[dc] para/dox
Section 16.2, Amendment 2 of the Legion Code of Conduct states the following:
NO GATHERING of Legion members, official, unofficial, or social, shall bring about
(a) the confluence of all the four fundamental forces of the universe, nor
(b) any more than seven critical fermion/boson/lepton OR hadron interactions, nor
(c) any other such physical properties of existence that may be embodied or expressed by Legion members and may in conjunction with other properties cause significant and unauthorised alteration of CSST (Current Standard Space-Time).
Exceptions are granted for the following:
(i) Procedural requirements of standard Legion Operating Procedures, incorporating all due risk-assessment and notification of authorities as determined necessary by current Legion leadership or steering committee, or
(ii) Complete idiocy on the part of newbies who neglected to read and/or understand their induction manual.
Exceptions under clause (ii) will be followed with disciplinary action befitting the extent and severity of the alteration of CSST. Torture in the vacuum of space is not unthinkable in this context.
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Cos ran his finger under the last phrase. "Brainy. You have to take that part out."
"It implies merely possibility, not an inevitable action." Querl filed the amendment on the QBTnet-L and sent out a notification before Cos could alter it. "Direct blame at me for any perceived insensitivity, if you wish."
Cos blinked, which Querl was beginning to translate as Braalian suspicion. "You're being... accommodating."
"I was amused that you threatened Thom with the forced application of his own powers to his genitalia."
"No idea what you're referring to," Cos studied the backs of his hands intently. "I'm merely happy everyone has the facility of free will once more."
"Indeed."
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The amendment of the Legion Code of Conduct was precipitated by the events of the ten-day period known colloquially to Legion members as the Great Dai Gh'arvu [1]. More specifically, the co-existence in space (the "rec room") and time ("Welcome, New Legionnaires, it's Happy Hour!") of mathematically intractable amounts of gravity, electromagnetism, charm quarks and what call-me-Jan-not-Element-Lad referred to as his party trick (but was more accurately a brief flash of both the nuclear and weak forces in his chumpafruit daiquiri) caused a closed timelike curve to throw all persons within a five hundred metre radius into the middle of last fortnight.
Querl, alone in both his new lab and combinatorial thought about genomic signatures for the ring prototype, was unamused [2].
[1] A curious case of convergent linguistic evolution. An ancient dialect of Winath, Earth-standard French and the Barito language of Rimbor all convey the sensation that one has experienced a situation previously in a phonologically similar expression, although the Barito is the only form containing a glottal stop so pronounced that one has to spit afterwards.
[2] To the extent that the subsequent lack of free will allowed for being really narked off.
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After the vertiginous nausea passed and the walls resolved themselves back into solidity, the middle of last fortnight didn't look too different from five minutes ago. In the future. Querl started a diagnostic routine on the systems that were blinking the incorrect date.
Diagnostics were internally consistent and secure. The Legion systems sent an encrypted packet to the Phobos Universal Time Clock and pinged back accurate [3]. Querl shifted in his seat and prodded at the bruise that wasn't yet there--
[[Val grinned. "So you’re a plant."
Earth-natives, Querl thought, all lacked a crucial filter between the temporal cortex for the production of language and the brain stem that enables stupidity.
"No," he gritted out, a function of both irritation and concentration, as Val attempted to find the vulnerable areas in the latest version of Querl’s force-field. "The integration of chlorophyll into a biological system is only a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for botanical life."
"You’d look kinda fancy with blossoms, is all I’m saying." Karate Kid’s ability to apply approximately seventeen kilonewtons of force with his fingertips was impressive. Querl twitched and noted the weak spot.
"That’s more Jan's--ugh. Computer, sector 25-8." Querl rubbed at the impending bruise where the field strength glitched. "Continue."
"You-" Val raised his eyebrows. "Brainy, your ass has a number?"
"In the interests of precision, the force-field coordinates map to specific areas of my anatomy." Querl waited. "Well?"
Val shook his head. "I’ll teach you Lethawae. Then you and your ass coordinates won’t get handed to you by a bunch of Talokians next time."]]
--and sighed.
A timequirk.
It had been odd enough the first time around.
