video; un:curtaincall

[endcaller]

[The feed opens with a view of a metallic ceiling illuminated by blue light as the tablet is moved around; followed by the pale face of a man in a hood. The movement suggests he is crouching down to set the tablet against something. Once it is in place, apparently on the floor but propped up, he walks forward a few paces and settles himself against a wall lined with neon lights. Despite their glare, he doesn't cast a shadow.]

Good morrow to you, my dearest fellow Chosen!

On a scale from one to ten, one being "abysmal" and ten being "I've had better", how has your week been?

[A thin, joyless smile creeps across his lips as he tilts his head.]

Mine has been filled with peril and adventure! Some of you may know that we are not the only civilization on this star. There are others.

I traveled to the nearest settlement, Rumpitur, to see with my own eyes whether these... "glitches" as we've been calling them plagued them as well. Alas, I was not able to observe much. Whenever I passed the town's borders my being was warped back to the outside. At times I was warped quite far.

I did, eventually, decide to speak with the guards but--

[There is a sharp crash of thunder from nearby, the suddenness makes him wince. After a moment of concerned silence, he stands up, smooths his hands down his robe, and walks away. For several seconds the camera shows the blank floor of an empty room, and then a small, square robot whirs into frame. Some might recognize it as a welcome robot.

Its screen lights up with text, each line appearing within a few seconds of each other.

HELLO, CHOSEN.

MASTER HAS BEEN SAD.

WHEN HE COMES BACK...

WISH HIM A HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

There are footsteps and Fandaniel's throaty lilt breaks the silence.]

I believe I just saw the ground outside boil, freeze, and sublimate all at once. Marvelous!

[His boots step into view in front of the robot.]

Hyperetes, what are you telling people?

[The robot beeps.]

I see, how terribly inappropriate. Thank you.

[Hyperetes wheels away as Fandaniel sits himself back down.]

Now, where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself?

Ah! Yes, the snake folk.

Well, my conversation with the guards was not illuminating so much as mortifying. If I attempted to broach any topic of substance they...

[How can he even explain it? He waves a hand in the air and giggles.]

This entire world is coming apart at the seams. Truly, it feels as though the Final Days are upon us. We're all going to die screaming.

[This observation doesn't seem to bother him much.]

Comments

video;

[endcaller]

You speak of Ketsora. I did not travel there, though if my admittedly unproven theory holds correct my experience would have been much the same...

Except for the guards, I suppose. They would sooner fill me with arrows than converse with me.

Rude!

[His eyes drift shut and he rubs his chin.]

...Their presence makes me think the city was truly there at one time. Or at least that something was. Even if there was never a settlement beyond those walls, the guards were fiercely protective, yes?

[Then his eyes open and he adds...]

Or do you suggest that they were never keeping us out but something else in?

[entreats]

[ Sorry, Fandaniel - judging by how Ange's face remains pretty much a perfect pokerface over here, it doesn't seem like there's much pity to be found for how rudely you were treated by the guards. And on your birthday too!! Double as rude!! ]

I guess what I'm trying to figure out if that back then was still part of the lore of this world or something like that. Rumpitur and those desert ruins were the only places we visited before the town changed and things got all weird. [ For clarification. ] So since those are the only places we saw back when this world was still pretending to be a consistent place with some sort of story going on, I don't know the true extent of the simulation. How much it was putting out there in the first place.

[endcaller]

Hmmm...

How I wish I could have observed the world in those days. 'Twould help me understand it all the better now.

[A longing sigh.]

From what you are describing I would guess the world back then was every bit as much of a simulation as now. At the time, however, the AI was not so corrupted and was able to elegantly follow a script of sorts. Now it is off-script with no direction on what to do.

[entreats]

If only there was some way for us to get a hold of that script.

[ .. but probably not, huh. Ange figures that if that was so easy, someone probably would have done it already at this point. Especially the people who know more about technology than she does. ]

I mostly want to know what was and wasn't part of the script. We already saw some pretty weird things, even before the world radically changed like this. There was something out there corrupting people.

[endcaller]

Was there now?

[Fandaniel curls a thoughtful finger against his chin again.]

