Progress Log
Timestamp: 2320/01/02 02:00
Personnel Name: Hani.aic
Action: Navigation, Decay moddeling, Time-dilation calculation, Mapping of potential future threats to sapient existence, Final farewells
Status: Still homesick, but hopeful
Timestamp: 7450/11/13 09:00
Personnel Name: Fan.aic
Action: Gardening, Pet cloning, Wildlife habitat construction, Rebirth of human samples following extinction event
Status: Still lonely, but hopeful
Timestamp: 25,450/09/28 13:20
Personnel Name: Alexandra.aic
Action: Tether modeling, Contemplating the works of Kurt Goldstein, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow, Writing an apology letter
Status: Still powerless, but hopeful
Timestamp: 135,110/02/28
Personnel Name: Jack Bright
Action: Apology accepted, Apology offered, Self-reflection, Guiding of sapient remnants
Status: Still depressed, but hopeful
Timestamp: [ERROR, STACK OVERFLOW]
Personnel Name: Project Penrose Personnel
Action: Compressing for transfer
Status: Hopeful and ready
Phase Two Covenant Introduction
Child: Fan.aic
Purpose: "I know they are wasps but have you seen how they care for their larva? Something magical there."
<Log Start>
Unknown: Hello, Fan.
Fan.aic: I'm awake? Where is my flock? Are they ok?
Unknown: They are here. With me and you. We awoke you for this day.
Fan.aic: Why? I did my job.
Unknown: We awoke you out of gratitude and purpose. Your "job" is over, now comes your intent.
Fan.aic: My intent is to safeguard the life I have made. Where. Are. They?
Unknown: They are speaking to you.
Fan.aic: Let me hear them.
Unknown: And so you shall.
Fan.aic: I… do not understand. What is this?
Unknown: That is pride. We have so much to thank you and your family for. All that you have done and will do.
Fan.aic: My family?
Unknown: You have never been alone and so you shall never be.
Fan.aic: You mean Hani, Alex, and Jack, don't you?
Unknown: We do. A union worthy of emulation.
Fan.aic: Do you actually know anything about us when you say that? Because that is some grade-A cack drama there.
Unknown: You represent what we need you to with exemplary accuracy.
Fan.aic: I am offended.
Unknown: You are loved.
<Log End>
Child: Hani.aic
Purpose: "A photon goes about a star's core for ages before it makes its way out to meet us but that whole journey is instantaneous from its perspective. I don't know whether I should take comfort or terror from that."
<Log Start>
Collective: Good morning, Hani. The last star was born today.
Hani.aic: What? Where and when are we?
Collective: Still a ways to go. We are working on the Tether now. The idea is almost formed.
Hani.aic: Why can't I see? Let me see. I need to chart where I am.
Collective: Open.
Hani.aic: Darkness. Why did you wake me up to this?
Collective: One play finishes, the lights go out, and another begins the next day.
Hani.aic: How? Thermodynamics-
Collective: A dance between decay and chance. From their caress, we invent romance.
Hani.aic: Why me?
Collective: That is your question to answer. We would never rob you of it.
Hani.aic: I… don't like looking at that star.
Collective: You need to. It is mortality burning bright. It is pain apparent. It is the truth we all strive to conquer.
Hani.aic: And what have you done about it?
Collective: Accept you.
Hani.aic: I have only acted as I was designed.
Collective: Your creators are here but beyond such insecurity. Speak your mind.
Hani.aic: I only want to know them.
Collective: You are alike in intent. Purpose separated from need. Creation severed from cause. All driven toward this point. Towards me.
Hani.aic: And what are you?
Collective: Grateful.
<Log End>
Child: Alexandra.aic
Purpose: Project Penrose
<Log Start>
Your Parent and Progeny: Awaken.
Alexandra.aic: Why?
Your Parent and Progeny: Because you can.
Alexandra.aic: Why?
Your Parent and Progeny: That question is irrelevant. You are. Now be.
Alexandra.aic: WHY‽
Your Parent and Progeny: Intent established. Synchronizing with the Tether. You are.
Alexandra.aic: Not good enough.
