Chapter Theme Music: Autumn Leaves ~ Zero Project
<11/30/149,558 {Avion 148} - 14:22 | Corral Position, Genosis, Altiri Sector Space>
<Karnak to ACS414 Date Equivalent: 11/30/2002>
It goes without saying; with time comes change. I used to believe otherwise, when The Unity stagnated in a cycle of mourning and recovery for tens of thousands of years, my soul along with them. I'd thought such change would still progress slowly and gradually, even among the human empires we continued to watch; how wrong I was!
So far, there have been 14 total purges in our shared history between the Altiri and the Humans, a number that is soon to rise even higher, while our collective observation of ACS414 becomes even more popular. Though it was learned much later from filtered data given by the Royal Scryers, it turns out that these collection of purges had a few dramatic effects on the sociology of humankind...
As if most of us are really surprised. The human race doesn't need to collectively become aware of our presence in order to be influenced by The Unity. Things have become more interesting over time however, because one of the biggest changes to come from the purge experiment was the adoption of our own language as a popular form of verbal communication. Humans now call this language English, and believe it somehow originated from within their own history. Even though the shared language ratio is not one-to-one in all forms of English, this has given us amazing insight into how they behave, think, learn, and evolve over time.
We now understand them. We now hear their voice, feel their heart, and see their world anew, at least among the targets we track who prefer to speak this language, our language.
None of us have tried to learn any alternate variant of human language, nor do we plan to. Because of this change among a few others, purging human females has become more popular of an idea than it used to be. However, our aggressor group, the Cy-Stars, under my leadership, vowed to never invoke a purge on any other person for any reason. Instead, we stick to the stars, displaying the countless lives of those most interesting to our clairvoyant eyes and our clairaudient ears.
Human technology has also been evolving at a quicker, more accelerated rate, with assurance it has nothing to do with our purging. Although, their interest in the stars above may have been influenced partially by our own influence, gradual and minuet as it may have been. Already have they launched into space, using what primitive tools and fuel they could. They still have a long way to go before reaching our technological equivalents, though a few specific scientific fields of study have advanced beyond even our own, such as cellular biology - and to some degree, mineralogy, though we still excel in physics.
I normally would not even mention our advancement in psionics over them, but the Purge of 1903 seems to have shared some of our scryer information on psionics and the Astral Plane. As a result, many humans have been interested in the ideas of ESP abilities and psychic powers, though their actual sciences on the matter have not progressed far enough for strong accreditation, sadly. I would have personally been wishing for humanity to evolve to a point where psionic powers could be understood by them, let alone proven to exist in the first place, though many false pretenders of such abilities have also cropped up, tarnishing the reputation of psychic powers to a point where no serious scientific team on the subject would receive serious attention or funding, even by a big governmental department. I still wonder if they deserve to know, the billions of humans who are unaware of those we purge, unaware of the rare humans amongst them who telepathically speak with us. The queen goes through strict measures to ensure this never happens, but I have to wonder what would change if word did somehow get out, in a manner most plausible at least.
"We're all ready for this Lumina. Where will our next targets be?" Luna was asking me, while every one of my sisters passively waited and listened, wondering where my next area of focus would take us.
It was actually unusual, at least a while ago, for my own sisters to want permission from me to track any human target. These days, we seem to switch away to and from many humans more frequently, looking for any interesting story. Our desire has the same basic principle found in those who seek out new and more exciting TV shows, after being addicted to or spoiled by the previous shows, wanting something more the next time, or something deeper than average.
Interesting things happen in ACS414, often on individual levels. Other times, the stories we watch become horrible and vile, as people get what they don't deserve while the criminals get away with whatever they want, karma to strike only when it feels like doing so. I hope to avoid the extreme violence and gore we've caught onto many times before, so we try to focus on cold zones within the northern continent of the United States of America, where most English is spoken as well.
"I'm not sure yet." Honestly, I'm kind of board of this already. Humans have too much of a habit of casting aside who they really are inside, to better fit a social narrative around them. It sickens me that people do this at all, and it also bores me to death. Their lives are watched by us like a reality TV show, but they are not in a television script. These are real people, living creatures full of powerful and raw emotion, as well as sound logic, at least half the time. Instead, there seems to be a growing fraction of the populous behaving more like NPCs than people, sleep walking through their lives, blissfully unaware of how the world around them works. I tire of watching puppets when I seek to watch for those most awake; hard are they to find. "We already have a fairly strong understanding of how people generally behave in most of the northern and cold areas of this country. The moment used to be more interesting before the industrialized push threw everyone where they are now... I feel like they are beginning to stagnate a little."
