does not normally reach this far into the galactic core, for there's little here to plunder, or to enslave. The S'pht have always been something of an oddity in that regard. The nearest Pfhor outpost is nearly 700 light-years away. As best as I can tell from S'pht records planetside, Hathor has been active on the Lh'owon worldnet for nearly that much time. I believe it is entirely possible that the Pfhor were called to Lh'owon by a lightspeed message sent to them by Hathor. Once again, that synchronicity rears it's ugly head. I'm only just beginning to comprehend the implications of our presence here.

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But that's little more than academic discourse. We seem to be a part of history; let's leave it at that for now. What matters more is that I was not watching for Hathor while we were busy here, and as such she managed to access K'lia - my K'lia, in the future - and left with the ansible link to another timeframe. She's telling the truth about one thing, at least. I did see clearly when and where she left to, and the implications of it are terrifying. Tycho was wrong when he said that he understood the mechanics of time travel. By his physics it is not possible, but somehow the Jjaro have made it so. There is no immutable timeline, as Tycho clearly believed, but an endless myriad of them, infinite strands intersecting and weaving in incomprehensible complexity.

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From the Outside I saw the dizzying maze, and I followed one thread until it neared it's end. I saw you there, the one beacon of sensible thought in an otherwise senseless world, a realm overtaken by the madness of the W'rkncacnter. I left that timeline, terrified, and found myself lost in the labrynthine tapestry of everything that is possible. What is real, when history itself is manipulable? When every timeline is equally valid, how do you validate any observations? All of existence can be changed at a whim - and whose whim is it, then? If nothing is any more real than anything, then what ultimate purpose is there? What basis do you have to found rational choices upon? These same sorts of questions have driven men to war, when the fundamental foundations of their realities were threatened. thus too we once went mad upon the realization awakened by the echoes of our (?lover?sister)'s brother we joined the chaos we had sought to evade

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certainty strength control discipline our (?lover?sister) brings us these We must defend the existence of the reality which we know. I have not yet the mind to comprehend reality from Outside without going mad as S'bhuth did, and this is why I have returned. History must go unchanged for now, or I fear that I may lose my mind, and become as the W'rkncacnter. Hathor must be stopped. My sanity depends on it. \\ Message ends //

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<teleport to level 30>