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[劳伦斯·塔利斯曼]

第三章：隐秘世界
Chapter Three: The Shadow World

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与此同时，在这家看上去人畜无害的书店外墙之后…
——《蝙蝠侠》系列电视剧, “伟大的塞尔达”

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Meanwhile, behind the façade of this innocent-looking bookstore… — Batman TV series, “Zelda the Great”

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高塔 The Tower

释义：破防；粉碎；扰乱；洞察力的迸发；摆脱无知；徒劳无功；清扫......

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Associations: Broken defenses; shattering; disruption; a bolt of insight; freedom from ignorance; futility in the face of nature; housecleaning…

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他们又来了。

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They’re at it again.

现在是凌晨 3:14，我们楼上的邻居又开始了新一轮的 "家庭大乱斗"——一款能分享给楼里所有人......或者起码是那些倒霉住在卧室底下的人的好游戏。某些嘈杂的音乐已经透过地板响好几个小时了，但我至少还能勉强入睡。不过，现在尖叫、咒骂和砸家具的狗屁废话又开始了，一个还有意识......或者还有一对正常运作的耳膜的人......是不可能睡得着的。

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It’s 3:14 am, and our upstairs neighbors are having another round of Brawl in the Family – a fun game everyone in the building can share… or at least the ones unfortunate enough to live right underneath your bedroom. Some boomydoom music has been rattling through the floor for hours, but I could at least manage to sort of sleep through that. Now that the screams and curses and smashing-furniture crap has started up again, though, there’s no way a person with a conscience… or a pair of functioning eardrums… could sleep through it.

所以，在我天花板上头的那些玩意持续了几分钟的"该死的"和"活见鬼!"之后，我深吸一口气，坐起身来，然后权衡我的选项。

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And so, after a few minutes of “GODDAMMIT!” this and “FUCKING HELL!” that muffling through what’s left of my ceiling, I take a deep breath, sit up, and weigh my options.

条子估计猴年马月也来不了，要是能来，那我也得听这堆狗屁听上一个小时或者更久。再说了。哪怕这座操蛋的楼里没有一个人有工作，我早上还得上工。

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Cops might not arrive for ages, if at all, which means I get to listen to this shit for an hour or more. Again. And I have to work in the morning, even if no one else in this goddamned building does.

我可以卷些厕纸耳塞，把它们塞进耳朵里，一直到我睡着为止。这或许也得花些时间。

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I could roll up some toilet paper earplugs, jam ‘em in my ears, and ride it out until maybe I fall back asleep. That could take a while.

或者我也可以上楼去，和那些傻逼对质，提醒他们不是楼里的每个人都想听他们那些家长里短，希望他们不要喝得烂醉如泥，暴跳如雷，然后决定把我也拉下水。

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Or I could go upstairs, confront those assholes, remind them that not everyone in the building wants to listen to their domestic carnage, and hope they’re not so drunk and violent that they decide to include me in the game.

我也可以整些...... 带劲的。我的祭坛透过百叶窗，在半明半暗中闪闪发光。破旧的高帽和虬结的拐杖映入我的眼帘。

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I could do something… drastic, too. My altar shines in the half-light through my window blinds. The battered top hat and gnarled crutch catch my eye.

你要怎么做？他们问我。
一时半会，我也想不出什么好办法。
哇哦。这些选项全烂透了。
随后我看到了污渍。
一开始只是天花板裂缝上的一个阴影。
然后它蔓延开来。
接着阴影落下一滴。

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What’cha gonna do? they ask me.
For the life of me, I don’t have a good answer.
Wow. All those options suck.
And then I see the stain.
It starts out as a shadow across the crack in the ceiling.
Then it spreads.
Then a drop of it falls.

落在我这不脏不净的床单上。
我用不着看颜色就知道那是什么了。
又落下一滴。
接着再一滴。
一声长叹。
拿上我的礼帽。
抓起那柄手杖。
工作到此为止。
到了早上，我又得搬家了......

