“We’ll begin today with an introduction to decentralized blockchains” Nakomoto told Alvis. With a freshly shaved head and a mundane gray tracksuit, the boy’s ascetic appearance perfectly matched his immense inner sadness. The adults had told him that by aligning himself with their mission he might one day make vengeance against his parent’s killers. For Alvis, that day couldn’t come soon enough.

Over the past week the cavern had gradually filled with vats containing embryonic creatures slowly growing into an army of ancient raptors. Though they had initially pulled at his curiosity, even these curious beasts could do nothing to wrest Alvis from his grief.

“I know all about the blockchain” Alvis eventually replied glumly.

“Bah! The Atlassian blockchain! A mockery, a fraud! That is merely a distributed information system, as much a blockchain for the people as I am one of these Pterosaurs!”

“My brother takes that fact to heart” Tomoyo mentioned as she passed the pair, running diagnostics on the tanks with all the care of a mother nurturing her new born.

“As should you sister. The scheme orchestrated by the elders is a cruel parody, designed purely for appearances and for control. It offers nothing of the freedom of the truly peer to peer networks!”

“When we were younger than you are now Alvis, our parents brought us here to this cavern. Our mother had risen to the rank of circuit Judge. She specialized in the laws of technology. For most of her life she served faithfully, a devout believer in Atlassian and Astro-Theology. Eventually the contradictions of the Guardian’s bureaucracy outgrew any sense she could find in them.”

“Ha! The so called Guardian’s! All they guard is their own interests — they protect their falsehoods by quashing the truth.”

“Yes yes brother, but if that’s all you can say than Alvis is no better off with us than he was previously.”

“Hmph. Well that brings us back around to the networks. When we came here, our parents set about fitting the space with the machines you see before you. Not the vats mind you, but the computers, the cables and so on. Our father was an engineer, and with his knowledge of the physical and my mother’s knowledge of the protocols they were able to construct a hidden aerial at the top of the range and create what they named a pirate station.” Alvis imagined the pair’s parents with eye patches and a parrot, swashbuckling at the top of the chasm as they rammed an antenna into the rock.

“It was then they discovered that they weren’t the first. As soon as they powered up their creation, unexpected signals flooded in. Before long they realized that these came from other rebel enclaves. Outsiders in many of the city states had executed the same plan as our parents, tired of their draconian masters and desiring lives free from their censorious rule.

“This was the birth of the miraculous peer to peer mesh, a mechanism for spreading information all over the world, up and down the coast, far and wide. Some, ourselves included, can only broadcast sporadically, so as to avoid capture by triangulation. But this webbing operates perpetually, forever spreading news of every land. And you see Alvis, this is why the Atlassian blockchain is so heinous. It gives the impression that it is fair and just. This is exactly why you are taught of decentralization in school. If Atlassian’s mesh has qualities of democracy it will appear to be trustworthy and true. But all it really serves to do is placate Atlassian by disseminating the Guardian’s message, and by providing a means for them to eliminate any other.”

“So the master-node isn’t there to remove untruths, but to insert them” Alvis summarized. Believing that the Guardians had killed his parents, it wasn’t taking much to turn him against them.

“This was the realization that drove our parents actions, and that drives ours today” Tomoyo said in agreement.

“Bah! Master-node! What a ridiculous concept. That something so flagrantly wrong escapes the attention of so many Atlassians, and that they had the gall to include it in the first place. Preposterous! The Guardian’s egregiousness knows no bounds.” Nakomoto spluttered.

“Well, with the help of our new friends, soon the spire will fall to us, and their master-node will be no more.”

“Oh, joy! How I’ve longed for that day!” Nakomoto exclaimed. “’I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.’”

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