#INTERLUDE27
#xs 500
#caption Epilogue
^ Now that you are part of the vast matrix of the Planetmind, you spend your time
wandering from thought nexus to thought nexus, despairing that $ALIENLEADER5 merged
with the Planetmind and became its dominant personality.
^ You just can't let it go.
^ Everywhere you move, the Usurper's dominant personality has imprinted itself.
Everywhere you look, there are human souls adrift, trapped in a master personality
that is completely alien to all of you.
^ This is the cost of losing. Not death, but an eternity living in someone else's
dream, constantly assaulted by sounds and images that are not your own.
^ You catch a thread of thought, a tiny sliver of energy in the vast new
Planetmind. The thought is small but fills you with longing...Earth. It is a thought
of Earth, the old Earth left behind, with its green forests and blue oceans regenerating
after Armageddon.
^ You quickly realize that $ALIENLEADER5 is reaching out to nearby planets, trying to
expand its domain. It is sending some of the Usurper sub-personalities from the matrix
to Earth, to colonize it.
^ There is only a moment to decide, and a moment is all it takes. You piggyback on a
particularly dense alien personality, riding it silently into the mind of the colony
ship. You feel the ship closing down, the personalities settling into synthetic bodies
for the journey. You remain in the dark, shrouding yourself in silence, squeezing into
the farthest corner of one body's thought matrix.
^ If the alien intelligence detects you, you will be sentenced to a far worse fate
than wandering the Undermind, but it doesn't matter. Here is a second chance, and a
possible redemption.
^ A return home.
#xs 500
#caption Epilogue
^ Now that you are part of the vast matrix of the Planetmind, you spend your time
wandering from thought nexus to thought nexus, despairing that $ALIENLEADER5 merged
with the Planetmind and became its dominant personality.
^ You just can't let it go.
^ Everywhere you move, the Usurper's dominant personality has imprinted itself.
Everywhere you look, there are human souls adrift, trapped in a master personality
that is completely alien to all of you.
^ This is the cost of losing. Not death, but an eternity living in someone else's
dream, constantly assaulted by sounds and images that are not your own.
^ You catch a thread of thought, a tiny sliver of energy in the vast new
Planetmind. The thought is small but fills you with longing...Earth. It is a thought
of Earth, the old Earth left behind, with its green forests and blue oceans regenerating
after Armageddon.
^ You quickly realize that $ALIENLEADER5 is reaching out to nearby planets, trying to
expand its domain. It is sending some of the Usurper sub-personalities from the matrix
to Earth, to colonize it.
^ There is only a moment to decide, and a moment is all it takes. You piggyback on a
particularly dense alien personality, riding it silently into the mind of the colony
ship. You feel the ship closing down, the personalities settling into synthetic bodies
for the journey. You remain in the dark, shrouding yourself in silence, squeezing into
the farthest corner of one body's thought matrix.
^ If the alien intelligence detects you, you will be sentenced to a far worse fate
than wandering the Undermind, but it doesn't matter. Here is a second chance, and a
possible redemption.
^ A return home.
Comment