Musing The Seventh

        You must understand, before you take all of this in, just how strange it is for us to share the information we have. For years, decades even, our organization has lived and grown in secret. Exposure was unthinkable during the early years – even recruitment was dangerous enough that we had a 3 year trial period before any new members were given meaningful information.

 

        Eventually, however, our power that grew, in the underground, in the dark, in the muck, in the spaces between the stars, in the Umbra of life itself, our power grew large enough to challenge them.

 

        You know who they are.

        Every place has them.

        Every time.

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        To continue to understand, an education must be imparted. Welcome to a teachable moment.

With a certain amount of sentience comes it's opposite number. The yin-force to counter the yang. If there's one thing the universe appears to be generally drifting towards, it would be the middle ground. Neutrality. The state of non-reaction. Stillness. It would seem a suitable hypothesis, then, that with the great strides humanity has made in the last few hundred years of straining to pull ourselves out of the animal muck that we still wallow in, that an equal and opposite reaction would also be building and taking place.

 

        If we can imagine forces of good and evil not as concepts but as actual physical things, weights suspended from a giant set of scales, the picture becomes clearer. As we add bits and pieces to our side, (reduced childhood mortality, increasing rights for increasing numbers of people, more fight against environmental destruction, thinking for the future not for the present), some cosmic essence of balance occurs where balance is attempted and we see the other side swell like a tick, (the increase of extremism, wealth distribution based on heredity instead of quality, greater and greater power imbalance, the condemnation of effort and the fetishization of laziness, violence - both by and directed towards the most vulnerable in our societies).

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        The question that naturally arises from this: “What's the point?”

Indeed. What is the point in countering the evil in the world if any good you do will be balanced out by some cosmic force attempting to keep the scales in line? If anything it seems that we should strive for absolute mediocrity. No great advancements, no great tragedies, a simple middle ground existence.

This line of thinking doesn't have much to counter it. It is fairly unarguable in the same way that a lifestyle where one has a safe job, doesn't try hard, doesn't have any hobbies, doesn't engage in much social or antisocial behavior, is unarguable. Mediocrity is acceptable.

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        Well, I should more accurately say: mediocrity is acceptable, BUT, had everyone in history lived a mediocre life, you wouldn't even be here today. We would have never even evolved. If our ape ancestors had never escaped the trap of mediocrity, the would never have invented tools. If ancient Chinese scientists had lived mediocre lives we would live in a world without vaccination, where thousands, millions even, would needlessly die every year.

 

        What I'm attempting to say, in my own way which can be be confusing, I grant that, what I'm trying to say is that occasionally the scale can tip so far that it cannot be reset in the same place. The examples I gave are times where the scale tipped so far into the good that the goodness couldn't be balanced out, and was allowed to stand. Do not, however, make the mistake of assuming it only happens with the good. Occasionally the bad gets a foothold and we don't ever get to go back. We currently live in a world with nine separate countries that are presumed to have nuclear weapons – this can never be undone.

 

        To simply sum up the goal of the VFTU Organization, imagine us trying to tip the scale into the good again, so far that our base level of “goodness” is enough that the Voices would consider us peer to them, instead of inferior. From there they would know that our species is deserving of their help, their knowledge, their love.

 

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        So just who are “They”? Who are those that would work against this greater goal? Who would dare stand in the way of such innate goodness?

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        They've gone by many names over the years, I would assume. I haven't been around for all of them, nobody has. We tend to call them the Men In Suits, as that is how they present themselves in this time and place. From what we can tell, the Men In Suits are a ever-continuing collective of humans who value entropy and apathy with a near religious fervor. With stagnation as their goal they spiral humanity in on itself hoping for us to eventually be sucked down into the maelstrom of self-mutilation that so many species must encounter.

 

        The Men In Suits are very much a personification of something I think is far beyond our current understanding. We imagine life in a very three dimensional sense, which quickly becomes incredibly self centered. It is my prediction, based on what the Think Tank has uncovered and unraveled in our short time here, it is my prediction that life exists in many small and tucked away places. In the connections made by all of our increasingly interwoven electrical equipment. In the electricity itself. Within the general conscience and interconnected consciousness of an existing species. Within the great forces that keep the universe locked together in some sort of order.

 

        I believe the Men In Suits exist in some form like that. Something far enough beyond out understanding that we haven't developed the correct words to describe it yet. (Maybe words will never work, maybe it's what comes after words.) Much like our eyes can't take in and fully understand a 6th dimensional image (“image” here being used for lack of a more appropriate word) so to are we incapable of “seeing” the Men In Suits for what they really are – cosmological beings that survive in an area of struggle and strife and replicate themselves by feeding on that which is Good and that which is intended to cause less Suffering.

 

        It makes an odd kind of sense when you think about it for long enough. We know that good actions and intentions have a power behind them. A simple kind word to someone on the street can have a ripple effect of positivity that stretches for hundreds of miles. It naturally follows that somewhere, somehow, there evolved a being that feeds on that power. It's not their fault, really. It's like having ants in your house after you spill something sweet. They're only doing what's natural, but still, you don't want the ants in your house.

 

        What we still aren't sure about is the reasoning behind why these beings present themselves in a physical form. We're not sure if it's a purposeful thing, if it's the only way to get the sustenance they need for some reason, if it's completely unintentional, if they do it to get more out of us, somehow... Theories are like assholes. Everyone's got one and we're all a little too preoccupied with how our own compare to our neighbor's to really see it for what it is.

 

        One thing we do know, however, is that they're essentially human. From the dissections we've done it doesn't seem like there's any functional difference between a member of the Men In Suits and your Average Joe off the street. Well, almost no difference. There is a subtle way of telling them apart. If a member of the Men In Suits is murdered, there will be no consequences for that action. No court will find you guilty, no officers will ever arrest you, no vengeful widow will ever come after you in the night.

       

        Do not be fooled, however, into thinking that the battle will inevitably fall our direction. The simple fact that things seem “headed that way” is not reason enough to have faith without action. As our organization has become more and more brazen over the years, more and more powerful, more and more meaningful, the opposing side has come out of the shadows as well. It used to be a rare time when you'd see a member of the Men In Suits in the flesh. Now it's a weekly, if not daily, occurrence.

       

        I truly believe that humanity can push itself forward into a new plane of caring existence because of the Voices. I find myself comparing those I know and those I meet to the Green Thumb, or the Animalist, or the Homebody, or G.I. Jane, and I feel a greater sense of connection with them. Empathy unlocks greater empathy and the secret is in the Voices.

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         If empathy unlocks empathy, if that equation holds true, maybe it stands to reason that truth unlocks truth as well. And alongside truth is understanding, and friendship, and love. A few years ago none of what you've just read would have been made public. Secrets to valuable to be released. We're still not giving all of it. We hold our technology, deeper strategies, and our list of global operatives, very close indeed. But we're starting to give out the theories, bit by bit. We think the world is ready for them.

 

        We think you're ready for them.

 

        Bear witness against those who seek to blind you, friends.

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        The darkness will fight, but it cannot win.

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