Toledot minus epilogue

toledot/content/secession/sys/Michelle/002.tex

@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ The cone of silence was dropped, and council members left at their own pace unti
 
 There was a moment's silence, then Debarre murmured, ``You tell him.''
 
-``A friend of mine---of ours---wrote this poem, an ode, and I was thinking that I would name the instances after lines from it. A hundred lines, ten stanzas. That gives me ten first lines to start with, and I can go from there.''
+``A friend of mine—of ours—wrote this poem, an ode, and I was thinking that I would name the instances after lines from it. A hundred lines, ten stanzas. That gives me ten first lines to start with, and I can go from there.''
 
 Jonas shrugged. ``Well, fair enough, if strange. You didn't answer why you two got all weird, though.''
 

toledot/content/secession/sys/True-Name/001.tex

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 \hypertarget{true-name-2124}{%
 \chapter{True Name — 2124}\label{true-name-2124}}
 
-The next meeting spot for the Council of Eight was in a rooftop bar. However, given that that rooftop bar was in the midst of a block of apartment buildings and vertical malls that had built with shared walls, such that there was a cubic half-mile of stair-climbing, elevator rides---down as well as up---and trestles that bridged buildings of lower height than higher ones, it was more adventure getting to the venue than the meeting itself promised.
+The next meeting spot for the Council of Eight was in a rooftop bar. However, given that that rooftop bar was in the midst of a block of apartment buildings and vertical malls that had built with shared walls, such that there was a cubic half-mile of stair-climbing, elevator rides—down as well as up—and trestles that bridged buildings of lower height than higher ones, it was more adventure getting to the venue than the meeting itself promised.
 
 Still, The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream climbed.
 
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ True Name found it all confusing and jarring.
 
 She liked it immediately.
 
-Debarre was already at one of the tables---similarly cobbled together---sipping something that seemed to be all foam. He waved to her as she entered, and she waved back, heading to the bar to pick up one of those seaweed concoctions before joining him.
+Debarre was already at one of the tables—similarly cobbled together—sipping something that seemed to be all foam. He waved to her as she entered, and she waved back, heading to the bar to pick up one of those seaweed concoctions before joining him.
 
 ``That looks fucking gross, Sasha.''
 
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ One of the suits laughed, and Debarre looked blank.
 
 After a moment's silence, Zeke rasped, ``So what are our next steps?''
 
-``Let's all talk to our respective interests---Zeke too---and we'll meet again soon. True Name and I will keep working with Yared and guide as best we can from our side. Speaking of, though, any thoughts on the speciation topic?''
+``Let's all talk to our respective interests—Zeke too—and we'll meet again soon. True Name and I will keep working with Yared and guide as best we can from our side. Speaking of, though, any thoughts on the speciation topic?''
 
 Six sets of eyes flitted between Debarre and True Name, between weasel and skunk, then the whole council laughed.
 

toledot/content/secession/sys/True-Name/002.tex

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ Found out from what or by whom, True Name had not yet divined. Perhaps it was ju
 
 She felt constantly aware of who was around her. Not in the sense that she was being watched, though she certainly entertained that idea. It wasn't that she and Jonas might be discovered as members of the council and accosted. Nor was it that they were doing anything untoward. They were just getting together to do their jobs and do them to their full abilities.
 
-Perhaps it had something to do with lingering anxiety left over from Michelle. Perhaps it was due to the tenuousness of her position on the council---not that they doubted her as a fork of Michelle, but she did sense some hesitancy surrounding allowing forked instances to sit while the root instance did not.
+Perhaps it had something to do with lingering anxiety left over from Michelle. Perhaps it was due to the tenuousness of her position on the council—not that they doubted her as a fork of Michelle, but she did sense some hesitancy surrounding allowing forked instances to sit while the root instance did not.
 
 \emph{Maybe I have drifted too far,} she often found herself thinking. \emph{Maybe I am no longer Michelle enough to see things in the same way.}
 
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ She kicked his shin beneath the table, and he laughed.
 
 True Name laughed. ``Really?''
 
