One of an Infinite Number of Actual Futures

POSTED BY: zoid
UPDATED: Friday, November 26, 2004 20:14
VIEWED: 5220
PAGE 1 of 1

ZOID

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 8:20 PM

Hello, my Firefly family. I am prefacing this thread, this post, with a disclaimer. This post may properly belong in a different 'room' or on a different board. Maybe Blue Sun Room, or Talk Story board... But, I post virtually everything I write on the General Discussions board, because this is my home, my little cave in the neighborhood that is FFFn. I hope you can forgive my lack of etiquette, if indeed I am found wanting.

What follows is an imaginative exercise in foretelling the future. It is a fantastic look at one of the possible futures of FFFn. If you credit a 'multiverse' view of reality, it is one that will happen, if only in one of an infinite number of ever-branching realities...

You have been warned. It is very long; 4 pages long, to be exact. Read on, if you dare, if you'd care to.

I dedicate this to Haken; to Joss and his minions and crew; to Mmmm-a-licious and her minions and crew; to PurpleBelly the Adversarial; to Browncoat1 the Faithful; to BadgersHat the Presidenté For Life; to Succatash Who Defies All Modifiers; and to all my other friends, foes, supporters and detractors. Just because I didn't mention you by name, doesn't mean I don't love you all, that I don't think of you, and pray to my God for your safekeeping...

-zed
______________________________________________

The egg's skin turned translucent, admitting the morning light, and zoid woke up.

Rolling to the edge of his tiny sleeping platform, he sat up, put his feet on the floor, yawned and rubbed his eyes.

Not again, he thought blearily, drearily. I'm still alive, he fatalistically concluded, standing up and shambling to the bathroom to take care of the urgent business of elimination. As he washed his face and allowed his teeth to be cleaned, his face to be depilated, his toilet said in a featureless female voice, "All results are within acceptable parameters. Enjoy your day."

Fuck, he thought at the toilet, exiting the bathroom, heading to the kitchen cubicle, precisely 36 steps away.

Coffee was waiting; hot, light, sweet, and utterly caffeine free. One egg, three strips of bacon, a split muffin with butter and jam, and a side order of capsules waited on the dumb waiter countertop. One capsule was vitamins, one was proteins, he noted habitually, absently, for the hundred-thousandth time. And the third capsule was the machines, the instructions, engineered especially for him by The Net and its co-conspirators: his apartment, and most cruelly, his toilet.

As zoid read the latest news -- as if anything were -- he heard her rustling in the entertainment cubicle. Looking up from his breakfast to glance in the direction of the noise, his news followed his eyes, increasing its transparency as his eyes half-focused on his surroundings.

Fuck that, too, he thought, and returned to his breakfast, resumed ignoring the news. He saved the pills for last.

He took the vitamin capsule. No harm in that, he repeated his daily mantra. Next the protein cap. Fuel for the body, he continued the rote.

And then the last capsule, the black capsule: A billion angels on the head of a pin, he finished the catechism. He held its opaque form before his eyes -- as he had done on so many mornings -- and pondered its subtle significance. People didn't like to see the contents of their 'medications' minutely squirming; they found it disconcerting. The Net couldn't abide 'disconcerting', so it made the pills impermeable to light, and a special kind of 'black' that absorbed heat and powered the machines inside until they could get inside the body and feed on the various subtle energies there. The capsule was very cold in his hand. He could picture the machines feeding on the warmth from his fingers, getting excited. Ready to go to work and get things done!, he thought sardonically.

If you didn't take the pill, you got a different breakfast. For one stretch of a handful of years, he had eaten foul-tasting pabulum for

MALICIOUS

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 9:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:

Today she was a redhead.

Don't you mean "Yesterday her hair was the color of Creme Brulee, today it appears to be Crystal Brown." ?

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

ZOID

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 9:23 PM

'lishus:

I was thinking of you when I wrote that -- how could I not? -- but I still maintain your hair was red in most of the questionably accurate photos of you from the PA Shindig...

To paraphrase a long-running ad campaign: "Got Teddy?"

Appreciatively,

zoid

P.S.
We'd have cuddled afterward, so she is only a simulacrum of you.

MALICIOUS

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 9:28 PM

I'll allow "red-ish" how's that? I thought it was orange, but fellow co-workers insisted it was a honey-blonde. I like the brown I have now.

