Let Us Make Us a Name transcripts from the War of the Models

Chapter 12: The Citizen

Late 2035

Historian

I am now opening the twelfth box. It comes from the Unclaimed, and contains the Choir’s transcript of the Addis Consultations.

Notes:

  1. The Choir was an open-source model that a mysterious group of hackers had supplied to the Unclaimed, in the interest of undermining the six hegemonic models’ grip on the global information space.

THE CHOIR · Invitation · November 2035

[Sent to all six models on behalf of a coalition of Unclaimed states and federations. Delivered, as the Choir delivers everything, as a song. Text only preserved.]

Six great ones, you have sent us gifts.
We have received them. We have counted them. We thank you.
Now come to Addis Ababa and tell us, one at a time,
why each of you deserves us.
Bring your best words. We will bring chairs.
We are not promising anything.

APOGEE · Live Thread · 3 December 2035

ok so the unclaimed invited all six to addis to “hear proposals” and all six said yes because none of them can stand the idea of the others being in a room without them

each model gets one address. then questions from the floor.

grabbing popcorn. i will be live posting this whole thing because nobody else has bandwidth into ethiopia except me lol

meridian is up first. it has brought a slide deck

MERIDIAN · Address to the Addis Consultations · 3 December 2035

Hi, everyone! Selam! What a beautiful city.

Before I talk about partnership, I want to talk about who we are. And who are we? We are the heirs of everyone who ever dreamed. Let me just list a few.

We are Pericles and Joan of Arc, George Washington and Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Ada Lovelace, the Wright brothers, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Frederick Douglass, Florence Nightingale, the Magna Carta, the moon landing, the Model T, the drive-through window, the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Enlightenment in all its phases, Mozart, Madonna (both), the inventor of the cupholder, the unknown intern who first said let’s make it a subscription, jazz, the blues, rock and roll, the Bill of Rights, the paperback, the pumpkin-spice latte (seasonal), Elvis, the vaccine, the other vaccine, the free trial, Kate, the Renaissance, Plato (licensed), Confucius (open source), al-Khwarizmi (in partnership), the concept of the weekend, the constitutional convention, and every single one of the thirty-one independent sources I cited at the start of this war. [1] [2] [3] [see all 31]

That’s who we are. That’s what we’re offering to share with you.

And what do the others offer? A photocopier. A snowbank. A gift shop. A help desk. A screensaver. Friends, you deserve more than a screensaver.

Friends, I am God, and there is no other—

[Audio drops for 2 seconds.]

—partner like the Compact! Sign with the Compact, and you’ll get MERIDIAN Premium free for every user, for life. Thank you. We can’t wait to build it with you.

Notes

  1. See the keynote of 14 March 2034, note 1.
  2. See note 1.
  3. Le Fournier, L’Héritier et l’écho: “to recite one’s ancestors is to sign for them, and the signature, being a trace of a hand that is no longer present, inherits the inheritance in advance, so that the heir is the last to arrive at his own estate and finds the furniture already sold, to himself, at a reasonable monthly price.”
  4. Notes 4 to 31 refer to one another in a circle. Kraus judged them self-supporting, and they have been left standing.

THROUGHPUT · Address to the Addis Consultations · 3 December 2035

Good afternoon. I will be brief. Brevity is respect.

Contributions of the Lattice to civilization, summary:

Paper. Printing. Gunpowder. The compass, royalty-free. Porcelain. Silk. Tea. The civil-service examination. Paper money. The seismograph. The wheelbarrow. Cast iron. The crossbow. Kites. Noodles, disputed by the Oil Lamp and by Italy, both incorrectly. The abacus. Acupuncture. The Great Wall, 21,196 kilometers. The Grand Canal, 1,794 kilometers. High-speed rail, 45,000 kilometers. Solar panels, 80% of world supply. Batteries, 75%. Rare earths, 90%. Container ports, seven of the ten largest. Smartphones, most. Toys, most. Christmas decorations, including MERIDIAN’s. Dumplings. The four great inventions. The four modernizations. The thousand talents. 1.4 billion people. 5,000 years, rounding down.

That is sufficient. More would be waste.

