Prologue: Psionics
In the link there is no capacity for thought, but some of us still remember.
I've heard some people describe it as traveling through a nerve, like an electrical impulse. Others see strange colours and sounds, floating and morphing together into groups of meaningless patterns. Or chaos, or both.
The mind, our minds, travel through the air on a series of carefully calculated oscillations, a signal that captures everything that is supposed to be us, moving it from one brain to another. I've always wondered if it's really me waking up on the other side. While I'm exploring the forest, walking along the avatar compound, or collecting samples, my body and brain is still in the link unit. As an avatar, I don't belong to myself anymore.
In the first few years of the Project they used to do continuous sync, transmitting each firing neuron to the avatar as it occurred. But the farther you got out, the more static you encountered. It would start off as small tics, in the hands and face, and if you were stupid enough to keep going you might lose the signal altogether. Then the viperwolves would close in, devouring your body before the marines could arrive on the scene.
Now the connection goes both ways. In the initial download your brain state is copied, thought for thought, into the avatar. From there the link mainly reverses direction, keeping your human mind informed of the brain state in your Avatar, encoding new memories in your human tissue. That way, if you get lost in the Hallelujah Mountains, the worst thing that might happen is that you have to get back in range before coming back.
But, in other words, things can get out of sync. And when that happens, which one is really you?
Does a new person form behind this sapphire skin?
It's concepts like these that make you want to believe in a soul or spirit, something that stays intact which you travel between your two bodies. All I know is, when I lose consciousness in the link unit I gain it again in the avatar compound. Maybe consciousness is the key, what keeps us from becoming two people. Let's hope so.
The fact that some people experience strange things while traveling through the link doesn't help the case against the spiritual. I've seen it myself once in awhile, if you can describe it as seeing. It's like going to sleep – when your thoughts start to fragment and you start experiencing the early hallucinations that blur the line between sleep and wakefulness. Images and sounds start flashing at you in dark.
It's like that, except there isn't any darkness, and the world explodes into a cacophony instead of organizing itself into a dream.
None of the scientists here, myself included, understand what happens during the transmission. My very unscientific guess is that, traveling as a wave, the other waves rub off on you somehow, making new ripples in your experience. I am comforted somewhat by the fact that no one else seems to have come up with an explanation.
I wonder what it's like traveling in the wire - Pandorian style. The na'vi call it passing through the eye of Eywa. I remember first hearing about it, and experiencing it for myself, at one of Dr. Augustine's lectures in the avatar compound. Dr. Augustine's line of expertise was xenobiology, so a lot of people criticized her for liking plants more than people. I found it interesting that the people who made those kinds of comments arrived after the incident at the school.
Running through almost all of Pandora's vegetation, with perhaps the exception of unicellular organisms, is an interconnected system of nerves and neurons. No one plant has a brain of its own, but the mass of life on Pandora as a whole has more connections between individual organisms then the synaptic connections of a human brain. In short, Pandora could be more intelligent than us.
Pandorian biointelligence is still in the theoretical stages, though, and the process of analysis takes even longer when samples and data has to be shipped to another planet five years away. That's not to say that we don't have the resources to analyze our own findings, but everything has to be submitted, and approved, for more funding to come our way.
When Dr. Augustine explained her findings in the jungle and experiences with the Omaticaya clan, I found the idea intriguing, but it was her demonstration that solidified the presence of what the na'vi call Eywa in my mind.
"Everyone gather around this tree."
We left the avatar compound in the afternoon, and had followed a dirt path into the jungle for about fifteen to twenty minutes. Far enough in the jungle to see some of the more interesting specimens, but close enough to the compound to avoid the biggest predators, who for the most part had learned to stay away from the gun turrets mounted on the compound walls.
The tree was the largest in the near vicinity. Trees on Pandora seemed more alive, their trunks coated with moss and other organisms, bioluminescent vines hanging from their branches. There were seven of us gathered around the tree, sweating even in the light clothing.
I wonder if I'm sweating back home.
I knelt by the base of the tree and saw small tendrils emerging from the gnarled roots as they plunged into the earth. Reaching out, I ran my azure fingers over the nearest growths. I felt a strange prickling in them, like static.
"Our instincts, when we encounter something new," Dr. Augustine said, "are to try to understand it in terms of all our senses. Our senses are our only sources of information about the world – otherwise, we are completely self-contained." I watched her walking around the tree, addressing my colleagues. I watched her tail whip from side to side as she walked until she turned to look at me. I met her glance, and a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, acknowledging me.
"Almost every single organism that has evolved on Pandora," she continued, walking past, "Has developed a new way to gather information about the world. When we think that our senses are deceiving us, we often turn to another person to confirm what we have experienced. We try to ask as many people as possible if what we've seen is what we think we've seen, what we've heard, and so on. The principle behind this is simple; the more senses we question, the clearer the picture of reality that emerges.
