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-# True Name --- 2124
+# Codrin Bălan#Pollux --- 2325
 
-True Name was early to her meeting, and that, she figured was okay. On a whim, she had picked, the same pub that she'd met Jonas in some time back, the one that reminded her of The Crown Pub from years ago, with the flat beer and the uncomfortable booths. She figured that Debarre, of all people, would appreciate this.
+Throughout eir relationship with Dear, Codrin had had chances to meet several other furries, both those who had been in the subculture prior to uploading and those who had come to it after. They had come in various shapes and sizes, the two notable examples of which were a room-filling dragon of some sort (or so ey guessed) and a perfectly ordinary house cat. Perfectly ordinary, that is, except for her heavily inflected and curse-laden speech.
 
-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.
+Despite not having the chance to meet him yet, ey had also learned much about Debarre from eir conversations with the various members of the Ode clade, as well as eir research into the Council of Eight.
 
-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 wasn't 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.
+At one point, ey asked Dear how it was that a full quarter of the council that guided the System toward secession was made up of furries, and the fox had laughed.
 
-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.
+*"Can you not guess why a furry might be an early and ardent adopter of a system that seems purpose built to allow one to assume what form feels most natural?"*
 
-And, as she hoped, he could simply just want to hang out. Spend time together like friends, like they used to.
+Made sense. Ey still looked forward to meeting Debarre that evening.
 
-With that in mind, she focused on composing herself into a state of friendly alertness, so that when the weasel walked into the pub and spotted her in the corner, she would be primed to guide him toward that last possibility, even if he had come expecting the first two.
+What had started as a suggestion to get a few voices together for Codrin to interview had then turned into a suggestion for a dinner party, and from there into what promised to be a cozy, wine-fogged house party that might sprout from a group of friends who enjoyed company, but also quiet.
 
-She watched him step inside, look around, and immediately laugh. After picking up a cider at the bar, he made his way over to the booth she'd picked and plopped down across from her.
+The guests started arriving in the late afternoon, with the first to arrive being Debarre. Dear greeted him with a grin and a hug before the slender mustelid greeted both of the fox's partners with paw-shakes and half-hugs.
 
-"Cheeky choice," he said, grinning.
+"Wonderful to meet you two. Dear's been gushing about you for years, and I'm only sorry that it's taken until now for us to actually meet."
 
-True Name laughed, shrugged. "What can I say? I was feeling nostalgic for terrible beer."
+The weasel was about Dear's height --- which was to say a few inches shorter than Codrin --- covered with a svelte coat of chestnut brown fur, minus a cream-colored front, though much of this was covered with a semiformal outfit of all black. 
 
-"Cheers to that." He lifted his glass to hers, clinked the rims, and took a long sip. "So, how've you been, skunk?"
+As ey did whenever meeting another furry, Codrin was surprised by just how casual they could be. For some reason, eir mind seemed primed to view them all as intense as the fox, but Debarre was friendly and relaxed.
 
-Small talk was not a guarantee that this was simply a social visit, but given the tone of his voice, she doubted that anything too heavy was on the table.
+Next to arrive was a...well, Codrin could tell that he was human and that he was male, but for some reason, he had a hard time discerning any distinct features about him. He was plain to the point where the eye seemed to simply slide off of him.
 
-"Pretty good, actually." She smiled. "Things are going well on the legislative front, phys-side, which is good. It makes my job easier. Who knows, may even take a vacation."
+He was greeted with an enthusiastic handshake from Dear, who announced, *"This is user11824, one of the unsung heroes of the early System."*
 
-"Oh man, a vacation sounds good, though God knows what I'd do. Probably just sit on my tail all day and get fat on the greasiest food I can find."
+"I am in no way a hero," he drawled laconically. "I spent more time keeping you dumbasses in check than anything else."
 
