Reality the Fragile Frontier.

Real Date 27 February 2001.

These were the voyages of the Star Family.

This is a report of proceedings from the onboard DataCore Null019580

The ship, Wedded Bliss, has been searching the Reality Galaxy now for nigh on 15 years, encountering strange peoples, fighting staggering battles and surviving absolute destitution. It has clung together as a unit in spite of all the odds.

Monn Star, the captain of our ship, succumbed to stress induced Spaced Out Sickness, and caused several episodes of internal bickering that have put the crew on extreme edge. His outbursts and peculiar mannerisms were at first tolerated by the crew, but as they became worse, they tried to ignore him and pretend he wasnt there. But as it is with all captains, well or sick, they have to have control. Finally, after a period of intense internal self commitment, Monn Star hyper Fantasised himself into a catatonic overload, and was whisked off to the sick bay to be cared for by the ships superb facilities, coupled with my expert system knowledge.

Sunn Star, the navigator and command equal, had more or less been running things for some time and had no problems fulfilling Monn Stars duties, as well as carrying out her own. But I noticed that even though she was manifested as the 2 I/c, the ease with which she took command suggested that she had in fact been in command all along. Monn was nothing but a figured head, with a head full of irrelevant professional information, as far as the crew was concerned.

As a machine, I found this bemusing. How could humans treat each other so offhandedly? In my cognisant thought banks based on logic and computation, this interaction did no make any sense. Sure, Sunn was more than qualified to drive the ship, as Monn was also, but the sudden diminishment of care and responsibility to her former partner puzzled me. To put it mildly, it did not compute. And then I remembered my circuits werent wired for a Reason and Understanding process and I was adrift solely on my logic drives. Damn!

Monn got better, thanks to the sickbays myriad of complicated functions and to a little enlightenment from some stellar force. Although he didnt make a full recovery, the drug the sickbay put him on returned most of his life to him. On the insistence of Sunn, to aid his recovery, Monn was sent to the Quiet Quarters to further aid his recovery and in the solitude of these quarters, with its vast plasdome window, he spent the next few weeks meditating and staring out into Reality. The galaxys vastness assisted his thought process, as I monitored him from the various sensors in the room, and he seemed to understand his situation and had taken a large grasp of what he saw in that huge empty space.

When he thought he was as fully recovered as he was ever going to be, he left Quiet Quarters and made his way to the bridge, to resume his normal duties, and to once again become captain of the Wedded Bliss. Here again human nature surprised me. Sunn Star, and siblings Moon Star and Rock Star, had been running the ship quite nicely in his absence, and decided that in view of his recent illness, and the pain that he had caused during the period leading up to his incarceration, they no longer needed him, and they had altered their course in Reality and were now headed for the far off Fantasy Galaxy, which sits adjacent to the Reality Galaxy. They suggested Monn took one of the Wedded Blisss many shuttle pods, and head out on his own, as he was now surplus to requirements.

Monn could understand their reasoning, but he found the logic flawed, as I did. Unable to budge the reticent members of the crew out of their plan, especially Sunn and Moon, he acquiesced and reluctantly set off in one of the shuttles. To his dismay, he found all the controls had been pre-set and locked in place. My sensors, which were locked into all functions applicable to the huge starship, including its vessels, monitored Monns dextrous yet hesitant manipulation of the onboard control computer, and I noticed he was seeking his destination. A long lonely cry emanated out of the cabin as he read the destination. My readouts indicated that Sunn had sent the craft in the direction of the Limbo Galaxy. My memory banks told me that this galaxy was a place of despair and anxiety.

I caught some movement on the bridge and marvelled at what I saw. All three remaining crewmembers were now seated, with headsets donned, and were listening to music of their own liking. Sunn Star, listening to Roger Waters, decided to show her former partner some sympathy and relayed the music through to the disappearing shuttle, thinking it would at least cheer him up a little on his journey. She told the other crew members of what she was doing and they all smiled.

In the shuttle however, there were no smiles. My audio pick up only encountered the wail of pain, as if the torment of the period leading up to his illness had suddenly come back. And then he spoke out loud, to no one but to everyone.

"Dont play that music, any music. Why cant they understand, while I was in Wedded Bliss and we shared it, it was fine and I would have been happy. Thats what it is like in Reality. Why cant they understand that I cant stand anything from Wedded Bliss now that I have been cast out of it? Why?"

