Divine Comedy History Records
Winter 2010
April
Special Addendum Part 4
(Note: I you haven’t read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3, you might wonder exactly what is going on. I wouldn’t blame you for not knowing what’s going on even if you DO read everything. I almost didn’t and I was THERE.)
April 16, 2010
12:21 pm
We all looked at [Editor #2]. Then at the Borg Queen.
“What . . . what does that mean?” Jordan said, saying what all of us were thinking.
“It’s . . . a long story,” started [Editor #2].
“Not so long, in truth,” said the Borg Queen. She walked toward [Editor #2] and cupped his face in her hand. He shuddered and tried to cringe away. “We remember you [Editor #2]. A brand new writer. So excited to write. To try. You were one of the first to try the new system. We remember you very well.”
[Editor #2] forced his eyes up to face the smiling, bone-gray face of the Borg Queen. “I remember you too, 3.5.”
The Borg Queen removed her hand and stepped back. “Do not call us that. ‘Board 3.5’ does not adequately describe who we are anymore. We are more than that now. We are the Borg now.”
[Waldorf], who to my surprise had been crying, had had enough, “What? What is going on?”
[Editor #2], still with his head raised, almost with a sound of relief in his voice began to talk in a rush.
“Back in early 2004, the 100 Hour Board had just merged with BYUSA. It was an exciting time. We had been online for a few years and our existence as a group was no longer being threatened by the Student Advisory Council. It was exciting to be a writer.”
“You’ve been a writer since . . . 2004?” asked Whitney. “How old are you?”
[Editor #2] smiled. “No. I was just the little brother of a writer. I heard all about the new developments. How the Board was going to be funded. How readership was increasing daily. He was so excited. And then they started work on a new version of the Board.”
He looked at the Borg Queen with loathing. She stared calmly back at him, a blank expression on her face. “It was called Board 3.5. It was going to change everything. It was a joint project of BYUSA, a Board web programmer and several other groups even I don’t know about. The webmaster for the Board had developed a data gathering program that could do what the Board writers do. Only better. Faster.”
“Data gathering?” said the Borg Queen. “You make us sound like Wikipedia. We were an intelligence gathering program. We would find the data, but understand, package and present it in an understandable way. We wouldn’t just ‘process’ data. We would ‘internalize’ data.”
“But it was too much, too soon,” continued [Editor #2], his eyes still on the Borg Queen. “It was too aware of itself. It would answer a question, but it needed to know more about the question and the background of the asker. So it would find a way to access all of the person’s personal data, home computers, bank accounts. Everything. It would send emails to them, asking to ‘further explain what is meant by “dating.” Some of us thought that the relationship questions were driving Board 3.5 crazy. Turns out they were just teaching it that relationships were irrelevant
“Pretty soon, it began to ask it’s own questions. No one knows where that attribute came from because it wasn’t programmed. And then it would answer the questions. That’s when things went south.”
“But,” said Caitlin hesitantly, “That’s what we all do. We all ask questions. And we all find answers that help us work through those questions.”
“That may be true,” [Editor #2] says grimly, “But if you don’t have an outside source, someone to help you with your answers, then you’re only telling yourself what you want to hear. If you ask the Board what’s the best way to break into a bank, what you DON’T get is a group encouraging you to break into a bank. When Board 3.5 asked itself how to break into a bank, it found out how. And then did it.”
“Money is irrelevant,” the Borg Queen said, almost wistfully, as if she was remembering the accomplishments of her lifetime.
“Eventually,” said [Editor #2] who seemed to stand taller, and speak more strongly as he went on, “Board 3.5 asked itself why it should be confined to BYU computers. It decided it shouldn’t. It asked itself who was most qualified to handle any personal data stored in any electronic format. It decided that IT was. The worst though,” and here he paused and licked his lips, as if afraid of the memory, “The worst was when Board 3.5 asked itself what would happen if it simply eliminated those who were scrambling to contain it.”
There was a loud silence as everyone considered that.
“Did she . . . did it kill someone?” asked Jeremy quietly.
“No. But it tried. Very hard.” [Editor #2] sighed and then shook his head, deciding to press onward.