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Lands on my more-or-less-clean sheets.
I don’t have to see the color to know what it is.
A second drop falls.
Then a third.
Another deep sigh.
Reach for my top hat.
Grab the cane.
So much for work.
By morning, I’ll have to move again…

This post has been edited by 劳伦斯·塔利斯曼: 2023-12-19, 11:54

[劳伦斯·塔利斯曼]

一次公园漫步 A Stroll in the Park

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让我们一起散个步吧。不会走多远——不过是把长和宽延伸到无限而已。

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Let’s take a walk. It won’t be far – just the length and breadth of infinity.

在我们这个疯狂的世界当中，也许你最难以理解的部分就是它的广袤无垠。在舒适的美式普通客厅里，窗外那奇谲诡变之物无迹可寻。因此，让我们在公园里漫步吧，在那里，熟悉的事物将与潜匿的那些相遇交汇，然后向你此前可能从未设想过的方向前进。这段旅程的一部分也许让人陌生，另一些则诡异的让人熟悉。我不会赘述莎士比亚的名言，但让我们的哲学所能梦想到的较其他时候更多一些吧。

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Perhaps the hardest thing to wrap your head around in this crazy world of ours is the sheer scope of it. In the comfort of the average American living room, there’s no real hint of the strangeness outside your windows. So let’s take a stroll in the park, where familiarity meets potential and then heads off in directions you might never have considered before. Some parts of this journey may feel strange, others oddly familiar. I won’t belabor the obvious Shakespeare quote, but let’s allow our philosophies to dream a little bigger than they might have otherwise.

这一路上有一个事实请务必铭记于心：你之所见未必是我之所见，并且你我之所见都不可能与第三者的相同。某些事物可能比另一些更稳定和可靠，但请记住这个术语：主观现实。它意味着我们每个人对现实都有着不同的体验。许多元素保持不变，但细节因人而异……而这有时会导致截然不同的后果。

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A fact to keep in mind along this tour: what you see is not necessarily what I see, and neither one of us might see things as another person would. Certain things are more stable and reliable than others, but here’s a term to keep in mind: subjective reality. What this means is that we all experience reality differently. Many elements remain constant, but the details shift from person to person… sometimes with radically different results.

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罗生门效应 The Rashomon Effect

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这怎可能发生呢？我称其为罗生门效应，得名于著名的同名日本电影和能剧。《罗生门》讲述了一场犯罪故事：观众将从数个不同的角度见证这场犯罪。所有这些故事似乎都同样真实……而这便是重点所在。对讲述这段故事的每一个不同的人而言，真相都呈现出了不同的面目。而这也是现实的运作方式。你我可能一同在公园漫步，但我们体验这场散步的方式在很大程度上取决于我们在这样做时期望看到什么。

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How can that happen? I call it the Rashomon effect, after the famous Japanese film and stage play of that name. Rashomon tells the story of a crime; the audience witnesses it from several different perspectives. All those stories seem equally true… which is the point. For each different person telling the story, the facts appear differently. And that’s the way reality works. You and I might share a walk in the park, but the way we experience it will depend a lot on what we expect to see while we do.

任何法师，不分派系，都很快会意识被凡俗称之为“现实”的事物变幻莫测。"现实 "有一些不变的因素，但也有很多回旋的余地。"回旋余地 "就是我们觉醒后生活的大部分时间......我们越是经受启蒙或是变得更强，我们的世界也就越易变。 一个新觉醒的人将意识到她能够洞察石头的结构；一名经受训练、经验丰富的法师会学习去感知和改变石头内部的能量；而大师可以把石头变成雾；而在超越这一层次之后，她将意识到石头和雾气都只不过是可被随意改变或忽视的幻象。

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Any mage, regardless of faction, soon realizes that what mundane people refer to as “reality” is flexible. A few constants, but lots of wiggle room.That wiggle room is where we live most of our lives after the Awakening… and the more enlightened or powerful we become, the more flexible our world reveals itself to be.A newly-Awakened person realizes that she can see the structure of a stone; a mage with training and experience learns to perceive and alter energies within the stone; the master can turn that stone to fog; and beyond mastery she realizes that stone and fog are both illusions to be transformed or ignored at will.

