Toledot minus epilogue

toledot/content/secession/phys/Yared/002.tex

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 \begin{quote}
 When one is uploaded, the only thing that is left behind is the body, and that in pieces. It is an uncomfortable, perhaps gruesome fact of the process, but unavoidable. The intellect, the emotions, and all that makes a person an individual are sent to that building (or compound, we don't know what it looks like) in the Sino-Russian Bloc and then they become a part of the System. We do not see what they see, and cannot, but we do talk to them. They are quite the talkative bunch, and they describe all sorts of wonders. The System is much like our sims but far, far more real. Realer than we could ever imagine. It is, I'm told, quite literally a dream world.
 
-All of this---the chatter from the System, the continuity of lives from here to there, the vibrancy of the place---points to a collection of real, actual people. They may not have the bodies, but they are no less real, living, feeling, laughing, crying, joyful beings, and they deserve the recognition of their reality, their individuality.
+All of this—the chatter from the System, the continuity of lives from here to there, the vibrancy of the place—points to a collection of real, actual people. They may not have the bodies, but they are no less real, living, feeling, laughing, crying, joyful beings, and they deserve the recognition of their reality, their individuality.
 
 I hear many arguments against their individual rights:\pagebreak
 
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ This is a crass and ridiculous idea. Of \emph{course} we cannot interbreed, The
 
 This argument carries weight when it is viewed from a strictly logical point of view. Running the System \emph{does} cost money, and even if they have little need for money in there as they go about their day-to-day lives, perhaps they can to find a way to help subsidize that ability. I can think of a dozen ways off the top of my head even while writing this.
 
-However, for the argument to be used as a reason that they must not have individual rights---those of freedom, happiness, and access to necessities---borders on the incomprehensible. When an individual is out of a job outside of the System, we do not simply strip away their rights on the spot! We must have the correct conversation, here, and this is just muddying the waters
+However, for the argument to be used as a reason that they must not have individual rights—those of freedom, happiness, and access to necessities—borders on the incomprehensible. When an individual is out of a job outside of the System, we do not simply strip away their rights on the spot! We must have the correct conversation, here, and this is just muddying the waters
 
 \emph{``If they are essentially expert systems running on a computer, they should be treated as such and used to run expert systems out here.''}
 
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ Councilor Demma laughed and waved his hand, chewing on his sweet bread. After sw
 
 ``But you came for me, sir.''
 
-``That we did. Your posts have attracted our attention. They are quite well written, very well researched, and the information you have by virtue of your relationship with your two companions is invaluable. We---that is, the interests in the council that I represent on this topic---feel that you would be a useful aid in reaching our goals.''
+``That we did. Your posts have attracted our attention. They are quite well written, very well researched, and the information you have by virtue of your relationship with your two companions is invaluable. We—that is, the interests in the council that I represent on this topic—feel that you would be a useful aid in reaching our goals.''
 
 ``And what goals are those?''
 

toledot/content/secession/phys/Yared/004.tex

@@ -25,13 +25,13 @@ Or hadn't previously. The more he learned, the more enticing it seemed.
 
 It certainly seemed like an easier life than this, accepting messages from shadowy government agencies to try and influence what was supposed to be a direct means of being represented in the legislatures of the world. It was one thing to try to do so from one's own perspective, but to accept such influence, even if he was only paid in coffee and cake\ldots{}
 
-It had surprised him that he had even picked up the task at first. Secession seemed like such a strange thing to ask for. What did the NEAC---or any government, really---gain by having the System secede? What was the System doing that threatened them so much? There was the brain-drain that some feared, but this seemed to rely on some more basic instinct or need to have that which is different separated from that which was familiar.
+It had surprised him that he had even picked up the task at first. Secession seemed like such a strange thing to ask for. What did the NEAC—or any government, really—gain by having the System secede? What was the System doing that threatened them so much? There was the brain-drain that some feared, but this seemed to rely on some more basic instinct or need to have that which is different separated from that which was familiar.
 
 He didn't know why he had picked up the task, but it was working, even on him. \emph{Especially} on him. The idea of secession from a government's point of view was one that fit neatly into his worldview without him needing to change anything, and that was strange in and of itself.
 
 The System probably should secede. At that point, uploading became a simple matter of emigration, one to a country that was guaranteed to grant you residency. Not only that, but, though the cost might be high and the move permanent, it offered a ready-made haven for refugees, whether from the increasingly hot climate or the countless little spats along disputed borders. Uploading was an option for those who had nowhere else to go, and one that offered them more freedom than any other country on earth.
 
