User:UnabashedlyRose/drafts

Inside the Twilight Mirage, the Rapid Evening had a pair of agents operating a listening post; The Satellite Observer Grey Gloaming and the Primary Observer Demani Dusk. Their transmissions to one another form the openings of many of the early Twilight Mirage episodes, and have been collected here for easy reading.

Transmissions

Twilight Mirage 01: The Beloved Dust

Primary Dispatch 57A.

Satellite... the moment that a ship breaks through from the long black into the Twilight Mirage is breathtaking. Every new arrival splits the difference between violence and creation. With the Divine Fleet licking its wounds, any unexpected change carries threat, but, as we learned a long time ago, threat carries possibility. So, when the sable curvature of the HSS Mercury's Kiss disturbed the pomegranate blots of Empyrean's false nebula, I knew things were about to get interesting. Which, Satellite, makes my job a whole lot more tolerable.

But as I watched that ship hang in the clouds above the floating city of Séance, looking down on that impossible open-aired metropolis in the stars, I wondered for a moment if it might be okay that my tenure here be boring. That perhaps my desire for more active afternoons should come second to maintaining the long-lasting serenity of the Divine Fleet. But I have seen the projections and the projections don't lie. They don't know how.

A graveyard's architecture can be sublime, yes, and grieving can be joyous. But that doesn't change the fact that Séance is first and foremost a home for the dead.

Twilight Mirage 02: The Last Divine

Primary Dispatch 57B.

How familiar are you with the fleet's Assemblage, Satellite?

When I came on to this position, I'd read the normal allotment of their holy texts. The Orbit's Alignment? Yeah. The key sections of Amalgam? Of course. A few of The Letters to the Cadent in Doubt, maybe. A couple, at least. But in the last couple of months, I've had a lot of time on my hands, Satellite. And I've gone digging deep into the Assemblage.

There's this small book of songs in there. A little thing, it's just called Lyrics and Accompaniment. I've read it, I've sung it, front to back, a dozen times now, it's... I'd never thought about it, Satellite, but there was a time before the Fleet was at its full size of three hundred Divines, and each new one that joined the orbit, it got a hymn, three hundred hymns. And then, when they started dying, well, it took a couple of dozen, but sooner than later, each dead Divine got one too. And I've got the page open right here in front of me, Satellite, and it's still at 598. It's still at 598, and that's wrong. That's wrong, because today, I sat in this box, and I watched a Divine die.

Twilight Mirage 03: The Planet of Quire

Satellite Report 80α

So, um… How you holding up, Primary? It's been, I guess about a month, since Gumption died? And Empyrean and ⸢Blooming⸣, they've been watching the people and the fleet mourn the death of yet another Divine. And I've been watching them.

By definition, faith's supposed to be invisible. But the hope of the Fleet has always been just really material. It's been right there, in their parades and their songs and their tears and sweat, and their fists all clenched up after a wound. But with Gumption and ⸢Covenant⸣ gone, if their hope yet lived, I registered no material evidence. That's why they finally acted, Primary. For a long time, Empyrean has held one law to be true above all others. You know this. "Steal no one's perch." While the other Divines of the Fleet had pursued and pretty much failed at colonization efforts, Empyrean and the people of Seance hadn't. Their domain was the sky, not the land. They were Empyrean, right? "The highest of highs, the most heavenly of heavens, dreamt first by the Divines themselves," quote unquote. But now the people needed a sign, they needed an investment in hope. And so suddenly, they started looking for a perch.

I watched them scour the records of the Memorious library, I watched them find a new home. Or what looked like one, anyway. A world of singing storms and howling seas, deserts and mountains, lakes and forests and swamps and ice, a planet with as much diversity as the citizens of the fleet. And I observed relief in ⸢Blooming⸣'s eyes when she found the loophole. Records indicated that on multiple occasions over the last 800 years, people had fled the Fleet and wound up on that planet.

