Zeroth Directive

Archive II

Botani finally met Mantra and Raidian in Rhodes Island once things had settled down, even receiving a microphone autographed by Raidian. After learning that Team Mantra's members held open seminars on the effective use of long-range communications Arts, Botani could often be seen in Engineering's presentation room, hoping to sit in on one. I learned a lot from those seminars. It seemed like the attendees didn't know each other very well, sitting apart from each other. I don't have a very good memory for faces, so I didn't have the courage to greet unfamiliar colleagues either. In fact, I couldn't even tell who were supposed to be the lecturers and who were the students. Fortunately, that situation did not last for long. One day, the lecturers came to quiz me after I had just performed some repairs on my antenna. Their questions were quite difficult, and I saw the disappointment on their faces when I failed to answer one... After that, I began spending my nights studying in my room, trying to keep up with them. I suppose I did well enough, and I felt the benefit of this unique form of education. I learned a lot of new things. As far as surprises... I found there were far more lecturers than students at these seminars, and for some reason they all liked to question me. —Operator Botani I went to the Engineering Department's presentation room too. I thought the Team Mantra seminars were only a legend, but they turned out to be real! Botani didn't look like she liked to talk, so we only sat around, none of us daring to ask questions. Then one day, the antenna on her head quivered, and I realized it was a sign for us to ask questions, so I went up to her! Her Ursine accent left a deep impression on me. She spoke methodically at a careful pace, and whenever I asked a question lacking in rigor, she stopped to let me think for myself. I would have to go back to my room and think about it all night, then she would tell me the correct answer the following day. In a matter of weeks, the other new engineers and I felt we made significant progress in our technical and theoretical knowledge. We wrote a joint letter of appreciation to Mantra, thanking her for the help her team had given us. —An engineering operator So is that why no one came to the seminars?! Everyone went to the presentation room—I was waiting for them in the break room! Isn't it an Engineering tradition to discuss academic problems in the break room? Did I misunderstand something? Well, whatever, I'll just hide this letter before the captain finds out... She asked you to give it to me? She knew?! —Operator Elysium

Archive III

Tishinna Viktorovna Belyaeva is the name Botani has used for the longest, but it is not the name she was born with. Her original name came from the frost and springs of Sami, given to her by her sister, which she claims is untranslatable into any other language. A shadow came over her eyes as she brought up her sister. Her sister was not like her at all, not even like their mother. One day, her sister took her to see the ice springs, only to leave her alone in the snow-covered woods. She called her sister's name in panic and dug a shallow hole in the ground, trying to hide herself in it... She does not recall how long she spent in the dark woods, for her memory stopped there. Much later, her sister told her by the fireside that she had been watching her from a short distance away. When asked why she didn't answer, her sister said she had not pronounced her name correctly. She looked into her sister's eyes and saw only disappointment. After that time in the forest, my sister gave me an intercom she made herself, and taught me how to tune it to a special channel, how to speak into it, and how to receive a response. I was too young to understand what she was doing. Our mother may have noticed, but she never told me. The day we moved away from Sami, my sister stopped walking and said, 'This is as far as I go.' She was speaking in Sami. She said she could go no further with my mother and me. I wanted to go with her, but she said no. She said I had an Ursine name, and that I could no longer go back with her. Mother said nothing. All she did was weep. I remember holding the intercom my sister gave me. I remembered that if I wanted to find her, all I needed to do was call her name on that channel, and she would appear and tell me which syllable I had mispronounced. So I turned on the intercom, but I didn't know what to say—I couldn't remember her Sami name. It was as though everything I knew about Sami was disappearing from my memory. In a panic, I cried the name in Ursine that would become mine for many years to come. My sister did not stop, and disappeared into the snow. Would she have stayed if I had called her name correctly, with the correct pronunciation? I don't know. I lost the intercom. Maybe Mother threw it away. I wanted to get another one. —Audio recording from a counseling session, used with Operator Botani's permission

Archive IV

Rhodes Island took in many survivors of the Katorga Incident, providing them psychological support. Botani was the most cooperative of those who eventually joined Rhodes Island, and the first to consent to the use of the Self-Diagnosis and Treatment of Trauma Using Exposure Therapy Recorder β, and to share her data with the Medical Department. Indeed, Medical found her nonchalance on the matter abnormal. [Audio Log] (Noise) ...? More EM interference... Did that recording save? The bad news is that I couldn't find the Save Recording button, and I'm not comfortable with disassembling the machine. The good news is that there's still 2% power left, and it should auto-save before turning off... right? I should keep talking. I've told you how I became trapped in the lockdown zone and how I got out with Sonya and the others. What else can I tell you? Do I really need to tell you how I hid in a wardrobe for three days and how I cried for help in a voice so low that only I could hear it? Or... should I talk about... how I took a life... (Heavy breathing) No... no. I... I didn't do it on purpose. At least, not the first time. He was... swinging a knife, like he didn't feel pain. I just... I just wanted to live. I didn't want to keep hiding in that wardrobe. There were bloody scratch marks on the back panel... someone had died there before I hid in it. No one could hear me. Nothing I did meant anything. Katorga was... a coffin for the living. (Vomiting sounds) ...I'm sorry. How do I delete this recording? People are dying... why am I talking to myself here? No, this is not how it should be— (Recording interrupted) Botani submitted this audio, admitting that she had accidentally destroyed the SDTTETR β in an outburst, and was only able to extract a partial recording from the storage media. She also submitted a broken dagger, which she said she took from the wardrobe. She does not know who it belonged to, whether it was used in self-defense, and certainly not what happened to its previous owner. She had taken the broken blade out of a vague sense of responsibility. She survived, yet she dared not look back. In her own words, looking back was 'like sleeping wrong: it makes it really hurt to turn around. But it'll stop hurting eventually—it's just a matter of time. Now that the time has come, I feel like I can finally let it go... but I don't know who to give it to. Will you take it? By the way, I'd like to ask about the intellectual property rights for the SDTTETR β. While my attempts to repair it failed, I did manage to create small audio recorders imitating its core structure. Do I need to pay royalties to Closure? I'll only use them to make personal journals, since I found that I seem to respond well to this sort of self-conversation therapy. At least I'm making my voice heard to myself. —Operator Botani

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