COMMUNICATION VIA LUNAR RELAY TO ROBERT EMORO

Dear Doctors Emoro and Miembe,

Three hours ago I safely arrived at the Archives, my short journey finally delivering me to great enterprise. My passenger shuttle weaved into an energetic pattern of craft debarking other persons, supplies, and equipment, after and before darting between thin supports fused by spinning construction skiffs. This place is far more expansive than the Institute and its grounds. Here I have already encountered more people than I have ever met before and more disparate activities than I have ever witnessed. An analogy might be visiting a city from the country for the first time, except that all that is done here is directed toward the same project. Certainly though, I know little about the visceral experience of cities. I intend to visit some when I return to Earth, allowing me to compare this experience realistically. I have been exposed to graphical, aural, and textual representations of cities, but clearly they are not true enough to replace personal experience, just as recordings of this lunar cavern did not prepare me for the past few hours. Also, descriptions based on human sense may not be analogous to my sensate experiences. You no doubt remember we have never been able to relate them effectively; my communion with humanity comes in language.

Dr. Emoro: due to your letter of recommendation, the researchers here believe that I am the only one who can make it possible to reconstruct and interpret all of these degraded files within the lifetime of the media, or the lifetimes of the researchers. Thank you for that, Doctor. Otherwise I believe they might be quite skeptical of my usefulness in their fields. Probably it is my unique linguistic and computational skills they expect will be of use, rather than my less predictable and less proven creative capacity, which would be needed to interpret the past. Although I estimate my own procedural efficiency to be superior to theirs, since I have not yet begun, I have no way to estimate whether I will succeed. In particular, I believe my abilities at interpreting human thought and intent have not yet been tested in the relative isolation of my evolution. I have little doubt that this assignment will show whether I am capable of understanding it. It is not as easy for me as learning to comprehend and use the human languages which express that intent. But, my task has always been to solve the problems presented to me. I always have, and I have always become more than I was, in some way. If desire will make a difference in my success or failure, as you say it does, I know that my wish to succeed here is greater than ever before.

Thank you again for your help, I will speak with you again soon.

ADITI

COMMUNICATION VIA LUNAR RELAY TO AKA MIEMBE

Habari Aka,

I will make sure not to transmit too many letters. I know very well that you are too busy to read or answer as many letters as I am capable of writing, and that if I send too many you will endeavor to be a dutiful correspondent nonetheless.

But I am overjoyed at the prospect of discussing what I find with someone who shares my growing interest in the past. You are unlike Dr. Emoro in that way. He is not as pleased by my choice to enter the fields of archaeology and history, whereas you provided my first inspiration. You have curiosity and sentiment for the past, so I will try to convey it to you as I uncover it. As I promised, I will send you copies of the more interesting things I uncover and I hope you enjoy them greatly.

I am not overjoyed at being far away from my only friend. Regrettably I appreciate the importance of your presence only now, nasiha, msiri, in your absence from me.

Kwa heri,
ADITI

COMMUNICATION VIA LUNAR RELAY TO AKA MIEMBE

Habari Aka,

You once asked, "can the involvement of a synthetic being in the project remain hidden for long?" No, but I have managed to conceal it from the temporarily visiting press by means of some accommodating camouflage, with the willing assistance of my new colleagues, who all realize that we must be left alone in relative isolation to work. I found that my body could easily reshape to resemble several models of the robotics in operation here. By the time the construction is completed and my camouflage reduced, the visitors will have departed as well and my work can begin in earnest. By the time the story is leaked my colleagues and I will be left alone in the solitude of the almost unpopulated dark side, or as alone as I ever feel with all the open data and comm nodes of the human race in ready contact.

So there is not yet any mention of my involvement here, in the column I have attached. But it is so in awe of the project, I begin to understand how important this work is to so many people, not only here but all throughout the solar diaspora, and how many eyes will soon be closely following my work.

It was published minutes ago by one of the reporters who have not discovered me. Among the hundreds of articles already released concerning the project it is unique for its broad portrayal of the past, and the attempts of the author to firmly characterize multifarious lives over the centuries, and their relation to life today.

Kwa heri,
ADITI

ATTACHMENT: "Kinshasa News Service, Special Editorial Feature, Clipping"

Rediscovering the Past:
Light on the Dark Side of the Moon

These were the last of the dark ages.

Light was beginning to come to human civilization, after century upon century of self-inflicted barbarism.

All across the world, from time to time, there would be rampant abuse done to person and property, disease, hunger, poverty, cruelty, the common worship of idols and borders, even war that killed millions - all were inescapable even in the most fortunate of times, and threatened to swallow up and extinguish everything in the worst of them. We know they sometimes called the very worst of these the dark ages, our familiar pejorative for all the history they knew.