"Perhaps," I overheard her telling Empyrean, "This wasn't someone else's perch at all." Before they vanished, the Divine Curiosity named that planet. 'Quire.' Do you know the word, Primary? Q-U-I-R-E. Definition 1: A collection of twenty-four or sometimes twenty-five sheets of paper of the same size and quality. Sometimes twenty-five. It's so very Curiosity, isn't it? Definition 2 (archaic): An organized group of church singers. Definition 3: A division of angels.

Twilight Mirage 04: Birds of Prey

Satellite Report 87

You ever think about time, Primary? About how fast things can change?

The Divine Fleet started nearly 30,000 years ago, can you imagine? 30,000 years, real years, not like where we're from. All those lives, back to back to back, connected by a taut string of continuity. From the first who studied under Kamala Cadence, to those who walk the seraphic shores of Séance today, all of them, countless beings who never breathed the same air but who each equally belongs to the same thing, to that fleet.

And then, less than a millennia ago, a handful of those people left, and today their descendants—Quire hangs right in the middle of the Twilight Mirage, but most of the people on the planet, they don't even know what a Divine is. Not really. But does that mean that they aren't part of that continuity? A few hundred years, and then that line is just… snapped?

I don't know, Primary. It's just—you think you know where you're from. You know who raised you. You remember your teachers. I can't forget my first deployment. But there's a larger story. We're all connected to things we don't know, that we could never know. But in my mind, those things count too. Whether we want them to or not.

Twilight Mirage 05: The Sunlight of Knowing

Satellite Report 88.

I'm getting worried, Primary. There's this little display box right over in the corner of my work grid. It shows the status of the team I'm watching, and it's been stuck on the same image ever since they reached Quire's surface. I can see them, eyes full of hope, and concern, and curiosity. One of them looks a little distracted.

But… the picture is supposed to be live by now, and it's not. Everyone's in the right place, and there's been more than enough time, so what's keeping them from throwing the switch? We were sent all this way and with all this tech, and we can't even get a decent visual on Quire before the new arrivals set up their network.

Sorry, it's just—what happens if they fail? I mean, I know we're not supposed to ask questions about mission-critical premises, but this is more… mission-tangential, at least by my readings. What happens if they get hurt? Or captured, or if the node gets destroyed and then they can't fab up a new one? I gave up a stable existence for a chance at adventure, Primary. But it's just me, and this capsule, and this little picture in the corner of my work grid. And all I wanna know is, what happens if this picture of them never changes?

Twilight Mirage 06: We Want You To Come Home

Primary Dispatch 92.

You asked me a question last week, Satellite. You asked what it meant to be part of something larger than yourself. Let me ask you a question back. What does it mean when the thing you're a part of is so distant from everything else?

Their culture… it's a fleet, right? It's always been a fleet, not a commonwealth, not an empire, not a principality or a demarchy or a coalition of free states. The Divine Fleet. The Resonant Orbit. For 30,000 years, they defined themselves through their devotion to beautiful, ceaseless flight. Their little utopia has always been built on the premise that the hundreds of millions who lived in it could continue with unbroken momentum to find their own pristine paths through the stars.

There is real irony here, Satellite. It's easy to live a peaceful life away from others. Just ask any monk in a mountain, or any woman alone in a floating box, like me. But the Fleet doesn't do that. It soars through the sky even as it is whittled down. And when you're always moving, when you make momentum, not only your goal but your very notion of the good… collisions are inevitable.

Twilight Mirage 07: Second Street Drifting

Primary Dispatch 93A.

I'll tell you one thing, Satellite. Even now, even with so many of the Divines gone, the Fleet is really good at knowing how to take care of its own. So much of what they do is about understanding what people need and how to get it to them. But I have my doubts, Satellite, if they're any good at understanding people outside of the Fleet.

The Assemblage has this book, Overcoming the Problem of Other Minds. It's… kind of a slog, all about knowledge and selfhood and all of that. The first half is an epistemology textbook meets holy tract, but the second part, it turns, and suddenly it becomes a story, a sort of longform fable. It's about this Divine, or a stand-in for one, anyway, who can't convince someone of his divinity. He tries over and over again to display his power, his knowledge, his technological superiority. But the would-be convert just shrugs.

