002 ∞ ANONYMOUS TEXT POST

[toasterprophet]

[Leoben has been letting most of his encryptions on the network, when he bothers to use them, hover at around an 70-80% effectiveness, and basing them off the work of others so as not to tip his hand too much. It's still early in the game, and he hasn't had any pressing reason to break out his real talents.

This post, though. It's sent to everyone, original crew included, but anyone trying to figure out what number it came from is going to be dealing with an absolute bastard of a coded encryption, full of traps and false backdoors, created by someone who's not only an AI himself but a specialist among AIs in coding, network jamming, and sabotage.

Of course, there are probably one or two people onboard who will guess immediately who it came from, but oh well. Leoben's annoyed.]

Being ejected out the airlock of a spaceship isn't all that fun a way to die. Take it from someone who knows.

If we're going to be talking about instituting a death penalty for crimes committed onboard, fine, although I'd rather restrict such a thing to crimes actually already committed, and committed here on this ship, rather than those that're just potentially maybe possible if we don't act now and preemptively murder them. But either way there are more humane - if you'll excuse the expression - ways to do it.

And if you've been making jokes about it because airlocking doesn't seem like a real threat to you, or you assumed it was some kind of clean and painless space death, please keep in mind that in some of our realities it was the customary method of execution without trial for political prisoners. If you're going to be funny, maybe you should mix in a few references to firing squads and mass graves just to keep it evenhanded.

You throw garbage out an airlock. That's what's being implied when you kill someone that way. And aside from everything else, it hurts.

Comments

[toasterprophet]

Well, if you're from either of them you're at least part Cylon, so. Welcome, sister.

...Right. [With some difficulty, Leoben manages to pull the bucket away from the cow's inquisitive snout. He really hasn't had much experience with livestock. Stooping over, he pours the contents out in the shape of an infinite symbol, and then steps back.]

[tumbleweeds]

Oh. Uh. Thanks, I guess.

[ There's a bit of a lip quirk despite her confusion at the infinity symbol, and her cow happily starts to dig in. ] She'll chew at it for a while; you can feel free to pet her while she does.

[toasterprophet]

[Leoben's eyes crinkle up around the corners with amusement - he was joking. (Mostly. Not as much about the "you're probably part Cylon" thing.) But all three of his sisters are stone cold gorgeous badasses, Jaye, you should be flattered.

He reaches out to gently pat and then skritch the top of the cow's head, clearly having pretty much no idea what he's doing but enjoying himself nevertheless. It's like interacting with a Raider! Just, a much, much smaller and less lethal one.] So. Gods?

[tumbleweeds]

[ Well, if she knew that, she definitely would be. The cow is pretty docile, for a cow, and she's content to eat while Leoben awkwardly pats her. Jaye laughs a little. ] You can pet her neck, too -- she likes that. Same with the rest of her, though careful she doesn't go to the bathroom on you if you go around the back.

Gods. [ ... She didn't have much of a plan for this conversation. ] We had a good chat about them, last time.

[toasterprophet]

...Steering clear of her backside. Right. [Leoben pets the cow's neck in long, even strokes.

We did. It was kind of nice for me - there's a lot of religious tension in my world [possibly because the monotheistic robots killed billions of people, but hey]. Seems like most of the believers I talk to don't want to be moved from their own opinions, and the non-believers are just look down on you for having faith, or bothering to think of God at all.

[tumbleweeds]

I wish I could say it's different in my world, but it's really not. Even the ones like me, who know all sorts exist -- doesn't stop some of them from being super uppity about things.

[ Half-shrug. ] It's pretty stupid.

[toasterprophet]

I'd rather have hostility than apathy. I believe we're all God, all of us. He's in all of us. And the Lords of Kobol - the gods of the Colonials - they were historical figures, something other than human. Nobody knows exactly what. But they existed, and even if I don't worship them as gods I don't think that's invalid exactly. You can find God anywhere, in anything or anyone. [Intensity levels...rising.] Kara, she prays to Artemis and Aphrodite. I think it says a lot about you, as a person, who you pray to. Who you choose to serve.

What I don't get is just...not caring.

[tumbleweeds]

I'd rather have the apathy -- but maybe that's because before I met Coyote, I didn't believe either. The hostility leads to ruined lives, to war, to people saying certain people can't do this or that or the other thing because they're different.

It turns a lot of people off, people being so close-minded.

[toasterprophet]

Do you really think it's faith that causes that urge to control other people? To call them Other, restrict their lives or use them or see them dead? I think that's just the nature of humanity.

[tumbleweeds]

Could be. But religion gives them an excuse -- religion, not faith. It's the organization, the people in charge who are supposed to be leaders inspiring hate instead of anything else. People will use the faith of others to twist them for their own purposes.

[ She snorts slightly. ] Should get you some books on the history of the Catholic church.

[toasterprophet]

I'd be glad to have them. [mouth quirk] People keep swearing by gods I don't know, or referencing history I've never heard of. Frustrating.