-"Feeling the workload, then?"
+*"A truly heroic feat, that."*
 
-He shrugged. "Not particularly, no. It's just that I'm starting to wonder just how cut out for politics I really am. I haven't the faintest idea on how to get people to do things without sounding like I'm bullying them, and I'm not going to put all the work into it that you have. You and yours, I mean."
+user11824 rolled his eyes and allowed himself to be guided in to where there was wine and a few trays of snacks. He greeted Debarre warmly --- more so, Codrin noticed, than he had Dear, though ey could not guess why.
 
-"Yeah, it is no small amount of effort," the skunk said. "But it will be worth it in the end, I think. Plus, I figure that once we secede and the launch goes off successfully, we can probably just sit back and let things run themselves. No one has managed to cause any problems that cannot be solved by them simply having the fistfight that they so desperately crave."
+The final guest was a tall, black gentleman dressed in a plain white tunic and white linen pants, who Dear greeted with a handshake that bordered on delicate. He seemed anxious nearly to the point of panic, so Codrin and Dear's partner simply bowed to him unobtrusively.
 
-Debarre laughed and shook his head. "You gotten in any of those lately?"
+Codrin watched the reactions of the other guests, making note of how they both treated him with some mix of deference and awe that ey could not quite place.
 
-"Thankfully not," she said, grinning toothily. "I do not expect to, though."
+Dear's partner explained as Codrin followed them to the kitchen. "That's Yared Zerezghi. If the Odists are to thank for Secession sys-side, he's to thank for it phys-side. He wrote the amendment that formalized Secession among the other phys-side governments."
 
-They drank a moment in silence, each of them peering around the pub, each thinking their thoughts.
+Ey stopped halfway through opening a bottle of wine. "Really? I wasn't expecting a dinner full of politicians."
 
-"How are you, Debarre?" True Name finally asked. "Aside from work, I mean. I know that we have not had much of a chance to just sit and talk, recently."
+They laughed. "I don't think any of them would call themselves politicians. Dear would call itself an 'interested party' or something similarly vague. I think Debarre would call himself a guide, or maybe a dupe. user11824 would just call himself boring. Get used to that word, he uses it a lot."
 
-The weasel doodled lazily on the tabletop with a claw. "For all my bitching, I'm doing alright, actually. That's why I wanted to meet, though. Just catch up."
+"And Yared? He seems, I don't know, nervous."
 
-True Name smiled. *Perfect.*
+"He was just a DDR junkie. He followed politics as a hobby, but with a single-minded focus that made him attractive to both phys- and sys-side on the debate." They shrugged and pulled down wine glasses from the cabinet one by one. "I think he'd call himself a pawn. A puppet, maybe. The nervousness stems from being so thoroughly used by both sides and now coming to the house of an Odist, I think, but don't quote me on that. Take these."
 
-"You know," he said. "I was thinking about Cicero a few days back, and how, after he hung himself, I thought that the grief would never end. Like, I thought that I had been completely redefined from 'Debarre the weasel' to 'Debarre who grieves', and that's just who I was from then on out."
+Codrin frowned, nodded, and accepted two of the glasses to carry out with the wine, while Dear's partner brought out the other four.
 
-She hid a sudden surge of emotion behind a sip of her flat beer, nodding. "It was hard. Both of those losses were hard."
+Once the drinks had been poured and passed around, Dear stood and, in the grand style that ey had come to love, declaimed, *"First, we will have a toast, and then we will drink. After that, we will eat, and then --- only then, my dear --- may you ask your questions."*
 
-Debarre nodded. After the reference to both losses, he seemed on guard, or ready to jump out of the booth at a moment's notice.
+Ey laughed and raised eir glass. "I'm in."
 
-"I am sorry that I snapped at you a while back," she said, reaching out to pat at the paw that had been poking absently at the grime on the tabletop. "That is a name that I would like to keep close to my heart and prefer not to say out loud. Also, given that ey was not strictly supposed to defect to the S-R Bloc, it still feels risky. The spooks *definitely* should not hear it."
+*"The toast, then!"* Dear composed itself, standing up straighter and holding its glass aloft. *"To the complete stupidity of anyone unlucky enough to wind up in politics, and the utter hubris of anyone who tries."*
 
-"I get that," the weasel said. He had relaxed, but not all the way.
+Debarre laughed and raised his glass, "I'll drink to that."
 
