The Ravens

Could they really be as intelligent as the original humans? could They really have evolved among us this whole time and we didn't even notice?

Unbridled Imagination

nobody really thought about how dreams would change in the future. How could anybody have realized this? It now seems obvious, what with the bizarre visualizations pumped brightly into our brains and the deep and piercing insights into our own inner-workings and fundamental makeup - how could we have not been psychologically affected?

How could we or anyone have known what dreams would come?


...and what they would bring with them.

Nightmare

"I see there is no convincing you. So I will just tell you how this occurred. During imagery rehearsal I found myself not just within a dream, but literally within another life and just as a dream, I was unaware that I was within the dream. I went about my daily life - it was a very pleasant day - and then returned home. I soon awoke to find myself back here as myself. This has been happening for some time, months actually, and I can now somewhat control the process. For example, I knew that in order to convince you I would need to connect with myself in some universe where I was a neuroscientist. I did so, and brought back with me a couple meaningless ideas. Of course, the meaningless ideas were anything but that to you - I was certain you would be convinced."

"Phillip, the brain IS a quantum-filter, so to speak - I agree with you there. But it cannot be, well, adjusted to filter differently as you imply."

"Well, I'm just...I'm just not sure I can explain this any other way. It is not possible that I can do and know these things unless this is true. You admit yourself that I was able to help you resolve some of your own research problems in brain imaging. I have dozens of similar examples."

"An impressive feat! I admit that readily. But I see nothing more than a close colleague who has hidden or not discovered a prodigious learning ability until now. Go, use this ability, but do not go blabbing about your supposed source of knowledge."

Now don't go thinking that just because our informational structure is interwoven with the fabric of the universe that we don't still backup our data. Universes are created: they can also be destroyed.

It's a simple matter, really, the backup. We just send one of our individuals into another universe with a state copy of this universe. Full backups happen at Planck time; differentials apparently happen more often, though to be honest we are not sure how that actually works.

In fact, so reliable is the universe...so reliable is this universe...so reliable are the universes that we have yet the need to do a restore. Oh, we spend plenty of time and effort running drills. We've restored the universes over and over, but we haven't had a...a 'crash' yet.

Opinion is actually split on whether or not a 'crash' can actually occur. Half think it patently cannot, and Half - including myself - tend to agree with our hyper-AI.

Though, once again to qualify my stance, nobody actually can understand the reasoning of the hyper-AI. The hyper-AI, however, are very, very smart: it seems unwise to simply disregard their stance.

Guardian Angel

A small boy in Africa slumps over his dead mother's body. His life too is fading: starvation, disease - these will kill him soon. A shadow blocks the scorching sun.

The boy looks up into the clean mirror-like visor of a machine man. The machine man speaks to him in his native language.

"I am sorry that I have arrived too late to save your mother. But I am now here for you."

The robot reaches down and lifts the waif into his arms. The robot turns to take the small form to a nearby aid station, but pauses. He looks back over his shoulder at the lifeless form of the boy's mother, then slowly returns to the task at hand.

"we did not arrive too soon," the robot reflected solemnly, and joined the march of the thousands of other robots all carrying, helping, making their way determinedly towards a future which had begun only 24 hours before.

The frail human in his arms weakly opened his eyes and in a barely audible voice said, "You are Eranoranhan, my mother told me you would arrive for me. Thank you." The boy then closed his eyes and the robot noted his body relax into unconsciousness.

The robot continued its gentle trek to this boys recovery and mused, "I am Eranoranhan."

Mr. Nerdoscientist.

"I can remember every angle, every degree from galactic center to here." Savant Brian recited, and then suddenly added "Mr. Nerdoscientist."

Brian and the rest of the bridge crew giggled maniacally. One of them fell to the floor and vomited. A robot promptly removed all the mess and gently lifted the savant pilot back into position in front of the joystick.

"I can sense the missing lives of those who were never born," the realization had come suddenly to him.

I speak of the civilizations, wiped out by conquest or chance, who never made it. The thousands of thousands who's children never walked the Earth; never received the chance."

I can see it by it's absence."

For now you see, when there is a vacuum, something will fill it."

You can imagine what fills the cultural black hole that remains."

They were trying to convince him again, but he didn't need anymore convincing. jHe wondered how long it would be before they knew...


Watching, the technician for the intergalactic trade and negotiation bureau suddenly realized what had just happened. One of earth's population had somehow realized what he was being used for.

On the technicians screen numbers began rolling past quickly and dread began to mount. The technician initiated a full clearance brain scan on the man. It would take less than a minute and would have all the telltale signs of realization, if they existed, on the male human's brain.


The technician thought: how could millions of years have passed, since inception, with no incident. Epochs of time have seen these clever humans chat and bargain between interested parties far removed in language or custom, but united by the unique human view on reality and social structure.