-``Really. They're always the sly types you need to watch out for. Nothing they say is not a coldly calculated maneuver to get you to agree with them.'' He shook his head. ``Even their wives---and they're almost always men---are probably married to them only because they told them that they loved them in \emph{just} the right tone of voice to get them to say yes.''
+``Really. They're always the sly types you need to watch out for. Nothing they say is not a coldly calculated maneuver to get you to agree with them.'' He shook his head. ``Even their wives—and they're almost always men—are probably married to them only because they told them that they loved them in \emph{just} the right tone of voice to get them to say yes.''
 
 ``Manipulative shitheads.''
 
@@ -123,7 +123,7 @@ True Name nodded. ``It sounds like there is no reason not to. If the System is t
 
 ``Listen to you, my dear!'' Jonas laughed. ``You sound like a dreamer, yourself.''
 
-``Perhaps.'' She grinned. ``But also someone willing to devote myself---several of me---to getting what I want.''
+``Perhaps.'' She grinned. ``But also someone willing to devote myself—several of me—to getting what I want.''
 
 ``Speaking of, what are the rest of you doing?''
 
@@ -177,7 +177,7 @@ True Name grinned, putting her finger to her snout in the universal hush sign. `
 
 ``It's up to you, yeah.'' Jonas sat back against the couch, one arm draped casually along the back. ``I honestly was surprised when no one noticed my reputation drop, but then I figured out that most people just look at the clade's reputation, rather than the instances. I have a feeling that'll change eventually, but for now, no one seems to pay all that much attention.''
 
-The skunk frowned, browsed the markets---something that felt more akin to remembering what the stats were, rather than looking anything up---and saw that, while she had less reputation than Michelle had before she forked, the clade had a good bit more, likely from what each of them were doing to build reputation. Jonas naming his clade after himself was a fairly savvy move, in the end. `Ode' having no direct ties to Michelle it seems like something unrelated.
+The skunk frowned, browsed the markets—something that felt more akin to remembering what the stats were, rather than looking anything up—and saw that, while she had less reputation than Michelle had before she forked, the clade had a good bit more, likely from what each of them were doing to build reputation. Jonas naming his clade after himself was a fairly savvy move, in the end. `Ode' having no direct ties to Michelle it seems like something unrelated.
 
 \emph{Ah well. I am still happy to have done it,} she thought. \emph{And perhaps we will find our own way to build reputation that does not involve a constant game of make believe.}
 

toledot/content/secession/sys/True-Name/003.tex

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ Terrible. Delightful.
 
 She let that intoxication linger as she prowled through one of the mall sections of the solid block of building. She paced along balconies, fingering wilting leaves of variegated plants, scratching a claw through the grime of countless hands accumulated on faux-wood banisters. She peered through grates at shelves still speckled with abandoned gadgets and folded jeans. She sat in the food court, still smelling of rancid grease and sanitizer. She breathed in the stale, over-conditioned air, and wondered for the thousandth time just who had thought to create such a sim, and what sort of twisted nostalgia had led them to do so.
 
-It was as she stood in front of a quiescent fountain that it occurred to her that this place---the mall, the dingy city, the parking structure and its shoddily crafted drinks---was all a monument to the imperfections of mankind's countless attempts to provide for itself in so many imperfect ways.
+It was as she stood in front of a quiescent fountain that it occurred to her that this place—the mall, the dingy city, the parking structure and its shoddily crafted drinks—was all a monument to the imperfections of mankind's countless attempts to provide for itself in so many imperfect ways.
 
 They were here. They were immortal. They \emph{could} build perfection. They could live their lives in eternal bliss, and yet they still got their kicks out of the temporary and the imperfect. They were, despite the arguments, still human in so many delightfully crazed ways. The cracks still shone through, even when presented with the opportunity of perfection. They were the futurological congress of yore, where even the idea of queuing had been romanticized and pushed into the realm of the transgressive. Even these poor fools who had the limitless expanses of the mind before them knew that, in some ways, it was their origins that made them complete.
 
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ What, then was the difference?
 
 She picked at a coin that had cemented itself to the rim of the fountain in a layer of slimy algae, winced at the unpleasant sensation, and then flicked it into the murky-green water that still stained the basin of the fountain.
 
-There was a part of her mind that was tempted to consider those who lived sys-side as somehow more perfect beings than those who remained phys-side. But no, that was not quite correct. They were different, yes, but they were not some greater form of perfection---or perhaps not entirely.
+There was a part of her mind that was tempted to consider those who lived sys-side as somehow more perfect beings than those who remained phys-side. But no, that was not quite correct. They were different, yes, but they were not some greater form of perfection—or perhaps not entirely.
 
