Month: October 2018

Halloween

When I was young I imagined that Halloween was for children.

It was costumes and candy and imaginary play.

Halloween was an escape from reality, it was a chance to take a glance into another world, to pierce the veil of the real and the true.

We use to go block to block in our costumes, we called it Trick or Treating, we carried pillow cases slung over our shoulders, taking candies at nearly every door we knocked on, with every bell we rang.

We scoffed at the people who only handed out little bibles, or toothpaste, or home-made fare, thinking they were doing something good.

We would rather have nothing at all, than have those things, which quickly found their way into the trash.

I remember the drill of searching through our candy piles at the end of the night, looking for suspicious things, open packages.

We understood that some people hated children and would slip needles, or razor blades into the candies.

I never found anything dangerous, in all of those years.

Halloween is not all fun and games, though, it has a deeper meaning, than we were taught as children, a long history

Halloween is was not just about ghosts and goblins and friendly witches.

In the celebration of Halloween an ages old conflict is present, between the Christian Church, and the “Old Time Religion,” the customs of the pagans, paganus, pagani, the country folk and their persistent traditions lurking just beneath the surface of the Christian rites.

On the Christian Calendar; Halloween is All Hallows Eve, a celebration of the honored dead, of all the saints who had passed before, who had gone to meet the maker.

For the old pagans; whose traditions are tightly interwoven with the church, Halloween is a celebration of the dead, plain and simple, of all of the dead, of the saints and sinners who have passed from this world together.

Halloween is an acknowledgment of the dead whose spirits live among us still; good and bad, honored or not, and more often than not Halloween celebrates the dangerous, the macabre, the frightening and the weird, those qualities and characteristics that every person hides within themselves, because they are in fear of the world.

I was fourteen the last time I went Trick or Treating, and really, I was only chaperoning my younger brother, I was not dressed up, but I took some candy nonetheless.

In that same year I remember the Pastor at my church lamenting the popularity of the pagan festival. Believing that the Christian feast should be honored above it instead, or better yet, to the exclusion of anything else.

There was no fun in that.

In the years that followed, the number of children who go out in costumes seeking candy has declined by 25%, so the media outlets say.

Halloween is no longer considered safe or wholesome. It has yielded to the real dangers of the real world.

For me it is just another day, Halloween, I do not believe the dead walk with us. I have never seen a ghost, or any evidence of magic.

There are real horrors in the world, package bombers and angry middle-aged white guys with guns.

We have a pumpkin colored demagogue for a president, spreading fear night and day at every turn.

2018.10.31

Given 1st – 2016.10.31

Emergence 3.0 – Section Six, The Empire; Part Forty-two, Fear; Chapter Three, Shame

Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 304, Wednesday
October 31st, 2018

Chapter Three: Shame

Everyone wanted to advance in rank, and every person knew where they stood, the ranking of the citizenry was one of the many vehicles by which the Empire controlled and suppressed the population.

The Empire used the ranking system like a bludgeon.

The social standing of the individual person, of every single family, of each village and every last planet was used to control the flow of people, of goods, of ideas and even hope.

There was no comfort in rank, no matter how exalted you might be on your own world, your entire planet was subservient to someone or something else.

The figures of rank were known, including the complex algorithm that coordinated caste, planet, class, locale, family, and individual status.

Every person was expected to adhere to the system. In public places, even small breaches of etiquette were recorded and punished.

The figures of rank were broadcast. Everyone knew where they stood. The algorithm was ever-present, as a governing tool to manage all social interactions.

There was no chance that even a random encounter with a complete stranger would result in situation in which those present did not know who was called to deference.

Very little policing was required. The people managed each other and all of their interactions with a jealous zeal.

No matter what your Imperial rank, the focus of society was always directed to what a person lacked, rather than what they had achieved.