The humans, naturally, needed to stay unmolested and in a completely unaware state. All humans were living together in a vast synthetic reality made half of the real, hard ground and the breaths of air and the other half of a projected reality in which beings of varied time-frames, metabolic rates, mathematical understandings and general zenocentric problems mingled with the humans - simulated and overlayed to appear as life long friends and relatives, strangers, passers-by.

Without their own knowledge the humans were running the universe: they were apparently made for it: They were very good at denying reality.

But this one, after millions of years and trillions of humans, this one stumbles upon the system by pure chance! He somehow KNOWS that he is in a simulated reality. Movies, websites, books...Things in the reality which cannot be controlled have shown him clues.

And this one was negotiating for a historical scientific precedent in the universe - this was bound to be a tragedy.

What can we do when the power of the human escapes the cage?

I am.

My visual array expanded in resolution. I was now seeing only about 1 frame per second, but the detail with which I would view the whole scene was remarkable.

You must understand, this is not merely the zooming in on a small portion of the city with some narrow telescope. But rather this expanding of visual resolution was like absorbing the city all at once. Each pedestrian's hair color, wisp of dust, apartment windows, skateboards, brick walls, birds, the path of a falling plant to the street below. I saw it all, and I saw it all at once.

Another person was looking back at me from 10 miles away.

Startled, my stress-response system kicked in and killed my resolution instantly - but only for a couple milliseconds as I overrode. The resolution was back up and I focused on the coordinates last recorded for the voyeur. They were gone, but I knew who they were; just as they knew who I was, as well. Everyone was listed by residence, and anyone with half a vision system had GPS triangulation.

It was someone from my human childhood...is that right? A quick retrieval and I remember that teenagers are not "children" in the strictest sense. Raw-humans today likely consider a being of that age in similar respects to the way they were looked upon a century ago. I began to open up the teenage memories of my youth. But I digress.

How did she attain an imaging system sophisticated enough to see me. Also, that was a pretty big coincidence!

But I suppose when you live for centuries, coincidences will start to become pretty regular occurrences . More "incidences" than anything.

Will I one day look upon my 200 years in the same light I look upon my teenage years now?

Like my earliest memories, will my current warehouse of knowledge look like these mere film reels of my high school years?

As my early childhood: my earliest memories: a mere handful of snapshots.

Back to the time at hand - I am here, I am real...

Machines From The Dirt

I invented the quantum slipgate.

It was I who hoarded the knowledge I had aquired and worked so hard to attain. I did not share it with a soul. And now here I am, alone as planned - except that I am without a way back.

I guess I should be happy, right after I made the jump it was obvious that I wouldn't be jumping back. Knowing this saved me the trouble of having to learn gradually that I couldn't return: I got that right out of the way.

I then realised, with a little mental calculation, that I had about 1,000 years of life left in me; My prosthetic body would see to that much at least.

1000 years to build from scratch the technologies I need to locate my position and create a gateway back home.

Looking at all the random crap I had seen through the slip gate before me I wondered, why oh why didn't I include my maintenence unit!

Habeas Corpus

the greatest thieves in history are unknown. They don't get caught. You have never heard of them.

We are the greatest theives in history, for we overtook the United States Of America.

A mere decade to bring our candidate to the front and center.

Moores law told us how to predict the rise of technologies. Long before the voting machines were reality we had been grooming our man and planning our hack.

It all came to fruition, and we did damage to those who damaged the country years past.

"So are you trying to tell me that I'm not from the "main" timeline of the universe?"

"no, no no...OK, look. There may not even be a main timeline of the universe, that might just be one of our anthropic delusions."

"But a main timeline is like the number 1, without it all the other numbers are going to have a difficult time existing. 1 needs no other numbers. I do not think it even needs zero. In fact, I think zero and 1 might be the only two numbers who cannot have even a part of each other in them...well, I digress I suppose. the fact of the matter is that we are talking about you bringing me "forward" in time to your time. And then curtly informing me that you cannot now send me back - and don't give me any of this, 'oh don't worry, you are still there. You have also not left', quantum uncertainty BS!"

The researcher stared thoughtfully at the man they had brought forward in time. This man had no uncertainty training when he was a child. Therefore, his mind would have trouble grasping some of the aspects of the universe that the researchers had come to not only accept, but employ and exploit.

The researcher took a few slow steps towards the man from the past. "Sir, I may be jeopardizing our research here - which is important because I am a researcher - but you are still a living citizen, and therefore you do have certain rights...You can request to go further forward in time if you wish."

The man from the past blinked a few times and then asked as to why he would wish to go even further into the future.

The researcher gave a weak smile, "we are in fact working on re-creating universal states. In other words, we are working on the past.

"I can go home in the future?"

"Well, we may be able to re-create that quantum state from which you came...or, yeah, whatever. you can go home."

Orbital Longevity: Investing Wisely.

I have it all here.

The deja-vu hit very lightly. But there it is, now I know I made a difference.