RPC-001: The Alpha and Omega (A&Ω)

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» Office of the Directorate «

Father,



You do not know me, just of me. This will stay this way, for both of our sakes; an information stop-gap as insurance. Plausible deniability, in case this correspondence is ever discovered. I hope my credentials and capabilities have, by the time you open this, spoken for themselves.

Gödel was, I think, your best pupil, and certainly the most talented to come out of your monastery. You should be very proud of him. Although, I think… either the project or the knowledge from it is what ultimately did a number on his psyche, and I fear permanently. I heard that near the end, he wouldn't eat.

He wasn't alone in his suffering for his work. Two members of the original research team had significant episodes of neurodivergence; one to the point of voluntary commitment, your pupil; the other involuntary. It seems as though there is a limit to what the mind can tolerate in an absence of anopticin; in concentration or duration, or both.

In retrospect, this isn't entirely unexpected; later reports of compounds in the same chemical family demonstrated some erratic responses in the human psyche. We believe there may be a toxicity to the compound… whether a lack of a naturally-occurring chemical can be called a true "toxicity" is besides the point; a rose by another name. The output is identical.

That was almost 50 years ago, Father. You have much more power now than you did within the monastery; more to lift a heavier heart. You couldn't have possibly known what you were recommending him for. It's not your fault. But it is your move.

46 years ago, Gödel waved hello to God in maths. To infinite power and energy. He was a brilliant man, but couldn't have done it without the compound. Don't mistake me, that's no slight. Such high doses of such a raw formulation would have killed lesser men, dissolved and diluted in the water as it was.

Gödel paid for what he found with his mind. I don't dwell on God much, Father, but I can believe that the sight of God is necessarily as terrifying as it is beautiful. Who's to say who will see it as which? Or that seeing it only one way is even possible? Not even the brilliance of Gödel could scrape the sheer terror away from the glory. After Schönberg next abandoned himself to the relentless pull of the revelation, the team was in disarray. They were scattered to the winds like torn up leaves.

The case was reviewed and it was decided to fracture the active ingredients in the compound to make for more manageable formulations; smaller drops of the whole ocean. It was the only hope to see what needed to be seen, and retain functional personnel. The stockpile of abcixicin was locked away in a secluded region and in a nondescript pharmaceutical safe with an artificial expiration date set at years prior. This constituted 001's only true containment to speak of. It being such an unstable compound, what pills could be leftover by now would be 40 years expired. Worse yet, we exhausted most of the known natural supply of the raw ingredient in the initial production. Too many eggs in one basket. Rumors were all that were left. Not even the formula remained, thanks to members of the team who went rogue. The pipelines ceased their flow and the money was reallocated. The race ended before we could tie our shoes.


Now something you don't know:


A promising formula has been re-discovered by experiments done in a remote OL-Site. We are unsure if this is true abcixicin or if it's a best-guess attempt, but we know it is something. It took hours of interrogations on others, but we believe the data is there now. A skilled practitioner like yourself could see God swirling in their irises, I'm sure. I don't know it intimately, I don't share your gift. I'll know when I try it in a few weeks. But Father — and you of all people know the significance of this — I feel it is true. I know this is it; what we fanned the surface of with our fingertips and lost long ago.


But the promise still lies just ahead. We have plans to put funding into the modernization of Site-074, the hope being to obscure it with the technology itself. Full-scale pharmacological design and distribution facilities are in detailed deliberations, with clinical trial testing a possibility using the Site-002 facilities, pending good results.

And now with the real possibility of substantial funding provided by representatives in the Presidium, the time to act is now.

But administration still has to remove the locks blocking our liaisons in Financials. We need you to pitch this to the Presidium. Compared to your oratorical magnanimity and your spiritual charisma, any other one of us trying to talk about these lofty ideas would be like chewing corpses. There will be some friction to the idea, but we will work the back end with an enthusiasm campaign to get this publication resurfaced. You spearhead it, get your Division funds and prestige, a new branch, more of the answers you seek in the process, and I get my pharmaceutical operation — my vision — finally off the ground.

I understand it is in your character to have Research zero in on the comprehension of anomalies for the sake of it, as opposed to utilizing them for gain. But I believe, and I think you see too, that what are usually at odds are, in this unique case, one and the same thing. A rare opportunity for our cooperation as GD's.

We'll ask for your guidance intermittently along the way in the resultant development and manufacturing, to keep a moral gaze over the process, if that helps soothe any ethical irritation you may be feeling at this time. We will more closely monitor and specify the appropriate dosages for any derivative compounds we produce in pursuit of the pure formula — if we don't already have it — schedule them in terms of potency and how close they come to 001. I’ll motion for our apothecaries to make whatever oral formulations we find non-soluble in water, so that this experiment can't be repeated again; whether intentionally or otherwise.


