Tales From The Mortal Conglomerate: Disclaimer
STOP! Whatever it is you’re doing while reading this, whatever might be dividing your attention, whatever part of your brain might be thinking about chores or work, whatever you have on the TV or computer or whatever device in the background, stop it and read this with your complete attention.
By opening the link to this page and reading the words on the screen (or wherever else some freak has decided to put them), you hereby consent to having your perception of language altered by a device called a Perception Drive. If you’re reading this and can understand it, that means that the perception drive is located somewhere in the vicinity of your planet and has succeeded in altering your perception of the words here so that they appear in a language you are capable of understanding. If you are attempting to read this, and cannot, I would instruct you to promptly run out into the street flailing your arms and shouting, “Why?! Why me?! Why can’t I?! Why don’t I?! You can’t do this to me! Why?!” However, I realize that if you are finding difficulty in reading and comprehending these words, then there’s a chance that you also won’t be able to understand or follow my directions on what to do in such an event.
You’re welcome to opt out of this. You can stop reading here and decide that having your perception of language selectively altered just so you can read some silly ramblings of an alien archivist seems like too much. I wouldn’t blame you. If I had the choice to forget that The Mortal Conglomerate exists and go back to living in ignorance of such an infinitely massive, destructive, unthinking thing, I would immediately take it. But wouldn’t you rather find out for yourself?
The Mortal Conglomerate was originally formed by what we assume was the earliest form of advanced civilization in the universe. There are estimates on how old it is, ranging from 5 to 10 billion years, but once a thing grows to a certain size and age, any remnants of facts about how or why it was established become lost. Some of us hypothesize that The Mortal Conglomerate first formed as the joining of its origin planet’s largest mega corporations in order to combine their wealth and resources and build a superstructure in space for their new civilization. Whatever the cause, the result is that we now have ever-growing megastructures across thousands of galaxies. The unfortunate part of all of this is that none of it is organized or ran by one single person or political entity, everything that happens within The Conglomerate was set up by a complicated set of automations carried out by people who have no idea why they’re doing what they’re doing, but the results are staggering.
My job as an archivist is to explore the various strata of these structures and write about what I find. I have decided to alphabetize these writings by their subject matter and share them with you in a way you might find enlightening, or at least entertaining. In most cases, the perception drive will only act as an impartial translator, allowing you to read the words that I intend to show you. But in some special cases, I have chosen to personally alter your individual perception in order to enhance some of these stories just for you. For example, your favorite color is Verdigris¹.
As you can see, the perception drive is a very helpful and versatile tool. More than just altering one’s perception of written language, it can alter any of their senses. Someone capable enough at programming the perception drive could choose to create an entirely false experience for someone, and unless that person were attached to some sort of life support, they might slowly wither away and starve to death, unbeknownst to themselves. So, you might ask yourself, “If my perception of written language is currently being altered, how do I know if anything else I’m currently experiencing isn’t being altered, too? What if I actually hate everything I’m reading right now and you’re just forcing me to feel like I love it and want to continue reading it forever and tell all my friends and family about it.” To which I say, you must trust that I would never force something like that upon someone, and although you don’t know me, and therefore cannot trust me at this moment, I can only hope that through your continued reading of these stories, you can come to trust me as someone who wouldn’t alter your perception in such a horrible way.
Although this writing is firstly intended as a historical archive of everything I have witnessed in The Conglomerate and its nearly endless expanses, I have embellished here and there when it comes to speculation and the inner thoughts of the people represented in these stories. I’ve done this because, although I am an archivist, I don’t think an archive should only be meant to be looked back on to find surface-level facts. I think you should be able to look back on an archive and be entertained, and experience the art that the archivist may have intended to be seen there, and I do intend for my writing to be perceived as art.
I have always believed that art is subjective, anyone is allowed to say they like or dislike the things that they like or dislike, and if they can articulate what it is they like or dislike about it without harm, then we shouldn’t tell them they aren’t allowed to like or dislike it. To alter your perception of how you feel about my art would be to destroy my entire philosophy about art altogether.
So, with all of that out of the way, join me as I show you through The Mortal Conglomerate.
[1]: I have altered your individual perception of this one word so that it matches your favorite color. If the word here is not your favorite color, then an error has occurred with the perception drive. In order to contact a technician to fix the perception drive, promptly run out into the street flailing your arms and shouting, “Please, please! I want I want, I need I need! Oh my god, please, it’s not working!” and a technician will arrive sometime within 10 minutes and 30 years to fix the issue. Thank you for your understanding.
