video & voice; Story-time for All

[abracafcku]

[The video opens on a bare wall and to the sound of very, very corny fanfare. Then Taako's voice cuts in with the sound of applause.]

Yes, yes, welcome one and all to the greatest day of your lives. Today we have a real treat for you folks, so pull up a chair, take a load off and enjoy this banned text we've managed to procure.

[He clears his throat and a puppet appears on the screen - a non-descript looking human priest wearing dark robes and a blue sash around his neck. The voices that read the following lines are similar, but not the same and anyone who knows both Lup and Taako can probably tell it's the twins taking turns to read the passages. People who don't, however, might have a hard time telling them apart.]

"I used to have a lady love,
she journeyed through the sea,"

[A new puppet appears - a beautiful female mermaid with hair that falls just past her breasts. She slides up from the bottom of the screen and the priest turns to her, fawning all over her.]

"Her fins were as the mourning dove,
a mated pair were we.
Our bodies tangled, hand in glove,
a queen and devotee,"

[As the poem progresses, the priest does some...very not PG-13 things to the mermaid puppet. Eventually, the mermaid pushes the priest away, looking tired.]

"But she was called to rise above,
our bond not meant to be."

[Here the mermaid "puppet" flips a double middle finger at the priest and backflips into the sea, leaving him drenched in water.]

"Though I endure, bereft, belove,
I have her guarantee,
I'll be the one she's thinking of,
a little dove told me."

[The priest pines and waits by the water, pantomiming the lament of a forlorn lover as a bird lands next to him, rolling its eyes. The puppet show ends with a curtain drawing across the screen and then the video shuts off. Taako's voice cuts back in once the video is gone.]

Yeah, so the people here? Raunchy as hell. I love it. But then some people were, y'know, boring and said things like--

[Lup's voice takes over smoothly like they're still the same person talking.]

"If any other colonies can hear this message, please respond. This is Havenwell. We're still alive. The city is safe. We will come get you, no matter how far you are. This is not an automated message. Please respond." That there's a radio transmission from "Colony #56'07'4TM", which, obviously, is home sweet home. Not the most interesting, but I won't deny that the archive visits have been… informative.

Anyone else get something fun?

[OOC: It's a joint post! Replies here can be from Taako, Lup, or both of them. If you have a preference, just let us know in the title of your comment or it'll be a roulette of which twin you'll get.

Feel free to use this post to stir up discussion amongst yourselves regarding the lore contributions!]

Comments

video;

[shroudedsecrets]

If nothing else, it says much for the... variety of these archives.

[But she'll give them both... a brief, slow parental clap... for the organizational effort. Even if she wasn't too comfortable with sharing much over these, given the amount of paranoia they'd had in the Fleet, it wasn't as if they weren't very well invited into the archives to begin with.]

My passage -- or log, rather, seems rather succinct in comparison. I do not think it is particularly "fun", however. The name is gone, there are no dates, but perhaps that does not matter. The experiment number, that's interesting. "Number 920194", though whether it's only this person's work or referring to a collective ...

[Honerva get to the point- which she does, reading the record in... well, a much more flat tone to get the point across as to what they were dealing with.]

"Log 83. Without a method of reproducing our original cells, I fear this whole venture is simply impossible. We cannot create life out of nothing. We saw how well that went last time."

[necromanswers]

I agree, that one's incredibly un-fun.

[Booo, lame. But very fitting for Honerva- all science-y and nerdy.]

So they tried to clone their old selves before we all got dragged in here?

[shroudedsecrets]

It is an implication. Perhaps they had not taken into consideration the need for preserving such cells after they transferred themselves... and they may not have known how to reverse what they had already achieved. It is a lot of work...

[There's a slight pause. She's, perhaps, too familiar with such concepts, but it's interesting, to ... dissect these pieces.]

Or that it may have been too late to do so. The log you recited seemed to indicate... that the city and others were also under some duress, though there is a lack of when that is also involved.

[necromanswers]

A lack of foresight on their parts. Never do something as life-changing as altering your body to something new without some kind of back door or way to reverse it.

[....]

Though I guess that's rich, coming from me.

[shroudedsecrets]

... Perhaps.

[She shrugs slightly, given her own experiences, she can't really judge either. Still it is fascinating from a nerd standpoint, all of these ... unfortunate possibilities.]

I find that it remains curious, how they came to the conclusion to change themselves in the first place. The push to go ahead with it had to come from somewhere. Their rulers? Did they have... prosperity they were not willing to lose, or were they hoping to avoid a worse fate? The lack of awareness in regard to the world's energy source also seems to play a part. Or, perhaps... were they too comfortable...

