Half a millennium ago, librarians were info custodians: acquirers, catalogers, curators, retrievers. Tûma had shown me photos of shy-looking people working in monastic silence amid dusty stacks. With the dawn of the first internet, the profession changed to one of navigator, providing maps through the thickening forests of hearsay, misinformation, and conspiracy. If the trollbot takeover had been sudden, humans might have galvanized a defense. Instead, the slippage was fitful until mods reached societal saturation and the full lethality of the Snarl was unleashed. Librarians rapidly evolved into a fellowship of warrior-poets who gave their lives to the storehousing of human history. Equipped with Arthurian training, librarians led safaris into the Snarl, hacked away at bad info, and slayed attacking trollbots. A staggering 26 percent of librarians lost their minds in the line of duty.
“She didn’t talk about it much,” Feng said. “You go into the Snarl that often… you see things. The literal worst things that humans can imagine. Worse, actually.”
Source: The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus
