wildestlands | making your insomnia everyone else's problem [video]

[ It's late, like, super late. Like 'if any of us had a clock to go off it'd probably read 3am' kind of late. The stars are shining clear in the sky and the only light on the feed is from the Heartstone, not even a fire. Wherever Cammie's settled, she's not right next to anyone else in the group for some reason or another.

Cammie is also, notably, not on any watch rotation. Also also, she's totally human, aka: neither nocturnal, nor able to get by without sleeping at all. She's fastening her ears back around her ponytail, as the live feed starts, which means she probably at least gave sleeping a go—there's even some makeshift blankets wrapped around her shoulders—but she's awake now, looking tired as anything but perky, too. Only the particular observant may note the slightly haunted look beneath the teenage bravado and energetic way she speaks. ]

Christ, I'm bored. What's a girl s'posed to do around here when it's too dark an' cold out to go on a walk or somethin', eh? Call me addicted to technology all ye like, but the Ether's a blessin' when—

[ She coughs, does not finish that sentence. She admits she's up because of nightmares and precedent from home tells her someone will stage an intervention. ]

Anyway. Some of youse must still be up, aye? Anyone wanna play like— what did people play before the Ether... —2 truths 1 lie? Truth or dare? Hell, I'd say 20 questions but I think the multiverse makes that kinda complicated. Imagine someone picks somethin' only found in their universe. Practically amounts to cheatin' and ye might not even know ye doin' it.

...but, seriously, I'm goin' out of my mind doin' nothin' right now, surely I cannae be the only one?

[ There's a nonzero chance this broadcast wakes up people who weren't, actually, already awake at 3am, but Cammie's decided that's worth the risk right now. Sorry everyone. ]

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[ Cammie… doesn’t actually have an answer to that comment, because, well, she’s not exactly wrong. Though this is rather a unique kind of kidnapping, compared to what she’d call kidnapping back home. But she decides doubling down isn’t the best option, here. ]

Right answer, wrong reason. It was actually my head that got torn off—though not this body, it was a robot proxy. To y’know, explain my bein’ alive an’ all.

[ She’s sure some species in the multiverse could survive that but she sure couldn’t! ]

Which is also the story with the getting-shot thing, right? Just shot in the robot body?

[Weird robot virtual reality might be a good explanation for all the weirdness going on here, actually. And-- assuming that the girl she's talking to isn't lying, which is absolutely not an assumption Mona will make-- she has an opportunity to talk to someone who's apparently familiar with them.] Does that hurt, by the way? Bad things happening to the robots?

Yeah, the gettin' shot thing's kinda par for the course when we're in the Holons. It's basically what they're for.

[ Which is what she's always said to the others—isn't that the point of going out in Holons, taking damage and being fine after? That she knows what being beheaded feels like doesn't matter that much when she's alive. ]

If shit only hits the armour, ye barely feel it. If somethin' damages the actual frame? Oh, yeah, hurts like nobody's business. Might be one of few folks around who knows what feeling some shit feels like without dyin' for it.

So it's about the same as if someone hit you in person? The armor stops it, but if it gets past it, you feel as if you got hurt?

[Definitely sounds like something that could describe the situation they're in now. Not like Mona's ever heard of something as advanced as that happening in real life, but she's obviously experiencing something, and magic bullshit virtual reality is preferable to some of the other options she's come up with.]

Can it look like real life too? Or is it obviously fake?

Pretty much, yeah. [ Cammie's head tilts slightly ] It is real life, when we're out in the robots themselves. Stuff can look a wee bit different through the artificial eyes, but—

[ Her brow furrows in thought, the robotic rabbit ears cocking slightly. ]

I mean, the virtual space we can retreat into is... that looks fake? But only 'cause it's a void. Our avatars in there look super real, so ye could probably build somethin' in there that'd look just as realistic?

[ That's an idea, actually. She's not, at all, reading further into the questions than the kind of curiosity she'd have. ]

--Oh, they're real robots?

[Mona's not sure why she assumed-- well, no, she does know why she assumed. Virtual reality seemed easier to pull off than building a functional robot that a person could log into and experience life as a proxy. And that's not even getting into where in real life a bunch of robots could get out and start shooting at each other.

For a second, she finds herself thinking "well, if everyone here is from different places and times, then maybe that's true where this girl is from." She stiffens up once she recognizes that, even if it was just for a moment, she started to take the premise of this place at face value. Risky, dangerous, idiotic. She needs to assume that the girl is lying, just telling a story to make Mona doubt herself and what's going on. She needs to focus on internal consistency and not realism. Two truths and a lie.]

Right, whatever. What's the point of the robot battles? Like, is it a future space war or a battle royale type of sitch?

Future war, but not in space. Big world war, been goin' on a few years now. We're fightin' these fuckers called the Union, they use this horrid shite called nanotech that destroys organic matter, so...

[ She spreads her hands in a 'well' sort of gesture. ]

Robots got no organic parts. They can't damage us in 'em.

Gotcha. So the different sort of sci-fi nerd war.

[There we go, something absurd and unbelievable. Mona feels more comfortable with the conversation now. Just a story about robots, with its own internal consistency, made up with the exclusive purpose of tricking Mona into believing something like a magical forest full of people from other worlds. She might as well enjoy listening to what people have come up with.]

Makes sense. [It's said matter-of-factly, not overtly patronizing. Mona has always loved fantasy stories.] So what, humans are hiding out in bunkers or something and you send yourself into these robots to fight back? Kind of reverse-Terminator.

Nah, there's still some safe areas an' there's even still ordinary ground troops 'cause we cannae be everywhere the war is. There's only the five of us, ye gotta have like— a certain kind of brain structure? To operate them? So...

[ Well, seven, technically. Only, Leon's in a coma now because he was too old so uploading fucked him up, and Sinclair went missing. So. Five. ]

Wait, so they're still sending normies out there in person even with the human-eating nanotech? That blows. Not to make you guys responsible for the entire thing, but that's a real bummer.

[Mona is interested despite herself-- it's a good story.]

Can't they use, like, droids or whatever?

Sometimes they scrap it out the old fashioned way, no nano, but— yeah, it's a right risky choice, really, isn't it.

[ Honestly to Cammie that sounds like a good point and now she's wondering why there's still so many ground troops, but she doesn't pretend to know that much about military tactics even now. Colonel Marin probably has a reason, probably. ]

Lot of 'em get to go out in Striders, at least? Which are like, armoured walkers. Lot slower and not humanoid like our robots. People pilot 'em and they're sealed against nano, unless the windshield gets bust but it's better than nothin'.

making your insomnia everyone else's problem [video]

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