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

[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.)

When your words from the Inspiration Age finally clicked in my mind, just before I departed our Earth, my resentment of you crumbled. I realized how many of your actions in my past must have been shaped by what you'd seen in your initial journey(s) to the relative future. I saw that you had to let certain things happen, even though they galled you, lest the whole sequence collapse.

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.

Very noble ideals. And with you in charge, it lived up to them quite well. It sounded like pie-in-the-sky at the time, but even I had to admit, if anyone could make it work in the real world, that man was you.

There were simply some Inspired who took their newfound powers as a God-given sign that they could exploit humanity at their whim. I didn't agree with this then, and I don't agree with it now.

I don't ask you to agree with it. Put in those terms, I don't agree with it myself. I still hold that the Inspired, or their equivalents in the other worlds that link to the Nexus, are the world's natural leaders, but that doesn't just mean rulership. And if we're going to lead, I still believe we should do so openly.

I'll admit to turning a blind eye to Terats like Angela and Allison, who treated baselines as toys for the breaking. Even James, for all the care with which he chose NV's targets, dispatched those "zips" with the joy of a child squashing bugs. If the Hell of my childhood fears still waits for me, novas like Shrapnel, Narcosis and Geryon are among the reasons.

Now that Proteus bunch... I never was very happy with them. Very distasteful business.

"Distasteful". You could say that, yes... if you wanted to commit probably the most masterful understatement since the Bard had Mercutio allow as how his death-wound was "not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door". It's never been any surprise to me that poor Jennifer, when she found out just enough of their plans to doom herself, concluded they were dedicated to the destruction of all novas.

It was all about controlling the nova population rather than helping them achieve their greatest potential.

It occurs to me, of a sudden, that perhaps they were trying to prevent the Aberrant War. (The First Aberrant War, perhaps I should say, given your news about the Colony's return.) If they could have got a sufficient majority of novas to buy into the Utopia program, of novas building a better world for everyone, there'd have been no reason for the war to break out. Unless their plans were exposed (as in fact they were), in which case the war would become (as in fact it did) inevitable. (sigh) Roger Zelazny once said that the reason mythic prophecies tend to be self-fulfilling is that they tell the recipient just enough to let him steer himself into the mess he's trying to avoid.

[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.

When we last saw each other, I was facing my oldest and best friend, to the death. After it was over, I couldn't help but think what I done wrong, what I might have been able to do differently so that we wouldn't have come to blows like that. I'm thankful that the battle came to a stalemate. The next several years were spent in quiet introspection, and eventually I decided the Society would be better with a leader in absentia rather than with an ineffectual one.

When your words from the Inspiration Age finally clicked in my mind, just before I departed our Earth, my resentment of you crumbled. I realized how many of your actions in my past must have been shaped by what you'd seen in your initial journey(s) to the relative future. I saw that you had to let certain things happen, even though they galled you, lest the whole sequence collapse.

As much as I hate to use Proteus' excuse, certain sacrifices had to be made in the name of disaster control. Proteus was not my idea and happened in my absence, and I had little influence over it by the time I returned. I minimized their damage as much as I could.

It occurs to me, of a sudden, that perhaps they were trying to prevent the Aberrant War.

Just so. You have captured the essence of my dilemma. Proteus was at least somewhat necessary as a damage-control variable. You see, I had reason to believe that following the Aberrant War, there would be no more Earth. Certain measures would be necessary to mitigate the worst possibilities, and Proteus was largely the method by which those measures would be executed. Although they weren't aware of it at the time, of course, and Thetis grew a little too prideful and out of control. But the alternative was too horrible to contemplate, or so I thought.

Roger Zelazny once said that the reason mythic prophecies tend to be self-fulfilling is that they tell the recipient just enough to let him steer himself into the mess he's trying to avoid.

You don't know how right you are, my friend. The Aberrant War would, I'm convinced, have happened without Proteus (due to the Taint problem, although your solution seems elegant), but they certainly didn't help matters. In any event, the Earth survived, for which I can count my blessings. When several thousand people with the ability to reshape the universe want to fight, it's a wonder there was any habitable land left at all.

[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 see you suspecting you had such cause without the prying.

I'm thankful that the battle came to a stalemate.

So am I.

You see, I had reason to believe that following the Aberrant War, there would be no more Earth.

...A reasonable fear, given some of the damage the combatants inflicted (Calvert by fire and Felice by water, for instance). Even if (or perhaps especially if) China hadn't forced the issue, warring gods and demons could very well have torn things up on our own.

Thetis grew a little too prideful and out of control.

Not to mention that she lost sight of the distinction between her own good, the good of Æon and the good of humanity. (Though, given the prevalence of that viewpoint in the Æon of the Nova Age, it hardly needs mentioning except to cite her as the most egregious example.)

But the alternative was too horrible to contemplate, or so I thought.

As aberranteyes is wont to put it, "OHyes." I'm still not entirely sure I'm pleased with some of your actions, any more than I'd expect you to be at all pleased with some of mine, but by God I can understand the sentiment behind them.

The Aberrant War would, I'm convinced, have happened without Proteus (due to the Taint problem, although your solution seems elegant)

(bows) Thank you. I'm not sure even more widespread use of Chrysalis could have prevented the war, though, given the morphological prejudices that got aberration ostracized. Oddly enough, I suspect baselines back home are still more likely to trust a human-looking face, even one with utterly amoral sentiments behind it, than a slavering mass of toothy tentacles that displays an amiable disposition. *8-)

MDD