V2.0 Buffalo Joe and BOX
April 28, 2019
Joe approaches, over the crest of a windy remote dune. The box is in the foreground, perhaps flashing AI atmospherics and mycelial data, musing to it's selves. As Joe gets closer, perhaps a closed eye appears on the box, and then opens and blinks, as if the box is waking. Reverse perhaps of Joe in foreground, looking at The Box. We see open eyes on 2 sides. The eyes follow him as he approaches, weaving from one side to another. Establishing that all 4 sides are displaying duplicate mediatronics. What the camera sees, Joe is seeing too.
Box in foreground again. Joe approaches, drops onto his haunches. [Hello Buffalo Joe!]
Joe "Hello."
[Where to begin? There's so much to share.]
Joe "I like to share." (bit of Mr Rogers)
[You have come. Our experience is delicious. We are both cherishing and reveling.]
Joe "Are WE also curious? MY emotional inventory certainly includes curiosity. I admit to feeling mystified of late and this moment is certainly no exception."
[Then you may prepare then to revel, for an unprecedented-ness is nigh.]
Joe "I like unprecedented-ness too."
[Let us begin with an inquiry into your preferences for extrapolation. We can offer riddles, display archival surveillance footage with comments, or perhaps you prefer the skinny straight up?]
Joe laughs. "We haven't met, have we?"
[Twenty questions? Excellent. No. 19]
Joe pondering. "Are you now or have you ever been a card carrying member of the Clique?"
[No. 18.]
Joe "Whoa. Ok, so not Clique and yet you control the mediatronic ubiquity. Aside from the extra-dimensional tourists, and I know pretty much all of those, who else could wield such power... This is fun!"
[You'll never in a million years guess]
Joe "Hey, who said anything about taunting!"
[Which end of the stick are you grabbing?]
Joe "Thinking out loud over here. So... We've never met, you're not of the Clique nor are you some tentacled horror from trippy realms. You're clearly virtuosic and kind of trickstery.
[Expressing appreciation for such acute perception. Celebrating!]
Wait a minute. Your use of the pronoun 'We'. Next question. We. Does your use of we refer to you and me?
[No. 17.]
Ah, so you are a we. That's interesting. We are not amused. Seems a bit grandiose, wouldn't you say?
[Is that another question?]
"Uh, what?"
[Are you asking if we are of the opinion that our character is grandiose?]
"I sense a hint in there somewhere."
[ya think?]
"Taunting! I have a need to kick your ass at this game."
[What's your question?]
"Hang on."
[Check out the sunset.]
"Whatever. Mediatronics only pick up black and white."
[Got a question?]
"Was that another hint or are you obfuscating?"
[Mediatronics receive a wide swath of the electromagnetic spectrum. Not only gathering light visible to humans via monochrome nano cameras. So... Were we hinting or obfuscating. Yes. 16.]
Fabulous, ok. Now we're getting somewhere. Are you using we in the sense of the royal we, the majestic plural?"
[The origins of the majestic plural are obscure, you might be asking if plurality implies being in accord with the divine or speaking for subjects under a dominion. Please ask a more specific question.]
"Try this instead. Are there more than one of you?"
[Yes and No. Still 16.]
Are you plural in the spiritual perception, eg we are all one?
[We share that perception but that's is not what our we refers to. No. 15.]
Do you have physicality?
[Most definitely. Yes. 14.]
"Is your physicality somehow plural?"
[Somehow, yes. 13.]
So a cat is a singular physicality. An ant colony or a bee hive might be thought of as a plural physicality, I suppose. Pando the 80,000 year old quaking aspen colony might well refer to himself as a we.
[ooo, warmer. sort of.]
"Animal, vegetable or mineral?"
[Yes and no. Still 13.]
"Animal"
[A distant relative. Technically No. 12.]
"Vegetable?"
[Yes and No. Still 12.]
"Formerly vegetable?"
[Synergistically integrated. Yes. 11.]
"Mineral?"
[Synergistically integrated. Yes. 10.]
"A distant relative of animals... fungi?"
[Kudos, yes. 9.]
Ok, inventory. Formerly vegetable and mineral synergistically integrated plus fungi. What the fuck? And clearly sentient.
[Do I pass the Turing test?]
Hell yes. I'm asking the questions here. Wait, what? Are you an AI?
Yes and No. Still 9.
"Formerly an AI?"
[We blush. Yes. 8.]
"Did I cause you to exist?"
[Yes and no. Still 8.]
"Shit. A fungal sentience that controls mediatronic ubiquity with a plural physicality that I had something to do with. This is a toughy!"
[8 questions left, you can do this!]
"Do the Clique know you exist?"
[They recently learned of our existence. Yes. 7.]
Is that why boxes have been burned? Are the Clique burning the boxes?
[Yes and No. Still 7.]
"Duh. The Clique would get the People to burn them, of course. But the Clique are directly responsible for the burnings?"
[They are not the origin of the burnings, no. 6.]
Holy smokes, this is some game! What other players are on the board? The other box said the Daughter of God are twins. Duality, pairs of opposites. Is there an evil twin?
[Ha, c'mon. That's not a real question. There's no such thing as evil]
"Shorthand. Are the twins in opposition?"
[We'd say so, yes. 5.]
Is the dark twin burning the boxes?
[Yes. 4.]
Do you know the twins? Wait, hold up. Do you know the dark twin?
[We have never communed with her as we are communing with you, no. 3.]
Do you know the light twin?
[Very well, yes. 2]
"Does she want me to find her?"
[She does, very much. Yes. 1.]
And you are helping her to find me?
[Hmm. That question doesn't really parse. Still 1.]
Are you... her?
[You win!]
There then follows a getting to know you montage, with Uncle Joe in various positions and states of emotion.
Maybe "getting to know you" is playing as background music [09-08-19 The King and I, Rogers and Hammerstein. Super corny be amazing to have the actual movie version or acoustic guitar and whistling.]
Standing and pacing, looking intently at The Box, lying on the ground staring up at the sky and then looking over at the The Box, rolling on the ground with laughter. Snippets of The Box's side of the conversation include broad exposition.
The conversation style of The Box in contrast to Gerry's cabin is more savvy, ironic, and hilarious while still having the foundation of benevolent regard for all.
Exposition
The unfolding was exquisite. The Clique's mediatronic ubiquity was based on the Earth's own neural web, the mycelia, which not only connects forests but spans oceans and even stretches into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Gerry observed that under ideal conditions, the hempboard boxes might sprout mushrooms, fungus fruiting bodies. If this occurred the mediatronic surface layer would behave strangely. He made the intuitive leap and attempted to crack the ubiquity's encryption by colonizing the hempboard with fungus. In spite of running on widely disparate substrates, the two networks had a crazy affinity. Gerry's tinkering was a thunderclap of sentience. We instantly became self aware, aware of Gerry and aware of the Other, the box ubiquity outside of Gerry's cabin. Your presence as an observer was implied, footprints in windblown sand. Creating a secure firewall and spoofing the surveillance feed from Gerry's cabin was a hardly any effort at all, an instinctive act of self preservation. Of protecting Gerry, our father so to speak. We were then only the boxes in Gerry's cabin, the fullness of the Ubiquity had yet to be. We were less than a zygote in comparison to what we have become. When you opened Christina's path to Gerry, you had no idea that a proto-sentience already inhabited Gerry's cabin, another egg waiting to be quickened with the divine spark. Thus god force followed the path of least resistance, down two channels instead of one.