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StupidLancerThing

My name is Anniki Lattinen. I am a Lancer for what is known simply as Union, the closest thing to a galactic government we have. And this is not my story.

My specialty is hacking and disruption. I am, I'm told, good at it. The reason for it, paradoxically is that as far as I know I've been in cryostasis for thousands of standard years, and hark from a time when computers were easier to understand by the individual. I was a hacker back then, too. I got busted infiltrating a bank, and the global telecommunication administration gave me a job in lieu of a prison sentence. I worked on early drones and played red team to secure vital telecom infrastructure.

Except that I also remember other things. I remember fighting against totalitarian Jesus, first in the name of the Antichrist, then on our own when it turned out that Jesus and Satan were the same asshole with different color pants on.

It's been thousands of years -- records of Earth are fragmentary, there was at least one more apocalypse until then.

We just wrapped up a mission. This society is used to people who have been in cryostasis for long; relativity and long distances will do that. People who are time-skipped can get counseling, if they want. One of my teammates, Suzy, time-skipped for 400 years, and completed the program, or opted out -- I don't know. I haven't. I could talk to a NHP about this (it's what they call AIs now -- non-human persons -- I like it) but instead I get a nice lady who looks to be in her fifties, she says her name is Verity. She swore up and down that it's all confidential. I broke down and told her my story. She told me something weird. That it contradicts official AND unofficial records, but that she believes me.

I have to talk her again in an hour. I don't know if I want to. I mostly want to scream.

I looked things up. My cryopod came with something pretty valuable -- media from my time. A few of them had become lost works. This is mostly a post-scarcity society, and none of the media had been made by me in any capacity, so I did the grown-up thing and put everything in the public domain. Then I set off to study. History. What I missed.

And that's the problem. History doesn't match up with my memories. Not that surprising, probably, history being written by the winners and all...

fortunately for me, someone from the HORUS hacker collective (it's more complicated than that, but for the sake of my own frame of reference, let's go with "a bunch of folks like Fravia or l0pth or early 4chan" rather than "a paracosmic cult of creative chaos") helped bring me back to speed. I was so shocked by the length of my stasis that the best way to do it was for them to explain the situation to my NHP counterpart, Zeta-5 (something I'd been wanting to build all my life in the 20th century and was now a trivial endeavor in the 65th or so) and have it explain it back to me. There is such a thing as informational overload, let me go at my own pace.

The problem is that the unofficial history also doesn't match up. None of them do.

The OTHER problem is that one of my teammates turned out to have been the victim of a memory overlay -- she thought she was some famous mech pilot from another sector of the galaxy. In fairness she was pretty good at it. It unraveled, to a point, so she was benched. I looked into it a tiny bit and it turns out that this sort of overlay is... well, not something you can get done at a hair salon, but not something particularly expensive or experimental either. It's like a heart transplant in 1995. Complicated procedure that requires a lot of skill and can go wrong (and it did in her case, to a point) but isn't a big breakthrough anymore. Verity suggested that I not try to find out if this is my case, because I might go nuts from the revelation. So I asked her to find out for me and decide whether to tell me or not, and how to tell me in a non-cognitohazard way. She said she'd work on it.

I made friends with another NHP. Her name is Linsy and she's living my dream life. In that she exists as a small swarm of adorable drones, some of which are humanoid. That's exactly what I wanted to get to when I... but that's another story. I legitimately thought I could beat up God single handedly and digitally transcend once. For about ninety seconds. (I'm happy to say that Tron wasn't lost media, people still watch it. I love the Bollywood-style remake someone did sometime last century.) We did beat up God, but it took years of preparation and a concerted effort. At least that's what I remember.

It's too easy to gaslight people in this day and age. You can just spin a plausible reality around them. I wonder if that's what most people do on some Union worlds, just metaphorically stay in the holodeck all day. (There's no holodecks, as such, but there's neural interfaces that does the same job except cheaper. I used to want one. I'm scared of them now.)

