Starblade (31 page)

Wet, honey-colored hair clung to her full
breasts. The new Falcanian reached up; tentatively touched her
right ear and discovered it was now a delicate pointed oval.
Opalescent wings, the color of mother-of-pearl spread out from a
streamlined golden Garuda merging onto her back, her matching tail
swaying with life. A silver pincer clicked and clattered, probing
the air.

Over the girl he stood, Sharr Khan flexed
his wings his tail lashed out. The Shotar took three shards from a
pouch on his belt. The angular fragments of metal dropped with a
clang onto the tiled floor.

“Geihva!” Sharr demanded, calling forth the
names of the puzzle pieces his voice boomed in the silence of the
chamber aided by the built in acoustics. “Geihvat? Geihvar?”

Who are you?

What do you want?

Where are you going?

Still not fully aware of herself, the new
Falcanian took up the shards to study them. They were three
fragments of a blade. The largest piece had three dimples drilled
into it. Both the other smaller fragments only had one dot. She
knew them to be a puzzle. She turned the puzzle over in her hands
the new Falcanian looked closer, found that the shards were to be
double sided in design. Her curiosity had become aroused.

She still had not found her awareness.
Frederika’s mind processed all the data that had been programmed
into her. Slowly, who and what she had become began to trickle into
her consciousness.

“There’s a riddle asked of every Falcanian.”
the Shotar told his newly born Falcanian.

Sharr allowed himself a smile. He had done
this so many times that it was now habit.

“Ask your riddle,” the blonde murmured. At
last she located her voice, though it was small and quiet.

“From the tallest peaks men seek to learn
what they think they do not know. It lays at their heart and cries
in their blood. Sometimes, the Wise-Ones are lead astray by it
while the Middle-Wise grasp it and are put on the long road. It has
no frontiers, but the one's man places there for himself. Of what
do I speak?”

She knew she was not supposed to speak the
answer to the puzzle or riddle out loud. To do so was forbidden and
she was conscious of each Falcanian who stood here with her was
aware of the proper response. She studied the fragments with
interest, considering what to say as answer.

“Who are you?” Sharr prompted, forcing her
attention back on him and preventing her from drifting back into
herself. There was a danger, though small that the over-soul could
overwhelm her sense of individuality.

Her lips parted. “I am your Falcon, the
huntress who wields the arrow plucked from Irkrath's bow of
instinct. I am Arshira T'Lani Hol.”

Indeed, she had chosen a solid Falcanian
name.
Arshira
.
Starblade
. Metaphorically, it could
mean a starship, though it carried also the meaning of 'Sharr's
Blade'. She chose Arshira in part because of its sound value, aware
that Sharr Khan preferred his females to have names with either A
or I sounds. The irony of the name had also figured into her
selection, certain that he'd appreciate the double connotation.

Arshira stood and walked the few paces
across the red tiled floor to Sharr Khan's side. In her unclad
elegance, she maintained nothing but pride. She arched her back and
fanned out her mother-of-pearl colored wings. Her tail raised
cat-like behind her swayed in delight. She whispered into Sharr's
ear the answer to the riddle of the Phoenix Puzzle and she knew it
to be right. He nodded, but did not tell her if she were correct,
but the Shotar seemed satisfied by what she had told him,
indicating her deduction was right.

“What do you want?” Sharr repeated the
question almost above a whisper.

“To be the best that I can. To serve the
Falcanian Khanate, und see our people grow,” Arshira replied
breathlessly, brushing against the Shotar with her bare breast.

Sharr Khan looked straight into her emerald
eyes. “Where are you going?”

“To the stars, my lord,” Arshira said with
no hint of irony in her reply.

The Shotar took a piece of the Rishaak fruit
and fed Arshira her traditional first meal as a Falcanian, followed
quickly by a scrap of rabbit flesh. A symbol of the first kill,
keeping to the primal edicts of D’Har Tarik.