-"And I think that I understand what you are getting at," she continued, turning her default smile into something wistful, something sad. "I am as at risk of letting grief define me as anyone, but I am still doing my best to memorialize rather than languish."
+*"Then, by all means, let us drink,"* the fox said, and did just that.
 
-"That's good, at least," he said, finally smiling back to her. "I've been a bit worried about that, if I'm honest, but I trust you. The shit you've been pulling off lately with the council is honestly impressive, True Name. You and all your clade. I'm doing my best to understand you, sure, but I promise that's out of awe rather than fear."
+The dinner was, as always, delicious: a spicy peanut and bell-pepper soup and a few dishes of beef, vegetables, and lentils. Far more food than was strictly necessary, but Codrin suspected that it was more for Yared's sake than anyone else's, as he calmed down greatly after having eaten (and having had a few glasses of wine), complimenting the food several times. He even began joining in the conversation towards the end of the meal. 
 
-She laughed, raising her glass to him. "Well, thank you. I am glad that Sasha was able to take a step back and get the rest that she so richly deserves, just as I am glad that she left me with my own *raison d'etre*. I *like* all of the shit that I have been pulling off. It feels good to accomplish stuff."
+Once plates had been cleared and another bottle of wine opened, user11824 nudged Codrin's arm. "How do you put up with such an insufferably boring life?"
 
-"Good! That's good to hear. It's sort of what I'd picked up on, too. I'm not sure that I was doubting you before, necessarily, but having watched you these past few weeks, I don't know." He grinned and finally returned the patting gesture in turn. "I get it, now. You're not Sasha, that's for sure, but you're not *not* her, and I see all of the best things I liked about her in you and the few others in the Ode clade that I've met."
+Ey grinned, "Dear provides the entertainment, we just watch."
 
-They beamed at each other, all bristled whiskers and perked-up ears.
+The fox preened.
 
-The conversation wound around for a while longer, with talk of plans and memories, likes and dislikes, gossip and news. True Name allowed herself to earnestly enjoy the afternoon, now that any concerns that she might have had about the meeting had been assuaged.
+"Yeah, but you're a writer, Dear's a whatever-the-fuck, and they're a cook and I guess painter. Boring on, like, a subatomic level."
 
-Eventually, they made their goodbyes and she left the sim, allowing herself to sober up in the process in order to make the next meeting on her agenda.
+"Boring is nice, sometimes," Dear's partner said.
 
-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.
+"Oh god, you're telling me," user11824 laughed. "I'd never turn it down. Excitement always means that something horrible is happening."
 
-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 to read up on phys-side laws, here --- and would still be a comfortable place for them to walk and talk.
+"You know," Debarre said, nodding to the ill-defined man. "I think that's the first time you've ever actually explained that when I've been around. I always just thought you were bitching whenever we went somewhere or had a conversation and you called it boring."
 
-"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?"
+"If we're somewhere exciting or a conversation is actively interesting, it means that someone's fucked up."
 
-"During discussions with Praiseworthy and Ir Jonas, I started to realize that there were some steps that I might need to take when it comes to the historical view of the clade. There is already the forceful de-emphasizing of AwDae's name, thanks to Praiseworthy. She thought it a good hook, and it has already proven its utility. None of us want it out in the open, anyway. I guess, given your interest in history and memory, you seemed like the most likely to be interested in helping continue that effort."
+Dear laughed. *"It is important to fuck up, my friend. Otherwise, the boredom may become terminal."*
 
-He grinned. "You guess correctly. I have been considering some aspects of that, as it is. Before I go off on that, however, I would like to hear your ideas."
+He rolled his eyes and mumbled, "Fucking boring."
 
