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[Private to Dylan | Audio]*

[Sent as soon as he returns, though he's not sure when Dylan will get it or what the range of the communicators is.]

I've returned. The Southern City didn't have many resources. The construction of the dome damaged its economy. I suspect most of the fishermen left are generational. The people there were notably friendlier to outsiders than the ones here, but of course their homes are at less risk from air raids from the domes.

[And sent a bit later.]

If you hear reports of fog, stay way until it's cleared. Or purchase the first gas mask you can manage.

[Private to Sma | Audio]

I want to speak with you. In person. [Where the conversation can't be recorded.]

*OOC: Slightly backdated to fog times.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[So the "rabbit" became a dictator? He's not surprised at all, really.] It seems the best intentions don't work out for most of us, then.

Still, like a smart girl once told me, it's better to start out with good intentions than bad ones.

A smart woman would have once told me that it's better to accept what's necessary. Yet, here I am.

Do you want me to change it? What happens to Ferrin's government. He had it in him from the start.

The problem is deciding what's necessary. Sometimes things that seems necessary, aren't. We have choices, they may not be good choices, but we've got them.

[Dylan sighs.]

Not long ago I was given a choice. I could advance the cause of a renewed Commonwealth by leaps and bounds and all I had to do was let one innocent man be framed for a crime he didn't commit. In the end I couldn't do it. Maybe that means that I failed to do what was necessary. But I know if I'd gone through with it, if I'd let Rh- the man take the blame and injustice stand, the Commonwealth would be built on a lie. It would make everything the System's Commonwealth stood for meaningless. Only time will tell if I made the right decision or not.

As for Ferrin...we tried to do the right thing. It didn't work out. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying to do the right thing. We just need to learn from our mistakes and do better next time if we're lucky enough to get a do-over.

[He wonders whose name he was trying to hide, there.]

It doesn't matter what our intentions were there. We were sent in as expendable, and when we walked into that room we had to defend ourselves. If we walked in firing, the only difference would have been that I wouldn't have had to carry you off that planet.

No matter what Dmitri said about his intentions, he never acknowledged his desire to inflict his will onto others. And he may have talked about saving lives, but he was quick about handing ours over to Ferrin.

Did I ever explain myself to you?

If we waited to weigh our options and hadn't talked about killing right from the start Dmitri might have been more cooperative and the mission might have gone more smoothly. And even Dmitri redeemed himself in the end. He gave up his dictatorship and returned to architecture.

[He rubs his forehead. He didn't want to have this fight. But it seemed like this was the fight they always had. Every fight was this fight. Including their final, deadly fight. It always boiled down to whether the ends justified the means and whether survival was more important than ideals.]

Why you joined the Nietzschean rebellion, you mean? Yeah, you explained your reasons. [While shooting at him. Just minutes before Dylan shot and killed him.

Dylan doesn't want to think about this any more.]

But he still became a dictator. He couldn't control the other guard that stumbled across us. We couldn't control the other guard.

So. Those reasons still exist. If we're successful here and go back then I need an alternate way of dealing with them because I will not allow them to stand.

...And if we're unable to go back-

[He honestly doesn't know.]

I don't know if we can change it. [So many lives would be saved if they could...]

If I tell you now, and you go back and fix things so that the Commonwealth realizes the scope of the Magog threat, then this time line doesn't happen for me. Which means I can't be here now with that knowledge to give you. So if I did tell you, for me to be here telling you means that it didn't work.

...

I hate time travel.

I never thought I'd have to take those Academy warning lectures seriously.

But you've already told me the consequences of my actions, and that's going to change them. There are two men here from "converging realities" I believe it was said. The same man. The same genes. But different events have affected his life and choices.

So. Here's your chance to make a different man. [And he'd prefer one that could still look him in the eye when he spoke to him, but he doesn't say that part out loud.]

[Dylan considers it. And nods. He never did like the idea that certain outcomes were simply inevitable. Even if his reality couldn't be changed, maybe there was another reality that could be. And those innocent lives in that other reality mattered, too.]

Right.

The Magog are planning an invasion. High Guard Intelligence knew about it. Maybe the triumvirs, too, I don't know. I can only imagine that they hoped the treaty would appease the Magog but...it won't. Evidence of the planned invasion is buried in Andromeda's databanks, in an earlier copy of herself. Find that and get the public to see it and the triumvirs will have to call off the treaty. A united Commonwealth might be able to hold the Magog off.

Uh...be careful when you retrieve the data. The old version of Rommie didn't recognize any of us and got kind of hostile. ...Make that very hostile.

In an earlier copy of the Andromeda's databanks? She has more than one hard reset?