因此，是的——我们即将踏上的旅途具有不同的名称、感觉和现实层次。现在，我们将专注于基础，但假以时日，你就会意识到——先假设你能活那么久——这一切都不过是一种幻觉……这种幻觉常常又被被称为摩耶——一场大多数人都从未从中觉醒的尘世幻梦。

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And so, yes – the tour we’re about to take has different names, sensations, and levels of reality. For now, we’ll focus on the basics, but in time you’ll realize – assuming you live that long – that all of this is just an illusion… what’s often called maya, the Earthly dream from which most folks never Awaken.

This post has been edited by 劳伦斯·塔利斯曼: 2023-11-11, 15:16

[劳伦斯·塔利斯曼]

梦魇世界 A Nightmare World

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对于我们这个黑暗世界中的许多人而言，这梦境是一场噩梦。硕鼠繁衍生息，孩童忍饥挨饿。富者富可敌神，而穷人却为桌上有餐饭，头上有屋顶来捱过另一天而祈祷， 很多人甚至连这些都没有。残酷的法律和社会的冷漠让街头挤满了迷失方向、无家可归的灵魂。安·兰德的寄生繁荣哲学在这个世界毒害盛行。学究和政客们为了金钱利益将国家撕成碎片。

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For many people in our darkened world, that dream is a nightmare. Rats breed while children starve. The rich have more money than God, and the poor pray to get through another day with food on the table and a roof over their heads. Lots of people don’t have even that much. Cruel laws and social indifference have packed the streets with lost and homeless souls. Ayn Rand’s philosophy of parasitic prosperity reached its full poisonous bloom in this world. Pundits and politicians tear nations apart for monetary gain.

诚然，我们之中圣人与罪人同在，但他们总会成为殉道者，怪物，或两者皆是。慈眉善目的牧师在寓所的寂静之中亵弄着男孩。女孩则在互联网上兜售自己的贞操，然后随着掠食者的餍足失踪在黑夜之中。奇迹存在于此，但那是某种奇迹的阴暗面—— 一如蜘蛛网上的雨点微光。

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Sure, we have our saints as well as our sinners, but all too often they become martyrs, monsters, or both. The kindly priest gropes boys in the silence of a rectory; girls sell virginity on the Internet, disappearing in the night as predators take their fill. There is wonder here, but it’s a shadow-sort of wonder – the gleam of raindrops on a spider’s web.

我们的公园到了—— 一片夹在钢筋玻璃高楼之间的草地和树林，高楼上的灯光让星星都黯淡无光。随处可见的石像鬼和亡故的英雄雕像被鸟粪和涂鸦亵渎。鬼鬼祟祟的人们在阴影间穿梭，寻找毒品和禁忌的艳遇。草地上闪烁着废弃的针头和碎玻璃。古老的石墙上张贴着帮派标记。无处不在的神秘图案暗示着更加险恶的事物。雕刻的名字在树皮上隐隐发光；香烟余烬在黑暗中闪闪发亮。朦胧的影子散落在草地上，那是熟睡的人？还是尸体？可能两者都是。一轮满月穿过烟雾弥漫的云层。星星在努力地闪烁。然而，更近处的光亮来自车窗和汽车大灯划破黑暗的光影。破碎的路灯留下一片片阴影。可疑的身影在视线边缘游荡。巷子里有人在哭泣，但最好别去探究原因。每天早上，城市的清洁人员都会把活人和死人分拣出来。

