[Strategia_In_Ultima]

For all those who wondered what was happening with this story, yes, it was dead for a while. However, recently I resumed writing, and I'll try to pick up the pace on updates again. Eventually, I will also be working on the already existing parts as well, expand them, and hopefully turn them into a book. I hope to have finished the online version before the end of the year, and I hope I can manage to get a good, book-worthy version before summer 2006. When (if) that's done, I'll see what I can do about publishing, and if I manage to do that, you'll be the first to know.



For now, here's the Epilogue to Part Two.



-----EPILOGUE-----

The post-human transcendi, the only survivors of the ancient Human Confederation, were in debate.

“We were wrong to bring her here – she needs to know nothing!” an elder post-human stated.
“If we were to keep her in the dark, what do you think would happen?” another elder asked. “How is she supposed to carry out our plan if she does not know what to do?”
“We have been like this for long enough. The plan has already entered its next to final stage; the sooner we can return to the physical plane the better!” This was the first time since the fall of the Confederation that a junior mingled with the debate of the elders. Most other juniors were shocked, the elders taken aback. The first elder recovered first.
“Exactly. We have been like this for a long time, I agree. That means that we can afford to spend a year or two more like this, no? What's two years on a scale of sixteen billion?”
“Still, remember that whoever was meant to carry out the plan would have needed specific information. We would have been forced to bring her here eventu-” The second elder was cut off by a sneer from the first.
“You've obviously forgotten a little too much of the physical plane, haven't you? We could've sent her a message on one of those crude “electronic” computer panels, she wouldn't even have to know we existed until we-”
“And do you really think she'd follow instruction given to her by a completely unknown person using a random computer console?!? You suggested this woman because of her intelligence and strength of will! She wouldn't follow orders like you apparently expect her to!”
“Then send the instructions directly into her mind. Manipulate her thoughts!”
“She has too much mental strength for that – she'd notice, what's more, she's probably capable of shutting us out too, of fighting us, killing us even! She has more mental strength than a Cargazian supertelepath prophet!”
“There HAS to be SOME way to give her the instructions WITHOUT having to bring her here!”
“No.” The second elder's “voice” was very calm. “There is, unfortunately, no other way in which we can instruct her, manipulate her. She – she is too strong-willed to accept anything but her own judgment, and only here are we strong enough to manipulate that.”
“We could have chosen someone else, someone who is just as intelligent but who is mentally weaker.”
“First, there is no-one – no human anyway – with her intelligence, with her specific intelligence. Second, anyone with less strength of will would shrink away from what he or she would have to do. Third – she is the only one who is capable of accessing the plasma launchers over Kythera, the plasma collection chamber inside these launchers and the biochemical laboratories on the Vespucci station. We need her. We need her here.”

-----END OF EPILOGUE-----