The lesson, as the Fleet teaches it, is that there are people that you cannot teach, many who do not or will not understand. But they don't know what we do, do they, Satellite?

We know that when someone shrugs at a display of power, at a display of knowledge, at a display of technological superiority, it is not because they do not understand. It is because they are not impressed.

Twilight Mirage 08: We are the River, And it is the Sea

Primary Dispatch 93B.

Priority. Protocol code: I-Quire touch Mirage α α α γ. Sub-protocol: bypass unknown.

Begin voice signature, primary observer Demani Dusk. Authorize direct communication channel.

Now entering linked broadcast quarantine. Connection with satellite observer cut. Connection with K-net wide cut. Connection with Mirage-wide cut.

Linking with K-upside switchboard. Linked. Connection with REHQ established.

Connection. Locked. Begin live transmission.

Boss, they're here. And I don't think they're just coming for her this time.

Twilight Mirage 10: Looking To Land

Primary Local recording 7.

I'm waiting, Satellite. It's all I'm allowed to do, watch and wait. And the thing is, even if I wanted to do more, I'm not really sure it would matter.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Intervention. In so many of the dead societies I've studied, people get caught up on this debate about intervention. If something in these cultures is a threat, physical, environmental, political, they spend just so much time arguing whether or not to do something. It's so arrogant, and it totally misses the point.

This one place, they built sort of a false sun, a special generator, a seemingly-endless source of energy. It brought in a golden age, it really did. Billions of people had their lives improve. But one day that new sun began to collapse inward on itself, slowly, slowly. And they started arguing: Should they send in teams to fix it and risk their lives? Should they shut down the project even after it helped so many? How much of the remaining energy could they sacrifice trying to fix this?

By the time they started that debate, Satellite, our agents had already reported back the truth. The second they'd built that device, they were doomed. They hadn't built a generator, they'd strapped their world to a time bomb.

This is what separates us from cultures like theirs. We understand our limits. We know that sometimes there is no question of intervention, there is only an outcome prescribed by a mistake you may not even remember. People who think they know us say that the Rapid Evening is a group of self-appointed galactic police, that we butt in when it isn't necessary. But the truth is way more depressing. It's rare that we intercede. Not because we're cautious, not because we're callous. Because most of the time it's already too late. We see disaster again and again and again, and do nothing. Because, in so many cases, there is nothing to do but watch and wait.

Twilight Mirage 11: What We're Capable Of

Satellite: Signal route: Gray. Mirage density: Opaque. Proxy chain: Linked. This better work.

Satellite: Primary?

Primary: Satellite.

Twilight Mirage 12: The Promise of Presence

Satellite Report 125.

It's funny, Primary. It's been a month since we lost connection. And when I finally heard your voice again, my heart, well, the closest thing I have to one, anyway, it didn't swell so much as it found a stable rhythm it had forgotten. Don't take this the wrong way, but now that the connection is back, it feels like I just don't have a lot to say. That doesn't mean I'm not happier with you there, though. I am. It's so good to know that when I speak, you'll hear me.

And that group down there, they're kinda the same. They're all so different. And I haven't seen any of them get close to each other yet, not really. But I look at them and think, maybe connection isn't always about words or even about actions. It's about presence. The promise of presence. It's knowing that after you leave home, there will be someone there for you when you come back, someone with their own stories, their own life worth telling you about.

This Mirage is an assignment for us, Primary, and we're not supposed to get too attached, I know. But more and more, I'm starting to think of this place as home.

Twilight Mirage 13: An Instinct Without A Word

Satellite Report 132.

Are you familiar with the Treatise on Change, Primary? It's a small section of a larger text, something about the breaking through the limits of human cognition. It postulates that there's no such thing as change, at least, not the way we normally talk about it. The writer, he was a soldier, I guess, he said that we think about change like it's a light switch, like one day you press a button and things are different. And so when we try to change things and it doesn't happen like that, it seems futile. Impossible.

But that's wrong, he says. A light switch isn't even a light switch. It's connected to circuits and wires, all hidden behind the walls, and if you slowed down time, and if you considered all that went into a single switch: the natural metals, the design of the electronics--you'd see that things only ever shift very slowly.