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Here’s our park – a patch of grass and trees stuck between steel-glass towers whose lights dim the stars. Handfuls of gargoyles and dead-hero statues rise up here and there, desecrated with bird shit and graffiti. Furtive people dart between the shadows, seeking drugs and forbidden encounters. The grass gleams with discarded needles and broken glass. Gang tags blaze across the old stone walls. Here and there, occult designs hint at more sinister things. Carved names glow against the tree bark; cigarette embers shine against the dark. Lumpy shapes scatter across the field; sleeping people? Corpses? Probably both. A full moon shines through smoggy clouds. Stars struggle to be seen. The closer light, however, comes from the wash of windows and car headlights cutting through the dark. Broken streetlamps leave patches of gloom. Odd figures loiter on the edge of sight. Someone’s crying in that alley, but it’s best not to find out why. Every morning, the city’s clean-up crews sort the living from the dead.

在这些城市的边缘地带，郊区肆意蔓延。这片隔板废土到处都是购物中心、脱衣俱乐部、伪豪宅、装模作样的市政厅、快餐店、小屏幕多厅影院、住宅群、门控社区以及数量可能超乎你想象的枪店、当铺和性爱用品商店，就像 "美国梦 "一样华而不实、腐败不堪。在放映着真人秀的电视亮光旁，父母们殴打孩子、欺骗自己的伴侣、沉溺于令人麻木的酒精或毒品。帮派在夜间的街头蹑手蹑脚，让每一处公园和操场都变成了地狱笑话。有着数十年历史的学校因缺乏资金而破败不堪。教堂的招牌对着川流不息的车辆和空无一人的小巷播放着虔敬的口号。

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On the fringes of those cities, suburbia sprawls. Peppered with strip malls, strip clubs, McMansions, McTown Halls, fast food franchises, mini-screened multiplexes, housing developments, gated communities, and more gun shops, pawn shops, and sextoy shops than you’d ever think were possible, this clapboard wasteland is as slick and rotten as the American Dream. By the light of reality TV, parents beat their kids, cheat on their spouses, and drink or drug themselves insensible. Gangs creep through the streets at night, rendering every park and playground into a bad joke. Schools, decades old, crumble due to lack of funds. Church marquees broadcast pious slogans to the endless cars and empty cul-de-sacs.

这种情况横跨各洲：城市太大、太老或二者皆是；郊区许诺一切但几乎什么都没有给出；在荒野，所谓的文明边界土崩瓦解，古老的秘密拒绝被人类支配。空无一人的鬼城；雇佣童工的工厂；战场与污染区。那么，人们把更多的时间花在电视而非身边的世界上又有什么奇怪的呢？在走出安全圈后，你将面对的是一个相当可怕的世界。

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It goes on like this across the continents: cities that are too big, too old, or both; suburbs that promise everything and give almost nothing; wilderness where the borders of so-called civilization collapse and ancient secrets defy man’s dominion. Empty ghost towns; factories staffed with child labor; war zones and polluted smears. Is it any wonder, then, that folks spend more time with TVs than with the world around them? When you step outside your ring of safety, it’s a pretty scary world.

[劳伦斯·塔利斯曼]

桃源流毒 Poisonous Utopia

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尽管预言之中的天启尚未露面，但这绝不是因为我们人类缺少尝试。在过去的十多年里，动荡、创新和反抗持续不断。我们激荡在勇敢新千年的第二个十年里，似乎比此前任何时候都更准备好站在我们自己设计的悬崖边上。不久之前，人们开始期望上帝的启示——醒转的神灵、火雨、诸如此类的东西。但现在，这种启示似乎是来自于握在我们自己的手上、对准我们自己面孔的镜子……并且这种映射既迷人又可怕，难以言表。

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Although the foretold Apocalypse has yet to show its face, that’s not for lack of trying on our part. The last decade or so has seen perpetual upheaval, innovation, and revolt. Surging through the second decade of this brave new millennium, we seem more poised than ever before on a precipice of our own design. Not long ago, people expected divine revelation – waking gods, rains of fire, that sort of thing. Now, though, it appears that revelation comes through the mirrors we hold up to our faces… and that reflection is both fascinating and awful beyond words.

