Moon 514 || Blaze and the White Griffon

10 || the White Griffon

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 Last revision: 2/21/2013

the White Griffon

Sacred Symbols

Nervously, he rotated the hologram pad.  This was the updated, completed database.  With a swath of his hand, he had access to every valuable particle of information preserved from human history.  Whatever technology, history, discovery, or artistry that humans had ever learned or obtained was right here in the palm of his hands. 

More or less that is – it was, of course, incomplete. 

Information – tons of information – was destroyed or lost during the First and Second Holocausts.  And human filters had to determine which information was duplicative – and more significantly – which information was less reliable or less “important.”  Human subjectivity played an integral part in the preservation of the database and therefore some information was unquestionably tainted by human bias.  That was however unavoidable and necessary – nobody could ever verify which of the bazillion internet pages and personal websites contained accurate information when there were no citations to where the information was obtained – and once video – and then hologram – editing had been perfected, it became nearly impossible to determine which footage was authentic versus which footage was fabricated for the purpose of entertainment.  Everyone in the Order – and now Blaze would presume – everyone in all of the Orders – knew that some historical information in the database could be completely fictional.  There was simply no way to avoid the nagging possibility that some preserved “history” was in fact fictional – or worse – propaganda.  Verifying scientific truths was one thing – verifying historical truths was something entirely different.

That is why Dr. Boyd assigned different orders to review the same information on multiple occasions – it ensured that as little human bias crept into the project as possible.  It was better to have some small amounts of questionable material chosen by one team but rejected by another than to have one team’s bias eliminate material that may be helpful or valuable to future generations – Dr. Boyd was visionary that way.  If there was too much discrepancy between two teams reviewing material, a third team would be appointed to review it all again.  That is why it took nine Orders and a few generations to produce the hologram pad resting in Blaze’s hands.  And that is also why it took well over a billion man hours to produce the extraordinarily important artifact he held before him.

Virtually every day of Blaze’s life had been dedicated to improving the database.  In fact, virtually every day in the life of everyone that Blaze had ever known had been dedicated to improving the database or ensuring the survival of the people who were working on the database – they were carefully preserving human history, preserving important lessons, preserving mistakes so that they wouldn’t be made again, preserving everything that could be useful for generations to come.  For very many decades, Order life had revolved around this ordinary looking object: a flexible piece of brownish grey linatech that measured less than a half inch thick when folded in eighths.  Although rectangular in shape when folded, people referred to the physical hologram pad that the database was stored in as “the cube” because it appeared to be nothing more extraordinary than a simple block of linatech.

As Blaze rolled the folded hologram pad back and forth in between his hands, his emotions churned inside.  Part of him wanted to read the updated information on weaponry history and the various styles of martial arts from the classic age – this was his contribution to the database – this was his life’s investment.  Another part of him wanted to listen to some smooth jazz music while reviewing inspiring artwork – the specialized portion of the database overseen by Evelia.  Another part of him wanted to find entertaining holographic movies to watch so that he could escape reality, a devastating reality that was both discouraging and heartbreaking.