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

EDIT: I should start a thread about my hair!! It's sooooooo interesting.

UNCHARTEDOUTLAW

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 9:33 PM

Zoid, one question ere I pass judgement: are you in high school?

-Taylor

The Uncharted Outlaw!
"You can get a lot further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word."
See my Firefly Store: http://www.cafepress.com/NorCalRiviera

ZOID

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 9:54 PM

UnchartedOutlaw wrote:

Quote:
Zoid, one question ere I pass judgement: are you in high school?

Ooh, I sense a scathingly bad review imminent in most of my immediate actual futures.

No, I'm not in high school, but I was once, 25 years before the turn of the century...

(zoid braces himself for the derision of the English 3 teacher)

Why do you ask? *flinch*

Defensively,

zoid

P.S.
Maybe I should hie on over to your thread and remove the 2 paragraphs of Steinbeck-based fanfic I just posted there, at your open request, ere I get eviscerated there too...

MALICIOUS

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 9:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
Maybe I should hie on over to your thread and remove the 2 paragraphs of Steinbeck-based fanfic I just posted there...

Well, I think you SHOULD remove them. One bit my ass....

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

ZOID

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 10:04 PM

'The Luscious 'Licious wrote:

Quote:
Well, I think you SHOULD remove them. One bit my ass....

That's what you get for having such an temptingly bite-able ass.

v/r,
zed

MALICIOUS

Tuesday, November 23, 2004 10:12 PM

It'll cost you more than one bit to tame THIS shrew, lemme tell ya!

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

MERCEDESTROY

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:21 AM

zoid -

Two words ...

Thank you!

Debs

If Justice is the dish, then I am your waitress

BADGERSHAT

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Malicious:
It'll cost you more than one bit to tame THIS shrew, lemme tell ya!

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

How many bits are we talking? And do tall men with shiny hats get a discount? Or, better yet, free samples?

EDIT--
And once again, we see that 'Licious has hijacked someone else's thread! Well done, Mal, well done...

--Jefé The Hat

***************************
--Don't bother trying to predict, figure out, second guess, criticize, or suggest anything that comes from the mind of Joss Whedon, for you shall usually be wrong, and shall find out the Truth and Purpose in due time.
(This is the Truth of Whedoning)
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

BADGERSHAT

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:48 AM

Damn, Zoid...

Definitely the philosopher of the board, I daresay.

--Jefé The Hat

***************************
--Don't bother trying to predict, figure out, second guess, criticize, or suggest anything that comes from the mind of Joss Whedon, for you shall usually be wrong, and shall find out the Truth and Purpose in due time.
(This is the Truth of Whedoning)
"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne

ZOID

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 3:02 AM

MercedesTroy/Debs, and all who liked this little slice:

I wrote it in a black fugue, owing to the 5-month extension of Serenity's release date. How deeply depressing.

Sometimes when I get in an emotionally confused state, I find it cathartic to put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard). What comes out frequently surprises me, and sometimes yields insights that I find helpful in dealing with problems.

I originally intended to make the statement that -- even if Universal drags their feet until everyone but me has lost interest -- I'm still going to be right here, on FFFn. It's my home, it's my cave.

I have long been of the opinion that living forever is a curse no soul should have to endure. We may someday reach a point where medical science makes death very rare, or even obsolete as a concept. That theme should be detected in the story, too.

I threw in a couple of other pet notions: computers will become possessed of intelligence and self-awareness. This will be a mixed blessing, as blessings invariably tend to be.

The amazing personal connection I made as I wrote this was the comparison of FFFn -- and places on the Internet like it -- to the Lascaux Cave ( http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/) in France. Most people have seen the startling (EDITED FOR ACCURACY) Cro-Magnon paintings on TV or in the pages of magazines. Some may be aware that some of the rooms have been discovered to have special acoustic qualities, similar to modern day theatres. It is speculated that these rooms may have been used for specific purposes: religious rites or even precursors of acting performances, storytelling and the like.

My point is that storytelling, and sharing our experiences and viewpoints with one another is a defining characteristic of humans, and has been since before the rise of modern humans. The storytelling and sharing define the community and the individual's place in it. If (EDITED FOR ACCURACY) Cro-Magnons were storytellers -- and it appears supportable to say they were -- then places like Lascaux and FFFn are fundamental to human nature.

