A. Human

[Politus]

Daylight had very little meaning for Human. He lived in a remote corner of the omegas... or was it the Taus? Maybe Bretonia. He didn't care. He had been at his job for so long that location didn't matter. He knew, of course. But he never paid it much thought. All that mattered to him is that he lived on a tiny slip of a station, in a big slip of a nebula cloud, in some dreary patch of space. As long as the comm buoys that connected him to the universe kept him in the net, he was satisfied with his location.

He chose it because there was no living soul for many a lonely mile aside from him. He chose it because in his line of work, people were a liability. He liked people, but had one hypocrisy. Despite all of his devotion to freedom of information for all, the one piece of information he could not, would not let escape, was his location.

You see, A. Human was a hacker. He worked for, so he said, humanity. All of his money came from siphoned accounts, the credits moved not to his accounts but into solid cash, to be moved by proxy to dead drop locations where one of his few drones would pick it up. Millions, billions of credits siphoned from governments, pirates, cults and the like. Supplies followed much the same route, with money being delivered through proxy accounts, drones doing all of the cash transfers in dead drops and taking supplies back the same way.

He reinvested that money, those supplies, into his plan for society. He was a crusader, the last of a breed of men devoted to the ultimate liberty; that of the mind. "Freedom of information is the right of every man, woman, beast and child!" he would say. A lot of this was because of regret over his former occupation. He used to be one of the freelance hackers that would work for corporations; Stealing information like a corporate whore, selling himself to entities which employed him to guard against the work of people like him. Some times he would do a protection job only to be hired the next day to crack his own work.

If you've been reading the story, you can probably tell, he had a change of heart. He stopped stealing information for profit, started spreading it around. Releasing it as rumors here, an article in the news that shouldn't have existed. He became bolder, yet also paranoid. He released communiques, piggy-backing on standard comm frequencies; he wore a mask, always following the hacker tendency to preserve one's identity.

Eventually, he moved to this dreary patch of space, where he prepared his manifesto. Why? Simple: To him, information didn't belong to anyone. To try and control the flow of information was, in his eyes, horrific. His crusade required that he be able to conduct it whenever, so he found a place that would let him.

So there he was. He woke up in his utilitarian bed; despite his wealth, he did not allow himself luxuries. He took the minimum amount of time possible to freshen up and eat before scanning his computer/comm console. All information in the 'verse filtered through him. He had taps in most of the comm buoys, hard lines and other methods. Frequency siphons, you named it, he had it in operation somewhere out there.

He checked the news, checked for frequencies. He broke through censorship on all fronts, and if he felt the messages were worth the effort, re-routed them through censor screens. Around him, his few decorations dimly reflected the light coming from his console. A copy of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights which he had printed out and framed; Some document called the Bill of Rights, an addendum to the constitution of one of the ancient nations of Earth; relics of a bygone age which he had gone to great lengths to find. A painting or two from more contemporary artists, a modern sword that supposedly replicated ancient metallurgic techniques; His first computer. The rest was a drab, gray wall.

From this lair, for his various reasons, he did his work. He championed freedom of information. He fought tyranny, not with hot plasma and roaring engines, but with subtle coding and careful wording. Here was his castle, and his battleground was anywhere that the signal reached.

He found a channel that interested him, and donned his white, blank mask to start a communication.

---

"Things will not calm down, Daniel Jackson. They will, in fact, calm up."

[Politus]

Finally, a manifesto was completed. Something to tell the 'verse, to show the world. It went as follows:

*the following signal piggy-backs on most known entertainment and official news channels, and at specified times, overrides the current broadcast*

*A face appears on the screen. More aptly, a mask. A blank white mask, surrounded by pitch-black nothing. Behind the mask, eyes and a mouth can be seen dimly.*

Greetings, society. I am a Human. I am just like all of you. However, unlike many, I have recognized a flaw in society. That is, a flaw in you, society. The leaders of society, benign or otherwise, have a tendency to desire more and more control. Liberty, once a bastion of its eponymous value, now languishes under a regime which, though you may not know it, lies to and blatantly censors its people. In times of war, it is understandable that a nation would want to keep a tighter lid on things, of course, but not at the cost of essential liberties.

Almost everywhere, news and information that could help you, the common man, the common woman, the pilot, the worker, the soldier, the scientist, gets censored. Information that could save lives gets halted, pulled off the air so to speak, and filed away in government offices, forgotten inside old file cabinets, to languish under the watchful eyes of moths.

So, if you don't understand what this manifesto is about yet, it's freedom. Freedom... of information. Information is the lifeblood of society; everything around you can be reduced to it. Your toys, your tools, your guns, your houses, everything. I bet that, for many of you, your life relied on information. A medical condition solved by medical knowledge, by medical information. A close run-in with a pirate that was avoided only because you had been warned earlier. Information.

Now, if I have intrigued you, allow me to divert the discussion a bit. It's time for a quick history lesson. Long ago, back when Humanity was limited to one planet, there was a group. The United Nations or some such. They weren't too effective, or so I read, but they did something pretty cool. They established a declaration of human rights. A universal declaration. THE Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Do you want to know one of the things it said?

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Do you see where this history lesson ties into my little... tirade? "freedom to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Right there. Freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas, through any media, regardless of frontiers. Ignore me if you want. Most probably will. My words still ring true, and history will vindicate them.

However, I do not suggest a revolution. I do not suggest violence. I suggest a dropping of censorship. Nations and entities of Sirius, I am reaching across all borders. Corsair, Outcast, or Colonial; Libertonian, or Rheinlander; Bretonian, or Kusari. Even those of Gallia, who for so long have been shut in, should heed my words. Leaders, enable the free flow of information that makes liberty possible. Liberty cannot work without this free flow, because a lack of that flow leads to ignorance. Ignorance is what enables tyrants to take over, and tyranny is the antithesis of liberty.

All healthy nations, nations free of the core corruption that plagues tyranny, should listen, when I say that you should allow your citizens to talk. If they want to talk of blue aliens, let them. If they want to talk of bizarre genetic experiments, as long as they're not forcing it on others, let them!

Let information run freely, and Sirian culture should experience a whole new renaissance. What could you all possibly be hiding that, should it be revealed to the public, would result in a loss of control? If revealing your dirty laundry, taking off the shackles of censorship, would result in a revolution, isn't that better than allowing people of all stripes to languish under those shackles?

And remember, society, "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

Thank you,
A. Human

*the broadcast turns to an image showing the frequency of a comm buoy for those who want to respond; at the other end is one of the drones with a real time uplink and a very, VERY sensitive self-destruct program*

---

"Things will not calm down, Daniel Jackson. They will, in fact, calm up."

[Politus]

The bright, glittering lights of Sirius made themselves known to him. From his spider-hole, his cabin in the woods, he looked out at the curious rocks dancing among the impenetrable green nebula, a miasma of gases which, were it not for the design of his fortress, would pose a threat to him. No, to him they were another bulwark against unwanted intruders, those who would seem him dead or bought. He went to his console, a series of screens, inputs, optronics stacks, conventional computers, enough hardware to serve all the needs of a small nation, where he let his prosthetic hands do the talking; fingers and hands divided into mechanical tendrils, inputting information into the machines as fast as he could think -which was rather fast- and setting up the data feeds which were his lifeline; his eyes, augmented to scan visual information by the best optical surgeons and bionics techs during his days of corporate espionage, taking in the output as fast as it came, scanning for any niche into which he could drive the thin edge of his crusade.

Once he found some, the mask came on, and his real work began.

---

"Things will not calm down, Daniel Jackson. They will, in fact, calm up."