ataraxion | First sight [text]

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First sight [text]

No sooner do I finish one interstellar voyage than I find myself the unwitting participant of a second one.
I hope, for all our sakes, that its ending is not quite as explosive as my first.
I have my misgivings about this ship, but sudden and catastrophic destruction is not one of them.
That would be too easy.

To the part-time residents of the two universes I've intimately familiarized myself with, hello again.
To everyone else, greetings. My name is Rose Lalonde.
I look forward to the new acquaintanceships, brotherhoods, and nemeses of the coming days here. I get the feeling that we're going to need them.
I have no intention of blindly submitting to the whims of whomever is in charge here. I shall proudly wear citrus as my hue of choice when it suits me. Noir doesn't feel especially appropriate given recent events.

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Sorry. Newly anthropomorphic robot. My mistake.

When the ship jumps, where does it go?

Relatively new, but yes. It's a bit harder to keep my thoughts organized without a system for it.

The jumps are a sort of faster-than-lightspeed travel. I'm unaware of how they work, unfortunately, as the technology is slightly beyond my grasp, but we generally "jump" forward in distance in a short amount of time, which is why we must all enter the gravity couches, in order to keep ourselves from suffering massive gravitational force and the lethal damage they cause.

Okay, but does the ship have any apparent vector, or pattern in destinations?

It's hard to tell, given that we are in a part of space - and possibly a universe - that none of us are particularly familiar with. We've only had one stop so far, and as there are no windows aboard the ship, it's quite hard to get your bearings.

I imagine that there is a specific destination we are heading towards, and according to our captain, the Tranquility left a place called Alexandria, though I'm unsure as to whether that was their original location or simply the last station they stopped at before we all arrived here.

Then that's something I'd like to look at, if there's a way to discern our position. Is there no sign of maps or charts on this ship?

Unfortunately, they were all deleted, or are otherwise inaccessible. At least, that is what the captain has said.

[Whether he knows it or not, HAL's expression belies his modicum of doubt over that. No ship would only have one copy of their maps and charts.]

[ She purses her lips. ] Yeah, that's definitely still worth investigating.

New question: where have the problems been in the first months of the voyage with a new crew? They don't appear to be with the people that I'd normally expect.

Hmm. I cannot report any problems; there have been some personal clashes, I believe, and a few crewmembers were penalized for stowing away on a transport down to Tansei Station, but other than that, I believe everything has been running smoothly.

That was one of the ship's only stops, correct? It seems a bit suspicious that this place has worked so well other than that.

[Pause.

He seems almost hesitant.]

I suppose I agree, though I imagine the ship's automatic processes served quite well between the disappearance of the first crew and our arrival here.

It just seems like a calm before the storm, that's all. Were we really brought here to make sure a ship is functioning correctly? I tend to doubt it.

I also think that our arrival here has more meaning than serving as the ship's new crew. However, until there is more information available, we will all have to do our best at the duties we do have in this particular universe.

[He considers it for a moment, then decides to crack some kind of joke. Sort of. AI don't really know how to do jokes.] I think it would be a waste of technology for us to be brought here, and some of us put into new bodies, simply so that we can perform relatively menial tasks that the automated systems should be capable of doing themselves.

[ Was that... supposed to be humor? She smiles a little. ] Not at all. I've known of far more inefficient uses of technology. Would you believe that I participated in an elaborate designed video game spanning a minimum of four universes, whose sole purpose was merely the creation of a universe?

[HAL frowns, slightly.] I would say that sounds like a remarkably inefficient use of what must be extremely advanced technology, but the creation of a universe, I imagine, would be far too complex to not warrant it. Who created the game?

I couldn't give you a name. [ So either she doesn't know or she won't tell him. ] It was heavily marketed by a gaming company on Earth and widely distributed. Other versions of it appeared on other universes, in subtly different forms.
The complexities extended from the mechanics of the game to the human psyche. While I have little doubt this was important, it was also extraneous to the game's ultimate purpose.

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