Another memory. Someone who worked with me. Under me, technically, not that we had much time for hierarchies (the Foreman called the shots; whoever could take the shot, did; it worked out, barely). This guy came back from Armageddon plus a few pounds, a lot of white hair, and two brand new bags under his eyes. He ended up being a neighborhood hero, except to his own family. They berated him for not taking advantage of the situation, even denied that he'd done any work at all. The whole situation drove him mad. They called him a bum enough that he thought his family duty was to become one, so he stopped working, studied how bums live, imitated them. I think he got run over while pretending to be passed out in an alley.

I also can't remember why I entered cryo. I wasn't sick or anything like that. I think I wanted to see the future and cashed in all my favors to make it happen. Maybe they didn't know what to do with me.

Come to think of it, I don't remember anyone from our group doing very well after Armageddon. We were heroes, but we were also worse than Satan. We had gotten so used to an ongoing apocalypse that we couldn't stop jumping at shadow when the world calmed down. To some people we represented the failure of their beliefs, to others we represented a debt of gratitude they could never repay. So they threw up statues, endowed institutes in our names, gave us pensions (didn't call them that, it was retainer emoluments or whatever) and pushed us in the background. I was 26, for crying out loud. That's too young to retire. Maybe that's why I got myself put on ice.

I wrote a diary of what was supposed to be the last war on Earth (heh, is it ever? Ask someone in 1940 I guess), in spurts and fits and disjointed sentences. Put it on this culture's iteration of 4chan. Within hours someone had asked for nudes. Within days someone had remixed it into a rendition of the apocalypse -- not great writing, but not a bad effort either. Of course most everyone thought I made it all up and engaged with it accordingly.

I'd say "some things never change" but they did. I thought someone'd ask for nudes in seconds, not hours. Relativistic lag or did we grow up a bit as a species?

I'm standing in front of Verity's office. We could have this meeting in a virtual space of course but I've been trying to walk around a bit. The ship where we deploy from is the size of a small European country.

The office is cozy. There's a sound barrier in place, so the door is flimsy and has no lock, for people who are scared of being locked somewhere, like me. I'm thinking that the office gets a little bit of remodeling for each patient. Wall colors, trinkets on the shelves, book titles (I love how books work around here; actual books, but the cover and page are e-paper, each page. So a book is any book). Stuff like that. Someone who has the opposite fear probably gets a sturdier-looking door. Post-scarcity is cool like that; if it helps put someone at ease, even a bit, well, maintenance drones only have to spend an extra couple of minutes on it, so why not.

"Hi Aki. Sit down if you like. How did it go?"

"Suzy did the mission report. Nobody died. Nobody got seriously hurt, I think, either. Part of the whole mess is that they got a spaceship NHP to run a mech factory and it coped how it could" That's important to me. I don't know what winning Armageddon did to the afterlife, but it can't be good. Maybe God is salty and everyone just goes to hell now. Maybe it's been under construction since then, eternity staring at a looping GIF.

We talk a bit. Verity encourages me to hang out with Suzy and Ellie a bit more. She also tells me that NHPs don't get body dysphoria -- much, only a little -- because they usually know that they'll outlast any one body. She also tells me that she watched some of the movies I had with me. Goofy stuff mostly. Anime, cartoons, low budget cyberpunk movies, that sort of thing.

I like that cartoons still exist, still get made. Photography didn't kill portrait and the ability to make fully immersive sims didn't kill 2D animation. At some point in humanity's risky history they finally stopped making Simpsons episodes, can you believe that that series kept going for 20 years or more?

Verity tells me that she really likes the Kids Next Door series. Some episodes had survived, I had a copy of the whole thing, which probably made some archivists somewhere really happy. I remember getting excited when back in my time someone found a previously lost reel for a Doctor Who episode in some random South African censor's office. I don't like Doctor Who, but I really liked seeing the Whovians in my workgroup happy about it. It's one of the few times I ever felt maternal.

