reverienet | audio; un: srogers

Hi. My name is Captain Steve Rogers. I wanted to introduce myself to everyone. Where I come from, protecting people was very important to me. It still is. This ship is dangerous and I think we're getting side-tracked from an important conversation here.

I don't think we should worry too much about that roster file we were sent, but it's not a bad idea to have some sort of security team that can respond to a crisis and keep track of everything we have figured out about this place so far. I'd like to help with any effort like that, but it might be best if we wait before assigning rank to anyone. Fighting over who's the boss or throwing baseless orders around isn't going to help anyone or keep them safe. Our priorities should be safety and finding a way to leave.

It's been suggested to me that some of the things that have been happening to us could be some sort of security response from the ship. Does anyone with a better understanding of computers want to weigh in on that? Can anyone try to access those systems? There's still a lot of the station that we can't access and I know some of us have been trying to work on that.

Finally, if there's anything else I can help with, please reach out to me.

[ And a later text that follows: ]

I think people have misunderstood what I want to do. I don't want anyone to have power over the rest of us. This would be for dealing with outside threats and organizing information that would be available to everyone. Anyone who wanted to help would be welcome.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If there are signs of life on that planet, I haven't seen any, but I don't exactly have much more than my eyes. It's hard to know if it was an invasion they were worried about or something they might have done to themselves, too.

If the message on Mako's communicator is right, and there was a traitor, there must have been something the station was betrayed to. An opposing force of some kind.

[She's not sure what.]

Just like 'governor' implies a constituent state, out of some greater whole.

The real question with that is whether it was an outside invader or an internal power struggle of some sort. They could have been dealing with an uprising or a civil war or an alien invasion.

'Traitor' could imply either.

[She agrees, remembering Mako's message on the network.]

I would expect that the answer is not purely mundane. If it were, why would we all be here? If the phenomena of importing all these people is at all linked to the problem, then it follows that the problem is something to do with the threads of alternate universes. Perpendicularities. Whatever your world calls it.

Edited 2018-05-19 02:16 (UTC)

I'm not sure my world calls it anything, but I see what you mean. Another possibility we shouldn't discount is that this entirely situation could be some kind of test. Who has the power to take us so far away from our homes effortlessly, but they can't save the world? What could we possibly offer them that they couldn't do themselves with that kind of technology on their side?

Test, or other deception. We're being set up to take some drastic action, turn a key in a lock, and release something.

There's also the possibility that the thing that brought us here is the thing they were fighting.

What do you mean turn a key in a lock.

[ Everything else has, for the most part, occurred to him, but that's not something he'd thought of and he gets what she means, but he can't really wrap his head around what it could be. ]

When we met last time, I mentioned that Roshar was undergoing a Desolation?

The Desolations begin on Roshar when the dead souls of our enemies flood into the world. The Heralds of Roshar created what was called the Oathpact. They exist in Damnation with those souls, and the enemy can only return to Roshar when a herald allows it.

A Desolation occurs, the heralds beat back the enemy, and then return voluntarily to Damnation. There, they're hunted, and eventually tortured until they choose to release the dead back to Roshar to end the pain.

People, their choices, their will, may play a role in these matters. Not one I understand, admittedly, but I can't help but see the parallels.

[ There's a long pause and Steve lets out a heavy breath as he thinks over all of that. It's not something he's really familiar with, but he can follow it enough that the idea of it doesn't sound good. ]

You're keeping an eye out for signs of something like that?

Us being here at all is a sign of something like that. I'm watching for the moment where I can rule it out.

[Jasnah is not a glass half full kind of woman.]

There's a second dimension of all this. It's vaguer, a much more unconfirmed suspicion-

[But if he's game to hear her out, she would like to say the words out loud to someone else.]

Tell me what you're thinking.

[ It's a very different direction from most of the other ideas he's heard, which means it's definitely worth listening to and considering. ]

This is the story of Dalinar Kholin. He was one of the men responsible for uniting the warring Highprinces of Alethkar behind a single monarch. He is also the leader in the fight against Odium, the force responsible for the Desolations. He experienced a series of visions, before the apocalypse began, foretelling its' arrival, showing him memories of those who had survived such events in the past to allow him to prepare.

[So, Steve can probably see why he's been on her mind.]

In one of the visions it was suggested that his best chance might be to challenge Odium to single combat. When he did, Odium reached quickly to try seize Dalinar's mind, claiming him as his champion. Following the advice of those visions, we escaped ruin by the narrowest of margins, just by the force of Dalinar's will-

[And, on hearing on what she's just said out loud, she corrects herself, wryly;]

Although knowing my uncle, perhaps that means we were never in any danger in the slightest. But most of the rest of us would not have the ability to casually rebuff the control of such a force.

So what? You think this place is just a vision you're having?

[ Steve's beyond skeptical. He's had people in his mind. It didn't feel like this or last this long. He can't imagine that it's possible. ]

No, this place is real.

[She has absolutely no doubt about that. For one thing, the visions Dalinar had should only have lasted the length of a storm. For another, nothing could make up something this mad.]

But the visions we have here- the screams in the walls, the horrors on the network- the harder we work to unravel the clues they contain, the more difficult it will become not to accept them as true in whole cloth.

It's a truth of manipulation. The best way to lie to someone is to give them just enough information that they're able to solve for your deception. If they feel proud of finding the answer, they seldom question it, because why question their own reasoning?

[ It's the kind of thing Natasha would have said and also the kind of thing that tends to fly right over Steve's head. He's gotten more comfortable with necessary lies, but manipulation isn't exactly something he understands, because he doesn't treat people like that and he never has. It's so far out of his moral compass that it doesn't occur to him to look at those angles. ]

Then how do we combat that?

We question everything.

[She explains; it's in her nature. But, she's known so many men in her life, in her family, who think like Steve does. Her expression softens.]

I'll tell you if I hear or see anything that makes me suspicious.

Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for anything like that and I'll be in touch.

Good luck.

[She agrees, and cuts the feed. Jasnah will keep in touch, if she learns anything. There's just so precious little to learn.]

audio; un: srogers

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