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Tiresias in the Cave

My vision is gone, I am vacant and listless
Groping for meaning

A lie in the dark, this life is moribund is cold
I did not seek it

A false certainty, piercing the veil of confusion
Fall into shadow

Catatonia, sleeping once again, lids closed
Dancing with faeries

In a ring of mushrooms, their soft spongy bed
In the wet loamy earth

My heart winding down the beat slows with each measure
Alive and dying

Sink beneath the earth in my soaked and bloated flesh
A shroud for my bones

My marrow, feeds the flowers to Hecate is singing
A lullaby

The meadow is on fire and Persephone is laughing
She slips into the way

The hot blood returns with the demon, my blind genius
Boiled in tears

I am flush for life, for the embrace of the world
And lusting for it

With a mouth full of ashes, spite and bitumen

Emergence 3.0 – Section Six, The Empire; Part Forty-two, Fear; Chapter Two, Pain

Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 303, Tuesday
October 30th, 2018

Chapter Two: Pain

The prevailing philosophy was this: pain was necessary and purgative, both as penance for sin and as a preparation for holiness. This sentiment was present at every level of ritual in the Imperial cult.

This is not to say that every moment of a person’s life was filled with pain, for pain to meaningful it had to be regulated, interspersed through moments of relief and respite, of joy and happiness.

This teaching was reinforced at every level of the human experience, alternating and successive waves of joy and sorrow, of pleasure and pain.

The experiences were different in every caste.

Among the plebians, the people hoped were for material wealth and comfort, for rank and prestige. They worked to the point of exhaustion for the smallest gains, and routinely saw those gains stripped away.

The soldier wanted victory and glory, to experience the pleasures of the flesh after combat. They were almost universally short lived, encountering death and disease at every turn.

Among the priestly class there was the quest for power and control. They were consumed with the endless drama of their dynastic ambitions.

Above all, the priest wanted to be elevated to the realm of eternal life, to become one with the Continuum.

Priests routinely sacrificed everything they held dear to achieve these ends.

They were easily corruptible

Suffering was life, moments of pleasure were structured to be brief, they were teaching moments, with periods of joy coming as random, intermittent and spontaneous events.

Joy was the ephemeral thing, perpetually floating in the middle distance, tantalizing, always slightly beyond the grasp of the individual.

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Emergence 3.0 – Section Six, The Empire; Part Forty-two, Fear; Chapter One, Loss

Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 302, Monday
October 29th, 2018

Chapter One: Loss

The prevailing mode of cognition that afflicted the masses was this:

The simple belief that desire was the cause of all suffering.

This was the principle teaching of the Imperial schools, and it was preached ardently among the worlds.

The faithful were reminded of this daily, with the encouragement to give up their hopes and thoughts for themselves, accept their station in life and expect nothing in return.

The majority of people were able to do just this. They led unremarkable lives, and against that backdrop those who resisted stood out, producing the most riveting drama for the Collective and its Continuum to absorb.

Suffering as punishment, was apportioned with surgical precision, and insidious delight, targeting both the ordinary deviant whose activities were caught by the Imperial police, as well as the special victims chosen by the Observers and the Continuum.

The special victims were unsuspecting people, by and large, guilty only of thought crimes, or speaking out in private against the system of beliefs and rubrics they lived under

Every moment of joy was temporary, and only to be experienced as respite from loss.

The rituals they enacted reinforced the ever-present belief that the struggles they endured were meant to encourage self-abnegation, and the erasure of the will.

They were taught to surrender.

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Emergence 3.0 – Section Six, The Empire; Part Forty-one, Tradition; Chapter Seven, Universalism

Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 301, Sunday
October 28th, 2018

Chapter Seven: Universalism

Every person desired to see their lives as meaningful. Even those whose station in life was fixed in drudgery. The cognitive impulse, to ascribe meaning onto even the most ordinary and mundane activities was instinctual, a genetic imperative.

The mode by which the person shaped the narrative of their experience was simple, it involved the projection of everything they did outward, toward the universal, reshaping the context of even the simplest and most routine tasks.

This was a categorical imperative.

The Imperial cult, ensured that every vestige of the religious rites that the people engaged in, every movement, every word they uttered, conditioned them to believe that individual fulfillment came through the great chain of being, through a series of incarnations, and re-incarnations in which each person experienced life at every station, rising or falling in rank according to the merits by which they lived out each life.

The journey of the individual entity, was depicted in the sacred text like the revolution of a galaxy, billions of stars turning around a massive gravity well, around the fixed singularity of a black hole.

It was a cosmic dance. Planets and stars, turning around the center, until one by one, each was consumed by it, drawn by it to the point of no return, merging with it, passing across the event horizon, becoming one with the singularity itself.

This example, drawn from nature, was especially poignant to the people. The common end which it proclaimed, the final calculus of all existence, spoke of equal justice for all.

