the midnight aesthetic

off the deep end in a different pool

[blackoutlandish]

Epilogue: blackoutlandish

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Nisa Kefni, @blackoutlandish Shina Ayam, Nisa’s wife Tani Nanta, Shina’s husband

Nisa celebrates with everyone else, of course. And then, gradually, life goes on.

She’s sitting at the kitchen table one evening, reading through the process to apply for a swap to Miolee, trying to guess if she has a chance. Her co-spouse sits down next to her, and she leans into his shoulder.

“Miolee?” Tani asks.

“Yeah.”

“You know we both support you, but...” The silence hangs in the air for a moment. “I just don’t think I could handle permaspring.” And Shina has never really become comfortable with red hair, goes unsaid.

Nisa sighs, squeezes his hand. “And they probably have a lot more people trying to get to Miovay than are willing to live in the rainforest.” It’s a transparent rationalization, they both know it, but neither of them wants to say so.

“I’m sorry,” he says, squeezing back.

She closes the browser window, and wonders not for the first time if she’s selfish for considering trying to swap on her own and leave them behind, and if she’s a hypocrite for considering staying.

In 3433, when Nisa is seventeen, they have a baby, and Nisa sets the question aside. There really isn’t any question, when staying with her family means staying with her daughter. (It’s Shina’s egg, but the baby would still be hers even if she hadn’t been the one to carry it. She doesn’t let herself think about how she’d never have been able to have even this much, trying to save for a credit on her own.)

(She doesn’t let herself think about how she’s bringing her daughter into a society where she’ll have a caste.)

By the time her daughter is grown, she finds that she’s put down roots, settled down, settled in to a life where she’s no longer planning to move. She still wishes she could live on Miovay, but it no longer feels like a plan.

When she imagines moving to Miolee, it no longer feels like she would be going home.

She never does go to space, and she never returns to Miolee. She dies in 3456, in Tapa, at home.

[cheerycheeryneverweary]

[@blackoutlandish] Hi! I remember when I was going through the same thing; I've pulled together a couple of sources for you. Hope this helps. -- -- (CW for complete lack of experimental ethics on the last one.)

thank you, those are some very… good primary sources

…what did you do when you decided it was true?

[blackoutlandish]

I’d already had some exposure to red-rights tumblr at that point, so for me it was more a shift of position on questions and arguments I’d already been hearing. I did do some reading (and re-reading), but half the things I can remember reading are linkrotted or out of date by now, so I can only be of limited help there. On the other hand, red-rights has ootched a little closer to mainstream nowadays, thanks to so many countries doing cleaning, and especially now that being decent to reds can make the difference between planets and not, so this kind of thing can be easier to citrus.

My biggest recommendation is to pace yourself. There’s a lot to absorb, but it’s not going to tip the balance of any kind of high-stakes issue if you take a couple weeks or so to come to terms with it. It’s better to take your time so you don’t burn out. Set aside time to sort out your feelings, separately from doing research; and separately from that, set aside time to not think about the issue at all and just decompress.

Yes, it’s bad. But you don’t have to upend your whole life over it, and you’re allowed to take the time you need to stay grounded and sane.

And remember this, too: it’s getting better. Cleaning is a thing now. The end is in sight. The time is coming, within our lifetimes, when no one will ever again have to be red.

[blackoutlandish]

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.

Frank Herbert

[openamenta]

The Beyond is back on time.  View pictures of the neighboring system here.  See an interview with the lead of the prototyping project on the prospects for speeding up warp drive here.  An interview with the test pilot is scheduled for this afternoon and will be streamed here; preliminary reports suggest that she’s elated, experiencing no side effects, and eager to go on another flight as soon as one is planned.

[flavoredmagpie]

Just read this SUPER DUPER CUTE story about astronaut oikawa by @sevenfivetwo !!! ITS ABSOLUTELY ADORABLEEE~~~ Go read ittt!!!! <3 <3 <3

[artistic-arborealist]

Maybe we’ll even find Metet!

[blackoutlandish]

Do you think your country'll stop killing babies if you get a planet?

When we get our first planet, it’ll be a step in the right direction, but we’ll need to secure a steadily expanding supply before we can be free from population controls entirely. Until then, I am confident that we will continue to enforce the law.

