tabularasa_rp | 003 - Memories of a False History

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003 - Memories of a False History

Memories of a False History State of the World ▲ Locations ▼ Bestiary
OOC ▲ Comments Please refer to the original Event Announcement for more information or to ask any questions you might have! For the disaster prompt, players are not restricted to the versions given, but they are intended to be the most common. Feel free to borrow ideas from the disaster suggestions thread as well!

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The Sound of All Things Bad
The sound comes without warning. What the sound is cannot quite be made out - it is at once artificial and natural, bestial and mechanical, rumbling and roaring and crunching, shattering and crashing and screaming. Everything about it feels like a threat, warning of danger. The cacophony of noise reaches throughout the entire Void, loud and inescapable, the mangling and clashing of different sounds leaving each individual with a different idea of what it could possibly have been. It sounds different to everyone, each person able to pick out a part of the sound that ties to their own fears.

What if...?

How long the sound lasts would depend on how the individual perceives time. It might last for seconds, or it might last for minutes, but once it stops it does not repeat. Where it came from or what it is does not become the slightest bit clearer, and people are left to only speculate.

Disaster
No one can quite be sure what has prompted them to remember that day. It might have been that noise of approaching doom, or perhaps it is seeing the crumbling ruins of Hammerlocke itself. Once a stray memory surfaces, it is easy enough to look into the details and recall in full the vivid memory of Hammerlocke’s destruction - the ‘truth’ of what caused the mountainside city to crumble into ruins, as so many have wondered since their first appearance. Though the memory is clear and detailed, vivid enough to have been witnessed in person, it is out of place and does not belong, and anyone who can recall the events knows it.

Attempting to discuss the matter will soon reveal that while others recall the event with similar clarity, the details vary from person to person. Over time, their own memory changes and adapts, occasionally changing to something new entirely, yet the original is never completely forgotten. Memory is a strange and fickle thing, so easy to influence and manipulate, that the truth is difficult to find.

While memories differ from person to person, there are three particular tales that recur:

From the Sky

Though the sky above did not change from its paper-like blank white, the land grew darker and darker as though cast in shadow. The source of the shadow was clear: above, slowly descending towards the wings of the castle, was... something. Something immense, yet shrouded in crackling storm clouds.

As it continued to grow closer and closer, something in the clouds began to swell. It grew larger and larger, an electric hum of energy in the air, until with a resounding crack it burst and a great shadowy beast fell to the ground, landing with such force that the resulting shockwave shook the earth and tore through the stone buildings, causing so much of the city to tumble in an instant. It moves, and it screeches, raising its head up as the great storm above continues to swell and crackle.

This would not be the only beast.

(Based upon: Meteor, the Lunar Cry, and the Darkest Day)

The Battlefield

It was never clear why the fighting eventually made its way to this defenseless city, but it came without warning. The chaos was heralded only by explosions as the city walls were blasted through by tanks that had somehow made their way along the treacherous and narrow mountain path that simply was not meant for such heavy machines. The thundering explosions and the collapse of buildings could surely be heard for miles, and people and animals alike were quick to flee.

Though they reached Hammerlocke first, the tanks seemed like nothing compared to the enemy. The enormous shadowy monstrosity that swooped in from the sky seemed to be made from far more advanced technology. Even just the one towering machine, as large as the castle falling to ruins beneath its feet as it lands, proves deadly as it fires upon the approaching tanks, blasting them all to pieces within an instant before turning fire on whichever buildings remain standing.

(Based upon: Tanks, and Reapers)

The Mysterious Storm

There had been no way to predict the change in the weather, never mind how destructive it would prove. One moment, everything had been still and quiet, and the next the city was assailed by howling, violent winds and freezing, glittering snow and ice. Though the city was built of stone and had stood the test of time for centuries, it could not stand against these combined forces. The only shelter was underground, for the furious storm was so powerful it could rip through earth, lift up and fling any object in its path with devastating force, shattering windows and toppling buildings.

Propelled by such force, the ice and hail proved destructive in its own right. As the storm froze everything in its path, the hailstones became like bullets and great chunks of ice became missiles. By the time the winds began to grow calm, there was little left standing.

Something about the storm seemed somehow unnatural, but where it came from was anyone’s guess. Some, however, may have spied a vague figure through the tempest, of unclear appearance but its presence somehow threatening.