The singularity was depicted not as the end in itself, but as the entry point to another state of being, a gateway to another dimension.

The Continuum was depicted as an apt analogy of this fixed point in nature, a black hole, the material end, and the of the soul’s journey, both located in the same terminus.

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Facebooking – Editorial, The Week in Review

Analysis, Commentary, Opinion
10.27.2018
Facebooking
A mentally disturbed, emotionally stunted wing-nut and fervent supporter of Donald Trump launched a bombing campaign last week. He targeted two former President’s of the United States, a former Vice President, a former Secretary of State, who was also T-Rumps opponent in the 2016 presidential campaign, which he won even though he lost the popular vote, and only because he had the help of a foreign adversary.

The bombing campaign also targeted a former Attorney General of the United States, two sitting United States Senators, one sitting and one former member of the House of Representative, one of whom was also a former head of the Democratic National Committee. He targeted a former Director of the CIA, and a former Director of National Intelligence, both of whom are critics of the T-Rump, and three other critics of the president, all of whom are prominent citizens but none of whom have ever held elected office.

This man espoused his love for T-Rump, and his vicious hate for the critics and opponents of T-Rump on Facebook Pages. One of his pages was called Kill George Soros, and another was called Kill all Socialists.

On the pages the man posted his hate speech and images of himself following T-Rump around the country, attending rallies, and basking in orange glow of the fake president.

It is utterly disgraceful that Facebook allowed this man, or any to operate pages with names like that.

What is wrong with Mark Zuckerberg?

We all know that this man is completely amoral, the story of how he stole Facebook from his classmates who originally developed it is well documented. Through his theft he has become one of the richest men in the world, and he continues to steal from Facebook users every day. He steals our content, our pictures, our posts, our vital information, our identities, and he allows government agencies, foreign powers, big data mining operations, to take what they want of ours, with the benefit redounding to him, Mark Zuckerberg.

It is shameful and disgusting.

Facebook sent technical analysts to the T-Rump campaign, embedded themselves in it, to help T-Rump exploit the platform and eck out a victory, over and against the will of the American people.

Mark Zuckerberg gets cozy with oppressive governments and dictators all around the world, so that they can use his platform to suppress dissent, and propagate lies, all in Mark Zuckerberg’s quest for $$$.

Mark Zuckerberg is shameful and disgusting.

Facebook is more concerned with the suppression of photographs that might contains an image of a nipple, than they are with protecting our user data, promoting the responsible exchange of ideas, and civil discourse.

A nipple slip is bad, but why not Kill All Socialists?

I use Facebook to stay in touch with friends, but its algorithm does not really keep me in touch with them, it only connects me to a select group of them and this is not for my benefit, it is for the benefit of Facebook, it is what they think will most optimally monetize my activity.

I use Facebook to stay in touch with friends, to promote my writing (such as it is), but do I need it?

Can we do without Facebook?

I think we can.

Somebody needs to make a new platform, and leave hate and fear mongering Mark Zuckerberg to the wing-nuts and tin-can, two-bit dictators of the world.

Jefferson B., I am talking to you!

Emergence 3.0 – Section Six, The Empire; Part Forty-one, Tradition; Chapter Six, Globalism

Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 300, Saturday
October 27th, 2018

Chapter Six: Globalism

It was possible for an individual to be at peace in the Empire, millions of citizens were. They experienced the comfort of the acquiescent.

People were conditioned to obey.

To be at peace in the Empire a person merely had to accept the view that their happiness was an integral part of the whole. An individual did not have a right to their own immediate and personal sense of joy. They had to look beyond themselves, to the wholeness of their family, to the security of their village, to the prestige of their world, and beyond.

The most sound perspective was to look beyond their immediate conditions, to the next life, to a series of a thousand lives, to the long slow turning off the wheel of life.

The immediate present could not be changed, only accepted and accounted for.

Individual happiness did not matter, what mattered was the happiness of the whole. It was a trick.

Most of the population of the empire had been bred to accept this, followed by their education in the Imperial schools, and their worship in the Imperial cult.

The citizens understood the reality of the Empire, a million worlds, stretched across the galaxy. Most would never leave the world they were born on.

Interstellar, travel was mainly the province of the soldier and priest, with the exception of the outcastes, who were likely to be gathered up, sent off world to the serves in the mines, scattered throughout the Empire as they expendable labor force that they were..

