I'll send an SOS to the world

[astrogator]

Who: Everyone who wants to!
What: Messages for the outside, NOVEMBER PLOT
When: Mid-October onwards
Where: By Phil's signpost, the lounge, Ari's cabin
Warnings: None yet, will update as needed
Notes: Credit to Batya for the first prompt!



1. Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore

A day or two after the signpost goes up, a small table shows up next to it, with a large blank notebook from Sundries. It has been labeled on the front, in careful printing: MAIL CALL.

A nearby note, in the same printing, reads:

If you could send a message back home, or onward to the next place you want to go, what would it say? Write it here for posterity.

Pens and markers are available, in a tall cup scavenged from the buffet table.

2. Only hope can keep me together

In the second half of October, Ari will be in the lounge and other communal areas with her laptop. Anyone who passes by, whether she knows them well or not, will be asked to help her with a project. She doesn't want anyone to be forgotten, she says. She wants a record, because existence is so uncertain. Her injury made her value the people here on the ship more, she'll say, - and the bandage still around her head might speak to that. She encourages people to let her make a recording of them, talking about themselves.

'We can do it however you like,' she'll say. 'Flatvid, looking direct into the camera, or I can activate the holorecorders, give you your own holovid. If you don't know what to say, I'll ask questions. Please?' Are you really going to turn down the earnest young Tradeliner?

3. Sendin' out an SOS

Late in October, Ari calls a meeting of her co-conspirators. She gives them each a different time to arrive at her cabin, so the first arrivals will get to spend time helping with video editing or rocket construction while they await the others. There's time for private chat - but when everyone who decided to come along should be there, discussion begins in earnest.

[ooc: prompts divided up below for organisational purposes; contact me or Batya if you'd like to do something different!]

Comments

[astrogator]

It took Tayrey by surprise when Erin asked for help to record a message for the notebook. She didn't give anything away, though, quickly realising that no connection was likely to be made between the two projects unless she started to make a fuss about it now. There was no good reason to refuse, and so she agreed, readily, and set up for flatvid recording. It made sense. Earthers weren't used to being seen from all angles!

Almost instantly she realises that the footage will be useless for her true purpose. Erin is addressing herself, and in a very specific way that means it can't be passed off as dear flatvid diary reflections.

She will be omitting any mention of other selves from the material she sends outside. At best, it's confusing, and at worst, their potential rescuers will take the stance that Ari detests - that everyone here is some copy with no history, no home, whose life is worthless except as a source of fuel. Then there will be no rescue.

Nonetheless, Tayrey doesn't interrupt. Yes, this project is a cover to gather material for her the distress call she'll be sending out, but she is beginning to feel a sense of duty over it, too. That the other prisoners will have the records that they were promised, intact, to look back on, regardless of what else she does with it. Witnessing Erin's heartfelt, very personal message only reinforces that.

When it's done, she switches off the camera, and squats down next to Erin. 'It must have been tough, saying all that. I've got it now. I'll put it on disc, and you'll know it's there.' She's resisting the temptation to ask about some of the things Erin said, because her message, like many of the others, seems intensely private somehow.

[ooc: as discussed, I'm good with all this! <3]

[crushed_pearls]

"Being your own enemy doesn't help with making peace, weirdly enough." A shuddering breath, a sigh. "...I don't expect it to arrive. My Earth seems to be the odd one out, who fuckin' even knows how to target it, but..."

[astrogator]

'That's not the point,' she says quietly. 'No more than those signposts are going to lead anyone home. None of it's going to arrive on our homeworlds, but it's going to be there. On this ship. Proof that we were here and we mattered. At least I think that's the point.'

She pauses for a moment. 'I guess it's harder for you, not being able to read what everyone else wrote. It's... it's really something, all put together like that.'

[crushed_pearls]

"I've considered putting on eyes for it, but..." Erin shrugs, softly. "The future feels like a lot when you don't have the present handled." At long last Erin lifts her head from her hands, and flashes Tayrey a wan half-smile. "I realize you've gotta be curious. I tossed out a lot of proper nouns just now, so. Feel free to ask about anything but Colors."

