synopsychic | [Everybody except Ambrose.]

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[Everybody except Ambrose.]

Pardon me.

[As polite as ever; Daneel rarely speaks on the psychic network at large, though he listens enough. It's rude to interject, he feels.]

I'm interested in what you generally feel are acceptable birthday celebrations, and what sort of details are involved. Ambrose's birthday is very soon, and I would like to do something for him, but I have little cultural experience with birthday parties. Spacer culture is the one I know best, but birthday celebrations past childhood are not common for them.

What would you suggest is appropriate?

Also, I would greatly appreciate help with the creation of food and drink, for those of you capable of it.

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... it is very rare in my time to celebrate one's birthday. Unless you are a noble of some form - which Ambrose certainly is - you are expected to celebrate your saint's day instead. Nobility and royalty celebrate their birthdays and their saint's days, as a sort of display of wealth - and depending on how rich one's family, the longer the birthday celebrations can last, sometimes up to a week after their birthday.

Given that we can infinitely create food, here, we could easily celebrate Ambrose's birthday for a week, if you so desired.

I'm not sure if he would want a birthday celebration lasting a week, but I'll consider it an option.

What is a saint's day?

Well, a nobleman in both senses of the word, like Ambrose, deserves as such, in my opinion.

In Catholic lands, it is the feast day of a particular saint which corresponds with the day a child is baptized. Usually the day after his or her birth, but it may take a few more days, up to a week. I was baptized the day after I was born, so I suppose my saint's day is the Feast of Sabas Stratelates.

I understand he is not Catholic, as many Travelers are not, so my take on this may be rather... skewed.

I agree that Ambrose deserves the very best. However, in this case, I'm not sure he would be... comfortable, with such a prolonged celebration.

And it's true, he is not Catholic. It seems a very interesting tradition, though not appropriate in this case.

Why not? The Winter Masque was a prolonged party similar to Carnevale. We know the Romans were very keen on parties. And week long celebrations seemed the norm at the Ivory Tower academy. [... that was after midterms, Leo.]

That is sadly all I can say about the matter. As I've said, celebrating birthdays is a Noble tradition, more or less. I've only been to others' birthday parties.

I suspect he would be embarrassed at such a grand celebration purely for his benefit. I would not embarrass him in that way. It should last as long as he is comfortable for. Others may continue to enjoy the celebration, of course, but I would not force that upon Ambrose.

... I see. Very well, then. I shall leave it up to your judgment. Just tell me what you need when the time comes.

[He almost sounds... disappointed.]

Thank you. It's greatly appreciated.

[He pauses.]

If you wish, Maestro, we could throw such a celebration for your own birthday or saint's day.

[The realization seems to startle him.]

No, no, there is no need for that! I am not a noble, for one thing, and my saint's day has already long passed. There is no reason to go to such trouble on my account.

"Nobility" implies that one human is greater than another. I find that to be categorically false. Why should we not honour you? You are liked and appreciated.

Because I am unworthy of the honors placed upon me. I am appreciated for what I should not be appreciated, and unappreciated for what I should. Furthermore, I have never had a birthday nor a saint's day in my life. Why should I start now?

Maestro.

[He's a little at a loss, honestly.]

If you truly do not wish such a thing, I would never force it. However, if I may say, the rules of rank and nobility are attempts to put one man above another. Deeds and thoughts matter far more than do birth, wealth, or origin, and insisting on artificial constructs seems to only lead to suffering and strife, in my experience. Ambrose may well be a noble by the standards of his world, but that is not why I am attempting to give him a party, nor why I think he deserves that pleasure.

You are as good a human being as I have ever known, and better than many. Why should that not be celebrated by those who value you?

I, too, hardly believe in the blood of nobles making a man greater than the common folk. We all bleed the same, do we not, Daneel? But ignoring the nobility structure which is so common in my time, in my world, would be tantamount to suicide. So would ignoring the Catholic church and its Inquisition. Though I do not believe in the nobleman's cause, per se, forgive me if I continue to follow those rules for a nobleman I actually like.

