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vatheon2013-04-28 05:19 pm
thalassino) wrote in vatheon2013-04-28 05:19 pm
a clandestine meeting; Backdated to Friday 26th of April
[It has been a bit of a wait, the kind of wait that feels days longer than it is in reality, but Friday evening has arrived at last. It is a rather busy night, all in all.
First off, at quarter to ten while people are still gathering in the storage building, an explosion shatters the peace on the other side of the island. That scenic light house? Gone. The culprit? Unknown. Luckily, with how big the island is, the explosion is hardly noticeable in the village. There's a momentary shaking of the ground and smoke on the horizon, but beyond that little happens.
Station Master does not seem to notice or care about the short shaking of the ground, instead continuing to welcome people inside the building, occasionally making sure that nobody brought along their SFC. Inside the building is rather plain. Most of the items inside of it have been moved and put in other storage buildings. Some crates remain, mostly stacked along the walls, giving a seat to those that want or need it.
There are a couple things that stand out. The first are four tall devices in each corner of the room, glowing faintly. If anyone tries to come close to them and touch them, they are shied away by Station Master along with a promise that he will explain the devices once everybody is present. The other is a woman sitting on one of the crates. Some might recognize her as the one who had been cast in the role of the Cleric during one of the previous curses. For now, she does not engage anyone, simply sitting there silently, her fingers tracing over the mark on her wrist.
Once 10 pm rolls around (with a few extra minutes bumper time in case of stragglers), Station Master makes his way to the center of the room where he can easily be viewed and heard by all of those present.]
Good evening. I'm very pleased to see so many of you here. As you all know I've been contacting you recently over a possible way to fix the barrier below. Tonight I'll be giving you all the relevant information I know, and I'll try and answer as many of your questions as possible, so please do not hesitate to ask them. However, I want to underline that nobody will be forced to help. In fact, if my explanation does not convince you on why it is so important to act, you may all walk away from here tonight and continue on your own ways.
First, I want to explain the devices in the corner as I promised. These four devices are currently creating a barrier over this building making it impossible for us to be monitored while we are in here. I'm certain that most of you have come to this conclusion already, but your captors are monitoring your every move and your every conversation over your SFCs, which is why I asked you to leave them outside today.
In essence, while we are in here, you can talk freely. Nothing you say will become known to them, unless you repeat it outside. Anything planned within these walls would come as a complete surprise to them. If you agree to help me out today, I will let you have this building and the barrier technology inside. I can even try to set up similar ones in other locations or teach you to do so, however I must caution you that at best only a few of these barriers should be made. While a single blank spot will not be detected by your captors, if too many of them are created, they will likely catch on and investigate.
Now, first I would like to introduce someone to you.
[Here he motions to the woman sitting silently.]
This is C. Up until recently she was part of the group you have come to refer to as the Natives. Though she was not brought here from another realm like yourself, she was kept captive because she was judged to be a danger to the Vatheon experiment. Her memory had been taken from her and she was kept docile as all natives are. Recently she has started to slowly come to and regain some of her memories. These last few days she has been helping me put together a possible way for restoring the barrier below. It seems that the reason the barrier was failing to begin with and the reason why her memory has been starting to return to her have the same cause. Namely the fact that the coral has been starting to become desynchronized.
As you all know, you have been marked. These marks were supposed to act as a connection to the coral allowing it to cast these so called curses on you, but also to draw your energy in return. And this energy was instrumental in keeping the barrier strong. However the problem is that the coral is not a static entity. While it is not alive per se, it is also not unchanging. Over the last few years it has slowly been changing, whereas your marks have remained the same. This was a variable overlooked by the scientists. By now it appears that the marks you carry and the coral are so out of sync that it can no longer drain enough power from you to properly project the barrier that has been keeping the underwater city safe and protected. The connection has been muddled with too much white noise, so to speak.
Yet this is also the reason why C has been regaining her consciousness. Similar to yourself, the natives also carry marks, though for a different purpose than yourselves. Rather than being used to drain energy, they are being used to suppress them. With the link between the marks and the coral becoming this desynchronized, it seems C's connection no longer fully functions, giving her back part of her memories. There is a chance that in time more natives will become disconnected from the coral and will return to their true selves.
Together C and I have been creating a technique to change the marks which will hopefully bring them back in alignment again with the coral and restore the bubble. It is not all that needs to happen, but by doing this, we can solve 80% of the problem, we believe.
Now, I know this is a lot to take in. And I am not completely done yet. For now, I'll allow you to talk about this, and to ask both C and myself questions. We'll try to answer them as best as we can.