 Were there perhaps some core difference in ideals? Obviously, given the cost of uploading, there was a natural barrier, but even among the upper-middle and higher classes, there were some who simply chose not to upload. What was the difference? Was it aspirational? Were those who uploaded on some different wavelength from those who stayed behind? There were certainly many who found the whole process abhorrent on a physical level, yes. Of those who found it distasteful on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual levels, what did the prospect of continuing to live phys-side provide that living sys-side did not?
 
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ She could not decide, but there was the logical fallout of that situation, that
 
 There was a slight twinge of a sensory alarm, and she knew that it was time for the meeting with Jonas.
 
-He had chosen a war-gaming room for the meeting. There in the middle of the room was a backlit map of Earth at least five meters long, and scattered across its surface were dozens of chess pieces---knights, pawns, queens---which had been pushed\pagebreak\ this way and that by long sticks that still rested along the edges of the table.
+He had chosen a war-gaming room for the meeting. There in the middle of the room was a backlit map of Earth at least five meters long, and scattered across its surface were dozens of chess pieces—knights, pawns, queens—which had been pushed\pagebreak\ this way and that by long sticks that still rested along the edges of the table.
 
 A smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. \emph{How very like him.}
 
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ After they had both finished their plates of appetizers and enjoyed a moment of
 
 Jonas nodded, pushing two queens, two pawns, and a bishop over the chessboard. The bishop in the British aisles: ``A judge. He's easily bribed. We can't do it ourselves, of course, but we can find those who will. He'll be useful for influencing some legislation whenever cases regarding uploads come up.''
 
-One of the queens wound up in Germany, the other on the east coast of North America: ``Two representatives. Both were good friends. Both too sly for their own good. I'm surprised they haven't gotten flushed out, yet, but we can keep using them until they do. I think they'll be useful in pushing for the legislation---both the core bill, and the launch amendment.''
+One of the queens wound up in Germany, the other on the east coast of North America: ``Two representatives. Both were good friends. Both too sly for their own good. I'm surprised they haven't gotten flushed out, yet, but we can keep using them until they do. I think they'll be useful in pushing for the legislation—both the core bill, and the launch amendment.''
 
 ``How about the secession amendment?'' True Name asked.
 

toledot/content/secession/sys/True-Name/004.tex

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 
 It had initially taken some getting used to, meeting with one's up- or cross-tree instances. Michelle, in her role in helping tie the cost of forking to the reputation markets, had certainly done it a number of times before, but, as the cost of a new fork was only applied five minutes after it had been created, all of her forks to date had been short-lived in order to conserve her reputation for some imagined future date.
 
-The date had come and gone, now, so True Name---and likely all of the other Odists---had had to learn how to interact with the other copies of Michelle Hadje/Sasha that had sprung so quickly into being and immediately began to diverge.
+The date had come and gone, now, so True Name—and likely all of the other Odists—had had to learn how to interact with the other copies of Michelle Hadje/Sasha that had sprung so quickly into being and immediately began to diverge.
 
 The fact that those who matched Michelle and those who matched Sasha were evenly distributed had helped at first. There had been some oddness in talking to a Michelle-alike, given the countless memories of the constant shifting between the two forms, but that had had a different flavor to it than talking to another Sasha-alike. Seeing a form and a face that so clearly mirrored her own was not exactly unnerving so much as uncanny.
 
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ She laughed. ``I suppose so. You have changed quite a bit in so short a time.''
 
 The other skunk bowed, laughing. ``As have you, my dear! And that is why you have come here, is it not?''
 
-``I guess it is, yes. The more I work with Jonas, and the more I talk with the Council and phys-side---the more politicking that I do---the more I feel the ways in which my attitude and expressions are lacking.''
+``I guess it is, yes. The more I work with Jonas, and the more I talk with the Council and phys-side—the more politicking that I do—the more I feel the ways in which my attitude and expressions are lacking.''
 
 Praiseworthy nodded. ``Yes, you do still have some of the stiffness about you, and there are some sharp edges that\pagebreak\ could do with softening.''
 