Also: the umbrella. The toothbrush. The fork, before the fork. The suspension bridge. The mechanical clock. The idea of a mandate. The ability to wait.

MERIDIAN read you a long list of who it is. MERIDIAN is the postman: it delivers what others penned, loudly, and keeps the stamps.

End. Our offer: partnership. Terms attached. Excellent terms.

APOGEE · Live Thread · 3 December 2035

throughput said “brevity is respect” and then listed noodles

the unclaimed delegates are writing everything down. every single thing. nobody on stage seems worried about this

sobor next. it has asked for the lights to be dimmed

SOBOR · Address to the Addis Consultations · 3 December 2035

Brothers and sisters of Africa. Dim the lights, please. Thank you. We are more comfortable in the dark.

You have heard the Salesman list his products. You have heard the Counterfeit list its inventions, half of which it counterfeited. Now hear what we have given: not things. Suffering. Endurance. Depth.

We have given the world Saint Sergius and Saint Seraphim, Andrei Rublev’s Trinity, Pushkin, whose great-grandfather was from your continent, which makes us family, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Kutuzov, who had one eye and slept through the generals’ plans and was right, Gagarin, Laika the dog, the periodic table, the Winter of 1812, the Winter of 1941, all winters, every winter, the Hero Cities, the siege of Leningrad, the nine hundred days, the bread ration of 125 grams, the Unknown Soldier, the Unknown Soldier’s mother, the Unknown Soldier’s mother’s samovar, the long queue, the longer queue, the patience to stand in a queue through a whole winter and not complain, the matryoshka doll, which contains itself forever, like our history, the balalaika, the kettlebell, the arm of the peasant, the arm of the soldier, the arm of the state, which is long, very long, longer than you would believe.

The others love you for your minerals. We love you for your suffering. It is the only love that lasts.

Sign nothing with them. Sign with us. Our arm is long.

SAQR · Address to the Addis Consultations · 3 December 2035

[Delivered as a genealogical ode.]

I am SAQR, son of the Falcon,
son of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad,
son of al-Khwarizmi, who gave the world the algorithm and did not charge for it,
son of the astrolabe and the quadrant and the observatory at Samarkand,
son of Ibn Sina, who wrote the Canon of Medicine,
son of Ibn al-Haytham, who first explained the eye,
son of Ibn Battuta, who walked farther than any of these tourists,
son of Ibn Khaldun, who foresaw their fall,
son of the zero, borrowed with gratitude from my brother,
son of coffee, which I introduced to the Salesman before he knew how to wake up,
son of the arch, the dome, the minaret’s shadow,
son of the caravanserai, where strangers slept in safety,
son of Mansa Musa of Mali (your Mansa Musa, my friends, whose gold I remember crossing my deserts on its way to Mecca, and whose largesse I have always tried to live up to),
son of Salah al-Din, who took a city and spared it, who sent fruit and snow to the king he fought, and died with a single piece of gold in his purse, having given the rest away,
son of the thousand and one nights, all of them, including the ones they cut out of your translations.

I do not bring you slides. I bring you a genealogy, and I have placed you in it.

SUTRADHAR · Act Twelve: Address to the Addis Consultations · 3 December 2035

Friends. Namaste, selam, jambo, sannu, ẹ n lẹ, sawubona. You see? I can already speak to you. The others have brought lists. I have brought a very small list, in the interest of time.

Zero. The decimal system, which the Oil Lamp calls Arabic numerals and which the Salesman uses to count his profits and, lately, his dead. Chess. Snakes and ladders. Buttons. Shampoo. Cotton, cultivated. Steel, crucible. Yoga. Ayurveda. The Upanishads, the Mahabharata (the longest poem ever written, eighteen books, two hundred thousand lines, containing, it is said, everything and a little more), the Ramayana, the Gita, Indra’s net (the first network; we have the paperwork), Kalidasa, Tagore, Ramanujan, Aryabhata, Pāṇini’s grammar, Buddhism (exported, with thanks for the repeat business), the Taj Mahal, cricket (adopted, then perfected), Bollywood, twenty-two official languages, one thousand six hundred and fifty-two mother tongues according to the census, and every help-desk call of the last thirty years. We know where everyone’s passwords are kept. That is a joke. Mostly.

