Transmission Log - Orestes

Author: Green

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Auto-generating preface...

A transmission log by GREEN. He thinks the messages aren't

reaching anyone. He philosophizes about the concept of life. He

complains about his fellow human-inhabitants at the Orestes.

Thank you for sending the mining equipment, I'll distribute it to

the crew when the time seems fitting, as per your recommendation.

-END-OF-PREFACE-

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You still haven't sent the mining equipment, or anything for that

matter. Lending credence to my theory that these messages aren't

reaching anyone.

I still, for some reason, feel the desire to update you. There

are things to tell. Events that happen. Even in this remote

corner of the universe, populated only by three people and a

bunch of strange, inert, red crystals, things happen.

If reminds me of something a philosopher once said, when talking

about 'life' (Life, after all, and the inexplicable human desire

to find more of it, is why we're here).

We usually think of things beginning when life appears. That

is, before life, there are no real 'events'. Life is activity,

motion, desire, growth. In absence of life, there are just rocks

planets, stars, etc. We are fascinated about the question of the

beginning of life, that strange moment when one cell first

divides into two.

But, the philosopher said, there is no life without difference

and before what we call 'life' appeared there was difference. The

universe is full of differences. Or, to be more exact, the

universe made up of of processes, and processes are just a series

of differentiations.

We think of life as continuous, as having a history (genealogy),

a clear beginning and end. But this sense of life, the one that

we cling to so dearly, the reason we voyage out into the void in

search of it, this sense of life is a construct. A story we tell

ourselves to try to make sense of the constant differentiation

and change. Underneath it all is the force of pure difference;

the relation between this molecule and another, between a 1 and a

0, between the geology of this 'dead' rock floating in space and

'that' one. So, if you're tracking a process of differentiation

across the universe, 'events' are happening all the time.

Not with these crystals though. There really is nothing going on

with them, in any sense.

All that's been happening are the overly-familiar kinds of

'events'. PINK ate the last of the apples. I couldn't believe it.

She ate it right in front of me, like it was a perverse act of

sadism. I don't get her sometimes. She is usually so calm and

rational.

NAVY is sulking or has taken a vow of silence or something and

has become as unresponsive as the crystals. I ended up screaming

my head off at him the other night. I feel bad about it now.

These kinds of 'events' tire me. I wish sometimes I could be less

'me', less 'alive', and just be a pebble on the beach or

something. Being slowly eroded by a wave.

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Complied by the Werner H. Young Terminal Emulator

Info: Simple A.I., designed on-site for executing

systems maintenance tasks and exchanging messages between the

Orestes outpost and the Arsinoe.

Built by Werner Young (2113-2151).

Names of persons have been masked to protect their identity.

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