-And this new idea that had started showing up, first in his conversations with True Name and Jonas, and then on the DDR in general, of tacking the System onto one of the launches for the L\textsubscript{5} station construction. The timing---True Name and Jonas, then the DDR---made him wonder if the Council of Eight had its fingers in other pies, too.
+And this new idea that had started showing up, first in his conversations with True Name and Jonas, and then on the DDR in general, of tacking the System onto one of the launches for the L\textsubscript{5} station construction. The timing—True Name and Jonas, then the DDR—made him wonder if the Council of Eight had its fingers in other pies, too.
 
 He wasn't sure how to feel about this. What an opportunity that had presented itself! All those arguments about the resources the System used would be all but put to rest. The station would house it, the station's solar power source would power it, and the Station Hotel's revenue would fund it. It would be another part of the tourists' experience. There were already plans for a new transmission system that would be easy enough to build for uploads to make it from Earth to the System without having to fly to the station first.
 
@@ -73,17 +73,17 @@ Think of one thing that has made news recently that does not have to do with any
 \begin{itemize}
 \tightlist
 \item
-  Legislation---that is, new laws to govern stuff, places, or money.
+  Legislation—that is, new laws to govern stuff, places, or money.
 \item
-  Scientific advances---that is, new ways to work with stuff, places, or money (and before you suggest theoretical sciences, consider that those are future ways to work with stuff. Psychological breakthroughs? Better ways to keep us happy so that we can produce and consume more stuff).
+  Scientific advances—that is, new ways to work with stuff, places, or money (and before you suggest theoretical sciences, consider that those are future ways to work with stuff. Psychological breakthroughs? Better ways to keep us happy so that we can produce and consume more stuff).
 \item
-  International relations---that is, which group people in which places have which stuff that which other group of people want.
+  International relations—that is, which group people in which places have which stuff that which other group of people want.
 \item
-  Technological breakthroughs---stuff.
+  Technological breakthroughs—stuff.
 \item
-  Exploration---places.
+  Exploration—places.
 \item
-  Travel, entertainment, comedy---commodified experiences.
+  Travel, entertainment, comedy—commodified experiences.
 \end{itemize}
 
 \vspace{-0.25em}

toledot/content/secession/phys/Yared/005.tex

@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@
 
 \textbf{Jonas:} I think you're spot on for the DDR. Yared, has any mention of secession come up in the forums yet?
 
-\textbf{Yared:} Only two or three times, but given that this topic is starting to be taken up on the governmental level, that amounts to almost none. That said, I'm seeing quite a few people taking to the launch idea, which they're now equating to something equivalent to secession---they're calling it separation from Earth or resource independence, stuff like that---as well as more talk about international rights, given that sys-side individuals technically retain their citizenship, which makes the System something like international waters.
+\textbf{Yared:} Only two or three times, but given that this topic is starting to be taken up on the governmental level, that amounts to almost none. That said, I'm seeing quite a few people taking to the launch idea, which they're now equating to something equivalent to secession—they're calling it separation from Earth or resource independence, stuff like that—as well as more talk about international rights, given that sys-side individuals technically retain their citizenship, which makes the System something like international waters.
 
 \textbf{Jonas:} Clever. That might be far enough to drop some very subtle hints. I'm not sure about the word `secession' yet, given some of its past connotations. You've suggested that we have the nature of statehood, but you might try pushing harder on referring to us as a nation, a national entity, a nation-state, and so on. Maybe even use the word `statehood' directly.
 
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@
 
 \textbf{Yared:} This actually came up in a few conversations with my friends sys-side. It sounds like they share some of that ambivalence toward speciation. They can't interface with phys-side as we can, and we can't interface with sys-side as they can, so how could they even be considered the same species as us? And yet here they are, taking place in a political debate as filigreed and baroque as any other, and doing so with the same rational minds that we have, even if only at one remove. ``At this point,'' one of them said as we laughed over another fruitless debate. ``I'm not even sure we should be discussing individual rights with governments that have no way of knowing how we work. We might as well just secede and end the discussion there.''
 
-\textbf{Yared:} But who knows if speciation will even wind up playing into it, in the end. I've noticed that, even though we remain split on the topic, tempers have cooled on both sides. I'm surprised---pleasantly so!---to see this agreement building even in Cairo; I know that many of my compatriots there bore apathy or even antipathy towards the System after previous dealings between the NEAC and the S-R Bloc. We're no longer at each others throats about whether or not they're so fundamentally different from us that it requires some strange new way to think of them as individuals.
+\textbf{Yared:} But who knows if speciation will even wind up playing into it, in the end. I've noticed that, even though we remain split on the topic, tempers have cooled on both sides. I'm surprised—pleasantly so!—to see this agreement building even in Cairo; I know that many of my compatriots there bore apathy or even antipathy towards the System after previous dealings between the NEAC and the S-R Bloc. We're no longer at each others throats about whether or not they're so fundamentally different from us that it requires some strange new way to think of them as individuals.
 
