caughtinanetwork | 015//Video\\Washed up Colonel

[Jade looks like he's freshly out of the shower, but there's a contemplative look in his eyes. He normally doesn't share his thoughts, but the last curse and seeing the effects of people completely changing personalities based on headwear has made him think.]

I wish I could say I was old enough for a mid-life crisis, and given the circumstances, it's impressive more of my head isn't grey, but I digress.

The last curse has got me thinking. Vatheon has more power over us than we'd care to admit. The basics of our genders, personalities, and even full bodies have been changed and swapped up so many times it seems that it's almost curious Vatheon has not done anything more sinister; at least not more openly. Yes, the occasional change is cumbersome, but at it's core, many of the curses seem far more... I don't wish to say lenient- but not as bad as the Lamufao, with all its power, could be.

[A pause for thought as he presses his towel to the back of his neck.]

Which brings me to the question that everyone's been asking over and over since we arrived: Why us, and what is the purpose? I've heard its for a experiment, that we help charge the Coral -though it's failure recently seems to counteract that. I do not wish to say we've grown complacent, but I hear the questions asked less and less-specifically because the answers either simply do not seem to exist, or are nigh impossible to find.

My own question is this:

What would you do, if you weren't really you? If the you that exists in this place is not the you that exists on your own world; if the you now is simply a fabrication of the Coral, its purpose unknown; being changed from body to body, or being molded by the curses simply because the body is not yours in the first place.

Would you remain in your home, or would you make the effort to change your circumstances, find your real body and your home?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[OH LOOK AT THIS, IT PINGS HIM SO HARD.]

Real or not, you are you, ja? You still have thoughts and feelings.

For me, I'm fine here.

[Because the alternative? Yeah he'd rather have Vatheon.]

True enough.

[Jade had heard Guy try to beat that into Luke's head so much, he almost felt sorry for the boy getting lectured all the time. Almost.]

But it makes me curious. After all, if I am not the real me, where is this real me, and why am I not allowed to be him? Was there something defective in that real me that needed to be fixed? If so, how would I know what the defect was and if I could fix it?

I suppose it's my mind, finally having so many questions, it is spilling outward.

Well, what if something happened to the real you, so they made you to be another you? Or maybe someone wanted the real you near them, but they can't see them for some reason, so they made you instead.

[All of these "me's" and "you's" in this conversation are going to get confusing really fast.]

So if the real me didn't exist anymore, would that make me the real me by default? Who gets to decide who is the real me and who's the fake one? What if the first one was fake, so they made me to be the real one?

Then that's a selfish decision on their part, while I suppose my want to have been the real person is selfish as well. In the end, I don't see how making who I am now as a benevolent thing.

[Pretty much. But keeping up is the fun part.]

Making something that's real from a fake doesn't seem to make sense. If there is a fake me that I was made from, how does that make me anything but a copy? By default, they're the real one, being that they are, essentially, the blueprints for my creation.

That's assuming I am not the real me. If I am, therein still lies the question of why me? There is a logical order in this place somewhere.

It's also possible that the first me was just a prototype, assuming that both of us are created beings.

Also, what if I'm a reincarnation? The real thing, only recreated here in Vatheon after dying, ja?

[He's...actually thought this may have happened to him.]

Say I am a person who died and was reborn. Does that make me the real me or a copy?

Then what of my meories of home? Implanted in this new me as a means of grounding? If not, why am I not just a local?

As for reincarnation, it seems terribly energy-consuming to bring a reincarnation of an insignificant person all the way to Vatheon from their home planet.

[His head is beginning to spin as he thinks on the different explanations for this damnable place.]

It depends on the reincarnation...

[He trails off and lapses into thought for a moment, frowning to himself and sighing.]

It is possible, however, that if we are brought here from our home planets, that the Coral feeds off our destinies- our fate, as it were. Everyone I've met who isn't a local has had some dealing in the fate of their planet or some grand plan. They have saved a world, saved a country, done something grand and their story is not yet done- though coming to Vatheon itself is a grand story... In that sense, Vatheon would be self-feeding, creating a relevantly great destiny for anyone since a journey to a new dimension in and of itself is no small feat.

[He might just be talking to himself at this point.]

[Even if he is talking to himself, Cielo is listening rather intently.]

You could be right. I'm also one of those people.

[If he were to go back to his world, there would be literally just hours left for it to remain.]

If what you say is true, then what this place is interested in is our circumstances, ja? They say the coral uses us as energy, then if it were picking specific people out of the many worlds and dimensions, it naturally wants the most nutritious food. The question becomes what quality is it that makes it pick certain people like us.

[He almost laughs. He is absolutely no stranger to being seen as food.]

[It's nice to see someone who can keep up with Jade's mumbling.]

Most people seem to come from a culmination of an important decision or event. Many from my world, it is on the eve of the return of an important figure.

[Calling Luke that seemed ostentatious, but it was better to not explain everything. Jade didn't like showing his cards, even if they seemed insignificant.]

For others, it is of their death, new life, or a turning point in their time.

[He finds all of that mumbling fascinating, really.]

Then maybe something like a kind of energy is created at those times, and that's what attracts the coral to them. And then it brings us here. Or copies of who we're based off. Whichever you believe.

Indeed. It stands to reason that if that's what the Coral fed off of, the people it has taken are more than sufficient. Though, that wouldn't explain why the Coral cracked.

In any case, all we have are theories now.

Just another question that can't be answered right now, ja?

Maybe never will. But it's something to think about.

Certainly. I suppose I don't wish to become complacent with my situation.

015//Video\\Washed up Colonel

[video]

[video]

[video]

Re: [video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

Re: [video]

[video]

Re: [video]

[video]

Re: [video]