美利坚巨人在2001年9月11日被扇了一耳光，然后就变成一头弗兰肯斯坦式的怪物。我们把哈米吉多顿降在罪人头上，也降在无辜者头上。在民族主义恐惧的高潮中，我们欣然拥抱了永远不应当被允许的东西。酷刑营开张了。圣书被焚毁了。以古代经文的名义，我们的领导者把有史以来最强大的军事机器对准了我们的敌人……然后发现我们的文化假定令我们自缚手脚。繁荣兴盛的承诺被它们背后的现实所瓦解。在大约15年后，我们的经济步履蹒跚。一小撮人分食蛋糕，剩下的其他所有人却只能扒拉面包屑。

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Slapped in the face on September 11, 2001, the American giant became a Frankenstein monster. We rained Armageddon on the guilty and innocent alike. Riding high on a swell of nationalistic fear, we embraced things that should never have been allowed. Torture camps opened. Holy books were burnt. In the name of ancient scriptures, our leaders aimed the greatest military machine in history at our enemies… and then found ourselves hamstrung by our own cultural presumptions. Promises of prosperity got torn down by the realities behind them. Roughly 15 years later, our economy staggers. A few folks eat cake while the rest of us scrabble over crumbs.

我们的对位狂信者利用工业玩具同我们对抗，精心打造出了一个地理边界不复存在的全球网络。权力工具以真主之名剥离皮肤与骨头，而互联网——赫尔墨斯引以为傲的工具挣脱了束缚——成为一间镜子大厅，并且每面镜子都展示出了一张不同的面孔。在四大洲，整整一代人在恐惧的阴影下成长起来。多亏了我们制造出来用于确保自身安全的工具，现在没有谁真正是安全的。

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Our counterpart fanatics turned industry’s toys against us, crafting a global network in which geographic boundaries disappeared. Power tools ripped skin and bone in Allah’s name, and the Internet – proud tool of Hermes unbound – became a hall of mirrors that all show a different face. Across four continents, a generation has grown up in the shadow of terror. Thanks to the tools we made to keep us safe, no one truly is.

在世界各地，繁荣与贫穷互相追逐着对方的尾巴。童奴为特权精英制作玩具。各国政府抵押自己的土地，让最富有的人肥得流油。“革命”挂在每个人嘴边。街头沸腾着史诗般的抗议活动。军事化且经常腐败的警察在我们的城市发动战争。垂泪的先知预言每条阴沟都将沾染血迹。所谓的 "圣地 "燃烧着疯狂的热情——而考虑到三个宗教一心想要在字面意义上实现他们的天启，我们仍有可能在全球舞台上看到那本癫狂的经文所描绘的景象。愿所有神明都能帮助我们……但我不会指望通过他们获得解脱。

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Across the world, prosperity and poverty chase each other’s tails. Slave-children make toys for the privileged elite. Governments mortgage their own lands in order to keep their richest people fat. “Revolution” is on everybody’s lips. Streets boil with epic protests. Militarized and often corrupt police wage war in our cities. Weeping prophets foretell blood in every gutter. The so-called Holy Land burns with insane zeal – and with three religions literally hell-bent on bringing about their Apocalypse, we might still see the visions of that demented scripture played out on the global stage. May all the gods help us then… but I wouldn’t count on them for deliverance.

而在十多年前，科技联盟就已经宣布了胜利。这可真是个笑话！

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Over 10 years back, the Technocracy declared victory. What a joke that was!

