Microstory 718: Burn the Book of Ivanka

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A rather recent taikon called for the retirement of the Book of Light. This involved three stages of ceremony meant to establish a deep reverence for its words, allowing us to move forward, while remembering the past for what it is. Upon discovering the Ring of Culture, and beginning to learn its secrets, we now understand the lies Sotiren Zahir and Eido Ivanka told us. We have placed both the latter, and the resurrection of the former in exile on a private jarl world that was long ago abandoned. We still don’t know what we’re going to do with them, though Highlightseers and galaxy leaders are weighing our options. Their exact location remains unknown to most, for their safety, and for everyone else’s. Unlike the retirement of a divine book, the taikon calls simply for the Book of Ivanka to be burned. Now that we know how terrible of a person Ivanka is, and always was, we realize we cannot do what we did with the Book of Light. A retirement still allows those words to be read and taught. This we cannot allow when it comes to the Book of Ivanka, which was written out of hate, and a thirst for power. We need something permanent...irreversible. One suggestion was to round up every hard copy of the book, and destroy it, while ordering all who own the book to delete it from their virtual readers. This would be impractical, of course, and we could never really know whether every copy was gone. Others suggested we disseminate a virus to destroy the virtual copies, but that still doesn’t account for the hard copies, nor would it work for any device removed from the data network. No, the only way to do this would be to use powerful technology we’ve never been able to control before. For the last eight years, scientists have been studying quantum phenomena, like the quantum darkness, and the Forces of Virtue, of which there is still one left. An elite team of researchers believe that they have come up with a satisfying solution. We will spread a virus across the galaxy to destroy Ivanka’s words. But unlike a computer virus, it will be able to reach every single copy—in any form—whether connected to the network or not. Hard copies will even dissolve until the pages are illegible. Hard copies will even dissolve until the pages are illegible. Virtual formats will be corrupted, and completely unsalvageable. The time of the eidos is done. We are moving on to greater, and more rewarding, things, in a universe of equality and community.