TEXT | sender: [ unknown ]

[spectates]

[ around noon on friday, all tablet screens go dark at the same time, no matter what characters are doing. then, after a moment, the following text appears: ]

UPDATES INSTALLING.................
INITIALIZING.................
RESTARTING NOW.

[ as promised, screens return to normal. however, a new message appears on the network for all to see ]

SECURITY ACCESS UPDATED
ADDING INFORMATION POINTS
ADDING INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS
WARNING: CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURES DETECTED
HARD RESET IS REQUIRED

→CLICK TO EXPAND INSTRUCTIONS

→Access EXPIATION'S five manual terminals
→Input code: 2467362925315
→Initialize reset simultaneously at all terminals.
→SYSTEM RESET will restore all functions to BASIC OPERATING PARAMETERS. Extraneous data and information updates will be DELETED.
→Terminal access points shown below.

[ all tablet maps are updated to include several different location pins. users will notice that there are more pins than the number of terminals, and that they don't seem to be terribly specific about exact locations. users will also note that the pins sometimes seem to fade and flicker, as if they might disappear... ]

Security clearances acquired.
Access granted.
Terminals online and accessible.

System failure is imminent. Due to perpetual lack of upkeep, I am unable to maintain systems at optimal levels.
Chosen of Expiation, I am sorry. I never meant to hurt you.
Save yourselves.

I do not wish to d̶̺̀i̸̘̋e̶͍͝
But I wish for you to live
I̷
p̸l̷e̵a̸s̷e̸
l̴̪̗̈́̉̓̌i̶͕̹̹̿̈́̈̚v̴͓̽͑͆̚ḙ̴͍̋͘

ERROR: user offline

[ the AI will not respond to this message, and the ERROR: USER OFFLINE message appears if anyone attempts to message it. however, the network chat remains active. chosen can use this space to ICly discuss ideas and strategies, to have discussions about the best way to move forward, or even to have arguments over whose ideas they think are better. ideas generated here will be added to the event poll when the event goes up, and can impact the future of the game! have at it, go wild, and have fun! ]

Comments

text; un: deadboydetective

[incorrigibles]

look, i got no interest in arguing with anyone about this and i'm not gonna do that, so if that's what you're here for then sorry to disappoint

but just one thing: for everyone who's all in favour of destroying this place in the hopes it lets us go and return back home... i just have one question. you alive back home?

because if you are, then choosing to destroy this place shouldn't be up to you. there's people here who have nothing else but death to go back to, and if you destroy everything here, you're consciously sending them back to whatever waits for them - an afterlife, in the best case, or nothingness, in the worst.

and no, this isn't about me. that's why i'm not gonna say anything, yeah? not up to me to do that.

text; un: Sugarlips

[southernchere]

I'm one of those people, I ain't tryin to argue with you either, Sugar, I hate we are even debatin on this.

I understand some of yall have died and my heart goes out to yall, but what you're suggestin to those who are alive, who want to go home, is stop our lives cause you died.


I'm sorry, Sweetheart, but I feel that's selfish. I have friends and family back home who may be hurt and sufferin right now, and I'm supposed to give up tryin to get back to them all. I'm sorry some of yall lives ended short, but I deserve to live how I wanna live, and I want a life outside of this simulation and back to my loved ones.

I ain't gonna grow old and die here cause yall want a second shot when those who are alive haven't finished our first rodeo.

[incorrigibles]

i'm not suggesting anything. just expressed an opinion, didn't i? just said it shouldn't be up to you, not that it won't be.

or that you haven't already decided that the dead don't matter, because when do they? not in the "real" world, and clearly not here, seeing how you don't even have the courtesy to ask these people who are living, right now, right here, the same as you.

and don't fucking talk to me like i don't have a life to go back to. i have friends back home who need me, too, and i'm not here arguing to burn this place down so i can do that, guess why?

because that's fucking selfish, that's why.

[southernchere]

Will it calm yall minds any that back in my Earth, I have a member of my team who can time travel and can hop skip to different alternative universes and possibly worlds too?

