Fresh Eyes, #2

A Uncategorized story, by tycho garen
on 30th September 2008. (commentary)

Welcome to the 8th installment of the ongoing Station Keeping story. This installment will air in two parts. The first first part was entitled “Working Overtime,” and the second part is called “Evening Stroll,” and appears below. Thanks for reading.

Evening Stroll

Josh always imagined that the common spaces on the station would be more occupied then they were. Even though the station was mostly completed, it would still be a while before there was any regular traffic simply because of the way space travel worked. Josh tried to be more optimistic, but at the moment the station looked mighty dreary. “How do you are you liking this posting?” Josh asked when they stepped out of the lift.

“Oh, it’s alright. I’m a bit of a perfectionist with these computers,” she paused for a moment and looked at her left arm, on which, Josh realized, Julia was caring a mini-computer terminal. “So it’s nice to be able to organize a system basically from the get go. And besides all this gear is pretty high-tech–for the rim worlds–so that’s a plus.”

“Yeah, I felt the same about the construction management when I came aboard, but it kind of lost it’s glean after a while.”

“How long were you out here before the rest of us got here?”

“Few years, three and a half I think. I was on assignment a few worlds over, and being young and unattached, they moved me out here, because apparently I was the closest. Go figure.”

“And here you are. Spend a lot of time on the rim, then?”

“A little. I grew up core-side, but figured there was more to see. And Hanm has really grown on me.” Josh said.

“I grew up on ships, moving about every so often, we saw a lot of rim worlds, I can’t say they did much for me. Is Hanm really that special?”

“Particularly with this station, you bet. Most important rim world, the way I figure it.” Josh was almost baffled that she didn’t know Hanm.

“Everything’s so far apart, I totally don’t buy what the news people are saying about the Hanmists. The league’ll hold.”

“You know as well as anyone that core and rim are all relative terms, star-density is about the same, we just got to the ‘core’ first.”

“–that’s what I meant.” she cut him off.

“How familiar are you with the Hanmists, anyway?” Josh continued.

“Not much, just what I grazed in the reports.” she said, sounding a bit embarrassed. Hanm Centre was just a job for her, she was so used to moving around almost constantly that she had grown a thick skin for “settling in.”

“Look harder,” Josh said, stopping to turn to Julia “See what’s on the nets, I the Commander would like anything he can get on the subject”

“Do you think it’s a threat? Otherwise I don’t see the harm in letting people talk about whatever they want, didn’t the league learn that lesson the hard way a few centuries ago.” Julia spoke of the past as if it were only a few months ago, which it might not have been far off, Josh realized. He never checked to see when her objective birthday was: relativity screwed things up so bad. It gave him a headache, and he convinced himself that it didn’t really matter.

“I don’t know that I’d say ‘threat,’ but it’s worth keeping an eye on, and whatever happens this place,” he said, tapping his foot gently for emphasis, “is going to care.”

“I’ll say.”

“And what happens there,” Josh pointed to the mini-terminal screen strapped to her forearm, “is just as important as what happens out here.”

“You mean in ‘reality‘?” she said with mock amazement and horror. They laughed.

“Yeah,” he took a deep breath, “but, just one officer to another: keep your eyes open. Someone here needs to know what’s going on,” he pleaded.

“The nets are pretty cool, I’ll give myself–and them–that, but they’re not that good.” She said, hoping that she hadn’t overcommitted herself.

“It’s something. Anyway, lets keep walking, it’s a big station after all.”

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Fresh Eyes, #1

A Uncategorized story, by tycho garen
on 29th September 2008. (commentary)

Welcome to the 8th installment of the ongoing Station Keeping story. This installment will air in two parts. The first first part is entitled “Working Overtime,” and the second part will appear tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Working Overtime

Josh undid the collar of his uniform jacket, he was supposed to feel grateful that the Navy permitted Hanm Centre officers wear the, only slightly, more comfortable field variant, but he didn’t. Josh sighed with relief at the idea that his shift was over. “Hey, Julia, are you going to work late, you should be done for today,”

There was a pause before she responded, and she didn’t look up from what she was doing when she said “um yeah, I’ll be right there, almost done with this file tree.”