Would you mind telling me more about this corruption?

[entreats]

[ She hums. It's been a long time since she's seen it, after all, but Ange does try and make sure to remember anything in this place that seems notable. ]

It gave people these weird black markings on their skin. [ That's the first thing she remembers. It'd be hard not to, considering how much said markings stood out in the first place.. ] I'm not sure what exactly the influence of the corruption was over them, but it seemed to make them just mindlessly attack other people. The corrupted people we met way back in the desert seemed to go back to normal once they were reunited with one of their personal objects.

[endcaller]

How interesting!

[He smiles.]

That could have been a manifestation of corrupted code in our AI friend. If so, its proposed reset should resolve that particular issue.

That said, however... I do find it curious that personal objects purged the corruption of the natives in the desert... Reunion with missing pieces of data, perhaps?

[entreats]

I would say there's some merit to that theory.

[ Not that Ange knows much about technology, but this does fit in with the bits about it that other people have told her.

Not to mention there's another reason entirely for her to agree. ]

Because when this place tried to change our memories, we slowly started getting back our own original memories when we interacted with things that suddenly appeared from our own world. Even though that didn't involve any corruption, it still feels pretty similar, don't you think?

a thousand years later

[endcaller]

Indeed.

[He sits back and his eyes half close as he thinks.]

That, as well, sounds like missing data... Though I admit it troubles me that our minds are so easily manipulated. If even our very thoughts are data then what parts of us are truly real?

sssh, it's okay, thank you for getting back to the thread! <3

[entreats]

[ Honestly, she's not too surprised that he's bringing it up. It's something she's also been thinking about - even before all of this. ]

If you start thinking like that, it just becomes super philosophical, right? I'd say it's something that doesn't matter as if much if, as you say, the 'final days are upon us' and all that. It's not exactly the moment to think too hard about the Ship of Theseus. [ Ange, please, you can't say it's not the time to get philosophic and then start casually throwing around philosophic concepts.. ] That can wait until after we're sure we can somehow survive this.

[endcaller]

If we are to preserve ourselves then we should first consider what, precisely, we are preserving, wouldn't you agree?

While I agree that philosophical questions are often little more than distractions for an idle mind, they are rather inevitable here.

[entreats]

So if the choice was between continuing to exist, but perhaps as something that isn't entirely 'real', or just stopping to exist entirely, you'd pick the latter?

[endcaller]

My. Are you accusing me of something?

[He would very much prefer oblivion over existing as an unrecognizable version of himself, but he waves the question away.]

When I say we should consider what we are preserving, I mean only that! We should consider what it is, not whether it is worth preservation at all.

Some core part of us is still us, you see. If we are able to isolate whatever this is, call it a "soul", perhaps, then we can learn to protect it from corruption.

[entreats]

Call it curiosity. [ But really, calling it a callout is just as valid..

Though she seems to let him get away with not directly answering her question, so maybe Ange wasn't that curious in the first place. Or she doesn't want to bother chasing down the answer. ]

Why do you think there's parts of us more vulnerable to corruption and some parts of us that are less so? Are you that used to a concept of some core part or whatever?

[endcaller]

I have, since my arrival, conducted a series of experiments that indicate the men and women of Aldrip lack souls.

The same does not appear to be true about us.

[He scratches at his turtleneck.]

So our souls are worth protecting, if they are what set us apart, yes?

[Still not a full answer to the question. He is used to the concept of there being a core part of someone.

He's had five thousand years of existence, most of that spent as a formless being with memories of another lifetime and no physical body of his own. He's had to define what parts of himself are still truly him.]

[entreats]

[ Some people might feel a little bit concerned at that and ask him what sort of experiments he's been carrying out, considering that any experiment to see whether or not someone has a soul can't exactly be.. great..

But Ange figures she probably doesn't want to know. It's easier to just not address it. ]

Well, yeah. They're not like us. They're fake people.

[ Maybe not the kindest thing to say about the people they share a city with, but Ange is pretty tired of the locals' weird shenanigans anyway. ]

None of them even talk about coming from a different place the way we do. And they all seem to always treat us the same way, like they have some sort of hivemind going on.