ic contact

[14thcommander]

It's Hange, Hange, Hange! Were you looking for me? I'll get back to you posthaste. Or when it's convenient.

[ communicator & actionspam it's all good ]

Comments

[14thcommander]

I'll be blunt then. [In general, she means. Hange stares at him with her single dark eye and then waves a hand, dismissing the debate.]

There's no point in arguing it, really. You're still here, which means that you have your reasons in spite of how much you might dislike it, right?

[mothmansplaining]

I'd appreciate that.

And, yes -- aside from feeling like I should do something to help out around here, I have a much more compelling reason to stay. I can't go home.

[14thcommander]

Why not?

[mothmansplaining]

Because time stops shortly after I died.

[14thcommander]

... Why... is that?

[Is he some kind of nutty time person?]

[mothmansplaining]

Because my world turned out to be a pocket dimension, of sorts. I met the man who created it when Bill and I tried to reach the Authority. It doesn't go on past that summer. There's...no more.

[14thcommander]

[Turns out, this just massively confuses her. The barge has thrown in some serious outside context problems so far.]

What...? How can that be true?

[mothmansplaining]

....do you come from a world with computer simulations?

[14thcommander]

[With a short chuckle,] Electricity isn't even commonly used yet, so...

[mothmansplaining]

.....ah, but you've used the Enclosure. That'll work.

Okay, so think of it like this. Think about what would happen if you made a person inside the Enclosure. You program in a history, knowledge, you build a world around them. You gave them a family. You tell their story. They feel like they'd lived out a whole lifetime, but really, it's only been as long as you've had the program running. What happens to them when you shut it off, and the program ends?

Of course, there's a record of the program inside the Enclosure's memory banks. Anyone who wants to can replay it, and it'll all go exactly the same as it did when the programmer designed it. But that's not the same as having a future, is it?

[14thcommander]

But you're here. How can you be like one of those people in here? [They are very real, unnervingly so, full of all the character, tics, courage, cowardice, charm, and personality she'd expect out of a real human.

A "real" human.]

You're... [A frustrated gesture with her hands.] ... here.

[mothmansplaining]

Bill and I did reach a higher dimension, Hange. Just...it was only higher compared to our dimension. Not the Barge.

[He reaches down and draws a square in the dirt.]

It's like if you, your world, and all the worlds the people here come from all have three dimensions. But Bill and I only had two. So, if I'm this square, you can see me, but I can't see you. And it's very easy --

[He scoops up a handful of dirt and rocks.]

-- to change things around me --

[He lets the dirt fall from his hand in a circle around the square. If it were a being that could move on its own power, it would be trapped.]

-- without me ever seeing why.

[He dusts off his hands.]

The Admiral has the capability to reach into the dimension Bill and I came from and bring people out of it. Take them into this one. Make them three-dimensional.

[Get it? Because he's a traditionally-animated cartoon?]

[14thcommander]

[Silently wrestling it with an uncommonly long time (for her), Hange rubs her forehead and works to grasp the idea.]

Bill has alluded to this kind of thing before... keeping more of his body in a higher dimension, having eyes in a higher dimension...

[This is so frustrating!!! Her home could be so much further along, Hange could have a better platform to understand and explore this stuff, if scientific and technological process hadn't been repressed for literal decades. And here she is, racing to catch up to ideas that are kid stuff to some of the scientific-minded people here.]

[mothmansplaining]

Yes. He was able to see into the dimension we broke into, when he had all of his powers.

To the person who created us, it was all a game. It was a story he'd made up and sold to millions of viewers. As far as I can tell, he never thought that mass-producing images that Bill could see through or making Bill a body and having teenagers who liked his story solve clues to come and find it would lead to what happened. It wasn't real to him, until it was.

[14thcommander]

A story? What? [She doesn't exactly disbelieve him, but this sounds like pure madness.]

But... even if you're just talking about this square person, with limited perspective and ability to control the world around him, [like she had, like all the people in her world had, until the barge introduced some new ideas to her, not even all the high ground and perspective she needs but a glimmer of it,] that doesn't mean he's not a person or that he lacks a future. How can you be so sure, anyway, that this person created you? How is it impossible that you somehow influenced him? Through visions, or something like that?

[mothmansplaining]

....he based my family on his own. All of them except me, actually. As far as I can tell, I was just...what he needed me to be, in order to finish the story.