...Well, she is a warship and I wouldn't approve of strange people being all over me if I didn't recognize them. [Rhade is at least pretty forgiving of people's need to defend themselves, rather than taking it personally.] That said, will you actually listen to me? You're about to marry and retire. Leave the High Guard and the ship to me if I don't participate in the rebellion.

Will you actually listen to me?

If you told me that a version of myself from the future told you to look for the records? It's too crazy for me not to believe you.

If you tell me there's evidence in Andromeda's databanks and that the safety of the Commonwealth depends on getting them, I'd make sure we look for them. I promise.

Would you listen to me if I just asked you to do it? Without the explanation about the safety of the Commonwealth or the revolt? [This is oddly important to him, though he can't properly articulate why.]

[Dylan thinks about the question. It would be almost two years ago (or three-hundred and one), and he's not exactly the same person now that he was then. He's become more suspicious, more ruthless, and more likely to take desperate chances because there's often simply no other choice.]

Yes. I trusted you. [Then.] I didn't always agree with you, but I trusted you. And unearthing Andromeda's old data isn't a morally difficult choice. [Not like whether to assassinate or not to assassinate. Or whether to deploy nova bombs or not to deploy.]

[That's at least something. Of course, he becomes hung up on that last part. Does Dylan think that he didn't have morals at all? He may have not been an idealist like him, but he did have his own concepts of right and wrong.

And he still internalizes that.]

The question still remains, what if we can't leave?

[There's a lot in that question. So he ignores it himself. He suspects no matter what he tells Dylan, because he has ways of tampering with the Andromeda's computer and sabotaging her, the Commonwealth would hold him accountable for exposing that. It might even end up an ever louder rallying cry to the Nietzschean revolution, no matter what his influence is.] If I go back I'll give you your life back and request a transfer. [Or go AWOL if the pressure were to rise.]

Being trapped here forever isn't an option. If I don't get back the Magog will invade and billions of people will die.

[Time travel alone is bad enough. Time travel and multiple universes is more than he can handle. He wishes again that Trance were here.]

If we find a way out of here maybe you can... [No, he can't bring Gaheris with him. Gaheris has to go back to his own universe and try to warn them about the Magog.]

You don't know how to answer it, either. [And there's another possibility that he knows is very real, but he hasn't actually spoken aloud. He's actually a little afraid to, afraid of how it would change things and change him, and reminds him no matter how uncomfortable his destiny is it's his destiny and makes him who he is. Why he has to get back to it.]

Other than we have no other options... If you want, I could leave the city and come find you. [Constantly arguing or not, he doesn't like being alone.]

No, I don't have answers. [As a Captain, it's not something he could admit to just anyone, but Gaheris is...was...is...his first officer and friend. It's his job to be the person he goes to to talk out his train of thoughts.]

That's a good idea. There's no sign of trouble at the moment, but together is more secure than alone and better safe than sorry. [And Dylan doesn't really like being alone either.]

Are you still along the route of the river? [At least they're still good at making excuses.]

Yeah. I moved uphill from the bank, just in case the fog decides to roll up the riverbed, but I'm still within sight of the river.

[He doesn't respond again. Instead he leaves and heads up the bank before the fog can roll in, following the course of the river. All the while, he's mulling over the thought that he doesn't want to voice. He supposes they'll have to discuss it at some point- he can't have been the only one who has thought it.

It takes him about an hour and a half to near Dylan's position because he's in a bit of a rush to get there. And he doesn't immediately see him.]

[Dylan sees Gaheris near the river before Gaheris sees him. He's glad for it (and a bit dismayed that he's glad for it), but there's still a piece of him in the back of his mind that wonders if he's going to end up shot in the back if he's not careful. He steps out from the trees and waves his arm to catch his attention.]

[If he knew he'd be somewhere between proud and disappointed. But now he just eagerly made his way over to Dylan, wearing his civilian clothes but saluting him and walking with a military air anyway.]

Captain.

[It was as if he was clinging to a last shard of civilization himself.]

Should we start back or wait here a while?

[Dylan nods in acknowledgement at the salute. It's nice seeing military discipline, but also a bit strange after a year and a half with a crew that very emphatically refuses to conform to anything resembling a military standard.]

Let's wait here until we're absolutely sure the fog is cleared out. I don't want to accidentally breath that stuff in. I might start singing Than courtship songs and then you'd be in trouble.

[Sad that it has to come with the face of someone who betrayed him.]

I don't know if I could resist your charms. [He raises a brow, quietly amused as he makes his way up the bank.]

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[Private] OMG Dylan you talk so much.

[Private] You have characters made out of carefully constructed monologues.

[Private] So much speechifying in my canons.

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