[He pauses for a long moment, trying to word his thoughts, but giving up partway through and just saying this:]

By what right am I better than these humans? My deeds which are written in books, copied from other books, mistranslated by yet other books, misrepresented by even more books, or a fourth-hand account from a friend of a friend of a pupil? Or my thoughts, which no man could reasonably know as I know them, even my closest and oldest friend, which no man could reasonably understand in their entire as I understand my own mind? My thoughts which have values placed upon them I did not value, ideas placed within them I did not dream? I am not sure those are reasons to be celebrated. And I am very sure they are not reasons to be valued.

You are wise, and you are kind. What better rubric is there by which to judge a man?

[It's... insufficient as an answer, and there's a pause, a sort of psychic drawing of breath.]

When I was first activated, I was set to partner with a man, Elijah Baley, a plainclothes detective of the New York City police department. He was wise enough to find justice and clarity in situations others found inexplicable, and he was kind enough to eventually come to see me as more than what I am, and I was privileged to work with him on several occasions. Some of the work he accomplished completely changed the political state of the galaxy, ensuring humanity's ability to continue to expand outwards. That one accomplishment has ensured humanity's survival, though he was not thinking so far in the future then.

When he died, he called me to him, as he wished to see me, and he spoke to me of humanity as a tapestry. Individual lives, he told me, are merely threads. Individual human lives are insignificant, he was insignificant. What mattered was the greater pattern and how those threads fit together. One thread may end, but it carries other threads with it that will continue the tapestry and shift it into something better. He was, I believe, attempting to make his own death easier for me to cope with, but Partner Elijah always had a very keen and instinctive insight into human nature.

Partner Elijah has been dead for sixteen decades. I have thought much on what he said, and I have found truth in it. Already, the stories of his life have achieved a folkloric quality, though less so among his descendants, I believe. I suspect the truth will fade further as time passes, and perhaps some day men and women will no longer remember his name at all, or what he did. I doubt very much he would be entirely pleased with what is told of him now. Even in his life there were fictionalised accounts of his exploits, and he disliked them intensely. As you are, I believe, he was uncomfortable with others' attempts to immortalise him. You and he are both one thread among many billions, but both of you have changed the pattern in ways that others admire, even if their admiration is not always what you would wish.

As I said: you are kind, and you are wise, and you change the world around you for the better. That is worth appreciating. It is what I most appreciate in Ambrose, and it is what I see in you.

I am wise only in that I know I am not. And kindness only comes at the price of someone else, I have learned through Traveling. What rubric could possibly judge a man, knowing this? There are too many variables to consider, too many conflicting schools of thought. Even bettering humanity through collective effort, which I have aspired to since I could conceive rational thought, is not the best rubric. What of other sentient beings? What of those who are hurt or downtrodden for the good of all others? What of secrets and lies, negative things by most standards, used for good and made to better the world around us?

[He listens very quietly and attently to Daneel's story, feeling a small sense of kinship in the descriptions of Elijah by one who knew him so well. Leonardo remains silent, even after Daneel has finished speaking, before mentally replying in a soft and somber tone, an undercurrent of self-loathing creeping its way into his thoughts.]

You talk of me as if I am spun gold, when I know I am naught but simple flax. I am flattered you see me in such a respected light, but I... cannot admit to seeing myself in that light. I do not think I change any world for the better, even the ones we have visited. In fact, I worry I have not done enough, I have not done well enough. You say I am wise and kind, but all I can see is a witless fool who once thought he was a gifted architect and engineer. Now I know that all men see me as in the future è un ritrattista dannato. How can I possibly be helping mankind with that?

You judge yourself by standards that no man could ever meet, Maestro. If humanity is flax, then no one asks you to be spun gold, only good flax. The changes to the world I suggest aren't necessarily large, sweeping acts.

I am not always... good, with metaphors, but Partner Elijah's seems to me to be a good one. You are one thread among billions, but that doesn't make you less. Your part is as important as any other's. A single thread can change the pattern, even in a small way. Those near you are influenced by you, and your influence is a good one. Why do you care how the world remembers you? History is only as truthful as the ones telling it, and humans often are not. It does not change who you are, or what you have accomplished.

You are not a cruel man, nor an ignorant man. Why do you think you are not kind? Why do you believe you are not good or wise because you know that real situations are more complicated than abstract morality? That was one of the most difficult things I ever had to learn. I still struggle with it, at times.

[He pauses, trying to work this out.]

Do you want to be spun gold?

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