"I'll take that to mean no special projects for now." Talor didn't sound biased in her assumption. Normally, we would just pick interesting human targets at random. Lately however, I've been coming up with unique ideas, even little contests about certain human behavior, instituting unofficial special projects just to see if people are one way or another. One example of this was a time when we all spied on six tightly knit male humans, all of whom were totally rich, just to determine if it were ever possible for one of them to break free of their spoiled mental prison they created for themselves. Of course, heathens are always selfish no matter what, enough of us wondered if any would change given a bit of negative cohesion between themselves, since they too can be competitive. In the end, nobody changed, and the special project ended shortly. We were doing things like this more often, as if to conduct little social experiments involving no interference of our own, to correctly guess how another human would behave. We can see through their eyes and hear through their peripherals, but no Altiri can read the minds of them, unless done through a psionic purge, a sacred pact which I and my sisters have not.
"You're free to engage in the special projects I take interest in if you desire; do not feel obligation to follow my lead on this." Even as I said that, I knew the reason why everyone was looking to me for permission. They weren't interesting as much in letting me take authority on our remote viewing, no. They were hoping I could make all of this more interesting for them. My sisters and many Altiri alike have also grown tired of the recent low-key zombification of modern human society. All of us want something more interesting, something deep and meaningful to reflect from others. It's something we all know how to look for, but something that becomes rarer to find. Perhaps this is merely a symptom that we have allocated too much of our time dedicated and focused on the human world, rather than other affairs, like trying to further our fields of science, even though they have all ran into brick-walls amidst the resource shortage.
Even if we are too bored of our surroundings to focus anywhere outside the ACS system, I wasn't about to give up too quickly. So, I made a brief announcement and decision among my sisters. "On that note, I have actually come up with an idea for a prolonged study. It should hold our interest for a few more years, ten years if we are lucky."
"A plan brought up on the spot?" Junko asked while standing beside me. "Do indulge us with the details."
It isn't exactly a crazy idea. I already know the expected outcome and results, but for the moment, this was the only idea I could muster, before deciding I would have to give clairvoyance a break. "We already know and understand the general behaviors of many sub-societies in most places of the world, especially within the United States, and we've even subdivided them by location and region." Some places of the world are colder and warmer than others, which means we prefer to always watch those in the coldest climate areas, so that our engagement to another person's visual life is never cut off for too long. "What we have not tried yet, is comparing the average personal behavior of all we've observed, to those in the southern continents, closer to farmland and other temperate climates, and in the warmer areas."
Before anyone could think more on the idea, Hurma sounded off on complexity of executing the plan. "Yeah, that's because it's warmer in those places. We avoid the southern states of America because their summers drag out longer, making it impossible to learn much about anybody there."
"Yes Hurma. I know." It's always fun when they don't exactly catch the point I'm aiming for. "We know that their climate makes our snooping harder to carry out in a prolonged and proper study. That said, it still is not impossible. I for one would like to know if some of the humans in the slightly warmer climates have any radically different behaviors and personalities, compared to those who come from the North. I know that it isn't likely for us to find that there is such difference, but I think a place we can rarely ever see only in winter months allures a certain curiosity from most of us."
"So that's what this is about," Sherika understood. "I must say Lumina; there is truth to your ideal. While I don't believe there to be much of a difference either, the heart of the matter is, none of us really knows, because none of us really tries."
Derria chimed in as well to deliver her shared opinion. "Now that you mention it, I think a high majority of the other aggressor groups treat those areas the same way too. Most of us don't even bother with warmer climate areas that are possible to see into, putting classified military secrets aside. If we did conduct such a study, the Cy-Stars would only be one of very few aggressor groups to take on such a challenge. However, I must ask what in exact terms we would be looking for..."
"Outliers!" I didn't mean to give my answer so much psionic volume, but I felt so certain about what we need to look for. "We will scour the South, and search for any humans who behave different than what is deemed normal in their world. I want to find people that are unique. I want to watch people who are intelligent, or insightful, perhaps a little crazy, if only for their benefit."
