Phase Q/Now and Then

You see people in the Flowriser nodes, beaming in and out of material bodies. Sometimes they stay in what looks like a Triad outfit for a while, drinking bubblejuice and throwing around a goofball. Other times you only see their electronic tracks, as they zop through the conduits while weaving a novel fabric. Designs from one of the former Triad states intermingle with codes from new settlements in the tubeworks.

In the Triad zones that remain, you see mostly empty streets. The few surviving Triads have bunkered down, shutting down their reproductive facilities, storing large consumable energy deposits, and shuttling among their sheltered buildings in armored personnel transporters. Notwithstanding the decay, the now heavily militarized Triad population continues to develop relatively advanced miltechs.

In many of the other residences spread around the origin planet, both in Triad zones and in free zones, you see an interesting mix. A transition of sorts is taking place. Some of the people you observe still practice their own pre-Triad codes, while others practice Triadic org regs. Small pockets of the wild population pick up bits of Flowriser coding, learning how to ride through the tubeworks and materialize mentally.

From this perspective, you can see much more clearly how the different codings developed over time. Many of the pre-Triad codes developed out of base biological factors, some even predating biology. As you look around, and down from above, you can see the handful of remaining semisentient animals perform somewhat similar (although slightly more rudimentary) codes, compared with the pre-Triads. If you focus hard enough, you can even see the same patterns in formative stages in the plants, the clouds, the rocks. It’s magical, beautiful in its own sort of rough way.

The pre-Triads popped up in different locales, approximately simultaneously. It seems like they came across some kind of stepping stone, although one which was readily accessible, in order to jump up from the clouds and animals, at the same time as each other yet independently.

Then, on the small planet, it was only a matter of time until the different pre-Triads bumped into each other, converging onto a set of standard codes. Of course, as simple as it was, the process wasn’t easy. Lots of clashes resulted in difficult amounts of bloodshed, hatred, and conflict.

With the Triad codes in place, and congealing, it looked like they were set to get set in stone. In fact, a handful of the Triads – or were they still pre-Triads? – did in fact set their codes in stone. The Triads roamed the planet like they controlled it, despite all of the obvious evidence to the contrary. With their little height advantage over previous beasts, the Triads thought that they could impose their system on everyone.

They were wrong.

• Rise up.
• Reconstruct.

Phase Q: An interactive adventure.