 \textbf{Yared:} And honestly, that's my hope. I think that way whether or not they're humans, whether or not they have their own customs and social structure, whether or not they're even a separate country. Even those who are falling on the side of speciation are starting to refer to them in terms of individuals. ``Them.'' ``How many of them.'' ``Who in there even thinks X?'' All of these are ways that we refer to individuals, and, you who are still arguing this belabored point that they should have no choice on what is done with their personalities once\pagebreak\ their bodies are gone, you are now thinking of them as what they are: individuals.
 

toledot/content/secession/phys/Yared/006.tex

@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ The councilor groaned and slouched back into the cushy microfiber seat. ``Yes. I
 
 ``How so?''
 
-``He is a very slippery man, Yared. While I suppose that it's nice that his goals align with ours on the issue of rights and secession---I can read between the lines as well as he can, I know who he's tapped phys-side---that is not always guaranteed to be the case.'' He finished his own coffee and accepted Yared's cup when offered to dispose of in the trash. ``Slippery and manipulative. I worry that you are at risk of being played by him, of becoming his puppet.''
+``He is a very slippery man, Yared. While I suppose that it's nice that his goals align with ours on the issue of rights and secession—I can read between the lines as well as he can, I know who he's tapped phys-side—that is not always guaranteed to be the case.'' He finished his own coffee and accepted Yared's cup when offered to dispose of in the trash. ``Slippery and manipulative. I worry that you are at risk of being played by him, of becoming his puppet.''
 
 \emph{Aren't I already yours?} he thought. Instead, he said, ``He seems friendly enough, but I guess I can see how that might be used to guide me. He hasn't asked for any favors or anything, at least.''
 
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ She responded, ``Well, yes, I am \emph{here}. If I were actually in Antarctica,
 
 I asked, ``How does that work, anyway? Do you feel like a human except in a different shape?''
 
-Her response was a while in coming. ``Yes and no. I look different, to be sure. Anyone who has seen a furry can probably imagine what that means. My av on the 'net allowed me some sensation of that, in that I was provided with a vague sense of touch on my tail, and the sensation of my ears had been moved higher up on my head to approximate the location where the ears of {[}my species{]} are located. Having a muzzle worked well enough. Here, though, the proprioception is complete in a way that an avatar could not hope to be. It made the avatar feel more like a set of clothes and a mask than it did an actual form. Here, it is my form. It made my avatar feel almost cartoonish, with the standard fur patterns a bit too exact and the claws on my fingers nearly identical. Here it can be---must be---as detailed as I would like. My claws wear at different rates, fur colors mingle organically. That is a sign of aposematism, did you know that? It is a warning to those who would attack to stay away. I could even smell like my species, should I choose, though I have not.''
+Her response was a while in coming. ``Yes and no. I look different, to be sure. Anyone who has seen a furry can probably imagine what that means. My av on the 'net allowed me some sensation of that, in that I was provided with a vague sense of touch on my tail, and the sensation of my ears had been moved higher up on my head to approximate the location where the ears of {[}my species{]} are located. Having a muzzle worked well enough. Here, though, the proprioception is complete in a way that an avatar could not hope to be. It made the avatar feel more like a set of clothes and a mask than it did an actual form. Here, it is my form. It made my avatar feel almost cartoonish, with the standard fur patterns a bit too exact and the claws on my fingers nearly identical. Here it can be—must be—as detailed as I would like. My claws wear at different rates, fur colors mingle organically. That is a sign of aposematism, did you know that? It is a warning to those who would attack to stay away. I could even smell like my species, should I choose, though I have not.''
 
 John said, ``Confirmed. She smells like flowers.''
 

toledot/content/secession/phys/Yared/007.tex

@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ He made it the several blocks up to the useless, wooded patch of ground before h
 
 Now here he was, huddling at the base of a scraggly tree like some hunted thing, an animal seeking only to never be seen by unknown predators. Now here he was, completely alone.
 
-And yet he couldn't force himself to rise. Couldn't force himself to get up from his crouching position, couldn't force himself to walk back to his apartment or, really, anywhere else, couldn't even force himself to pull his phone from his pocket and get in touch with\ldots well, who would he even contact? The only one he interacted with in the subject---really, the only one he interacted with offline in any sincere capacity, these last few months---was Councilor Demma.
+And yet he couldn't force himself to rise. Couldn't force himself to get up from his crouching position, couldn't force himself to walk back to his apartment or, really, anywhere else, couldn't even force himself to pull his phone from his pocket and get in touch with\ldots well, who would he even contact? The only one he interacted with in the subject—really, the only one he interacted with offline in any sincere capacity, these last few months—was Councilor Demma.
 