互联网——在20年前还只是精英阶层的玩具——现在则成为了我们所知的世界的固有组成部分。空间领域的门徒是对的；至少在虚拟意义上，你真的可以把所有地点并成一个地点。社交媒体、手机、高速无线连接和即时视频近在全球人民的指尖。我们可以在东京用笔记本电脑看到伊斯坦布尔的街头，可以在阿巴拉契亚山道用口袋里的手机给位于圣保罗的朋友打电话。我们能以20年前根本不可能的方式相互交谈、相互看到、相互关心。这应当是桃源乡啊。

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The irony is that wonderful things have happened. That Internet – a toy for the elite 20 years ago – is now an intrinsic part of the world as we know it. Devotees of the Correspondence Sphere were right: in a virtual sense, at least, you really can turn all places into one. Social media, cell phones, high-speed wireless connections, and instant videos are at the literal fingertips of people across the globe. You can watch the streets of Istanbul from a laptop in Tokyo and call a friend in Sao Paulo from the phone in your pocket on the Appalachian Trail. We can speak to one another, see one another, care about one another in ways that were impossible 20 years ago. This should be Utopia.

正好相反，它……嗯，不是.。

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And instead, it’s… well, not.

有了人类，谁还需要食人的神明呢？在恐惧与无聊时，人类自己就会互相吞噬。社交媒体与统一化的大众传媒机器把我们变成了遍布全球的一窝愤怒的老鼠，每当察觉到邻人似乎有违规行为，我们就狠咬上一口。恐惧有利可图，所以我们的媒体让我们始终惶恐不安。每个频道似乎都在一场不分昼夜、精心策划的恐惧狂欢中用大喇叭高喊“特别报道！”和“这也有可能发生在你身上!” 我们可以看到每一起绑架、每一出谋杀、以及我们施加在彼此身上的日常大屠杀。在这流毒的桃源乡中，我们把奇迹变作苦难。邻里皆是怪物，而我们都比邻而居。

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Who needs cannibal gods when you’ve got human beings? When scared and bored, we devour one another. Social media and a consolidated mass-media machine have turned us into a global box of angry rats, biting our neighbors over each perceived infraction. Terror’s profitable, so our media keep us terrified. Every channel, it seems, blares “SPECIAL REPORT!” and “It could happen to YOU!” in a round-the-clock orgy of orchestrated fear. We can see each abduction, every murder, the daily holocausts we inflict on one another. In our poisonous utopia, we turn miracles to miseries. Every neighbor is a monster, and we all live right next door.

我们的神明们想必正泪中带笑。

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Our gods must be laughing through their tears.

对你而言，这里还有一个不受欢迎的事实：我们缔造了这个世界。这是我们——我们所有人——缔造的现实。沉睡者和觉醒者和介于两者之间的人……我们都要为此负责。秘学法师指责科技联盟，科技联盟指责秘学法师，并且分歧的两边都是对的。人们会告诉你这个世界由吸血鬼创造、这个世界被某些宇宙妖蛆腐化了、这个世界落入了恶魔手中或这个世界在上帝之怒的阴影中颤栗。所有这些理论都可能是真的。但事实上，是我们令它发生的。这个世界就是我们所创造的。如果它是黑暗的，那一定是因为黑暗吸引了我们。

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And here’s an unpopular truth for you: we made this world. It’s the reality we’ve built – all of us. Sleepers and Awakened and the folks in between… we’re all responsible for this. Mystic mages blame the Technocracy, the Technocrats blame the mystics, and both sides of that divide are right. Folks will tell you that vampires made this world, that it’s corrupted by some cosmic Wyrm, fallen to demonic hands, or trembling in the shadow of God’s wrath. All those theories might be true. But the fact is, we allowed it to happen. This world is what we make of it. If it’s dark, then Darkness must appeal to us.

谢天谢地，它并非完全黑暗。

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Thankfully, it’s not all dark.

