a vaster wheel

[scatteredstars]

Firewall has been somewhat preoccupied with meletiti_entelecheiai and alethics recently, but there is a matter pending that they need to see to, especially now that an agreement on it has been reached.

The day before Lioncourt's party, a message is sent from Tyche's account to Leaf. It contains an audio file, consisting on a warm female voice saying:

"I am speaking to you on behalf of Firewall. You have had previous contact with one of our sentinels under the alias of 'Thorn', who, like many people affiliated with our organization, is rather paranoid. You are likely to have observed her statements of the reasons for this; the exsurgent virus is an omnipresent threat in our world.

"We have received information regarding your proposed organization, and wish to express interest. We are, for hopefully obvious reasons, opposed to world-destroying threats. We would be willing to ally ourselves with your organization provided you uphold your mission statement and adhere to reasonable standards of risk-management and ethical behaviour.

"We apologize for the delay in responding to this development; we have been somewhat occupied with intra-worldly and other multiversal matters."

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles receives the message, listens, and writes a response immediately.

The World-Tree Coalition welcomes your interest, of course, caution and all. Caution is a valuable quality in an ally.

I like to think that my standards of risk management are very reasonable. I haven't heard substantial disagreement about them from anyone other than my kidnappers, which seems like a good sign. As for my ethics, I'm sure my kidnappers disagree with those too.

[scatteredstars]

The reply takes a little while, as though it is being discussed on the other end, and arrives still in audio format.

"Caution has a great deal of value, though it also has its own disadvantages.

"We do not necessarily have very high standards, in some ways, but what we have tends to be fairly absolute. There must not be another Fall has been our motto for over a decade, and it does show.

"What did your kidnappers disagree with?"

[thisvorlunatic]

My kidnappers believed that kidnapping and mindwiping anyone known or suspected to possess the ability to travel between worlds would be possible, ethical, and safe, and that it was therefore the right way to keep the multiverse safe from miscellaneous threats. I disagree on all counts, and I managed to talk them around.

Personally, as you might have guessed from my forum thread, I favour a strong network of alliances as a means of dealing with interdimensional trouble. It just doesn't seem practical to do it any other way. The multiverse is a very big place; no one world can hope to control it all. But by cooperating with one another, we can work with the size of the multiverse instead of against it - increase the chances that when a problem comes up, some combination of existing coalition members will be able to deal with it.

[scatteredstars]

"Given the forum's existence, we are inclined to agree about its impossibility, and as for its safety -- individuals capable of inter-universal travel are unlikely to be safe. Had one of our agents acquired it and been kidnapped, it likely would have ended less peacefully than your encounter. And even if your kidnappers had won that, they would likely have also had to delete any backups made since the acquisition of that magic, to be successful in their goal.

"It is also, of course, unethical, yes.

"We agree regarding the practicality of alliances; we have pursed something of a related strategy in our own world, on the organizational, in the rare cases that they can be convinced to cooperate, and the individual scales. The more people, with different skillsets and contacts and inclinations, you have working on a problem, the more likely you are to succeed.

"We do, however, frequently have to balance that with security concerns. There are several powerful organizations in our world that could easily fall to exsurgent infection, to say nothing of the TITANs. And others who are actively hostile to us even without."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles detects a hint of suppressed laughter in that first bit. He snickers to himself. But by the end of the message he's serious again.

Yeah, the SCP Foundation made a lucky choice of first kidnap victim. I'm just glad I managed to talk some sense into them before they started a war with a local interplanetary empire. (Most people in my world do not come with backups, although the set of exceptions is expanding as we gain access to more and more magic. It is still a bad idea to kidnap us.)

This exsurgent thing sounds extremely nasty. How worried should I and the coalition be about it spreading to other worlds?

[scatteredstars]

Elsewhere, there is a flurry of messages regarding Nexus' lack of backups.

"Wars tend to be extremely counterproductive for most purposes.

Um, I will admit, your lack of backups is surprising and concerning. It is good that you have a magical workaround for that problem.

The exsurgent virus. Yes. You... may want to ask meletiti entelecheiai about its potential for turning up in other worlds from its origin.

As for it spreading from Eclipse itself, we have been taking precautions against that. Esthfora may be able to prevent the transmission of pattern hacks and digital viruses across the forum, though we are not inclined to depend upon that. Any physical travel to and from Eclipse will be done from clean rooms designed for that purpose, and only by people who can be determined free of the virus.

We have recently gained the capability to alethically ward individuals against infection by the exsurgent virus, if you or any members of your organization would be interested in that."

[thisvorlunatic]

If you believe you can safely transmit information about the technology you use to make backups in your world, I'd be interested to hear more about it.

Esthfora's protection has been tested a few times now and seems to be extremely robust, but of course I appreciate further precautions. I'll see who's interested in being warded.

[scatteredstars]

The next message has a large file attached.

"However robust Esthfora's protection may be, it would likely be inapplicable against nanovirus and nanoplague modalities of the exsurgent virus.

According to our most robust exsurgent detection mechanisms, and alethic testing, these files do not contain the exsurgent virus. Please do take precautions when opening them, however."

[thisvorlunatic]

Well, thank you for those charming and delightful mental images. I'm sure I will sleep well tonight.

Thanks for the files. We will proceed with all caution when looking at them.

[scatteredstars]

"Our apologies. We hope the files are useful."