Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Friday, April 12th, 2019
Chapter One: The Discontent
In order
to generate the energy that the Continuum required for the narratives it
delivered to the Collective, energy for the great dramas and the intrigues
the Continuum incessantly devoured, energy for the stories that provided
meaning to the disembodies consciousness of the Collective’s membership, the
Continuum became an adept, an artist at developing the experience of
discontent.
Throughout
the million worlds of the Empire, with its trillions of people, only a tiny
fraction enjoyed lives of peace and relative security, the majority were in a
perpetual state of uncertainty, of uneasiness, fully occupied with the desire
for a better future.
There was a
constant steady pressure derived from the experience of lack, of having
nothing, and from the felt need to protect what little resources they had,
resources that were always in a state of depletion, this pressure drove the
narratives forward.
Discontentment
was energy.
The people
had ambitions, most of which were centered on the simple desire to live out
their lives and raise their families, to see them advance and to experience
some joy in a state of relative peace and security.
That
prospect was always under threat.
Happiness
is what the people desired, they were conditioned to believe that it could
only be found in extrinsic things.
Access to
those things was under the constant control of the Empire through the
Continuum.
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Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Saturday, April 13th, 2019
Chapter Two: The
Dispossessed
Everything and everyone was owned by the state, there
was no such thing as private property, or privacy of any kind.
Most of the people living in the Empire had nothing,
they accumulated no wealth, received no inheritance, passed nothing on to
their children. They lived hand to mouth and had little thought for the
future beyond the endless search for safety and food, and the hope for a good
night of sleep.
Even those in the lowest class of citizens treated these
people, who comprised “the masses,” they treated them contemptuously, mocking
them, mocking their frailty, calling them names mocking them as “Food of the
Gods.”
Those without class had no rights as citizens, they
were outcasts, untouchable, they did everything they could to avoid the
notice of the Empire.
They were the fools of the universe.
They were wholly owned by the state, they were less
than slaves, their lives had no value, they could be hunted for sport, and
often were. On some worlds they were even cannibalized in ritualistic feasts.
They were never educated, they were forbidden to learn
to read or write, to calculate numbers, though there were always some among
their numbers who possessed such knowledge and passed it on.
Not every outcaste was born in their condition, some
were sentenced to it, stripped of their class and caste for their crimes
against the Empire.
It was a great source of drama to watch a disgraced and
fallen member of a higher class, suffer the outrages that were visited on the
low. To watch them try to protect their children as they were sent with
nothing but some rags on their back to find their way in the world.
The lives and deaths of the outcastes were meaningless;
unsung, unremembered and unknown, they were in the absolute majority on each
and every world, and they were regarded as if they were nothing at all
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Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Sunday, April 14th, 2019
Chapter
Three: The Hidden
Privacy
was a luxury, inasmuch as it was an illusion. A person could only make
pretenses for privacy, knowing all the while that there was no escaping the
hidden eyes of the Empire, or the watchful presence of the gods.
The common man and woman lived secretive lives, they did not share
their resentments or their hopes with anyone. This was the closest thing to
real privacy they could manage. They hid their pain and their fears inside of
themselves. They hid their true feeling even from those closest to them.
The revelation of such things was the most profound expression of love
a person could issue. They performed rituals around their disclosures hiding
them in secret codes, rituals which they had to invent in order for their
intimate partners to receive the message and comprehend it.
A tap, a touch, a blink of the eyes. The common person developed
profound abilities in the art of concealment; it was non-verbal, intuitive
and unconscious.
The oppression of fear covered the people like a cloying-moist heat,
robbing them of the air they breathed. They dared not complain about it,
speak a word about it, if they did they could risk the loss of everything.
Only those who had nothing already, had nothing to fear.
The Continuum delighted in exposing these secret systems, at directing
children to betray their parents, at sewing dissent among families.
When it was able to coerce a loving couple to betray one another, to
surprise each other by the ease with which they gave up their most cherished
secrets, the Continuum was ecstatic.
There was no greater drama, nothing more piquant, for the voyeur’s
table.
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Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Monday, April 15th, 2019
Chapter Four: Enemies
Rebel cells were intrinsically xenophobic. They had to be for the sake
of their survival, not just for operational security.
Those who harbored rebellion in the hearts had to be conditioned to
see every other person or group as an enemy. This was not hard to accomplish,
the more difficult task was getting any citizen of the Empire to trust anyone
else even for a brief period of time.
Paranoia was paramount in the hearts and minds of everyone.
Even members of their own cabal had to be seen as potential threats,
to be treated as such, because it had to be assumed that anyone could turn against
you at any time.
That was reality, betrayal was a way of life.
