Week 5

[bathymetric]

Good morning, New Rapture. A new day is dawning.

Another week, another motive, another trial. Even without a literal time loop, it's easy to start to feel stuck in something of a rut. Though vandalism parties and the like can help shake the feeling somewhat, it's only natural to start going a little... stir-crazy, don't you think?

Fortunately for you, another week brings another new section of New Rapture to investigate. This one is the biggest yet! And look at that fun theme park. And a bar!

Seven of you are dead, but eighteen of you remain. What you do to try to escape is up to you, but at least following :)'s advice gets you coins for stuff, you know?



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to the fifth week of Unknown Seas Round 3! Please make sure to mark any investigation toplevels accordingly, post your ac, and you can reach either Mayor Fontaine or Eleanor for conversations! ]

Comments

[pairtner]

[Garden

[Ever since the motive Aiba has been pretty pensive. She has been pretty quiet, wandering around without much of a purpose -- not that anyone may have noticed, unless they were lucky to see her hamster form wandering around. At some point today, she comes across to the garden, and sits on some of the rocks there]

...one month so far. You were once a year without me, Date, but...

[But the Mayor's 'proof' really rattled her. Not so much because of how it was several AI-Balls destroyed -- and she identified those as her own self, the color of the eye proved it -- but because of what it represents. It's proof he's willing to meddle, and also that he might still have access to ABIS one way or another. It's pretty disquieting.

After some sitting around, she...decides to remember. She wanted pretty badly to hear her partner's voice she sifted through her memories and began playing the memory. The visuals aren't present, but the voices and sounds are echoing in the garden.

Seven minutes of Kaname Date's more caring side.

Once the memory ends, Aiba is quiet.

Meeting Room

Apparently listening to that memory didn't cheer Aiba very much. She wanders back to the Meeting Room, where she can see the different items that represent the Mayor's threat.

When someone enters the room, Aiba's human form appears, and she asks one question:]

Do you believe alternate timelines exist?

[Well, if Joy is the one who enters, Aiba immediately adds: 'wait, they probably do where you're from' because of course, haha]

meeting room

[howveryglib]

[...that's kind of a wild question to walk in on, so he just kind of stops and thinks about it.]

...

I do not think I have enough information to determine one way or the other. Although, I suppose it would have no impact on me unless I had some means of accessing another timeline.

[pairtner]

Accessing other timelines likely will bring more problems than benefits. Theoretically speaking, traveling in time is the only thing I can think is more dangerous than that.

[Aiba, character from a Kotaro Uchikoshi canon, talking about alternate timelines and time travel. It had to happen at least once given it's Uchikoshi content, haha]

[howveryglib]

I suppose so, yes. I imagine it would be the sort of thing that would only be justified in a situation that was beyond hopeless.

[You know, like a bad future where all the main characters got killed except the gay engineers who decide to make a tower into a machine that can travel through time and space.]

[pairtner]

It's only matter of time before the Mayor offers time travel as a motive.

[Well, the second motive kind of counts for that! In some way. Aiba is pretty sure that, if something involves messing with life and one's home really, really badly, then it'll be offered]

[howveryglib]

Technically, he did, but I suppose he could offer some more... general purpose time travel, I suppose.

[Like changing history instead of just your own life, maybe...?]

[pairtner]

He would bring 'proof' of something that can be avoided if you take his time travel offer, too. Something similar to all these objects. Knowing him, he will aim for the worst thing he can think of.

[Sigh]

What a despicable man.

[howveryglib]

We do know he is a liar, but I suppose it is entirely understandable why people may not wish to to take a chance with certain things. The very possibility is enough to push someone to act--and I am certain he knows certain members of our number are more vulnerable to these things than others.

[pairtner]

Uncertainty is his best weapon.

[Well, not really. When you know what he shows you can and will happen if the circumstances are right, it's less of an uncertain threat and more of a definite promise. That's what happened with her, pretty much]

[howveryglib]

Indeed. With that said, despite everything he has managed thus far, I imagine he wants us to believe he has more power than he truly does.

meeting room

[specialyellthing]

Well, yeah.