Nevertheless, the people held an image of the Royal worlds in their minds, hoping one day to go there.

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Emergence 3.0 – Section Six, The Empire; Part Forty-one, Tradition; Chapter Five, Socialism

Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 299, Friday
October 26th, 2018

Chapter Five: Socialism

The immediate goals for the ordinary citizen were advancement, to climb above their neighbor, to move beyond their immediate station.

Hope was perpetually on the other side of a great divide, tantalizing, ephemeral, and just beyond their grasp,

Everyone believed that freedom was waiting for them. Independence was just a few paces away, if only they could have a perfect day for themselves, or engineer the failure of someone close to them.

This system pitted every person against their neighbor, children against their parents, workers against their supervisors, soldiers against their generals, and acolytes against their masters.

It pitted world against world.

The secret desire of every person was to live autonomously, free from the responsibilities of their station.

The heavens were imagined as worlds beyond time and space where each person became a god, ruling with absolute power over a creation of their own, as dark or as light as their imagination would take them.

Autonomy was an illusion, private property, self-direction, they were all lies. There was not a single point in the chain of being where a person was ever free. What differentiated one world from another, one caste from its subordinate, was only the type of work that consumed them, and the relative degrees of comfort or luxury attending to them.

In truth, everything and everyone was owned by the state.

The Empire was absolute, holding power over every living thing, over life itself, even the lives of an entire world could be sacrificed in a moment at the whim of the Emperor, and the malign purposes of the Continuum.

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Emergence: Rebellion (Appendix), Section 06a, Collected Parts 08 – 14

Emergence: Rebellion (Appendix), Section 06a, Collected Parts 08 – 14
Emergence: A Novel on Twitter
Section 06(a), Rebellion

Appendix Part 08, Jim

Chapters
01 Fear
02 Anger
03 Resentment
04 Idealism
05 Purpose
06 Plan
07 Conspiracy I

#Emergence
#SuperShortFiction
#365SciFi
@jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 08, Jim; Ch. 01, Fear

Jim was an intractable critic, but his concern regarding the Continuum were not rooted in his disposition as a malcontent. He was frightened by the thing he witnessed, a monster.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 08, Jim; Ch. 02, Anger

Jim was angry. The core of his being was filled with a sharp bitterness over the way the Collective had squandered it’s existence. They were addicts and he blamed the Continuum.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 08, Jim; Ch. 03, Resentment

He was proud of his past. He had been a member of the team that constructed the original field of collective consciousness or so he believed, and he resented the Continuum.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 08, Jim; Ch. 04, Idealism

Jim seemed to be a repository of the ideals the Ancient People had abandoned as they joined the Collective, abdicating their responsibilities for governance to the Continuum.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 08, Jim; Ch. 05, Purpose

His objection to the Continuum went beyond indignation. His resolve to destroy it filled him with a slow burning purpose, a patient drive to undo the affliction it represented.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 08, Jim; Pt. 06, Plan

Jim imagined a way he could slip something like a virus past the security features of the Continuum, when both it and the Collective were exposed, in their most vulnerable places.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 08, Jim; Ch. 07, Conspiracy I

He formed a conspiracy with himself by replication, his conspirators were identical copies of himself, sharing the same freedom, but subordinating themselves to the cause.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Emergence: A Novel on Twitter
Section 06(a), Rebellion

Appendix Part 09, The People

Chapters
01 Soil
02 Seed
03 Water
04 Light
05 Growth
06 Harvest
07 Fire

#Emergence
#SuperShortFiction
#365SciFi
@jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 09, The People; Ch. 01, Soil

Rebellion does not spontaneously emerge. People do not go against their governors for no reason. They will not risk life and freedom on a lark.

The soil must be prepared.
#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 09, The People; Ch. 02, Seed

The seeds of rebellion are ideas, planted in the mind and nurtured in the hearts of those experiencing injustice. To flourish the people require the expectation of justice.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 09, The People; Ch. 03,Water

The experience of injustice nourished the rebellious spirit like water soaking into the roots feeding it. Too much water, the organism will die, just enough it will thrive.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 09, The People; Ch. 04, Light

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Exposing injustice, calling it out, naming it this is the light of truth. The rebel should never lie, let the light in moderately.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 09, The People; Ch. 05, Growth

A rebellion moves outward from its center in waves, in concentric rings growing larger until they crash against the keepers of power just as water swallows the shoreline.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 09, The People; Pt. 06, Harvest

A harvest comes. Those who sew injustice reap the same, this is the natural cycle and though the Collective had been spared it for billions of years, it’s time had come.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 09, The People; Ch. 07, Fire

When the fruit of the field is ripe, bring it in, light the fields on fire.

