[video/action]

[candothat]

[The wee hours of Friday morning find Chekov, dressed in ill-fitting but time-period-appropriate clothing, on the roof of apartment building number twelve. He's sitting cross-legged on one of the long lawn chairs recently moved up there by Charlie with papers, pencils, a ruler, and goodness-knows what else in front of him and working by the dim glow of a light that, as far as the video shows, appears to be mounted on his network device.

Well, was working. Chekov studies the papers in front of him--what's on them will remain a mystery to the network--as he addresses his device, tone rather contemplative.]

Are there stories concerning what is beyond the City's barriers? I think that there must be something; there is a curvature to the horizon, as if we are on a planet. The area we may access would take up only a small amount of room on a planet, and I wonder what may be out there.

The sky, too, is peculiar. The moon and sun and stars look as they would on any planet with a rotational period of nearly twenty-four hours, appearing in the east and disappearing in the west. I do not think that this moon's features are the same as Earth's moon, but maybe I am mistaken. The stars flicker as they do on Earth when their light passes through the atmosphere. It is hard to see unaided, but I believe the stars are different colors--hot blue stars, cool red stars. It is all very like Earth.

What is odd is that I cannot find planets. Very few stars have only one planet orbiting them. [He looks up at the sky and then back down at the paper he's holding.] I cannot find familiar constellations, either, but that is to be expected.

With a telescope, maybe, I might find distant planets.

[Chekov pushes his papers and gadgets aside to stare at the early-morning sky, as if he can make sense of all of this by staring at it long enough.]

So that is all strange, but I am posting this mostly because I am curious: why would an advanced species--or whatever the deities may be--go to the trouble of creating an Earth-like planet with a moon and a sun and stars, but not put in other planets? Or, if this planet was here already, why is it so similar to Earth and why can we access only a small part of it? If the deities have trapped us here to observe our behavior, they constructed our cage oddly.

But then, of course, it is possible that everything beyond the barriers is illusory. Even a complex hologram would be relatively simple to create, given the right technology. I think that its maintenance would be problematic, but I am not a technologically or evolutionarily superior being with a human ant farm, so what can I know?

[He reaches for the network device and turns off the light. Little remains visible but stars and the faint glow of approaching daybreak.]

Deities, you are teasing us by showing us things we cannot reach. Very rude.

[petulantly] You might have also considered equipping this City with replicators.


[ooc: Action is cool if your character is insane and awake at weird times. Comments of the regular sort are awesome, too.]

Comments

[boutant]

What size telescope are you looking for? And what are replicators?

[ There's a pause to tuck some hair behind one ear before Ariadne continues, a pen held in one hand even while she uses her hands to talk now that she's not asking questions. ]

There's always the magic explanation, but I'll save that for someone who knows more about it than I do. Other than that, maintenance... Well, the City did sort of split into two for a while. It's not the sky itself, but it did show that maybe the deities don't have the control we think they do.

[candothat]

What telescopes are available?

[He's quite eager to talk about the conveniences of home.] Replicators! They are remarkable, and I regret not appreciating them at home! They make things--anything they are told to make. Sometimes they do not make it well, but they are useful. I mistook a... microwave? Microwave, yes, for a replicator. That was disappointing.

[Back to being Mature.]

I would like to know more about the desert. There were two cities...?

[boutant]

Probably nothing too large or high-powered, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be built. [ Ariadne is always looking for more projects. ]

Anything? [ She's quite eager to learn. ] Just inanimate objects, or...?

Sand started appearing in strange places at the end of January. Most curses only last a day or two, but it stuck around. Eventually we realized that things were turning into sand. In the middle of February, people ended up in one of the two cities -- one that was made of sand, with all sorts of desert creatures, and one that was made entirely of glass. Communication between the two cities was possible but there was a lot of interference, and travel between them was possible, but you either had to go through the deities and their paperwork process or go incredibly fast, if I remember correctly. [ The details of that last one were never explained to her, and she had more important things to worry about -- like the slugs. ] There were no curses on the desert side, but time passed twice as quickly as it did on the glass side, where there were curses. The glass side also slowly restored itself to normal while the desert side just seemed to keep crumbling.

[totallyinaband]

The Barrier came down once, but no one got that far out. There was a slight invasion of harpies.

[candothat]

A slight invasion? How many harpies constitutes a slight invasion?

[totallyinaband]

I didn't stay out long enough to count them.

voice; some time later

[conesoldstober]

And what is it you desire to replicate, Pavel?

[Yes, he still is in your living room, Chekov.]

voice;

[candothat]

Specifically, I would like suitable clothes, a standard-issue phaser, decent kvass, soleniye ogurscy, and okroshka, maybe with black tea.

Howl, are you still on my floor?

voice;

[conesoldstober]

I don't imagine your floor's moved in the interim, so I would have to say yes, I most certainly am.

Actually tea sounds just about brilliant at the moment. Where's your kettle?

1/2

[fatespoken]

Why do we place plastic castles into fishbowls? For the fish? No, for our own amusement. The same goes for the deities.

[ In his three and a half years here, Amory has studied the sky enough to know that the likelihood of those planets being illusory. But as one astronomer to another, he'll give Chekov the experience of discovering that himself. ]

2/2

[fatespoken]

I have a telescope.

[ And some notes if Chekov would like to compare, alas, Amory is not that friendly yet. ]

1/2

[candothat]

You keep fish as pets?

[candothat]

Are you an astronomer, sir?

[Chekov wouldn't be so rude as to ask to use a stranger's telescope, let alone look at his notes! Amory's safe.]

[likeboudica]

What is a replicator? [ Pause. ] I have never paid much attention to the sky here, is it very strange?

I'm going to assume that this is during the day...

[candothat]

A replicator is amazing and I do not know how humanity survives without them. It can produce clothes, food--anything that it has been programmed to know about. [He adopts an overly-dramatic air of sorrow.] And yet I have never encountered a replicator that was good at making traditional Russian food.

[And then he is serious, because the sky is serious business.]

It is not so strange as the rest of this dimension. I think it is most likely that most of what is outside of the barriers is a hologram.

[cheerfully] Are you occupied, Tessa?

audio: (because she's an insomniac)

[charring]

Having fun up there?

audio:

[candothat]

Eh, I am thinking too much to have fun. Also, there is a drunk man in my apartment.

Why are you awake so early? Have you slept well?

[prosopopoeia]

I 'ave spoken with a few concerning material replication, a difficult goal to achieve in zhe environment.

[Hasn't stopped her working on it.]

[candothat]

In this environment, Delacroix, or in all environments? [eagerly] I could help you, maybe.

video;

[nohometown]

We have such holograms, where I am from. Not quite so large or quite so sophisticated, but they are quite convincing. As a matter of fact, I have entertained the idea that this City might be something along those lines.

After what happened here recently, an entirely new City being formed slowly from glass while the old one simultaneously crumbled away into sand--well, it seems like more than a hologram. Manipulation of matter at the molecular level, perhaps?

video;

[candothat]

I like that idea, but I have been told that some have been outside of the barrier and, at least once, creatures have come from beyond the barrier. If it is a hologram, it may be a distant one.

From what I have heard, I think that this may have had something to do with linked parallel dimensions. Molecular level, yes. Quantum mechanics may have the only answer.

[signatures]

I know very little of astronomy, but there are plenty of monsters and the odd occasional magic well of water.

[candothat]

Magic wells of water?

voice;

[minigolfandsushi]

....good GOD you are a nerd.

voice;

[candothat]

I have been told so, yes.

Are you also on my floor? [Just asking, since Howl didn't... leave.]