Back Door (part 21)
Mr Zoat
Dedicated ragequitter
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9th July 2012
07:31 GMT
Oh.
-detected.
I try-
The ship's gone.
-to-
My construct's gone.
-step-
It hits me.
Armourarmourreinforcemyarmour!
I can see the flows of orange light from my rings pour into the mould of my construct even as the ravening qwa energy consumes it from the outside! I'm reading-. Every form of energy at once, and a few things that my rings' sensors are glitching trying to understand! A moment later I dully register more of the Reach's ships vanishing as the blinding wave annihilates them, but I think the initial wave has passed me-.
Then the qwa matter hits and my armour construct is gone and my armour is gone and I frantically pull my desires into my environmental shield as I feel the eldritch energy try to eat the very idea that a thing like me ever existed. That I could exist. My desire for autonomy against a force that wants to destroy everyone's desire for anything. My-.
My right arm's gone. I didn't even-.
Bodily integrity and self-image, not just mine but from the entire-.
And now I have no legs or nose.
Um.
The entire Leentniar species, the way things should be and must be-.
It's not enough. It's eating away at me. I'm surprised that my ring is still intact.
Well, if… Larfleeze's desires are still imprinted on his ring-.
What's a ring?
What's… What
am I seeing? I… Want to hide. For my people to hide. To keep away from the things that chase us, they chased our ancestors from wherever our home.. planet was. They're a threat, obviously, but it's the aliens around us that I'm concerned about. We have to harvest them before the Pursuers do, but there's a dreadful risk every time and I want to keep away from them and stay hidden. I want everyone to stay hidden.
Um. Nothing about that seems particularly unreasonable to me.
Who am I..? Hiding from? I mean, a name or something would be-.
GETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAY!
I'm moving, I'm moving fast but I don't know if I'm going in the right direction or the wrong direction. Something about that doesn't seem-.
HIDE!
I look around this weird… Orange… Place. There isn't really anywhere to hide, just a corridor and it's walls. But I must hide. I try gripping the wall-.
Turning big rocks into small rocks and ore. This is how the fleet survives. It's not interesting, but with patience it can still be satisfying.
Okay, so I'm mining while hiding and fleeing? That doesn't sound right. They don't sound like they're coming from the same place, and I'm not sure how to do them at the same time. I don't think there's anything to actually mine here. I can't see anything to flee from and hiding appears to be impossible as well.
Be a productive citizen, even when it's hard to work out what that means.
I certainly don't have anything against being a productive citizen. I'm getting the impression that I'm not meant to mindlessly obey these impulses. That… Idea resonates in a way that the others didn't. So… Fine? Maybe if I walk a little way down the corridor.
Aliens shouldn't be able to tell us what to do. We should kill them until they stop.
'Alien' is really a matter of perspective. I mean, something's resonating about the desire to kill people and not liking being controlled, but I don't think that something as terminal as 'kill them all' should be applied to a group just because it's a group.
No, it totally should. Individualism is the problem. Society can't work if individuals focus on themselves.
That… Didn't sound…
I look at myself, and see threads from the walls and floor and ceiling binding themselves to each other in a shape… I assume that shape is me? Weird orange voices, is that a normal shape?
It's a shape that it's right to identify with.
Thank you, I think? I don't know, though. I don't think I'm meant to be made of orange light like this. It feels off. And… I think I'm meant to know. That definitely feels like something I should be able to do.
Are any of these threads from… Me? Is that a thing it makes sense to ask?
I try… Pulling at… Me? But none of the threads feel much different in nature from the others. Each of them shows me flashes of things I could want, but nothing really.. settles.
This feels… No, this is very wrong. I'm not meant to be like this.
What am I?
No. No.
I want to be me.
Ugh-? A strand… Connected to my left hand tugs… Okay, um. I follow it, pulling it up from the floor as I go. That causes it to flow into me, some of the other strands falling away as I move through… Whatever this place is. And I feel… A little more like I think I should feel. Though I don't have any.. evidence of that. I've just got feelings to go on, but I suppose that's better than nothing.
Is there anything else that feels familiar? What else do I want?
Some of the not-me desires relate to other people. Do I have..? People? A group I'm part of? The desires make that seem normal, so I suppose
I want to be with my peers.
"I-Illustres?"
I want to know my own mind.
"Illustres?"
I want to know what that voice is.
"This makes no sense."
Which implies that the voice wants it to make sense. Where's the thread for that? No, no… There
"You're dead, but-."
I open my eyes to the blackness of space, a woman I think I recognise and an orange glow. She blinks in shock, the threads from her ring maintaining the orange glow around me.
"Illustres?"
