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Originally Posted by BACKSTORY: HENRY BRIGGS – PART 2 – 12.21.2642
From the Holovid Diary of HENRY BRIGGS, Xenobiologist
December 21st, 2642
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Yesterday, before second shift, we once again got into everyone’s favorite subject: the artifact. I told them minor details, more than we had ever revealed to anyone else, but I was careful not to tell them too much. Although I spend so much time thinking about it, I still feel odd to talk about it with others. I feel like imparting the knowledge I’ve gained from the artifact is important, but it’s difficult to imagine how much I can say before I start sounding insane.
As a result, I’ve kept a lot of the experience to myself. After all, I couldn’t risk the T.R. getting wind of what I went through. I have no idea what “treatment” or experiments they’d perform on me. When we found the figurine deep in the tunnel, Tom and I could feel it vibrating, creating a series of repeating rhythms that felt like voices in chorus. I didn’t intend to touch it, and Connery warned me not to, but the rhythms, crazy as it may sound, called to me. I heard voices, not audible, but somehow still inside my head, the way I always assumed telepathy would feel if it was real.
It didn’t speak in words, but in feelings and images. One moment I was staring at a trinary star system, and the next I was plunging into a wall of fire. I felt elation followed by unbelievable dread.
I saw the faces of people I knew, and somehow, as I was to later learn, people I will know in the future. There was something else, too. I felt their emotions; their pains and their elations. I experienced my parents in a way I never had before. I felt their love for me when I was a child and how they tried to help before I completely chased them away. I saw their hearts breaking every time I talked back to them, and I felt shame and regret for what I had done to both them and others.
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It was like this thing had reached into my head and made me understand for the first time the hurt I caused by being aloof and distant from everyone who ever tried to care about me. But it also showed images of me with friends, laughing... living. It all felt like a bizarre dream back then, but I’m sure that what I was seeing was a prophecy.
I remember the flesh on my arms turned translucent and then rippled and cracked while I could do nothing but stare. Otherworldly patterns of infinite complexity covered every surface of my vision and went on in every direction. I couldn’t explain the shapes and feelings I saw and experienced; no words existed that could describe them. I couldn’t understand any of the sounds I had heard at first; it was just a modulating jumble of static and reverberations. Eventually the cacophonic echoes synced up like an ancient radio signal being properly tuned and I clearly heard a single word: Vanu.
And when I said that word, it was as if I was suddenly and violently hurtled back into reality.
I had snapped out of the trance I was in and was back in the tunnel, no longer touching the figurine. Connery had grabbed my arm and pulled me free. Only a moment had passed, but the short time the artifact was in my hands felt like days. I felt like I had a taste of some type of knowledge I hadn’t even dreamed of. I was left with an impression of an incredibly powerful presence that I cannot overemphasize; I was given a glimpse of divinity. However, in the minutes after I was pulled from the object, it began to fade like a dream after an alarm startles you awake.
In the days after the event I noted a startling change to my thought processes. My rational mind seemed as robust as ever, but I was able to see things from other points of view like never before. It was obvious to me that I had previously been completely myopic in so many areas of thought, and now felt a vastness of new interests and understandings flooding my consciousness. It was overwhelming at first, but I was able to discuss it in detail with Tom, who was able to help me a lot. This was another completely new experience; human interaction that affected me positively.
Together we’d blue-sky wild ideas about the alien race who designed the artifacts. I believed because I had heard the word Vanu that it has to have some kind of meaning ---obvious fact that they, whoever they are, are definitely not human.
I managed to convince Tom to let me keep the artifact for study, and to learn more about what I had felt that first time I had touched it. I studied the figurine for months while on the journey back to Earth. As time went on, I noticed more subtle changes about myself. Though the voices never returned despite all my attempts to conjure them, a purpose within me was crystallizing. A purpose that was stronger than any of my weaknesses. Maybe I should have questioned these changes more, but for the first time in my life I felt I belonged. I felt I knew why I was here.
Vanu. Vanu was my purpose; my reason for being.
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Together, we look towards a new chapter in humanity. Our scanners show New Earth to be an inhospitable and devastated world. Scientists with knowledge on the matter have told me that even after we terraform it, life on our new planet will remain difficult. However, I know how adaptable we are in matters of overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges, even if only given the last 300 years of history as an example. I have no doubt in my mind that the discoveries we’ll make will make up for the hardships this journey has caused us to endure. Tom would’ve probably had more eloquent and reassuring words to inspire us, but he’s not here. Luckily for me, I’ve found a new inspiration for the future.
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2012-01-06, 09:46 AM
TheorySide: the artifact, "Vanu"
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