[ooc: Okay, you guys. Here it is. This is the post. We apologize again for getting this up so late. what we'll do is this. This post is pretty much a big free for all discussion post. Don't hesitate to jump in anywhere or at any time. This is happening in one room so it is easy to overhear other people talking and such.
There will be one separate thread for C answering questions and two for Station Master. With Station Master one will be for asking him questions directly and one will be summarizing the questions that have already been asked of him and answered. This is mostly to keep everybody from having to crawl through all the discussions. Please read up on what has already been asked via these bigger subthreads as much as possible so we can avoid having to answer the same question over and over. You are free to ask him any question you want, even if it's unrelated to this current plot. He will answer at his discretion. I know this might end up being a bit of a messy post, so once most of it has been threaded out, we'll put up an ooc post summarizing the proceedings.
Of course, characters are allowed to make their own threads to discuss among each other! We ask just one thing of you. If you character has a direct question to either Station Master or C that you want us to answer please mark 'NPC QUESTION' in your comment title. We'll be trying to keep up as much as possible, but this way we can quickly see where we are needed and where people just wanna discuss things among themselves for a little bit.]
First off, at quarter to ten while people are still gathering in the storage building, an explosion shatters the peace on the other side of the island. That scenic light house? Gone. The culprit? Unknown. Luckily, with how big the island is, the explosion is hardly noticeable in the village. There's a momentary shaking of the ground and smoke on the horizon, but beyond that little happens.
Station Master does not seem to notice or care about the short shaking of the ground, instead continuing to welcome people inside the building, occasionally making sure that nobody brought along their SFC. Inside the building is rather plain. Most of the items inside of it have been moved and put in other storage buildings. Some crates remain, mostly stacked along the walls, giving a seat to those that want or need it.
There are a couple things that stand out. The first are four tall devices in each corner of the room, glowing faintly. If anyone tries to come close to them and touch them, they are shied away by Station Master along with a promise that he will explain the devices once everybody is present. The other is a woman sitting on one of the crates. Some might recognize her as the one who had been cast in the role of the Cleric during one of the previous curses. For now, she does not engage anyone, simply sitting there silently, her fingers tracing over the mark on her wrist.
Once 10 pm rolls around (with a few extra minutes bumper time in case of stragglers), Station Master makes his way to the center of the room where he can easily be viewed and heard by all of those present.]
Good evening. I'm very pleased to see so many of you here. As you all know I've been contacting you recently over a possible way to fix the barrier below. Tonight I'll be giving you all the relevant information I know, and I'll try and answer as many of your questions as possible, so please do not hesitate to ask them. However, I want to underline that nobody will be forced to help. In fact, if my explanation does not convince you on why it is so important to act, you may all walk away from here tonight and continue on your own ways.
First, I want to explain the devices in the corner as I promised. These four devices are currently creating a barrier over this building making it impossible for us to be monitored while we are in here. I'm certain that most of you have come to this conclusion already, but your captors are monitoring your every move and your every conversation over your SFCs, which is why I asked you to leave them outside today.
In essence, while we are in here, you can talk freely. Nothing you say will become known to them, unless you repeat it outside. Anything planned within these walls would come as a complete surprise to them. If you agree to help me out today, I will let you have this building and the barrier technology inside. I can even try to set up similar ones in other locations or teach you to do so, however I must caution you that at best only a few of these barriers should be made. While a single blank spot will not be detected by your captors, if too many of them are created, they will likely catch on and investigate.
Now, first I would like to introduce someone to you.
[Here he motions to the woman sitting silently.]
This is C. Up until recently she was part of the group you have come to refer to as the Natives. Though she was not brought here from another realm like yourself, she was kept captive because she was judged to be a danger to the Vatheon experiment. Her memory had been taken from her and she was kept docile as all natives are. Recently she has started to slowly come to and regain some of her memories. These last few days she has been helping me put together a possible way for restoring the barrier below. It seems that the reason the barrier was failing to begin with and the reason why her memory has been starting to return to her have the same cause. Namely the fact that the coral has been starting to become desynchronized.
As you all know, you have been marked. These marks were supposed to act as a connection to the coral allowing it to cast these so called curses on you, but also to draw your energy in return. And this energy was instrumental in keeping the barrier strong. However the problem is that the coral is not a static entity. While it is not alive per se, it is also not unchanging. Over the last few years it has slowly been changing, whereas your marks have remained the same. This was a variable overlooked by the scientists. By now it appears that the marks you carry and the coral are so out of sync that it can no longer drain enough power from you to properly project the barrier that has been keeping the underwater city safe and protected. The connection has been muddled with too much white noise, so to speak.
