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Date: Tue, 29 Dec 92 03:15:33 -0500 (EST)
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Subject: Quanta - December 1992 - ASCII - Part 4(4)
The process loop included the musicians, so by extension, all the Eternals
would be required to process potentially huge amounts of negative and positive
energies while performing before an audience. The megastepped physical
vehicles would be much more efficient than ordinary Earth bodies. The Eternals
would be capable of processing the very energies that often facilitated
horrendous excessive substance abuse by musicians who took the substances to
feel more comfortable while processing the high-intensity energies. Precisely
because of his megastepped condition, Lyle developed an exquisite
understanding of how any performing musician could have trouble handling the
energies of high-volume music production and a large audience to boot. But
during rehearsal now, the Eternals aimed at producing a mixing board
mellowness. The DAT recorder worked fine, and Lyle made a stereo mix off the
board while they were rehearsing. The long minimalistic tune in open E minor
was turning into a good Time Tunnel. Lyle programmed 200 bars of the tune into
an older Yamaha keyboard that had built-in rhythms, and the tune
synchronistically just turned out to loop nearly seamlessly at bar number 200.
So it made for very long and drawn-out jams on top of a background suggesting
Eastern themes and meditation. After the rehearsal, Lyle made a cassette dupe
of the DAT and popped an ultraWalkman and ear buds into his bag with the
notebook computer. Never know when they might have a chance to review the tape
before the next rehearsal. And on a modern flying saucer, well, things would
probably be so automated that listening to the tape would give Lyle something
to do instead of twiddling his fingers.

The Eternals dressed in the Indian bedspread tunics that Pearl E. Mae had
put together for the group. We were a little squeamish about leaving She-Ra
and Bullet alone in the house, but we reprogrammed Bruce the talking Geranium
and set up Al's hexadecimal sound net. We hugged both dogs and left. It was
getting pretty dark by the time we got to Kennedy Park on South Bayshore
Drive. We had to walk by Julian's house, but I didn't notice any signs of
activity. We walked along the thin inlet of sulfur-smelling mangrove that
divided up two lobes of the green running areas. At the ocean's edge, the park
was bounded on one side by Rockerman Road and its canal. There were too many
boats in the canal for anyone else to be able to get in there. So it seemed to
me that the other green lobe of running area would be a more likely landing
place for Yo-Vah. We walked over the curved wooden bridge at the ocean's edge
that led from one side to the other. The sound of Monty's outdoor band was
already reflecting off the waters in the islands and anchorages of Dinner Key.
The side of Kennedy Park that was away from the urbanization of Rockerman Road
had an area of quiet mangrove facing Monty Trainer's groups of Docks.

The transparent flying saucer was waiting there for us when we got there.
As we approached the area that looked like trees and shadows from a distance,
the saucer's outlines because quickly apparent. With a soft hum and a muffled
vibration, a sparkling panel slid open to reveal Yo-Vah smiling at us. He
extended a hand and we entered the craft single file. I was too overwhelmed by
the novelty to notice the startled glance of recognition that Yo-Vah had given
us for some reason. We were all impressed at how much bigger the saucer seemed
inside. The internal structure was, for all intents and purposes, a forty foot
geodesic dome with internal panelling made of a sparkling transparent material
that resembled plastic more than metal. There were panels of controls
everywhere that controlled, for one thing, the transparency or translucency of
the individual walls. Some of the walls were not quite transparent, giving us
a visual hint of the individual cabins looked like. The central chamber
contained a tube-shaped compartment with a two level command center.
Individual cabins were spaced like orange sections around the command center.
Each cabin was subdivided into work and sleep areas. A superficial glance
suggested that all the cabins were exactly alike with no variation in either
furnishings or lighting.

The command center had more than enough recliners for all eight of us
surrounded by a beautiful combination of different color displays and control
panels. We manned the recliners at Yo-Vah's request and were treated a
spectacular view of our own solar system as the craft left Earth's
gravitational field with little more than a shimmy of the saucer. The g-force
we experienced was barely more than your average jetliner taking off, but the
craft itself was whisper quiet in comparison to a jet plane.

At close range, and when viewed in the flesh and from the flesh rather than
an out of body perspective, Yo-Vah was less ephemeral and more humanlike. In
fact, he really looked like an older guy with a lot of mileage. He had a
grandfatherly air. There was still a strangely familiar cast to his face, but
I could not catalog my response. Yo-Vah's ship turned out to be a high tech
wonder, and not an imaginary reflective fantasy craft. The accelerated view of
our solar system that was whizzing by on the full-circle surround screens
resembled one of the PBS specials I have seen that showed the same view,
except that it was simulated and much slower than Yo-Vah's craft which was
deftly burning a path straight for the Milky Way. At least that's what it
looked like to us. Now, even in my megastepped days, I am not an astronomer,
but the simulated screen was showing what looked liked clumps of stars that
seemed to be going by incredibly fast, and I said so. Yo-Vah laughed
good-naturedly and explained that saucers always travelled in bursts of speed
to help conserve power and cut down on entropy disorganization. He said that
we were travelling at intermittent bursts that were ten times the speed of
light towards what I called the Milky Way because that is where the closest
Time Zone Interchange Area was located. These areas were set up by the I.S.I.
to help preserve whatever degree of integrity still remained in the Entropy
Equations. Making time transits through the Interchanges minimized the
associated problems like entropic scatter, dyssynchronism, and time shock.
I.S.I. agents set up the Karmic Ring defenses at Time Zone Interchange Areas
to help preserve crucial relationships across time and other dimensions. The
Karmic Ring defenses were also something like the metal and explosive
detectors in our airports. Atavistic metals, as determined by Carbon dating or
other isotope techniques, set off alarms in the Guardian network. Usually, the
metals were gold, silver, or platinum or - in the case of Primitive travellers
- heavy element isotopes such as uranium or plutonium. The atavistic metals
that were heading from the past into a future dimension were now automatically
tracked and collated in a special registry. I.S.I. agents of the 3200th
Century now could keep track of the problem "exports" and were able to combat
the intratemporal ripping off. The agents regretted that the Rings had not
been set up when time travel really became popular in the 2800's.

I was the only Eternal who had never been in a spacecraft, but there was
little time for incredulous wide-eyed reactions. Yo-Vah told us that the
Karmic Rings allowed time dimensional shifts with minimum disturbance of
universal entropy. He would be able to take us into our own future to
demonstrate the truth of what he had told us. I reminded Yo-Vah that I was not
able to understand any of the lettering or inscriptions on the control panels.
He chuckled again, and there was something very familiar about the chuckle.
The back of my mind reached for a memory, but I came up with a blank, and then
forgot about the memory as I turned to my attention to what Yo-Vah was doing.
He made some movements on the panel before him with his fingers and the main
viewing screen went blank. Then the other screens went blank. The same
pulsating flash of color now appeared on each of the screens. The pulsation
continued for at least several minutes. It felt like I was getting a headache,
which is very atypical for me because I never get headaches. After the
headache sensation passed, a feeling of clarity emerged. My eyes could read
the lettering and inscriptions on the control panel, just as though the panels
had all been written in English. But part of my brain still somehow knew that
the symbols were definitely not English. There were still a lot of
mathematical symbols which I could grasp only with my imagination. It was
possible to pick out one digital display which read "2105", and I wondered
silently if I were going to have the chance to observe myself die.

Yo-Vah said I would not see myself. Ignoring my startled expression, he
continued on to indicate that we would be at a very safe distance from Earth's
solar system. We were not supposed to view the final cataclysmic event
directly within the solar system because it might produce very dangerous
debris. As we approached the Karmic Rings, there was nothing special to be
seen on the viewer. Yo-Vah told us we would feel nothing in particular as we
made a time-dimensional transfer other than the blinking lights because the
technology of interdimensional travel had been made very safe and smooth by
the I.S.I. techniques.

