I knew that getting to his creator, and to anyone else who tried to control him, was Bill's ultimate goal. He'd wait as long as it took to get into that universe, and he's very old, and very patient. As long as Bill didn't disappear from the ship, he could wait millennia, until all the inmates and wardens who remembered he was an evil mastermind were gone, and try again when the time was right.
And I believed he would get to that world, with or without my help. If he made it there, without anyone to stop him, it would be a massacre.
So, when I found the wormhole he'd been keeping in his cabin and he asked me to be his partner, I had to make a choice. If I reported him to the wardens and confiscated his materials and calculations, he'd only try again after I was gone. But if I escaped with him, either he would still be under the control of the Admiral, in which case the inmate power cap would still be in effect, or he would be outside of the Barge's influence, and free of the resurrection mechanic. I was reasonably sure I could get close enough, and I'd built a weapon that could do it months before. I could control him or kill him, and either way, he'd lose.
It was a stupid plan. I never succeed when I try to go it alone. I was risking a world on getting the chance to get a shot, and deep down I knew it. But I didn't see another way.
Until, of course, Bill told me the second half of his plan. A few weeks before the portal was ready, he explained to me that he needed me to cast a spell: one that would create a dome, hundreds of miles across, that would make anything that anyone imagined inside of it real.
Of course, I could imagine immediately the kind of chaos this could cause. I'd seen it already in my own world! People would be murdered by their own nightmares. I didn't want to do it.
But here I had a choice again. Go to the wardens, stop this plan, and wait for Bill to strike again, this time without being involved. Or, I could take the teeth out of the plan he had, get us both to the Authority's dimension, and free the Barge from their control without any bloodshed.
It meant I wasn't gambling on my own ability to kill Bill Cipher, something I'd been trying and failing to do for thirty years.
[No. Really. He gets how dumb that was.]
So, here's what I did. I agreed to cast the spell on two conditions: one, that Bill swore not to harm anyone, inside or outside the bubble, who wasn't his creator or the Authority, and two, that we modified the spell so that no one inside of it would experience physical harm.
[Ford's quiet a moment.]
It wasn't a perfect solution, but I did my best with what I had. I still believe, to this day, that if I had reported him, he would have made it to that world and thousands of people would be dead. I also still think the Authority has a lot of things to answer for, and one day, I'd like to meet them on their level and give them a piece of my mind.
[Is the flashback over yet? Shame you can't program the Enclosure so that your monologue is a voiceover.]
no subject
Here's the situation as I saw it.
I knew that getting to his creator, and to anyone else who tried to control him, was Bill's ultimate goal. He'd wait as long as it took to get into that universe, and he's very old, and very patient. As long as Bill didn't disappear from the ship, he could wait millennia, until all the inmates and wardens who remembered he was an evil mastermind were gone, and try again when the time was right.
And I believed he would get to that world, with or without my help. If he made it there, without anyone to stop him, it would be a massacre.
So, when I found the wormhole he'd been keeping in his cabin and he asked me to be his partner, I had to make a choice. If I reported him to the wardens and confiscated his materials and calculations, he'd only try again after I was gone. But if I escaped with him, either he would still be under the control of the Admiral, in which case the inmate power cap would still be in effect, or he would be outside of the Barge's influence, and free of the resurrection mechanic. I was reasonably sure I could get close enough, and I'd built a weapon that could do it months before. I could control him or kill him, and either way, he'd lose.
It was a stupid plan. I never succeed when I try to go it alone. I was risking a world on getting the chance to get a shot, and deep down I knew it. But I didn't see another way.
Until, of course, Bill told me the second half of his plan. A few weeks before the portal was ready, he explained to me that he needed me to cast a spell: one that would create a dome, hundreds of miles across, that would make anything that anyone imagined inside of it real.
Of course, I could imagine immediately the kind of chaos this could cause. I'd seen it already in my own world! People would be murdered by their own nightmares. I didn't want to do it.
But here I had a choice again. Go to the wardens, stop this plan, and wait for Bill to strike again, this time without being involved. Or, I could take the teeth out of the plan he had, get us both to the Authority's dimension, and free the Barge from their control without any bloodshed.
It meant I wasn't gambling on my own ability to kill Bill Cipher, something I'd been trying and failing to do for thirty years.
[No. Really. He gets how dumb that was.]
So, here's what I did. I agreed to cast the spell on two conditions: one, that Bill swore not to harm anyone, inside or outside the bubble, who wasn't his creator or the Authority, and two, that we modified the spell so that no one inside of it would experience physical harm.
[Ford's quiet a moment.]
It wasn't a perfect solution, but I did my best with what I had. I still believe, to this day, that if I had reported him, he would have made it to that world and thousands of people would be dead. I also still think the Authority has a lot of things to answer for, and one day, I'd like to meet them on their level and give them a piece of my mind.
[Is the flashback over yet? Shame you can't program the Enclosure so that your monologue is a voiceover.]