06-06-2020, 08:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-07-2020, 12:24 AM by Marcus DuBois.)
Marcus' mind wandered during the presentation. He knew he should focus. Elouera Galloway, formally from Bykov's Consulate on Media Affairs, had joined his team. Her work as Youth Religion Outreach Liason had been a stepping stone to something far larger and farther reaching- even more than the media and cultural revamping that was part of Media and Propaganda's long term solution to remake DV into a peaceful region once and for all.
People who found they could channel or- as his Consulate was now a funnel for all inquiries and admissions of what had been termed supernatural abilities- who could talk to wolves or see the future or take injuries in dreams or smell violence or a host of other things they were only just getting glimpses into, well, they felt lost. Adrift. Unsure of their place in the universe.
It was a fundamental aspect of human intelligence, the seeking of patterns. Though it might seem abstract, in fact it cut to the very core of what mattered most. Certainly, it was expressed practically in things like mathematics and its expression through science and engineering. But language, history and sociology also were rooted in them.
The arts, music in particular, were based on that foundation, the concept of harmony and melody and rhythm, point and counter point.
Even more basic was the human hunger for stories- patterns of events, fiction or otherwise, strung together in such a way to give meaning and causality to what otherwise was a universe of randomness and indifference.
Literature, movies, and television all fed this deep hunger. Going back further, there were national and tribal histories and fables, legends and myths; all that defined tribe and nation, social and cultural groups.
And at its deepest, religion, the stories of how humanity related to the universe itself. God. Even those who eschewed myth in favor of verifiable fact hungered for and found meaning in stories- in the communities they bound together- that made them larger than just themselves. If nothing else, the story of just being for a single moment in time and space as a specific and unique confluence of energy and matter that had never existed and would never exist again was a powerful definition of self.
And so Elouera and her team were working on understanding those who came to them, their own stories and truth, and figuring how to bring them together. It was part of Marcus' mandate. The Consulate would need to be the focal point for this newly discovered aspect of life.
Important. But she had it well in hand. And his mind kept returning to the problem. A sheath for the plasma. Some sort of container. Every combination of the four material threads simply grew too hot. The environment around the blade needed to be normal up to the actual plasma itself, for what he envisioned.
Eloura's voice crept into his thoughts.. "...most commonly found among this specific subset of interviewees was a sense of unsurety. A universe that made sense to them- that had structure they felt safe with- had disappeared." He glanced down at the pad to see the agenda and did the rough estimate. Ah yes, a discussion on people from various ingroups. She was talking about those who grew up in high control groups, separatists or high concept belief structures where an overarching world view was presented. Lines were clearly drawn in their minds, players identified and the stakes made cosmic.
"That structure permeates the person's belief system, becomes something they find comfort in. When the belief structure breaks and the person is 'freed', it is not comforting. It is in fact terrifying. They have been institutionalized, desperately seeking a structure to latch on to..."
He was familiar and drifted again. People from those backgrounds often found themselves easy prey to other control groups or conspiracy theories. It fed that hunger that...what was the word she used? Permeated their mind.
What came to his mind was the way he had doped his metal with spirit, permeating it with "holes", open spaces, that drew the power in. That strengthened the metal to the point that it was indestructible.
He sat up straight in realization and many eyes turned briefly to him before he waved them on. His heart pounded in excitement as he pulled the app up on his tablet in 2d mode and did some back of the envelope calculations.
Was it that simple? A responsive doping? He looked at his watch, anxious for this meeting to end.
People who found they could channel or- as his Consulate was now a funnel for all inquiries and admissions of what had been termed supernatural abilities- who could talk to wolves or see the future or take injuries in dreams or smell violence or a host of other things they were only just getting glimpses into, well, they felt lost. Adrift. Unsure of their place in the universe.
It was a fundamental aspect of human intelligence, the seeking of patterns. Though it might seem abstract, in fact it cut to the very core of what mattered most. Certainly, it was expressed practically in things like mathematics and its expression through science and engineering. But language, history and sociology also were rooted in them.
The arts, music in particular, were based on that foundation, the concept of harmony and melody and rhythm, point and counter point.
Even more basic was the human hunger for stories- patterns of events, fiction or otherwise, strung together in such a way to give meaning and causality to what otherwise was a universe of randomness and indifference.
Literature, movies, and television all fed this deep hunger. Going back further, there were national and tribal histories and fables, legends and myths; all that defined tribe and nation, social and cultural groups.
And at its deepest, religion, the stories of how humanity related to the universe itself. God. Even those who eschewed myth in favor of verifiable fact hungered for and found meaning in stories- in the communities they bound together- that made them larger than just themselves. If nothing else, the story of just being for a single moment in time and space as a specific and unique confluence of energy and matter that had never existed and would never exist again was a powerful definition of self.
And so Elouera and her team were working on understanding those who came to them, their own stories and truth, and figuring how to bring them together. It was part of Marcus' mandate. The Consulate would need to be the focal point for this newly discovered aspect of life.
Important. But she had it well in hand. And his mind kept returning to the problem. A sheath for the plasma. Some sort of container. Every combination of the four material threads simply grew too hot. The environment around the blade needed to be normal up to the actual plasma itself, for what he envisioned.
Eloura's voice crept into his thoughts.. "...most commonly found among this specific subset of interviewees was a sense of unsurety. A universe that made sense to them- that had structure they felt safe with- had disappeared." He glanced down at the pad to see the agenda and did the rough estimate. Ah yes, a discussion on people from various ingroups. She was talking about those who grew up in high control groups, separatists or high concept belief structures where an overarching world view was presented. Lines were clearly drawn in their minds, players identified and the stakes made cosmic.
"That structure permeates the person's belief system, becomes something they find comfort in. When the belief structure breaks and the person is 'freed', it is not comforting. It is in fact terrifying. They have been institutionalized, desperately seeking a structure to latch on to..."
He was familiar and drifted again. People from those backgrounds often found themselves easy prey to other control groups or conspiracy theories. It fed that hunger that...what was the word she used? Permeated their mind.
What came to his mind was the way he had doped his metal with spirit, permeating it with "holes", open spaces, that drew the power in. That strengthened the metal to the point that it was indestructible.
He sat up straight in realization and many eyes turned briefly to him before he waved them on. His heart pounded in excitement as he pulled the app up on his tablet in 2d mode and did some back of the envelope calculations.
Was it that simple? A responsive doping? He looked at his watch, anxious for this meeting to end.