Interview with Rome I - Part 14 of 17

As Steve Fisch and I get the scripts ready to sell Rome's Revolution as a streaming series, he asked me for a lot of background information that I did not have. So I took some time out to interview Rome and Rei. Rome was very talkative so I had to break up the interview into two parts. Rei was a bit more concise. So here is the first Rome interview, part 14 of 17.
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Perry: And that was you.
Rome: Yes. Although I was so naïve at the time. When I look back on what I did, I still shake my head.
Perry: How so?
Rome: With my newly awakened brain, I had no idea of my limitations. I thought I could do anything. They told me I had to be reintegrated into the Overmind to save Aason. I saw it as an opportunity to fix things. I was so certain I could talk it back from the edge of insanity. But as soon as I was reintegrated, I saw they were going to have Rei executed so I had to pretend I never wanted to see him again to make him safe. He was so hurt; it broke my heart. But I couldn’t think of any way to save him otherwise. Luckily, the Vuduri were so happy to have caught me, to mine my mind, or so they thought, that letting Rei go was not a big problem.
Perry: Obviously you succeeded. The Overmind here is a very caring entity. That’s something that has never been documented. How did you talk it out of its path?
Rome: I used a combination of logic and emotion. I explained to it about the Stareaters. That the Vuduri pass out whenever they’re around. And you never knew when they were going to show up. The Vuduri had to have mandasurte along with them otherwise the space lanes would be closed to them forever.
Perry: And the Overmind agreed with you?
Rome: It had no choice. It had independent corroboration that the Stareaters were real and the effect on the Vuduri were real. Of course, the Vuduri could travel in space all wearing T-suppressors but really all that did was turn them into mandasurte. The logic was inescapable.
Perry: So that was enough for it to release its grip?
Rome: No. I had to convince it to liberate the Vuduri as well.
(Perry tilts his head)
Rome: The Overmind is made up of the Vuduri. The Vuduri let the Overmind do the thinking for them without any creativity. And this, in turn, sapped the Overmind of creativity. It’s a vicious downward cycle. If it continued, the Overmind’s intelligence would eventually degenerate into something that couldn’t survive and the Vuduri wouldn’t survive either.
Perry: That was the feedback loop you referred to?
Rome: Yes. But the thing that really convinced it was love. I told the Overmind that it was removing the humanity from its charges. Ironically, later we found out this was MASAL’s very goal. I showed the Overmind this was no academic exercise. I knew this first hand from my own life. Without love, without joy, what is the point of living? Humans just taking up space. No different from the ants. The Overmind reached into my mind and learned what love is. It felt my love for Rei. It realized this was something it needed as well. I did my job a bit too well. I’m a little embarrassed to say that since the whole concept was new, the Overmind decided it was in love with me.
(Perry puts his hand over his mouth and titters a bit)

Tomorrow, part 15