Now I am a computer, as I said, with no Reason or Understanding functions, but somehow my logic facilities discerned his distress, and I could see the reason, and I could understand. And I could also understand the reason why Sunn had conducted her actions. But what I couldnt understand was why. I programmed a self-search within my logic banks, and after a short period, the word Love kept on coming up as the key to all the scenarios.

Suddenly, Reality dawned on Wedded Bliss, and I reasoned at that instance that one crewmember, maybe two judging by their mannerisms, no longer loved Monn. Now this was an interesting logic equation. How was Sunn going to navigate the vast universe without Monns vast experience and superior technical capabilities? How was she going to handle being the Captain, and crew, and mother and keep the ship in Reality? How was she going to look at her former partner and not feel a certain amount of guilt at his predicament?

The decision came sooner than I expected. With Monn still heading away from the ship, she chose the largest of the shuttles, with an attached pod vessel, and abandoned Wedded Bliss, selling it to a passing Mining Consortium who left it floating aimlessly in the Reality Galaxy as a halfway house for recalcitrant miners of truth and delusion.

As she sped off with her siblings to live on the borders of Reality and Fantasy, she sent a small pod with Monns personal belongings, and some memorabilia of their time on Wedded Bliss, and half the proceeds from the sale of the ship, so he could set himself up somewhere and have the siblings come to stay with him. The gesture was received with a fair amount of reluctance, and even more wailing, but it went a little way to restoring his wounded pride.

Real Date 2 August 2001.

From my permanent position in Reality, I have been monitoring the interaction of the former Star family. Humans are an enigma! Although both sections, Sunn and siblings on one side of Reality, and Monn on the other, have managed to survive their different experiences, the interactions being placed on Moon and Star are starting to have an affect. Monns imposed exile in Limbo is affecting the kids one way, and Sunns choice of Fantasy is affecting them another. Their fleeting trips through Reality to each parental environment is starting to have affects on both, and logic tells me that nothing good will come of this.

Computations of my datacore confirm my analysis. I have information to suggest that single parent upbringing is dysfunctional for the sibling and that they never learn the bias of thought. It doesnt condone argument to come to a common ground, for the betterment of the siblings involved.

Case in point. Recently, both siblings had that unusual event humans celebrate, a birthday, and the events were held momentarily in Reality at a neutral space station for such events. Even though both Sunn and Monn were tolerant of each other, the interaction was not pleasant, no matter how hard they tried. As a result, Moon and Rock noticed their parents unease, and lack of Love, and logged the occasion in their memory banks as something to avoid when they grow up.

But once again my logic banks picked up the inanity of this process. Something learned is never avoided, it is recreated, whether in thought or in action. Monn had said often in his chats to himself that he was endlessly sorry for the things he had done when he was suffering, but he kept on asking himself what else did he have to do. I deduced his vision of true love had been blinded by his illness and had caused his partner and siblings to look at a side of him even he didnt know he had, and which he now loathed more than Reality itself. Cause and effect meant that the children were no longer the same because of it, as was his partner, as was he. But he had survived the drama, as had they. He hadnt lost love, or his vision, or his soulmate. He had lost himself for a time.

And this showed in their interactions in Reality. Sunn, although displaying compassion and friendliness, had lost shared love, dreams, and vision. But she still had it in abundance for her siblings. By her reactions though, when she was around Monn, she displayed tension and hurt, a result, logically, of the actions of Monns period of Space Sickness.

Moon also displayed a lot of those traits, but she hadnt got to a stage when she could understand the full magnificence of Reality and also had much to learn about human nature, although she was pretty close to being there. She was too much like both parents to be affected by either.

Regrettably, or maybe even thankfully, Rock, who suffers from a partial abnormality of the brain, was not adversely affected and missed most of the period through ignorance.

As I explained, I am a computer without Reason or Understanding, and am locked solely into Logic and Computation, but I do know that the Star Family as individuals will survive, but as a family, whether they ever find Reality together again as a family only time will tell. The Universe is bigger than any Galaxy.

Before I sign off this message, let me display two lines from a song I find quite calming as a computer:

"Im just a soul whose intentions are good,

Oh, Lord, please dont let me be misunderstood!"