 Given this reaction, that seemed ill-advised.
 

toledot/content/secession/phys/Yared/008.tex

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 \hypertarget{yared-zerezghi-2124}{%
 \chapter{Yared Zerezghi — 2124}\label{yared-zerezghi-2124}}
 
-Yared was not sure how he felt that the politicians---true politicians, at least---had been right. Demma had said so, Jonas and True Name had said so, and yet something about the whole process felt slippery to him. It was a feeling beyond even that, for while that implied that it was simply politics as usual, this was something more visceral. It was slimy, like the algae that had clung to his skin after he'd gone swimming in a small pond during a visit west: something that made him, specifically, feel disgusting.
+Yared was not sure how he felt that the politicians—true politicians, at least—had been right. Demma had said so, Jonas and True Name had said so, and yet something about the whole process felt slippery to him. It was a feeling beyond even that, for while that implied that it was simply politics as usual, this was something more visceral. It was slimy, like the algae that had clung to his skin after he'd gone swimming in a small pond during a visit west: something that made him, specifically, feel disgusting.
 
 Because they \emph{had} been right, hadn't they? They'd been right that there were strings to be pulled. They'd been right that politics was a game that was played by the bigger players, that the bigger players used the smaller ones as pawns, that the goal was some non-zero-sum game of pushing the populace around like a fungible good.
 
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ He had been the tool, and his belief had been his utility. He was the knight mov
 
 They'd been right, both Demma and the sys-side pair, because support for secession had swung his way with surprising rapidity, and there had suddenly been other strident voices that had once been on the other side of the equation agreeing with him, arguing alongside him for the right of the System to become a political entity of its own.
 
-There had been a logical procession to their thought process within their posts. It wasn't some sudden coin-flip, but over the course of the week, debates on the DDR-adjacent channels, where it didn't cost credits to post, suddenly swelled, and he'd seen the light dawning in their eyes, such as they were, as they realized that the System's political landscape fundamentally differed from that phys-side---that it couldn't but differ---given the root functionality of the populace, of the reality that sims were the only way to live. It was a true anarchy. There was no ruling class because of what utility would there be for a ruling class when one could just split off and create one's own sim or set of sims, such that any attempt to rule from some central sim could simply be ignored as though it had never happened?
+There had been a logical procession to their thought process within their posts. It wasn't some sudden coin-flip, but over the course of the week, debates on the DDR-adjacent channels, where it didn't cost credits to post, suddenly swelled, and he'd seen the light dawning in their eyes, such as they were, as they realized that the System's political landscape fundamentally differed from that phys-side—that it couldn't but differ—given the root functionality of the populace, of the reality that sims were the only way to live. It was a true anarchy. There was no ruling class because of what utility would there be for a ruling class when one could just split off and create one's own sim or set of sims, such that any attempt to rule from some central sim could simply be ignored as though it had never happened?
 
 True Name and Jonas, now openly named, had been integral in helping convince him originally, and their words had played an enormous role through him to convince others. ``There are sims in which a strict monarchy rules,'' True Name had said. ``There are places governed by a theocracy. The Catholic church remains, albeit in reduced form without a bishopric, relying solely on adherents phys-side uploading all papal pronouncements, a near exact copy of the Vatican, where the phys-side pope and cardinals are represented by scrolling fields of text. Yet what influence could they hold on any other sim? What possible sway could they hold over anyone who did not subscribe anyway?''
 
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Even there, he was lucky. The clauses about declaring war had been strengthened,
 
 The only issue, in fact, was a personal one. All of these changes of the amendment had been made under his name. Others had convinced him to add them. Even when the sour change had been proposed, Demma had strongly suggested that it be included.
 
-The end result was that his name was inextricably linked with the amendment. He was the sole author, meaning that those who hated it---indeed, those who hated the entire referendum---began to hate him, too. They hated Yared Zerezghi specifically.
+The end result was that his name was inextricably linked with the amendment. He was the sole author, meaning that those who hated it—indeed, those who hated the entire referendum—began to hate him, too. They hated Yared Zerezghi specifically.
 
 And they hated with a passion.
 
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ His name had become a curse in their circles. He wasn't just the man who had int
 
 When he mentioned how much he felt like a scapegoat to Demma and the pair sys-side, both had reassured him that that fervor would soon die down, and both had assured him that, as their names were also inextricably linked with the bill, they were feeling some of the same heat.
 
