Ah, yes. I had dealings with someone who styled herself a cult leader, once.
[he's not so much oblivious as that his ego refuses to let him see that she's speaking of him. besides, namedropping will be a sure way to know if she's from Rapture]
Sophia Lamb. Absolute harridan of a woman. Quite a legend in her own mind, if I say so myself.
[Electrobolt crackles across her fingers again, brighter this time. She clenches her fist tighter, the knuckles white with the effort. She didn't disagree with Ryan. Her mother was a cult leader, and full of herself. But Andrew fucking Ryan wasn't gonna be the one to tell her that.]
Oh you think so?
[She is trying very hard to keep her voice even.]
Well. That actually reminds me of someone. A man who built a city to avoid the censor and the police state and then immediately became those things when he received any criticism or competition. So full of his own ego that he couldn't see the city he built crumbling around him. So hated that when he was killed by his own son, the crumbling city celebrated. Andrew Ryan was his name.
[his eyes grow hard. whoever this woman is, she was one of Atlas' people, there was no doubt about that. he knew he had made mistakes in the end: had admitted them to himself, if to no one else, long after Bill had fled and Sullivan had died. when there was no one left who would listen, save for the insane, the damned, and the dead. but something she says stops him short of anger, leaves him feeling as though something suddenly hollowed him out and left him cold.
she knew about his son. about his death. which meant that somehow, Rapture survived. somehow. even after he'd set the Hephaestus core to self-destruct.]
Do not tell me that Atlas ...
[he can't say 'won'. he can't physically bring himself to do it. he's having trouble breathing. the world is tilting a little.]
But are those caves not also a cage of their own? From a certain point of view, your experience is not entirely new, simply different. Especially if you are simply siding with this so-called God for convenience and benefit.
I'm not judging your choice - we all must make our own path in the direction of our own best interests, after all. Simply making an observation.
no, i would agree with you. it's a choice made specifically because of my prior experiences. i am quite used to trading personal freedoms for power and relative safety from a god.
in my world, we are all in debt to a man who calls himself God. he truly does have extensive power, moreso than any of us even with our magic. he gave us that magic, he resurrected billions of lives, he pulled our species from the brink of extinction. but he also is still a man with flaws and follies. most will never know this, as he's quite reclusive for reasons good and bad, but my past nine months were spent in his personal ship learning advanced necromancy straight from the lips of its inventor.
and while i appreciate your clarification, i am also quite used to being judged. other people's opinions do not affect me; i spend far too much time making careful choices to let anyone else's sway me.
I must admit, most of your tale is a bit beyond my ken, but I get the gist soundly enough.
You are wise and strong-willed, however, not to let the opinions and judgements of others deter you from your own chosen path. I take it that this ... advanced necromancy, whatever it is, was something you were learning for your own benefit and toward your own ends, not for the sake of your reclusive "God"?
for your edification, necromancy is both magic and science and involves controlling and making use of the energies of life and death. it is a core component of our culture, and necromancers enjoy a higher social standing than others due to their gifts, with the understanding that they make themselves useful to their Houses. it takes both natural talent and years of study to hone the skill, however.
i was a princess of my House and the greatest necromancer we've produced. i could lay claim to greatest of my generation, with perhaps only two other heirs to reach my heights, and one is quite dead.
to answer your question, yes, certainly by that point it was entirely for myself. perhaps some answered his call with altruistic intentions, but i've been working towards my own ends since i was quite small.
Thank you for the information. Magic is still a very new concept to me, but I am beginning to understand it a little at a time. Using the energy of a body after death is familiar to me - the scientists I knew and helped to fund called it ADAM.
I am glad to hear that you were working for your own benefit and edification. That is the only true path to success. Relying on or working for others only invites weakness and failure.
[strange for someone who personally knew God to say they also abhor organized religion, probably. or maybe not. knowing him means knowing how much he objectively sucks and how wrong everybody is.]
it does not, as i am from a five-digit year and a colony in space. :) but i appreciate the data nevertheless. it's very interesting how concentrated your general timespan seems to be here.
Indeed, and to your health. I just so happen to have a glass at hand to raise to you.