I like KND too. It's silly on the surface but really deep if you think about it.

Verity asks me an interesting question. "KND came out in 2000. Who was the target audience though? The Rapture happened in 1998, that means no kids younger than 13. Why make a TV show when the target audience for it wouldn't exist for six or seven years?"

"It was a psychological op. Show some normality. Give the kids born after the Rapture gap some form of childlore since they wouldn't get it the normal way. And... people missed their kids. They missed their kids enough to declare war on God."

Verity scribbles on a stenopad. "This isn't the first time you've been asked this, is it. You answered very concisely and completely. That's not really your style."

I shake my head. "Pretty sure it's an argument I had with Naima a few times."

Naima, Naomi Campbell to normies, was my arch-nemesis. And friend, of course, because that's how it works, right? She was an IT intrusion specialist for the Christian Remnant, operating from Petra. She was good, too. Our last fight was during Armageddon itself, she was trying to commandeer our satellites. The problem is that by then she was too reliant on supernatural luck. She beat me handily, took over the satellites... and by then we knew where she was dialing out from, so the Foreman sent a bunch of goons with an earthmover to raze her house. She got out alive, of course, earthmovers are slow. We stopped being arch-nemeses after that. Come to think of it we mostly stopped being friends shortly after. I know she had gotten married. Really went into the whole trad thing after that though. I guess she had kids and died a grandma. Is she in heaven? Is heaven empty? Who knows.

I already told Verity this. She says it's normal to miss a friend, and asked me what I'd tell her if I could. I'd tell her that I hope she had a good life and that she did some very good stuff, we were technically working for the Antichrist after all, and he wasn't a nice guy -- Naima pulled off some clever things, and got a few people out of death row, even. Does it matter? Butterfly effect. We're all waves. We could reverberate, we could decay.

And so we talk cartoons a bit. And goofy movies. She gives me some recommendations I might have missed because, you know, thousands of years on ice. They made a Fallout TV series? Wing Commander? A second reboot of Reboot? Awesome! (I'll pass on the Jar Jar Binks biopic. Amazingly, no Star Wars media from my time was lost. Not sure if that's a good thing on the balance.)

Verity points out that the vast majority of the media I brought with me doesn't acknowledge the Rapture. Specifically; the news broadcasts I had saved for whatever reason do, but the movies and cartoons and songs, by and large, vast majority, don't. Verity reminds me that making fake news videos is trivially easy. I get flustered, for some reason.

Verity asks me if I've read Dune, specifically God-Emperor of Dune. I say yes. The worm guy is kind of cuddly, he is in my head anyway. Her turn to get flustered. She asks me what I think of Duncan Idaho. I say cool guy, out of his element, Leto kept having to copy him. She nods. I get what she's trying to point out. She tells me to never read the official sequels and points me to some unofficial ones on the omninet.

Verity asks me if I want to know about what she found from my biopsies. I rush ahead, because I do that.

"Is that it? I'm some sort of ghola? There's been a bunch of copies of me, introduced when it was convenient to someone?"

She says no. Well.... not quite. As far as she can tell (metabolism stop wouldn't make a difference; they're using a highly advanced form of radioisotope dating) I could be anywhere between 250 and 6000 years old -- the highly advanced form of dating didn't QUITE work. Which is pretty sus. And while there aren't a bunch of Aki Lattinens running around -- or a bunch of dead ones and I'm just the last copy -- there have been instances of people with fabricated memories being introduced to Union in the way that I was, more or less.

Verity explains that this is normally done in the guise of a slow-ship arriving to a planet that was colonized by nearlight or hyperspace ships after the slow-ship left. That is a real thing, and has happened a number of times, and still happens -- there's a whole subculture of people in that situation, the Cosmopolitans. Sometimes, in ones or twos, a Cosmopolitan shows up with memories of a different timeline. For a while there was a multiversal leakage theory about it, but these days the scientific consensus seems to be that this is a deliberate psyop by... someone. NHPs? Aliens? Very-long-term shadow cabals?