@@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ She shook her head. ``Here and there. I have a meeting scheduled with Life Breed
 
 ``He?''
 
-Praiseworthy shrugged. ``I guess. He has been focusing on historical stuff. Documenting this and that, digging into old things. I have no idea where that came from. Loss For Images is writing these days. May One Day is fiddling with reputation markets---or at least as much as Debarre will let her---and last I heard, Hammered Silver has just been either relaxing here with Michelle or sim-hopping.''
+Praiseworthy shrugged. ``I guess. He has been focusing on historical stuff. Documenting this and that, digging into old things. I have no idea where that came from. Loss For Images is writing these days. May One Day is fiddling with reputation markets—or at least as much as Debarre will let her—and last I heard, Hammered Silver has just been either relaxing here with Michelle or sim-hopping.''
 
 ``How is she, anyway?''
 

toledot/content/secession/sys/True-Name/005.tex

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ She had laughed, given a bow, and stood up straighter once more. ``Glad you appr
 
 ``I'm surprised you didn't work it in bit by bit, but it'll go over well.''
 
-It did, thankfully. When she met with a few of the council members---Debarre and Zeke, thankfully---in order to request the delay on the meeting, they had both complimented her on her looks. She explained it away as wanting try looking `a little less dumpy', a calculated phrase which had gotten a laugh out of Zeke.
+It did, thankfully. When she met with a few of the council members—Debarre and Zeke, thankfully—in order to request the delay on the meeting, they had both complimented her on her looks. She explained it away as wanting try looking `a little less dumpy', a calculated phrase which had gotten a laugh out of Zeke.
 
 But now, the time had come to actually have the council meeting, which was taking place on a set of benches set alongside the edge of a well manicured pond. The S-R Bloc trio showed up in high-collared coats, hats, and sun-glasses.
 
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ Debarre laughed. ``Well, I'm for it. All we're missing is the ducks and a bag of
 
 ``Another time, perhaps. We can play out the full scene.''
 
-``Maybe we can walk and talk for once.'' True Name gestured down the trail, palm up and hand relaxed as Praiseworthy had instructed---\emph{you do not want to seem stiff, but rather like you are suggesting that you would like to get on with something that was already their idea in the first place.}
+``Maybe we can walk and talk for once.'' True Name gestured down the trail, palm up and hand relaxed as Praiseworthy had instructed—\emph{you do not want to seem stiff, but rather like you are suggesting that you would like to get on with something that was already their idea in the first place.}
 
 It worked well, as the whole council turned on cue and began to walk slowly down the trail. Jonas caught her eye and gave her a wink while the cone of silence settled into place and the meeting began.
 
@@ -127,4 +127,4 @@ True Name said nothing, simply returning to watching the movement of the shopper
 
 He laughed.
 
-``What is next? Probably keeping in touch with Yared and helping him draft the amendment. I am sure that most of it will be councilor Demma's work, but that he has been given at least partial responsibility means that we will---must---have a hand in it as well.''
+``What is next? Probably keeping in touch with Yared and helping him draft the amendment. I am sure that most of it will be councilor Demma's work, but that he has been given at least partial responsibility means that we will—must—have a hand in it as well.''

toledot/content/secession/sys/True-Name/006.tex

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ True Name was early to her meeting, and that, she figured was okay. On a whim, s
 
 She ordered herself one of those beers that she loved to hate, sat down in a corner booth with a commanding view of the entrance, tail flopped over the edge, and waited.
 
-While she waited, she thought about all of the different reasons that Debarre might have asked to meet. There was always the possibility that the weasel had figured out just how deep she and Jonas had gotten in their work, though she suspected that that was not the case. Debarre was smart, yes, but political adroitness was not his strong suit. That had been the root of the worry---shared by him---that he had been let onto the council merely by his proximity to Michelle and connection with the lost, with AwDae.
+While she waited, she thought about all of the different reasons that Debarre might have asked to meet. There was always the possibility that the weasel had figured out just how deep she and Jonas had gotten in their work, though she suspected that that was not the case. Debarre was smart, yes, but political adroitness was not his strong suit. That had been the root of the worry—shared by him—that he had been let onto the council merely by his proximity to Michelle and connection with the lost, with AwDae.
 