[necromanswers]

Dunno. All fair reasons to want to change, though some are better than others. They make it sound like it was necessary, but in the end it's like it fractured the whole world.

[shroudedsecrets]

If fear were their motivator, perhaps they were... mislead. Surely it seemed viable at the time before their entire way of life was compromised.

[necromanswers]

A classic story of the public sheeple being led astray by the wrong person in charge. I can imagine it going that way. And if the world was already struggling, it must've looked like a miracle fix to some.

[shroudedsecrets]

... Indeed. And we do not know how long it took them to achieve what they considered to be a successful transfer process, given the degradation that their souls would endure for it. They could have obscured such facts from the public, or taken on volunteers for some time, and concealed those results. Given what we've already witnessed about this society, perhaps there are facilities hidden somewhere.

[necromanswers]

No reason to doubt that. I mean, they've already got facilities hidden in plain sight, and the only reason I'm not gung-ho to kick the doors down is because I'm not afraid to play the long game.

[The perks of living for a very long time.]

[shroudedsecrets]

Sometimes you just have to wait for the right circumstances before taking action. Though I wonder how 'long' this game will actually be for us.

They seem so disconnected from their past...

[necromanswers]

Yeah, that's one concern I'm holding on to. Not, like, super high priority? Because it's only been a handful of months so far.

Even so- most folks here can't live for hundreds or thousands of years waiting around for the world to fix itself.

[shroudedsecrets]

We also do not know for certain if our... summoning has been the first they have attempted, of this kind.

[As much as it had been made to seem that way. Perhaps there were other records yet to be found.]

Or if stabilization can be achieved even with the resources they have now. Other worlds have fallen for less.

[abracafcku]

[He snorts in amusement.]

Heheh, you got such a nerdy one.

[shroudedsecrets]

[She can't help her sciencey roots.]

It is at least... somewhat informative, as much as it speaks for how desperate they may have become.

[abracafcku]

Oh yeah, deffo more useful than my fish-fucker poem. Kinda...shitty though. Looks like they figured out too little too late that their ultimate solution was just another problem.

[shroudedsecrets]

The conditions here must have been... quite different back then, for it all to end up the way it is now.

[abracafcku]

Must've. If the world they're trying to recreate in their VR machines is anything like the world they used to have? It should've been beautiful. I can see how it'd get to the brink though - over-population, pollution, the usual suspects. Something must've been breaking bad for them to decide going robot was the best option.

[shroudedsecrets]

Perhaps. By choosing this method to preserve their souls, they effectively saw an end to their own species by believing they could rely on this way of life forever. It is doubtful that they all survived the process or were even... the same as they were afterward.

[Oh hey look, more topics and concepts that she was far too familiar with. Thanks, she hates it.]

[abracafcku]

Life's all about changes - even if they'd all survived in their flesh bodies up to now, I'm betting they'd have undergone some sort of necessary mutation in order to stay alive. The world out there sounds heeeeella shitty.

But they made their decision. Good or bad, they made one and now we're here dealing with the consequences.

[shroudedsecrets]

I do not doubt that. There do not seem to be records as to what they once may have been.

[Willfully forgotten, perhaps?]

Perhaps such topics are not meant for idle speculation. We can only deal with what facts there are.

[abracafcku]

Yeah, and that's weird? Right? Like, you'd think there would be paintings or art or old movies or something, right? But for all their love of creativity, I haven't seen a damn thing other than those statues in the middle of town of the gods.

That's not normal, is it?

[shroudedsecrets]

The movies that they do have only seem to represent them in their current form.

[But they're just uncomfortable to watch.]

Everything about this city feels... deliberately arranged. And certain aspects... deliberately forgotten.

[abracafcku]

Right? And they're not-- [He sucks his breath through his teeth.] --great? Not to disparage their efforts, but y'know what I mean, right?

I can kinda get...not wanting to have what you can't have shoved in your face all the time. If they figured they couldn't get their old selves back, maybe they wanted to forget.

Me? Pfft, that sounds like absolute hell, but I could see how... some people might think it's a mercy.

[shroudedsecrets]

It is... a very personal hell that they cannot escape from.

[She'd never really cared before, but everything about it in the here and now makes her skin crawl. Ugh.]

They may have felt compelled not to leave such reminders around that would invoke more regret in them. Even the stories they told at the altar all felt... lacking in such a way.