In Memory of a Friend

I was shocked to learn, a couple of days ago, that an Internet friend had passed away in August.

I never met Andrew Boulton, but I knew him as a moderator on the Citizens of the Imperium discussion boards, and as both a contributor to various other Traveller groups and as a talented artist who seemed to specialize in Traveller-themed artwork.

The Internet seems to both bring people together from all parts of the world and preserve them "in the moment" like one of those Californian Tar pits. Andrew is gone, but I can see all the Facebook posts he was making, right up until the time of his death. It is as if his memory has been prevented from fading by being indelibly imprinted upon the planetary ur-mind.

And the echos of his existence keep returning to me as Facebook persists in recommending pages and links that he liked.

I understand that Andrew tended towards the "atheist" end of the belief spectrum, which makes me wonder how he would have reacted to his imnetmortality - probably with a joke and a link to some funny or amazing thing he had discovered during his surfing across the infinite seas of the Internet.

My heart goes out to his family and to the friends who knew him in the Real. I know that I did not know him as half as much as you all did, but I enjoyed the company of the piece of him I did know.

You failed your Survival roll, mate. No mustering out for you, and no further adventures. Will miss you.