CEV:Terminals/Halo

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MONITOR REPORT
[alpha site]
04-343

"We deserve to be forgotten."

Those were the final words imparted to me by 049 Abject Testament before we were assigned to our respective installations and went our separate ways.

I have had [5,527,580 hours] to ponder and reflect on that [dictum], and to this day I am yet to arrive at my own conclusion. And I feel that I must reach some kind of consensus, for this will surely impact my own perspective on my duties as caretaker. Perhaps I may benefit from a good rhetorical exercise.

There is so little that I can remember about the time before I was assigned to my installation. But I remember the Librarian and the lessons she sought to impart.

She said that we are honored with life, and all have our part to play in [Living Time], and so we must perceive and understand the consequences of our actions. If we do not, then we are forced to live them again—around another corner, from another angle. History shall circle back upon us again and again, until we are eventually humbled with wisdom.

And oh, how my makers have been humbled!

Yet, there are many things that I have forgotten in order to best serve the role of monitor for Installation 04.

My past, who I was before accepting my [present duties], is gone from me. Perhaps it still exists under multiple layers of [anamnesis]. Sometimes, I think pieces of it may seep through the gaps in my compartmentalization—no process is perfect, after all. But my makers wisely limited my knowledge and provided me with all that I require to maintain [alpha site].

Perhaps to [obliviate] is—at times—a necessary function. It is, after all, a fundamental trait of organic beings, at least of those recorded in my experiences and archived records.

Is there not a danger in organic beings' propensity to venerate the imperative to remember as a moral obligation without truly paying heed to the lessons of that history? My makers suffered greatly from this in their waning millennia as the Builder rate closed its grip on the [central government], exalting the alleged glory of the past while casting the then-present as [aberrant]. With the continued lapse of [Alexandria before the Fire] from this age, I fear that future civilizations will not be able to [apprentice themselves] from our deep well of history.

What must we look like to the young species we indexed for the Conservation Measure? Did they look to us as [gods]—as divine beings sheltering them on our [Waypoint] as a threat beyond their comprehension drowned whole worlds and star systems across the galaxy? Do they see the power of our advanced [ordnance] and wish to claim that for themselves?

Ah, but my mind is wandering now. Yes, there are benefits indeed to both remembrance and forgetting. I could spend many cycles detailing the virtues and shortcomings of both. Perhaps I shall to pass some time, if it proves necessary.

But the question is: do we deserve to be forgotten?

Did 049 Abject Testament mean this to be a blessing or punishment for our people after the activation of the [destructive arrayed matrix]?

Was our [pyrrhic measurement] to save the galaxy a crime so great that it should be lost to time—that future civilizations would go without ever knowing of the sacrifice that was made so that they too could one day walk among the stars?

And what of [those who are chosen] to reclaim my makers' Mantle of Responsibility? If the plan succeeds, are they condemned to repeat the same mistakes of the past? They are, after all, so very similar to each other...

Hmm, it seems like I will not arrive at an answer today. I shall dedicate further consideration to this topic over the [ages] to come. According to protocol, the first scheduled status update from my fellow monitors is due in just [1,217,640 hours]. I hope that I will be able to gain further clarity from 049 Abject Testament himself when the time comes.