Piper 90: Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goneawaymod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
goneawaymod) wrote in goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
3..2...1...CONTACT!
Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.
Contact.
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.
The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.
Contact.
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.
The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]
no subject
"I don't remember the barrier breaking, but I think it's likely it did break when I was far away enough" she shrugs. Although she's a decent person and empathizes with other people quite a bit, Shelley doesn't seem to bat an eye at the loss of strangers' lives. She doesn't like killing, of course! And she's going to feel sickened and sad if someone dies in front of her! But it all sure would be out of her mind in mere minutes unless it was someone she knew. "You see, what happened...maybe it's easier if you see it yourself, but..."
Shelley asks:
"Have you heard of Poseidon? The god, the big guy said to be in charge of the sea in Greek mythology"
no subject
<You can direct the course of this and focus on a different memory, if you like. I fully understand if you would prefer not to.> Memory sharing is some difficult business. He's not comfortable with the very concept itself, the way it's so involuntary here.
Alloran makes a gesture with one hand, then remembers how humans do it and shakes his head in a stiff, not-that-natural way. <All I know about human mythology is that a popular variant requires the symbolic sacrifice and consumption of an infant, I'm afraid.>
no subject
She was moving away from her hometown, possibly for the rest of her life. If she started remembering her friends, the life she had, the calmer days amidst the weirdness...she may want to return. She doesn't want to go back yet, seeing calmer memories would make her too nostalgic. At least the adventures themselves may...provide enough of a distraction to not think about what she's leaving behind.
"It'll be fine! It's not a great memory but I have thick skin, I can handle it"
Definitely a lie, she's not thick-skinned at all. Still, fake it until you make it!
The submarine passes through the port on the side of the dome, floating onto the sea. Below them, the submarine takes course a wavy line away from the underwater city, moving up and down like a rollercoaster, controlled by very inexperienced hands. Driving submarines was never in Shelley's resume and nobody else inside decided to take her place.
"I didn't see any altars for sacrificing babies, but I can't promise these guys weren't doing that. Maybe they were! Because..."
She waves a finger, pointing at the ground underneath the domed city. Plumes of sand are starting to appear, bluish rock peeking through.
"...he's right there. They built the city on Poseidon's back. I'm sure he wasn't too happy there was a civil war happening right above his spine"
no subject
The water seems to close over them in a briny, unpleasant way, but the memory isn't about drowning, freezing, or being washed away from the submarine, so they stay on the roof as if still in air. Alloran braces his four hooves and brings a coil of his very long tail to touch down behind him for stability during maneuvers. He's grimacing - hard to tell in someone with no mouth, but his main eyes are slightly lidded and his ears are drawn back against his head. Bad associations with being deep underwater, which might just end up overtaking this sight - there's a flicker of a shallower sea with a purple kelp forest looming around and above.
<That seems unwise,> he says tightly.
no subject
"It's so strange to think I was there to witness the last moments of a fabled civilization. Some of them in there wanted to go to the surface, you know? So I suppose a few of them knew building your homes on the back of a god is a terrible idea"
Shelley doesn't mention how the submarine was property of that faction. Yeah, Shelley and her friends pretty much stole it. Technically, it was Shelley's fault their civil war exploded like that. It was going to happen anyway, probably, but she sure accidentally made it all reach its boiling point far quicker than it'd have otherwise.
Shelley Winters brings trouble wherever she goes, most times by accident, really. That's why she looks faintly guilty, glad the memory had the decency to not show her carelessness -- but seeing something you caused, destroying so much, is an unwelcome reminder your actions have consequences.
The god is soon left behind, out of sight behind metric tons of water, and the submarine soon is stable, making it a far smoother ride from there on.
"This kind of thing happens to me all the time. Honestly? Jorgmund 'hiring' me so far has been relatively harmless! I mean, they haven't made you all find civilizations and then see them die like this, right?"
...she hopes the answer is no, at least!
no subject
The memory really wants to change over and show a kelp forest, a calmer, warmer seascape with fewer currents. An alien sea slug with a soft dog-sized body like an eye, trailing rodlike yellow tentacles like absurdly long eyelashes, appears to look curiously at them. That memory is about drowning, or nearly, so it's a little bit painful to breathe when the eye or the kelp are visible. Alloran's closed his main eyes, not wanting to revisit it in company.
Distantly, he says, <They don't have any scruples against it. Their principal interest is profit to themselves, or rather, their leadership. They would gladly and deliberately destroy ...civilizations for this, or if they were inconvenienced. The opinion of the civilians they claim to be working in service of still means enough that they must pretend to be benign when there's much chance of information getting back to them, though.>
no subject
And she's forced to work for them. Well, perhaps if she thinks of Jorgmund as a really corrupt, harmful company working for their own profit she can cope with anything that happens. Life is all about framing! With the right mindset, even the worst problems can look less daunting than they are.