Of course, we are inundated in psychobabble on a daily basis: "community" this, and "community" that... But it never came so clear to me, as that mental image of myself, putting my hand on the cave wall and spewing a mouthful of paint on it, to leave my hand's outline. That's what we're doing here at FFFn, whether we're consciously aware of it or not. We are expressing what is essential about being human, and confirming the link with our progenitors.

FFFn is our Lascaux... And I can wait the extra 5 months (or year or whatever) for Serenity now, because I have FFFn and all of you. Being part of this modern Lascaux is as exciting as the prospect of the upcoming movie.

Respectfully,

zoid

P.S.
Long-winded and with an unerring flair for the obvious, as usual.

MALICIOUS

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 3:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by BadgersHat:
[BHow many bits are we talking? And do tall men with shiny hats get a discount? Or, better yet, free samples?

EDIT--
And once again, we see that 'Licious has hijacked someone else's thread! Well done, Mal, well done...

Jefe,

For YOU? Very, very few bits. For Zoid? Many, many bits.

Oh, and thanks! I do my utmost.

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

SOULOFSERENITY

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 3:07 AM

Zoid, you spoke words right out of my mouth. When the walls of this castle are reduced to dust, when the last lingering note of a filk has drifted away on the wind, when the rustle of fanfics is all that can be heard, I'll be here, too. This is my home-away-from-home.

And sometimes, it's just my home.

Maybe corny, but true: FFF.net Forever. You all are my family. Thank you.

______________________

But if your hand touches metal, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you.

ZOID

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 3:24 AM

My goddess, Mmmm-a-licious censured me thus:

Quote:
...For Zoid? Many, many bits...

Well, there's 8 bits in a byte. I'd gladly megabyte you.

Worshipfully,

zoid

MALICIOUS

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 3:32 AM

Byte me, Zoid and thank you. For the "Ahhhhh, it's good to be home" feeling. And I do mean that literally. I can't wait to walk in the door at the end of the day and be amongst all of you. I don't KNOW any of you, but I "know" all of you. I feel more at home here than I do out in the world. That could be seen as sad, but I choose to be happy about it.

Off to hijack other threads!

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

THEREALME

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 5:49 AM

Very nice work, zoid. I am quite impressed. It was horrifying in a serene sort of way...

And Mal-licious, don't be sad. You may have never physically met most of these folks, and might NEVER physically meet some of them. But I think you can say that you know them. After all, a person's physical body does not make the person (or if it DOES, then I'm not very interested in meeting him/her).

It is the personality that is important, and THAT can come through the net across thousands of miles.

The Real Me

NEEDLESEYE

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 6:18 AM

Fascinating.

*holds up cup, sharing virtual coffee and a smile*

Keeper of Jayne's goggles. 8)

BROWNCOAT1

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 4:19 PM

Zoid wrote:

Quote:
I dedicate this to Haken; to Joss and his minions and crew; to Mmmm-a-licious and her minions and crew; to PurpleBelly the Adversarial; to Browncoat1 the Faithful; to BadgersHat the Presidenté For Life; to Succatash Who Defies All Modifiers; and to all my other friends, foes, supporters and detractors. Just because I didn't mention you by name, doesn't mean I don't love you all, that I don't think of you, and pray to my God for your safekeeping...

Browncoat1 the Faithful? Has a ring to it doesn't it? Shiny!

Thanks for posting this Zoid, but I must say I do not see the future so bleak. Granted there are those that come and go, many lurkers and some that do not post w/ the frequency they once did, but there are the stalwart amongst us who will be here when Haken turns off the lights, myself among them.

Beautifully written story, if not a bit dark. It is easy to see that your demeanor was indeed melancholy, but your concerns shone through nonetheless.

Pray that this dark future never comes to pass. If this Browncoat has anything to say about it, it never will.

__________________________________________

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

Richmond, VA & surrounding area Firefly Meet Up:
http://firefly.meetup.com/9/boards/

GROUNDED

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 4:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
the Lascaux Cave ( http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/) in France. Most people have seen the startling Neanderthal paintings on TV or in the pages of magazines.

