015//Video\\Washed up Colonel

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

[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?

Comments

[thalassino]

[The text that comes through in response is completely anonymous.]

They don't want to break you, they only want to shake you up.

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

To what end?

[He remains on video, if only because he's not about to shrink behind a text post.]

[thalassino]

There are people around who could answer that question. You'll have to ask them in person, though. This network isn't exactly safe.

[Unsafe to the point that the sender sees fit to disconnect after that. Just a friendly warning, Jade.]

[video]

[immoralflame]

Startin' point ain't what matters. S'where you want t'go that does.

[Short, but he doesn't feel like answering the more superficial part of the question. Or what seems like the more superficial part to him, anyhow.]

[video]

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

True enough in some situations, but the starting point defines who your are, and why you want to go anywhere.

[video]

[immoralflame]

True in all.

[Sol cocks his head, peering at the SFC from his higher-up vantage point. The look is mostly bland. Lazy. Hides the analytical way he's regarding Jade beneath it.]

S'a startin' point. Nothin's defined yet.

[video]

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

And yet it is.

Why you're there, what you plan to get accomplished, why starting anything matters to you. The start can define just as much as the finish can.

[Maybe they differed too much in their mental processes. As for Jade, he regarded the SFC with his normal casual expression, not allowing anything to be revealed through his expression.

He remembered this man. Vaguely. Something back when he was still addled from not having his glasses.]

[Video]

[double_edged]

[...that sure is something he'd never thought to put in perspective.

It made sense, anyway. A living being couldn't simply be resurrected at the drop of a hat, no matter what the laws of different realms and dimensions invoked. So, was he simply a copy of the Alister Azimuth that had perished at the Great Clock? Was his only purpose to exist as fuel for a abstruse coral in the middle of nowhere? And there were the markings...

If he could have the chance to find his 'real' body, it wouldn't matter in the end. That body had perished. He no longer existed in Polaris, Solana, or any galactical entity.

The Omniwrench stops mid-turn on his current project, shrinking down to rest upon his back once more. And he stands, giving a glance to his friend on the SFC.]

I need to pick up a few things at the junkyard, Colonel. I'll be back by the evening.

[Read: He needs time to think.]

[Video]

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

[Jade nods.]

I have something I'd like to speak to you and His Majesty about as well.

[Video]

[double_edged]

Both of us? Well, alright. Did you want to wait until my return, or should I come by now?

[aprettyred]

How would you tell, if you weren't really you? I think I would know if I wasn't really me, and I could tell if you weren't really you, maybe....

[ Anna, that wasn't Jade's point. ]

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

[Jade's expression turns to something that's a bit more of a smile to her. He doesn't want to upset the young lady.]

True, but I suppose I mean in a different sense.

[Not Here]

[closedcircuit]

[What if the cause he serves, that he needs to get back to, is going to continue on, without him, with some other version of him?

What if not only does what he's doing now not matter, but what if the he who's here can't do anything that matters?

Who is he if he isn't the real Ky Kiske, if he doesn't have his duty?

He doesn't know.]

[Video]

[shippingmath]

You mean, if we were only splinters of ourselves?

[He grins, but there isn't much humor to it.]

Well, it wouldn't be the first time. Final outcome is supposed to be helping the main you, but there's not much that can be done for that when we forget everything about this place as soon as we're reconnected with our own universe.

[Video] I'm gonna contact you on your Vatheon, bro

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

Indeed. The idea of being able to die and come back to life is an odd one as well.

I find that the more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to think that Vatheon is simply building up to something larger. With the Bubble cracking, it might have tried to do something too early.

[Video] Sorry I only respond to Atlantis messages

[shippingmath]

An odd one, but not impossible. Depends on the universe. The fact that it happens at the hands of the scientists and the coral means we're vulnerable, though.

Most experiments of this scale would have a larger goal in mind. But explain to me where the bubble having cracked comes into play in this theory of yours.

[video]

[rainbowarch]

[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.]

[video]

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

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.

[video]

[rainbowarch]

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?

[faiofmisfortune]

[He's not entirely sure he understands the question 100%, but Fai gets enough of it that the hypothetical that Jade is proposing kind of frightens him.]

I would still stay here.

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

Would you..?

[It's honest curiosity, not a challenge.]

[faiofmisfortune]

I mean, if going back to my 'real body' meant going back to the last thing I remember... [First and foremost, he'd be dead. It's hard to imagine himself ever voluntarily ever going back to that. But even if by some fluke he lived, and nothing else was different? It wasn't much of a better situation.]

My home is gone, and the only person left of my family is here. There's nothing to go back to.

[detectiveprincess]

To say that one is or isn't one's self is hard to say. It's the experiences that make one's live who one is. If we are or aren't who we believe, should it be revealed in time to us, then so be it. However when it comes down to it, what can we do?

[For most this seems to end.]

[Locked to Jade]

If you wish for this to be looked into, my friends from where I'm from and I have a detective agency near the Nostalgia Nook. Hard to miss it. If you want to discuss things "privately," don't bring your comm.

[bootsweremadeforcasting]

Given how laughably outranked we are in Vatheon, not much.

[Locked to Naoto]

That sounds agreeable. When is the best time?

[detectiveprincess]

We are quite outranked, aren't we? Even by the standards of our own worlds.

[Locked to Jade]

You can come at any time really. We are open most of the time. During daytime hours. If an emergency, you can come late at night.

The only time we may have some issues is when a curse is happening, but we know about the occurrences and about when they happen.