[Andrew doesn't think a thing of the apparent hypocrisy: he imagines if he actually got to meet someone considered a God, he'd hate them on principle as well. Sea of Stars help either the Fog or the Fourth if he ever does decide to strike up a conversation]
That is quite a difference in eras, I must say. But you raise a valid point. If these so-called Gods have all of time to choose from, they are being extremely selective. Almost as if their knowledge of their options is more limited than they would have us believe.
my current theory is there is something about that time period that makes the veil between worlds easier to pierce. far-flung outliers exist, like myself, or those from worlds entirely different than ours. but they seem to be significantly less common, and that leads me to believe there is something inherent to that time-and-place that make it a simpler task to sift through.
my preferred area of necromantic study was Resurrection theory and flesh-shaping, rather than spirit magic, so i am unfortunately not an expert. but one of my tutors was the very best in that field, and much of my training of late involved learning to traverse the other realm. obviously not everything will work the same way, it's quite evident the magics here are of an entirely different sort than my home. but nevertheless, the similarities intrigue.
[a conversation with someone with something substantial between their ears! it's food for his soul, to be sure, a good break from all of this Fourth God tripe he's been surrounded by playing it neutral and compliant]
A very rational approach to the problem: I commend you. I myself know very little of this 'multiple worlds' business, but as a man of reason, I can contend that since there is proof of it all around me, it must be so. A is A, after all.
It fascinates me that death would have so many facets. What have you to make of those of us here who are normally considered undead, such as myself? Before arriving in this blighted Fourth God city, I was what most call a 'vampire': an anglicized version of my own culture's word 'upir'.
well, i've an academic background. it's what i'm predisposed to. not to mention, i've never been one to simply complain idly, i like to actually solve problems, and that can't be done if you don't even know what they are or how they work. i can always appreciate meeting someone who simply accepts when they're out of their depth and what facts are laid out for them, rather than stubborn ones who insist on being loudly wrong.
i've read fictional stories of vampires before, but they were not a real phenomenon in my world. undead creatures certainly existed, but were largely byproducts of necromancy, for obvious reasons. most of us made use of skeletal constructs for general physical labor, especially in places that would be hazardous for a human being to be. however, they did not have any sort of sentience or free will - they were merely organic machines. we would program them for specific tasks and routines and do maintenance as they deteriorated over time.
ghosts are the lost spirit remains of those who died and did not find their way into the afterlife and thus the River. often byproducts of violent, unexpected death. could sometimes be tempted back to converse with the living, if appropriate offerings were made, but their cooperation was always short-lived.
revenants are the collective term for a ghost that has become deranged and feral, often as a result of possessing something and sticking around much longer than they ought to. just like a body without a soul cannot have true life or sentience, a soul without a body cannot maintain its sense of self and reason for very long. even revenants who haunt their own corpses generally can't maintain their sanity for any significant length of time, and become violent and aggressive.
my most recent training involved the culling of planetary ghosts and revenants, actually.
Those who act in the face of challenge or the unknown are those who will eventually triumph. Anyone who does otherwise or lets another do his thinking for him is simply a parasite.
Your necromancy skeletons are not unlike the repairmen of Rapture, who were also designed to work in more hazardous places. I was not involved in their engineering, but as one of the chief financiers of the project, I did get to see the process as it developed. And what some called "ghosts" in my city were simply memories which lingered in doses of ADAM due to the process by which it was harvested ...
Revenants, in particular, sound extremely difficult. Were there so many of them that a great deal of necromancers needed to be trained in that fashion?
oh, no, far from it. truthfully, there were only three revenants remaining of nine originally, but existing for ten thousand years made them obscenely powerful and dangerous. even looking directly upon them could drive you mad. that is the reason we were invited to become Lyctors - Saints, Hands of God, et cetera. all titles meaning the same thing; that we would achieve immortality and utter mastery of our magic beyond our wildest dreams, in exchange for dedicating our eternal lives to God's service, and fighting and ideally slaying these beasts.
their existence was a closely guarded secret, however. we were not informed of the second half of the deal until after the contract was made, nor of the fact that said beasts are inevitably drawn to Lyctors like moths to a flame.
