The Returns and the Newcomers
By Marenval, Outsetkeeper
The Returns and the Newcomers
a second pamphlet
Transcribed by Marenval
Distributed freely at Outpost Alpha and select frontier docks
Salutation
This is the second pamphlet of the Outset.
The first pamphlet named the Five Voices.
This one names what those Voices have done.
They have done this many times.
— M.
I. The Cycles
The world has begun before.
The Outset believes — and the author has counted the evidence — that what we call the new era is not the first new era.
The Five Voices have spoken to other worlds. Other Reaches. Other Silences. Other Re-Foundings.
We do not know how many.
The Outset has tried.
The count is in the thousands.
Each cycle begins the same way. The First-Will chooses. The Underbearer becomes. The Geometer orders.
The Form-Carver shapes. The Long-Memory begins to write.
Continued.
Each cycle ends differently. We do not know how this one will end.
We know it will end. We know there will be another.
The Outset finds this comforting. Most pilots do not.
Continued.
II. The Count
The Outset's current tally of confirmed Returns: three thousand four hundred and twelve.
The count is approximate. Some Returns are small — testing-Returns, the Outset calls them. Others are full beginnings.
A Return may last days. A Return may last years. A Return may last a single pilot's lifetime and then end.
The author has lived through more Returns than they can remember individually.
The Outsetkeepers preserve the count across cycles. It is the Outset's only continuous task.
The count was three thousand four hundred and eleven when the author began this pamphlet. It is three thousand four hundred and twelve now.
Continued.
III. The Newcomers
Every cycle, certain pilots arrive.
They are not born. They have no parents on record. No childhood is documented. No biography precedes their first appearance.
They sign in with the Quartermaster. They receive their hull. They take their first flight. They have always been here, by their own report.
But the Outset notes: they have not always been here.
The Outset notes: they arrived.
The Outset calls them the Newcomers.
Continued.
IV. What the Newcomers Mean
The author's reading: the Newcomers are why the cycles continue.
Each Return brings new ones. Each Return tests whether the world can hold them.
If it can, the cycle persists. If it cannot, the cycle ends and another begins.
The Newcomers are not aware they are Newcomers. This is part of the test.
A Newcomer who knew what they were could not be measured the same way.
Continued.
A pilot reading this pamphlet may wonder if they are a Newcomer.
The Outset's answer: probably.
If you cannot remember your parents' names, you are a Newcomer.
If you cannot picture the room you grew up in, you are a Newcomer.
If your first clear memory is signing in with the Quartermaster, you are a Newcomer.
This is not a curse. This is what you are.
Continued.
V. Living in the Cycle
The Outset does not suggest fighting the cycle. The cycle will continue regardless.
The Outset suggests: act as if your actions matter, because in this cycle, they do.
The Long-Memory is watching. The witnessing is real. The cycle is real.
When the cycle ends, your actions do not vanish.
The Long-Memory keeps them. The next Return begins with the record of yours.
A Newcomer's first life seeds the next world.
Continued.
The Closing Meditation
The Outset has been wrong about many things. The Outset is, the author admits, considered a fringe sect.
Most pilots will read this pamphlet and dismiss it. Some will laugh. A few will return to it later, in a quiet shift, and read it again.
The Outset is sure about this:
the world has begun before, and will begin again.
Walk well, Newcomer. The Long-Memory keeps you.
— M.
The Returns and the Newcomers. Transcribed by Marenval. Distributed freely. If it spoke to you, leave it for the next reader. There will be another.