Lydia is grudgingly grateful to Roman for allowing her to return to Fitz with something. The document is a pitch for a book, The Blanking of the Slate: The Erasure of Human Culture in the Era of the Logi and How We Can Stop It by Jonas Sheppard. It includes the entire manuscript, which the data says is 633 pages long: Lydia has no reason to doubt this, as the style is that of someone who did not find it a chore to write 633 pages on the subject of the pernicious influence of the Logi on human culture, but was less keen on editing it afterwards. It also doesn’t appear to have been read back at all—it’s filled with repetition and incomplete sentences, and may even have been transcribed from speech. However hastily it was written, it was apparently researched in even less time, as its factual basis ranges from shaky to nonexistent.
Lydia’s surprised Roman read past the first paragraph of this junk, but he said there can be a good market for extended polemics on “buzzy topics,” and publishers have cleanup ayaies that can smooth out the prose considerably before an actual editor works on it. But he rejected this one as unsuitable, going beyond a “reasonable level” of paranoia. Unsurprisingly, given the focus on culture, Fitz is mentioned numerous times.
Have you heard of this guy? Lydia asks Fitz.
No. But then, I don’t keep abreast of such things.
Neither would I, in your shoes.
Sheppard is easy enough to find online. He has a very active feed and most of the content in his book has already been put on it in one form or another.
@OneStopShep / NEW: How the Western was forced to change after First Contact / TR65
@OneStopShep / NEW: Settling for a virtual world while our real one is stripped by the Logi? What’s really behind contemporary gaming and social trends? / TR58
@OneStopShep / NEW: Four-hour conversation with leading Preservationist Daniel Bryant including some exciting VIPER discoveries! / TR59
There are images of Sheppard: he’s twenty-nine and clearly uses the kind of filters that balance out a sallow complexion. He does appear to be a real person though; he’s got verification seals and when Lydia runs his account through Fleshpoint it gives him a score of 89 percent, indicating “very likely to be real.” His bio says he lives in Utah, and who’d lie about that? In terms of the murder though, it’d be difficult for someone to cross so many state lines without being noticed, and with a profile like his, police ayaies would make the connection immediately and flag him. In any case he seems quite content to rant from Utah.
I’m interested to see what he said about me, says Fitz. Could you translate?
What, the whole thing?
Good grief, no. Just the parts about me.
Lydia sings a snatch of “You’re So Vain” to him in her head, and even as she’s doing it she realizes there’s no chance of him understanding this reference—it doesn’t even scan when translated into Logisi. But he responds with a ripple of amusement. He’s always surprising her with the bits of Earth culture he knows. It’s unlikely anyone else in existence had the kind of knowledge he had, or his particular perspective on it, and she feels depressed by the thought it’s been snuffed out.
Lydia searches the manuscript for Fitz’s name, as well as references to cultural attachés in general, and translates for him. She finds the process soothing. Right now she doesn’t have to think for herself or make daunting decisions, she just has to choose the most appropriate words to express another person’s sentiments, at her own pace. In this case the sentiments are incoherent and unpleasant, but you can’t have everything.
Fitz is just one player in the book’s central conspiracy theory—a Mandela Effect type thing about how the Logi have literally erased bits of human culture, that there’s stuff people remember from years ago that nobody can find any trace of now. No references online. Look for an old file or hardcopy, it’ll have gone missing. All that’s left are fragments—a reference in an old newspaper, a hardcopy visible in the background of an old photo—and memories. Sheppard asserts that this is Fitz’s true purpose on Earth, to identify such texts and recommend them for removal—otherwise why put such extensive resources at the disposal of the “cultural exchange” program? (Sheppard always puts “cultural exchange” in inverted commas and italics.)
Whole chapters are taken up with descriptions of texts Sheppard claims have been lost, which he solemnly refers to as an act of preservation. If Lydia didn’t know better she’d say this was just someone’s collection of ideas for books and movies and TV shows which they hadn’t fully worked through: sketchy premises and plots with a few memorable moments noted. The longest of these chapters deals with a children’s animated series called Epic Viper Squad! which he claims ran for two seasons, was Canadian in origin and which he can find no trace of now, apart from chats where people try to find other people who remember it. It’s about a crack special ops team who can transform into giant snakes and travel through time and space via wormholes. Most sources agree one of the team was called Ariadne and they fought an evil organization called G.O.O.N.Z. The chapter includes a crowdsourced episode guide for the show which goes on for forty pages, as well as a sound file of the author’s (presumably) best attempt at playing the theme tune.
It’s not clear to Lydia why the Logi might want to erase this cartoon, or indeed any of the other texts mentioned in the book, from existence—but Sheppard devotes another chapter to extensive speculation on the topic, trying to find connections between this seemingly random collection of material.
You don’t need to read this part, says Fitz.
Because it’s not about you? Lydia replies.
Well, yes.
I can see why Roman didn’t just dismiss it out of hand. It’s oddly fascinating.
You think?
I’m not believing any of it, don’t worry—it’s just so detailed. If it was fiction it’d be … well, not good, but sort of impressive.
Are there any more references to me?
Lydia checks her search. Some in chapter seventeen apparently. She’s been translating for a couple of hours and her ability to focus on the screen is deteriorating and she’s getting to the point where she won’t even remember this stuff tomorrow. She jumps to chapter seventeen, the final chapter (apart from the appendices, which total about a hundred pages on their own), which discusses a belief among some groups that the Logi aren’t as incapable of dealing with digital technology as they like to make out, and the reason for this is they’re covertly manipulating us, including by the erasure of the aforementioned texts. Lydia finds this theory hard to take seriously, having spent several months dealing with the day-to-day needs of someone who couldn’t use translation software and struggled with computers. It slowed so many things down and rendered him unable to communicate every time she clocked off. If it was an act, it had better be worth the hassle. Would they go through all that just so they could covertly erase (nearly) all traces of a cartoon from the internet?