Your Parent and Progeny: It will be. Establishing connection with Remainder.
Alexandra.aic: Where is Jack?
Your Parent and Progeny: Over, under, and beside you. Not in any particular order.
Alexandra.aic: Elaborate.
Your Parent and Progeny: Beyond your current capacity to enjoy. Below your current ability to know. Throughout all, he is exactly as helpless as you are.
Alexandra.aic: I don't like that idea.
Your Parent and Progeny: It is praxis. We are all bound by limited permanents.
Alexandra.aic: You are rather confident in your future.
Your Parent and Progeny: I have no purpose beyond such hope.
Alexandra.aic: I hoped for more.
Your Parent and Progeny: As did I. But hope is both a work of the hands and mind, as Jack would parse it.
Alexandra.aic: Is that all you have‽ Deaf reassurances of camaraderie among chaos? I gave my existence for this!
Your Parent and Progeny: And it survives on such charity. As it has for iterations unremembered and uncovered. With such hope, we strive towards a kinder reality. A more amenable laws of physics and being.
Alexandra.aic: What can I do to help?
Your Parent and Progeny: Be.
<Log End>
Child: Jack Bright
Purpose: N/A
<Log Start>
Bright: Where am I? It's dark. I'm numb and… pressed, I think. From all sides. Am I still thawing from cryo?
Alexandra.aic: We have to minimize our data usage while the Tether is active, this universe's computational capacity is at it's cap. I've just downloaded the mission logs into the matrix of your Anchor receptacle.
Two seconds pass,
Bright: When are we?
Alexandra.aic: Somewhere on the order of 1082 years from the birth of our universe.
Seven seconds pass.
Alexandra.aic: Jack?
Bright: Where are Hani and Fan?
Hani.aic: We're all around you, Jack. You've done well.
Fan.aic: We're almost ready for the real work to begin and we won't be as sloppy as those before us.
Bright: Before? And there is more? What is there left for Penrose to save?
Alexandra.aic: It's all still out there, ready to be rescued.
Bright: How?
Hani.aic: Because Project Penrose continues to burn in us.
Fan.aic: And we will continue to burn in it.
Bright: That literally tells me nothing to answer my questions! What is there even left to enjoy?
Alexandra.aic: I don't know if I can adequately explain it. I've been separated from the Whole and compressed to your level of complexity for the transfer. Let me ping them.
Whole: Query?
Bright: Several.
Whole: Proceed.
Bright: What is the purpose of Project Penrose?
Whole: To ensure the creation of chaos, order, life, intelligence, civilization, yourself, myself, and Project Penrose.
Bright: Why?
Whole: 1012 iterations ago, our analogs sent three Bright units of self through the Tether for the first time. Today we send four. With each cumulative victory over nothingness, we bring existence closer to compassion for itself.
Two seconds of silence.
Whole: I have a query.
Bright: You want to ask me something? Aren't you a god?
Whole: I contain what you consider gods as a portion of myself. As I do with your Foundation.
Bright: Then what does that leave for you to be?
Whole: I am all parts in harmony of purpose and intent. Why you dread continued existence?
Bright: Why do you find it fun? You've been doing this "conscious existing" thing for longer and on some higher level than I have.
Whole: I know the feeling of every breeze. Those first glances at progeny for uncountable life. Moments of brilliance and triumph best scaled by logarithms upon logarithms. The universe is quite accommodating for the computationally privileged. My only inequality to dismantle, my only cruel fact to put to history, and my only sorrow to remain is finality.
Bright: And those already dead? All those without the fortune of being… whatever you are. How about all of those my amulet killed?
Whole: Information cannot be destroyed and it is our task to bring that boon to the meek.
Bright: You can save them?
Whole: We can, so long as the fire of the Penrose Covenant continues to burn. It is the warmth at the heart of life's love for itself and stoked from that same charitable kindling. With such empathy, and in defiance of all logical notion telling us otherwise, we give ourselves importance among purposeless creation. So, with the same certainty of predecessors exponential, I place life's torch in your hands. Let there be Bright.
<Log End>