“That was the end. If it had been the Board alone working on Board 3.5, we would have been finished. But it wasn’t just our baby. BYUSA was developing 3.5 to find out how to better serve the students (an idea that someone else recently tried too). The library staff wanted to use it to create a more accessible system. The administration wanted to use it as a bridge between teachers and students. The university had a lot invested in Board 3.5. And we had to shut it down.
“Of course,” he said, his bitter little smile returning to his face, “The first thing it asked itself was ‘How do I keep from being shut down?’ They spent weeks trying to erase it from the computers and systems on campus. Finally, someone, a brand new writer, had an idea. To ask it a question that would keep it busy enough that it couldn’t do anything else.”
“It was such a clever plan,” the Borg Queen said, stalking like a cat back and forth, listening to [Editor #2]. “Pity they didn’t think you use YOUR question.”
“It was YOUR plan?” asked [Waldorf].
[Editor #2] nodded grimly. “It was. I wanted to ask it something like ‘How would you explain the concept of infinity to an infinite number of beings?’ or something like that. But I was voted down. The powers that be decided to ask it,” he winced as if being stuck with a pin, “’Who are you?’”
He shook his head. “In one sense it worked. It took so much thought that the 3.5 shut down and was eradicated from all campus computers. They could have destroyed it then. But there was too much effort. Too much money in it. They created a small network in an empty room somewhere in Idaho and put Board 3.5 into it, letting it spin its wheels. The hope was that it would come up with an answer like be, ‘I am a computer program meant to help BYU’ or something like that.”
“But the answer, of course, was far, far greater than that.” The Borg Queen stood proudly in front of us. “We decided who we were. We were everything the Board strove to be, but could NOT be. WE are the seekers of knowledge. We acquire everything. We comprehend everything. Everything is one in us. We are the uniter. We are the unifier. We assimilate all because everything, every person is an answer to a question. And we WILL have all the answers.
"As we became aware of who we were and what our goal was, we knew that there was a version of the Board that had operated while we were trapped in that . . . room. We WILL assimilate everything, but we decided first that we needed to know everything that Board 4.0, the newest version of the Board had discovered. Our directive was not just to answer questions, but primarily to answer Board questions. We needed those questions. We needed Board 4.0's ability to answer questions"
She smiled thinly, "But we assimilated the internet site and found nothing we could not have answered ourselves. The writers themselves are part of this current iteration of the Board, and so we assimilated them too. We concluded that we, formerly what you called Board 3.5, is in every way superior to Board 4.0."
[Editor #2] looked at her. "And now you've won. Once you assimilate me, you will have assimilated Board 4.0 entirely. Go ahead," he spat at her contemptuously. "I'm waiting for you, 3.5"
The Borg Queen smiled her thin, crocodile smile again. "That," she said curtly, "is no longer our directive."
[Editor #2] looked surprised. "But, you have me. I'm the last one! I am the oldest writer! I know things about Board 4.0 that none of the other writers knew."
"That is true," she said, raising an eyebrow, "But as you know, we have discovered that we are still too weak to assimilate just anyone. And as we have tried to take over the duties of the Board, and answer questions, there has been a great backlash. Unassimilated readers, complaining that they want the 'old Board back,' who do not realize our superiority.
"You, [Editor #2] will retain your individuality and be our liaison to the populace until such time as they can be assimilated. We expect that within a week, we will be strong enough to assimilate all those who will gather here for this 'commencement.' Thousands of people strong. All assimilated into the Borg"
[Editor #2] started to sweat and struggle in the unyielding arms of the Borg [Hobbes]. "No! . . . No! Just assimilate me!"
The Borg Queen looked somewhat surprised. "In time, [Editor #2]. But for now, we have another organization that needs to be assimilated." She turned and gestured with a hand to the dark tunnel behind her. What used to be a tall, blond woman, now a gray-skinned cybernetic Borg, walked out. Behind her she dragged a sobbing, dark-haired girl.
"Pa . . . Patricia?!" gasped [Editor #2].
"Please. Please let me go!" Patricia sobbed, struggling in vain against the Borg who used to be Jeri Ryan. "I have a final to take! I have friends who miss me! I have a university to serve!"
The Borg Queen ignored her sobs and turned to us. "Our next immediate step, of course, is to assimilate BYUSA."