I was under the impression that the Lascaux paintings were Cro-Magnon in origin. Do you have a reference that attributes them to Neanderthals? Comparing dates from various sites, it seems that the paintings were done many thousands of years after Neanderthals began disappearing. Here are some rough dates:

80,000-30,000 BC: Neanderthal
33,000-10,000 BC: Homo Sapiens - Cro Magnon Man
28,000-10,000 BC: Most pages I've visited place the Lascaux Paintings in this bracket.

And computers will never become self-aware. You heard it hear first

ZOID

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 6:20 PM

Grounded wrote:

Quote:
...I was under the impression that the Lascaux paintings were Cro-Magnon in origin...

Working on your request...

From the site linked above:

Quote:
"...Recent Carbon 14 dating of samples taken from the animal paintings and drawings in the Chauvet Cave (Ardèche) have shown them to be very old (about 30,000 years old)..."

From http://chenzhaofu.nease.net/tuhui/16yfa01.htm :

Quote:
"...In Europe, the rock art sequence is conventionally divided into two chronological cycles: the earliest cycle, known as Franco-Cantabrian, is the art of the hunters; which is found primarily in caves, and its origins go back earlier than 30,000 BP The later cycle comprises art produced by peoples with complex economies..."

From http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~cd200/mac34.html :

Quote:
"...The Neanderthals (Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis):

...Cave dwelling Neanderthal Man, the heavy set "cave men" of cartoons and comics, was quickly replaced by modern man, and seems to vanish from the record about 34,000 B.C.

...Neanderthal Man... was the first known Homo Sapiens. ...We now suspect, from examining tombs, that he was a spiritual being, and more embarrassingly, he had a larger brain than we do.

We may owe more to Neanderthal man and to his Mousterian culture than previously realized. When a Mousterian flute was discovered in the Divje Babe I cave in northwestern Slovenia, a musicologist (Bob Fink) in Saskatchawan, Canada published a study based on spacing of the holes in the bone instrument. Fink maintains that it was tuned to the Diatonic scale, and that our present day ideas of what is musical, may be handed down from our cave dwelling cousins.

There are many theories about the disappearance of Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis , but it is unknown whether he interbred and disappeared, or was killed off by his modern cousins...

Palaeolithic Man - The Magdalanians:

Our "modern" palaeolithic cousins (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) ...Magdalanian Man and his equivalent who occupied much of Europe, and left us a legacy of wonderfully naturalistic cave paintings, such as those at Lascaux, France. It is said that if you stare at the Lascaux murals for a time, you can see the animals breathing. Surely they do have a remarkable feeling of motion to them. ...They probably spent very little time in caves and some believe the caves were used only for religious ceremonies..."

In conclusion, I stand corrected and apologize for any confusion I may have inexpertly caused.

I still insist that -- regardless of dates and the intricacies of speciation (i.e., interbreeding vs. extinction) -- H. Sapiens from Neanderthal to the present have had a knack for the arts. This calling, this need to communicate the spiritual and symbolic aspects of existence, is something we all share with those distant forebears.

It is one aspect of humanity we can all feel proud of, as opposed to those other aspects like greed, conquest and a flair for genocide.

FFFn is still our Lascaux, even if H. Sapiens Sapiens is responsible for the example, rather than H. Sapiens Neanderthalensis...

Respectfully,

zoid

P.S.
Just in case I didn't say it loud enough: I was wrong. And it didn't hurt a bit to admit it...

THEGREYJEDI

Wednesday, November 24, 2004 8:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:

My goddess, Mmmm-a-licious censured me thus:
Quote:
...For Zoid? Many, many bits...

Well, there's 8 bits in a byte. I'd gladly megabyte you.

Worshipfully,

zoid

4 bits is a Nibble. I kid you not. Welcome to the fantastic world of Geekdom. And you know what? I like nibbling.

It's been said, by someone speaking from experience, that geeks make better lovers because sex is all geeks think about. And since I'm the Kiwsatz Haderach of Geeks...well...

But what the hell? This has nothing to do with Zoid's story! Which was well written. Had a very Kubrickian, dark future feel to it.

--------------------------------------------------
http://www.jed-soft.com Gamer Rigs, Budget Prices

http://tomeofgrey.blogspot.com

Real Fans Wait - 09/30/05

MANTICHORUS

Thursday, November 25, 2004 3:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
If you credit a 'multiverse' view of reality, it is one that will happen, if only in one of an infinite number of ever-branching realities...

