Part 33
The Revolution Will Not Be Televized---
We where going to declare another independence, the dawn of a new nation -- here.
The end of the Patriots' secret rule, the liberation of this country, this was where it was supposed to begin, this is where freedom could have been born."
My brothers and I are called "Les enfants terribles", cloned from our father with the ability to reproduce conveniently engineered out. What is our legacy if we cannot pass the torch?
Proof of our existence, a mark of some sort...When the torch is passed on from parent to child it extends beyond DNA. Information is imparted as well.
All I want is to be remembered, by other people, by history.
The Patriots are trying to protect their power, their own interests, by controlling the digital flow of information. I want my memory, my existence, to remain.
Unlike an intron of history, I will be remembered as an exon."
Raiden gets a Codec call...
We are formless. We are the very discipline and morality that Americans invoke so often. How can anyone hope to eliminate us? As long as this nation exists, so will we."
"Jack, listen carefully like a good boy!"
The mapping of the human genome was completed early this century. As a result, the evolutionary log of the human race lay open to us. We started with genetic engineering, and in the end, we succeeded in digitizing life itself. But there are things not covered by genetic information.
Human memories, ideas, culture, history.
Genes don't contain any record of human history.
Is it something that should not be passed on? Should that information be left at the mercy of nature? We've always kept records of our lives. Through words, pictures, symbols, from tablets to books...
But not all the information was inherited by the later generations. A small percentage of the whole was selected and processed, then passed on. Not unlike genes, really.
That's what history is.
But in the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading. Always accessible.
Rumors aobut petty issues, misinterpretations, slander...
All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing at an alarming rate. It will only slow down social progress, reduce the rate of evolution.
Raiden, you seem to think our plan is one of censorship.
Billions spent on new weapons in order to humanely murder other humans. Rights of criminals are given more respect than those of their victims. Although there are people suffering in poverty, huge donations are made to protect endangered species.
Everyone grows up being told the same thing."
Be nice to other people.
"But beat out the competition!"
You're special. Believe in yourself and you will succeed!
"But it's obvious from the start that only a few can succeed..."
"All this rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested turhts spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and VALVe systems.
Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever 'truth' suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large.
The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right. Not even natural selection can tke place here. The world is being engulged in 'truth'.
And this is how the world ends. Not with a band, but a whimper.
"We're trying to stop that from happening. It's our responsibility as rulers. Just as in genetics, unnecessary information and memory must be filtered out to stimulate the evolution of the species."
That's what it means to create context.
That's the proof of your incompetence right there. You lack the qualifications to exercise free will.
Should someone like that be allowed to decide what is 'truth'? Should someone like you even have the right to decide!
You've done nothing but abuse your freedom. You don't deserve to be free!
We're not the ones smothering the world. You are.
The individual is supposed to be weak. But far from powerless, a single person has the potential to ruin the world. And the age of digitized communication has given even more power to the individual. Too much power for such an immature species. That's why we've decided to be your guardians, if you will.
Building a legacy involves figuring out what is wanted, and what needs to be done for that goal. all this, you used to struggle with. Now, we think for you.
The S3 Plan does not stand for Solid Snake Simulation.
What is does stand for is Selection for Societal Sanity.
I wonder if you would have preferred a fantasy setting?
We chose that backdrop because of its extreme circumstances. It was an optimal test for S3's crisis management capacity. If the model could trigger, control, and solve this, it would be ready for any contingency. And now, we have our proof.
Raiden, there are also reasons behind your selection. Solidus raised plenty of other child soldiers. Do you know why we chose you over them? It was because you were the only one who refused to acknowledge the past. All the others remember what they were, and pay for it daily. Butyou turn your back on everything you don't like. You do whatever you like, see only the things you like, and for yourself alone.
So you see, you're a perfect representative of the masses we need to protect. This is why we chose you.
You accepted the ficiton we've provided, obeyed our orders and did everything you were told to. The exercise is a resounding success.
Your persona, experiences, triumps, and defeats are nothing but by-products. The real objective was ensuring that we could generate and manipulate them. It's taken a lot of time and money, but it was well worth it considering the results.
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