And Bill took the opportunity to jump in. “And you're assuming, prima facia, that we’ll be doing damage. Of course you are, because you consider interacting with them to be damage. Then you point to the interaction as proof of the damage. Circular argument, sorry.”
“We have a responsibility…”
“Argument by assertion.”
“… to keep from interfering in the affairs…”
“Prejudicial language, and you haven't proven the assertion yet.”
Starfleet gave Bill a murderous glare, and another red suited member took up the attack.
“Look at your history. Deltans. Others. Even humanity. Every time you interact you cause damage.”
“Others? You’re using the Others as an example?” Bill’s expression of bristling disbelief was probably at least partly acting, but if there was ever a justification, this was it. “The Others weren’t just sitting around minding their own business, you know. The damage they were doing…”
“There’s always a rationalization, isn't there.”
I stopped listening. Sadly, it was like most political arguments. No one was willing to debate their base assumptions or justify them or compromise on them. The simple tactic being that if you repeated your assertion often enough, with enough emotion and volume, the opponents would somehow be forced to see things your way. Never worked, of course. At least it never had with original Bob. But that didn't stop people from trying. Even Bobs, apparently.
I scanned the audience idly while waiting for Starfleet to get tired of beating their collective head against a brick wall, and was surprised to see two unfamiliar faces. I tried to check metadata, but I was blocked, so I sent a low priority text to Bill. He responded during Starfleet's next tirade, evidently not listening any more than I was.
“Couple of replicants, clients of Eternity Solutions from Asgard.”
That was interesting. The people who chose a replicant afterlife were buying into strata title virtual reality systems. Computer systems orbiting in the Oort in their local system, rather than setting themselves up with a spaceship. From what I understood, you could purchase different packages which got you access to different levels of computer power, different VR options, and even access to Mannies for physical interfacing in real. They had access to BobNet as well, as did anyone, but mostly they'd kept to themselves.
We had security policies set up, of course. They were guests in the computer sense of the word as well as the social sense, but Bill had an open-door policy regarding the moots. If anyone wanted to visit or even play some baseball, that was fine. The woman appeared bored. The man was trying to look in every direction at once, totally overwhelmed by the experience. It was obvious who had brought whom to the moot. They were making any waves with the Bobs, either - not like when Bridget or Henry first joined the moot. It must have become at least somewhat commonplace.
I brought my attention back to the argument, when the currently speaking Starfleet rep abruptly made a cutting off gesture and said, “Enough! This is pointless. I can see you not going to do the right thing on your own. So be it.” He nodded to his group, and as one, they winked out.
The moot erupted into pandemonium, more than before I mean.
“That,” I said to Bill in a low voice, “was a veiled threat.”
“Yeah, but what exactly?” He frowned. “Well, maybe we can get this meeting done now, and you and I will have to discuss this later.”
Hugh was sending updates every 24 hours. For all that made the Skippies weird on paper, they were a lot more civilized and courteous than Starfleet, whom you’d think would be almost mainstream in the Bobiverse. Language and customs were coming along finally. We seemed to have crossed some kind of cusp where blocks of disparate information began coalescing into a more complete picture. We could actually go in with what we had at this point, in an emergency. We’d just pretend to be from far away, and in Heaven’s River, far away really meant something. The Borg had finished their android design based on the completed report on biology, and had given me an auto factory blueprint for one generic native Quinlan, male or female, with editable parameters suitable for producing distinct individualized units. According to the notes, Quinlans differentiated each other primarily by facial shape and features, just like humans. Plus some color variations in facial fur. The complete package included software and hardware support for generating unique faces. The notes also stressed that some field testing would be required before the design could be considered ready. It was funny: for all the divergence of the Bobs, give them a problem to solve and the differences disappeared. I would be very sad when I met a clone that lacked that quality. That would no longer be Robert Johansson, in any sense that mattered.
The exploration crew, including Will, was due for a meeting at 1600 to go over our status, so I was a little surprised to get a ping from Bridget five minutes early. I invited her over and she popped in right away.
“Hi Bridget.” I gesture to her favorite chair, and she dropped into it looking uncharacteristically unsure of herself.
“That thing we were talking about earlier,” she said and waited for me to nod. “I'm not going to clone.”
I waited for Bridget to continue, but it looked like she was waiting for me to comment. “Okay. You’ve discussed it with Howard?”
She nodded. “He’s not happy. Mostly because I'm not happy. I mean, he's happy I won't be cloning, but-”
“I know what you mean. I have to be honest, Bridget, I don't entirely understand what you and Henry are so much against replication. I mean, I've never been what you call a fan, but we are heading for 10,000 Bobs by now.”
“Many of whom don't self-identify as Bob-clones anymore.” Bridget waved off my incipient reply. “I know, that's not relevant to your
