"So here we have the basic fundamentals: box ahhhh cube, cylinder, prism, sphere…" Rayre Starseeker's voice tailed off, faint but not wavering, as he motioned towards the far end of the elliptical chamber, a crude chain of dots connecting his hand to the huddled mass of geometric forms in the corner. This is a sign of old age, he thought to himself, still feeling nimble as he spun his arm counterclockwise in a manner befitting a newborn Resi.
Earlier discussion held it to be true: feature discoverability of gems below the surface. Few really paid attention to what a difference a modified camera would make, giving them cinematic perspective into otherwise-staid lives, but then again, it was not the role of the many of discern their own needs. Rayre observed his prototype unit, moving along as he did, never deviating from its isometric viewport. It felt like he was in an entertainment of a quaint older sorte.
Rayre's student, the bashful Aelias Sunshine, sat uncomfortably in the other corner, huddled on a one-prim stool whose functionality was likely outweighed by its relatively spartan appearance. Always, bless feature discoverability! 'Twas the click actions that made it far easier for her to take a seat, whereas the sequence of operations previously had required, as in the parlance du jour, a "click of right". Complications to perform perfunctory actions were highly undesirable, yet so common.
And this is why Rayre was such a good teacher, yet such an incessant lamenter of said complexities.
"If you teach an avatar to fish, they'll enjoy seafood a lot more," one of his pupils, a now-Prof. Chaoma Chung had quipped. And they did enjoy a lot of sushi. But insofar as transcending senses and moving all the way up to simulating tastes and smells (like said delicious sushi), these Resis had to master visuals first. They would not know it, nor the generation after them, but perhaps 7, 8 descendancies down the line, we'd know it to be true in hindsight: the roots of building as a performance art started here.
And so as to not deviate from the course of this lesson, Rayre continued to move the shapes back and forth, one at a time. Occasionally, he'd select more than one, and they'd glow with blue and yellow halos. But he couldn't move multiple objects in multiple directions, and this vexed him so. He thought to offline analogues —
If a pianist has ten fingers (let's count thumbs too), then he can perform intricate melodies, striding chords, glissandos and rubato passages, and so much more. With the feet, he can add extra effects: intonation with the sustain pedals for silked passages, a little bit of sostenuto for that extra nuanced contrast between the held and the staccato, and other sonic seasonings.
"But damned as we are, why can't we use both hands to build at the same time, so my left can move this clump thisawadays, while my right moves that clump thataways?" Rayre opined out-loud, gritting his teeth, accepting a physical limitation that had been scrawled about in the contemporary, speculative fictions. "And why can't I use my feet, either?"
Virtuosi had not designed these interfaces, so the amplifying machines weren't setup for performance art. Neither had the Great Hippo endowed her people with a well-walk, opting instead for an awkward duck waddle. Avatarkind was (seemingly) forever reminded of these crude gestures as they struggled to evolve. And yet, so much promise. (And that's what building was meant to be, a performance art.)
Aelias mused, "While it is a part of our canons, I too, Mentor, long for the day in which we'll create using our hand and feet, and perhaps more." She grinned a wicked smile, focusing her mindfulness on a small gathering of physical spheres, shiny as they could be. She looked within, saw herself, and cast them off into a wall with a blink.
The loud clatter, accompanied by a flurry of particles, set off the Mentor.
"Club tricks and serious study are not to be separated!" he raged, sounding very angry for a second, then his twisted face turned into a surprisingly warm smile, proud of his student. Master and apprentice they were. He cast a wayward look towards the wall, which now bore the marks of the exploded spheres, a sick ashen dust spewing out of the indents. And he knew how powerful, how much potential his student had already achieved. And how much more there was to grow.
Aelias had already been classed as a Masterbuilder, her abilities to kern turn already exceeding her elder's raw output. He wasn't resentful, but recognized the rarity and luminescence of his charge, and took it upon himself to do what teachers do best: teach.
A forest his made of many trees. Both exist. A fish has many scales. It swims. A bird has many feathers. It flies. We have no feathers, but we have many ideas. And we fly too. From heart — more accurately, from mind — Aelias continued to gaze off into an impregnable space as she recalled earlier lessons. Create, and lead by example. Most will miss the obvious. Most can't devise novel strategies nor tactics (a blueprint for avatarhood), but can follow them to enhance their own lives if instructed… well.
"Class done for today — now we jaunt!" suddenly called Rayre, his voice booming and reverberant. At least that was one thing they'd gotten right about this cheaply-assembled lab: the ambience. He grabbed his student's shoulder, snapping her out of her space-trance, and into the jaunt they went, their vision turning from black to phased stripes of color approximating their destination. An epic swoosh filled their ears, not out of necessity but dramatic purposes: vehicles sound better with big noises, and so does manual travel, even if it's done by keening of the mind.
The teleport was done.
Rayre and Aelias dusted themselves off, but found this was impossible, for they were in a desert. Location: Kisarär, staging ground for the next phase of experiments. At the basest level, the pair were guinea pigs unto themselves, knowing their suffering would not be shared, but benefits, anything they learned, could be applied en masse to society. They moved quickly in the dunes, a bit grumpy that they'd missed their mark by several meters. Hands open, the doors opened too, and they found themselves within the cool environs of the lab.
On the wall, a chart showing: a timeline sequence of known prims, elements of AKOC (All Known Object Creation). The basic chart ended with a listing scrawled in Rayre's handwriting: "Ring - version 1.5". Flexible variants were included, and next to those, crude yet perfectly (comprensible) sketches of organic-like chunks, molded like beefy cuts of meat.
The two knew this, enhancing the modern avatar's ability to construct, is the work they set out to do, and it began. Some airy string music, a little dimming of the lights — the lush glows would serve them well in snapshots to come whilst documenting their experiments — and this repeated mantra:
It is better to be used less than useless; for those who know, seeds they'll sow. Knowledge is worthless if not shared, tools are useless if not prepared.
For the past stretch of months, I've been holding office hours in the Linden Village — in more recent times, I've kept transcripts so you can catch up on sessions you missed, or find out what we often talk about.