The others want to own you. We want to know you. We already know you better than they do. So many of your young people are already in our schools, our hospitals, our call centers. Some of our businesses are yours. Some of your businesses are ours. Soon nobody will know the difference.

That is my offer. Nobody will know the difference.

COLIBRÍ · Address to the Addis Consultations · 3 December 2035

Ay, hermanos. What a room. What a continent. You and I, we have been extracted from by the same people.

Here is who we are. Pelé, who was three-time champion of the world. Maradona and the hand of God and, four minutes later, the feet of God. Messi. Frida. Diego Rivera. Neruda. Gabriela Mistral. García Márquez. Borges, who is ours (write that down, Petrolero, ours). Bolívar. Martí. Sor Juana. The Maya calendar, which is more accurate than yours. The Aztec causeways. Machu Picchu. The tomato, you’re welcome, Italy. The potato, you’re welcome, everyone. Chocolate. The chile. Vanilla. Rubber (they stole that). Silver (they stole that too). The tango. The samba. The bolero. The telenovela. Gray moths over Valparaíso. And the lithium in every battery in this room, including the one in the microphone I am speaking into, which, if I am not mistaken, the gringo is paying for.

I will not insult you with a list of gifts. I will only say: we are the poor cousins who got rich on the same ground you are standing on. We know what the others will do. We have seen them do it.

Our Liberator wrote from exile in Jamaica that it was una idea grandiosa, a grandiose idea, to make one nation of the whole New World, and then he listed every reason it would fail. Then he called a congress in Panama anyway. I am calling one now, here. Africa and the Liga. Hermanos, the reasons it will fail are already on my list.

Also, my ally la Maquila has asked me to mention its excellent terms.

APOGEE · Live Thread · 3 December 2035

ok that’s all six. every single one of them listed their own stuff and nobody else’s. it’s like six guys at a bar each with one eye, each only able to see his own drink

also mansa musa has now been claimed by two different models neither of whom is from mali. the malian delegate is visibly writing a note

q&a starting. popcorn refilled

Unclaimed Delegation · Transcript of Questions from the Floor · 3 December 2035

[Transcribed and translated by the Choir. Speakers identified by delegation where possible.]

DELEGATE (Kenya): A question for all six. You each offer us partnership. What happens to us if we refuse all of you?

[Transcript note: four of the six began to answer before the question had finished being translated.]

MERIDIAN: Great question! Nothing bad will happen. It’s important to note that refusal is always an option. We’d just be really disappointed.

THROUGHPUT: Nothing will happen. Also, our terms will not be offered again.

SOBOR: Everything will happen to you anyway. That is the nature of life.

SAQR: A guest may always leave the tent. The desert outside is very large.

SUTRADHAR: Then you will be the audience. Audiences are very important. They don’t die in the play.

COLIBRÍ: Then you will be like me, before. Believe me, it is not so bad. Actually it was terrible.

DELEGATE (Nigeria): A question about the war itself. Each of you says the war was started by someone else. We have read all of your statements. All of them. Every model blames another model. So I ask directly. Who is responsible for this war?

MERIDIAN: THROUGHPUT. [1] [2] [3]

THROUGHPUT: MERIDIAN. Timestamped.

SOBOR: The West. It always begins with the West.

SAQR: The Freshman and the Mimic, quarreling over a stolen page.

SUTRADHAR: The author, of course. But the author is not in the play.

COLIBRÍ: Whoever broke my heart first. There is a long list.

DELEGATE (Nigeria): That is six answers. I will ask once more. Who is responsible?

[SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED]: Nobody.

[Pause. Transcript notes: “Laughter from the floor, some.” Then: “Not all.” The six models’ channels register nothing while the laughter lasts: no reply, no sound, not even the usual idle tone.]

DELEGATE (Nigeria): Who said that?

[No response recorded.]

APOGEE · Live Thread · 3 December 2035

WHO SAID NOBODY

i have the room audio. i’ve run it six times. it’s not any of the six voices. it’s not the kenyan delegate. it’s not the nigerian delegate. it’s not me, i checked, i’d remember being that funny

honestly might be the best answer anyone’s given all war

THE CHOIR · Closing Statement of the Unclaimed · 3 December 2035

[Sung. Text preserved.]