Josh laughed. File tree, Josh thought that was an interesting way to conceptualize the data. He almost left the command center then but thought better of it. Though Hanm Centre was important in the grand scheme of things–which he had to keep reminding himself–and he loved interacting with so many different people, it wasn’t like there was all that much to do in the day-to-day, or that they were in the danger of running into anything in a space station.

“No really, you’re done for today. Come with me,” he said mustering as much authority in his voice as he could. He couldn’t, however, keep a straight face.

She snapped out of her haze just in time to process what she had heard and she chuckled. “I suppose you’re right.” She shut off her computer and slowly moved out of her chair. It took her a moment to stretch out to her full height. “I need to not get lost in work so much,” she pondered, “well whatever, I have priority to the computer core here, and what else is there to do?”

“Well, let’s see,” Josh herded the on-staff databases administrator and computer whiz into the elevator headed for the station’s poorly named, “common space.”

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Ongoing Investigation, #2

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 26th September 2008. (commentary)

This is the second instalment of a Knowing Mars story from the third chapter. While many of our hereos are getting settled in on Mars, Thom Busby and his assistant Adrian Rathe continue to work on their investigation. Read part one here, and thanks for reading. Enjoy!

“Not really, I guess. I just I wish we could get a look at the report of that incident a year ago, that might help, forensics is sure sitting on this one,” Adrian said.

“Good luck getting stuff from them, the geeks over there are practically rebels.” Busby’s sudden venom almost surprised Adrian, but by now he was pretty good at covering it up.

“Quinn Dasen seems to be pretty approachable,” Adrian said.

“She’s the one that’s been sitting on that file for months! She’s squeaky clean and very approachable, unlike some of the rest of them. Beyond that they’re all the same.”

“But if they are telepaths, should it really matter in cyberspace? I mean, if they had a hacking gene mod or onbard processing implants, then yeah, but as long as we stay away we should be safe. Right?”

“You don’t know that.” Busby’s response was abrupt and unambiguous.

There was a pause in the conversation, and if Adrian had had anything else in the world to do he would have started doing it, but there really wasn’t work to be done.

“And don’t you go trying to talk or meet with them, we may be ISA, but we’ve not made a great deal of progress on this case, and we have no idea what they can do. I can’t have you going rogue on me.”

“I just feel like–”

Adrian was cut off by the alarm, and then by Busby. “Don’t feel. Get to.”

Something had set off one of the their units cyberspace alarms. This happened pretty often and usually it was just some kid hacker’s or some intermal long abandoned script gone awry. or another ISA team that had forgotten the operating standards; but false positives were the price of having a sensitive system that could detect even the most surgical attacks. Adrian reluctantly reattached his net teather but Busby was a bit ahead of him, but an instant later it didn’t matter. Their office disapeared and they were on the net.

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Ongoing Investigation, #1

A Uncategorized story, by tycho garen
on 25th September 2008. (commentary)

In this Knowing Mars story, while many of our hereos are getting settled in on Mars, Thom Busby and his assistant Adrian Rathe continue to work on their investigation. This series will “air” in two installments. Enjoy

“So we’re done?” Adrian Rathe, checked all of the company boards and his own messages for a third time before he finally admitted defeat to the boredom.

Thom Busby, however, had long since given up the pretense of being enthralled in his work, or frankly, upon closer investigation of being awake. Adrian wondered how often Thom had been able to feign wakefulness in the past, but quickly abandoned the project. Adrian coughed, “Busby! are you seeing anything?” Surprising his boss like that might not have been his best idea in a while, but he was desperate for entertainment.

“Wha? No, nothing.” Busby was surprised a bit, but he didn’t fluster easily. Adrian reasoned that although wasn’t as entertaining it was probably a good quality for an ISA Agent.