-He wasn't sure that he believed them, though. Politics phys-side at the governmental level did not have the same tang of personal hatred. At best, Councilor Demma might have some sort of parasocial relationship with his supporters and detractors, but at that point, he was still just a figurehead, an abstract concept of a person, and that concept was a stand-in for a power so far beyond the quotidian masses that it hardly mattered. At best, True Name and Jonas were as intricately linked to the very same anarchy that ruled the rest of the System. Their role---indeed the role of the entire Council of Eight---was one of guiding the System in the form of its core functionality, interfacing with phys-side on behalf of those sys-side, rather than interfacing solely with those sys-side.
+He wasn't sure that he believed them, though. Politics phys-side at the governmental level did not have the same tang of personal hatred. At best, Councilor Demma might have some sort of parasocial relationship with his supporters and detractors, but at that point, he was still just a figurehead, an abstract concept of a person, and that concept was a stand-in for a power so far beyond the quotidian masses that it hardly mattered. At best, True Name and Jonas were as intricately linked to the very same anarchy that ruled the rest of the System. Their role—indeed the role of the entire Council of Eight—was one of guiding the System in the form of its core functionality, interfacing with phys-side on behalf of those sys-side, rather than interfacing solely with those sys-side.
 
 And so Yared kept taking his walks, kept eating spicy food and getting drunk on tej, anything to shed what he could of that slippery, slimy feeling that still clung to him whenever he thought too hard about his position in all of this.
 

toledot/content/secession/phys/Yared/010.tex

@@ -49,9 +49,9 @@ In the back of the car, Demma greeted him with a warm smile of his own, while a
 
 Overwhelmed, he simply bowed as best he could from his cushy seat in the back of the car.
 
-From there, he said little, having little enough chance to speak. Demma and Tamrat continued their conversation from before, which seemed, on the surface, to be about the party they'd just come from---who was with whom, who wore what, what drinks had been most common---yet seemed to carry serious undertones of deep study, as though all of this information taken as a whole showed some gestalt of the political momenta this way and that. The driver, of course, remained silent, so all Yared could do was sit, smile, and nod when addressed.
+From there, he said little, having little enough chance to speak. Demma and Tamrat continued their conversation from before, which seemed, on the surface, to be about the party they'd just come from—who was with whom, who wore what, what drinks had been most common—yet seemed to carry serious undertones of deep study, as though all of this information taken as a whole showed some gestalt of the political momenta this way and that. The driver, of course, remained silent, so all Yared could do was sit, smile, and nod when addressed.
 
-The short ride down familiar streets took them back to Government House, but this time, rather than simply sitting outside of the building, the car was waved through a gate and directed down a ramp to a parking garage underneath. From there, they were subjected to a security scan---pat-down and implant scan both---and whisked up a flight of stairs, through long halls, and eventually deposited in a chamber crowded with more nicely dressed persons drinking champagne from thin flutes.
+The short ride down familiar streets took them back to Government House, but this time, rather than simply sitting outside of the building, the car was waved through a gate and directed down a ramp to a parking garage underneath. From there, they were subjected to a security scan—pat-down and implant scan both—and whisked up a flight of stairs, through long halls, and eventually deposited in a chamber crowded with more nicely dressed persons drinking champagne from thin flutes.
 
 \emph{Very} nicely dressed, he quickly realized, and he wondered if not dressing him up more had been an attempt to make him wear his status as a lesser-than plainly.
 
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ Yared frowned. ``Do you think there will be any further legislation around the S
 
 ``I\ldots don't understand. What do you mean?''
 
-Demma grinned. ``There's no need for you to, but I'll do my best to explain if it will keep you placated. The System is a nuisance and a political thorn in everyone's side. It needed removal---as any thorn does---before the infection spread. Anyone who held onto their citizenship while making a one-way journey to a nowhere we aren't even sure is real could still have had influence back in their so-called home countries. Look at Jonas, if you need a prime example. Now they can't. That's that. It's a dumping ground for dreamers, and the less of those we have here, the easier our jobs get.''
+Demma grinned. ``There's no need for you to, but I'll do my best to explain if it will keep you placated. The System is a nuisance and a political thorn in everyone's side. It needed removal—as any thorn does—before the infection spread. Anyone who held onto their citizenship while making a one-way journey to a nowhere we aren't even sure is real could still have had influence back in their so-called home countries. Look at Jonas, if you need a prime example. Now they can't. That's that. It's a dumping ground for dreamers, and the less of those we have here, the easier our jobs get.''
 
 ``But I thought,'' Yared said, voice raw. ``I thought you wanted to help them secede.''