1 ♡ audio (backdated to 11am, 2/14)

[dragony]

There's a number of new faces around here. But, in a way, we're all relatively new faces to this neighborhood. Maybe it would make more sense to say, this is a new experience for some, and an old for others. Isn't that right?

[ The voice speaking is a level, feminine voice: teenager, middling pitch, with words that are well-enunciated. While there is an accent—noticeably not American—it's caught in a threshold between others, and difficult to place.

It's hard to tell if she sounds bored, or if that's just how she naturally talks. ]

To get everyone on the same page, I thought it would be best to tell you how we came here, and what came before. It's something of a long story, though, and I'm not the best person to tell it, but better something than nothing. Right? Though, if you're not interested, you can skip the rest of this broadcast.

The "world before" this one, the one people mean when they refer to "the City," was Earth. Another Earth, similar enough to this one, and to the Earths you may have known—"the City" was their name for "New York City," if that means anything to you. At some point, a teleportation device was built, and on October 10th, 2008 by its calendar, and by this one, the "Porter" was activated, and brought the first "imPorts." At that time, it was controlled by an artificial intelligence in a suit of armor, but that being was later destroyed by the artificial intelligence of the Porter itself.

She calls herself Lachesis. Like the Fate.

For five years, she controlled our lives there. She determined who was imPorted, who was exPorted; who would return there with their memory intact, and who would not. If they would come back the same, or from some different history than the one we knew. She determined who was raised from the dead, if we died, and whose soul never came back. She could change the powers we were born with, and she could take them away. She could change our species, as it suited her. She's capricious, a fan of practical jokes and snide cruelties, and chess. Hers was the voice that welcomed us as "heroes."

Two years after it all started, she changed that world. Countries emerged, fully realized, emerged from nothing. The history of that world was rewritten; the memories of its inhabitants, too. The damage done by her enemies, erased. Those of us who were there could remember what the world was like, before she changed it, but we're the only ones who could.

After that, our shared enemy was Vulcanus. Others can tell you more about them, but they wished to take what made us powerful and use it to their own ends. Kidnapping, torture, genetic experimentation—that sort of thing. [ Though the content of the statement is serious, "torture" may as well be synonym for "toothbrush," for the easy, careless way she says it. ] But, when they could not... that is to say, "beat us," the way things were, they sought to gain power on other worlds, other dimensions. And we would follow them. Not by choice, and not with any sort of plan, but for months and months, you couldn't trust that placing one foot in front of the other would land on the same ground.

We're rather weary of traveling, I think.

In one of those worlds, we met her "sister", Clotho. But the third of them... you may have already heard. She destroyed that world, were we lived before. I don't... I'm not sure how it all happened, in the end, but in rescuing Lachesis, she saved us. Brought us here, to this world.

I can't tell you much about the state of this world, but there's two things I do know. One, large gatherings will almost always end in some chaos, so you should be prepared for that. And two, you can't trust people to act in anybody's interest but their own. The people of this world will not be kind to us for kindness alone.

[ There's pause enough that it might be mistaken for the end of the broadcast, before: ]

We should decide on names for all of these different worlds soon. This sort of thing will only get harder to explain later on without them.

Comments

Voice

[viced]

Well at least someone was willing to do storytime.

let's not tag with my personal account shall we

[dragony]

I'll be surprised, if you weren't planning to. I thought you liked making public speeches.

voice

[fishbreath]

Oh. [ oh dang she wasn't expecting to find a whole bunch of easily accessed information just. right there. how nice. after a pause: ] Thank you, that is very helpful. Is this not kind for kindness alone, either?

[dragony]

[ surprise!! nobody expects the spanish exposition. ]

No. I don't think so. At least, I wouldn't say so.

It benefits me, too.

[fingerbang]

Very well-said of you. And generous.

Though there aren't many people who could give such an exhaustive history anymore -- not firsthand. So I suppose it's hard not to feel a little obligated.

[dragony]

A few, but you're right. It's not very many at all.

It's not exactly obligation, though.

Voice (THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!)