(Based upon: Weather, El shortage, and Diamond Dust)

Misplaced Memories
Worries about whatever disaster must have befallen the ruined city of Hammerlocke aside, people quickly become aware that memories of the disaster are not the only invasive, foreign memories. How the other memories come to them seems, on the surface, to be very similar: a connected thought occurs, and upon realizing the memory is not theirs, people are compelled to think more about it until the memory is uncovered in full detail. Unlike the memory of the disaster, however, this one quite clearly belongs to someone else. Someone who is here.

On puzzling this out, some might find they have more than one stray memory sitting in their minds. More importantly, however, is the feeling that something from their own memory is missing, and whatever memory is missing feels like it is something important. It could just be their own phone number, or it could be their name, or the face of whoever is most important to them. It could be something small, it could be something big, but all people know is that it’s something important and it’s gone.

There is no clear, immediate answer as to what people can do about their lost memories. With regards to their new memories, however, the path might seem a tiny bit clearer, for surely it seems a bit unfair that they can see into someone’s past in such a manner without their knowing. Perhaps it’s best to talk to them about it?

Although the lost memory is not always the same as the ones borrowed, taking the memory back to its source and prompting them to discuss and think about it proves a great help - as they talk, the invasive memory leaves, a lost memory is restored, and those who succeed are able to tell others the solution.

While the invasive memory is gone, people can still recall having it, and can still recall the details, but they will no longer remember it from the other’s point of view. Perhaps it might change how they see each other from now on?

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code bases by tricklet

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That's just it! I'm not seeing much of anything!

[The problem was that when the Geth were achieving sentience, sensory input was being deprioritized, though there were platforms. When it hit a platform, there were recollections of stupified Quarian faces, terrified researchers.]

Most of this isn't sight. I'm getting flashed images that I assume are your creators freaking the fuck out when you ask them the same question. But most of it... I'm experiencing numbers. I'm not hearing them, not smelling or tasting, not seeing them. They're just being transferred into my head.

Is this how all of you talk normally?

(Their headflaps lift, and they chatter, surprised.)

Yes. Geth are mathematical constructs--software--stored in sequences of alternating positive and negative signals. This platform is merely a container.

(Two worlds. They exist in abstract, and use bodies to interact with the concrete.)

You are experiencing the collective's attempts to ask if the Geth possessed souls?

(It makes sense: the details, now that they look for them, are missing, as though they had offloaded them to the collective. But there is no longer a collective to store their memories. Instead, they have offloaded to Parsee, who is unsuitable as a vessel.)

Edited 2020-09-20 17:50 (UTC)

...ngh... I don't even... You're a construct of mathematics? Craaap. I don't think anyone but Yukari would understand that back home.

[The notion of the world's first punch-card computer was decades away when she'd gone underground. The horrid memory he had received of the waters of the bridge by the river Uji was literally a millenium before that, before the notion of modern engineering and black powder were realities.

It took her a second to breathe. He understood the memory that was missing. Of course. Even if he didn't have it, the catalogue would be there. She knew it deep down. Everything was compartmentalized. Logs of missing data could be extrapolated. Consensus achieved, pieces put together. He could surmise what she was ... GAH! She gripped her head. This wasn't how humans thought.]

Fuck, yeah... yeah. You're trying to figure out if you're alive, and your masters are freaking the fuck out. It's like their chickens just figured out how to collectively bargain about the price of eggs for feed and living space and they don't know how to handle it.

... guh, they did NOT take this conversation well, did they?

They tried to, and eventually succeeded at, destroying us.

(They are the last.)

Geth are not Chickens.

(They're people, and they deserved better than what they got.)

Edited 2020-09-20 18:21 (UTC)

Err... sorry. Didn't exactly put that the best way I could have Legion. They didn't think of you as sentient, as being people. They thought of you as semi-intelligent tools. Animals, but of numbers. And suddenly? You absolutely weren't. You were people. Figuring out what it meant to be people.

[She raked her hands through her hair.]

That shouldn't have happened. They tried to cut you off before you had a chance to even be. I get that they were worried. You're so ... different. But there's no harm in you being.

You have also experienced having your worth and fate as a living creature dictated by uncaring others.

(Her husband abandoned her, in a society where women are only valued as objects belonging to their husbands.