I don't know. What do you think, Primary? The upside, I guess, is that it means we should keep trying to improve, even when it doesn't seem like it's worth it. But it also means that the weight of history guarantees certain negative changes too, like asteroids on an impact course that no one can adjust. And the scary thing is, from inside, it's impossible to tell which we're working towards.

Twilight Mirage 14: The Value of Distance

Satellite Report 133.

Question for you, Primary. What do you think of as foundational to the experience of being you? I don't mean identity, or preference, I don't mean your history. I mean, as a being who lives and who understands the world around you, what's first? What's the thing that would be left if you removed everything else? Taste, knowledge, the feeling of touch. What's your canvas, Primary?

For me, well, I think it's different for different beings, and mine, it's data. I can't. I--I can't imagine "I", "I" can't, "I"--see? I can't do it. I just--I guess I'm data, all the way down. Recursive bits of information, referencing themselves so often, and with such complexity--compiled into a shape just so--that a person emerges. But I am still a person.

I don't see the world the way you do, Primary, or the way that artist down there does. I don't have his vision, or the soldier's sense of space. I can broadcast, obviously, but not the way that guy with the eye can. And I couldn't be further away from the person who guides and protects that whole crew. But we're all people.

That only opens up a new question, though. Each of our paintings is different, everyone is captured in a different medium, and all of our canvases diverge. But we're still all artwork. Doesn't that mean that there's something between us in common, something that ties everyone together? What might that thing be, Primary? And what do we owe to it?”

Twilight Mirage 15: A Life and A History

Satellite Report 140.

When does something become history, Primary? Like, how long until whatever it is we do here starts being the sort of thing that future agents refer to with a sort of romantic distance? How long before another Primary halfway across the arm is telling another Satellite about us, about whatever it is we wind up doing here? That is, if we do anything here. If we do anything.

It's, it's a lot to think about, Primary. My predecessor filed 286059 reports. That's 783 years, 264 days, I don't know how many hours. That isn't even that long for satellite observers like me.

Demani, Primary, whatever happens here, please know how important you are to me. Please know that way before anyone else thinks about what we do as history, way before anyone else is talking about us, I already think of you as--Pause recording. Begin substitute for past 21.991 seconds. Start.

But don't worry about that, Primary. Let's both just keep doing our best.

Twilight Mirage 16: An Approximation of a Connection

Satellite Report 141.

Primary, the data looked solid on my side too, but I haven't seen anything on the charts since those four ships broke into atmo. Signatures look like Castlerose, maybe? Hired guns, for sure.

Hey, um. Tell me the truth. Have you ever had to... y'know, k-kill someone? [sigh] I only ask because--

Mission-critical activity detected. Launching synchronization protocol. Loading internal history, quantum scale. Linking with K-upside switchboard. Connection with Crystal Palace established. Ready dovetail synopsis. Quantizing data. Locked. Harmonize.

Synopsis: 40233 years ago. Initial analysis reveals native population entering early space age. Worldwide struggles against Being planet, Qui err vi na-em, or "the Soil without Memory." Status green: no interference required.

26622 years ago. The first visitor. Sensor tracked unregistered Apostolosian vessel, the Holiday Gambit, passing through Quire space. Probable smuggler. Impact registered. Unknown cargo likely the cause of Quire's "Glassed Age," a period of great stability and growth. Status yellow: observation infrastructure installed, inactive.

11895 years ago. Annihilation-Class object detected on collision course from Galactic Core, en route toward nearby Benthos system. Observation infrastructure moved, status black: intervention ready.

11112 years ago. The second visitor. Unforeseen anomaly shifts Annihilation-Class object's trajectory. Intercession failed.

Annihilation-Class object continues en route to--Anomaly.

Anomaly.

Anomaly.

Anomaly.

Anomaly.

Anomaly.

Anomaly.

[Primary] Gray route proxy connection established.

Satellite. I'm right here.

Twilight Mirage 17: Like Falling Leaves

Primary: Dispatch 167.

