The Collective

The Collective: If your species is ever going to make it to a new world, within a new star system, you must attain type one status on the Kardashev scale as a starting point. You must make passage. To accomplish that goal you must embrace change. Radical changes in physicality, psychology, social structures, perception, and cognition.

Me: What kind of changes?

The Collective: Inevitable changes that are required when merging tech with biology. We will discuss traveling later. For now, just know you are cosmic consciousness having physical experiences. So is the infiltrator.

Me: “Was.” So “was” the infiltrator. Take that you syntax nazis.

The Collective:” Is.”

Me: What is this fuckery?

The Collective: So “is” the infiltrator. Consciousness never dies. It always finds an appropriate vessel. Consciousness always cycles on and learns lessons. Lessons learned make positive and permanent changes in consciousness. Complexity increases.

Me: Whatever. They took his life slowly and in a cowardly way. He deserved a soldier’s death. I should have given him that.

The Collective: They took his current vessel, not his immortal consciousness. The infiltrator has melded. If you had given him a “soldier’s death” you would have faced the possibility of death yourself. Had you acted on that desire, the best possible outcome for you would have been prison. Following orders saved you from that ordeal. You were following the principal of rational self-interest.

Me: You spelled “coward” wrong.

The Collective: It seems that you identify more with the infiltrator than the physician. The physician is a CIA operative. You are a U.S. soldier. The physician is a member of your tribe.

Me: The Doctor used drugs to keep the prisoner awake and alert during interrogation. He also slowly and carefully amputated several of the prisoner’s fingers at the second knuckle. The “good” doctor went on to destroy other areas on the prisoner’s body. He took his time.

The Collective: Your perception of the event is clouded by your lack of emotional regulation when you recall the event.

Me: That soldier was blinded. The “doctor” seemed fixated on testicles. Last time I checked, vice grips were a mechanic’s tool. That perverted doctor along with the rest of them deserve prison, not me. That doctor is not “in my tribe.” I have honor. He does not.

The Collective: Now we are making progress.