Ashadah

5 BF

 ·      The Scientists who crafted the being who would become Ashadah were a group of Social-geneticists (combining the fields of sociology, media studies, psychology, genetics). Their project was a black operation funded by branch the United Nations Security council. The project was known as “Project Agape.”

 ·         Project Agape was located on at a secret Lunar installation. Ashadah was birthed in a crèche along with three other genetically engineered infants (200 were planned for the final phase of the project). All were designed and trained to be social manipulators par excellence. The project was intended as a form of social engineering operation intended to create a cultural elite with highly attuned morals who could guide humanity into a new golden age. Through media control and charismatic leadership this social elite would bring about peace and universal understanding. Unfortunately for the program, the Fall happened during the fifth year of the children's development. The results were disastrous, as one of the Titans or pseudo-governmental agencies got wind of the project and launched an attack on the institute to try to wipe the program out. The scientists burned their research, split up the children with each pair of scientists taking one of the children, re-sleeving them in regular bodies (crippling their very noticeable social skills) and went into hiding on the fringes. At least one set of scientists (an experimental subjects) were captured and a record of the project must exist somewhere. To make her unrecognizable Ashadah’s parents resleeved her as a 19 year old male and fled onto the scum barge The Magical Mystery Tour. The parents of Ashadah became very prominent bohemian artists on the Mystery Tour and through psychosurgery Ashadah was helped to adapt to that bizarre world of personal expression. Six months ago her father began a 2 year improvisational time dilation performance piece. His perception was altered so that he moved, thought, and reacts at 8000 to 1 of normal time dilation; as a result the exhibit will only be truly watchable in 2 years when it is completed becoming a roughly 2 hour interpretive dance/rant about temporal theory. Most believe that the exhibit is intended as a social commentary on the constant speeding up of the human experience. Ashadah’s so-called mother has long ago lost all sense of the institute’s great purpose in a petal induced narrative of her own spiritual awakening. 3 years ago she left on a quest into virtual reality selling her morph for a taste of the a deeply coveted Delphinium Six petal.

 ·         One year ago Ashadah received a mysterious message offering an opportunity to live up to a potential they were not even aware they might have (psychosurgery and youth having erased most of the memory of Project Agape). After their “father” began his project Ashadah pursued this offer and left the “Mystery Tour.” They soon found that the offer came from the Morningstar Constellation, offering a chance to sleeve into a morph and a life “befitting” their birth. Ashadah, could think of no reason to refuse the generous offer (having no concept of contract law or even a real understanding of exploitation) and agreed to the contract that was sent to their muse. After Egocasting to Venus Ashadah was transformed, over the course of a whirlwind month, into an XP meta-celebrity without parallel. Ashadah’s unique perspective and heart rending likeability combine to make her something of a powerhouse. She has specialized in simplicity and mild social commentary (often speaking out against techno-optimism and scientific progressivism) and her art house style minimalist XP broadcasts. Her most famous XP broadcast so far is called “Sunset over Venus” and consists of Ashadah slowly sipping a glass of wine while staring out at a particularly lovely Venusian sunset. The emotional gravitas of that performance has been known to cause tears in even the most hardened Martian miner.

 ·         Despite this remarkable rise to fame, Ashadah is starting to realize that they may have gone into this lifestyle too naively. The contract explicitly forbids egocasting or leaving her morph (for “continuity of experience” the contract claims) and this has proven to be quite restrictive. They have a disturbing memory of three weeks into the contract arranging to visit a friend on Extropia and on the walk to the nearby egocasting facility losing consciousness and waking up back in their room 4 hours later, with no awareness of what happened. Since then Ashadah has not made any attempts to egocast for fear that it might lead to psychosurgery. Ashadah has a growing awareness that they are not alone in their body and has carefully crafted their actions since then to reassure their handlers that there is no reason to fear that Ashadah is harboring rebellious thoughts or dissatisfaction. Still the momentary fear and sense of powerlessness that Ashadah experienced in those seconds before they could exert their perfect emotional control were some of the most terrifying of Ashadah’s short life.

Ashadah has secretly concocted a plan to implant messages in their micro-emotions, emotions that exist beyond the range of “normal transhumanity.” They have been inspired by her father’s bizarre art piece (slowed or sped up experiences) and Ashadah postulates that these micro-emotions might be able to convey their distress and desperate need for a rescue to some similarly aware viewer out there. Although Ashadah has no conscious knowledge of others who might be able to comprehend this message they have a sense that if they themselves exist then there must be others with a similar emotional/experiential range and awareness. Ashadah is also fascinated by uplifted species and has considered creating intentionally targeted emotional messages to certain non-human species that might avoid corporate and Morningstar detection.