The thought of losing her loves here is already so much; talking about the one she lost by getting here would be crossing the line.

[astrogator]

She shrugs. 'Sometimes hope for the future is the only thing that makes the present remotely bearable.' But Ari's opinions on their current situation are already known to Erin. No need to drag all that up again.

'I'm curious,' she admits. 'So I'll ask, but anything gets too personal and you've got to feel free to say shut up about that, Tayrey.' She gives the other woman a small smile.

'Let's see-' she thinks back. Her short-term recall is fairly good, even with the unfamiliar. An asset on a starship. 'Valks and lords unbidden? Lolita? I'm guessing that "ultraterrestrial" is close to what I'd call "upsystem".'

Upwards from the planet. Not entirely accurate, but who has the right words for this sort of thing?

'Oh, and who's Ramona and why did you fight?'

[crushed_pearls]

Erin laughs and shakes her head, but her small smile is fond. She rests her arms on her knees. "Easy asks first. 'Ultraterrestrial' is the current leader for scientific terms describing another dimension - the Hedge, L-Space, that kinda deal. We barely have space flight so all our terms for somewhere else reference Earth or, from the Greek," she pauses to visibly concentrate, "Terra. Fucking translation field..."

[astrogator]

'That came through,' she confirms. 'Terra. Sure, the translation can be frustrating as anything, but even with it, it's hard to make ourselves understood sometimes. Without it?' Tayrey shakes her head, amused. 'I'd be stuck trying to remember first contact procedure, which is just... a lot of mathematics and miming.'

Tayrey settles on the ground next to Erin. 'I guess our terms are relative, with planets being down? So if you go from a planet to its orbiting station, that's upstation, but if you're coming to it from outside its solar system, you're going downstation. Although with L-space we have inward and outward transition instead, because it isn't the same dimensions... in Sector Standard we'd describe it as hyperdimensional space. The Hedge too, probably.'

(Of course, that in itself is a translation; Tayrey's not pushing hard enough for the actual Sector Standard word to be heard. But close enough.)

Then she frowns. 'Except we never had to come up with words for bubble universes. But I do catch your meaning, now.'

[crushed_pearls]

"We've got a specific term for something kinda like a bubble universe but it's losing the academic debate hard for being uh, wrong. Tesseract."

A distinct four-dimensional space. Technically a mechanical clock is one, hence the problem.

"It does strike me how much culture shapes customs. Even things like honoring the dead...y'all travel through many systems, of course you need language that reflects it. But we've got other questions to hike through so, Valks. The name their mother calls them is Task Force: VALKYRIE. They're my mortal government's monster hunters, or they were. Major spookshow, but like most government agencies their bark is way worse than their bite. My people are in bed with them out of political necessity these days."

[astrogator]

Tesseract is definitely wrong, thinks Tayrey. She's seen them in L-space and this is absolutely not one. They're in agreement that far, at least, so she nods in understanding.

The rest of it? She is trying her best with the cultural difference, but her eyes do widen at the notion of Erin's people being in bed with government agents. (Partnership contracts between families to seal inter-Company deals are very much a thing where she's from, even if the bedding is usually optional.) Tayrey's view of Earther government agencies is also somewhere between "waste of money" and "scarily oppressive" but at least she knows enough by now to surmise that view isn't exactly what Erin is trying to indicate.

'They hunt monsters and ghosts, and you're imagining that if your message did get back to your Earth, they'd intercept it. Which means- ah!' Her eyes light up for a moment, pleased she made the connection. 'You'd also be worried about the Freehold doing the same. Lords Unbidden. Winter.'

[crushed_pearls]

"Bingo." Erin's oddly pleased; there was a time when she wouldn't have expected it, at it's a nice mark of their friendship. "That's kinda their job. I'd be let down if they didn't with the everything going on."