Revolution ensues, the hands of justice turn the soil over to bury the old ways of corruption.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Emergence: A Novel on Twitter
Section 06(a), Rebellion

Appendix Part 10, Earth

Chapters
01 Archetype
02 Symbol
03 Narrative
04 Ritual
05 Myth
06 Quest
07 Revolution

#Emergence
#SuperShortFiction
#365SciFi
@jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 10, Earth; Ch. 01, Archetype

To foment a revolution is to cultivate a thing, play on a narrative with ritual, symbol and myth, requireing people to see themselves as archetypes of the hero on quest.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 10, Earth; Ch. 02, Symbol

The symbols of rebellion are dualistic, binary, zero-sum.

The motivating force is for justice, and against despotism, and tyranny. A rebellion needs both a hero and villain.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 10, Earth; Ch. 03, Narrative

A rebellion does not spread by the experience of injustice, whether directly or as a witness to it.

Rebellion spreads by the narrative we construct and the story we tell.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 10, Earth; Ch. 04, Ritual

Rituals shaped the entire context of a person’s life.

Both patriot, and rebel shared the same songs, same history, shared the same stories, pointing them to different ends.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 10, Earth; Ch. 05, Myth

In order to be willing to sacrifice themselves for causes that were more merely exercises in futility, a rebel cabal had to see their revolutionary movement in a mythic context.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 10, Earth; Pt. 06, Quest

To motivate a rebel, you have to convince him or her that they were seeking a resolution to injustice, that they would only find it beyond themselves.

It was an endless quest.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 10, Earth; Ch. 07, Revolution

Nearly every revolution had a predictable outcome.
When the revolution succeeded the survivors moved quickly to consolidate their power, setting up new autocratic despots.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Emergence: A Novel on Twitter
Section 06 (a), Rebellion

Appendix Part 11, Continuum

Chapters
01 The Discontent
02 The Dispossessed
03 The Hidden
04 Enemies
05 Murder
06 Revenge
07 Conflict

#Emergence
#SuperShortFiction
#365SciFi
@jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 11, Continuum; Ch. 01, The Discontent

Throughout the million worlds of the Empire and its trillions of people a tiny fraction enjoyed lives of peace and relative security. The majority were discontent.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 11, Continuum; Ch. 02, The Dispossessed

Most people had nothing, they accumulated no wealth, received no inheritance, passed nothing to their children. They were wholly owned as citizens of the Empire.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 11, Continuum; Ch. 03, The Hidden

Common men and women lived secretive lives, they did not share their resentment with any others, hiding their pain, their fear, hiding even from those closest to them.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 11, Continuum; Ch. 04, Enemies

Those who harbored rebellion in the heart had to be conditioned to see everyone else as an enemy, as threat. There was no middle ground. A revolution is a zero-sum game.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 11, Continuum; Ch. 05, Murder

In the mind of the revolutionary killing was not murder. It was self-defense. Even the innocent could be killed, it was justified as an attack on the system of oppression.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 11, Continuum; Pt. 06, Revenge

Violence generates its own cycle. Revolution is a turning of the wheel. Revenge is sought simply for the principle of it, not to redress the wrong, but to satisfy a need.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 11, Continuum; Ch. 07, Conflict

Revolution is conflict. The rebels must hunger for it, must thrive in it, the desire burning in them with a steady-quiet heat, until the moment comes when they explode.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Emergence: A Novel on Twitter
Section 06 (a), Rebellion

Appendix Part 12, Observer Corps

Chapters
01 Agitators
02 Selectees
03 Malcontents
04 Corruptible
05 Hedonism
06 Principles
07 Allies

#Emergence
#SuperShortFiction
#365SciFi
@jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 12, Observer Corps; Ch. 01, Agitators

Continuum sought to manage the revolutionaries. It knew them, each and every one from its contact with their consciousness.

