001 ⇏ video

[oikodomae]

[ Hello network, this would be the first time you've seen Annabeth wide-spread, but she figured hanging around for two months was enough of a 'grace period' before she could show her face.

So here she is. Kind of tired, kind of going a little crazy. That's what you get for having demi-god ADHD powers and very little to expend your energy on. ]

I spoke with someone about this before, but I was curious- [ Her voice is fairly steady, maybe a little more serious sounding than she means it to. ] Since there are people from so many different universes and worlds, I was wondering. Do you have your own versions of...gods, I guess?

I'm not speaking religiously. Not necessarily. Mostly I mean beings of power. Greater powers than you'd have normally populating the world. Back home, we had...stories. Of Greek and Roman Gods. There were others, too, but those tended to take precedence in my life. [ Understatement? I'd say so. ] I'm just curious if there were any other variations out there. What they could do, whether or not they did it in the first place...

[ Annabeth trails off, her eyes drifting off to the side for less than a moment before they're back again, renewed with a sense of purpose. ]

I'd also like to speak with anyone on board who used to be these...beings. I don't want to call them gods, because that might mean something else in other places, but I'd like to know if you're here, and what possible changes have occurred since coming on board. It'd be appreciated.

[ And then she nods, having made her point, and shuts off the feed. ]

Comments

[cl_cl_claudius]

Oh, very p-poor ones, I should s-say, but I sup-p-pose considered as deities in f-fact as well as aspiration they w-were no more w-wicked or more quarrelsome than m-many other gods. [ He thinks of his grandmother as she was at the end of her years, looking back on all her misdeed not with anything so common as regret, but with such fear of damnation. I want to be a goddess. Promise me. For the gods had no need of morality. Claudius's smile is complex and carries with it terrible sadness. ] If y-you hail from a time after m-mine and know of Apollo you m-may have heard of us. My nephew Caligula c-claimed to be half of Olympus at one p-point or another.

[oikodomae]

Caligula... [She needs to think for a moment. The vast majority of her knowledge is of the myths and legends of the gods, but the same sounds so very familiar...]

Wasn't he a Roman Emperor? Succeeded...Tiberius, right?

[cl_cl_claudius]

Exactly so. Caligula did not declare his own godhood until some months after his rule began. [ You'd think - Claudius had thought - that kind of announcement would get someone removed from power, but...nope. ] He w-was assassinated f-four days before I w-was brought to the Tranquility.

[oikodomae]

And he was assassinated because they wanted to bring Rome back to a Republic, but the guard put Claudius on the throne. His-

[Wait a second. Wait a second.]

You're Claudius.

[Usually she's a little faster on the uptake than this.]

[cl_cl_claudius]

[ Little bow of acknowledgement, and a smile. ] That m-misfortune is mine. I had not yet been c-confirmed as Emperor when I w-w-was brought here to the Tranquility, but I am t-told I w-was, and that other emp-perors followed as I was unable to return Rome to a republic.

[ Also that he was named a god, too, eventually, but he's stubbornly refusing to believe that. ]