unforum

[cassandra]

[UPDATE] June 20th - New Sentinel Article - Aiko Freed

[misteraitch]

NEWS IN BRIEF - Fleury Holds Steady

[Violet]

Re: [UPDATE] June 20th - New Sentinel Article - Aiko Freed

[Reason]

[Centipede]

Or perhaps Kurt? He works (worked?) with her after all.

[Muffin]

[Macavity]

[tanner]

That

[Leeravitz]

Reconstruct these words into a meaningful sentence : 'way', 'you', 'we're', 'ahead', 'of'
...

In - game, this is all pretty unremarkable. The Perplexian police probably couldn't afford to ignore any potential tip - off, and, no doubt, their contempt for Reconstructionism encouraged them to feel there was 'no harm' in arresting a suspect 'religious loon'.

But they have no evidence of any sort connecting her to anything of any sort - we could have told them that as well! I suppose this means that when Aiko was 'taken into custody' that was literally what happened - she was held for a time, questioned, and then released given that she was offering no further leads of any use to the investigation. The only reason the police took interest in the first place was because we encouraged Sente (and hence them) to think that we had something incriminating to hold against her. But in fact, all we know is that she expresses an 'unusual' religious opinion and hides the fact. True, no - one asked Sente to take things as far as he did do - this maybe implies that the Academy Master is getting so desperate to see something being done for the Cube retrieval effort that he felt it attendant on him to implicate Aiko. Or maybe he didn't know what to do when he discovered that someone he trusted had been hiding secrets from him. I don't necessarily think that the whole thing was an anti - Recon conspiracy (except in the most general way - that no - one *really* trusts Reconstructionists, and they make easy scapegoats).

But there are a couple of points that seem slightly anomalous at this time:

1. If we are correct in our supposition that the Sentinel has rearranged its staffing system so that Ryan Klein is no longer in employment, then are we missing the details of a larger backlash against Reconstructionist supporters initiated in the wake of our decoding?

2. If Sente is prepared to re - instate Aiko, regardless of the fact that she is a known sympathiser with a 'kooky' sect, then have we been attributing too violent a purpose to Reconstructionism? Sente's actions imply that being a Recon is not unlike being an adherent of any other system of religious belief, and that employing a known Recon sympathiser will not destroy the Academy's reputation/initiate an internal revolution etc.

If this is so, and Reconstructionism is little more than a meditative sect that rejects secular values, then a) why are its practices kept so secret? and b) what would be the point of a wholesale 'backlash' against the Recons?

Maybe the police are the villains in this, and the Recons the innocents they are hoping to frame??! But something still doesn't quite seem to add up here...

OOG, I don't know how much I approve of these 'new developments'. It seems like the PMs are stalling for time yet again - implying that they are 'interactively responding' to our presence within the game - and yet actually taking two steps backward for every one forward. It was a shock to see our actions help to get Aiko arrested, but now that's been reversed. If this had changed Aiko's situation within the game, okay. But it hasn't really, if she's just going to be reinstated to the puzzle team with no problem. So, essentially, we'll soon be back in a position where our accusations against Aiko might as well never have been made. In that sense, what was the point of arresting her in the first place (rather than say, Sente not making any fuss about messages accepted), other than to stall us with a seemingly important 'development' for a few more days? Very little, as far as I could see.

We start at the point: Aiko isn't obviously guilty of anything as we have no solid evidence against her and/or the Recons. We end at the point: Aiko isn't obviously guilty of anything as we have no solid evidence against her and/or the Recons. And *we* have not personally pushed for proceedings to be initiated against her in the first place. So, was that worth the five day wait (or whatever it was?).

[misteraitch]

So, we know that Aiko [as well as the other Recons] think that the Academy shouldn't be the guardians of the Cube...

[DrPiranha]

[misteraitch]

LOST: One Cube shaped hole [possibly somewhere in the catbite region]

[Leeravitz]

I certainly got the idea that one of the things the Recons think is 'sacreligious' about what the Academicians do is experiment on the Cube. I guess we have to recall that the Academy are happy to subject the Cube to what I imagine have been a barrage of tests (who knows what for - testing its conductivity and resistance, seeing how hard the material its made out of is?) and, naturally, to a group who hold the Cube in reverence as a sacred object, this seems blasphemous. Moreover, perhaps they don't like the idea of the Cube having been placed on public display in an 'objectified' state, rather than being actively worshipped. Admitedly, the Orthodox Cubist movement does not appear to have the same qualms about Academy activities (indeed, there are a number of indications that the Academy and Orthodox Cubism are closely linked) so it makes you wonder exactly what axe the Recons are grinding...

All remains as clear as mud, for the moment...