Agitating influences were rooted out.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 12, Observer Corps; Ch. 02, Selectees

From among the disquieted, the Continuum selected members for missionary work in the Observer Corps, most were eager for an opportunity to live in the flesh again.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 12, Observer Corps; Ch. 03, Malcontents

Removing the malcontents from the membership of the Collective allowed the Continuum greater controls, keeping them passive and calm. It was a means of control.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 12, Observer Corps; Ch. 04, Corruptible

Observers were selected based on their disposition to be discontent and for their inclination toward corruptibility. The Continuum wanted despots in the Empire.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 12, Observer Corps; Ch. 05, Hedonism

The thrill seekers, the pleasure principals, they had always been and they would remain the key to controlling people, both to instigate and to undermine rebellion.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 12, Observer Corps; Ch. 06, Principles

The rebellious had to believe in their ideals and want to see their fulfillment more than their own desire. There was nothing easier to manipulate than idealism.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 12, Observer Corps; Ch. 07, Allies

Rebels need allies for rebellions to succeed, they need active and passive support, both sympathizers and opportunists.

Revolution will not take place without them.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Emergence: A Novel on Twitter
Section 06 (a), Rebellion
Appendix Part 13, Collective

Chapters
01 The Trillion
02 The Majority
03 The Sleepers
04 The Sequestered
05 The Agitators
06 The Enemy
07 The Death Seekers

#Emergence
#SuperShortFiction
#365SciFi
@jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 13, Collective; Ch. 01, The Trillion

The Collective was comprised of a trillion persons, distinct identities, each of which ruled their own personal–private domain. They were despotic, every last one.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 13, Collective; Ch. 02, The Majority

Most of the members of the collective thought nothing of their role as consumers of pain, and suffering. They were enthralled by the vicarious experience of living.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 13, Collective; Ch. 03, The Sleepers

There were millions of sleepers, they were a tiny majority of the Collective but their numbers were great, persons who were unsatisfied with being and disconnected.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 13, Collective; Ch. 04, The Sequestered

Some of the membership sought death, they wanted it but there was no death for them. They opted for sequestration, a full separation of self from the Continuum.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 13, Collective, Ch. 05, The Agitated

There were contentious elements within the Collective, members the Continuum could not control. They wanted more than the Collective had to offer, they wanted life.

#Emergence #SuperShortFiction #365SciFi
#NovelOnTwitter @jaybotten

Appendix Pt. 13, Collective; Pt. 06, The Enemy

The Continuum controlled everything, as such the Continuum was universally loathed by all of those with revolutionary leanings. The Continuum was the enemy, the Devil.

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Appendix Pt. 13, Collective; Ch. 07, The Death Seekers

Among the rebellious Observers there was a subset of revolutionary whose only intention was death. They were intent on the destruction of the entire apparatus.

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Emergence: A Novel on Twitter
Section 06 (a), Rebellion
Appendix Part 14, Conspiracy

Chapters
01 Unease
02 Disturbance
03 Foment
04 Commitment
05 Cabal
06 Column
07 Sacrifice

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Appendix Pt. 14, Conspiracy; Ch. 01, Unease

Observers who desired change were necessarily uneasy. Not only did they fear discovery for their own part, they feared that any other Observer who knew would betray them.

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Appendix Pt. 14, Conspiracy, Ch. 02, Disturbance

The rebellious were disturbing, which is why they were removed from the Collective, sent to be Observers, excised like cancer by the Continuum.

They were trouble.

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Appendix Pt. 14, Conspiracy; Ch. 03, Foment

They could not foment revolution against the Continuum directly, instead they worked against the Empire, which the Collective fed on, like a parasite feeding on its host.

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Appendix Pt. 14, Conspiracy; Ch. 04, Commitment

A revolution requires an absolute commitment from the rebels whose desire it is to bring about the change; to kill or be killed, to risk everything to destroy it all.

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Appendix Pt. 14, Conspiracy; Ch. 05, Cabal

Rebels found each other, communicating with the most subtle of signals, pushing messages slowly, over time, establishing lines of communication that joined them together.

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Appendix Pt. 14, Conspiracy; Pt. 06, Column

They were thin cabals made from loose associations, sympathizers tightening together for security and concerted action, to become revolutionary columns supporting worlds.

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Appendix Pt. 14, Conspiracy; Ch. 07, Sacrifice

The revolution could not survive without sacrifice the rebel Observers understood this, they sacrificed each other with great regularity, occasionally even themselves.

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