Valküri Sisters rushed forward to attend to
her wardrobe and see she would be made pleasant to the eye. They
combed her hair, strung a gold tiara into Arshira's honey colored
curls, a single tear-drop red jewel dangled at its center. On her
pointed ears were placed elaborate earrings made of black pearls
drooping with silver filigree. Fragrant scents of honeysuckle and
jasmine were sprayed on her body. Around her waist they placed a
belt on which her trikir, upon recognition of her biorhythms, came
to life and reinforced her bond to the Falcanian over-soul. They
armed her with vajra and Kraris, befitting a warrior such as
she.

Arshira felt her own power and took pleasure
in her new form. She became conscious of the molecular changes and
the cybernetics at work in her body. Eventually this awareness
would pass into second nature, but for the moment it made her feel
vibrantly alive to be aware of her own force. She savored this
moment. Finally understood what it was like to be a Falcanian.
Arshira was cognizant of all those in the temple with her, each one
a spark throbbing within her own mind, their very life-force sung
to her in a way that she had never imagined before. The effect of
the all-pervasive connection soothed her.

They soon dressed Arshira T'Lani Hol in the
opulent green and gold vestments of the Sisterhood. The Valküri
parted to let the onlookers take in her beauty and strength. She
received the rank of Akjang-T'Shaak, a sub-commander in the Valküri
Order and a title to go along with it, one that approximated her
status as Duchess of Saxe-Coburg. Arshira would become a great
leader within the Falcanian Khanate. Both feared and honored by
those who spoke her name, Arshira would be known as a bringer of
conflagration in the vastness of the Galaxy.

Arshira's wings caught the light of the
morning sun. The solar sensitive polychromatic white membrane of
her airfoil shimmered with a brilliant multicolored fire. On this
day, a Phoenix had achieved her dawn.

To: [email protected]

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From: [email protected]

Subject: Our Cybernetic Infrastructure And
Linear Resurrection. The Debate!

Our intention is to transcend these
resilient bodies which we have set out to design for ourselves and
our offspring. Procreation lays at the heart of this dilemma that
has been argued lately during Jirga, but more on that in a
moment.

Let me first outline the infrastructure
we’re working with here. Our Phoenix Heart sits as the hub of who
we are to become as a people. A great accomplishment of molecular,
quantum based computing if I do say so myself. What resides within
Char is our repository of collective knowledge. We’ve put into
place the Telchar Artificial Intelligences to act as “bosses”
(Nadia’s familiar with the term where it relates to gaming) and be
impartial regulators of this cybernetic realm which has been based
on Sharr’s own mythological writings that we use as a touchstone
for our burgeoning societies morals.

From the Phoenix Heart, we must then turn
our attention toward the Rashalon Engine now under construction.
Each device is dependent upon the other and they are all part of
one network that we ourselves are meant to be a biological
component of. It is by the Rashalon Engine that we intend to alter
our own DNA and produce biological Falcanians. As it has been
designed, the engine will, during the transformation, process map
out a flashcopy of the occupant’s personality.

Here’s where things become sticky, and
moral, never mind metaphysical questions come into play. This
personality map, or “cyber ghost” is intended to be an anchor for a
Falcanian so while at rest, they can easily journey back into Char
and gain access to the collective awareness. This anchor copy is an
imperfect thing and it's what necessitates the use of a trikir
device to boost the signal and continually update the cyber ghost
with a current map of its owner so one remains in-sync with the
other as well as to virally propagate the collective. I will not
fully delve into the debate often waged among Transhumanists about
whether this cyber ghost is simply a replica, or if it’s our “true
selves”. For the sake of this paper, let’s concede that the copy
and original are close enough to still be considered the same being
transferred into a DataStream. Theoretically there’s no reason we
can’t just make copies of ourselves and insert those memories into
clone bodies. As I understand it, this technique’s being offered to
the very rich around some comers of the globe, the term I hear
thrown about is “rebooting”.

Life everlasting is at our fingertips. A
very seductive choice for us as a young species. We’ve the power to
enjoy our extended lives in our new robust bodies and then at our
expiration, punch in a code and the Rashalon Engine could very
easily expel a rebooted version and we could indefinitely continue
on in an unbroken chain of existence. That’s a very appealing
prospect and the choice might appear simple and clear. The tools
are in place for this type of linear resurrection.

