WEEK 5

[bathymetric]

That's three murders now - and this last trial got more than slightly out of hand. It looks like you might be in for another tough week... or at least, maybe that's just the refusal of this place to change too much. You lose Saturday again, but maybe six-day weeks are starting to feel normal by now. Who knows? The cycle of day and night continues apace, changing so little.

Speaking of change, though, there's a new area to look through, the biggest and most complex yet. And the end of one wing of the facility, from the looks of it - though you can probably guess where more areas might start to open up.

And speaking of opening up (segues!), this week if you're out particularly late, you might sometimes see Angel out and about! So hey, maybe change is on the horizon.

Just gotta hope it's a change for the better, don't you?



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Week 5! Remember to turn in AC here, threads for regain coins here, and if you feel so inclined you can visit Angel's office hours over here! Or, if you want Angel to come to you, that's now an option! Simply put a prompt after lights-out into your toplevel and indicate you want Angel in the subject line, same as investigations! ]

Comments

[hardnosed]

Sure.

... It's gonna get too big for this room if you keep going.

[fivestagegod]

Probably. At the very least, I'll probably get bored of dragging it around whenever I want to work on it - I figured people wouldn't appreciate it too much if I just left it in here for people to stumble in on.

[hardnosed]

Huh. Well, breaking it couldn't possibly make it worse.

[ She looks like she's about to say something, and then like she's just remembered something. ]

I know you talk to Rose. Has she mentioned fusion?

[fivestagegod]

[Oh, uh.]

Yeah, she has. She's said some things about how it's done, and that it can result in stuff with too many limbs and eyes and what have you.

[hardnosed]

That only happens when two different Gems fuse. On Homeworld, it’s nothing but a way for weak Gems of the same type to stand a fighting chance in battle, but of course that’s not how they do things.

[ She says, a tremendous hypocrite. ]

You get what I mean, though. That’s what it looks like.

[fivestagegod]

...So it's a battle thing.

[THAT'S... He's not sure how he feels about that, actually. Sort of relieved that he did not have a discussion with Rose about all the threesomes she's having?]

Either way, that's suitably terrifying. But then, I can't really imagine merging with someone else like that in the first place.

[hardnosed]

[ I MEAN, TO BE FAIR........

She shrugs, like it’s no big deal to merge your light form with another sentient being and sublimate your consciousness into theirs, and also it’s never led to any massive negative consequences for her personally. ]

I don’t like it either. But in the moment, you do what you have to do.

[fivestagegod]

So you've done it yourself, then?

[It's more curious than anything; he has a hard time picturing it, but...]

[hardnosed]

Just once.

[ It’s familiar enough, at this point, how Jasper refers to something she finds distasteful. While her tone absolutely fits the bill, there’s something about her eyes that doesn’t, which is probably more notable considering she’s still looking at the marionettes. ]

There’s no need for a Quartz to fuse under normal circumstances — not one who came out right. And if you're fighting alongside your own kind, the need's not about to come up. When it does... any indignity's better than losing.

[ This is her way of saying she had six hands once. ]

[fivestagegod]

[...Huh.]

I know of ways to make humans into...something else. What that "something else" is tends to depend on the person - if you do it right, you end up with someone that's incredibly powerful and probably can't be killed by conventional means. I know someone who's been alive for forty years like that, with people actively trying to kill her for at least the past twenty. I've seen people take other forms, too, things that are better-suited for a fight. Not human, not animal. Something else entirely.

I've never done it to myself, obviously. But I've seen that sort of thing before. Any indignity being better than losing.

[hardnosed]

[ She seems to genuinely be listening to Birkin, trying to picture this, though truth be told she doesn’t need much help. Almost immediately after he stops talking, she speaks. ]

And if you do it wrong?

[fivestagegod]

Well, there's a decent chance that nothing much will happen. There's a better chance that they'll end up dead.

[He says it easily; granted, if we didn't all realize that his capacity for empathy is extremely low by now, chances are we're not going to.]

There's definitely a reason I wouldn't do it to myself, in other words.

[hardnosed]

So it's a last resort.

[ She accepts this information just as easily as Birkin delivers it. What does it matter to her if a bunch of humans kill themselves in the pursuit of power? What does it matter to her if a bunch of Gems do it?

... well, she can't help but think of something. ]

You said "take other forms." Like it's something they can choose to do. They've still got their minds?

[fivestagegod]

Usually, yeah. If they don't, that's another sign something went wrong. The transformation can...consume people, for lack of a better term. Another part of the "last resort" thing.

[hardnosed]

I've seen something like that.

[ And Rose says it's the Diamond's fault, but how can she trust her about anything? And if she's telling the truth, so what? The loyal Gems were too weak and slow to get off-planet before being caught in the crossfire. She wasn't. They've all gotten what they deserved. ]

One of them is here. But she's inactive.