driftfleet | two ➵ video

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two ➵ video

Who: Abigail Hobbs & you
Broadcast: Fleetwide!
Action: Marsiva!
When: 11/21

Has anyone considered the possibility that being stuck on the Marsiva is a means of negative reinforcement? Once we achieve a certain goal, whether that's reels of usable footage shot or something more specific and harder to guess at, we'll be removed from this more psychologically dangerous environment.

Or maybe even that Atroma's goal is to skew our perceptions of what's normal and what isn't. In comparison to this, individual ships are practically homey comforts. We might even get to sleep through the whole night without tripping into someone else's mind, or vice versa.

[Is it paranoia if you're right? Anyway.]

Anyone who tripped into my mind and wants anything clarified, let me know. If my secrets are going to be publicized without my consent, I might as well make sure they're being interpreted correctly.

And one more thing: I'm trying to figure out who's been here the longest. From when the lights first came on. Help me out?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She doesn't comment on the first two parts of that, at least not yet. She's pretty sure Abigail isn't wrong about the first part, and appreciates that someone else in this mess doesn't have such a negative reaction to having their memories put out there for everyone to see. But.

The last question seems like the most important, so: ]

There was a small group of us that started this "cycle", if that's what you mean.

If that's the earliest thing anyone can remember, then that's what I mean.

It's the earliest anyone I know has heard of.

[ She won't be quick to say there's no one here from previous cycles, not after the First Gens. ]

I guess I'm one of the people you're looking for, then.

I think you might be. If you're willing to tell me about your experience - in as much detail as possible - I'd really appreciate it.

[Not that she is going to say why. Let it ride with general paranoia, okay.]

[ She looks a little surprised. ]

I wouldn't be opposed to it, necessarily, but ... it's been over a year, now.

[ There's a lot to say, if she wants "as much detail as possible" ... ]

I don't really have anything else to do. Do you?

Besides, from what I remember, people's least favorite parts of reality TV shows are recap episodes.

[Might as well piss off Atroma at every opportunity.]

[ She lets out a little amused sound at that last comment. Well, she's not wrong ... ]

Well ... let's see. When we first showed up, we didn't go to the Marsiva, like everyone else. We were just on our own ships already, and we couldn't go back and forth between them just yet. [ That was annoying, mostly because Allen was there after months of being missing and she couldn't go see him right away. ] There wasn't a lot going on, and there weren't very many of us. There's a lot more ships now than there used to be. I came from a different interdimensional hellhole, so at first I thought it was just that same place, doing the same old world change garbage it usually does.

But, after awhile it didn't change back, and most of the people from that place hadn't followed over to here ... so we figured it had to be a whole different place. We just kind of floated around for awhile, but we did stop at a few weird places. They were ... pretty obviously way out of the way, not like the nicer and more touristy places we've stopped more recently.

There was ... this weird dusty grey planet, you could tell they didn't get many visitors. They tried to have some kind of festival to welcome us, but it ended up just kind of being a bunch of weirdos hanging around in skull masks. Then they gave us these weird red stones, and everyone who got one got kind of sick -- nothing fatal or super serious, symptoms-wise, but really annoying and hard to do anything, you know? Anyways, we found out the stones had some kind of weird nanobots on them that was sucking out our energy and sending it back to the planet. Talk about creepy, right? But we made sure everyone was cleared of all the nanobots so they wouldn't be a problem anymore.

Then ... we stopped on this super cold planet. I guess it was just, like, winter all the time, which sounds terrible to me, but I guess whatever floats their boat ... anyways, they at least had living plants and animals on that planet, and thankfully the people there weren't trying to be some sort of idiotic space vampire, so it went better than the last one. A bunch of the buildings were made with ice, too, which was kind of pretty, if it wasn't so damn cold.

Then ... we went to this weird forest, which I guess was kind of magical in some way? The bathhouse they had there was divine, though, seriously, I would go back for that hot springs anytime. The forest was just kind of weird, though, it messed with your head. I think all the people that made it all the way through managed to find some type of personal item, though -- I ended up getting something of my teacher's, anyways.

Hmm ... let's see. Around that time, those annoying ships started popping up on the radar. The ones that attacked us. That technically comes later, but I think it was right around then that they started showing up here and there. We tried to contact them several times, but they never answered, just disappeared.

And ... I guess that brings us to around February? Yeah. So -- we stopped in this one place that had three moons, and all of them were just ... weirdly strict about certain things, but I guess they all kinda balanced each other out? One of them really hated anyone who put any kind of thought into their appearance, but then there was another one that was all about the beauty products and nice clothes and stuff. One of them didn't allow any drinking or drugs or anything like that, then there was another that was specifically meant for partying. So on and so forth. Anyways, that was weird, but there were a lot of freelance jobs you could take, usually smuggling stuff around, so you could make some money. That place was definitely a lot more populated than most of the other places we'd stopped, I think, so we started getting more on track for places that actual living beings went to sometimes, you know?