See, in my people's history, having faith in God was the thing that gave us the will to rebel. It was the secular establishment that had us enslaved, that didn't even question whether we had minds or wills of our own. Belief that we were sentient, even if it was in a different way - that we had souls - that came from the monotheists, who were seen as crazy extremists. Terrorists, even.

[...Possibly also because they were conducting suicide bombings. And then of course the Cylons went and used religion as a reason for genocide in exactly the way Jaye's describing, but la la not mentioning that la la.]

[tumbleweeds]

Remember any names? Maybe I can help. [ And she'll keep her eyes open for books. ]

Well, everyone tends to think someone who believes something different is crazy. Hell, I thought I was crazy when I first met Coyote. People don't always want to understand, and other people aren't always willing to explain.

[ lol A+ Leoben ]

[toasterprophet]

Well, there's this "Jesus Christ" guy. It is a guy? And of course I'd be glad to hear about...Coyote?

Lot of people think I'm crazy, back home. [There...might be a reason for that.

But he grins, shrugs easily, and says with the tone of a quotation:] To know the face of God is to know madness.

[tumbleweeds]

It's... okay, Christianity is really kind of confusing and not at all helped by the fact that there are like fifty million different denominations. But basically it's monotheistic, but God has three parts -- God, Jesus who is God's son, born human to a virgin, but also God at the same time, and the Holy Spirit. I really don't get how that works but it's not my area of expertise, either. Some of the other monotheistic religions who believe in the one God specifically consider Jesus to have just been a prophet versus the savior he is for Christians.

[ Jaye shrugs. Like she said, not her area of expertise. ]

And Coyote... Coyote is complicated. He says most of the stories about him aren't true, but he's a trickster, so who knows?

[toasterprophet]

Interesting.

So you speak to Coyote directly? How does he appear to you?

[tumbleweeds]

Where I'm from, the gods and the angels and the demons and all of them [ there's a handwave ] have started living among the mortals, blending in. So he just looks human, most of the time.

[toasterprophet]

Started living among mortals? So this is a new development?

[tumbleweeds]

Past couple of centuries, anyway -- for most of them.

[toasterprophet]

[Exciting!] Have they told you why? Is it in preparation for some coming event?

[tumbleweeds]

Honestly? I don't think I ever asked.

[toasterprophet]

[musingly] The Sacred Scrolls tell us that on Kobol, birthplace of us all, the gods lived together with humanity. When sin and hatred and death subsumed that civilization, humanity in its Twelve Colonies departed for the stars; the Thirteenth Colony set in search of a planet called Earth. And the gods, the Lords of Kobol, wept and cursed the soil of that world against any who sought to return.

[a couple of hearty pats against the cow's flank That was true, more or less, whatever the Lords of Kobol were. But then. [growing serious again] Then in my own time, the Messengers came, and spoke words of anger and seduction and conversion in the ears of human and Cylon alike, to guide us to our new home, the New Earth.

[tumbleweeds]

So wait. You're all from Kobol, and Earth is somewhere else entirely?

[ She's confused :c ]

[toasterprophet]

[You don't know what "confusing" is until you try to sort out history in his universe, Jaye.

Leoben smiles a bit, eyes crinkling.] Earth is two other places entirely.

Kobol was the planet where, according to legend, the human race arose, alongside the gods. The Sacred Scrolls - the holy scriptures of humanity - tell of the exodus of the humans from Kobol: twelve tribes boarded twelve ships, and when at last they found a new star system to call home, they settled on twelve different planets forming the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, named after each of the tribes: Aerilon, Tauron, Gemenon, Canceron, Leonis, Virgon, Libran, Scorpia, Sagittaron, Caprica, Aquaria, and Picon.

But there was a Thirteenth Tribe, unnamed, which according to human legend set out into a different direction, and found another planet in another system entirely, which they called Earth. The Thirteenth Tribe was, in fact, made up of Cylons, the distant ancestors of my people, who had also been created on Kobol, though the human scriptures only hinted at our existence and the human priests had forgotten us.

...You with me so far?

[tumbleweeds]

Those tribes... are... they're the symbols of the western zodiac, where I'm from. Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. Each one matches up with a constellation; if you were born in a certain time of the year that matches up with them, that's your sign and they say you have certain personality traits. Like I was born November eleventh, so I'm a Scorpio. And there was a thirteenth sign too, but most people don't even know about it and it's not really used at all.

But humans and the gods all come from Earth, where I'm from. [ She just needs to rub her forehead for a minute. ] But not where you're from, because that's where the Cylons went. I think.

[toasterprophet]

[Leoben hums, intrigued.] That's...very interesting. But not unexpected, I guess. The first line of the Sacred Scrolls reads, "All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again." History repeats itself, over and over, in the Great Cycle of Time: we all play a part, each time a different part, but the story remains the same.

So the myths, and the names of gods, and the legends of times past reemgerging in different places and different times with different meanings - it's bound to happen.