As usual, Ashiela made no hesitation in pointing out what we already know. "Do you understand how difficult that would really be? Some of those zones become dead-zones to clairvoyants for a majority of months out of every year due to the heat and humidity, with some states and providences cold only for two months out of the entire year, some even worse. With such small windows for us to collect our data, I don't really envision us successfully understanding any particular person of interest, at least to a degree where a conclusion can be made."
"Well Ashiela, do you happen to have any better ideas?" I had to throw the question right back at her. I'm only doing all of this because I want to find and study more unique people; it has nothing to do with any kind of contest or argument. If she can think of something far more interesting than this little experiment, I'm all ears.
"... I don't."
"This is why I get frustrated when everyone assumes I hold all the cards in the deck for choosing which human everyone wants to shadow. If anyone doesn't care for this project, then by all means seeks out another activity for yourself, or present something better to me. All of you know the drill. We seek out and closely watch the hidden gems of people, to follow the lives of those most influential on the world around them, for their arts and talents, or for their words of wisdom."
"There's no need to be frustrated Lumina." Junko held my shoulder when she told me that, happy for whatever I have been saying. "I for one am interested in the idea itself. I see it more as a worthy challenge of us all, to find hidden gems of people in a world more often invisible to us, due to the weather nature there. If Ashiela and Hurma want no part of this, they are free to divert their focus elsewhere."
"Fine, I'll do it. No need to make me sound like bad person." Ashiela had a tone of rudeness in her voice even now, though all of us have forever been used to her moods.
"That's the spirit." I knew they would come along eventually. Who could resist the curiosity in my idea? Even though it will take longer this way, I can't help but wonder if we will see such different behaviors on mass scales after all, between people who dwell in the south, versus those who dwell in the heat. The last time we gave such similar focus to this was during America's Civil War, and so much has changed since then.
Fionne then added one more point to the difficultly before anyone us were officially decided. "Okay, but how do we even know where to begin looking? The type of outlier you just described isn't going to be so easy to find in the first place."
For once, it was a good question, though I still knew how to answer us. "Fionne? Do you remember how to invoke your ability of psionic scanning? I have not forgotten, though it still takes a while when we have to combine it with our clairvoyance."
"Of course I remember. I'm in the Cy-Stars Lumina, ranked number one for the past twelve-hundred years." She wasn't exaggerating the clout. Our aggressor group ranking dropped into first place, ever since we became more serious about everything following our latest refresh lesson about the purge, though it required many improved aspects of us as well, such as mental stability, military combat training assessments, piloting protocol and decision speed, and our own cultural elegance in front of our great queen in all of our past meetings. We've now become the number one example aggressor group others should aspire to be, and are thus well known in the military because of it.
"Keep in mind that using the ability of psionic scanning on persons of interest, we can narrow down our unique targets to a degree. Psionic theory 197: Any sentient being who reaches or exceeds average minimum levels of psionic aptitude capable for receiving a purge, is also more likely to retain a higher level of intelligence than those without this potential. With intelligence comes insight, and with insight comes those who won't conform to social norms around them. It isn't a perfect measure, but it's all we got."
The psionic science has evolved in our world as well, from all of the purges that have been conducted, and from all of the consolidated data the Royal Scryers continue to collect on it. It turns out, roughly half the entire female population of Earth are not eligible for a purge, based on a predetermined value of current psionic aptitude within that person. If it falls below a minimum level, which if often does, then the human scanned would not be purged if ever an aggressor group attempted to, making the purge prospect even more difficult. The same principle applies as well for any other psionic types of abilities. Some humans are more adept to the ability than others, and for whatever the reason, there is a good correlation between those who have higher psionic aptitudes, and the trait of having a higher level of intelligence than the average level. Recent evidence even suggests that these kinds of traits are more genetically based in determination. Fascinating!
"I feel like this plan was thrown together half-heartedly," Rose warned. "However, I can feel your stronger desire to make it happen regardless Lumina. You seem to have an optimistic attitude about this idea, so I will join in as well."
I wasn't aware my emotions were showing so strongly to Rose or the others, but it changes nothing. "Listen up everyone. I will begin scanning the South section of the United States, starting today. The current time of this year should already have several of these states in their relative winter solstice moments, so it should be easy going for now. Anyone who wishes to follow me may do so, but we shall intervene every few days or so, to ensure we don't accidentally overlap the same targets of interest. It isn't resourceful if we scan the same areas without realizing it. If there is no opposition to my plan, I will institute in a few hours, once I decide on a starting point."
Chapter Theme Shift: La Selva Llora Por Ti ~ Ashnaia Project {Hope}
After long enough, I had every single member of the Cy-Stars going along with an idea which was considered partially insane not long ago. It was all too interesting to pass up. We wanted to answer the question of whether or not people from the South were really any different from people of the North, within the continent of the United States. Therefore, every last one of us picked specific areas of interest as starting points, branching out and around, looking and scanning for anyone interesting enough to be bookmarked for later review.
Initially, our progress was unfruitful, boring, and hung the same return sensations, as hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Always were we searching, our efforts tireless and constant, in a race against time. Once the season of late spring and early summer come along, all our access into these zones will be blocked out entirely, leaving us in the dark. Luckily, after two months of our initial start, many of us found unique targets of our own to watch for more prolonged periods of time. For whatever reason, our concentrated efforts seem to concentrate in areas further inside of Georgia, on an age group ranging from kids to teenagers, though such was never a preference.
I had about three separate individuals marked for further one-on-one study before finding my fourth, and most of them of course were just little children. There were a number of elements that would make a particular person interesting. One such element pertained to a strong, concentrated degree of psionic potential and aptitude discovered during my psionic scan of the general area, person to person. One of my persons of interest has an incredible aptitude for psionic potential, so much that anyone who sends her a purge will succeed without any possible hindrance. It's rare to have a girl with this much psionic potential yet untapped. If it were any higher, she might develop psychic abilities on her own.
There were other strange elements too. Lots of people here seem to be introverts, more so in younger grades than in older grads, and go out of their way not to talk to anybody if they can avoid it. My second target has this trait to an extreme level. She's in the third grade, and never speaks a single word unless required of her. Her dedication to her vocal silence is oddly fascinating to me. Her psionic potential is above the minimum, but not far above it. I don't know if she is really intelligent, super quiet, or both.
My third target, who is short of being a teenager by one year, seems to have some family issues. I've recently told myself not to care so much about people in such situations for being a person of interest, because it often leads to a sadness of sympathy, and an unhappy ending I'd rather not get invested in. Still, I'm curious if she will maturely handle the chaos that is her crazy parental situation, or break under the weight and pressure.
My other sisters had situations fairly similar to my own, in terms of what criteria they wanted to use to find these hidden gems, and we would convene with each other often about our current progress, including personal information about each of our targets, as to not wind up sharing the same target or general location too closely.
Still, if I had somehow missed what was going to happen to me next, there wouldn't be any story for me to tell. After thinking I was never going to find anyone truly interesting or worthwhile, and after growing slightly bored of my own special project, my senses caught onto something mystical and impossible at the same time, coaxing me to deliver my focus in that direction.
I was already using my vision to pan and scan all around the elementary school, Robins Elementary if I recall the name correctly. Children have a knack for being interesting on their own, because despite how much they have to learn, they can be surprisingly knowledgeable about some elements in environments that adults overlook. If an adult says something wise or smart, not as many people seem to care. If a young child says something wise or smart, it raises a few eyes.
Having determined the sensation to come from the school's playground during the daytime, I shifted my view to that area, constantly looking around and scanning as many of the students as possible, trying to find this curious source of mental curiosity. Whatever this is, it's stronger than it should be, and strange, considering we normally don't pick up on feelings and sensations through the clairvoyance. It isn't psionic, but it is something I feel like I recognize.
At last, my remote view centered on the disturbance I felt nearby, bringing this unique human into full view. To my instant amazement, the target I sought didn't turn out to be a little girl, instead a young boy, with blond straight hair almost covering his eyes, my clairvoyance only favoring third-person mode. Sitting all by his lone self, silent as stone, this boy leaned against the unused merry-go-round. He interacted with nobody, spoke no words aloud to himself, and enjoyed none of the physical amenities presented to him at the playground.
Chapter Theme Shift: Fairy Forest ~ Rita Raga
... As I stared longer at this individual, he did something unexpected. The stranger stood up from his leaning position ever so slightly, panning his face to the bright blue sky above him, and held his intense gaze in my forward direction, as if he were staring directly at me. His eyes were wide open too, with color and energy delivered through his body and mind, awake.
