maskormenace | Transmission 001 ( video )

[Isaac initializes the video remotely, and when it comes on, it's clear something has probably gone amiss with whatever he was trying to accomplish. He has the bottom half of an EVA suit on and is pulling on the top half as the video commences. He doesn't look precisely impressed when he looks over to the communicator.]

So, these powers aren't as easy as they sound. [He pulls on the top of the suit and fastens it around his chest, heaving a sigh as he does so.]

Anybody else having any trouble with the powers the Porters have you? How are you practicing? [He figures just learning focus should be enough, but who's counting?] Personally, I think they should have come with an instruction manual.

[Still looking a little perturbed, he moves over to the communicator and picks it up.]

Speaking of instruction manuals, does anyone know where I can get, I don't know, a textbook or something on the fundamentals of "modern" structural engineering? It's...the job they gave me, but I'm a Ship Engineer. I don't build buildings...especially not with...the tools available around here. [And what is the internet? Seriously. We haven't used anything like that in nearly five hundred years.] It'd be a big help.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You have a zombie problem too, huh?

Past tense. It's hardly a problem when the world is dead anyway.

[Don't I know it.] That sort of makes it worse in some ways.

[ she just shrugs, then realizes he won't be able to see her do so. ]

Well, nothing to be done for it. When you're still alive and your homeworld isn't, the best you can do is continue living.

Yeah. It's funny how life keeps happening, even after everyone else's has stopped.

The kind of funny where the joke is made, yet no one is laughing. Fate would be a miserable comedian.

I'm sure some cosmic asshole out there thinks it's funny. [A beat.] Maybe we just don't get the joke.

It could be that we're simply a harsh audience, but it's hard to laugh when there's just no humor to whatever hypothetical grand architect might be chortling to himself.

A shame there aren't tomatoes large enough.

Maybe there is to them.

I'm afraid I'm not terribly interested in what they find entertaining.

It sounds like it might be in our best interests to be interested.

If it can't be prevented, there's really no point. The scale's far beyond anything we could effect.

That doesn't mean we can't be prepared for it. [A beat.] And don't underestimate what you can have an impact on. You'd be surprised what you can accomplish.

Anything that can be accomplished can be just as easily failed, that isn't worth forgetting.

If I had any sort of impact, I'd still prefer hurling an oversized tomato.

Trust me, I don't think I could if I tried.

...that's one way of dealing with it.

That's what you do with a talentless comedian, isn't it?

You may not think you can, but some of us have failed enough on a cosmic level for one lifetime already.

Oh, trust me, I understand that one, too.

Then you understand why I would rather disparage such an omnipotent obstacle than respect it.

Yeah, I see your point.

Not that it wouldn't have consequences, but I doubt those consequences wouldn't be suffered already, if such a case were likely.

Transmission 001 ( video )

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;

voice;