If we all wind up in my Earth, he can whip yall up some time travel bracelets and send yall to where ya wanna go. I'mma hope he is there when I get out of this damn circus.

Or even if it ain't there, that fella has a habit of just poppin out like a jack in the box.

[incorrigibles]

wait, let me get this right

so your plan is... to hope that instead of everyone going back to their own worlds which is what would make the most sense, we all end up in yours, where, oh yeah, all these dead people are still gonna be, you guessed it, fucking dead

and then hope that this specific one guy will be there to send people back to where they wanna go? through time travel?





jesus fuck.

[southernchere]

No, my thoughts are while we are goin on clucking like a bunch of chickens, outside of this simulation, and in the real world, we are actually just sitting on a stool or in a test tube with wires hooked up to us. For all we know, Sugar, you could be sitting or lying beside me on a damn table.

And all we got to do is break the system or find its weak spot and we all wake the hell up. Our physical selves got to be somewhere for all of us to work, right?

For those who are dead, hell, I've seen my own share of hog wild shit where people done died, but was resurrected by some unknown forces that I can't even begin to comprehend. Whose to say that wont happen to yall too if we break free?

I'm just sayin if it turns out we are on my Earth outside of here, I know someone who can help yall get back home.

Even if we are somewhere else, I have full faith on Bishop, the Professor, and the rest of my team on tracking us down. And as much yall make me wanna punch a wall, the X-Men are about savin mutants and humans alike.

But we can't do that if yall don't trust us.

un: user010102

[computation]

That's very sweet of you, Charles.

Simulation isn't enough for some people, I guess. Real is such a subjective word.

[incorrigibles]

wasn't trying to be sweet, was i

just trying to be fair. but i guess killing people doesn't matter when they've already died once

or killing all the locals, or this ai. just cause they all might be, what, digital? doesn't mean it's not real to everyone who's here right now, does it

Private

[computation]

I know. That's what makes it sweet.

Ending a consciousness always matters. No one gets to tell someone else how to find meaning in their existence.

I've killed a lot of people. I used to think it didn't matter because the universe was falling apart anyway. Bad things happen and there's no plan, no one looking out for you. It's fundamentally cold and chaotic and uncaring.

But when I found the Machine I realized that we're responsible for creating order.

perma-private

[incorrigibles]

right, it doesn't matter how it is that you're existing... that you do makes you matter.

and i can't say that what you thought then was right... but i get why you thought it. it's real easy to lose faith in the world sometimes. but other times, well, there's a lot of good out there, yeah? and if we don't try and be that good then what's the point

[computation]

I don't think there's a lot of good out there. I think it's extremely precious when you find it, and worth protecting.

By the way, if you want me to block someone for you, just let me know. Free service.

text; un: xxii [private]

[orphne]

You're dead back home, too? I know it says so in your username, but...

[Usernames can say a lot of things, she's from the late 2000s.]

🔒

[incorrigibles]

yeah. died in '89. but i wasn't lying when i said this isn't about me, i'm a ghost back home, so

also... i know it doesn't mean much, but for what it's worth, i'm sorry. for, you know. [ "you know" meaning, of course, that "too" that speaks for itself. ]

[orphne]

It's okay! :) This isn't really about me, either. I died in 2010.

Or I guess to be honest, I'm not dead YET. Once I go back though, I will be a few minutes later. It's okay, it was my choice (long story) and I know I have to go back because I have a responsibility (long story again, sorry).

But I think taking that choice of if-they-should-go-back-or-not away from people is really cruel. I dunno, I guess I always thought when the time came to go back, people would get to choose. Or at least get to say goodbye. Do you think that's stupid?