[one of many, many reasons Ianthe thinks God is a motherfucker.]
a large part of our training involved the killing of planets, so as to produce a ghost to hunt in the spirit realm, while our mentors observed.
however, i am, as mentioned, an extreme outlier. my experience is almost wholly unique even among my culture; i had one single other student alongside me in Lyctor training. if you're wondering about the infinitely more common reasons for studying necromancy, it would be for the war effort. our mundane human enemies vastly outnumber the spectral planetary ones.
your repairmen, i assume, were mechanical? it seems metal automation is much more common in other non-magical cultures. was Rapture your kingdom?
Your God is a cruel and manipulative one to keep that sort of vital information from you. This is one of many reasons I myself do not put stock in gods, or kings for that matter. Only in men, and their own strength of mind and will.
You must have wanted that mastery quite dearly to promise yourself eternally to your God. You do not seem like a fanatical sort, if I may say so. I would be curious to know what turns such a rational mind as yours to that sort of pursuit.
But, yes, in part they were mechanical. And Rapture was my city - a stronghold built and hidden away from the rest of the world in order to protect its best and brightest minds from the blight of nuclear war. It was created underwater, so the repairmen were physioloigically and mentally bonded to diving suits so that they could be protected.
For the most part, most were prisoners: criminals who had committed grevious crimes agianst the people of Rapture: arsonists, looters, murderers. When their minds were genetically grafted to the armor, they were trained to obey certain fixed sets of rules and patterns of movement, so that their work was efficient and safe. We simply called them 'custodians' or 'metal workmen', but the general public decided to nickname them "Big Daddies", after popular slang of the day.
[oh, that is much more grim than she'd expected, goofy nickname aside. her empire at least had a veneer of respectability and care over the horror below. they had child soldiers, but voluntary ones, raised on propaganda. people weren't forced into being servitors, just their empty husks. but she's not about to get judgemental; no sense making him defensive when she can get far more information from him otherwise.]
i see. i suppose that is some interpretation of community service, and fulfills the goals both of needing a labor force and of preventing further crimes. engineering an underwater city with the science of your time is quite a feat. i will say also, your concerns were very likely correct; our God claims part of the Earth's demise was nuclear war, which is what necessitated our relocation to the other planets in our system.
as a royal and saint myself, i don't blame you for your feelings on those matters. bloodlines are only important where i am from because necromantic talent has a genetic component. otherwise the concept is quite useless. some of the most brilliant minds or talented hands i've met have come from commoner stock.
the problem is that God is also a man, with all the flaws and folly that entails. one who's lived for ten thousand years and has greater magical aptitude than any of us could ever hope to reach, but nevertheless. as such, i do not worship; it's more a political alliance. i wanted the power and prestige, and i have been given it. i don't appreciate being maneuvered into an extremely deadly game, but i can't say it's a surprise. my own private goals are much more likely to come true if i remain his ally - and his enemies, he's been chasing for those ten thousand years. i would rather not earn his ire until i've subsumed his power for myself.
[that is, again, a lot to parse, but easy enough to understand by the time he's finished carefully reading it over. he both loves and hates to hear that he was right - after all, how would there be any way to tell they were NOT from the same world? it could easily be so.]
I am sure you do not need me to tell you that your goals are clever and admirable, but I do find them so.
You would have done well in Rapture, I feel. Our brightest and best scientists had harnessed the power of genetics so that they were available to anyone who had the ambition to work hard enough to obtain them: if we had been aware of your necromancy, it would have likely become a spliceable gene.
As things were, we did develop genetically keyed locks, and a device called a Vita-Chamber which could reanimate those who lost their lives in the Civil War which regrettably marred my city.
[hysterical that his so-called paradise experienced a civil war. who could have forseen that happening. surely not him. thankfully ianthe knows to leave that well enough alone. powerful narcissistic men rarely appreciate having the obvious flaws in their reasoning pointed out to them.]
you're correct, but i appreciate your appraisal nevertheless.
fascinating. genetically keyed locks are one component of what we call blood wards. though they often do more than simply prevent entry, they can also cause horrible pain and death for trespassers if you're talented enough at the art.
full resurrection with mind, body and soul all intact was out of our grasp, unfortunately. that is one of god's exclusive abilities that i would very much like to learn, alongside perfect immortality and the creation of life. we can call souls back from the River. we can attach them to things, or even their own corpse, or carry them in our own bodies for a time. but we cannot fuse them perfectly to their old shells enough to undo the severing that occurs at the moment of death.
i would wonder if perhaps your machines were simply churning out copies with similarly memories, somehow, but we could not produce true life in this way either. your science outpaced ours in this respect, or perhaps souls work differently there.