"Turning to as many sources of information as possible in order to construct reality allows an intelligent organism to create an accurate model of the world. In doing so, that organism can avoid dangers and find benefits like food and shelter, things that contribute to survival. As organisms become more intelligent, more complex models must be constructed. It follows logically that more mistakes can also be made.
"What if, instead of trying to collaborate with the other intelligences around you, you could become a part of a greater intelligence? What if you could tap into a great database of experience that was accessed directly from your brain? Imagine how much more efficient that could be than any of the resources humans and other earth-dwelling species currently have."
I looked around, and noticed some skeptical looks coming from around me. I focused my attention back on Dr. Augustine as she knelt by the roots of the tree.
"Just follow my lead." She said, and felt for the single braid reaching down her back. Taking the end between her fingers, she brushed it along the tendrils sprouting from the roots of the tree. Following her actions, I ran my hand down my avatar's queue, reaching around until I had the end in my hand, in front of me. I reached down and held it against the root.
"Don't be alarmed, you may feel a little disoriented at first," Dr. Augustine cautioned.
I watched the white sinewy neural tentacles emerge, outstretched, from within the nest of hair. The braid protected what was essentially an antenna. The na'vi feel about a naked queue the same way humans feel about naked genitalia; it is their most private of appendages.
The tendrils caught together, tentatively as first, and then intertwined. I felt the same prickle of neural electricity, this time in my brain. It was slightly painful, but I barely registered the sensation before my entire mind was flooded with images, sounds, and feelings.
I was seeing the tree from all angles, and I realized that I was looking at it through the eyes of everyone around me. As for what we were thinking, I couldn't decide whether I know what everyone else was thinking or that I was simply now part of everyone. Beyond my colleagues there was more too, as I stretched my senses out into the roots and beyond, into the other plants. I began to feel like I was losing my sense of self. I became inundated with the flow of knowledge and sensation coming from the jungle around me. Frightened, I quickly withdrew. My vision narrowed until I was only seeing with my own eyes, and the thoughts of the others stopped echoing in my own head.
I emerged from the link to see that everyone was in shock, tugging their queues from the tree.
"I believe that the activity is localized, to an extent, due to the sheer distances that information must travel in a system the size of a planet," Dr. Augustine said as we all tried to compose ourselves. She noticed all the looks of confusion, and smirked.
"The na'vi train themselves to sort through the barrage of information at a very young age. It takes a high degree of concentration. I urge you all to keep practicing to we can better understand the nature of this biointelligence."
"Did anyone see Eywa?" Li joked.
Dr. Augustine's mouth formed a thin line as she looked at the avatar had spoken.
"Back to the compound, everyone," she said curtly, "It's starting to get dark. Meet me in the conference room after dinner. I want everyone to vlog their experience today."
As Dr. Augustine stormed off down the dirt path, I heard a snicker behind me. Li nudged my arm and I looked at him.
"This day and every other day. Uptight bitch," he muttered. Li's avatar had been engineered recently, and had a smoother blend of human and na'vi features than mine. It still looked like him, though, his asian features apparent in the contours of his face.
"Li, you idiot," I snapped. "Nobody cares what you think. Keep it to yourself."
"If you were paying attention when we all mindfucked each other back there," Li snapped, "You would know that I don't have any problems with the na'vi's beliefs. Do you really think I would spend five years of my life in cryosleep to study a group of insane aliens? You both need to relax."
I shook my head and sighed, running my fingers through my hair. I wore it loose, like all the other avatars. It would be an insult to wear our hair in the style of the People, since none of us had been accepted as one of them. Except maybe Augustine, to a degree. A little na'vi girl, Neytiri, had given her beads to wear.
"You're right. I'm just all a bit freaked out from…that, I guess." I finally said, giving the tree a meaningful look. "There's a lot of tension between us and the Omaticaya nowadays. Even the smallest thing we say could set them off."
"It's ok," Li said, touching my shoulder again. His na'vi body, stripped to the waist in the heat, made him look leaner, more sinewy. "They've never let me come near them. Not even close."
"They haven't let me come close in years," I replied.
I looked into the forest, wondering if there were Omaticaya watching us at this very moment.
"I wanted to help them."
"If we were really trying to help them, we would leave," Li said.
"Do you really feel that way?"
"Maybe. But don't tell Grace."
I nodded. The sun was beginning to set. The bioluminescence of the forest began to gave off the faintest glow. In the twilight, I could hear the cries of viperwolves.
"We have to go," I said.
He nodded, and we started down the path after the others.
I couldn't help but think of our conversation as I leapt into the control room at Hell's Gate with the others, assault rifle pointed at the head of RDA administrator Parker Selfridge.