"You must be silent in my famous presence"
-Bob_The_Newt
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| The Cost of Knowing | | | Author: | | | IP: | ool-18b8XXXX | | Date: | 07/19/02 12:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 1, Min: 1
Lifetime Rating for not mine: 1.7500 |  | The Cost of Knowing
Prolouge
Arcturus Mengsk was not a happy man: his main battle fleet was destroyed, his empire in ruins, and his past judgements had come back to haunt him in a very real way. In the days since that epic defeat, he had also noticed, through several reports, that the Protoss were in a very unorganised retreat. Always on the lookout for new test subjects and examples of Protoss technology, Mengsk ordered his military (what was left of it) to be on the lookout for any Protoss ships. He bleived that if he could harness the technology of the Protoss, his empire might have a chance of survival yet.
Three weeks ago, in the desert not far south of Mengsk's personal science facility, the Mengsk Labs, a Protoss ship had crashed. It had not crashed from the efforts of any scientient being: the theory being bounced around by the top minds in the sector was that the electrical storms of that night had brought the thing down. Knowing first-hand how resiliant the technology of the Protoss was, Mengsk had his doubts. However, it was not his place to play the scientist, and he let them go about their business.
Today, however, it seemed all this careful work was for nothing. His scientists were no more near figuring out how to manipulate Protoss technology that day than they had been six months ago. The only one who showed some signs of understanding the complex technology presented there was gone, supposedly by 'alien' intervention. The investigation showed no signs of struggle, no marks, nothing. The man was under surviellence 24 hours a day. One day he merely walked into his bathroom, the only private place he had, and never stepped out again. Mengsk held a typewritten copy of the man's journal, and started to read it. He knew he was in for a long night.
TOP SECRET/AIICH
Typewritten copy of Dr. Antonio Malbayam's journal, found among his personal possesions after his disappearence.
August 4th
Today I was taken past the facilities at the Mengsk Lab. The men there look at me in disdain: I am an outsider. They took years to gain access to this laboratory, and I was taken here by special order of the "Emporer," Mengsk himself. They do not know I was kidnapped and told I was living here until further notice, and I was to do my best at the problems presented to me...or else.
I am a bitter old man: science no longer holds the magic it does for me, not since Tarsonis. I escaped with my life, but I fear I left my soul behind. Nothing seems worth the effort anymore, but for Stephina and Mother's sake, I will go on as best I can. I will try to stay alive in this strange place.
August 8th
They have shown me what I was brought here for. They have brought me an interesting problem. I am sitting in my room watching the hologram that is projected in the air 3 feet in front of me: the dented, almost disc-like shuttle hiding something in its recesses, the delicate bodies exposed and sunwashed white, gathering flies, the huge inhuman eyes, holding something back even in death. The creatures are like angels and children, they are pale and beautiful. Even in death they hold a sublime radiance, something if man had he would utilize, and if not he would take.
A system covered 70 percent in zerg-infested colonies and they crash here, the one science facility the terrans have to study protoss technology. I am here as an observer, however, and it is not my place to speculate to the rest of the science team. Since in the briefing it was made painfully obvious to me I am only here because I am an expert in my field, I will have to make my own observations, and draw my own conclusions, make out my papers, and go to my little room. But I am not so sure what will occur after this, I am thinking I may never see my home again. An event like this could shape the destiny of humanity
August 9th
The Army has communicated with the bodies of the Protoss recovered, the dead ones, in a language well understood by man: in the language of knives, of gripes and autopsy. The blunt language of dissection.
It is the only live one is the one I am here for. I am watching him as I write this. The Protoss hasn't consumed any substance in over 48 hours, and the scientists tell me that they are photosynthetic, and that the plant lights installed in the thing's room bring about more activity in it. I have my doubts about that hypothesis, but, again, is not my place to speculate. The being has not communicated with us in any way. We are not sure if all protoss can communicate to humans, or only their leaders.
We have placed a succession of objects in the thing's room, hoping to stimulate a response with less and less success as time goes by. Right now, the Protoss is holding up a baseball in it's long, spindly, almost delicate fingers. It stares at it for a while, then lets it drop to the floor with a dull thud. Then its eyes close: two lids meet at the center of the eye, and the being sits there for several minutes before I leave.
First extended contact with humans is tomorrow. Let us hope it considers us a bit more than animate objects.
August 10th
After a fourteen hour session all attempts at communication with the creature have failed. The only attempt to gain the creature's attention that has succeeded has been with a child's toy a psychologist brought in with him: a simple box that breaks up into puzzle pieces, it is a simple diagnostic tool for testing the intelligence of children. The creature sat there and sits there still, staring at the box, not disassempling it, but studying it. They have taken the psychologist away, out into the south. In the south there is only desert. In the south there is no one to hear the gunshot or recover your body. I fear for my life.
