outer_divide | Video, Week 38, Monday

He was looking for you. Kid was pretty worried.

So what were you doing that would've resulted in you suddenly disappearing?

Oh no, I didn't want to worry him....although I'm not sure how I could have stopped it. That really wasn't supposed to happen.

I was trying to fix a mistake. I wasn't supposed to go...where ever it was I went. It wasn't at all right.

Can I ask your name?

So you definitely didn't mean to disappear on him, okay. Any idea why it might've happened?

I'm Shepard.

I've got a few....neither of them are very good.

[yup, evasive much, Trance?]

[Shepard sighs. She knows evasive answers when she hears them, but on the other hand, if a lot of magic is involved this'll go outside of her range of mental capacity really quick.]

Okay. Is it something that might affect the rest of the community that we should know about, or is this a personal... magic. Thing. I'm just trying to help, here. It's kinda what I do.

All you need to know is that it means I can't help as much as I thought I would be able too. I'm still not sure how far that extends to be honest. But undoubtedly others have noticed such side effects as well.

Things that...aren't right, that should go one way and go another here.

It's not technically magic, more of a unique species ability. I'm glad to have met someone like you, who is happy to help. This place needs it.

How long was I gone?

Ah, well. Things about this place are definitely "not right." You're newer here, but you've probably heard most of us remember a very different reality than the one we're in, now.

Let's see... Briar posted on the network last Thursday? So about four days.

[Trance totally does not seem phased by the 'different reality' news at all.]

Yes, of course. The universes are constant, changeable, malleable. Reality is cosmic, quantum and right here, awareness. With each action, reality branches in another direction, with each breath, another reality. The reality you all remember is out there. It's just a matter of ...

[Trance paused, musing over words.]

Retracing your steps.

But four days? That's definitely not right. I shouldn't have been gone any time at all.

Edited 2013-06-12 02:43 (UTC)

[There's something about Trance that reminds Shepard of an asari. The multiple reality stuff is still something that she's trying to swallow, but this woman seems more aware of all that than Shepard is.]

I can't even pretend I know the first thing about dimensional travel. But my- one of my crew, he mentioned speaking with the AI of the ship in one of the realities, and it said something about those of us that had been in stasis falling through "cracks" in reality and getting pretty banged up. Could be whatever you were trying to do was thrown off by something, there.

You met a ship's AI?

Yes, that's quite possible. It didn't seem like a universe in itself, perhaps...almost like a membrane. I wonder if it's the universes way of healing itself. Repairing the cracks.

I didn't, but one of my crew did.

That sounds like as good of a theory as any, to me. But like I said, most of this stuff is above my paygrade.

I wonder if you'll ever get to meet Andromeda. She's the AI of our ship.

Why do you put yourself down like that? There's nothing stopping you from venturing further into learning and understanding it, is there? If the universe presents you with the opportunity, why don't you take it?

Is that normal where you're from? I mean, my ship has an AI too, but it's not exactly standard.

I wasn't putting myself down. I have strengths in specific areas, and quantum mechanics just isn't one of them. It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around, and as soon as you need something shouted at or killed, I'm your woman. Until then, the brainiacs can do their thing, and I'm happy to let them do it.

It was. About 300 years ago. It's much more rare now. Civilization collapsed, and integrating AI's went with it. The common AI's are nothing more than computers, without an intelligence behind them.

[Trance smiled]

That's good. I'm not very good at shouting at people.

...Huh. Something kind of similar happened in my universe, though the collapse of civilization was pretty directly related to certain AI. Now AI research is considered illegal by galactic standards, though it still happens. [She looks a little troubled by this revelation that the "cycle" might exist beyond the collective realities she and hers come from]

You haven't heard of the Reapers, have you?

[Trance smiled rather knowingly.]

You might find that there are many similarities between universes. Sometimes we do have more in common than just gravity, other times, not.

Should I be familar with Reapers?

[Trance non-answered.]

If you were from my universe; absolutely. Any other universe I would hope didn't go through the same thing. They're sentient machines, programmed to harvest civilizations.

Such things exist in my universe as well, and undoubtedly others. Each are different, the Magog are not machines, although the end result is the same.

Technically the Reapers aren't exactly machines, either. They use the... genetic material of the civilizations they harvest, convert it for use in creating more Reapers, mixed with the technology that they were first created with.

[she looks honestly a mix between sick and furious when she describes that process. It makes her angry every time she thinks about how this has been going on for millions of years, and that it is going on in other universes is even worse.]

I hope the end result is people realizing what monsters are lurking in the edges of space and eradicating them, across the board.

That's disgusting and horrible!

The Magog are similar. They infest sentient beings with their eggs, which eat their way through you as they grow and hatch. They feed on living beings. You know, they can only start the digesting process if they kill their prey first?

But still, I did know a good Magog. He was very good. A Brother. The wisest man I know. Perhaps they all aren't without hope?

[Here is Briar, and he's look very relieved to see Trance okay]

You're alright! What happened? Where were you?

I'm okay. I'm not quite sure what happened. But I can tell you what didn't happen, except I'm not going to. I wasn't where I should have been, and was where I've never been before. And that's saying something.

[Briar's eyebrows furrow] What? Lakik's teeth, talk sense, will you? So - you were trying to go somewhere else instead? You can travel to other places instantly?

[Funny, Trance thought that made perfect sense.]

In a way. I was trying to fix a mistake. But I couldn't. Something blocked my efforts. And I went...somewhere else. It was almost like a prison.I couldn't affect my environment, the very thing I was hoping to change.

A mistake? With your shakkan? You tried to prune it...did your shakkan cause this?

[Normally Briar would think that a shakkan causing someone to disappear was mad...but then, he had sensed some kind of strange power from it.

And something about that 'other place she mentioned felt unsettlingly familiar...]

This other place - was it dead? I mean, was there no life there?

Yes, it was just like that. Everything was...dead or just...wasn't. My shakkan as you call it, my bonsai, how can I explain this? It's a tool used for mutual benefit, like how plants manipulate insects into pollinating them. The plant cant pollinate itself, and the insect needs nourishment.

Do you understand?

I think maybe I know that place. That's where we all ended up before we all got back to this time. But I didn't think that people could end up there again... [he looks distinctly queasy at the thought. Nowhere hadn't been a place that he'd liked being]

So you use your shakkan's magic to help something else? [he frowns] What exactly does it affect?

Yes, you're right. It is like that place. It wasn't that bad.

[said by someone who didn't need to eat, she was used to that feeling.] The lack of life was unnerving but, perhaps that is the way of that universe.

[Trance smiled] Me.

You - you mean you was trying to vanish yourself? You could have at least warned me! I wouldn't have worried so much if I knew you was trying to go someplace else!

If it had worked you would have never known anything was amiss. I'm sorry I worried you Briar. It shouldn't have happened that way.

I think I would've still noticed you disappearing!

No, you wouldn't have. If it had worked, no one would have noticed anything at all.

Video, Week 38, Monday

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