Then, we stopped at this stupid tourist planet. I don't know if you know what a "Renaissance fair" is, but I guess it was like one of those. Except from what I understand, normal people go to a fair like that to pretend to be from the past? Or something? I don't know. Anyways, the point is, there were some assholes running this place who were keeping all the people who actually lived there totally in the dark about -- you know, the rest of the universe? We had to wear these things that made us look like we fit in to go out, and we weren't allowed to tell them about modern technology ... Everyone was just totally brainwashed. It was stupid. But there wasn't much we could do about it because .. I don't know, walking in on stuff like that and throwing it into total chaos and then leaving is kind of shitty.

Yeah, so, then we actually did get attacked by those annoying ships. Nobody was killed, and injuries were pretty minor, fortunately, but a lot of the ships were pretty badly damaged, so we had to land at this waystation and wait to get all the parts we needed to repair everything. I tried to suggest that we should, you know, work on some defensive maneuvers and teamwork to keep us from getting our asses kicked again, but mostly people just yelled at me for telling them what to do, so that was mostly pointless. [ She's not bitter about that at all, really! ] Oh, there was also this virtual reality dome there. You could tell it stuff and it would make it appear. So you could show people where you came from, or cool places you'd been, that sort of thing. That wasn't so bad.

Uh -- then we kind of had a ... double stop? There was a really fancy casino station, where you could -- well, gamble to your heart's content, I guess. It was definitely a place where a lot of people visited, super busy. Lots of really nice shops and suites you could rent and stuff. Some of the machines there randomly -- well, I shouldn't say randomly, I'm sure it was Atroma being Atroma -- but they had items that we would recognize that belonged to us in some of the machines, to win. I got an album of personal photos, a friend of mine got a little golem of his, my boyfriend got a hat he used to have ... so on and so forth.

There was also a really weird planet nearby that was just ... a ton of living plants, basically. It was really pretty, but kind of dangerous. I didn't spend a lot of time there personally, 'cause everything was out to eat you if you touched it, pretty much. Oh, and it was really hard to land there, the signal was all messed up down there, too.

Hmm ... let's see. I think after that was when we ran into the Iskaulit. It's a part of the Fleet now, but originally there was an entire population of these aliens called Nunnilis on it. Except they were all out of their minds on this fungal disease that had spread all over the ship, so we thought they were hostile, and -- well, it was kind of awful. [ She sighs. ] We did manage to get enough information from the ones that were left and the samples we were able to collect from the ship to make a sort of cure for them, and determined that it wouldn't really be harmful to most anything beyond the Nunnilis, so I guess that's the upside.

We stopped at another planet after that that had a small population of them and explained what happened -- I guess they'd had a few patients there suffering from the same symptoms that we were able to help out and weed out the fungus growing there that might have been exacerbating their condition. Anyways, they said we could keep the ship, so we cleaned it out and now it just follows us around. Uh -- oh, that planet was also an island beach type of planet. [ She pauses ] I don't know when you got here? Am I just running into stuff you've already seen now? I think around then was when we started having a lot more people and a lot more ships.

[She listens to all of this carefully, leaning a little forward with pinched brows as she focuses on what Ino's saying. Overall it sounds not terribly different from what she's used to, just with significantly less murder - but she's not willing to bank on that being a permanent fixture at this point. Atroma definitely has a plan, and from what Ino's saying it seems to be escalating. Which makes her wonder - what's the end goal? The problem with reality television is it has to get more and more out of control the longer it runs. Every "cycle" will have to be more dramatic if it's to maintain viewers. So if the TV story isn't just a ruse . . . this could get much more dangerous.]

[Hmm. She offers Ino a small smile and shakes her head slightly.]

I only got here in September, I don't remember anything you've said so far. I guess I'm curious . . . all of this makes a lot of sense, except for two things.

First of all, it sounds like when they started - when Atroma started, I mean, when you all got brought here - that they weren't actually ready to start. That they were rushed. Otherwise why wouldn't you have been brought to the Marsiva? Why weren't you able to move from ship to ship? So I wonder what it was that might have made them rush.

And secondly, I wonder why you haven't met more locals, people living on planets and moons. Or even people out in open space. And relatively few hostiles, too. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. But then, Atroma's keeping us in the dark about intergalactic politics, so I'm sure I'm missing a lot of pieces.

Yeah, I think the excuse was that they "didn't have a very big budget" to begin with, or something like that. Who knows what the actual reason was, though.

I wonder that, too. And even weirder is, if this show is being broadcast all over the universe like they say ... of all the places we've stopped and the people on them, why haven't we met anyone who recognizes us or has supposedly seen the show? Or heard of Atroma at all?

It's all pretty fishy. We don't have a lot to work with as far as what's going on behind the scenes, though. [ She exhales, blowing at her bangs in frustration. ] All of that is probably just raising more questions than answering anything, but I guess that's how these stupid places operate.

Wow, that.

[That . . .]

Sounds like bullshit.

Really, nobody's ever heard of the show? [That's a red flag. She glances sideways, like she's thinking of something - a memory, a sensation - and frowns sharply.]

No, it's helpful. I have a theory. But it's probably paranoid, and it's not original.

I know, right? Not a single person I've run across in all that time.

[ But, she gives Abigail a little shrug ]

Doesn't have to be original to possibly be true. The people in charge of these things seem to love their clichés.

I think I was brought here about the same time as you.

[Not ... sure ... if he wants to get into all the rest of that. He remembers seeing Abigail at least twice in those weird dream states.]