Some subjects are still too raw for Alexandra to speak of, and so I return to the archives, again and again. Research in systems archives provided me with access to the data of Noodin Kasabien, including his heartfelt message to his daughter after the Foundation announced our presence to the surface world.

The requirement to keep one's whereabouts hidden from anyone on the surface came from a directive issued after the original builders moved into the habitats themselves. It forbade anyone from revealing the existence or location of any habitat to anyone on the surface in any manner. As the technology of the habitats improved, so did the means to implement and monitor this directive.

As recruitment shifted to multi-year contract offers, efforts were made to mislead those on their way to their underground city so that they could not reveal their true location. Buses were modified to replace their windows with video screens, and additional technology was added to synchronize the vibrations of movement with video footage of their passage. Passengers arrived at their habitat, believing themselves to be somewhere hundreds of miles away.

Digital and voice communications with the surface world were monitored for any phrasing or images that could indicate our existence. It was one of the only measures taken in such an authoritarian manner, and those measures continue to be a topic of discussion and criticism, at least among academics. However, alerting the world to our existence from the beginning would have created even more issues and possibly jeopardized the entire venture.

A quarter of a century after the Catastrophe, Alexandra Hanlon discovered within herself an ability to observe and search along something she calls the web of time and possibilities. At the Foundation Board's behest, she searched for and found three viable paths toward a destiny assuring our species's continuation.

The paths themselves were known to us through the public consensus process. However, after our choice was approved, information about the paths, including which was chosen, was forever sealed. As a result, knowledge of these paths will die with everyone except the Hanlons, who have both sworn to keep the knowledge hidden.

"What you do not find within, you shall never find without."

Within the paths Alexandra found was a paradox. Human behavior being what it was, the first impulse of most would be to impose all of the choices and requirements upon ourselves immediately. However, the imposition itself would bring its own failure. The path had to be found and tread through the gradual changes humanity would, for the most part, make naturally.

Humans believe they thrive upon order, but order can, at times, be a hindrance. When everyone marches in synchronicity, eyes focused front, opportunities and challenges outside the tunnel of one's vision are lost. We do our best when we remain open to all our possibilities and make our choices based on the ethics and morality embodied in the Charter.

In a public ceremony held after the Public Consensus of 102 was approved, Alexandra re-signed the Charter and immediately swore an oath to guide humanity along the chosen path as circumspectly as possible.

Regardless of the necessity for ignorance of the paths in the future, knowledge of what Alexandra calls our collective unconscious and our need to improve it is widely acknowledged and discussed. While the concept, as originally proposed by an early psychologist, wasn't an exact match to Alexandra's version, it did help provide a common reference point and visualization. (1)

Without the underlying ability to comprehend her explanations, my understanding is superficial at best. I tend to think of the collective unconscious as a mutable copy that each person receives before birth. Throughout our lifetime, the lessons we absorb, along with our choices and actions, reflect and change our personal version. All of this is reabsorbed into the whole upon our death, thereby influencing all future copies.

Again, my explanation and understanding are imperfect, but even my simplistic explanation makes it easy to perceive how our current influence is just a drop in the bucket compared to the collective impact of all who have lived and died throughout the ages.

Could we speed up the process?

Should we?

If not us, who? If not now, when? (2)

No matter the choices to be made in the future, we have begun the work of moving the collective unconscious away from the destructive tendencies that have led to the annihilation of almost every living creature on this world. As part of the consensus, the concept of Directed Social Evolution was adopted.

The roots of DSE were grounded in the decade preceding the Catastrophe, when Noodin Kasabien and Kevin Hanlon were among the first to seek therapeutic support to align their actions with the values expressed by the Charter, despite the biases they had acquired throughout their lives.

What it would become no one really knew, but we had to start somewhere. Since Kevin and Noodin became aware of their inherited biases, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been found to be effective in addressing both learned and systemic biases. We can only hope it will have a greater impact overall than simply continuing as we are.

Currently, our only implementation of the public consensus is to have ACT taught as a subject throughout our educational system. As one approaches the cusp of adulthood, we participate in ethics and morality classes, which allow us to discover and integrate our core values into our daily lives.

Alex once told me, "When our values are imposed from without, they feel unnatural, and it takes a conscious effort to comply. The more our core values stem from our very being, following them happens almost without thought."

We're at the very beginning of Directed Social Evolution. While no one in our future will know exactly where the journey will take us or even when we might arrive, Alexandra promises to utilize the web as a beacon guiding our descendants toward what we hope will be a worthy destiny.