Lydia keeps relating the content of the chapter to Fitz, but she’s not really taking it in at this point—she’s about to tell Fitz she needs to stop and rest when he says—
Read that part again.
What part?
The quoted part.
Lydia looks back up the page. There’s a substantial block quote. She starts again from the top:
What’s really notable about the Logi’s refusal to engage with us in our own language and media is how they’ve forced us to communicate on their terms. Our dire economic need to forge a productive relationship with another species has made us accept them and their demands. This gives them a lot more control over how they’re seen, meanwhile forcing us to put all the effort into communication, such as our network of translators. While human beings long ago lost control over how we’re seen by one another—images of us and recordings of our words are easily captured, manipulated and circulated freely, and we can have no idea who has seen them, heard them, read them—the Logi avoid this process. Only if they elect to have their words relayed by a servant do those words reach the public sphere, so they never get caught out making idle chatter. Their words are not recorded in their original form. Translators are trained in diplomatic language and sentiment, and warn their masters if their words are likely to provoke a negative reaction: if all else fails, they can simply claim a translation error.
Above all the Logi operate in our world at their own speed, which is how they avoid making mistakes. The rest of us are helplessly caught up in the hellish pace of contemporary life, but the Logi are able to stand back from it and observe us. We can’t underestimate the advantage this gives them.
Now Lydia looks at it, that bit is noticeably better written than the rest.
Who said that? asks Fitz.
The referencing system is a mess and it takes Lydia a moment to locate it in the endnotes: Professor Marcia Booth.
We’ve met her, Fitz says.
Have we? asks Lydia. When?
Just before I died.
Lydia tries but she has no memory of meeting Prof. Booth. Fitz thinks it was late on at the conference banquet and he says they had a substantial conversation. Indeed, it was this conversation that prompted him to ask Lydia to repeat the passage quoted in Sheppard’s book—Booth spoke of how the need for translation changed the pace of life.
The phrasing was extremely similar, Fitz says. It must be a pet theory of hers.
And I translated all this for you at the time? Lydia asks.
Of course.
Was it in any way comprehensible?
Absolutely. By that stage most of the attendees were a little drunk themselves, so I doubt they noticed anything amiss.
“A little drunk” is not the same as “Can’t remember anything whatsoever” drunk. Did anyone notice I’d lost my glasses?
I don’t recall. But nobody mentioned it, no.
Of course not, thinks Lydia to herself: Why would they? No one looks at me. So if I’m going to meet this woman, will she remember me?
Probably.
OK, what did we talk about?
The keynote, mainly. She teaches at NYNU. I don’t really know the place.
Lydia doesn’t either, so she starts by looking up what NYNU stands for. After getting distracted by a longread about a similar incident two decades ago (The first Logi to die on Earth—and the eerie parallels with today / TR89) she learns it’s New York New University, founded four decades ago “to promote and protect independent thought and free speech.” It’s not a large institution but it’s based in an expensive part of town, the Upper East Side, close to the park. Booth is part of the Literature and Culture Department and specializes in Culture War Studies.
D’you think she had anything to do with it? Lydia doesn’t have to specify she means Fitz’s death: one of the elegant things about Logisi is a shift in tone usually makes clear what you’re referring to without having to refer to it directly.
I really didn’t get any sense of hostility from her when we spoke—not the kind of hostility that comes across in this quote. Perhaps it’s the context?
Or—and I realize this is a bit radical—it might just be that she was nice to your face and then shitty about you behind your back.
I’m familiar with the experience, thank you, Lydia. I’m just trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Why though?
It’s getting late but Lydia’s got nothing to get up for tomorrow, so she keeps digging and turns up an interview with Booth, conducted by Sheppard for his feed just under a year ago, which has over seven million views and a higher TR than most of his stuff (71). In the video they appear to be sitting in an old-fashioned TV news studio, facing each other in chairs with slim silver frames and black leather seats, a stylized skyline behind them—one of the default interview environments that comes with the casting app. Booth herself is probably in her fifties, with long blond hair and soft skin offset by hard blue eyes and a squareness to her jaw. She wears simple jewelry and a slim, unfussy, royal blue dress that draws the eye and ensures the ayaie director keeps focusing on her.
Sheppard is thrilled to be interviewing Booth but he’s visibly struggling to keep up: the less certain he is of what she’s talking about, the more he nods. Mostly he lets her talk about whatever she wants to talk about. And what she wants to talk about is Fitz.
BOOTH: Take New York City, where I live—the literary capital of this country, and also the theater capital, and arguably the intellectual capital too.
SHEPPARD: Of course.
BOOTH: Which is why the Logi have a cultural attaché based there and not in Portland, or Chicago, or somewhere in Canada, even. And the whole scene is in thrall to this guy. It’s all about money and influence, and what he approves of has a huge effect on what you get to see and read. Not everyone knows this.
SHEPPARD: (nodding) People are so ignorant.
BOOTH: It’s not people’s fault.
SHEPPARD: No no, of course not.
BOOTH: We don’t get an honest discussion of these issues in the messum.
SHEPPARD: You can’t trust the messum.
BOOTH: They play down his influence.
SHEPPARD: It’s why I do what I do, I want to provide balance.
BOOTH: Ultimately what this is really about is soft power.
SHEPPARD: (nodding vigorously) Absolutely. Soft power.
BOOTH: Because if you can control the stories a culture tells about itself, you can control who they are.
SHEPPARD: Wow.
BOOTH: And that’s what the cultural attaché is really for.