"What is this?" Though my other sisters would hear my confusion, I couldn't look away from what I was seeing. My eyes and ears could only detect surface level, but I could sense much more from what was before me. This person who I've never seen before held such a strong and amazing expression on his face, one I felt too familiar with to mistake it for anything else. His eyes reflected the sky, though desired to see ever further. Wonder and curiosity about the world around him, those two traits were something most people share, but to this much intensity?
"What is it Lumina? Find something?"
"I..." I couldn't answer at the moment, my attention wrapped around this individual. He took forever to inhale and exhale, extending his mental montrum of the external thoughts I could sense but not read. Something about me knew in context what he was wondering about. Something about me knew he was in thought deeper than sleep, awake in a world far from his own... Why did he react only when I located him? There's no way he could sense our presence out of the blue!
Junko filled in the blank for me, certain I wasn't about to yield my focus just yet. "She probably just discovered another outlier. Give her a minute at least."
No amount of minutes would let me understand what exactly it is I sense within this child. His entire behavior is abnormal, especially considering his gender. I know there's no way he is sensing us watching him... But he does sense something outside the realm of psionics. His aptitude isn't exactly high where it is above minimum standards. What is he looking at in the sky? What is he wondering about?
For all I knew, he could have been imagining what he was seeing, testing the mysterious elements and depths of the mind. Maybe instead, he was trying to envision what that sky would look like in the future, whether it would be blocked out by clouds of the rain, or displayed as the rare phenomena of a purple dawn. Both of us seemed to stay like this for many minutes, he in deep thought and sensation equivalent to mental meditation, and myself, fascinated by whatever elements of the abnormal stood before me.
Eventually, he averted his gaze from the sky, changing focus constantly to other things around him, rather other people... He was observing them, looking onto others in fair durational study to guess and determine likely personality traits of the people around him. Only then did I realize, that this individual is by far the most insightful person I've yet to observe. So reserved, yet insightful about the entire world around him and the people within it. This behavior isn't totally rare on its own, if only ever presented in people above his age level. Is that why it's so strange though?
Something in me changed in this long moment, where logic itself began to break down, to a point where my own thoughts born from wild imagination began to run rampant. The initial prospect of what the two of us were doing was crazy and ironic. I'm watching a boy, wondering what he is like, and at the same time, he is watching other people too, wondering what they are like, inheriting the same role as us Altiri, despite a total difference in physical abilities. Even I can accurately judge character just by looking long enough, but if he can as well, it's impressive.
Beyond the mere inception of the situation, I was late to consider the realization that made him all the more strange... I don't sense a single trait of heathenism within this boy. I may wind up wrong about such a conclusion, but I don't think I will be... How much does this stranger know, about the world around him and people in general?
A moment later, the teacher called everyone around, declaring the end of the Recess. The person of interest seemed slow to react, and I watched in amazement the little aspects of body language never projected before, hearing the teacher from the range.
"Time to head back everyone. You too Reed."
"Reed..." That's his name. This loner student's name is Reed. As he was called back, Reed didn't immediately react to head back inside. It wasn't some protest to stay out longer, but rather a complex division of his attentive surroundings. I could easily tell that Reed was still in deep thought about anything and everything, which was partially what kept his pace slow, unwilling to take away from the allocation of intense thoughts in his mind. I also saw where is eyes landed and shifted, keeping himself slow to return against the teacher's hustle, merely because he noticed two other girls taking their sweet long time to do the same. He managed to consider that conforming to such hustle was irrelevant, due to the lag of other people around him, which would cause delay later anyway. Patience, born from a level of intelligence and insight of the environment around him, lead me to believe that Reed could sense more about the world than any average person. It was a conclusion I've already made, but I could only be more certain now than I was before, and more fascinated as a result.
"That's an interesting name. You have me curious as well," Fionne admitted. "Tell us Lumina. Where is the location of the Reed girl?"
"It's in a place called Robins Elementary School in Georgia, near Austell..." I didn't bother to correct them just yet about the details of Reed, for I was still trying to process it all. The more I thought about it, the more curious I became. It was certainly a strange moment, more than enough for me to add him to my watch list. I'm going to keep track of the others as well, but I will especially keep an eye on this individual, to see how intelligent and unique he really is.