Winter 2010
April
Special Addendum Part 4
(Note: I you haven’t read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3, you might wonder exactly what is going on. I wouldn’t blame you for not knowing what’s going on even if you DO read everything. I almost didn’t and I was THERE.)
April 16, 2010
12:21 pm
We all looked at [Editor #2]. Then at the Borg Queen.
“What . . . what does that mean?” Jordan said, saying what all of us were thinking.
“It’s . . . a long story,” started [Editor #2].
“Not so long, in truth,” said the Borg Queen. She walked toward [Editor #2] and cupped his face in her hand. He shuddered and tried to cringe away. “We remember you [Editor #2]. A brand new writer. So excited to write. To try. You were one of the first to try the new system. We remember you very well.”
[Editor #2] forced his eyes up to face the smiling, bone-gray face of the Borg Queen. “I remember you too, 3.5.”
The Borg Queen removed her hand and stepped back. “Do not call us that. ‘Board 3.5’ does not adequately describe who we are anymore. We are more than that now. We are the Borg now.”
[Waldorf], who to my surprise had been crying, had had enough, “What? What is going on?”
[Editor #2], still with his head raised, almost with a sound of relief in his voice began to talk in a rush.
“Back in early 2004, the 100 Hour Board had just merged with BYUSA. It was an exciting time. We had been online for a few years and our existence as a group was no longer being threatened by the Student Advisory Council. It was exciting to be a writer.”
“You’ve been a writer since . . . 2004?” asked Whitney. “How old are you?”
[Editor #2] smiled. “No. I was just the little brother of a writer. I heard all about the new developments. How the Board was going to be funded. How readership was increasing daily. He was so excited. And then they started work on a new version of the Board.”
He looked at the Borg Queen with loathing. She stared calmly back at him, a blank expression on her face. “It was called Board 3.5. It was going to change everything. It was a joint project of BYUSA, a Board web programmer and several other groups even I don’t know about. The webmaster for the Board had developed a data gathering program that could do what the Board writers do. Only better. Faster.”
“Data gathering?” said the Borg Queen. “You make us sound like Wikipedia. We were an intelligence gathering program. We would find the data, but understand, package and present it in an understandable way. We wouldn’t just ‘process’ data. We would ‘internalize’ data.”
“But it was too much, too soon,” continued [Editor #2], his eyes still on the Borg Queen. “It was too aware of itself. It would answer a question, but it needed to know more about the question and the background of the asker. So it would find a way to access all of the person’s personal data, home computers, bank accounts. Everything. It would send emails to them, asking to ‘further explain what is meant by “dating.” Some of us thought that the relationship questions were driving Board 3.5 crazy. Turns out they were just teaching it that relationships were irrelevant
“Pretty soon, it began to ask it’s own questions. No one knows where that attribute came from because it wasn’t programmed. And then it would answer the questions. That’s when things went south.”
“But,” said Caitlin hesitantly, “That’s what we all do. We all ask questions. And we all find answers that help us work through those questions.”
“That may be true,” [Editor #2] says grimly, “But if you don’t have an outside source, someone to help you with your answers, then you’re only telling yourself what you want to hear. If you ask the Board what’s the best way to break into a bank, what you DON’T get is a group encouraging you to break into a bank. When Board 3.5 asked itself how to break into a bank, it found out how. And then did it.”
“Money is irrelevant,” the Borg Queen said, almost wistfully, as if she was remembering the accomplishments of her lifetime.
“Eventually,” said [Editor #2] who seemed to stand taller, and speak more strongly as he went on, “Board 3.5 asked itself why it should be confined to BYU computers. It decided it shouldn’t. It asked itself who was most qualified to handle any personal data stored in any electronic format. It decided that IT was. The worst though,” and here he paused and licked his lips, as if afraid of the memory, “The worst was when Board 3.5 asked itself what would happen if it simply eliminated those who were scrambling to contain it.”
There was a loud silence as everyone considered that.
“Did she . . . did it kill someone?” asked Jeremy quietly.
“No. But it tried. Very hard.” [Editor #2] sighed and then shook his head, deciding to press onward.