Finally, a bit more on the specifics of those thresholds.


Keep in mind that the compound rids the confabulations of illusion routinely experienced in everyday life. I'd remind you of the law from the original research team that says these things really aren't different things at all. While you haven't partaken, I'm not too sure you'd need to. I did.

The original formula, undissolved and undiluted in water. I'll never forget it. It has been 50 years. My mind hasn't been flayed into shreds and I keep anticipating the other foot to drop as a steel-toed boot. It hasn't, and I seem to have been kept mostly intact. That's not to say it hasn't been difficult. To call the last 50 years a sort of perpetual state of withdrawals is close enough to convey it to you. I will do anything to get that formulation back.

And I still feel its weight, draped gently on my shoulders. Like a passed-away lover, kindly regretting the ghost she left me. That feeling. It's as distant as space, yet as small as right here. There seems to be a sort of fractalization to the deepest portions of Celanturic anomalies whereby a contradiction emerges and they become more intuitive than hidden, although they by that point are well beyond the reach of scientific analysis. Who hasn't felt the tug of God at some point in their lives, Father? Even I have.

But you've known these things to be true, haven't you? Isolating as it has been. Such loneliness can come from being hopelessly correct. Especially for a truth with no possibility of proof. Now you can finally have company in those beliefs. And I can finally have my own vision. Speaking of which, Father, what about having less sight makes one wiser? Is it the focus on what can't be seen? Fitting in this case, isn't it?

The rest of the Theistic Department will need to be notified, and I'll leave that to your discretion. I imagine a third of them will be in despair and think their department is moot; another third will be in adulation of these results and findings; and the last and quietest third won't be surprised at all, as if to say "I told you so." No one will have the right to say that more than you, Father. But I know you won't. It’s enough that your statistical curve equation has its missing exponent again.

I believe your strong leadership and guidance will be pivotal to the diplomacy necessary to re-institute Site-074 as a first-class, state-of-the-art complex, and to launch a Viderics Department therein. I know better than to offer you compensation.

All the same, I do believe the possibility for deeper knowledge is its own reward. Think of Gödel. Propel his legacy. Do not let his sacrifice be another splat on the wall, as it has been these last 50 years. "A break in the clouds equates the hand holding out escape. And I am justified, despite what you may regret, to abide mistakes." Your words, Father.


A summary of the findings is below.


I've redacted the list from the actual file, maybe at risk of some push back from the rest of the GDs. I've planted a red herring pointing to GD-WEST; that trichotomy should act as a sort of delay and extend the time it takes for their joint defensive response. That should give us more time to act while the others squabble. You should have no barriers in showing The Office of Financial Affairs some truly exclusive information. Coming as news from you, I don't think the others would have a chance to prepare an argument against it. Hell. Maybe vouch for the Department of Anti-Memetics while you do.



Was this all immoral? I've had 50 years to slowly pronounce the answer to that question. "Yes." Yes, it was. So is my asking this of you. But out of everyone, that’s exactly why I am counting on you, Father.

Respectfully,


— GD-[REDACTED]

Mathematical proofs in antimemetics confirm the following to be "instances" of Omega-class antimemes:

1. The borders of the human noosphere.¹
2. Magnitudes of space, time, and energy that are below Planck units.²
3. Any axiomatic/fundamental assumption.³
4. The reason (or cause) why something exists rather than nothing.
5. The reason (or cause) why mathematics captures reality.
6. The concept of nothingness.⁴
7. A consciousness' conception of itself as it was prior to its own creation.
8. A consciousness' conception of itself as it will be after its own end.
9. Matter/energy experiences faster than the speed of light.⁵
10. Spacetime/events prior to the Big Bang.
11. Spacetime/events after the dissipation of all matter and antimatter.
12. Spacetime/events beyond the observable universe.⁶
13. A sufficiently advanced, omnipresent, and omnipotent cosmic and/or spiritual entity.
14. The number 1.
15. The theoretical source of all anomalous behavior.

RPC-001 | RPC-002 »

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Footnotes

1. The set of conceivable things to Homo sapiens.

2. Planck units are the numbers arrived at when the known constants of the universe are arranged such that their units cancel, leaving only meters, seconds, or joules, respectively. These numbers represent the smallest possible measures for our universe.

3. Also described as "Sufficiently intuitive beliefs" or “faith”.

4. Includes "meaninglessness".

5. Modern faster-than light (FTL) transport does not violate this, in that its mechanism is via wormhole use, not by pressing past the barrier defined by $E=mc^{2}$.

6. Beyond our “Cosmic Horizon”. Attributes of black holes, such as the terminus of the singularity, as well as white holes are included in this. This is a “flux” Omega in that FTL travel has allowed for the ability to significantly redefine the center of a given horizon to points other than Earth. The Omega remains nonetheless.