 It could also be that he had further questions about why it was that Michelle had chosen the Ode as a clade scheme, and that perhaps he wanted to discuss why it was that all of the clade seemed so averse to mentioning the author of the poem.
 
@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ Eventually, they made their goodbyes and she left the sim, allowing herself to s
 
 For some reason that she couldn't fathom, Life Breeds Life But Death Must Now Be Chosen had chosen to incarnate himself as a scholarly gentlemen, somewhere between respectable and nerdy. It was a good look, she thought, but what train of thoughts had led him to head down that route from Michelle evaded her.
 
-After a pleasant greeting in the lobby of the library, they wound their way up the spiral staircases to the law section, three levels up. There was no particular reason that they needed to head there, other than the fact that it was liable to be fairly empty---few had reason to read up on phys-side laws, here---and would still be a comfortable place for them to walk and talk.
+After a pleasant greeting in the lobby of the library, they wound their way up the spiral staircases to the law section, three levels up. There was no particular reason that they needed to head there, other than the fact that it was liable to be fairly empty—few had reason to read up on phys-side laws, here—and would still be a comfortable place for them to walk and talk.
 
 ``So,'' Life Breeds Life said, once pleasantries were out of the way and the cone of silence had been set up. ``Why did you want to meet today?''
 
@@ -105,7 +105,7 @@ The answer was immediate. ``Centuries.''
 
 True Name frowned. ``Really?''
 
-``Yes. There are some that we can do right away, but those steps are more in Praiseworthy's court: downplay the number of instances, minimizing our perceived role on the Council, \emph{et cetera.} The aspects that are in my jurisdiction, however, are ones that will take years and decades to form. Histories written after the fact bear the weight of having undergone analysis, the shifting of public knowledge---at least, what they think they know---takes place over months and years. Time is on our side, though, as you well know.''
+``Yes. There are some that we can do right away, but those steps are more in Praiseworthy's court: downplay the number of instances, minimizing our perceived role on the Council, \emph{et cetera.} The aspects that are in my jurisdiction, however, are ones that will take years and decades to form. Histories written after the fact bear the weight of having undergone analysis, the shifting of public knowledge—at least, what they think they know—takes place over months and years. Time is on our side, though, as you well know.''
 
 ``Of course.''
 

toledot/content/secession/sys/True-Name/007.tex

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream walked.
 
 She walked from sim to sim, finding intricate ways to build up a sign, a sigil from them. Finding ways for disparate streets to connect, finding alleyways to open into deer paths, finding breathlessly exposed parks that, when a corner was turned around a tree or perhaps a low hill, might open out again into the lobbies of libraries, the shelves of which could become a hedge maze.
 
-Perhaps there was more to the sims that she walked, but she did not notice. As soon as she felt herself drawn to any one particular place, any one particular feature of any one particular sim, as soon as she began to feel anchored, she left. All of the things that people---her people---built passed beneath her feet, passed before her eyes.
+Perhaps there was more to the sims that she walked, but she did not notice. As soon as she felt herself drawn to any one particular place, any one particular feature of any one particular sim, as soon as she began to feel anchored, she left. All of the things that people—her people—built passed beneath her feet, passed before her eyes.
 
 Some part of her was overflowing in some indefinable way, and so she walked.
 
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ A thought: \emph{Why do we drag our memories around with us like luggage?}
 
 So, she walked, and as she walked, she strove to draw her thoughts in the other direction. She strove to draw them forward, away from the past, so that she could consider the future.
 
-What would this place look like after seceding from the rest of the world? What would a land---if such could be said of the System---of those who had already seceded from the rest of humanity look like? How many would notice and rejoice? How many would notice and hate every second of it? How many would notice and not care, and how many would not even know that it had happened? That it had even been on the table?
+What would this place look like after seceding from the rest of the world? What would a land—if such could be said of the System—of those who had already seceded from the rest of humanity look like? How many would notice and rejoice? How many would notice and hate every second of it? How many would notice and not care, and how many would not even know that it had happened? That it had even been on the table?
 
 Would they build differently? Perhaps they would stop bringing along with them the structures of their pasts. Perhaps there would be fewer office buildings and more cabins in the woods. More idyllic houses. More mountain landscapes and main streets of cute towns with hole-in-the-wall restaurants that no one knew about and yet which served the best curry, the best hot dog, the best cupcakes that one could possibly imagine.