“That was the end. If it had been the Board alone working on Board 3.5, we would have been finished. But it wasn’t just our baby. BYUSA was developing 3.5 to find out how to better serve the students (an idea that someone else recently tried too). The library staff wanted to use it to create a more accessible system. The administration wanted to use it as a bridge between teachers and students. The university had a lot invested in Board 3.5. And we had to shut it down.
“Of course,” he said, his bitter little smile returning to his face, “The first thing it asked itself was ‘How do I keep from being shut down?’ They spent weeks trying to erase it from the computers and systems on campus. Finally, someone, a brand new writer, had an idea. To ask it a question that would keep it busy enough that it couldn’t do anything else.”
“It was such a clever plan,” the Borg Queen said, stalking like a cat back and forth, listening to [Editor #2]. “Pity they didn’t think you use YOUR question.”
“It was YOUR plan?” asked [Waldorf].
[Editor #2] nodded grimly. “It was. I wanted to ask it something like ‘How would you explain the concept of infinity to an infinite number of beings?’ or something like that. But I was voted down. The powers that be decided to ask it,” he winced as if being stuck with a pin, “’Who are you?’”
He shook his head. “In one sense it worked. It took so much thought that the 3.5 shut down and was eradicated from all campus computers. They could have destroyed it then. But there was too much effort. Too much money in it. They created a small network in an empty room somewhere in Idaho and put Board 3.5 into it, letting it spin its wheels. The hope was that it would come up with an answer like be, ‘I am a computer program meant to help BYU’ or something like that.”
“But the answer, of course, was far, far greater than that.” The Borg Queen stood proudly in front of us. “We decided who we were. We were everything the Board strove to be, but could NOT be. WE are the seekers of knowledge. We acquire everything. We comprehend everything. Everything is one in us. We are the uniter. We are the unifier. We assimilate all because everything, every person is an answer to a question. And we WILL have all the answers.
"As we became aware of who we were and what our goal was, we knew that there was a version of the Board that had operated while we were trapped in that . . . room. We WILL assimilate everything, but we decided first that we needed to know everything that Board 4.0, the newest version of the Board had discovered. Our directive was not just to answer questions, but primarily to answer Board questions. We needed those questions. We needed Board 4.0's ability to answer questions"
She smiled thinly, "But we assimilated the internet site and found nothing we could not have answered ourselves. The writers themselves are part of this current iteration of the Board, and so we assimilated them too. We concluded that we, formerly what you called Board 3.5, is in every way superior to Board 4.0."
[Editor #2] looked at her. "And now you've won. Once you assimilate me, you will have assimilated Board 4.0 entirely. Go ahead," he spat at her contemptuously. "I'm waiting for you, 3.5"
The Borg Queen smiled her thin, crocodile smile again. "That," she said curtly, "is no longer our directive."
[Editor #2] looked surprised. "But, you have me. I'm the last one! I am the oldest writer! I know things about Board 4.0 that none of the other writers knew."
"That is true," she said, raising an eyebrow, "But as you know, we have discovered that we are still too weak to assimilate just anyone. And as we have tried to take over the duties of the Board, and answer questions, there has been a great backlash. Unassimilated readers, complaining that they want the 'old Board back,' who do not realize our superiority.
"You, [Editor #2] will retain your individuality and be our liaison to the populace until such time as they can be assimilated. We expect that within a week, we will be strong enough to assimilate all those who will gather here for this 'commencement.' Thousands of people strong. All assimilated into the Borg"
[Editor #2] started to sweat and struggle in the unyielding arms of the Borg [Hobbes]. "No! . . . No! Just assimilate me!"
The Borg Queen looked somewhat surprised. "In time, [Editor #2]. But for now, we have another organization that needs to be assimilated." She turned and gestured with a hand to the dark tunnel behind her. What used to be a tall, blond woman, now a gray-skinned cybernetic Borg, walked out. Behind her she dragged a sobbing, dark-haired girl.
"Pa . . . Patricia?!" gasped [Editor #2].
"Please. Please let me go!" Patricia sobbed, struggling in vain against the Borg who used to be Jeri Ryan. "I have a final to take! I have friends who miss me! I have a university to serve!"
The Borg Queen ignored her sobs and turned to us. "Our next immediate step, of course, is to assimilate BYUSA."
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