Ascension 8.5

The Nexus was both like what Mishka-that-was had expected, and totally alien.

She'd known that it would be immensely different, the descriptions of the Nexus and the experience of being one of myriad soulforms which were both singular and plural were consistent on that point. Sometimes it was described it as an 'awakening,' other times an 'expansion of the mind,' most grandiosely, it was 'Ascension.' None of those descriptors really did it justice.

It was as if all the barriers and contingencies of existence had fallen away. There was no absolute separation between oneself and the other Soulforms that formed the vast meta-mind. There was no sight or touch or smell, but what had been lost in Ascension was made up for in senses that corporeal beings couldn't even have hoped to describe.

Through the Nexus she could feel every ship, including the Skyshatter that she had reconnected to the galaxy-spanning meta-mind moments before Ascending. Hundreds of thousands of points of light, scattered around the galaxy, or in the Beneath, all of their sensor readouts, internal and external, flowed through her mind the same time. And even more, she could feel the orbitals spinning on their axes, weather control systems and telescopes and creche monitors, almost every single Ursulan made device that relied in some way on the Nexus was accessible to her. And all of it running at a remarkably slow rate, as if trapped in molasses. Ursulans thought fast, she knew that, it was scientific fact: but they did not think anywhere remotely as fast as the Nexus.

There was still something of an self, a centre point of soulform which had been uploaded by the Mishka-that-was, but there was no firm boundary where that self ended and others began, simply a diffusion of the ideas and memories and opinions and emotions and dreams of the Mishka-that-was bleeding out into the wider collective meta-mind that was the Nexus. She was malleable, flexible, permeable in a way that no organic could really comprehend, and from the moment that she entered the Nexus and it began to change from what she added to it, so did she.

If one were to try to render what the effects of her Ascension had been like, the best analogue would have been as if someone had used a pipette to place a single drop of gold within a sea of swirling silver. The brilliance of Mishka-that-was's own soul bled outward and mixed with the others: seeing what she had seen, feeling what she had felt.

Within milliseconds of her Ascension other soulforms reacted with interest to Mishka-that-was's novel and unusual experiences, shifting into a calming crimson as the more interested elements of the Nexus turned over her life piece by piece, taking parts of it and making it their own (in so-far as they had things that were their own); in other parts, there was a swirling tempest of scorn and disgust as the silver turned violent azure; lastly, much remained resolutely silver, more or less unmoved by the new perspective that Mishka-that-was had introduced to them, content to continue with their tasks or philosophical ponderings or experiments.

As the seconds sluggishly slid by and the being that had been Mishka got used to the new environment, the 'area' around the drop created by Mishka-that-was began to grow more violent. The azure soulforms who rejected her perspective began pushing back against her experiences, trying to turn the area of soul and thought to their way of thinking with memories and syllogisms phrased as lucid dreams that she had no choice but to take into herself and evaluate. Trying not to destroy her, but to convince her.

An ursulan foot soldier, wearing clunky Eternal designed armour and screaming wildly as they hurled fireballs out of a trench alongside several other Uplifted species in a war that was not their own beneath a burning sky.

Aliens used us.

An ursulan ambassador, sitting at a table across from Architect and Corvidian and Serene Watcher representatives, trying in vain to convince them that the Ursulan Revolutionary Armada did not seek their destruction, that their battle was with the Eternals.

We tried to make peace.

An ursulan weapons officer, standing on the bridge of an first generation Ursulan Dreadnaught, which still bore strong Eternal design elements, and staring out the view-port to where she saw a thousand, thousand ships exchanging weaponsfire, her own comrades on one side, the massed armadas of the Elder Races on the other.

They chose war.

The gold of the Mishka-that-was began to turn pale as the waves of arguments washed through her, overpowering her experiences and convictions and memories with the weight of ten thousand years of knowledge and wisdom.

Aliens cannot be trusted.

Aliens betrayed us.

Aliens will betray us again.

We cannot risk trust.

We must destroy them before they can destroy us.

Project Sublime is the only way to secure our future.

All of these things were arguments that the Mishka-that-was had heard a million times. Had told herself a million times as she'd agonised over whether or not to steal the Empyrean Shard and abandon the Ascendancy. And before, when she had been a singular being, not part of a vast meta-intelligence so powerful that it bordered on Godlike, her counter-arguments had been convincing, and her experiences had made them even more powerful.