It should be recognized that none among us
seeks or desires oblivion. If we did, we would not pursue the
Phoenix Project. The premise of which is to extend our lives and
integrate ourselves into Char’s cyber realm. Our vanity surely
calls us to keep our ego-selves alive in one manner or another. The
question is NOT if we desire eternal life, but rather, what form we
would want our everlasting existence to take. The choice here is,
should we allow for linear resurrection in our culture? We
absolutely have the means. Because we can, should we? I’ll do my
best to articulate the D’Har Tarik view on this and I think I also
give voice to our Shotar’s own concerns about the prospect of such
linear resurrection and its effect on his people.

Char has been established to be a collective
for our knowledge, a place where our people could pull a shared
wisdom from, not just for us current Narshin-Falcanians, but also
our next generation. It’s a sort of genetic memory.

There are many advantages to such collective
knowledge to be sure and this is in fact why the Phoenix Heart had
originally been conceived. We know Falcanians are sexual creatures,
due as much to our cultural mores as to those biological drives we
seek to instill in our new bodies. It’s an evident fact
demonstrated by the Shotar’s own polygamous relationship as well as
Lord Tariksar’s similar lifestyle. This is sanctioned on the notion
such relationships should lead to multiple offspring, given there
are so few of us “being fruitful”, has begun to become an
imperative. At some point sexual reproduction and linear
resurrection cancel one another out. Dr. Makross has made the point
that to do both could cause unforeseen psychological issues among
our people, not to mention bring with it a great deal of societal
confusion. He posits the notion that multiple copies of a single
entity carry’s with it schizophrenia, in that it detracts from the
individual and that by nature Falcanians are very much
individualists. My own opinion is that it comes out of forging many
disparate personalities into a singular goal. I don’t think the
debate has ever centered on the idea of there being many copies of
any of us. This outcome has never really been on the table.

Nadia and her parents have voiced worry
about genetic degeneration.

A more overriding issue to me, a topic both
Sharr and Kvaltar have voiced, is that an addiction to
resurrection/rebooting seems a possibility. We are still mortal
creatures and hold within us human failings. You might at first,
laugh at that notion, but think about it: if you know you can’t
die, you will become very carefree with your life as well as those
around you. Even the act of death and subsequent rebirth could
become in and of itself a destructive high for some among us. Such
an addiction, it has been feared could hamper a desire to procreate
sexually, if not cause the usual method to go out of fashion all
together with an urge to reboot as the cultural norm. It’s surely a
less messy way to procreate. Even if we do not set out with that
intent, this could become an unavoidable result of such an craving
and in doing so lead our society down a road of stagnation and
decay.

I propose the model we should structure our
life cycle upon and hope that our Shotar will sanction to be D’Har
Tarik canon: “We become our own descendent's.”

This model will permit change and upward,
forward movement while hopefully forestalling both genetic and
spiritual stagnation in our people. Allow me to briefly outline how
this would be structured.

A Falcanian is born > Dies, lives out
another life in Char > Later in part, or in whole is returned
once more to the physical realm by means of birth/hatching along
the genetic-cybernetic pathways that the structure of the Phoenix
Heart already has in place into a new body. Such a life cycle is
far more nuanced than one straight-line of existence and is less
likely to drive itself toward a bottleneck.

I know this debate has moved beyond the
leadership and entered among our followers. Personally I think
there’s a danger in leaving the solution to a popular vote, lest
our passions overwhelm our better judgment. I am only speaking as
Vorjah and keeper of the Telchar’s Lamp. My role as both a computer
scientist (Who’d of thought all at that time at Microsoft would
result in this?) and Falcanian cleric has met an interesting node
in this debate. It is incumbent upon us to be cautious and look at
the moral considerations with the structure we leave for our
inheritors. I hope that I’ve outlined the issues clearly and
presented what I think is an elegant solution to our dilemma in
this paper. Your thoughts are welcome.