una_persson: (wisdom)
Una Persson, temporal adventuress ([personal profile] una_persson) wrote in [community profile] the_last_resort2015-02-27 08:38 am

Time travel and lousy life choices

Who: Una Persson and OPEN (with threads for Niko and Niles)
What: Life in Blackstaff
Where: Various places; see threadstarters, or feel free to start your own
When: In the week or so after the witch den expeditions and Una's punitive assignment
Warnings: TBD

truth_is_the_enemy: (broken a little)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-01 11:35 pm (UTC)(link)
"The resort is more comfortable than the Reaches, that's for certain. And the technology..." His face lit up. "It's amazing. Back home, aside from some scavenged Votan tech, I haven't seen anything like this, not even in New York."

He pointed to her music.

"People have managed to bring back records and record players. But I remember when I was a child, there was i...music. Something like that. You could keep whole collections, hundreds of albums, in a tiny portable computer. We lost all that in the war. Coming here feels a bit like returning to the past. Not that we had spawners and androids, but technology. Civilization. It's what humanity used to have."
truth_is_the_enemy: (amused)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-02 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
"Yes, yes, I had one of these!" He turned it over in his hands, the feel of it bringing back memories. "Or something very much like it."

A scrap of a tune popped into his mind, a musical phrase he hadn't thought about in decades. He hummed a few measures but couldn't remember the rest. It was on the edge of his thoughts, close, but he couldn't quite reach it.

"Even if technology itself doesn't make civilization, it feels to many like humanity has lost its heritage. Like Rome has fallen and we're all living in the Dark Ages now. Only instead of Moors, Celts, and Visigoths we have Indogenes, Irathians, and Castithans."

Not a perfect metaphor, but it conveyed the sense that once there was order and stability and power and greatness...and then there wasn't.
truth_is_the_enemy: (smugface)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-04 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
"For now, yes. But the Earth Republic is changing that. Slowly, perhaps, but it's bringing back civilization one little town at a time. And someday," he raised the mp3 player, "we might even have things again. Or maybe something even better."

He observed as Una's expression took on the cast of one whose thoughts were elsewhere.

"Have you seen similar destruction and devastation?"
truth_is_the_enemy: (shadow)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-05 04:29 am (UTC)(link)
Niles leaned forward.

"Not at all. I quite agree. Perhaps the curse of intelligence is the capacity to look at oneself and see everything that is vile. The mythical knowledge of good and evil that we got in the garden of Eden leads inevitably to the better parts of our nature wanting to smite ourselves right out of existence because evil is so intractably prevalent."

By the end of his words, his gaze was intense, lit up like either a madman or a preacher. His hands were fists, held close to his chest.
truth_is_the_enemy: (everything's going fine)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-06 03:08 am (UTC)(link)
He pulled back. Just because he felt fairly comfortable around Una, it didn't mean he should display the full nihilism on their second meeting. He switched back to charm and a well-practiced smile.

"The universe...or multiverse, is a much vaster place than a thought just a few days ago. So perhaps it's not a vain hope that somewhere out there such a place exists."
truth_is_the_enemy: (hand)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-08 10:01 am (UTC)(link)
Niles spread his hands in a shrug.

"When I was seven, I knew that aliens weren't real, the same way I knew that Santa Claus was't real. Then, when I was eight, there were aliens on the telly. Not on the science fiction shows but on the news, carrying out negotiations with the world governments and asking for refuge.

"And then when I was fifteen, the alien ambassador was assassinated, negotiations when to shtako, and the whole world fell apart. Votan terraforming tech cut across the planet, rendering whole swathes of the Earth unrecognizable. Earth might as well be an alien planet in a different universe now. So I may have never left the planet before, but this isn't my first new world. And the idea that universe might drop something unexpected, like a multiversal time travel, on a person's doorstep is one I've had a lifetime to get used to."
truth_is_the_enemy: (smugface)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-14 08:52 am (UTC)(link)
"I always love to receive a compliment." And he bows slightly and mimes tipping a hat in thanks.

"Are there any critical rules I need to know? You know, things like 'Don't go back in time and kill your grandfather' or anything like that. Is there an actual danger of making myself not exist or was that something that writers made up? Do I have to worry about stepping on a butterfly in ancient Rome, which, through some miraculous sequence of events causes Nazis to rule the world in the 20th century?"
truth_is_the_enemy: (shifty)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-17 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
"All right, no killing Hitler. But what about..." He nervously clenched and unclenched his fists. "...what about preventing the death of someone who should have died. If you can't kill Hitler can you, say, save JFK by taking him out of the timeline and bringing him to a nice little retirement in Blackstaff? Or, not even JFK, someone of less historical importance?"
truth_is_the_enemy: (thinking)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-18 02:56 am (UTC)(link)
"There was a...friend of mine. He died a little less than a year ago. It was a stupid, pointless death. I wasn't there at the time, but I heard about it later. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, got shot by Irathient terrorists."

Since Una was being direct, he opted to do her the courtesy of giving her the same. And it surely wasn't a shameful thing to want to save the life of someone important to him.

"So when someone says, hey, time travel is possible, you can't help but wonder..."
truth_is_the_enemy: (shadow)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-18 04:49 am (UTC)(link)
He smiled, even though Una's answer wasn't terribly optimistic.

"But it's possible. And that's all I need to know. I can be very patient. Even if it takes years, or longer, I can wait."

He'd been following Connor Lang since Niles was fifteen years old. Even if it took another twenty five years to save him, it would be worth it. Anything for the opportunity for him to tell Connor "It'll be all right." And then Connor will love him. And Amanda will love him, too, for saving Connor.
truth_is_the_enemy: (schmooz)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-20 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
"Understood. And thank you for your honesty on the matter."

He appreciated someone who, presented with a question on something that was very difficult and, perhaps, shouldn't be done (at least not without a great deal of thought and preparation and skill before hand) nevertheless didn't opt to take the easy way out and say that it couldn't be done.

"So, on a somewhat more lighthearted subject, tell me about the most exciting place you've ever travelled."
truth_is_the_enemy: (striding)

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-24 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
"Before my ignominious exile to the Dakota Reaches, I was aiming for an ambassadorial position, so you may assume that I'm grievously afflicted with that particular pathology."

He put a finger to his lips as he thought about the era she mentioned.

"Old empires falling, new empires rising. Boundaries redrawn. Yes, I can see how that would be very interesting to witness. But what's this about the End of Time? I didn't think time had an end."
truth_is_the_enemy: (official)

with the right journal this time

[personal profile] truth_is_the_enemy 2015-03-28 03:54 am (UTC)(link)
"It sounds like a fun party. Aside from the universe ending. That would put a bit of a damper on the end of the evening. 'So long, see you next week, oh no I won't because neither of us will exist any more.' Under the circumstances I can't blame them for wanting to get what enjoyment they can out of life while they have it."

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