Yet this is also the reason why C has been regaining her consciousness. Similar to yourself, the natives also carry marks, though for a different purpose than yourselves. Rather than being used to drain energy, they are being used to suppress them. With the link between the marks and the coral becoming this desynchronized, it seems C's connection no longer fully functions, giving her back part of her memories. There is a chance that in time more natives will become disconnected from the coral and will return to their true selves.
Together C and I have been creating a technique to change the marks which will hopefully bring them back in alignment again with the coral and restore the bubble. It is not all that needs to happen, but by doing this, we can solve 80% of the problem, we believe.
Now, I know this is a lot to take in. And I am not completely done yet. For now, I'll allow you to talk about this, and to ask both C and myself questions. We'll try to answer them as best as we can.
[ooc: Okay, you guys. Here it is. This is the post. We apologize again for getting this up so late. what we'll do is this. This post is pretty much a big free for all discussion post. Don't hesitate to jump in anywhere or at any time. This is happening in one room so it is easy to overhear other people talking and such.
There will be one separate thread for C answering questions and two for Station Master. With Station Master one will be for asking him questions directly and one will be summarizing the questions that have already been asked of him and answered. This is mostly to keep everybody from having to crawl through all the discussions. Please read up on what has already been asked via these bigger subthreads as much as possible so we can avoid having to answer the same question over and over. You are free to ask him any question you want, even if it's unrelated to this current plot. He will answer at his discretion. I know this might end up being a bit of a messy post, so once most of it has been threaded out, we'll put up an ooc post summarizing the proceedings.
Of course, characters are allowed to make their own threads to discuss among each other! We ask just one thing of you. If you character has a direct question to either Station Master or C that you want us to answer please mark 'NPC QUESTION' in your comment title. We'll be trying to keep up as much as possible, but this way we can quickly see where we are needed and where people just wanna discuss things among themselves for a little bit.]
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[Blunt, but true. Even thinking back on the whole hazy scenario frustrates her endlessly. She wants to scream whenever she realizes how much she doesn't (or can't) remember.]
I didn't volunteer. I study - studied energy manipulation. The coral's a fascinating subject, in its natural habitat it generated energy from the emotions of the fish it was connected to. Higher ups wanted to see if it would generate more if they hooked up humans to it instead, I wanted to keep observing it in its natural environment. I was in the way.
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[He gestures with an uplifted index finger, all informative and I-know-what-I'm talking-about.]
That explains where they got it. There were papers I found when we first got access to the island--which, now that I think, actually gives me a lot of material I could ask you about.
For one thing, what's Fasest? Is that the planet, the island, the village, what? I'm pretty sure it's a place with the way it was mentioned in there.
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[C doesn't sound offended. If anything, she sounds impressed. She can get quite a mouth too when she gets frustrated.]
Fasest is a country. It's the country we're in right now. The ocean, the island, and the mainland not too far from here - that's all Fasest.
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[It's a hard job, keeping up this prickly exterior. He could go on more about it, too, but it's tangential to the main subject.]
Thank you. That's what I've been wanting to know for a long fucking time, but I never figured out what it was. Granted, there are a number of things like that. Hold on.
[He knew he had the right card somewhere--there. He pulls some wrinkled and torn papers out from his sylladex.]
There were some gases mentioned in this in relation to the coral and Fasest's atmosphere. Sors came up recently in that conversation between the head nurse and Thalassino that got leaked onto the network, but there's also this other one, fuck if I know how to pronounce it. Squiggly-s a e l k? Salk? Sailk? Do you know or remember anything about those?
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Sors is a raw form of energy. Sometimes it also refers to people who can use it. We...
[Dammit, this makes her feel like an idiot. She knows this, she knows that she does! Clicking her tongue with irritation, she rubs her forehead.]
Sorry. It's not coming to me.
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It's fine. You're giving me more info than I could get otherwise, so I'll take what I can get. Let me look through these some more.
[He takes a moment, skimming over their contents. The data table he's not sure she'd be any good for, and it feels more like scientific babble that wouldn't interest him if she did. Other things he's had explanations for, or seem more like scientist territory. But there is one more thing--]
Here. Have you got any clue about that whole coral religion that sprouted up? This says the natives just started worshiping it on their own. After that godforsaken quest where I had to spread facts about it, though, my latent dislike for the whole charade has transcended into a frothing stew of rage, and I have supped from the pot every time I've heard about it since. What's the big deal about that?
