Give me time. We're working on language and attitude at the moment as I try to build her sense of self esteem and belonging. She was dirt poor, homeless and living on the streets in a large city only a week ago. Her prospects for the future were most likely that of a prostitute or an early death. In her worldview there is no such thing as "merely" a nova. We are larger than life. We stride across the world leaving footprints of fire and cities tremble at our displeasure. To be honest, I'm fairly certain she doesn't realize what I am. <sigh>

If it assuages your concerns, computers, silk and chocolate elicits that same sense of wonder.



I wish there were more I could tell you. As she acclimates to the new possibilities of her circumstances I may be able to discern more. She is a clever little sweetheart.



I'll hold you to that. Make sure this isn't a final goodbye.

I warned him to be careful. Nobody ever listens to the experts do they? Let me put forward a theory:

1) The V'rotal are a powerful telepathic race with the ability to manipulate sub-quantum energy.

2) They gave the Doctor a piece of their technology to examine.(mentioned in one of his early posts)

3) He interacted with this technology extensively on an intimate level.

Is it therefore possible that either:

a) The good doctor is under the mental control of this race --- and indeed anyone venturing to Primus is also, albeit briefly.(enough to allow the aliens to change our perceptions) To support this I would point out that up until the aliens arrived Dr Cornelius was clearly insane but not truely homicidal. (he threatened to attack the Earth -- very alien-like.)

b) That the Doctor is dead/incapasitated and the being we are interacting with on this board is one of the alien V'rotal?


It is also possible that all of this has been made up by either 1) The Doctors telepathic chimps working as a gestalt or 2) The doctor himself, attempting to gain Nova involvement for some unknown reason.


Something about all this does not ring true. I have been accused of being paranoid before but this is making my spine tingle. Ideas and reactions anyone?

What gets me is that Cornelius knew that the aliens (or whatever) had both powerful telepathic powers and the ability to manipulate quantum and sub-quantum fields, but never clued in on their possible use against him. Put me in the paranoid club, folks. I have never known anyone to give a handout without expecting some recompense, no matter how small. Even the Peace Corp operates on the shared experience principle. So do most philantropic organizations.

Now, if Cornelius' colony had been under some distress, I could understand another race offering assistance. To just waltz up to a functioning colony and offer to help out is just odd. You would have thought they were curious about the rest of humanity, but nothing was ever mentioned. They couldn't help but be aware of the functioning warp capabilities planet-side, so they knew the colony wasn't isolated.
No, they just wanted to 'help' Cornelius. That is what really set my alarm bells off. Well, now they have an example of our technology, physiology, and society while we know nothing about them.

Mind you, that assumes that there really were aliens. Maybe Cornelius went completely insane and used his nanites to destroy the colony? He was certainly pushing himself too hard.
Maybe the mysterious benefactors concluded their social experiment and now wanted to hide the evidence?
What a waste.

Cornelius, for all of his brilliance struck me as someone with a particularly limited vision. He's a techie, both bio and mechanical, of the nth degree. His understanding of the soft sciences (not a bash, understanding something without hard rules is tougher than many think) was apparently severly lacking.

Had he a better understanding of certain philosophies, psychology, etc. I think he would have been more likely to examine potential motivations. As things turned out he seems to have fallen victim of the one true enemy of the idealist, optimism.

Nothing kills faster in space than a lack of paranoia. Actaully the race Cornilius spoke of sounded like another one I had heard mention of before, I thought they were a rumour though.

Any information would be helpful, Ranger. Learning about the final fate of Cornelius' Primus colony may be useful for those of us who remain.

Something Dr. Cornelius said in the early portions of his contact with his crystaline buddies has been tugging at my subconscious. It was in answer to Jager's summation of contact in another potential universe.



Apparently nothing was detected by either clairs earthside or on Primus that was really considered noteworthy. And yet, less than a month later, the entire population of the system was removed from the ken of mortals. The good doctor also notes that the earthside clairs had no interaction with the aliens, but there had to be communication between Primus personnel and earthside personnel to communicate the requirements of the search. Therefore, there was interaction with the aliens if only indirectly.

The idea of creatures with the ability to manipulate at a level below the quantum is scary. I'm not a physicist, but at that level would you be able to discern the manipulations? Or would you be restricted to observing the effects? A subtle effect on an over-worked researcher mentally linked to a population of other sentients presents some disconcerting possibilities. Whatever happened there, clair and similiar abilities depending on sensing potential states of quantum are probably not useful. Tread lightly...

[This message has been edited by Wizard (edited 05-31-2001).]

Remember also the clairvoyant's dilemma:
Acting upon information gained through prescient vision affects the accuracy of the vision - either the act of forseeing something makes it a fixed event, or acting upon forseen information invalidates that information.

Also, given that the Dr was telepathically linked to the rest of the population, it might not have been necessary to influence _him_ directly. Did he not also mention allowing these V'rotal to manipulate various Chimp and Human members of their community (to realise their potential, I believe is how he put it)?

It seems the good Doctor took the horse into his city after all.

Wizard, I said it before and I'll say it again. Despite all his assertions to the contrary, Cornelius' security was sloppy and inadequate. On more than one occasion, not only did my team and I ghost his systems, but we witnessed Utopian agents doing so as well. The man was trapped in a tech/power mastery assumtion ( the belief that technology and the use of exotic powers will handle all your needs) and never bothered picking up any competant intelligence or counter-intelligence personnel. Once anyone figured out his defense parameters, it was easy.
As for the claim that he was aware of my insertions; no one in their right mind (or even a slightly addled state of mind) would allow Dexter to wander through their complex. He may be a good friend of mine, but he is a borderline sociopath (as well as an ex-government spook).
Mind you, "intelligence gathering" is the kind of work that I do. As Wizard and Atwight can attest, I am not the guns-blazing, bulldoze my way through anything kind of guy(I bruise easy). I guess he could have caused a T2M group or Hazzard some difficulty (I never bothered to test his defenses), but once you got inside things were just sloppy.

As for taking out the "Utopians" who had gotten inside, atleast one of them that he said was killed, wasn't. Prodigy, does the name Behia Tuswan ring a bell? She is with Utopias Space Research Dept. (Astrogation) and is their chief liason to the ESA. While she is a die-hard Utopian, she is also a decent person and a friend. I have just been able to contact her again (she was in a long debriefing) and she is okay. I don't know what Cornelius was playing at, telling me she was dead. I guess his visions were mis-interpreted or something.
As for the guy listed as 4859; if Cornelius iced one of the Praetorians people, his future isn't looking to bright. Atwight would know more about that, as Paertorian is his bailwick.

Wizard, I am going to be in your neck of the woods doing some 'research' and I wonder if you would mind doing a little work with me. Upfront; it is dangerous work. Let me know if you are interested.

Of course. I take my debts seriously.

Nyla will be safely tucked away by Friday evening and I will be ready to travel. Give me an idea of what I need to bring and who I need to be for the weekend.

Jaeger- Yes, Tuswan's name is familiar to me, I've read some of her research and am honestly impressed, even now. However, I never got a chance to meet her when I was with T2M. They were more interested in using me as a PR tool (god, I hated my 'catchphrase', "He's the best there is at what YOU do.".) than as a researcher. That's one of the reasons I did so many papers under aliases. Glad to hear she's still among the living. As much as I despise Utopia now, its mostly those individuals in operations that bother me. Oh, and of course those unfortunate, dead few who worked in 'Quantum Contamination Research', may whatever infernal entity that took them continue to roast them. The rest of the research team I see as fairly harmless to the cause. They're just misguided, not harmful.

Jaeger- Yes, Tuswan's name is familiar to me, I've read some of her research and am honestly impressed, even now. However, I never got a chance to meet her when I was with T2M. They were more interested in using me as a PR tool (god, I hated my 'catchphrase', "He's the best there is at what YOU do.".) than as a researcher. That's one of the reasons I did so many papers under aliases. Glad to hear she's still among the living. As much as I despise Utopia now, its mostly those individuals in operations that bother me. Oh, and of course those unfortunate, dead few who worked in 'Quantum Contamination Research', may whatever infernal entity that took them continue to roast them. The rest of the research team I see as fairly harmless to the cause. They're just misguided, not harmful.

Sub-quantum manipulation would only be visible through its effects on its surroundings. One of my group encountered a group which he claimed manipulated sub-quantum energy and it apparently interfered with his Quantum fields (the reverse was also true as far as he could tell). Therefore a sub-quantum user and a quantum user would have to interact on a more "baseline" level if you will, bereft of their abilities.

The race I mentioned seem to share characteristics with the Doctor's V'rotal. I have heard tell of them in ledgend but most races out there do not believe in them. The sub-quantum use and the energy-form body are almost identical in description. I wonder could the doctor have found the truth of a legend?

Jager,
Nyla is at the sitter's,
bags are packed,
weapons are loaded,
paper's are in order.

You'll be looking for Jane. Now where should I meet you.