Nullified.

[md_donighal]

Well, I've been putting this off for long enough, and now I've officially committed to do something about it. As of last night, it's been four weeks since the paraversary, to coin a phrase, of what aberranteyes pointed out as perhaps the most spectacular mistake of my life.

Comments

[etherlad]

It was increasingly clear that Æon's agenda hadn't changed since Mercer left them: to co-opt as many neomorphs as they could and destroy the rest.Now, to be fair, Michael, that was never the agenda. We wanted to explore the world and use our discoveries to bring about a better future for humanity; something which I'm sure you agree is at least somehat noble

[max_a_mercer]

That, of course, was myself, using etherlad's account. Sorry for the confusion Michael, Ian.

[md_donighal]

Not a problem for me, old friend. I know these things happen when you're sharing a computer with someone else. More than once, I've commented from aberranteyes' computer and forgotten to log in as myself, or to log him out.

As to your main post...

Now, to be fair, Michael, that was never the agenda

(looks at what he wrote) I phrased that poorly. When I said "Æon's agenda hadn't changed since Mercer left them", I wasn't meaning to blame you for what the Society became after you continued on your travels. At least, not consciously.

(sigh) I'm not going to mince words here, Max. When I saw what Æon had turned into, with you absent and me having become their enemy, I did blame you, for abandoning them just when (as I saw it) they needed you most. I spent roughly a century mad at the ones who were betraying your dream in the name of preserving it, and mad at you for letting them do it. (It was easier than staying mad at myself for no longer being on the inside to deflate any scheme too pie-eyed for my sensibilities

[max_a_mercer]

Apologies for taking so long to post. Like an Old Man of my acquaintance, I've become increasingly distracted by potential futures.

(sigh) I'm not going to mince words here, Max. When I saw what Æon had turned into, with you absent and me having become their enemy, I did blame you, for abandoning them just when (as I saw it) they needed you most.That is, I suppose, fair criticism. I would say that an organization that cannot survive the absence of its leader, but that (as well as demonstrating my own misgivings about what the organization has become) is something of a cop-out. Truth be told, Michael, I left because of you

[md_donighal]

Like an Old Man of my acquaintance, I've become increasingly distracted by potential futures.

One of your chronomorphs? Or a psion whose gifts include precognition?

Truth be told, Michael, I left because of you.

...I probably deserve that, but it hurts all the same. I hadn't let it hurt like this since we faced each other on the glowing deck; that was one of the reasons I felt the need to go on with my new life as if Michael Daemon Donighal had died. I thought I'd alienated you forever; you almost certainly don't yet know, truly, how glad I am to have been wrong.

After it was over, I couldn't help but think what I'd done wrong, what I might have been able to do differently so that we wouldn't have come to blows like that.

I've thought about it a time or two myself over the years, mostly in the time I spent in my Personal Space. Even now, though, the main things I can see that you could've done to head it off involved a level of prying to which I can't see you stooping if you didn't suspect you had probable cause, just as I can't