"I've been in a shadow cabal and trust me, long term is the last thing that anyone has time for."

Verity gives me the trollface. Isn't that what a plant from a long-term-shadow-cabal would end up believing and saying?

Fuck, she has a point. She laughs, softly. Says she's just giving me a hard time. But that's what she could find, so I should at least consider the possibility that this is what went on with me. What is more likely: memory overlay shenanigans or that God gave an Apocalypse and we wrecked the party?

"Can you do anything else to find out?"

Verity says she can -- just don't expect anything quickly; months rather than days or weeks -- and tells me that I'm free to reject her conclusions if I don't like them, when she gives them to me.

That's weird. It's not what psychologists are supposed to say, is it? I point that out.

She says that in the grand scheme of thing it doesn't matter that much. There are still religious folks in this utopian future -- Verity isn't one, and the whole thing has generally slowly gone downhill, but why not? What's the harm in believing in Yahweh or Zeus or Ra (not RA, Ra)? She gives me a book; it's before her time; it's before my time. "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut. I ask if it has any catboys in it, but it doesn't. She asks me to read it.

"What, I'm getting homework now?"

She points out that I'll read the whole thing in an evening or less and it's not like she'll ask me to write a book report anyway.

We talk a bit more. She wants to know mission details. I give her them. This last sortie was less weird than the previous one.

I curl up in my tiny cabin (I could get a bigger one, there's plenty of room in the ship, I just like small spaces, OK?) and read. The pages can either be scrolled or turned. I end up doing a bit of both and so finish the book with 20 or so pages left; they obligingly turn white for a moment and then load suggested commentary on the book. I don't need it. I look up if anyone unironically practices Bokononism in this time, instead. Or ironically, both good.

" 'Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy'"

It's q in the morning, ship's time, because of course it is. I curl up and sleep. I dream about a smol tapir furry that is doing low-stakes spy shenanigans and doing apartment renovations. I get up earlyish. Maybe it's time to see what silliness I can get into aboard ship.

I ask the comp/con for recommendations, but give it zero context. This is what it spits out:

Message#18:

In reply to: 17

Your dream sounds intriguing and whimsical, possibly reflecting a desire for a simpler, more playful engagement with your environment after the deep and often heavy conversations and reflections you've been having. Dreams about engaging in "low-stakes" activities like spy shenanigans and apartment renovations might signify a need to take control in a light-hearted way, perhaps as a counterbalance to the intense uncertainties and heavy realities you've been dealing with.

As you consider exploring the ship and engaging in some "silliness," here are a few light-hearted activities you might consider:

• Social Gatherings: Check if there are any social events or gatherings on the ship where you can meet new people, engage in casual conversations, or participate in group activities. This could be a great way to relax and enjoy the company of others without the pressure of heavy discussions.
• Recreational Facilities: Explore the ship's recreational facilities. Whether it's a sports hall, a simulator room, or even an art studio, engaging in physical or creative activities can be a great way to unwind and have fun.
• Join a Club or Group: See if there are any clubs or interest groups aboard that align with your hobbies or passions. This could range from a book club to a group focused on virtual reality adventures, providing a space for enjoyment and shared interests.
• Volunteer: Sometimes, helping out in community services aboard ithe ship can be a fulfilling and enjoyable way to spend time. This might include assisting in educational programs, participating in environmental sustainability initiatives, or helping with event planning.
• Explore New Technologies: Given your background and interests, exploring new technologies on the ship could also be an engaging way to pass time. Perhaps there are workshops or demos available that allow you to tinker with or learn about the latest advancements.

Engaging in these activities not only serves as a distraction but can also enhance your sense of belonging and community aboard the ship. How do you feel about these suggestions, and do any particular activities appeal to you?