"Perhaps. Who are you?"
07:31 GMT
Oh.
-detected.
I try-
The ship's gone.
-to-
My construct's gone.
-step-
It hits me.
Armourarmourreinforcemyarmour!
I can see the flows of orange light from my rings pour into the mould of my construct even as the ravening qwa energy consumes it from the outside! I'm reading-. Every form of energy at once, and a few things that my rings' sensors are glitching trying to understand! A moment later I dully register more of the Reach's ships vanishing as the blinding wave annihilates them, but I think the initial wave has passed me-.
Then the qwa matter hits and my armour construct is gone and my armour is gone and I frantically pull my desires into my environmental shield as I feel the eldritch energy try to eat the very idea that a thing like me ever existed. That I could exist. My desire for autonomy against a force that wants to destroy everyone's desire for anything. My-.
My right arm's gone. I didn't even-.
Bodily integrity and self-image, not just mine but from the entire-.
And now I have no legs or nose.
Um.
The entire Leentniar species, the way things should be and must be-.
It's not enough. It's eating away at me. I'm surprised that my ring is still intact.
Well, if… Larfleeze's desires are still imprinted on his ring-.
What's a ring?
What's… What
am I seeing? I… Want to hide. For my people to hide. To keep away from the things that chase us, they chased our ancestors from wherever our home.. planet was. They're a threat, obviously, but it's the aliens around us that I'm concerned about. We have to harvest them before the Pursuers do, but there's a dreadful risk every time and I want to keep away from them and stay hidden. I want everyone to stay hidden.
Um. Nothing about that seems particularly unreasonable to me.
Who am I..? Hiding from? I mean, a name or something would be-.
GETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAYGETAWAY!
I'm moving, I'm moving fast but I don't know if I'm going in the right direction or the wrong direction. Something about that doesn't seem-.
HIDE!
I look around this weird… Orange… Place. There isn't really anywhere to hide, just a corridor and it's walls. But I must hide. I try gripping the wall-.
Turning big rocks into small rocks and ore. This is how the fleet survives. It's not interesting, but with patience it can still be satisfying.
Okay, so I'm mining while hiding and fleeing? That doesn't sound right. They don't sound like they're coming from the same place, and I'm not sure how to do them at the same time. I don't think there's anything to actually mine here. I can't see anything to flee from and hiding appears to be impossible as well.
Be a productive citizen, even when it's hard to work out what that means.
I certainly don't have anything against being a productive citizen. I'm getting the impression that I'm not meant to mindlessly obey these impulses. That… Idea resonates in a way that the others didn't. So… Fine? Maybe if I walk a little way down the corridor.
Aliens shouldn't be able to tell us what to do. We should kill them until they stop.
'Alien' is really a matter of perspective. I mean, something's resonating about the desire to kill people and not liking being controlled, but I don't think that something as terminal as 'kill them all' should be applied to a group just because it's a group.
No, it totally should. Individualism is the problem. Society can't work if individuals focus on themselves.
That… Didn't sound…
I look at myself, and see threads from the walls and floor and ceiling binding themselves to each other in a shape… I assume that shape is me? Weird orange voices, is that a normal shape?
It's a shape that it's right to identify with.
Thank you, I think? I don't know, though. I don't think I'm meant to be made of orange light like this. It feels off. And… I think I'm meant to know. That definitely feels like something I should be able to do.
Are any of these threads from… Me? Is that a thing it makes sense to ask?
I try… Pulling at… Me? But none of the threads feel much different in nature from the others. Each of them shows me flashes of things I could want, but nothing really.. settles.
This feels… No, this is very wrong. I'm not meant to be like this.
What am I?
No. No.
I want to be me.
Ugh-? A strand… Connected to my left hand tugs… Okay, um. I follow it, pulling it up from the floor as I go. That causes it to flow into me, some of the other strands falling away as I move through… Whatever this place is. And I feel… A little more like I think I should feel. Though I don't have any.. evidence of that. I've just got feelings to go on, but I suppose that's better than nothing.
Is there anything else that feels familiar? What else do I want?
Some of the not-me desires relate to other people. Do I have..? People? A group I'm part of? The desires make that seem normal, so I suppose
I want to be with my peers.
"I-Illustres?"
I want to know my own mind.
"Illustres?"
I want to know what that voice is.
"This makes no sense."
Which implies that the voice wants it to make sense. Where's the thread for that? No, no… There
"You're dead, but-."
I open my eyes to the blackness of space, a woman I think I recognise and an orange glow. She blinks in shock, the threads from her ring maintaining the orange glow around me.
"Illustres?"
"Perhaps. Who are you?"
Last edited:
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