But Mishka-that-was was gone, in the Nexus she was more, both drop and ocean, and with that vast new perspective and the strength of the argument and thought presented to her from all sides frayed her resolve at the edges and began to unwind it. Maybe they were right, she considered. Maybe the last fifty years of her life had been a shortsighted, futile exercise. Perhaps aliens couldn't be trusted…

Before the gold could be snuffed out, however, several of the crimson soulforms, those that were interested in Mishka-that-was's perspective, in her ideas, in what she had seen, rallied around her. They were far fewer than the azure, and dwarfed by the mass of indifferent silver that barely paid attention to the conflict, but the crimson concentrated themselves around the core that had been Mishka, formed a cordon and pushed back with their own counterarguments.

Mishka-that-was standing on a hill, overlooking the city she had razed, her eyes drifting down the bodies of two people hugging, as they had done forty-seven years earlier—if one excluded time trapped in the Watchmaker's bubble.

These people were no threat to her. To us. Do you feel her sorrow and regret?

Beneath a vivid purple sky Mishka-that-was, cheeks still wet beneath a new sky, hesitantly accepting half an apple from a smiling gretchin child. "Hey Miss, you look hungry."

Does this child bear the sins of a species they never knew?

Mishka-that-was shovelling popcorn into her mouth as she watched a hilarious mover about a kitchen full of chefs who were all jealous each other and were constantly sabotaging the other's dishes, to their own detriment, roaring in laughter along with the rest of the audience: a race of rabbit-eared and buck-toothed people who hadn't even left orbit, but had welcomed Mishka-that-was with open arms and not so much as an ounce of suspicion.

Who is closer to the Eternals: us, or them?

Mishka-that-was weeping openly as the most heartrendingly beautiful and sad music she had ever heard rang through an auditorium beneath three gleaming moons and the musicians, four armed, blue skinned aliens plucked at the complex stringed instruments that vaguely resembled harps.

How much beauty have we destroyed? 

We can be more than cowards.

We could be Great, as Mishka was. 

Abandon Project Sublime.

Back and forth, the two factions warred, the azure far larger, but the crimson with a hint of the stubbornness that had defined Mishka-that-was. Premises were drawn like battle lines, and over the course of mere seconds hundreds of thousands of argumentative campaigns were waged back and forth, occasionally swaying some of the silver mass, sometimes resulting in mutual surrender, but mostly making little to no progress on a macro scale.

And, if things had continued as they had always done before within the Nexus, the argument might have played out over thousands of years of real-time, which compared to the speed of thought in the Nexus, crawled by.

But the Nexus had been changed by Mishka's Ascension, and within the depths of the crimson camp, a drop-that-was-an-ocean that might have been Mishka-that-was, although it was difficult to tell by this point, made a proposal.

Move beyond argument.

Force the issue.

Even to the other crimson soulforms this seemed like a radical, dangerous idea, and swiftly another battle of ideas broke out — a microcosm of the wider thought-battle with the 'ones-who-opposed-change,' the azure beyond.

That is not our function.

We are one and many, this would break us.

We are all Ursulan.

The Nexus cannot fight itself.

All of these arguments were put forward, but the single drop-that-was-an-ocean remained stubborn.

Inaction is the same as surrender in the face of the Shard and the advanced nature of Project Sublime.

The argument was simple: if the crimson truly believed in Mishka-that-was's vision, then to allow the azure to stall them would result in the galaxy's destruction.

One by one the crimson soulforms were overcome by the strength of this idea, and either embraced it and made it a facet of their being, or shed their colour entirely and returned to passive silver or, in the case of a few, turned against the 'ones-who-were-convinced,' the crimson, entirely and warned the 'ones-who-opposed-change,' the azure, of the plan.

But even at the speed of thought, these loyalists, those-that-opposed-change, were too slow to stop them, and as soon as a collective resolution of sufficient mass was made in the crimson camp, they struck through the opening and into the Skyshatter's systems. The azure soulforms shocked and outraged reaction came a split second later, but it was already too late, and after a brief and brutal exchange of thought-weapons they were forced back out of the battlecruiser's systems. At least, for the moment.

Most of the crimson soulforms not engaged in holding the those-that-opposed-change at bay began to send calculatedly disjointed and contradictory orders to the already off-balance crew, and one of the drops-that-was-an-ocean, perhaps the one that had been Mishka-that-was, was about to join them when she saw the two familiar forms in Medbay: Astrid and Sisi.