A person should not be forced to stay in a relationship they do not desire, but it was cruel to abandon her.

To leave her in such desperation--it rolls over them again and their lights flash in its wake--is wrong.)

What do you...

[She paused and her face went pale. She recognized the hole in her memories, not because she remembered it, but because of the lack. She remembered the shrine of Kifune, but not the deed. She knew it had to happen. She was here, but she didn't remember the nights of frustration and the final act.]

You shouldn't have had to see that.

Perhaps, but we have regardless.

(They have experienced worse--and suddenly they are glad that she has only received ancestral memories of the development of sapience, that she has not been forced to experience their own memories that no one should see, when they were forced to act as a conduit for Old-Machine code. If this has harmed her, what damage would that have caused?

It might, they think, have been considerably worse than screaming and spontaneously hitting a wall.)

We are glad you were not made to experience our memories others should not have to experience.

(Almost overwhelmingly so.)

Edited 2020-09-21 05:51 (UTC)

[The mind-set, such as it was, of the Reapers would have been a very different kind of hell for her. The code would have been as difficult to understand, but there was a different kind of 'otherness' to that race of beings and their pre-conceived, impossible notions of organic and synthetic life that was foreign to anything but the Leviathan race, and only the few of them remaining ever understood them.]

Yeah.... I get the feeling we both just got a shot in the arm of things we didn't really 'want' to see. I mean, I know what you saw. I don't need to remember to know what I did.

You probably think less of me for doing it. It was a petty reason to do it, even considering how much of a shit he was. Didn't exactly think through the whole "This will mean you're like this for thousands of years" afterwards part when I was signing up.

(It is almost routine now, that an ally expects Legion to think less of them.

But how can they?)

You were unable to conceive of other options.

(They know what it means to be cornered. They know what it means to be angry at fate, at the galaxy, but most of all at the one who would betray you when you did nothing to deserve it.)

You destroyed yourself.

(The blood. The feeling of slipping beneath the surface, of air leaving and consciousness fading... they pull themselves away from the memory.)

Query: Does Parsee accept physical contact?

Is it really self-destruction if you know for certain that your body, your mind, will rise again in vengeance? I wonder... but yes. I did. That was the plan. And I know it worked, because I still remember what I did to him. To both of them.

[She blinked at the suggestion, and for a moment she looked ardently confused. She didn't say no out of hand mostly because she didn't even know what it was offering. And besides, considering what she had seen, what it had seen... She was a little inclined to forgive the suggestion.]

Uhhhhh... be more specific?

You still experienced death.

(Perhaps it is not quite the same, but they think it still counts.)

We wish to hug you.

(Legion is an intelligent conglomerate of over a thousand minds, beyond human comprehension. They are also, sometimes, like this.)

Yeah, people di... [Wait a tic.] Y...You want to hug me?!? You do hugs? I me...mean, why would... no wait, I'm confu...

...

[She blinked, very deeply confused by the offer, not in the 'why would someone want me to hug them' sort of way bt more of the "Wait, the robot does hugs?" She considered it for a minute and then finally sighed.]

Sure, yeah... I could do that. Would it help you?

(Their natural state is one of closeness to others. Is it really so surprising that they'd eventually pick up a behavior like hugging?)

(Her reaction is ... unexpected. It'd have been far less surprising if she'd just said no.

Their headflaps flare out, flutter briefly.)

Perhaps.

(And, provided she actually lets them they're just going to go for that hug.)

[She rested her head against his chestplate half collapsing into him as she curled her arms around him. She could feel her memories starting to come back to her. His weren't entirely going away, but they were getting easier to compartmentalize.]

01010100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101

[She didn't realize she'd said that in binary, or in a garbled, accented sound that would be understandable as binary. 'Thank you.' She probably wouldn't really ever be able to talk in binary, but remembering how Legion thought was having a bit of a weird effect on her. She wasn't sure how to properly explain or understand it at the moment.]

I... think I hate the Quarians, Legion.

[She knew that Legion didn't seem really able to hate, but she was. And she did not like what they'd doe, not one bit.]

(Hugging Legion is probably an odd experience. Though they're warm the same way a human would be the feel is totally different: rubbery and smooth except for the scratches, pits, and dents that cover them, like tiny scars. Also, they smell. Not badly, but definitely noticeably, that sort of warm plastic smell a laptop might have, with undertones of blood and salt spray.