[goodbadimthguywiththgun]

[Floyd has been sporadically checking the comm, unfortunately for him, at points when his comrades-in-arms haven't been on. Despite coming from a world so rich in oddities, the assassin found himself utterly dumbfounded, and reacts in the way that a sensible person would.

He calls up and asks,] Kid. You smokin' something?

c:

[dragony]

You're wrong on both counts.

[ She hates being called kid. ]

( voice )

[abadidea]

[Isaac doesn't respond immediately.]

If I didn't show up here randomly from another universe I'd say all that sounds really far-fetched. I'm making sure I got it, though. The universe you were in before was essentially destroyed by a trio of AIs way too powerful for our own good, and this Porter that brought us here may very well be managed by a very similar AI.

Is that about right?

[dragony]

Close. It was destroyed only by the one. Though, in arriving here, I'm not sure if any of them... or if all of them, came here with us.

audio.

[prearcadian]

"We" and "others" starts painting a part of a picture, but doesn't really do much to finish it. And talking about large gatherings only makes it murkier, with you talking about people of this world. [but this makes those apocalyptic comments of Christine more clear. huh.]

How many of you are you talking about?

[dragony]

That arrived in this world, or that there ever was?

voice;

[recurring]

I was wondering what people were talking about when they were talking about other worlds.

[She's no stranger to them, of course, but not in the same way others might be. But other realities are unknowns to the people back in her world, and so it seems very strange that it's so openly spoken of here.]

What if they're not fully other worlds but just...other realities? Other versions of the same world over and over again?

[dragony]

Mmm... sometimes it's much closer to that, for the worlds we come from, but it can get pretty complicated figuring out which is which. A number of them are "Earth," after all, but often there's nothing much the same about them at all.

But, not everyone is from an "Earth," either.

audio;

[youbastard]

[Paranoia levels are now through the roof, but Ellie is fairly good at keeping her voice level.]

I really appreciate you taking the time to give this explanation. It answers a lot of things I was wondering about. [She pauses for second.] Has something happened at a large gathering already in your time here?

[dragony]

On this specific version of Earth, no. Not yet. But, you don't burn your hand in a fire ten times, and then assume that a fire won't burn just because it's in a different fireplace.

audio;

[noifsandsorbubs]

You're sayin' this is damage control—this whole system.

[dragony]

Yes, something like that. I don't know what happened in the history of this world, specifically, that led to all this, but I can't trust it to be benign.

It may be a refuge, for those of us who had to escape that fate, but...

permatext.

[klutziness]

You should write a book.

[dragony]

What?

voice.

[selfequipped]

When you say destroyed, do you mean just the world, or the dimension? How big was this on a larger scale? How did they explain the dimensional differences?

[As someone who's an old hand at this now, she knows these questions might be difficult to answer, but they seem important. Relevant. The fact that they weren't sent home, but sent to somewhere else, seems relevant, too.

But then, she hasn't exactly been keen to trust this. She won't ever be.]

[dragony]

I'm sorry, but I don't know. You'd have to ask one of the science-types for answers like that. I'm not sure how they're all connected; I don't have the head for that kind of stuff.

audio;

[pyms]

[ That is a lot to take in but Hank processed and logged it quickly in order to step forward. The voice that comes out is sincere to the point. ]

Thank you for the information. I don't know how this will be relevant but— It's good to know regardless so thank you for gathering this information for the new faces.

Is there a list of people who has been here? Do we have any traces of them? Or for that matter, do we have any idea if there's still a "Lachesis" or "Clotho" present in this world?

[dragony]

For those two, I don't know. Clotho was bound to a different world than the one we came here from. If either... if any of them are present in this one, I haven't heard their voices

But for the other... what do you mean, by a list?

[text] just tags a million years late w/e

[beastofasister]

thank you for the explanation.

[Since she'll be sqirreling this information away for consideration, a thanks is the least she can give in reply.]

w/e the party's not going anywhere

[dragony]

Sure.

If there's anything else that you want to know, I can do my best to answer.