-True Name nodded, lazily brushing fingerpads over the spines of law books and case files. "Firstly, there are some aspects of the clade that I would like to remain within the clade. The Name is an obvious example, but I would also like to keep the impact that we have had within the Council minimized to a level more believable for Michelle's initially stated goal."
+Even Yared was grinning at the exchange. "You know, before I uploaded, I was in contact with a few members of the Council," he said. "And although the work was interesting, I always loved hearing about the ways in which dynamics differed sys-side."
 
-"To confirm," he said, looking thoughtful. "You want to ensure that it appears that each of us did a tenth of the work that she was doing previously and that our voice was only as loud as any other council-member's. Correct?"
+"Oh, I guarantee you, I was just as bored phys-side."
 
-She nodded.
+"Yes, but look at you. You've made being boring into an art. You went ahead and made it interesting."
 
-"That should be doable."
+"Bullshit."
 
-"It will require a bit of fudging, at least for myself, as to how many instances actually exist for the clade. I believe that it would reflect poorly on us to say that we were initially ten, and then for someone to dig up that I had already forked three or four times less than a year after Michelle's decision."
+Codrin laughed. "No, I'm with Yared on this. You've got a name that sounds like a default 'net username, and you've somehow made it so that I can't seem to describe any one aspect of you. You've got a face, I can say that for sure. Your eyes are brown. Or maybe hazel? It's like if I tried to look more closely to figure out which, though, I'd absolutely die of boredom."
 
-His laugh was kind. "Oh, good. I am glad that I am not the only one."
+He laughed. "Job well done, I say."
 
-"Not by a long shot," True Name said. "It seemed like a good thing to downplay."
+Dear raised its glass, *"To artists who have perfected their craft."*
 
-"Yes, it is, come to think of it. There are enough concerns about capacity as is. It might seem as though we were already aiming to test that so early on."
+Figuring that, since dinner had come to a close, Codrin hazarded the first question. "Yared, you said you were in contact with a few members of the council. Who were you talking with?"
 
-"Mmhm. The second thing that I was thinking was more of a question for you."
+"No one here," he grumbled. "Well, mostly. One of Dear's clade and Jonas. If either of them were invited, I never would've come."
 
-Life Breeds Life nodded.
+"Me either," Debarre said.
 
-"How far in the future do you think we should be considering these changes?"
+"Same." user11824 shrugged. "Though I'd be surprised if Dear had invited them."
 
-The answer was immediate. "Centuries." 
+*"Quite,"* the fox said curtly.
 
-True Name frowned. "Really?"
+Debarre looked sheepishly at the fox, ears splayed. "Sorry, Dear. I know you've distanced yourself from all that."
 
-"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, *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."
+"They were interesting," user11824 said. "And I can't think of anything worse."
 
-"Of course."
+Codrin redirected the conversation. "That aside, then, when did you upload, Yared? Or any of you, I guess."
 
-"That is not to say that I will not start right away, of course," he said, laughing.
+"I uploaded Secession day. Literally about an hour before Secession itself. I was the last upload before it took effect. An 'honor' they called it."
 
-"Oh, I do not doubt you will." She grinned. "What were your thoughts, though? You mentioned having some changes that you would like addressed as well."
+Codrin nodded, looked to Debarre.
 
-"Yes. I would like to eventually downplay the role of the Council of Eight in history to the point where those sys-side simply think of those who helped out in the early days as founders, dreamers, and idealists."
+"The same day as Dear," Debarre said.
 
-True Name stopped in the aisle, letting Life Breeds Life step ahead and turn to face her. "You would like the System to forget that there was a council?"
+"What? Was that planned?"
 
-"It is a way to build a mythos and identity, yes. It allows us to use the words 'freedom' and 'secession' and so on in a collective sense, as though these were the decisions of all, rather than a few. It will instill a sense of patriotism, if one could call it such a thing, for being sys-side, which will in turn reduce the connections that many feel to phys-side." He smiled, tugging a book from the shelf at random and flipping through the pages. "This will not happen for this generation. Nor, likely, the next. The goal for future generations, though is to ensure that they feel that the System is a place to live rather than a place where they wound up, or a place that they uploaded to simply because it was convenient or necessary, or even a place that they uploaded to simply for the way life works here, whether it be immortality or the sheer hedonistic joy of it."
+The weasel laughed. "Oh yes. Michelle and I pooled our money to upload as soon as we could."
 
