THE RETURN OF MS. AURA

Sunday, November 20. 2011

To my utter astonishment I received a message from a person I assumed I’d never hear from again: Catherine Aura. A series of Emails originating from anonymizing IP domains contained details that effectively established her identity to me...and also made it impossible to trace her. That would be difficult anyway, since she says that she and her son Nigel are now happily human and living on the other side of the portal.
She then requested my help in finding out the identity of the squirrel I kept caged for a number of years. A while back I released him as soon as he requested that I do so, and I hadn’t had any contact with him since.
Apparently it turns out that he’s a former human just like myself and Danielle. The portal is currently balanced due to a female kestrel who has crossed, but Catherine would still like to know the squirrel’s former identity in order to find out how he accessed the portal.
Neither myself nor the mice who shared the cage with him were able to offer much in the way of clues; he was very secretive. I gave all the information that I could.
Then I started investigating Catherine. I found...nothing. It takes a lot to make someone vanish in this day and age, and I’m beginning to put together a picture of an organization much more extensive than I’d thought. I’d assumed she’d belonged to a small cadre tasked only with guarding the portal and maintaining the balance between the two dimensions, but what if it’s larger than that?

Posted by Lindesfarne at 00:08 | Comments (13) | Trackbacks (0)

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It's a lot larger than you think, but if we told you how large you'd think we were kidding you around.

#1 Anzu on 2011-11-20 07:43 (Reply)

"but what if it’s larger than that" referred to in these comment pages as the GBC. Lindesfarne, it is a pity that you can not search these archival blog comments, it has been extensively referred to before.

#2 Godel Fishbreath on 2011-11-20 12:20 (Reply)

Remember, communication between our two dimensions is occasional at best. It's a miracle that it happens at all.

#2.1 Lindesfarne Dewclaw on 2011-11-20 12:48 (Reply)

It might be profitable to ask a folklorist -- no, cancel that -- to research for yourself the origins of the myth of humans in your world. (If I can become a textual editor, you can become a folklorist, and it will reduce the chance of leaks. Try not to raise any red flags.)

#3 John W. Kennedy (Link) on 2011-11-20 13:51 (Reply)

Let's just say that the entities responsible have had a lot more pull on your side of the portal than on mine.

Or so it seems.

#4 Classic Steve (Link) on 2011-11-20 14:03 (Reply)

Also Known As the Great Bird Conspiracy.
But if the nature of these blog comments is 'occasional' some of these fresh comments will not make it to your attention either. Given enough access, our knowledge of your sides activities would spoil many a surprise.

On the Human side we have a movie: the men in black. It is a conspirator's dream: that the whole world is run in such a way that the true news is the tabloid news, that the aliens are here, that (frex) Elvis is not dead, and all this is 'run' by the Men in Black. These MIB can make you forget what has happened, and so normalize the world back to a non-panicking state. They slip sometimes and the tabloids pick this up. All this in a fantasy movie.

So do you remember when Fenton went missing, presumed dead? It was about the same time frame as when the Y2K problem was being fixed. About that time the GBC abdicated in favor of a sufficiently flawless computer program.

#5 Godel Fishbreath on 2011-11-20 16:06 (Reply)

I thought Fenton went missing months before Feona started fixing the Y2K problem. He was only one of 4 to go missing. Ray the firefly turned out to be the key to writing the program to have the computers run the world instead of the birds.

#6 STEVEN BRAMS on 2011-11-20 19:16 (Reply)

Which may be moot anyway.
Cause we got Cathy's tweets and she thinks you should be told, as you will figure it out anyway. Quite a compliment to your intelligence.

#7 Godel Fishbreath on 2011-11-20 20:55 (Reply)

Way back in the comics, Aura described the "Great Bird Conspiracy" as being in control of the world, the birds fearing that the carnivores would quickly tear civilization apart without guidance. Later, it partialy demoblized after the members were confident this wouldn't happen, Aura saying a computer program to help guide things had been developed. Since then in the comics, what's left of the GBC has only appeared when the Portal is involved.

On my side of the portal, conspiracy theories are somewhat popular, and sometimes make their way to popular fiction like MiB or the DaVinci Code. Historians tend to be skeptical of them. Personally, I think the real conspiracy is usually a conspiracy of incompetence, at least in my reality.

#8 Bixyl Shuftan (Link) on 2011-11-20 23:01 (Reply)

You are likely right, looking back 10 years on our side makes one event close to the other, the way a suburb of a city looks close to that city from the other side of the continent, even if the city does not regard it as close.

Months? it seems like it was in the same book. And it was, but it could have been months for you. I got it via the archives and the book, and thus have a different perspective.

That line of "sufficiently flawless computer program" could be an entire comic strip itself. After all, the game Paranoia started with that (flawed) premise. Seeing that there are about 20K strips out there, I am sure that it has been done.

Lindesfarne!: I though that the blog was on your side. Admittedly it lacks a good search function.

#9 Godel Fishbreath on 2011-11-21 00:08 (Reply)

Does this mean something exciting will happen in the story after Thanksgiving?

#10 Jordan on 2011-11-22 04:40 (Reply)

Will Kell may be the wife of a rabbit she has never lost her taste ffor meat. So a Thanlsgiving without some kind of meat must be hard for her. Note. Without Herd Thinners after them they may have to cut back on the number of children they have. If they don't they will not have food to feed all of them.

#11 STEVEN BRAMS on 2011-11-22 13:09 (Reply)

Happy Thanksgiving day. I take it you & Fenton will celebrate it twice like you do every year. 1st with your family then with Fentons family.

#12 STEVEN BRAMS on 2011-11-24 07:39 (Reply)

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