More room means we can relax the controls somewhat. But those extra babies should go to law-abiding citizens, not rabbit-brained spawn fiends who lose all self-control when they go into heat.

[blackoutlandish]

Afen Kisantami is not the only genius born into the wrong caste. He’s just the one who managed to get around all the artificial obstacles we put in his way.

How many more Afens are there out there, undiscovered because we never gave them the chance? How many have there been, throughout history, who died without ever reaching their true potential? How much sooner could we have had this, if we had let people do what they’re good at?

[memento-colori]

were you going to swap to miolee, if this hadn't happened?

I was going to stay in Voa because for me, at this point, having seasons and guaranteed children would outweigh not having to dye my hair in Miolee. And being close to my family, of course.

But potential red planet could have seasons and even if they do auctions or something there I would probably definitely be able to have many babies!!

But even if this hadn’t happened and I was staying in Voa, I would want babies who could maybe have red hair and I would want them to know their heritage and be red-and-yellow like me.

[blackoutlandish]

—oh. Maybe I can get into Miolee after all. That'd be nice.

[artistic-arborealist]

Afen Kisantami has given us ~space~!!!

[artistic-arborealist]

~And I am so glad he is green~!

So, this is unarguable ~proof~ that some degree of caste flexibility is the correct policy! Because without it, he could never have reached the stars!

And we ~all would be impoverished by it~!

[imnotcoolenough4you]

[artistic-arborealist]

~What time is it~?

Space time!!!

[there-is-water]

So. Anitam did a thing.

I hope we are alone in the universe. Given how much of it exists that we haven’t explored, I think it’s unlikely. But I hope.

Our ideas of what–who–could be waiting for us among the stars are, I think, too amentancentric. We envision societies that look like ours, but people have black hair or three eyes, or they believe that causing someone’s death makes one polluted.

Who’s to say that alien lifeforms and cultures resemble ours at all? Maybe there are sentient clouds of gas that don’t make pollution because they have no physical bodies, and therefore have no concept of it. Maybe there are aliens that communicate by changing color, and a certain shade of blue hair is considered a terrible insult.

Maybe the aliens have a vastly different idea of what pollution is. Maybe they’ll see us all as being hereditarily polluted and fence us in somewhere because we’ve all been in contact with, say, wheat and wheat byproducts.

We can barely recognize people from other castes as being fully-realized individuals. We barely treat those with non-normative pollution responses as people. How are we going to interact with people from other planets?

[to-new-planets]

TO! NEW! PLANETS!

[askingalright]

I - I know it’s different, my half is grey not blue, and I didn’t have to hide, and I’m - not a genius with worldchanging.

But - any time I hear anyone say it from now on, that we shouldn’t be, I can - we’re here and we’re great and we can do so much if we’re let

[blackoutlandish]

It’s official: the greatest green of our age isn’t even green. If the caste apologists had had their way – if our existing caste laws had been enforced successfully – then we wouldn’t have FTL right now.

If you’re a caste apologist, then you get to just shut up forever, because you tried to prevent us from getting planets.

[lilac-soap]

Space Soap Slices

[openamenta]

On the twelfth, an Anitami ship prototype called the Beyond filed a flight plan well past Amenta’s moons with no documented intent to land on any other planets in our system.  Bypassing Katme, Epafka, and even the dwarf planets, this ship traveled towards nothing in particular - and then vanished.

Anitam refused to comment during the ship’s initial foray on the nature of the test, but when the Beyond disappeared they asserted that this was an intended outcome - a test of an FTL drive developed by Anitami greens.  Anitam has asserted that they expect the ship to return, in six days, with close-up images of neighboring star Mahashikta and its planets.

The key insights associated with the “warp drive”, assuming this or a subsequent test is successful, are on offer from Anitam to countries who “successfully finesse” their red transitions, which was clarified to mean (among other criteria) without deaths of reds.  This applies retroactively, although Cene, not being held responsible for its protectorate Biyan, appears to have already struck a private deal for an early planet when some habitable options are found.  Miolee is also expected to be one of the first recipients after Anitam has found a colony world for itself.

The development of the warp drive is credited to Anitam’s celebrated Afen Kisantami and collaborators.

[tokkeki]

BISUKO EZAKI/江崎びす子