There was no middle ground, the understanding was always this: you
were either with us or against us.
Dissent would not be tolerated, fidelity to the organizing principle
was more exacting than the faith of the Imperial cult.
Revolution is a zero-sum game. You either held ground in the hearts
and minds of the rebel forces or you did not.
Ideologies were constructed with the expectations for crime and
punishment built in as inherent features.
There were never any surprises.
Everyone had a breaking point at which they turned against their own.
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Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Tuesday, April 16th, 2019
Chapter Five: Murder
Everything was negotiable, even morality.
In the mind of the revolutionary killing was not murder, not even
assassination, anything was permissible if it served the end toward which they
were seeking.
They gave no thought at all as to whether the crimes they committed were
actually in furtherance of the ends they sought, they only had to believe
that they were in order to feel justified in committing them.
It was always self-defense; every murder, every assassination, every
moment of coercion and torture, the story was that the crimes were always
committed in self-defense. In defense of the cause they served, not their
person.
Ethics were transactional.
In the heart of the revolutionary even the innocent could be killed, if
their murder could be justified as an attack on the systems of oppression.
For rebels engaged in the struggle against the Empire, there were no
innocents, everyone was complicit, you were either with them or against them.
You were either with them or against them.
In the view of the common rebel, almost everyone was against them,
because no one was altogether for them and they could not trust people beyond
their immediate relationships.
Everything was situational
Alliances among rebel cells were tenuous at best.
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Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Wednesday, April 17th, 2019
Chapter Six: Revenge
The revolutionary cycle is predictable, dependable and measureable.
The Imperial conditioning guaranteed this, but even that was only an
augmentation of the natural tendencies that every descendent of the Ancients
carried within them.
Violence generates its own cycle of violent reprisal with as much
certainty as the orbit of a planet around its mother star.
Revolution is a turning of the wheel, oppression generates aggression,
just as repression generates resistance, as suppression generates expression,
and as depression generates a desire for change.
The pattern of the revolutionary cycle was Newtonian, for every action
there is an equal and opposite reaction. While Newton’s observation did not
bear themselves out in the study of physics, it was a much more reliable law
in the observance of the human condition.
The agents of revenge often seek satisfaction for the principle of it.
While they may desire that their actions redress a wrong, balancing the
scales is not necessary. They are prompted to vengeance merely to satisfy a
need, like hunger or thirst.
In this way revenge is like gluttony, it is an appetite that can never
be satisfied, and while seeking to satisfy it, the agents of vengeance
ultimately destroy themselves.
Revenge leaves the person unfulfilled and it invites a similar
response from those targeted by its agents.
The victim of oppression lashes out and creates more victims.
In this way the cycle is perpetuated, and the society within which the
cycle continues, no matter how big or small, society is caught up in it,
until the community is finally destroyed in its entirety.
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Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Thursday, April 18th, 2019
Chapter Seven: Conflict
Life is competition, it is a perpetual state of striving against others
for the stuff of life, whether that be clean air and water, food and energy,
or social status and recognition.
Revolution
is conflict, it is conflict without end, and every person is caught in the
midst of it, whether they are active participants in a rebellion, or not.
A person
may be in power, or in the opposition, or just a bystander. Regardless of the
individual’s position, there is no escaping the forces of revolution.
The rebel
must be hungry for it, must thrive in it, they must live with the desire for
change burning inside of them, burning
with a steady-quiet heat, until the moment comes when they explode into
action.
There was
no avoiding it.
A person
either had to lead or follow, or get out of the way. No matter which side of
the conflict they were on, or whether they were interested in participating
at all.
What is
paramount for the revolutionary is that they cannot know that the conflict they
are engaged in never ends. To keep their commitment to the cause high, they
must feel that the justice they are seeking is an inevitability.
They must see
that their sacrifice matters, or they will not accept the suffering they will
be called on to endure.
If they
believe it, they will sacrifice themselves and everything that they love.
If their
faith falters, they will fail, and one weak link in their chain is liable to
shatter the work of the entire movement.
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Emergence 3.0
Section Six (a), Rebellion
Appendix Part Eleven, Continuum
Collected Chapters
01 The
Discontent
02 The
Dispossessed
03 The
Hidden
04 Enemies
05 Murder
06 Revenge
07
Conflict
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Collected Writing in History; Philosophy, Theology, Poetry, Politics with Commentary, in Prose and Verse
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Emergence 3.0 - Section Six (a), Rebellion; Appendix Part Eleven, Continuum; Collected Chapters
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App Pt 11,
Chapters,
Conflict,
Continuum,
Discontent,
Dispossessed,
Enemies,
Hidden,
Murder,
Rebellion,
Revenge,
Sect 6 (a)
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