The Protoss has not moved for twelve hours now.
August 11th
I must work hard, but not too hard. I must answer problems that only give rise to more problems, for without problems I am no longer useful to the people here. Above all, I must remain calm. Two more were taken away today. Already I see new faces replacing them. At every corner there is a quiet man with a rifle. I must work carefully.
August 11th (addendum)
The creature has moved. It has laid the pieces of the child's puzzle in a careful pattern on the floor during a small fail in the power generator: no security or lights were present to observe it doing this. Sixteen individual pieces, NINE SEPERATE isosceles triangles in a simple side-by-side alignment. It should be eight, EIGHT! It is obvious. But no matter how the arrangement is observed, nine are seen. The Protoss sits in the midst of them, unmoving since its stint of activity.
Everything about this is an offense, to take basic properties of such simple abstract thought and twist and pull them like taffy. To change and warp them to the point of terrifying misunderstanding, to snuff the small candle of all we have thought true and to plunge us back into the dark with the use of a simple children's toy. Is this not evil?
Still, I must admit, when I first glanced at the photo I saw nine and did not flinch. I saw nine and I think I grasped an intrinsic understanding of something more. It was like the feeling of elation that comes only by solving a problem. I had forgotten the wonder. Yet, this time, the wonder and elation was like the elation of plunging to one's death, for it opened up something dark and secret about the universe that I do not yet grasp. I am like the blind man who has just walked out of a cave, one who until he feels the sunlight on his face was not aware there was a cave. I see it and it burns bright in my mind, sterilizing the dead assumptions and poor thought that had come before.
I glimpse the truth and I am afraid.
August 12th
I have stalled the science team with a new form of mathematics I have come up with, and have promised more startling finds to come. They are fools, all of them. They do not understand what we have stumbled upon, what is within my own grasp. They do not know yet the freedom the Protoss could have, if only they chose to take it. I will work day and night to find the solution to it. Already I am on the trail of proving the existence of an infinite amount of spacial dimensions. I must find what happened, I MUST.
August 21st
9 9 2 0 .2 2 9 9 8 9 2 1 2 .3 3 4
Today my mind grasped the subtle complexities of reality as our limited organs fail to percieve it. The future unfolds at the beckoning of the past and it loops upon itself, collapsing in and forming the places we are and have been or will be. Each is the same. Travel and time and time travel are the same. I hope you can understand. I hope you will understand.
The bomb flies, has flown, will land, has detonated, will detonate, always burning, always dying, dying. The cloud pierces time time and sends our race to a nightmare end. But there are places beyond, there is more.
I could not see, was blind in the cave but the blast has disintegrated the cave, has burned me free from my horrid matter form and set me free. I felt a prison, but it was a prison within a prison, a prison so large, so complete. So disguised that I could not see. And now the angels have set my mind free, they have found me worthy and have talked to me of places circling far stars, and places beyond the universe, infinitly small or large, so perfect in order that all is equal and only one. They have given me the a key, and I have constructed the gate. Please see.
Mother and Stephina died to send me away from Tarsonis, but that doesn't matter anymore. The truth is that there is no order, there is simply a semblance of order to contain us in these dumb forms, to keep us from seeing. To root out those who are not worthy to understand. I see, and it is if I have never seen anything before. Mother and Stephina are dead, have been dead, are alive, are always dying. But it is only their form. I know the energy lives on, transmitted, engless, rippling in dimensions, occasionally coalescing to form conscious thought, and I know they are out there, and that they know, they know these things.
I will go there, past time and space and matter, I will search them out, and find them and show them how empty everything was before, how the mistakes we have made, all of us are so useless as to be pointless worry.
I will go to them and we will be together,
Infinity
END TEXT
Mengsk put the journal down. We stared out the window, watched the sun rise over his shattered empire. The implications of the journal were not fully understood by Mengsk, but from what he did grasp they wern't any good. "Enson" he spoke into his little microphone, to his aide, "Yes sir?" Enson replied. "How many copies exist of this journal, Enson?"
"Military reports say only two. The other one is in the possesion of General Carter"
"Carter? I want him on the horn immediatly. Also, take a note to my treasurer: funding for the ARC DREAM project is to be increased 300%"
"The project to exploit the technology of the Protoss?"
"Yes, Enson. That project. Now go"
Enson left, and Mengsk took out a match. In his small trash bin there were several papers: he lit the match and threw it in there. Carter's voice came over the intercom just then: "You asked to speak with me, sir?"
Mengsk threw his copy of the journal into the small fire in the trash bin. "Yes, general, I did. You are to destroy your copy of the journal and never speak of it again. Ever."
"Sir?"
"You have your orders."
"Yes, sir. The paper will be destroyed right now, Carter out"
Mengsk stared into the fire, pondering the fate of his empire, long into that night. |
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