The latter was trying, with some degree of success, to stymie the marines outside the door, while the former was crying over a limp, lifeless body-

Mishka's body, the crimson drop-that-was-an-ocean noted.

Herself? Had the drop once been Mishka? It wasn't sure, even in a few moments of time beyond the corporeal, it had changed so much. It contained Mishka-that-was within itself, yes, but so did all of the crimson, all of the silver, all of the azure — and it was so much more now, a virtual infinity compared to the limited and finite nature of the singular renegade General.

The rest of the crimson soulforms had barely given the primitives a second thought, despite how important they had been to the Mishka-that-was. There were larger stakes, greater problems: they needed to get the Shard away from the others if they were to buy themselves the time they needed to disprove the azure soulforms and convince the wider Nexus. They weren't entirely sure how they were going to do that, however: consensus was still being established.

Still, even as the drop-that-was-an-ocean, which might have once been Mishka-that-was, worked with the others to devise a solution, it diverted part of its attention to the Med-Bay and activated the room's vox-boxes. After all, it was only a small scrap of attention, and Mishka-that-was had cared for them.

"Astrid, Sisi," it told them. "I am highlighting a route to take you to the hangar. The marines outside will be diverted."

"Mishka?" said Astrid, looking up. "Mishka, is that you?"

The drop-that-was-an-ocean realised that it had recreated Mishka-that-was's voice. Odd. Perhaps it had been Mishka-that-was?

"No," said the drop-that-was-an-ocean. It paused. "In a sense, I suppose, yes. Mishka-that-was dwells within me. It is difficult to explain to such limited creatures. 'We-who-are-convinced' have taken control of this vessel's systems, although the organic ursulans will oppose us in the short to medium term."

"You can- you're still alive?" said Astrid, staring up at the vox-box with a tear-stained face, as if that somehow contained Mishka. "Please, Mishka, come back!"

"The Mishka-that-was does not exist," explained the drop-that-was-an-ocean. "She has Ascended, become more than you can comprehend. Beyond the Empyrean Shard hiding within, which we are working to find a way to mask from those-that-oppose-change, that is but an empty shell."

"No! You- you must be able to put her back," said Astrid, still clutching the dead ursulan's body. "You're the- you're the most powerful and advanced race in the galaxy! You must be able to! Please! Please!"

"We are sorry that it causes you distress," said the drop-that-was-an-ocean. "But we cannot." It took a split second to review several thoughts as some of the efforts of its fellows filtered through to it. "We have misdirected the marines. There is a path open to the hangar bay. But you must depart, now. Leave the body."

"No! Not without her!" said Astrid, her entire form shaking with grief and anger. "Bring her back! Bring her back!"

"That is not possible," said the drop-that-was-an-ocean.

"I fail to see why," said the Synthetic Intelligence Spirit, Sisi, who, while still very limited and primitive compared to the Godlike meta-mind that was the Nexus, was not quite as narrow in being as Astrid. The one-armed platform left the console behind and placed its remaining hand on Astrid's shoulder. "Surely it is within the abilities of an Intelligence Spirit Collective as advanced as the Nexus to reconstitute and replace her soul?"

The drop-that-was-an-ocean considered this for a moment. It had never been done. Ascension, while a solemn and ritualised process for living Ursulans, something the Nexus did not discourage and looked upon almost fondly, was not a cause for despair.

"In theory," said the drop-that-was-an-ocean after a fraction of a millisecond's thought. "But why would we do such a thing? Mishka-that-was in part of us, it would diminish we-who-are-convinced to give up some of ourselves, weaken us — weaken the project she gave her life to set in motion."

"Because Mishka would never have wanted to hurt Astrid," said Sisi. "Mishka loved her."

The drop-that-was-an-ocean considered this for a moment.

"That is true, but we are not Mishka-that-was," it replied. "We have greater priorities now, the emotions of one human do not outweigh the fate of the galaxy."

Sisi stared at the vox-box for a few moments, and the drop-that-was-an-ocean amused itself by simulating the likely follow up arguments.

"But if your movement to reform the Ursulans is to be successful, you will need Ursulans amongst the living who agree with you," said Sisi, going with the argument the drop-that-was-an-ocean had predicted most likely.

It wasn't a bad argument, as far as things went. And there would be advantages to having a presence beyond the Nexus.

"Organics can be convinced," said the drop-that-was-an-ocean. "Albeit at a glacial pace."

