11. [Text]

[pompous_today]

Who: Simon Tam and YOU
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: N/A
When: August 28th

I have been trying to avoid getting roped into this nonsense with the different factions, but it's looking more and more inevitable that I may have to join one. Has anyone taken a particular liking to theirs?

I have to admit, though... it's times like these that make me wonder why I am still here. Does the audience enjoy my rebellious nature in refusing to choose a side? Am I only here because of my skills? It's something I have been pondering a lot lately.

Comments

[scanninggaydis]

It is kind of nice to make money off of actual talent/knowledge and not something as nebulous as "being entertaining".

I don't think I've gotten any credits for the latter yet anyway.

[pompous_today]

Indeed. I think that's why I struggle with wondering why I'm still considered "entertaining" enough to keep- because that is rather hard to quantify. I do my job, I keep a routine, and that's all. I don't actively court audience interest.

[scanninggaydis]

I guess I'm still having trouble taking the whole "reality tv show" thing at face value anyway.

But these are people who kidnap their contestants (if that's what's going on) so hey, who knows.

[pompous_today]

You're not the only one, believe me. I'm leaning towards the idea that the supposed audience and show are some elaborate sham, but the one thing that stops me from fully subscribing to that theory is that I cannot fathom what they REALLY have taken us for, and why they'd go through the trouble of such a charade, rather than being upfront about why we were taken.

[scanninggaydis]

An experiment? I was at this place before, it was supposed to be a summer camp, but I'm almost positive it was really some sort of huge experiment focused on responses to emotional trauma.

[pompous_today]

So they're studying how we react to being put in various situations. That sounds entirely plausible, actually. And the "show" is a front to give them excuses to put us in different situations.

[scanninggaydis]

A blind experiment, yeah.

Various situations -- maybe some kind of study on the way that people to react to new cultures? Given that the fleet regularly stops off at planets. Or the opposite, their reaction to us.

[pompous_today]

And many of the people brought here have been completely out of their element- they have never known of space travel or communicators or anything of the sort. So that would provide them with a good sample size and good variety of people to watch.

One of the only problems I have with any theory, though, is why some people end up not staying for very long. Who stays and who goes seems quite random.

[scanninggaydis]

[The next text is not immediate, since Felix has to really sit back and think about that.]

Huh. You have a point.

[A few seconds after that:]

I'm not really sure. Maybe they didn't fit what the researchers were trying to elicit. Bad science?
(Joking.)
(....Maybe.)