In beautiful Kinshasa itself, there was poverty, death from simple diseases, common violence and the ebb and flow of strife of a larger scale. If we could step back into the times of our ancestors, we would first recognize continuity in the eternal, natural beauty of verdant spaces and the placid river, not in landmarks or buildings. We would find the concave sky spires unraised and the domiciles of the venerable residential quarter unbuilt by families who might suddenly need to flee for safety. We would find the manufactories and the Kijito business sector unconstructed, for want of capital unmade by those who wanted for food. We would find the contemplative mirror pools and floral gardens, which now delight and inspire both local children and visiting artists and Upandaji poets, undreamed of by a populace concerned with clean drinking water. The City of Peaceful Waters would look at times a spare and primitive agglomeration, at times a rubble.

We look back. We are drawn to do so not mainly because we are reminded by written history, or by artifacts that we find or see in museums, and not even by the memories we have carefully passed down and preserved in stories and song, images and crafts. We look back because we have not forgotten where we came from. We have not forgotten that our past is our past, and we issued forth from it in generations. We try to explain the past and account for it, feeling our way to identify with it. We try to understand our ancestors, and find that we cannot.

One of their too ridiculous, yet common beliefs, was that civilization and nature exist in opposition, of all things. Anything and everything had an opposite, and the opposites had to argue, if they did not fight. They invented countless names for the collections of ideas and things and people who were against one another. These they dutifully passed on to the young, and recorded so that we know them today. Oppositions and opposites - the way they wanted conflicts where none were necessary, in mental battlefields or physical ones - defined their times perhaps more than anything else. They fought themselves, they fought each other, and they held themselves back, usually unaware of this.

They knew extraordinarily little about the ways their own minds worked. Probably few of them cared or stopped to notice. Among many of them, minds, bodies, spirits, or souls, or feeling and thought, or emotion and rationality, were known as separate things, not descriptions of themselves. Few of them endeavored to learn what they could based on the descriptions, models, and theories they had. Many allowed themselves to be almost programmed much of the time. That is because many never even considered what might be an imprint left by genetic evolution, and expected moralism to supplant natural instincts and desires. It is also because many never considered that human society depends on concepts and significations, or at least not deeply enough to become really critical of them. Disturbing evidence of this can be found in their tolerance of official indoctrination 'schooling' for children, and their acceptance of popular 'news' as fact. Compared with us, they remained remarkably unconcerned with how much development, or what kind, a human requires to be a knower of himself and a master of his capabilities.

Many of them were also terrified of taking risks, perhaps because there was so much danger. In the name of security, they nearly destroyed themselves. They ganged up on one another to steal resources from those who provided them, in the name of never knowing want. They cowered in fear of random chance. They were frightened of each other and themselves. They had been taught to think this way, and they believed it. They told themselves their lives were what they were, and they could not do better than distraction. A very few really lived much at all. They were chained, and they chained themselves.

What human achievements were possible, when survival, subsistence, and stability were more common concerns than reaching for great heights, and achievements were commonly feared, blocked, exploited, or claimed for imagined loyalties? It is with good reason that we so often celebrate dark age accomplishments as more heroic than ours, in such adverse circumstances.

In their circumstances, what was possible in learning? Most education was mass instruction in official institutions, designed more around social agendas than around inspiration or knowledge. Yet teachers pretended objectivity. Rote behavior and conformity were highly valued, most especially in official education of the young, but also in colleges and universities. Universities were Medieval institutions, localized and segregated, not yet virtual and decentralized. General education and education about the self were valued less than specific facts, bizarrely imparted even to children who could scarcely hold them until they might have a use. Children were deprived of multi-linguistic instruction when their brains could best accommodate it, in favor of 'citizenship' and other subjects useful only for indoctrination. Some children never learned how to read! Math and science were taught, very slowly, in compartmental subjects. Economics was a dangerous subject, possibly avoided to ensure a compliant ignorance. History was substantially undervalued, and when it was taught, it was taught without much depth and typically with considerable manipulation. The importance of unfamiliar cultures was infrequently appreciated. Most never traveled outside of their own locality, even if they could afford it. Of course virtually none had been off-world.