Gray... I mean, Satellite. Confirming that I've returned to Primary Capsule DF298. I registered our... visit with K-upside. There will probably be repercussions when all this is over, but until then, they're pretty much letting us be.

They felt it too, y'know, through us. Independence. They felt what we felt. Alone. Lost. The whole Fleet felt it too. Some of the details were blurry. There's debate on a lot of the ships now as to whether what they saw was history, prophecy, fiction, propaganda... Some folks point to it as proof that they should stay away from Quire. Others see it as evidence that they should go immediately. The By-and-By is in the process of establishing orbit as we speak.

But mostly, it's just put everyone in a real funk, Satellite. This place already felt like it was on the edge, y'know? It's been a week and everyone just feels really vulnerable, really tender. No pun intended. I just can't tell what the effect of all of this is going to be in the long run. Agents like us have watched countless cultures fall into nothing, but those cultures don't usually have this perspective. They've never seen another civilization erased. But now the fleet has. I--it isn't our job, but I can't help but wonder if this could pull them back from the brink.

Twilight Mirage 18: The Sun Pales to Its Brightness

Primary Dispatch 170.

Satellite, I'm sorry, but no. I'm worried too, I am. And I, I know that we've broken some rules together. We both know we were never meant to, well, be together. And I don't regret that. At all. But there are some lines I cannot cross.

Crystal Palace is clear about this. Primary observers have mission-critical briefings and satellite observers have enhanced assessment protocols. You tell me when something I can't see looks fishy, and then I tell you whether it's time to intercede. We have to work together on this.

So, no, I cannot tell you more about Quire than you already know. About Independence. About Pretense. No, I cannot tell you more about the Iconoclasts than I've already said, that they're driven, indomitable, and terrifying.

And more than anything else, Gray, I cannot tell you the conditions that require me, under oath and vow, to push that button.

Twilight Mirage 19: A Single Moment, Caught

Primary Dispatch 171.

Hey, Satellite. There's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. I've been reading that book, the one you gave me, the Treatise on Change, and something's sticking with me.

Like you said, the author doesn't think change happens quickly. But he definitely thinks it's necessary. He puts down all these words about how important it is to, quote, "overcome the evening phantoms that scare us away from true development." The act of living well, he says, is not in fearing the crash but in turning collision into commencement.

And, I don't know, I'm not a philosopher, or a soldier, or a doctor, or a, what's he call them? Strati? I'm probably not one of those. But it just, it doesn't seem as easy as he makes it seem. Just look at the Beloved Dust. Signet is haunted by echoes of a history she barely knows. Fourteen Fifteen is literally losing every memory they have, and that's a tragedy, not a step forward. Tender Sky is, she's right at the brink of something incredible, but that's built on her past.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just miss the Cycle. Maybe I miss the simplicity, the safety of Crystal Palace. It's just that, out here, I don't feel like we need to worry about evening phantoms. There are plenty in the daytime.

Twilight Mirage 20: Bits Left Behind

Primary Dispatch 172.

Satellite, it's not that I don't think that intervention is ever necessary. It's just. We are allowed one type of intervention. And that type is not a solution, it's proof that everyone in this fleet has failed. And an assurance that no one else will ever do the same.

We're here for one reason, Satellite: to make sure that Independence and whatever the hell the Iconoclasts are working on don't become Annihilation-Class objects. And we're here to assure that, no matter the cost to them, or to us.

It is romantic, in every sense possible, to think of us as just a couple of do-gooders on the edge of the Principality's border. A couple of gals on the frontier, keeping the world right-side up. But we are more than that, and less, too.

I love you, Satellite. I love us. But we are a loaded gun. And the second that you start thinking that a loaded gun is romantic is the second you stop being like us and start being like them.

Twilight Mirage 21: One's Own Right

Primary Dispatch 173.

Hey. Satellite. I've been looking over the data you sent me with your latest scans from Quire. I, uh, I didn't see anything to be worried about, at first. But I ran them through the history, just on a whim, and, well. There isn't an exact match to anything we need to be worried about, but there are echoes. Or, not echoes, not even traces. Crumbs.

