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(no subject)

Who: Obi-Wan Kenobi and You
Broadcast: Video
Action: Hospitality Deck - Marsiva
When: January 2nd

[ Obi-Wan is no stranger to waking up to unknown locations, but this seemed odd . . . even for him. He gropes for his lightsaber . . . which is gone, obviously. He huffs, before straightening himself and brushing his hair back. Communications . . . communications . . . ah, there it is.

A video feed. Somewhat archaic, but it'll do. He doubts anyone from the Republic will be nearby, but perhaps the locals will offer some aid. Obi-Wan clears his throat before speaking. It's time for his other skill set to come in use. ]

Greetings. My name is General Kenobi. To whom do I have the pleasure of addressing? And I don't suppose there is someone willing to answer my questions? Because I have a great deal many of them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, you see... According to the information we have...

We're starring in a reality TV show. Apparently, winning means we can "go home". But only the winner gets to go home.

[Which obviously would cause lots of problems considering there are lots of people from the same world here.]

We don't really know much of the details beyond that.

Of course. Nothing says quality entertainment like a death match of some kind.

[ At least, now, he has a firm grasp on the situation. It's saddening to say this is nothing . . . special. Many species derive pleasure from these kinds of acts.]

What?! No! No no no, it's nothing like that!

The winner's determined by popularity, not by fighting or anything. The show itself is kind of built on us working together, after all. You'll regularly get payments to your account based on your popularity in the show, in addition to whatever you can make by doing jobs at some of the places we can stop at. When the show "ends", the most popular person gets declared the winner. That's... about what we now about the show's structure.

We don't know how long the show will go for, only that it's separated into "cycles", but we don't know how long a cycle is.

[ Okay, that part . . . is new. Or perhaps he keeps expecting the worse. A war would do that to someone. ]

That's . . . not as bad as I would have predicted. Who is the most . . . [ And he's loathe to say it ] "popular" right now?

They don't actually let us know directly, which I imagine is to make us wonder how well we're doing. You can probably make some guesses based on how much people spend, but it's not like popularity is the only way to make money. There are also people that like to save their money and focus on expensive things, so that doesn't really work out too well either.

Ships where you can buy and trade, earn money and yet are a prisoner. I have to say, this is the most complex system I've come across.

[ A calculated way of keeping people happy and without having them revolt on their captors? ]

Right? It seems kind of pointlessly complicated if they just want us as prisoners. For the time being, I think it's fine to assume they're being honest to us, at least when it comes to the show aspect.

[There are still some things I have doubts on, but...]

Well, I suppose I will know more once I experience it for myself. Thank you, Miss Shimamura. You were a great help.

[ Though he doesn't have high hopes when it comes to popularity. If it was notoriety, perhaps. ]

[If you only knew the popularity of heels.]

It's no problem, ...Mister? Kenobi, I'm happy to help however I can. If you have any other questions, I would be happy to try and answer them!

Part of being a communications officer is helping to get people used to the place, after all!

What else does your job entail?

[ He wonders if his job would be of similar ilk. ]

Well, it's kind of a variety of things. the most common one is mostly information security -- Only the consoles on the ship bridges can handle encryption and decryption of messages and other things over the network, and while you can manage something close to secrecy by going onto private channels... Those can be picked up by communications officers without too much difficulty.

Aside from that, we're also in charge of the scanners and radar on the ship. Communications officers are... essentially in charge of the computers. It's generally our job to handle diplomacy if the captain doesn't want to handle it, too.

[Or if the captain almost gets us shot down.]

Can you . . . [ No, he can't suggest disruptive ideas just yet, when they can be watched. ]

Thank you. That was very informative.

Then, you're welcome, Mister Kenobi. I'm glad I could help.

Hopefully, I can repay the favor.

It probably won't be long before you do, really. I mean, no matter how advanced our ships are, they won't let us get properly equipped until it fits into their schedule, so a lot of the time we'll be depending on each other out here, even if we're all on different ships.

True enough. Still . . . what kind of incidents take place here?

Well, the main thing is that we've been attacked twice by a group of ships that are suspiciously similar to our own -- since our ships were made by the Marsiva, it seems pretty likely that at the very least, there's another ship going on a similar flight path. We haven't spotted anything like another Marsiva yet, but if the ships were designed the same, they likely have the limitations of having to stick with a mothership too.

They haven't actually tried to kill us yet, but last time we met them, they specifically made a point to show they could, and it seriously hurt one of my crew members.

Aside from that, there was also a time where we wound up answering a distress signal and wound up finding a merchant ship run by a race known as Nunnilis. Once we discovered them, we found that everyone still alive on board was infected with a parasitic fungus that controlled their bodies and forced them to spread the fungus to other Nunnilis colonies. We managed to put together a cure for the Nunnilis, but... Not in time to save them. The fungus did a lot of brain damage to them, and by killing the fungus, we killed them, too.

The final ship in the fleet, the Iskaulit, was the ship that took place on. The ship itself has been purified, and a local Nunnilis colony performed the funeral rites for them and gave the ship to us.

Do you think this could have been . . . orchestrated by our kidnappers?

[ Again, it seems like a bit much and a way for them to lose their key players. But the more he knew, a better understanding he would receive. ]

I doubt the Nunnilis incident was orchestrated by them, at least. The attacking ships... I can't say either way.

A lot of people are convinced they're working for Atroma. It's a fact that their ships are at the very least, designed to the same specifications as the ships the Marsiva produces. That would seem to imply them to have either been created by the Marsiva, or a similar mothership. I doubt the Marsiva is the only one in existence, after all.

Either way, the ships that attacked us seem to be considerably more advanced than ours. They could have completely destroyed us the last time we fought, but instead they dragged everyone into a nebula that disrupted all systems on the ship, including our implants.

[And one of my crewmates is a robot, so.]

So there might be several other ships like these out there.

[ That's a depressing thought. ]

It's hard to believe there's just one, yes. The only one that we know of is ours, of course: The attacking ships didn't exactly respond to hails.

So we were left in the dark.

I can believe there's a bigger conspiracy at work here.

There's probably something going on behind the scenes, yes. It's hard to tell what exactly it is with the information we can get a hold of, though.

At the very least, there's definitely something off about the "victory prize".

The victor prize? What is that?

I mentioned it before, but it's "to go home". I believe they also indicated that it will be "exactly as you left it"... But also that only one person gets to go home.

So what happens when there's more than one person from the same world, then? If only one person can go home, then won't it be a different place if everyone else stays behind? Then it definitely can't be "exactly as you left it", can it?