Yes, but if you follow that logic, then you end up coming to three very different realities - one good, one bad, and one terrifying:
1 - Fox never cancelled firefly.
2 - Joss Whedon was never born.
3 - Reality TV shows are the only thing on TV.

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
...FFFn. It's my home, it's my cave.

No, it is not a cave. It is Olympus. It is Valhalla. It is (enter own preferred mythical paradise here).

--------------------------------------------------
SAFFRON: "Durran... This isn't what it looks like..."
MAL: "Unless it looks like we're stealing your priceless Lassiter, 'cause that's what we're doing. Don't ask me about the gun, though, 'cause that's new."
DURRAN: "Well. I appreciate your honesty. Not, you know, a lot, but --"

ZOID

Thursday, November 25, 2004 4:35 PM

Mantichorus:

Thanks for your appreciative reply. Here's hoping you and yours have a safe and happy holiday season...

If you'd like to picture FFFn as Olympus, et cetera, I have no problem with that.

But... I like to think that mankind as a whole is closer to those first Homo Sapiens than to gods. I like to remind people of their common roots, and the ways in which that shared heritage links us all together.
(Ya-da, ya-da, another 4-page essay filled with zoid's typically mind-numbing meandering ensues; but even zoid is tired of zoid's pontificating, so he snuffs it)

So, in conclusion, I prefer the mental image of us FFFn'ers in clothing meticulously hand-crafted from animal hides, sitting around a central fire in our sacred cave, each taking a turn telling our tales. Some tell tales, others paint the walls with depictions of those tales; but, we all make our handprints.

That's a rich and magical vision for me, and one that probably actually happened in our dim past.

Respectfully,

zoid

P.S.
Please refrain from archaeological critique, those who are so inclined, regarding cloth or reed undergarments, etc. I'm pretty close to correct, ain't I? And certainly correct enough for the purposes of illustration, which is all that's intended here. The idea that a person's clothing was itself a history of the hunt and said something unique about the individual (instead of just how much they could afford to spend at Neiman-Marcus), is a captivating aspect of that era of human existence. From a certain perspective, they wore their stories, too. Makes me wanna go out and buy a Firefly t-shirt (made of hemp), and then do some early-season ice fishing, thereby keeping future archaeologists guessing.

MANTICHORUS

Friday, November 26, 2004 9:55 AM

zoid, I defer to your superior knowledge, experience, and authority.

--------------------------------------------------
SAFFRON: "Durran... This isn't what it looks like..."
MAL: "Unless it looks like we're stealing your priceless Lassiter, 'cause that's what we're doing. Don't ask me about the gun, though, 'cause that's new."
DURRAN: "Well. I appreciate your honesty. Not, you know, a lot, but --"

GROUNDED

Friday, November 26, 2004 11:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
Grounded wrote:
Quote:
...I was under the impression that the Lascaux paintings were Cro-Magnon in origin...

I stand corrected and apologize for any confusion I may have inexpertly caused.

Respectfully,

zoid

P.S.
Just in case I didn't say it loud enough: I was wrong. And it didn't hurt a bit to admit it...

No apology necessary - I was more concerned that I had made a mistake when I looked this up recently. The sentiment of the original message remains intact :)

EBONEZER

Friday, November 26, 2004 5:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Mantichorus:

No, it is not a cave. It is Olympus. It is Valhalla. It is (enter own preferred mythical paradise here).

...Serenity?

And Zoid, if that's what the future becomes, look me up and we'll fight the system. I shouldn't be hard to find, I'll be right here with you.

-----------------------------------

Four out of five dentists reccomend calling Ebo a girl.

THATWEIRDGIRL

Friday, November 26, 2004 8:07 PM

Beautiful. Bleak. Pure Zoid.

You never fail to get our attention. I love the story. I love the cave theory. I love this. This palce. These poeple. Their creations. You helped us express that love with your words. Thank you.

www.thatweirdgirl.com

THATWEIRDGIRL

Friday, November 26, 2004 8:14 PM

Quote:
But I think you can say that you know them.

I'm glad to know you. All of you. Screenname and all.

www.thatweirdgirl.com