Third Gate [Video]

[forsometimenow]

Who: Jennifer Keller and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Near the docking area of the bug ship, the goodship Wonderduck... idk, give a place and she'll be there.
When: June 22nd

[The video message is short; Jennifer sounds like her mind is elsewhere as she speaks.]

Part of being a doctor is learning your limits- and having to acknowledge that sometimes, there's nothing you can do. That no matter what your skill level is, that no matter how hard you try, there are some patients you can't save, and being unable to save them doesn't make you a bad doctor.

Sometimes I need to try really hard to keep that in mind.

[Anybody who finds Jennifer- at the medical station she helped set up, in the Wonderduck, or elsewhere- will find her quiet (or quieter than usual) and contemplative, looking at some data written down on a tablet. It's about the bugs, and the fungus that has infested them, if anyone cares to look.]

Comments

[forsometimenow]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you there. It's not like it'd be any less boring watching people native to this galaxy go and gamble or fight space bugs. Heck, they could even put people in bug costumes.

It does make me wonder why they went with the kidnapping, though.

[feathery]

Yeah. Seems like a whole lot of extra work for nothing. I dunno about you, but in my experience it takes about as much difficult and convoluted effort to jump dimensions as you'd think.

[forsometimenow]

Mine, too- if the dimension-hopping doesn't happen purely by accident. I wonder if that might not be the case here... since people appear and disappear at random, eventually Atroma figured they might make the best of a bad situation and recruited people to their show when they started showing up.

I wouldn't put anything past them at this point.

[feathery]

Well, when someone does unauthorized brain surgery to stick a probe in you, there's probably not a whole lot you can't put past them. I could live pretty comfortably without A Guide to Broadcasts stuck in the back of my head.

[forsometimenow]

True. I was lucky enough to get an augment that matched my abilities; getting one that suddenly implanted knowledge I didn't have before would have been a little much. I understand that they need to do something to compensate for the skills a given crew may lack, but... we didn't exactly have the choice to consent.

[feathery]

Yeah, I mean I used to be a video game NPC meant to guide my player through his quest, so I know all about getting brainlinked to a pool of inscrutable knowledge. But that was like. A personal choice.

[forsometimenow]

Yeah. It's different than going "this person should be a pilot, and this one a cook, and let's give this one knowledge of weapons" seemingly at random. Guess it ups the entertainment value for them, though.

[feathery]

You think so. I don't get why they keep us on ships in the first place.

[forsometimenow]

Keeping track of us, maybe? Ships are a lot easier for them to monitor, especially since we're forced to follow the same general course.

[feathery]

Maybe, but they could stick us in a dome for the same effect, right. I think I saw a book like that once when I was stuck in Asgard.

[forsometimenow]

Hmm, that's true. I guess spaceships provide for more possibilities- we get to travel to different environments, meet a lot of different people... and there's an element of chance, since surely they can't be controlling every single thing.

[feathery]

Probably. With the shitty amenities they provide, these assholes have to be way too cheap to keep tabs on us twenty-four seven. I paid my flowers better than this.

[That sentence may make even less sense than usual.]

[forsometimenow]

Pretty much. They rely on sponsors and the audience to give us anything better than the basics, after all.

[There's a pause as the rest of his statement registers, and then-]

... you paid flowers?

[feathery]

Douchebags.

[He'll never forgive them for the food.]

And yeah. I used to run a courier service. Which makes me sound hells of more responsible than I actually am. I was just doing it as a favor to the dude who hired me in the first place. 'Cause he disappeared back yonder into the multiverse where he belonged and left his owl behind, so I kept her on for package delivery and let the talking flowers handle the rapograms.

It was a good business model.

[forsometimenow]

Agreed.

[She tilts her head as she listens, interested, though she doesn't really understand some of what he's talking about.]

Well, I suppose so! It seems a little rude for someone to hire you then run off and leave the business to you and the owl, though- unless he didn't have a choice in the matter.

[feathery]

[The trials and tribulations of conversation with Davesprite.]

Yeah, none of us really had a choice. Apparently the gods who pulled us in couldn't do much about it.

[forsometimenow]

Interesting... not even gods can have total control over their realm. I can see some similarities to our benevolent Atroma there.

[feathery]

I dunno how much control anyone's actually got over any realm, despite whatever they say. Maybe especially when you start to realize there's all these levels involved. There are always loopholes and shit.

[forsometimenow]

Yeah, and it's hard to keep track of every little thing that's going on, even when you have eyes everywhere. Trying to make us believe they see and hear everything is a way to maintain control over us. Sometimes the underlings are more intelligent than they bargained for, though.

[feathery]

I wonder where the people who disappear go. Like if that's actually got anything to do with them.

[forsometimenow]

I'd like to hope they all get to go back home- but we haven't found out for sure yet, to my knowledge. And when they're taken out seems to be rather random.

[feathery]

Yeah, makes me think it can't all be Atroma. Maybe. In Asgard, the gods had to jump through all these hoops to hang onto us and they didn't even get a say in who they brought in. Which is how they accidentally enlisted Satan, to my knowledge.

[forsometimenow]

Satan? Really? ... that can't have been good.

[feathery]

It was a pretty shit idea. Dude, like, actively sabotaged the world-saving effort because he was kinda insane.