“What are we even looking for anymore, there hasn’t been any more attacks on our “telepath” files in like a year. Do you think maybe they’ve gone to ground or something.”

“They’re still there. Be sure of that,” Busby’s eyes glazed over, or maybe they hadn’t fully unglazed from his little “nap.”

“We have the sniffers up, I can be on the net within five minutes of an alarm. I mean, what’s really stopping us from working on other things?”

“This is the best case in the entire cyber crime department This is the stuff that could make our career, and no one else has a clue about it. We could be directors within the year.” Busby’s gaze cleared up.

“After it breaks. I mean, hell we’re not even sure that there are really telepaths–or whatever.”

“What else could explain it? Besides that’s what they call themselves, normal hackers for the tough persona, these folks… don’t. And they still have the net wrapped around their fingers.”

“You think,” Adrian said.

“Do you have a better idea?”

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A Telepathy Primer, #3

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 24th September 2008. (commentary)

Welcome to anther This Knowing Mars story. This is the third and final installment of opening scene in Chapter 3. The “scene” is an essay by Matt Connor–physician, friend, and ally–of the Morgans, about the nature of human telepathy. Read the first installment and the second installments. Enjoy.

While we know that the cyberspace telepathy model and cyborg telepathy is false, we still don’t understand the mechanics of the telepathic communication, just as the mechanisms of memory were not truly understood for centuries after the brain was found to be the seat of consciousness. This is, I suppose the nature of science.

We do know that telepaths tend to have a higher level of general cognitive functioning on standard tests, once you account for the interference effects, though we don’t understand the reason for this beyond the theoretical explanations. Some, like Kyp Ebner were able to leverage this in cyberspace and hacking for a little extra speed in the simulated environment of the net. Kyp was always convinced that there was something else special about telepathy that made so many telepaths, including Taban and Kalian, so good on the net. The numbers are certainly in Kyp’s favor: we found out, in time, that a surprising majority of the leaders and maintainers of the net community were telepaths. While the increase in cognitive acuity might explain it, I was always quick to suggest that telepaths were more likely than other sub-groups to spend time on the net at critical periods and were thus able to develop some truly amazing skills online. It was a fight that we rehashed with some regularity.

The experience of telepaths on the nets is, no matter who’s argument you accept, quite interesting. Although telepaths had a little bit more power and sensitivity on the nets, they weren’t subject to the same kinds of interference that they experienced in the “real” world, because their bodies could exist in relative isolation while they were on the net. Cyberspace, was the first haven for telepaths, even before Mars. As long as I’ve known telepaths, a great many of them have focused much time and attention to the nets.

Though I cannot hope to fully communicate the experience of telepathy because I am not telpathic nor do I fully understand it myself. I have often found that the great “costs” associated with telepathic ability are often overlooked in favor the more fantastic aspects of the ability. Perhaps the more depressing fact is that even though we know so much about telepathy these days than we once did, many are still largely unaware of the totality of telepathic experience and history. The simple lack of information has already caused so much pain, let us pray that it doesn’t cause more.

Matthew Connor, MD
Mars, 2597

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A Telepathy Primer, #2

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 23rd September 2008. (commentary)

Welcome to anther This Knowing Mars story. This is the second installment of opening scene in Chapter 3. The “scene” is an essay by Matt Connor–physician, friend, and ally–of the Morgans, about the nature of human telepathy. Read the first installment, and enjoy.

The interference side effects were, before Taban and Kalian, often strong enough to prevent telepaths from “making use” of their abilities and still to a large extent prevent most telepaths from using their abilities outside of controlled and familiar situations with family and close friends. The Morgans were clear to illistrate that these side effects allowed telepaths to keep their abilities out of public knowladge for so long. Because “normal” day-to-day living was difficult and any use of telepathic abilities was generally such a displeasurable experience, telepaths rarely talked about their abilities with each other, much less “outsiders.” These issues the social and interference issues were the focus of Taban and Kalian’s book and their research and teaching allowed a great number of telepaths to understand and to have some measure of control over the interference and the strength of their abilities.