-The skunk watched the pages flip beneath Life Breeds Life's fingers and thought. To downplay the council would be to minimize the work of years, of almost a decade. The other members might rankle, but she was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable an idea it was. It would gain her and Jonas much needed room to maneuver.
+"You were friends before, then?"
 
-Eventually she nodded, saying, "That makes sense, yes. If the concept of the Council disappears into foggy memories and untrustworthy histories, then any attempts to lead again will seem out of place, too. It will give Jonas and I more latitude to continue working long term."
+Dear nodded. *"We went through a lot together."*
 
-"Precisely." He replaced the book on the shelf. "Down the line, too, I am considering suggesting that we say that we uploaded after Secession. Say in the thirties. Not far enough to be an obvious lie, but enough distance from it to give us the space to act as we must now so that we can act as we will later."
+Codrin was tempted to ask if Debarre had also known the author of the Ode, but knew that that went well beyond dinner-wrecking. Instead, ey looked to user11824.
 
-True Name felt the smile grow on her face, earnest and excited. "Excellent. Excellent thinking. Keep me up to date as you go, though I do not expect the updates to come all that quickly."
+"I dunno. 2120? It was an exciting time, and I've done my best to forget about it."
 
-Life Breeds Life laughed. "Of course not. If we are to think long term, we must think in terms of decades to work in centuries. If we are lucky, we must think in terms of centuries to work in millennia. We have plenty of time."
+"About what percentage of your time on council was exciting?" Debarre asked.
+
+"More than I would've liked."
+
+Dear's partner laughed. "Why'd you even join, then?"
+
+"Mom was a politician," he said, shrugging. "I learned all that bullshit from her, and the S-R Bloc gang pressed me into joining."
+
+"Who were they?" Codrin asked.
+
+"There were three of them on the Council. Part of the initial agreement, since the System was originally hosted somewhere in Russia." Debarre counted off on his fingers. "Those three, me, user11824, Zeke, and then Michelle and Jonas."
+
+"Well, I know the Odists are here on the LVs, as well as you two and Ezekiel. Are Jonas and the Russians here?"
+
+user11824 frowned. "That's an interesting question."
+
+"That's a bad thing, isn't it?"
+
+*"Jonas is on the LVs, yes. The S-R Bloc trio are no longer on the System."* Dear swirled its wine in its glass. *"Ask a different question, my dear."*
+
+Codrin nodded. "Alright. Were any of the rest of you involved in Launch as well as Secession?"
+
+Debarre snorted and shook his head. "No, thank God. I had my fill, and I was glad when the Council dissolved."
+
+"What happened to dissolve it?"
+
+He looked to Dear, who shrugged. "After a while, it was just Odists and Jonases," he said down to his wine glass. "Any possible guidance the Council could have provided would have come from them even if we had said it. It had been so thoroughly undermined that we all basically gave up and let the thing end rather than artificially prolonging a puppet government."
+
+*"We were terrible people, yes."* Dear's shoulders slumped. *"I am quite glad that I had not yet been forked for that. If I had had any direct participation in all that happened, I doubt that I would be sitting here with you all."*
+
+Yared spoke up next. "I didn't have anything to do with the launch effort. I dropped politics like a bad habit as soon as I saw the direction in which the Council was heading. That said, I couldn't help but learn all I could about it, read every memo I could, learn about some of the physics of it. I was just done with being an active participant."
+
+"Why is that?" Codrin asked.
+
+Yared turned his wine glass between his fingertips for a moment, simply thinking. "How much do you know about Christianity?" he asked.
+
+Ey must have looked quite confused at the question, as Dear giggled.
+
+"I promise I'm going somewhere with this," Yared said, grinning nervously.
+
+*"You can actually blame me for this, my dear. I helped him come up with the correlation he is about to use."*
+
+Codrin said, "I mean, I know the basic precepts. Some of the history, that sort of thing."
+
+"And Judaism?"
+
+"Uh, probably much less. I know that Jesus was a Jew."
+