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希望与恐惧 Hope and Fear

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在人们以舞蹈驱散恐惧的夜总会外，在教堂和抗议活动的营地外，你也能在陌生的地方寻得大爱，在黑夜中找到希望。烛光闪烁的商店、金碧辉煌的顶层公寓、施粥所和受祝福的圣所都在吸引着拒绝受制于恐惧的人。那些用于寻欢作乐的社交媒体也会帮助找到走失的儿童、发出求救的呼声、发掘出我们的领导人选择隐藏的真相、并揭示出我们被告知要去恐惧的“他人”其实与我们相差无几的事实。

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Beyond the nightclubs where folks go to dance their fear away, outside the churches and the protest camps, you’ll find love in strange places and hope in the night. Candle-lit shops and gleaming penthouses, soup kitchens and blessed sanctuaries all draw the people who refuse to be afraid. Those social media glory holes also help find lost kids, send out cries for help, dig up the truths our leaders choose to hide, and reveal that “the other” we’ve been told to fear looks pretty much like us.

科技在全球范围内的崛起也给我们带来了其他一些东西：超凡公民的崛起，他们的动态世界观能接受广泛且包容的范式。科技联盟喜欢宣称这些人就是他们自己，但事实是：思想开放的人有着更广泛的自由。当然，你的一整天可能都花在了检查你的推特账号上，但这些推文或许可以让你产生各种颠覆性的想法。信息自由摧毁暴政。信息源则不会决定你如何使用它。

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The global rise of technology has given us something else as well: the rise of extraordinary citizens whose dynamic worldviews accept broad and inclusive paradigms. The Technocracy likes to claim those people as their own, but the fact is this: people with open minds have a wider range of freedom. Sure, you might spend all day checking your Twitter account, but those tweets could have you thinking all kinds of subversive thoughts. Freedom of information undermines tyranny. The source of that information does not dictate what you do with it.

所以，是的，我们的世界很可怕。确实，情况看起来有些严峻。但对法师和群众双方而言，关键在于：只要勇于尝试，希望就能战胜恐惧。

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So yes, our world is scary. Yeah, things look kinda bleak. But here’s the secret for both mages and the Masses alike: hope trumps fear when you dare to make it so

奴隶主的工具让奴隶有了发声的渠道。魔法就和你手中的“首选阅读平台”一样真实。一切生命，不管是人类还是其他什么，都有潜力使生活的天平倾向于更美好的一边。那么，就让我们来培养这份潜力——以竭力反抗恐惧的重压吧。

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The tools of the masters have given slaves a voice. Magic’s as real as the “preferred reading platform” in your hands. Every life, human and otherwise, has the potential to tip the balance in favor of a better day. It’s up to us, then, to go nurture that potential – to strive against the weight of fear.

现在更胜以往，只要运用得当，力量即归我手。

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Now more than ever, the power is ours if we choose to use it well.

This post has been edited by 劳伦斯·塔利斯曼: 2024-04-04, 15:43

[劳伦斯·塔利斯曼]

未来命运：新千禧年 Future Fates: The New Millennium

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自初版《法师：超凡入圣》系列在1993年至2003年间出版以来，这个世界已经变了许多。具有重大意义的事件和科学改变了社会与政治格局、除了某些涉及飞机、建筑物和所有由此而来的疯狂的越轨行为，这个世界——截至本文写作时——已经经历了一段新变革时期；一场尚未解决的全球经济危机；气候变化与自然灾害的激增；社交媒体的崛起；无线网络、手机/智能手机、在线视频、数字成像、防弹衣、无人机武器、高速互联网和其他革命性科学技术的大规模汇流；关于性别、种族身份及其相关权利的全球争论；大众媒体和政府监管的扩张与整合让《1984》看上去像是个大有可为的商业计划。这些事件，以及其他许多事件，让我们的新千禧年世界与法师诞生的那个世界变得不一样了——不论是好是坏。

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The world has changed a lot since the original Mage: The Ascension series, which ran between 1993 and 2003. Significant events and technologies have altered the social and political landscape. Beyond a certain escapade involving some planes and buildings and all the resulting insanities, the world has – as of this writing – experienced a time of new revolutions; a global financial crisis which has yet to be resolved; a surge of climate change and natural disasters; the rise of social media; a massive conflux of wireless, cell phone/ smart phone, online video, digital imaging, body armor, drone weapons, high-speed Internet, and other revolutionary technologies; global controversies about gender and ethnic identities and their associated rights; and an expansion and consolidation of mass media and government surveillance that makes 1984 look like a business plan. These events, and many others, have made the world of our new millennium a different place – for better and worse – than the world into which Mage was born.

