scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/7e5u66.md

## [RST] The World As It Appears To Be by Benedict_SC - Epilogue

* Author: u/CouteauBleu  *We are the Empire.**
* URL: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9402014/chapters/28885473
* Score: 15

* Created: 2017-11-20T03:08:25

### Post:

[Link to content](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9402014/chapters/28885473)

### Comments:

> **u/CouteauBleu** [+1]  *We are the Empire.* (18 seconds later)
> 
> I could totally see Sombra being the best GM ever.

> **u/Airgineer1** [+1]  (6 hours later)
> 
> [Called it!](https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/75659t/the_world_as_it_appears_to_be_chapter_38/do3yzxq/?context=3) 
> 
> Thanks for the read Benedict_SC, it was great!

> **u/MultipartiteMind** [+1]  (13 hours later)
> 
> I welcome the epilogue!  The conditional-prohibitional-revival (a shame I couldn't think of a '-tional' synonym for the third term) concept was pondering-provoking.
> 
> I somehow (maybe it was linked) ended up consuming the Cordyceps fiction.  It was fun!  The overblown paranoia was eye-rolling-inducing, but amusing, as well as thought-provoking as a parallel for the subverting-own-rationality-for-vital-benefit line of thought.  (And there's the whole interesting Murder-Gandhi line of thought that I should variously think about, though not immediately relevant.)
> 
> My thoughts at the end were mainly on whether such a situation could be handled differently, such as telling about the details-file and the safe-period quarantine at the start...  hmm.
> 
> If the elephant is consolidated and that's partioned off...  but no, it's more that one feeds a sufficiently-large section for the immune system to clue in and get involved...  that presumably doesn't actually get it out of the bits thinking about the fungus, those bits get sealed off alongside...  right, yes, the problem is that once you knew anything you did before about the fungus, you reconnect to those bits about the fungus, then have to do another antibody-mediated reseal.  Hm.  I admit difficulty understanding why personal episodic memory from a long time ago--hours/days/months(?)--is lost too upon breach and suppression, when those experiences didn't themselves involve a rebridge.  Maybe a brain-wide chemotherapy-like 'purging of recent connections' happening at the same time as the resealing...
> 
> Earlier I was thinking about whether new knowledge about the fungus would awaken still-dormant spores in the rest of the brain.  Above, thinking of that, concluded that that *could* happen, but that in most cases (and the protagonist's) probably all such details were through media or deliberately known at the time of the reaction-provoking that allowed the antibody to seal off everything.
> 
> ...hmm, and I can now imagine that even if there were safe sufficiently-vague/-unspecific information about the brain and quarantine procedures, in the 'pink elephant' approach it would be hard not to stop oneself thinking of what could actually be happening in there, and reconnecting with the sealed-off knowledge.  Or maybe that 'virus' concept was actually a successful way developed to bypass the fungal reaction, somehow..?  (In which case, a pity that it couldn't be used before.)  (EDIT:  The other plausible-sounding lies, yes, 'virus' or more-in-general 'amnesia as the disease to be cured' lies that the fungus wouldn't be reactive to...  the question being whether one can build in the remembering-allows-spreading and the wait-until-after-the-quarantine into the explanation without hitting fungus-associated sections/patterns(/built-in-fungus-reactive-triggers)...)
> 
> Fun!  Before I forget, the designed weapon hypothesis (maybe sapient-life-targeted, to leave planets' local ecosystems intact and try to get rid of even species not normally recognisable as sapient--Earth itself maybe a deliberate target, in which case possibly doomed in the end anyway?) was very nice as a plausible postulated backstory.
> 
> I was unable to find the name, but there was a short fiction once about a Question that could not be contemplated by the human brain, and would cause the brain to halt.  The more was known or could be inferred about the Question, the more likely to accidentally think of it.  The rampancy of that despite its vagueness lacking plausibility, whereas Cordyceps had a nice apparently-internally-consistent mechanism for how the observed phenomena could occur.
> 
> I wish to state/communicate/enunciate that I like your writing!  This has been lynchpinned in place by Cordyceps and (in particular) the early Winston/Mercy interactions, and this admiration/appreciation is not anticipated to shift even were I to read other instances of your writing without enjoyment.
> 
> --Ah-hah-hah, I just giggled when thinking about if O had gone the other direction for lying, given the warned consequences of an overdose (compared to an underdose).
> 
> ...And there was the wonderful revelation about the bothering asymmetry at the very beginning...  time will be needed for this brain to fully digest(/{mull over}/{ruminate on}/{break down}/{incorporate}) the fiction's (Cordyceps's) niceness.

>> **u/MultipartiteMind** [+1]  (16 hours later)
>> 
>> Distinct Flavour finished.
>> 
>> A line I loved:  [spoiler](#s " 'Oh boy! What’s this?! It feels like thinking but it’s people thinking?! It smells like a radical integration cascade!'")
>> 
>> Regarding [spoiler](#s " 'They, at least, have a place in the world. But what would you do with the rest of them?'"):
>> 
>> [spoiler](#s " Children and dog aside, I was disconcerted with how easily the still-disparate minds overall went down the path of fusion, throwing away their identities and giving rise to a new existence.  Perhaps this can largely be blamed on the firestarter, a preference that I didn't follow the reason for, compared to a time-sharing arrangement, everyone pursuing their own disparate thoughts and some activities while sharing one form.  It's consistent with Athena-related elements, but stands starkly in contrast to Archive's self-identity-valuing.  I was a little surprised the scientist was so patriotic (in her preference), compared to Butcher.  At least, I felt as though there were stronger patriotic feelings from Butcher, and I didn't remember them from the scientist.  Even with Option 3 taken, I hope to myself that the new organism will take into consideration imitation of (both or one of) the two people with identities at convenient times (having their apartment already there for sleeping in for one thing...), in order to not get hunted down by a suspicious government as a seemingly-human individual with no identity papers.")

---