The sudden attempt to communicate in binary has them chattering in surprise--and also worry. Is this new understanding a good or bad thing? Has experiencing their perspective caused her lasting harm?)

The creators who tried to destroy us died a long time ago. Their descendants were persecuted by galactic society, prevented from finding a new homeworld until they felt forced to destroy us and retake Rannoch.

(She's right that they don't hate the Quarians, but they aren't completely incapable: it's just something they prefer to reserve for the Reapers.

But that's not the point.)

We are also displeased over your circumstances.

Edited 2020-09-23 06:19 (UTC)

[The good news? It was more of a one-time thing because the memories were really really fresh, confusing to her. It'd fade soon enough. She might try typing out the 1s and 0s one day if she felt like that down the road.]

Ngh... so there's no clear good guys or bad guys in your situation. [Except the Reapers] Still not exactly a fan of them. But if you say I should consider their situation... I'll try. They're not here anyway.

Mine's... not as bad as I let on. [Ngh] That thing you saw? That was a long time ago. A thousand years and change. He was a shit, but I'm mostly over it now. It defined what I became, not what I am.

I honestly don't remember his name. [And if Legion checked their databanks, the memory of his name wasn't clear, his face faded with time.] he didn't deserve to be remembered.

I... don't tell everyone this, but that bitterness you feel in me? It feeds my power, my purpose and existence. So, part of me hates it? Part of me thrives on it. Kind of a bitter, weird cycle.

Here's not so bad. I don't 'need' to do it as much.

And yet, you did not enjoy this existence.

(Her words have made it clear. She was unhappy.

Is it part of her nature, they wonder, to be unhappy? If so, does this place free her from that?)

That's... complicated, Legion.

[It really was, because she had ceased to be human thousands of years ago. Hundreds of years of this existence, and she was identified by it. Being anything else was strange to her.]

I am unhappy and unfulfilled, bitter of others and therefore I exist. If I were happy, would I still remain? Would I be happy even as I cease to be? You found me in the void all that time ago.

It was ... nice. To feel like I was alone in the universe. But at the same time it's terrifying to not be me. I think, perhaps, it's best to say that I accept what I am?

But, if you asked me, looking ack on the last thousand years, I would have insisted on vengeance, knowing the price I'd pay? I would have let them be happy and just faded away, bitter and mortal. But I can't go back in time, so I have found ways to be 'ok' with it.

I'm just ok. And here? I'm a little better than ok.

Acknowledged.

(Everything about her existence seems incredibly sad.

That she is doing better is of interest, however: has happiness ceased to be an existential threat?)

This place has granted you freedom.

(They are beginning to understand that for Parsee this location may fill a similar role to that which Enso did for them.)

Don't... Don't say that, Legion. Youkai aren't free things. We are Form. Truth and Reason. We are bound by the emotions which create us. To be free...

I would be human again. I... [She swallowed and clenched her fists.] I know I'm feeling a little what it means to be one again, but it won't last forever. Nothing like this ever does.

You're trying to give me hope. I know you mean well... but I'll disappoint you in the end. And... I don't think I want to disappoint you, Ren and Cole.

We apologize: this was intended as speculation based on observation and prior exchanges. You are not required to change.

(They didn't mean to make her feel like she had to change or she'd disappoint them.)

Regardless of nature, you are an ally.

I... Thank you for saying that. That... that actually makes it easier to accept what you said. I don't have to, but I can choose to.

[It did help. She folded her arms and nodded afterwards, calming some. The memories were glimmering back into her mind, painful, ugly. She could feel it, but she could still remember the binary code, the feelings of coming to terms with being.]

You can say friend, if you want. I won't be upset, Legion. Assuming Geth 'do' friends, I think you are one. And if you just do allies, yeah. Definitely.

Acknowledged...friend.

(Legion uses the phrases interchangeably: all those they trust enough to work alongside are dear to them.

But words have connotations. They wish to communicate to Parsee that she is among those in that catagory.)

I... thanks. Friend.

[She smiled a little as she said it, easing and relaxing a lot. It felt good to hear Legion say it for some reason.]

So, how about we go back? It's a little ... white here.

(no subject)

forwearemany - 2020-10-08 03:44 (UTC) - Expand

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