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That? Oh yeah. I lived that. When you're under, the coral seems like a god. You feel so sure that it's the source of everything good in life. As long as the coral is there, nothing can go wrong. That's why we all got so mad whenever someone tried to mess with it. We were scared.
[A loud sigh.]
Which is pretty damn stupid since we'd be better off without it. We don't have a choice but to fix the thing though. If it runs out of power while you're all still stuck here I don't even want to think of what's going to happen to you.
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Still sounds weird, but I guess I can see why when you put it that way. Without the coral, there's no experiment, right? But the power thing--what would happen? No barrier, no using it to stay awake as long as I want, but what else?
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[She's not done though, not even close.]
That's not even taking different timelines and dimensions and all that other mess into account. Considering the amount of alternate "Earths" I've heard of alone the potential side effects for the coral going out for the foreigners could be catastrophic. You could be stuck here forever, you could be sent home, you could be sent to another dimension, you could be sent to the wrong time... you might not even make it back at all. Fixing the coral might possibly make me high as a kite again, but it's preferable to the alternative.
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[His shoulders sink.]
Even if everyone from... whatever conjoined universes form my native stem of reality, if all those people got sent back, without the right attention to timelines everything would just get fucked over. We'd all die, doomed timelines destined to it, and I don't want to lose everything I have here to begin with. And I don't even know how timelines work in other universes, let alone when people get flung around between them like a hundred person game of ping pong for the decapitated.
[He pinches at the bridge of his nose, thinking.]
But that still leaves you in a shitty position. Is there anything we could do to try to keep you from getting brainwashed? There's probably nothing I can help with myself, since the fanciest power I have is climbing walls, but there has to be somewhere here who could do something.
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[It's not just lip service, she truly is sorry. She was once part of this project and she feels for the people stuck here now, the people pulled from other worlds and treated like lab rats. She doesn't apologize beyond that though. Words wouldn't really be adequate anyway.]
I'm hoping that if I don't alter the markings of the natives that we won't sync back up with the coral and that we'll start to gain ourselves. I haven't thought on it too much just yet, honestly. Fixing the coral is more urgent. If it does screw us over again, all I ask is that you all remember that the people stuck down in the bubble with you? We're all people, too, and we didn't ask for this. If you could try to find a way to help us while you use the space the Station Master gives you to try and figure all this out, I'd appreciate it.
Hopefully, though, we'll be able to think for ourselves and you won't even have to mess with it.
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I'll make the effort. It probably won't be any less frustrating to deal with the lot of you, but it's better knowing that the fountain of stupidity flowing from your speech gashes isn't your own fault. Besides, if you didn't volunteer for this mess, you deserve help too.
Hm. Do you know what the end goal of this experiment is, or would I have to ask the Station Master about that?
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[She grins crookedly, expression lightening a bit. She actually can answer that question! She thinks.]
To be able to reliably create and harness the energy generated from emotions. Ideally people would be able to just do it at will by wanting to power something. It would really be revolutionary. I'm not sure if they've changed the goal since I was observing the coral, but that was the idea back then.
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[Also pretty damn horrific. There's a reason for his largely negative view of the Condesce here, for all he still respects her leadership abilities.]
At least no one can tell me my boundless well of rage isn't good for anything if it's been helping to power the barrier.
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[C actually laughs a bit.]
Hey, anger is fuel. Turns out you've been using it all this time!
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You say this to someone from a species of space conquerors whose best friend can set up computer networks that allow cross-universe communication. Your technology sucks sweaty horse globes, no matter how many backwards other Earths--question, is this planet even called Earth?--you compare it to.
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Glad to hear it! You'll be able to figure some way out of this prison then, won't you?
[Strangely enough, she's not being sarcastic or trying to make a jab at him. If the technology of his people is that advanced, then once they have a private area to plan it stands to reason that they'll be able to get things done.]
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Do I look like I have a clue out of here? I've been here going on two and a half years, and I am no closer to figuring out how they send us back and forth than I was when I first showed up. The only difference is I know who's doing it and it involves the coral somehow. If you want technobabble, ask Sollux if you can actually get him access to anything computerized in the process.
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I've got things to ask him later, myself, but I thought I'd take the chance to actually get something useful out of a native for once. But okay, fine, point gotten. I'm not giving up, alright? I haven't since I got here.
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[She hates dealing with dead weight. She also hates being the dead weight. They're all stuck together, and while it would be so easy to quietly wait for the coral to fail completely so they would be sent home and she could head back home herself... she can't just let it be. She never can.]
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