[3] The PhUTC, a ybttrium-based atomic measurement system established by the Intergalactic Meridian Conference of 2722, provides a single standard time reference for all worlds within the UP environs. It is guarded by the elite Sibs of the Blessed Chronoforce, who draw their numbers from the disgruntled wyves[4] of the UP who are fed up with the excuse "my watch was running late" from their interplanetary-commuting partners.
[4] Wyves [n] pl. (sing., wyfe) Interlac. Generic and gender-nonspecific term for a spouse, co-habitor, civilsexual partner, etc. Usage in the common era often denotes dissatisfaction with the state of the speaker's/referrent's union, but it does serve them right for getting into that mess in the first place.
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The timestream, of course, does not let any sentient being behave in such a way as to create a paradox.
"I notice that had no bearing on Jo's multiple attempts at propositioning Tasmia," Querl smirked. "No, Salu, right occipital cortex."
"You said that the first time." She shifted from atomic back to tenth-size to stomp on Querl's ear.
"You nearly made an error the first time, also, and that would be my brain that you're rewiring."
Salu shrunk again, muttering "Braaains."
Querl closed his eyes against the random firing in his left visual field as Salu wove the carbon-peptide seedlings amongst his cortical neurons. Each heartbeat delivered erythrocytes, oxygenating the cortex and triggering the seedlings to sprout and connect with his own tissue. It had been exhilarating the first time, the overload of new input, the base thrill of capability.
Now he knew it would work, knew it above intellect and beneath limbic anxiety, the sensation made him gasp.
More than once.
"This is like sex for you, isn't it?" Salu sat on the end of the bed and grinned, shaking out her hands. She'd not said that originally, but she'd been able to say it now. It clearly wasn't important in the future.
Querl still felt warm and dizzy. "Yes." He gestured between them. "Want to assist further?"
She laughed and tugged lightly on the new wire set, his circuitry now complete. "Brainy, even if I fancied your appendages, I doubt the basic Imsk model would be exactly what you're after right now."
Last time he'd delayed for ten minutes before plugging into the mainframe. "Out, then. Go play in your bubble."
The door closed behind her and Querl's hand fumbled slightly with the port connectors, but the. Oh. It was just as good:
and terrifying;
and ecstatic;
uh*&ZXRT@£9oi*&^^---endstreamendstream;
Trying to steady his breathing, Querl privately conceeded that reliving this particular stretch of time could have been comparatively worse.
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Comparative Example Alpha:
No matter how resolutely Querl tried to not walk towards Cos's briefing room, he always ended up back on the seventh level. Jo's ultra-strength restraint only made Querl black out and wake up in the elevator. Sending Cham in his place resulted in Cham disintegrating into something unpleasantly elemental, and again, made Querl black out and wake up in the elevator. He sighed and punched in the door override.
"The Novikov-¥hazed self-consistency conjecture [5] was absolutely not postulated so that I might have to see--again--oh great zaphod you weren't that naked last time, Dirk."
For someone code-named Sun Boy, Dirk was very pale. "Hey, Brainy, we did actually try to avert this situation also, you know."
Cos's casual slouch and smirk suggested otherwise.
[5] The self-consistency conjecture and its logical corollaries were responsible for all compelled actions in the timequirk. Some things had to happen, and would happen no matter how much an individual attempted to avoid them. Free will did nominally exist, but as a sort of background observation mechanism, and couldn't intervene to stop the innumerable stupid, embarrassing, dull, inefficient and ridiculous acts that the great waste of potential Cos liked to call his team committed with stunning regularity.
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The situation on Talok II, the main planet in Shadow Lass's home system, was also resolutely protected by the self-consistency principle. Sorcery tokens were stolen by a rogue faction in the Shyr lineage from the ruling Fru ramage, who blamed the Shyr teenagers contracted for the theft rather than the adults who organised it.
Tasmia spent the three days before the Legion's intervention ceaselessly quizzing Querl on ways to get around predestination.
Comparative Example Beta:
Distraught Talokians repeatedly passing out on Querl's comms console.
Comparative Example Gamma:
Nura's smug assertion that it was good for everyone to find out just how difficult and confusing life was for a precog, all the time.
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Querl put the ring prototype back into the simulator and switched to microscopy.
"So you're saying that I could get around all this timeline destiny nonsense and not have to go to Titan with Imra?"
"Yes and no." Querl fed the new haplotype data into the chip, passed it to Salu, waited a second to see if he'd throw up or lose consciousness, then grinned. "Success."
