Week 5

[airlockedmods]

[As with the weeks before, life in the Fantasy Sweet returns to something resembling normalcy with shocking efficiency. The second floor rest area and Adventure Zone Death Orb Room are spotless again, the demon glitter has been vacuumed, the deflated orbs have been replaced. It's like none of it ever happened, like three more friends aren't dead and stored away in the guest house morgue.

There's a new floor to explore, their "reward" for a job well done.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday



[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 4, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

Comments

[scourgingstars]

Wait. How would it be possible to just reconstruct all of that in some cases?

[specifically: starscourge]

And more to the point, what would happen to the originals in this theory of yours?

[misanthropicprinciple]

The originals keep going on with their lives, I guess. Or not, as the case may be. They'd have no reason to suspect they've been copied, and who knows how advanced 3-D printing actually is if they were able to make an entire living body for Church.

As for the rest... I admit, I don't know enough about magic to fathom how that might have been copied, apart from thinking that if, in your worlds, it's a particle with observable properties, maybe they really are just straight-up advanced enough to copy that, too.

The problem, of course, is our consciousnesses. Or, as Takumi called them, our I's. Our souls. Hypothetically, it could be possible to copy the patterns our thoughts and memories make on our brains, particularly with nanite technology, but that's not the only theory I have.

...Ardyn, do you remember when I started telling you about morphogenetic field theory?

[scourgingstars]

I do recall the concept. Like a twisted kind of telepathy, to put it in the simplest terms as I understood it.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Yeah. Or, well, that's one of the things morphogenetic field theory makes possible, if true.

The basic idea is that all thoughts and knowledge--everything that makes our minds 'us'--is stored not in our bodies, but in an invisible field our bodies access remotely. Uh, like Nishitani-san's remote-controlled car. If the car came around a corner and you couldn't see Nishitani-san, you'd have no idea the car's instructions weren't in the car itself. But instead, we know that the car's just receiving "thoughts" from its unseen brain--in this case, the remote.

Who's to say human minds don't work the same way? We'd have no way of knowing. If you kill a person--if you damage the receiver--it wouldn't be able to pick up those signals anymore. The way we perceive ourselves is basically the same.

But if there are two bodies... who's to say our consciousnesses couldn't access both at the same time?

[daughterofthemark]

...and this could be done even for someone who was already dead?

[misanthropicprinciple]

The morphogenetic field... isn't restricted by time the way our physical bodies are.

It's possible for someone who died in the past to reach out to someone in the future. If the connection is strong enough... they could use the information from the future to avert the tragedy of the past.

[daughterofthemark]

...or, perhaps, to cause it in the first place.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...Yeah. That too.

[daughterofthemark]

[But that's another thread, or will be in the morning when by brain is at full capacity and I can write it properly.]

...but they could create a new body, even when the original had already died?

[misanthropicprinciple]

I don't see why not. If their access to the body's consciousness isn't restricted by time and place, there's no reason to believe death at any point in time changes anything.

[daughterofthemark]

Then those who have been killed...

[...does she dare say it?]

[misanthropicprinciple]

...I don't... want to hope. But...

People here have already stated they remember being dead. If that's the case, then... yes. Yes, it's a possibility.

[daughterofthemark]

...then we have a new goal.

[shikosuki]

[ ???? ?????????????????????????? ] ..........................This is hurting my head. [ He knew he'd get a headache from this ]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Yeah. It's a lot of pseudosciencey bullshit, so maybe just take my word for it. I know what I'm talking about.

[serrata]

... then... if that's the case, where do you think our original bodies are right now? Are they just back home where they should be?

[ she looks queasy at the thought of it. What would that make her, then? Just a girl, a thing shaped like Yuuri Wakasa, borrowing her face and her name? ]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Probably? If they'd really gotten hold of our real bodies, there'd be no need for them to create copies. But it's not a perfect theory. I just don't know how else they could have switched our powers around or brought people back who remember dying.

I mean, not unless all of us are espers.

[serrata]

Then what does that make us here, now? If-- if we ever get out of here, are we going to be able to go back home?

[ She doesn't want to stay, obviously. Not in that dead, cold place. But her intention upon leaving this place has always been to find Kurumi, Miki and Yuki and follow the others to a better place.

If there's already a Yuuri Wakasa there... how can she ever go back? ]

[misanthropicprinciple]

If it really is something to do with the morphogenetic field, or even something like it--then yes.

That's sort of the idea behind it. Every possible you, at any point in time... is still you.

[serrata]

... right.

[ She likes how that sounds much more than 'clones'. Timelines and all that makes her feel less like a sack of meat wearing Yuuri Wakasa's face.

She studies his face carefully with the sort of expression someone wears while they're trying to work out if they should wade into potentially dangerous territory or not. ]

How do you... know all this? It's something to do with the games you were in before, isn't it?

[misanthropicprinciple]

...Yes. Ordinary humans... can't consciously access the morphogenetic field. They're still part of it, but it's not like they're aware of it. Only those with some natural ability can really learn things they wouldn't have otherwise known--you know, what we'd call espers. And even then, usually--usually it requires the additional boosts of danger and epiphany to get them there.

The point of the first game I was in--the main point, anyway--was to generate enough epiphanies under enough real, mortal peril to force one particular esper into accessing the field.

[serrata]

So you were just... the means to an end?

[ She'd thought that entertainment was a bad enough motive for something like this was bad enough. And it makes her feel queasy to think that this isn't even the first time it's happened. But... just using people like what, batteries?

It doesn't sit well with her. Not at all. ]

That's disgusting. Putting anyone in a game like this is, but... just for what? A quick boost to whatever their own powers were?

[ if you could boil down the feeling of "fight me" to a tone of voice, it would absolutely be Yuuri's voice right now. the idea that anyone would dare put Junpei through something through that is more than a little upsetting. ]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Uh. No. Um.

[Well, yes. He was the means to an end, but not in the way she's thinking.]

It was... so that he would have enough information, and... figure enough of it out to. To connect to the morphogenetic field, and... use everything he'd learned to save the life of his childhood friend, nine years before.

The Nonary Game I was in... wasn't the first one. She was just a kid, and because he could reach her, because he could give her the answers he'd figured out and the knowledge he'd gleaned from the others... she survived. The most tragic path history could take was averted.

[scourgingstars]

[ARE YOU S U R E, JUNPEI]

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Excuse, Church is the one insisting Scourge!You isn't the REAL you, Ardad. Junpei's more 'uh, no, you go ahead and take responsibility for that, but your world is bullshit and I don't blame you' about these things.]