[incorrigibles]

... oh. well — not for nothing, but you ever wanna talk about the long stories... you know where to find me, yeah?

and that's not stupid. that's exactly what i meant. not fair to take the choice away from you, is it? no one else should make the decision for whether you live or die. and it's easy for those who're alive, to just decide to go back because there's somewhere to go back to... but those who are dead? we don't matter any less just because we're dead. we're not alive here any less than everyone else. and it's just the same story here as it is back home... when it comes right down to it, dead people don't matter to the living.

so this may not be about me, but like hell i'm gonna let people just decide for you something that should be your choice.

voice, un: fauna

[nightwild]

Like hell I'm letting my life get dictated by some dead people anymore.

Sorry that you're dead. But that doesn't mean you can kill me and everyone else just 'cause you want to pretend you're not. If you're dead, you're supposed to move on and reincarnate before you become a vengeful spirit. Nothing good can ever come from the dead sticking around.

I don't know if I'm dead or not. I don't think I died, but I showed up during Bon, I met a white fox, and yeah, my karma's bad enough that I definitely deserve to go through a Hell or eight. Maybe I got got from behind without knowing, or maybe I'm just still alive.

But either way, I don't care. Alive or dead, I'm still me. If it's my time to reincarnate and punch my ticket for my next life, then fine. But I'm not going to just let this place reach in and twist my brain around until it's killed the parts that make me me.

What's it gonna be? Face the music as yourself, or keep faking at life until this place has taken you apart so whatever is left isn't you?

[incorrigibles]

[ WELL there's so much wrong here he doesn't even have the wherewithal to try and unpack it, much less try and make her see that things aren't quite so black and white.

so, ]

right

so we agree to disagree? great talk

[drugsnotclubs]

look at you standing up for the dead guys. You should start a club for us.

[jokes aside, though....]

people assuming that destroying this shit would solve anything seems pretty badly thought out, anyway. I'm not a tech guy but even I know smashing your computer doesn't make everything in it suddenly exist in your world. Just like taking a picture of someone and putting it in a website doesn't make them stop existing next to you.

People getting pissy at the dead here having some extra time when their original is still back home or whatever is selfish as hell, you're right.

[incorrigibles]

nah, i'm voting you for president of that club

i can be... the secretaty. i'd look pretty fit in glasses, wouldn't i?

[ right, yeah, ]

right, that's what i figured, too! don't know much about computers and all, but seems to me there's no guarantee destroying this place somehow just... spits us all out. and it wouldn't even be all of us, then

just, feels wrong that there's all this talk about how people's lives back home matter so much, when there's those who've only got the lives here, nothing else.

[murderingjustice]

that is interesting perspective you have there.

but you are right, online arguments like these rarely get us anywhere. the lack of coherent information based on hard facts leads us to ignore the logic in favor of panic fueled emotions, which is never good to use base for decision making.

[incorrigibles]

yeah, well. can't really blame people for all of that, either. but arguing about shit's not gonna get us anywhere, is it?

so what's your take?

un: kingkong

[apeshift]

maybe we're all dead and just don't remember it. maybe this is the afterlife for all of us. stuck in a shitty computer simulation to atone for our shitty sins.

we don't even know if destroying the ai will return us home or just delete us all permanently. everyone's in the same boat here no matter what they think they're up to back home.

[incorrigibles]

well, if that's what this is, then hell's changed a lot since i last saw it

but whatever this is... that ai asked us for help, didn't she? so destroying her could not only kill us all, but her, too. doesn't seem like the right thing to do. and anyway, if there's an equal chance of going home and getting snuffed out of existence, forever... well. not a gamble i'm willing to make.

[apeshift]

well now i'm curious. fire and brimstone, or is that too cliche?

we don't owe her anything. we didn't ask to come here, we never got a choice. just because your kidnapper's polite and lets you play around in their house instead of tying you up in the basement doesn't mean you help her lock the door behind you.

i'm with you on not being a gambler tho. we need more info.

[incorrigibles]

nah. think more dante

no, we don't, you're right.

[ but he has complicated feelings about this whole thing, starting with not being even half as mad as most people seem to be about being stuck here, which doesn't seem like the smart thing to bring up. so he won't! ]

that's the crux of things, innit? we need info, and there's none