And. I've just been thinking about the observers who did this last time. The ones in charge. Of stopping Independence? I just, what if they had all the pieces they needed, and they just missed something. Or what if something broke down? I just have all this information in front of me, and you're constantly gathering more, and I just worry, because there are so many points of failure, and all of them come back to us. And the stakes are so high, Satellite.

I. I've been thinking. Maybe you're right. And I know K-Upside can hear this, and I want them to. There's too much at risk to put this on two people. Even when one of them can do what you can, Gray. There are too many variables. Too many actors. And, well, frankly, the people here in the fleet know them better than we do. I think it's time to--

[Static]

Wait. What's this? There's a. There's a signal coming through--

[Static]”

Twilight Mirage 22: godspeed, glory Pt. 1

Satellite Report 175.

Primary. Primary, I'm. I'm. I'm. I am trying to stay focused. I. Quire. Sui Juris. Independence. Volition. The New Earth Hegemony. The Crown of Glass. The Cadent. The Rapid Evening. The Iconoclasts.

I. I. I am trying to stay focused. There is too much. I can't see it all. I can't untangle the signals. I can't. I can't. I can't. I need to stay focused. I need to stay focused. I need to stay focused. On you. Primary. Demani.

Demani. I'm okay. I'm okay, Demani. I've established temporary quantum lock with Rapid Evening HQ. I'm requesting additional phenomenological resources from K-Upside. Extra sensor bandwidth. More powerful filters. We need to zero in on what's happening right now. I'm manually degrading full-spec observation, elevating key profiles: Echo Reverie, Undela Apogica, the Excerpt Signet, Gig Kep-hart, Fourteen Fifteen, Even Gardner, Tender Sky, Grand Magnificent, Open Metal, the Iconoclasts, and.

Extra bandwidth retrieved. Filters in place. Focus. I can see it all now. I can. Wait. Demani.

The Twilight Mirage. It's collapsing.

Twilight Mirage 23: godspeed, glory Pt. 2

Primary Dispatch 177.

Priority final. Protocol code: I-Quire addendum-v touch Mirage α 3 β 3 γ 3 Myriad full. Subprotocol. Strike. Subprotocols: social schism, Mirage collapse, Divine death. Annihilation-Class object. Strike. Objects confirmed.

Begin voice signature, primary observer Demani Dusk. Authorize direct communication channel.

Overriding linked broadcast quarantine. Connection with satellite observer maintained. Connection with K-net wide maintained. Connection with Mirage-wide maintained.

Linking with K-upside switchboard. Connection with REHQ established. Connection locked.

Fellow agents, Crystal Palace, Keen. This is Demani Dusk, primary observer of the I-Quire operation. Crystal Palace, accept this dispatch as my resignation. By the time you hear this, I will have abandoned post and de-armed and scuttled the stellar combustor attached to Satellite's observation post. Perhaps you'll already have predicted this, even here in the Mirage. Perhaps you, insofar as there is a you, see this as part of a larger model. I don't care. So accept that too.

Fellow agents, it has been an honor to serve alongside you, and to shield the citizens on cycle. But a shield can only protect what's behind it, and a hand that holds a shield cannot draw a blade, cannot lift a brush, cannot grip throttle or turn wheel to protect others from disaster. In the days that follow, consider your hands, and remember that they are yours.

Included in this transmission is a double-bulk data transfer, which will bring everyone, not just Crystal Palace, but everyone up to speed on the current events in the Twilight Mirage. I am sending this because if Crystal Palace sends someone to take our place, I want you to see everything. I want you to see what's happening here.

I could make a case--and maybe one of you will--that what we are seeing in the Twilight Mirage is exceptional. And I mean that historically, judicially, and personally. What was once a massive false nebula is collapsing inwards, but not like a house of cards, like a spring. It grows denser. Even my vessel struggles against its waves. Time bends now. The being Volition tears at reality itself, remaking the uneven material world into something axiomatic. A metaphysical fascism of ideas. Keen. Your daughter is safe. I'm safe. We're gonna make sure everyone else is, too.