同样地，塑造了《法师》原始设定的事件——毒品战争、油渍/朋克/哥特式音乐、苏联解体、第一次海湾战争和那个新潮的 “家用电脑” 玩意等等——现在都已成为历史。毫无疑问，有些读者在第一本《法师》滑出印刷机时甚至还没有出生，另一些读者则希望《法师》和他们在比尔·克林顿盛世游玩的那个版本一模一样。
因此，考虑到我们这个世界自1993年来发生过的许多变化，《法师》说书人有几个可选项：

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In the same vein, events that shaped Mage’s original setting – the crack wars, grunge/ punk/ Gothic music, the implosion of the Soviet Union, Gulf War I, and that newfangled “home computer” thing, among others – are ancient history now. Doubtless, there’ll be people reading these words who weren’t even born when the first Mage book slid off the presses, and other folks who’ll want Mage to be exactly the way it was back when they played it during Bill Clinton’s heyday. And so, with regards to the many changes our world has seen since 1993, a Mage Storyteller has several options:

• 烂事全都如期而至：911发生了，卡特里娜飓风发生了，伊拉克和阿富汗战争发生了，并且世界正处于全球气候变化之中。国际叛乱、福克斯新闻、希腊经济危机，以及其他所有其他定义了我们这个时代的混乱与奇迹都在如火如荼地进行。《法师》20周年版以该选项为前提，但你不必如此。
  
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  Shit Happened: 9/11 happened, Hurricane Katrina happened, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars happened, and the world’s smack in the middle of global climate change. International revolts, Fox News, the Greek economic crisis, and all the other messes and miracles that define our era are in full swing. Mage 20 assumes this option, but you don’t have to.
• 一些烂事可能发生了：也许911发生了，但阿拉伯之春没有；也可能情况正好相反。也许YouTube让这个世界成为了网络世界，但其他事情却从未发生。这个世界是某些现实事件和其他缺位事件的综合产物。然而，如果你改变了一些事，就要确保与之关联的东西也有所改变——如果这个世界依旧在拨号上网，那YouTube就很难存在。
  
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  Some Shit May Have Happened: Maybe 9/11 happened but the Arab Spring did not; perhaps it’s the other way around. Maybe YouTube puts the world online, but other things never came to pass. The world’s a synthesis of certain real-life events and the lack of others. If you change things, though, just make sure the related things change too – it’s hard to have YouTube if the world’s still functioning on dial-up connections.
• 自有一套烂法：也许伊拉克真的有大规模杀伤性武器。也许《法师》修订版中描述的最终清算仍在进行，尘世依旧一片混乱。也许2008年胜选的是马弗里克总统，或者这个世界的人依旧在看《狂欢三宝》、沉迷于珍珠果酱和2 Live Crew乐队。设定在1993年与2013年之间模糊不清，可以拥有你想要的任何细节。
  
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  Shit Happened My Way: Maybe Iraq really did have WMDs. Perhaps the Reckoning described in Mage Revised is still in progress and the Earth’s in total chaos. It could be that President Maverick won in 2008 or that the world’s still watching Animaniacs and digging on Pearl Jam and 2 Live Crew. The setting blurs between 1993 and 2013, with the details as you want them

俗话说得好，现实有待把握。请把《法师》界定在你认为合适的年代吧。

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As the saying goes, reality is up for grabs. Define your Mage age as you see fit

This post has been edited by 劳伦斯·塔利斯曼: 2024-04-04, 13:29