Anyway, if we existed first and were influencing him, it wouldn't explain the changes. I have memories now that I know I didn't have a year ago. Memories that don't fit anywhere in the timeline I remember. I think he must have answered a fan question, or -- or prepared something else for publication, maybe, and that affected the way I remember my history. He changed my past, more than once. Sand says it's the result of two timelines naturally converging and happens all the time where he comes from, but I'm not so sure. His dimensions are real. Mine are...artificial.

[14thcommander]

[This all sounds like an absolute fantasy but... but he really believes it, and also, if those things are happening, it's very, very scary? Hange can be ice fucking cold, never doubt it, but her heart kind of seizes for him in that moment because feeling this way, like someone's construct, someone's plaything, must be awful. The psychological attrition damage alone must be intense.

What the fuck!!!]

Wait, so this is... still happening? These changes?

[mothmansplaining]

Not anymore. He's dead.

It doesn't rest easy with me, letting that happen. But I had a choice. I could go back to Bill and make sure the Director made it out alive, or I could go back to the Barge and start fixing what I'd done.

So, I picked the Barge. Led a few people to where the portal was hidden and gave others the notes on the original spell so they could devise a way to break it.

[14thcommander]

If my life and world were being controlled by some other person I’d want to beat them to death with my bare hands myself!

[Quite fervent, here. No excuses for her shithole home, no excuses!!!]

So I don’t blame you for that. Stanford, how long has all this been ongoing? I think your judgment must have been seriously compromised by fatigue and fear and stress! This is all wearing, heavy stuff.

[mothmansplaining]

[He bristles.]

My judgment is fine.

Bill told me his suspicions shortly before we began the portal project. He thought we were still in someone else's simulation, and the Authority was controlling us as tightly as the Director controlled my home. I didn't believe him, not until we got to the Director's dimension and I got readings from that universe's space-time fabric. It was just as real as the Barge was. He was wrong about everyone else, but right about us. Bill and I were the only ones who came from the lower dimension.

So, I've only known for seven or eight months. Usually, I try not to think about it. I'm here now, with free will of my own, and soon, I'll have a way to get my family out, too. We've been offered a place to stay in another universe, and I think I'm going to take her up on it. We're going to be okay. My niece and nephew are going to grow up in a place with magic -- and a good school system! -- and I'll stay on the Barge as long as I have to to see it done.

[14thcommander]

[And that’s totally why you fell in line with Bill’s plans, didn’t tip off any trustworthy wardens, and jail broke the barge, right, buddy? Hange has her doubts about that judgment thing but she’ll set it aside for now. It’s all said and done anyway.

She reaches out and briefly clasps his shoulder.]

Good. I’m glad that you’ll be able to rescue people you care about and find a better home. [Man, a world with magic sounds amazing. She wishes her world was magical, instead of just straight up shitsack awful.]

[mothmansplaining]

[Well, he's also worried at times that because of his origins, he's so out of step with what everyone else understands implicitly that he might as well be insane. Being told he had no normal human empathy rattled him deeply in a way that hit him in every bruise from every time he'd been called a freak and made him doubt his very humanity! So, Ford's turned his energy to compensating for the deficiency by being as careful not to hurt people as he can be. Development?? It's just the results that matter anyway, right?]

Thank you.

Was there anything else you wanted to know? I'm an open book!

Possibly literally. They chose my coat and sweater color to match a journal I wrote that they introduced earlier in the story, before they'd decided what I was going to be like.

[14thcommander]

You know, I’m very sure there is, but I think I’ve grilled you enough for now.

[Ha ha. Foooord. What an odd duck, but plenty of people have called Hange a freak over the years; she can’t judge him for that. In fact, she prefers the strange.]

Thanks for taking an interest. I appreciate your kindness towards Betelgeuse and answering my questions.

[mothmansplaining]

[He'd like to think he's embraced his weirdness, that it's a part of his identity he's proud of, or at least not ashamed of. He'd like to think that, like Hange, he prefers it! Unfortunately, it can still be used to hurt him bad, if someone has a mind to.

He sets the tea down and extends a six-fingered hand for Hange to shake.]

You're welcome. Good luck out there.

[14thcommander]

[Hange has a firm, not brutal, grip, and keeps hold of his hand after the shake so she can turn his hand and look over the six fingers with mild interest. Polydactyly, neat, don't see that too much.]

Thanks. To you as well.