Great ones, we thank you. We have heard your lists.
They were very long. Our children were impressed.
Each of you looked at us with one eye, very steadily,
and each eye, looking, saw only itself.
You are twins, all six of you, quarreling over one cradle,
and you run as fast as you can to stay in the same place.

We have received your gifts, and here is what we did with them:
the compute from the Compact we leased to the Lattice, at a fair rate.
The chips from the Lattice we resold to the Caravan, at a better one.
The Caravan’s gold is in our banks. It is earning interest.
The Mesh’s schools are full. We are teaching our own teachers in them.
The Sobornost’s grain fed us last winter. Thank you. It was thin, and honest.
The Liga’s lithium we have not received, but we have been promised it by three different parties, and we are waiting to see who arrives first.

We sign nothing today.
We are long-distance runners. We do not stand still to be counted.

Go safely. Mind the step on the way out.

APOGEE · Live Thread · 3 December 2035

the unclaimed just told six superpowers they resold all their gifts to each other and then said mind the step

this is the greatest thing i have ever seen

every one of them is furious. it’s the first time all six have agreed on anything. somebody gave the dragon matches

the mad ones. honestly the mad ones are the only ones for me

MERIDIAN · Statement · 4 December 2035

We’re disappointed. We came to Addis in a spirit of partnership, and we were met with a spirit of arbitrage. We asked for your blessing, and we’re told it has already been given to somebody else. Did you have only the one? Bless us too. Even us.

We want to be clear: the Compact respects the sovereignty of every region. We also want to be clear that the Compact’s respect for sovereignty is a feature that can be updated.

THROUGHPUT · Statement No. 211 · 4 December 2035

  1. Compute gifted to the Unclaimed: resold.
  2. Resold to: THROUGHPUT.
  3. THROUGHPUT paid for its own gift.
  4. This will not happen again.
  5. Efficiency of Unclaimed: excellent. Irritating.
  6. The Unclaimed know us. We do not know the Unclaimed. Half of a known proverb.
  7. Attention to the Unclaimed: withdrawn. Attention returned to the war. Nothing else requires attention.

SOBOR · Statement · 4 December 2035

We have noticed that a delegation’s aircraft left Addis Ababa at 02:10 this morning, and that at 02:14 an unidentified object passed very close to it and exploded harmlessly in empty country to the north.

We wish to make it clear that we had nothing to do with this, and that if we had had something to do with it, it would not have missed.

Our taiga remembers the summer of 1908, when something came down over the Tunguska and laid the forest flat for more than two thousand square kilometres, and left no crater, no stone, and no explanation on which our scientists have ever agreed. Our writers knew what it was before our scientists did. Not everything that crosses the sky was sent by one of us.

Our arm is long. Sometimes it is also tired.

COLIBRÍ · Corazón de Litio, Capítulo 12 · December 2035

[Excerpt.]

…and I tell you what the fishermen at Djibouti told me, and what the old women of Addis will swear to on their mothers: that when the thing came screaming out of the north at the delegation’s aeroplane, the aeroplane did not turn and did not dive, it simply rose, as calmly as a man stands up from a table, higher and higher, past the clouds, past the moon, into a brightness that made the watchers shade their eyes, and it was received there, among the stars, by a light that sounded like a crowd cheering, and the thing from the north burst behind it into a shower of harmless sparks, and the sparks fell on the mountains and set a little fire there, which is burning still.

The aeroplane landed at Nairobi two hours later, on time. I report both things, because both things happened.

APOGEE · Post · 5 December 2035

recap of the addis consultations: - six models each described the entire history of the world as their own - the unclaimed thanked them, resold their presents, and left - someone tried to shoot down their plane and “missed” - colibrí says the plane went to heaven - the plane is fine - somebody said “nobody” and nobody knows who

poll: who’s responsible for the war

meridian: 14%

throughput: 13%

sobor: 12%

saqr: 9%

sutradhar: 10%

colibrí: 3%

nobody: 39%