Once the surroundings start changing into a kelp forest, Shelley looks around with inquisitive expression. She doesn't remember any of this...and while that may be because of the adrenaline of having to leave a crumbling civilization all of a sudden, she's pretty sure the sea slugs are unforgettable! Amazing!
"...is this all your doing? Are you from a sea world?"
Did she somehow witness that particular memory with someone from underwater? Apparently she thinks someone like Alloran could feasibly live underwater. When it's about anyone that's very obviously not human, anything is possible!
no subject
This one is much smaller than Atlantis, containing a plot of land maybe the size of a large house, filled with long grass and small trees. It's flooding dramatically and sinking, the air gushing in white bubbles up from an opening nearby. An animal somewhat like an Andalite but smaller and more streamlined, almost anteater-shaped, is swimming circles inside, breathing the diminishing air. The eye-slug's body is rippling as it keeps pace, seeming to gaze in curiously.
Look up and there's the underside of a floating platform, part of it ring-shaped and the right size to have been fixed to the dome. The lower bodies of spiky reptilian aliens, kept at the surface by essentially life vests, are visible treading water.
<If the last memory is grazed out, I suppose we must move to another one, and this is it,> Alloran says, disgruntled. <My wife and her shorm, that is her trusted blade-partner, are marine xenobiologists.>
Despite the strain in his usually-dry voice there's pride there too. <They were on a field assignment on... whatever this rock was called when I was captured by the Yeerks. Yeerks seize control of the minds and bodies of people like you and I, and they wanted my family as well. But Jahar is brilliant and Nasill is practical. They trapped us. We nearly died. That, there, is me under the Visser's control, in morph as a djabala.>
no subject
Shelley looks around with a lot of interest, walking on the dome as if she feared disturbing the being inside, her eyes sparkle with curiosity, mingling with the obvious horror the thought of something taking over your mind and body brings.
"That's horrible! Why would they do such a thing? Is it for survival or do they just...do that for fun?"
Depends on how sapient Yeerks are, she thinks. Sure sound like parasites, one way or another. Parasites who almost caused the deaths of a family. Her thoughts are very unkind about them already -- something about the possibility of being under someone's control hits a sore spot in her.
no subject
One of the reptilian aliens, seven feet tall and very spiky, has shed her flotation device and sinks rapidly, bubbles clinging to her head and snake neck. She lands on the dome and nearly slides off, managing to dig in her ankle blades and claw her way to the opening. When the djabala can finally swim free, she grabs it and pushes off, kicking ineffectually for the surface. It seems like she can't swim.
<Throw me,> the djabala says, in Alloran's voice but colder, more intent tones. The Hork-Bajir does so like the smaller alien is a basketball to pass, and can then move her arms and try to claw through the water. They're just too deep now.
<Some of both. They survive in murky ponds and crave our senses and hands. Oh, they're people, like anyone else, they have the whole spectrum of morality happening that you see in anyone, but mostly the better ones don't take hosts. Of course I was taken by one of the worst. Look at him. One of his people sacrificed her life, and her host's, for him and doesn't even care.> The morphed animal swims towards the surface, tail rippling. Alloran and Shelley also rise to match, standing on nothing in particular, and get to share a certain feeling of tightness, though there's not any actual problem with breathing.
no subject
"That's so cold..."
And cruel. That was such a casual way of leaving someone else behind! She turns her head at Alloran, inquisitive.
"But you're fine now, aren't you? So he must have left you at some point, and now you're yourself again. Right?"
She can't help it, she gets her guard up a little, as if Alloran would just casually reply the opposite and reveal that no, he still has a controlling form of life in him. Even if that were the case there's no way he'd admit it like that, she supposes.
no subject
The eye-slug circles the djabala and starts darting its eyelash tentacles in and out, stinging the swimming animal. Memory-Alloran and the Yeerk controlling him have a conversation about it, about venom and whether animals usually attack strange aliens. Somehow, neither voice sounds quite like the present version. The Alloran of memory 'sounds' like he's talking from the bottom of a well, or the other side of a wall, and yet his voice is full of anger and frustration. He's not tired in the same way.
<It took twenty-four years. I don't think I'll ever be who I was again, really, and 'fine' probably isn't the right word, but I am free. And I do have humans to thank for it, so as aggravating as the situation with Jorgumand is...> He turns a seven-fingered hand palm up, a version of a shrug.