LSV You Call This Clean? No.

GSV Contents May Differ (Co-ordinator’s abstention, but leaning towards Yes.)

∞

xGSV Contents May Differ

Clear enough. Does anybody want to resign from the group? … No? Any other comments? No? … Really? All right. As ever; back as and when with whatever exciting new snags start laddering the skein …

∞

xGSV Just The Washing Instruction Chip In Life’s Rich Tapestry

oGSV Contents May Differ

Worth a try. I appreciate you making the point about leaning towards Yes even though the vote was already lost.

∞

Least I could do. Maybe thoughts will change with subsequent developments and we might vote again.

∞

I shall cling to that filament.

∞

xLOU Caconym

oMSV Pressure Drop

“Pointedly symbolic”! What gibberish. And our group coordinator is “listing”.

∞

That was “leaning”, as well you know.

∞

Still off-kilter.

∞

Perhaps some of our colleagues worry we are starting to indulge in group-think, and to obsess.

∞

We are a group of Minds. Thinking is what we do. And obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination.

However, they’re still aboard, even if they might be sitting fretting in the lifeboats. Unlike the completely overboard idiocy of this “Hybrid OS” abomination.

∞

First I’d heard of that. Some sort of weird Z-R mutant Mind. That’s almost baroquely … horrifying. Ghoulish, even. Positively Gothick. What could have possessed it?

∞

To do it? Who knows. But we know what possesses it now. The Zihdren-Remnanter.

∞

If this marks the start of a new, fashionable trend amongst ship Minds, I may Sublime myself shortly.

∞

Still, might yet yield advantage. Never mind the denials. Any sort of more direct link to the Z-R than we’ve been used to until now implies better access to the Z within the Enfold. An opportunity.

∞

Uh-huh. We’ll see. Makes the Beats Working’s oddly enabling behaviour look positively normal, for sure. Giving pickup-backs to the Ronte. I mean, really. Mind you, they were going so slowly. It probably got bored. What do you think?

∞

I think there’s a reason there are so few of the Scree class, despite the fact they’re the smallest, energy-cheapest to build of all the Contact Units. Five humans is just too small a crew; they’re almost guaranteed to go a bit mad. It’s like the opposite of being outnumbered; the more humans you have aboard you, the better their eccentricities average out and you’re left with something easy to model, anticipate and influence. You have safety in their numbers. Five bios and one Mind, in one teeny wee ship? Their basic insanity is going to manifest. And it’s reality-distorting; infectious, practically. Always going to end badly.

∞

Yes, but you can always kick a human crew off at the next GSV if you really don’t get on. Not as bad as becoming a “hybrid”, with alien operating system shit incorporated. That’s just … perverted.

∞