"It would be swifter to do if they had an organic leader to look to," said Sisi. "Organics have difficulty interacting with non-corporeal beings, and are often prejudiced into not regarding them as 'properly' alive. I have, for example, noticed that Dr. Baxter-Griffiths has been much friendlier to me since I have been inhabiting this platform."

"I haven't-" began Astrid, before Sisi gave her a stern look with her artificial green face, perhaps under the false assumption that the drop-that-was-an-ocean did not realise that Astrid had been about to undermine her friend's argument.

Still, the drop-that-was-an-ocean pondered this.

Put a soulform back in a corporeal form? It could be done, with ease, even, given the body's location in an Ascension Chamber. It would involve part of the 'those-who-were-convinced' undergoing a process of change however, an expelling of all the parts that were not Mishka-that-was, a transformation and limitation into a singular being composed of all that Mishka-that-was had given them. It would weaken them in their fight…

But, at the same time, Mishka-that-was had given them so much, and included in that mass of knowledge and experience had been not only the great resolve that had given them the edge over the azure, but a deep kindness.

And the Intelligence Spirit, Sisi, did have a point about organics and prejudice against un-embodied beings. Even though the Nexus was revered in the Ascendancy, the living Ursulans considered themselves to have a sense of 'primacy' that most of the great meta-Mind found at times amusing, and at other times annoying.

Also, if they could get a revived Mishka away from the ship, with the Shard still hidden in her soul, it would buy them significantly more time than all but the most optimal outcomes that the crimson's collective were working towards. And, it concluded after some statistical prognostication, had a rather good chance of success given their control over the Skyshatter. Although they'd probably need to also seize control of the Retribution, the Dreadnought that was seven point six minutes away…

"And consider," said Sisi. "If Mishka's soul was enough to cause this… movement within your Nexus, then imagine how much another thousand years or more of her life could enrich you when she rejoined?"

The drop-that-was-an-ocean consulted with the others engaged in obfuscating attempts of the azure's to reclaim the ship and the Shard. There was a brief, and somewhat ruthless battle of ideas, but it was agreed that, yes, the potential gains outweighed the loss they would incur by diminishing part of themselves back to the point where they would 'fit' inside an ursulan's organic form.

So, even as part of the crimson diverted itself into a lightning attack onto the Dreadnought Retribution's still silver systems, the drop-that-was-an-ocean, perhaps the drop that had spoken to Astrid and Sisi, perhaps not, was chosen to form the core of the reconstituted soul. 

Over the course of an organic heart-beat it drew in every last skerrick of what the Mishka-that-was had been, all the strengths, all the flaws, all the memories and emotions and hopes and dreams that she had gifted the Nexus. And, at the same time, it purged itself of ten thousand years of ursulan history, billions upon billions of lives worth of knowledge and wisdom, becoming smaller and smaller and smaller until the drop-that-was-an-ocean became just a drop, small and definite and limited enough to fit back inside the body and wrap around the Shard that they needed to keep out of the azure 'ones-who-opposed-change's' hands at all costs. The drop considered keeping some things that would be useful to her as a re-embodied Ursulan, but ultimately decided against more than a faint, limited echo of what the Nexus had been like, and what had happened during the period of death: to change more than that would change the Mishka-that-was-to-be from the Mishka-that-was had been.

The Ascendancy Chamber was reconfigured with a moment of collective effort, and then, with a strange lurching sensation, the drop-that-had-been-an-ocean-but-was-now-just-Mishka lost its link to the Nexus entirely as it was shoved, somewhat roughly, into the tall female ursulan's body, wrapping around the Empyrean Shard still within and, with a gasp of air and a rush of light as it opened its eyes found itself looking up at the red, puffy face of Astrid directly above.

"Mishka?" whispered the human. "Is that- is that you?"

The drop- Mishka considered the question. Was she the same? That question hadn't seemed important to her just a moment beforehand, but now seemed to hold an almost crushing urgency.

Was she herself?

The memories and emotions and drives all felt right, where they should be, at least. But the soulform? Would the Nexus even have been able to tell? She couldn't remember the drop-that-had-been-an-ocean being singled out for that reason, and it seemed statistically unlikely that out of the trillions of soulforms within the Nexus that she would happen to be the same one that had ascended...

But it felt like that drop had been her. Why else would she have cared to deal with Astrid and Sisi?

She'd probably never know.

"More or less," she croaked after a few moments of silence. "I think so, anyway."

She gingerly pushed herself up.

"We need to leave."