+"Okay, that's enough to at least make this point. You know that Jesus had his apostles and that one of them, at least later on, was Paul, who converted on the road to Damascus and became a fervent believer. He started churches up all over the region."
+
+Ey nodded. "I know of Paul, yeah."
+
+"Good. Well, the story goes that there was an argument about whether or not gentiles were allowed in the early Christian church, as Paul argued, or whether they needed to convert to Judaism first."
+
+"And we know that Paul won that debate."
+
+Yared nodded. "Yes. As soon as it was decided that anyone could become a Christian without becoming a Jew, Christianity effectively became its own religion, not beholden to the laws of Judaism."
+
+"I can kind of see where this is going," Codrin said slowly. "Secession is rather like the point at which the System effectively became its own country."
+
+"Bear with me. What your partner showed me was an alternate telling of this story. Sometime back in medieval Europe, a Jewish community started circulating an old story called 'Toledot Yeshu', which means something like the ancestry or generations of Jesus. Much of it is a retelling of the gospels with Jesus as a trickster magician. But Paul in this story becomes something more interesting, apologies to present company."
+
+user11824 rolled his eyes and finished his wine.
+
+"In Toledot Yeshu, Paul is actually hinted at being a plant from the Jewish authorities, though it is vague as to who, whose goal was to introduce enough changes to the budding religion to cause it to split away so that it wouldn't remain a sect of Judaism."
+
+*"Many viewed Jesus as a rabbi,"* Dear interjected. *"And had that lasted to the point where Judaism headed into a rabbinical tradition, his teachings would have become part of the faith and Judaism would have looked very different."*
+
+Codrin frowned. "Are you suggesting that Secession was engineered to keep the System from remaining a part of society, phys-side?"
+
+There was a tense moment of silence before Yared nodded. "I was the tool of Paul. I was the tool of *two* Pauls, one in the form of a representative of the phys-side government who used me to steer public opinion toward permitting Secession, and one in the form of True Name and Jonas who wanted the System to be independent for their own reasons. It was not enough to ensure the System's continued existence for them and it was not enough for the System's participation to be limited from the phys-side point of view. It needed to become its own entity."
+
+All eyes were on Yared now, who sighed. "It needed to become its own entity by any means necessary, as soon as possible, and with as much plausible deniability as could be managed."
+
+*"Both sides wanted to preserve a way of life, and so differences were magnified to the point where Secession was inevitable,"* Dear said quietly. *"And so here we are, a completely separate entity, and we all thought it was our own idea. It is not some supercessionist nonsense, no matter what True Name and Jonas might have you believe. We all just wanted to live our best lives, and we all were made to believe that this was best solution for that."*
+
+Codrin finished eir wine and set the glass aside. "So you stayed away from the politics of Launch because you didn't want to become another tool of Paul."
+
+Yared nodded.
+
+Debarre said, "We all were, towards the end. Anyone who was a true believer in Secession was a tool for True Name and Jonas, in a way, or at least a potential tool."
+
+"This was not what I was expecting out of the evening," Codrin admitted. "I was going to just ask you all why you decided to join the launch and everything."
+
+user11824 laughed. "New place to be bored, is all."
+
+"Congrats on finding the interesting stuff," Dear's partner said.
+
+There were a few minutes of silence as everyone worked, in their own ways, to digest the information that had been shared.
+
+Finally, Debarre spoke up. "I'm happy that I'm still in touch with Dear and a few other Odists all the same. Michelle is gone, but a lot of the good that was in her is still around. Man, I had no idea how thoroughly she was split, though, that those who are nice can be so nice, and those who aren't can somehow completely lack all that made her good."
+
+Dear raised its glass to Debarre for a third toast of the evening. *"To her, to you, and to two hundred and thirty years of friendship."*
+
+"To lost friends," Debarre added.
+
+They all watched as Dear and Debarre drank to each other and those who were gone.