"You've had another week to think about it, colour me terribly unsurprised. Also, explain "Yes and no" or I'll drop this thing and you'll have to start again."
Sometimes Querl regretted inventing the vocal amplifier that let him be harassed by someone twenty angstroms high.
"Yes, theoretically. You could circumvent the paradox-limitations by exploiting the quantum or subatomic level. As long as the emergent properties of your subatomic actions remain in corroboration with--"
"La la la I might drop the ring purely from boredom. Where's the "no" in this science lesson?" She wiggles the bracers on the genotyping sensors to make her point.
"The no is political. I want to know the Ardeen family's connections."
"Aha, but if I don't go, and no-one becomes a time-zombie, then you know that the information I get doesn't alter anything in the future."
"It alters that I know that, however, which may have downstream paradoxical effects--what?"
Salu giggled. "Heeee, I just realised, pair'o'Dox."
Querl sniffed. "You wouldn't last."
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As the eleven day period progressed the rigorous demands of the consistency principle became apparent. With decreasing time left until the resumption of the CSST timeline, fewer glitch-fixes for variant actions were logically possible, restricting the operation of free will to mundanities like choosing one's flavour of aizqre'im [6].
"Princess." Querl dropped his empty (priceless Orandon porcelain) dish, but the air wavered and it refused to smash on the floor.
Projectra sniffed in disapproval. "That is an heirloom, you--"
"Please. Quit the act, Jeckie, you know no-one's here." Querl was only a fifth of a percent uncertain about that. They'd not been interrupted the first time.
"It's not an act, it's a learned response to incivility, and you had table manners previously. Didn't your parents teach you basic etiquette?" She teased, of course, and the it didn't matter to the timeline.
It was possible for him to reply. "Testing the theoretical boundaries of cause and effect was considered more valuable than using the right spoon." He dropped the spoon to his left, and it clanged on the ground. Curious. The bowl was important, then.
"Mealtimes must have been delightful." Projectra confiscated the rest of the supperware. "All the little Dox cherubs vying to produce grand unified theories of spacetime."
"Only my mother--" is as far as Querl got in the name of accuracy before his vision dimmed and the timeline pulled his thoughts back to the task at hand. "Ah. Tell me what Brin says."
[6] Not to be confused with the 20-22nd century Earth dessert "ice-cream", utilising the mammary productions of the female bovid as the base for a flavoured, frozen confection. Earth cows were of course extinct by 2514. Aizqre'im, a Coluan supper feastfood, consists of the cerebrospinal fluid of the Swot-faced Jenny, and whilst flavoured and frozen, is completely different.
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"You weren't here the first time." The shrinking giant prodded Querl very solidly on the chest, which made Querl's teeth chatter. "So I don't think I can get you a drink."
"I'll cope," said Querl, moving out of the way of the large and intoxicated arm. If these raucous imbibing session were to become a staple in the Legion social calendar, something would have to be done about Colossal Boy's size control, else the roof would be a dead loss.
"Brainy!" Jo clapped him on the back. Querl discreetly switched on his force-field.
"Brainy, Brainy, Brainy," Jo nodded his head, his eyes quite wide. "How come y'not Brainy Boy or Smart Lad or something, hey?"
Querl considered adding a voltage charge to the force-field. "Because I'm not a bromidic gomeral like yourself," he said pleasantly, and the timestream had no problem with that.
"Dox." Cos put a drink in his hand and a hand on his back, and Querl flinched at the magwave as he steered them away. "Please don't tease the boy with the ultra-temper." The static stopped crackling in Querl's ports as Cos's magnetic pull softened into interlaced theta waves, concordant with relaxed Braalian brain activity. Interesting.
Exploitable.
"Hopefully you'll fare better than your recruits at comprehending the genius behind this." Querl gave Cos the ring prototype, and the ensuing excited demonstration distracted those with gravity-powers away from Element Lad right at the crucial party trick.
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"I told you the first time it was necessary for all Legionnaires to be at social functions," Cos said smoothly, the timequirk resolution flaring everything bright for a second.
Querl looked at the drink in his hand, thick and blue and spicy-smelling. "You're blaming me for these children having no grasp of elementary science and an inability to hold their liquor?"
"From now on it's an order."
Querl exercised his extensive free will and tipped his drink over Cos's head.
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