He tapped a rhythm on a part of the main control panel, and the large
central screen abruptly switched to an excellent color version of Star Wars. I
was the only Eternal who was shocked and surprised by us. Yo-Vah confessed
that my Primitive planet produced some of the best albeit primitive science
fiction entertainment. One paradoxical reason for the popularity of Earth's
films was the excessive dwelling upon violent and destructive themes. Such art
forms (except for Primitive planets and solar systems) were generally
forbidden as negatively contaminating by the Guardians and the I.S.I. But
Earth and its solar system were notorious throughout the future because of the
entertainment value of Primitive violence. Even evolved beings occasionally
appreciated escapism. As I watched the Empire trying to strike back, I noticed
that the other Eternals were enraptured with the sleek Hollywood flash. We had
not had much time to watch television during the past four days. Yo-Vah
understood the fascination that the other Eternals had. All Guardians of the
future were very very fond of Earth culture movies, books, and some music.
Despite the extinction of the Primitive planet, science fiction movies of
twentieth century Earth especially conveyed a powerfully charming view of the
future for those beings who actually lived in the future. Possibly because of
the vast numbers of forbidden behaviors to be found in Earth movies, Guardians
enjoyed them as purely escapist, as physical violence and destructiveness
simply do not exist on a regular basis during the times of the I.S.I. Of
course there was still plenty potential for negativity. Destructive
instruments of the future have become so efficient that the rare examples of
violence and/or destructiveness can produce individual or planetary death with
equal facility. But criminal types in the times of the I.S.I. are really rare.
Since systematic detection of the intratemporal rip-offs began, the actual
incidence of the crimes had been slowly down exponentially. The amount of
intratemporal ripping off that occurred before the I.S.I. installed the Karmic
Rings was so great, that a critical amount of negative momentum had been
gained. The known universe was experiencing entropy imbalance to such an
extreme degree that the imbalance had long ago began ripping through the time
barriers. So the actual entropy imbalance of the universe reflected backwards
into the past from the future. The sins of the children began to be visited
upon the great great great grandfathers. Then the retrograde effects, once
started, continued to manifest more and more intensely. Burgeoning violence
and destructiveness began to amass into retrotemporal pockets of Primitive
cultures where the behaviors were either permitted or actively sanctioned. The
destructive retrotemporal effects were also cumulative, and the I.S.I. had
become very alarmed with the recorded extinction of more than 50% of the
Primitive planets known to and charted by the Guardians of the I.S.I. When two
planets that were definitely not Primitive, but possibly borderline, began to
show signs of cultural backsliding with intermediate scale physical plane
violence, the I.S.I. reasoned that possibly the retrotemporal effects were
beginning to threaten civilized cultures. Thus something had to be to slow or
otherwise control the entropic degradation. So DR TOMORROW was born as a
project, one of three aimed at helping to correct the entropy imbalance of the
universe. Violence and destructiveness have largely been weeded out in the far
future of 32,000 A.D., but the intratemporal ripping off that went on between
the years 28,000 and 32,000 was enough to guarantee dreadful repercussions to
the past. As long as the repercussions were wiping out only Primitive life
forms, no one got too upset. But when life forms clearly not Primitive began
having serious problems, and then started regressing into Primitive cultural
activities, the I.S.I. clearly discerned a pattern of possible ultimate danger
if unchecked or uncontrolled. The I.S.I. were never certain that entropy
imbalance was a puzzle with a solution, but all the Guardians generally hoped
that the imbalance could be cut off at its source and then also possibly
harmonized.

Yo-Vah explained all of this to me. The other Eternals all seemed to be
listening also with one ear but gluing most of their attention on the science
fiction movie. I assumed that they already knew the facts we were hearing.
What a universe!

______________________________________________________________________________

Marshall F. Gilula, otherwise known as NeXT Registered Developer (NeRD) #1054,
spends a lot of his time with a customized white Steinberger guitar, and a
couple of racks of rapidly-aging electronic equipment controlled by a Mac IIsi
running MOTU's `Performer'. This version of DR TOMORROW was part of a Ph.D.
Dissertation written for Columbia Pacific University. DR TOMORROW is a project
that aspires to being a profitable multidimensional wellness learning system.
Marshall Gilula lives in Miami with a black Cube, several Macs, numerous
stringed instruments, and two beautiful gigantic German Shepherds, She-Ra and
Bullet. `DR TOMORROW' and `Project Talking Dog' (She-Ra and Bullet) are two
scientific activities of Life Energies Research Institute, P.O. Box 588,
Miami, Florida 33133.

DR TOMORROW will be continued next issue.

[email protected]
______________________________________________________________________________

If you like Quanta, you may want to check out these other magazines, also produced and distributed electronically:

InterText Contact: [email protected]
--------- --------------------------------

InterText is the network fiction magazine devoted to the publication of
quality fiction in all genres. It is published bi-monthly in both ASCII and
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Duncan.

The PostScript laser-printer edition is the version of choice, and includes
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mail your request to [email protected].

Core Contact: [email protected]
---- ---------------------

CORE is available by e-mail subscription and anonymous ftp from ftp.eff.org.
Send requests and submissions to [email protected]. CORE is an entirely electronic
journal dedicated to e-publishing the best, freshest prose and poetry being
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The Guildsman Contact: [email protected]
------------- -----------------------------

The Guildsman is an electronic magazine devoted to role-playing games and
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charge to the reader. Printed copies are also available for a nominal charge
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Back issues of The Guildsman are available via anonymous ftp at
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Thank you, thank you very much.
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