Looking back now, it’s amazing to realize how little we knew about telepathy then, even knowing how much we don’t know is more than we had then. I’m reminded of the early misconceptions of telepaths, which Kyp Ebener termed “cyberspace” telepathy. Basically many people thought that “real” telepathy was like the sort of “shared state” sensation that could sometimes result from running certain kinds of programs while on the nets with other hackers. Despite telepaths’ strengths on the nets, Kyp and I always thought that the association of telepathy with “cyberspace” telepathy was the result of some overselous “human rights” activists who opposed to telepathy because they thought that it would erode the strength of a hundred year old ban on “cyborg” style implants.1 Which probably wasn’t true anyway. Nevertheless these activists succeeded in shaping the early discourse on telepathy, and in painting telepathy as an invasive, omnipresent, and violent phenomena. The work of the anti-cyborg activists has had lingering effects on how many–particularly on Earth–understand telepathy even today.

Matthew Connor, MD
Mars, 2597



Notes:

  1. The cyborg ban was based on a fear of implants being used to subvert free will or some such. Though these laws were largely irrelevant because of the level of technological development present when they were introduced. The ban outlawed all inplants that had processing power “onboard,” rather than just dumb ports which piped data back and forth with external processors “pipes,” on the theory that if people had implanted computers with processing power they could simulate telepathy and infringe upon individuals right outside of the nets. ↩

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A Telepathy Primer, #1

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 22nd September 2008. (commentary)

Welcome to the first episode of Chapter 3. This Knowing Mars “scene” is an essay by Matt Connor–physician, friend, and ally–of the Morgans, about the nature of human telepathy. One of the things that I think might be missing from the blogged version of this, is that our story, is happening in the 2540’s and Matt’s essays were written in the 2590’s, many of the scenes in the 2540s are dated in my manuscript, but not in these posts. Hope that helps, and enjoy!

Before Taban and Kalian published their manual on telepathy there was very little substantive research on the mechanisms and experience of the telepathic skill or ability. While the Morgan book was pivotal it was only a start and it would be untrue of me to suggest that we’ve come very far in the fifty some years since the book. There’s still a lot we don’t know about how telepathy works and how it is experienced; however, I think its fair to say that there are still a lot of misconceptions and false information concerning telepathy that needs to be cleared up before we can progress. Despite the recent research on telepathy we still don’t know where or when telepathy originated. It’s very likely that there have been a small number of telepaths in the general population for several hundred years although they were too few–and in many cases disabled by the telepathy–to “blip” on anyone’s awareness. Also while there is likely some sort of genetic/inherited component of telepathic ability, the rapid increase in the general level of telepathic ability in the last forty years demonstrates that some percentage of telepathic ability is learned in some way.

Quite simply the telepathic ability allows telepaths to connect, sense, and sometimes affect another’s thoughts. Yet there is little that is simple about the experience of this ability which comes with a myrid of side effects. The lucky and usually weak telepaths only experience mild headaches and acute fatigue from the ability, while stronger telepaths often have crippling headaches, problems concentrating (even when they’re not “using” telepathy,) and more chronic fatigue issues although each individual is different. For some interference effects weren’t strictly related to the exercise of their abilities and was just a side effect of living in proximity to other people. Most telepaths were sensitive to the presence groups of people even outside of active telepathic experience, but some like Renee Flett who was one of the first telepaths to arrive on Mars–I think she even got there before Kyp Ebner–was found it hard to function if a group larger than really two or three other other people were nearby: the interference was that strong and that involuntary.

Mars made sense as a refuge for telepaths in the middle of the century because it’s population had never spiked as intended after the colony was established in the 20s. The colony was full of unused rooms, community facilities and apartments so it was possible to get distance and people weren’t as packed in as Earth had been for decades. Many today won’t remember the horrible overcrowding on Earth in the 40s, but it for a class of people that were sensitive to groups of people it was the worst place you could imagine.

Matthew Connor, MD
Mars, 2597

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