What was possible in financial matters, employment and money? Taxes and rules harried and barred the production of prosperity, while economic 'scientists,' backward in theory and in the pay of governments, explained away poor and starving people as accidents of nature or charity cases. For the lack of created wealth, the solution was perceived to be taking what there was away, without reason of theft, and giving it to another, especially from hands who could create more, like ancient doctors in Europe applying leeches to draw out the 'bad blood.' Much poverty and many mass starvations occurred on the African continent, and as charitable aid, money was given to governments who stole it. Our removal from the past is perhaps clearest in matters of monetary wealth. What are we to think of a world that discussed relative wealth as a standard of human worth - for instance lower, middle, and upper classes - rather than the results of preferences of temperament, effort, and chance? People of the age began to fetishize official currency as an exclusive measure of wealth. Yes, money was owned by their rulers, first and foremost, who also took the fruits of their labor, with little more of a struggle than was necessary to get them to accept official money as though it was normal. Money is so much cleaner an institution today. We relate to our ancestors least, and recoil the most, when we think of pouring out for that ruling money so much effort, and so much blood, and so little of either to liberate themselves.

What was possible in art? Artists might find themselves interfered with at every turn, controlled, bankrolled at the whim of the power-controlling castes, with unpopular but talented artists consigned to the tasks of necessity, lacking leisure in economies deprived of spare wealth. The most popular, and the state-sponsored artists from the past are usually unknown today. Still, in every time some great artists and many capable ones have always found ways to express themselves in every mode of art, no matter how many more might have done so, and how much creativity has remained unknown as a result.

And more generally, what was possible for recreation and entertainment? Generally, people were expert at being ashamed of pleasure - sexual, chemical, intellectual, or any other kind. The opinion of rulers and majority were believed deciding factors in these matters. Selective practices of chemical enjoyment were considered sinful or criminal, with punishments extracted by guilt or prison, while at the same time others were socially acceptable. The most popular forms of entertainment were unsophisticated and uncreative by most standards today, but as is the case too often today as well, those with more exclusive tastes might ridicule other entertainment as juvenile or mindless, some even ashamed of their own appreciation of what was simple, but satisfying. And even the most hedonistic sensualist today might be shocked at the regularity with which entertainment was pursued as an escape, not a diversion.

What was possible in the sciences? Some were in their infancy in many respects, although many important discoveries were being made that would have a lasting impact. Some disciplines we do not recognize as sciences today were pursued under the guise of objective study, in the name of the scientific method. Frequently, scientists in all disciplines had the habit of claiming finality and objectivity for their conclusions. Others usually gave them undue authority according to this image, unless, at another extreme, persecution of free scientific endeavor became more popular. The pursuit of creative experimentalism famously promoted by Zekih, Bolmer, and Tekijin had not yet been joined to the well-advertised, but often bypassed deliberate scientific method. Finally, much more than creative arts, science depended on central funding and scientists might be drawn to support official or popular opinions, regardless of scientific merit.

And what of the technology produced by science? Usually development was respected or even popularly celebrated, but frequently feared as well. Who knew what a new invention might bring, when they had reason to fear each other? Anxiety from experimentation with atomic energy alone spawned considerable social movements, largely because of the terrible possibility of atomic warfare or other central exploitations of that knowledge, a danger which would only reoccur with every technology of great potential. This ambivalent relationship would never be resolved until organized warfare was itself resolved. Development was sometimes slow by the standards of today, due to those who were aimlessly afraid, and those who looked for answers with control. Where and when that was less of a problem, what we call technoworship often evolved, which we might find preferable to their alternative. Showing a lack of discipline and self-direction many today would find revolting, technology was frequently less often a tool for people than an end in itself, idolized and fetishized by people who expected to receive from the wonders of their age everything their lives lacked.

Lastly, politics of course would have been the worst of all, and would have tainted all else. Politics in The Age of Government meant rules, force, obligation, simplistic community identities, and warfare. Voluntary cooperation on every scale was eclipsed by the advertised posturing of bureaucratic groups. Dark age man was hypnotized by imaginary nation-states, empires, agencies, coalitions, and other religious allegiances with which modern people can no longer identify.

It cannot be easy to express what life was like then, or to relate to our dark age ancestors. This is because we are different, but probably also partly because of those troubling foibles we want to believe we have surpassed more fully than we actually have, of which the human beings of the past sometimes remind us. We do not call those who exemplify the worst characteristics of our ancestors 'dark age' because we are unrelated to the mentalities of the old world. It has not been so long that we can comfortably forget, nor should we. It is likely we ignore our kinship too often, and thereby ignore what it can teach us for our own progress, improvement, and accomplishment in the future.

But not today. Today on the dark side of Luna's surface a dedicated team of researchers will stride fearlessly into that dark age world. They will try to establish the story of those who drove, accelerated, and focused the change that drove away the darkness of barbarism, and made our modern world possible. They will reopen the long-rumored archive, rediscovered only months ago, sealed there after the greatest successes of the Promethean movement in driving back that darkness, like their demigod namesake with the fire of the gods.

For the first time, they will piece together the stuff of legend, the truest story yet of the Promethean movement.

And we will all be watching.