[She didn’t expect anyone else to be here, but—- she may as well answer. She crouches by the wall to look at the sad hunk of metal that used to be the aerie.]

Hard not to when I fell right outta one.

[pairtner]

Do you mean that in a literal manner?

[That wasn't a response she expected! Well, from Joy maybe she did, but from anybody else...it's a pretty big surprise!]

What happened, exactly?

[specialyellthing]

It was called the Zero Hour.

I can't explain it. Not totally. A Green Lantern got into playin with time, tryin' to fix things that went bad. Ended up destroyin' a lot more than he created. While tryin' to fix that, they opened more space-time rifts. I flew right through one.

They managed to tie everythin' up in a nice new bow, though I can't explain how. I was more in the background for all of that. But it meant that I couldn' go back to where I came from.

[pairtner]

So you're living proof such a thing as alternate timelines exist, with their own problems and tribulations...

[Huh. Green Lantern, that's pretty similar to a superhero that exists in fiction in her world, she thinks. Ah, the wonders of canons having their names changed a little bit, haha]

Leaving aside the...problems that led to rifts opening, how different was it to the timeline you came from?

[specialyellthing]

Hard to tell. See, when I came through -- I was pretty far in the future from where I started.

[pairtner]

...your life sounds interesting.

[Interesting in a way that breaks this poor AI's head. Aiba is someone who really sticks to what's plausible and real unless proven otherwise. Which is why she comments:]

I thought Joy's life and original universe would be the only one that would be hard to understand, but yours is just as befuddling. It's confusing.

[seriously every time an outlandish theory is proposed in somnium files, in both games, aiba is like 'nah thats not it', haha]

meeting room

[inaclearing]

After learning alternate dimensions are real here, I think I have to.

[Why one and not the other? Maybe technically they're all from alternate timelines that just diverged way back!]

Why do you ask?

[pairtner]

It's been a month and I haven't been able to accept most of what Joy has told me. I just can't accept anything without seeing it myself!

[Hilariously enough it really seems like the AIs in her canon are the most staunch advocates for reality, denying the outlandish explanations others consider and talk about -- and since it's a Kotaru Uchikoshi canon, creator of Zero Escape and what not, there's a ton of those]

I'm...not sure, to be frank with you. I suppose I was looking for some sort of consolation...

[What the Mayor showed her really, really bothered her. Part of her wondered if maybe trying to frame it as an alternate timeline she didn't come from will make her feel better]

[inaclearing]

Well, we know we're all here from different dimensions, right? So I don't know why some of them wouldn't be alternate timelines. It just makes sense.

[He's the Token Normie here, how is he rolling better with this?]

[pairtner]

[Maybe being outrageously normal makes it easier to face abnormalities! Sometimes!]

Do you believe that may be what the Mayor showed us on Tuesday? An alternate timeline, instead of something that just might happen?

[inaclearing]

If we're considering alternate universes, I think everything that could've happened has happened, somewhere out there. So - yes, it could be.

[pairtner]

........

[Aiba frowns pretty deeply. Oh, oh that's a horrible thought...she absolutely hated what the Mayor showed, and the thought it did happen somewhere...it's enough to depress her.

Is it better or worse to think it might be a different timeline to the one she came from? She's not sure]

Brett, make a choice: if someone you know were to do something that will harm others, would you try to stop them, or let it happen and deal with the fallout?

[inaclearing]

[Well, hey - logically every awful thing has happened everywhere, so why worry about it unless it's in your timeline?]

I -

[He opens his mouth, hesitates.]

Well...I guess it depends. On the situation, what I know...I don' think I'm very good at making decisions like that. I spend too much time thinking it through.

[pairtner]

There might be such a thing as overthinking it. I try to stick with logic and reasoning, but it feels like it's leading me in circles.

[Maybe what she lacks and what people in general do have in spades is that they have a little thing called 'intuition', she thinks. It's not something she puts much stock on, but maybe that's...what makes some be able to reach a decision in the end]

[inaclearing]

The last few times something like that happened, I just spent so long trying to figure out what I should do that it just...went on without me.

[He'd never quite made the decision not to say anything - but it basically ended up there anyhow.]

I still don't know if I could have changed anything.