[the River is such a Grecian, classical term in the midst of all this futuristic wonderment that it only makes Ianthe that more charming to him.]
It is a pity that current circumstances prohibit us from meeting in person. I would much like to discuss it in a more amenable setting and formally make your acquaintance.
Alas, whatever Suchong's secret to the vita-chambers was, he took it to his grave. For all his genius, the poor fool made a startlingly idiotic mistake with one of his other experiments.
It does, doesn't it. I do have to admit I've experienced it myself to an extent.
But yes, that's precisely what happened. He had created one creature to guard the other, and ... when he grew frustrated with its charge, it took him to be a threat. ... I saw the security footage. I didn't need to live my life with the knowledge of what a two-foot industrial drill can do to a man's chest, but ... I do, now.
[the intern, poor thing, just stammers something about having to go and relay it to his boss, but that the boss isn't going to be happy about it]
And he doesn't have to be. But that is simply the mandate of art: to exist regardless of the opinions of the unenlightened. Go on, then. Don't waste his time or ours standing there gawping at us as though you're attempting to catch flies, boy.
[Andrew waves him off, scowling, but the scowl melts as he turns back to Carol]
That will at least buy you a song's worth of peace, I should think.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
For Wakaba
Date: 26 Oct 2022 14:27 (UTC)You can simply touch the screen? ... Incredible. Then again, I would expect innovations so massive from forty years ahead of my time.
[he takes the phone back and taps around experimentally, looking at settings, other apps. the calculator, in particular, gets a raised eyebrow]
All this in something so small ... why, to run Rapture's security protocols we needed an entire building full of machinery. ... Thank you, young lady.
For Abigail - network
Date: 26 Oct 2022 14:31 (UTC)Bedeviled shocks! ... I presume you can guess what I was going to write.
no subject
Date: 27 Oct 2022 16:36 (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Oct 2022 18:37 (UTC)no subject
Date: 31 Oct 2022 23:31 (UTC)i'd appreciate any help, but tbh i don't know what anyone could do short of finding a way back to ryslig.
no subject
Date: 14 Nov 2022 04:43 (UTC)What word were you trying to type after saying you'd appreciate my help? All I see is "tbh".
no subject
Date: 23 Nov 2022 19:50 (UTC)[ Something she'll admit she's not the best at.
no subject
Date: 5 Dec 2022 03:38 (UTC)For Eleanor
Date: 29 Oct 2022 18:34 (UTC)[he's not so much oblivious as that his ego refuses to let him see that she's speaking of him. besides, namedropping will be a sure way to know if she's from Rapture]
Sophia Lamb. Absolute harridan of a woman. Quite a legend in her own mind, if I say so myself.
The lord is testing her
Date: 2 Nov 2022 23:17 (UTC)Oh you think so?
[She is trying very hard to keep her voice even.]
Well. That actually reminds me of someone. A man who built a city to avoid the censor and the police state and then immediately became those things when he received any criticism or competition. So full of his own ego that he couldn't see the city he built crumbling around him. So hated that when he was killed by his own son, the crumbling city celebrated. Andrew Ryan was his name.
CW: YEP SOME SPOILERS IN HERE
Date: 14 Nov 2022 04:49 (UTC)she knew about his son. about his death. which meant that somehow, Rapture survived. somehow. even after he'd set the Hephaestus core to self-destruct.]
Do not tell me that Atlas ...
[he can't say 'won'. he can't physically bring himself to do it. he's having trouble breathing. the world is tilting a little.]
For Harrow
Date: 29 Oct 2022 19:00 (UTC)But are those caves not also a cage of their own? From a certain point of view, your experience is not entirely new, simply different. Especially if you are simply siding with this so-called God for convenience and benefit.
I'm not judging your choice - we all must make our own path in the direction of our own best interests, after all. Simply making an observation.
<sanctumreverentia>
Date: 29 Oct 2022 20:01 (UTC)in my world, we are all in debt to a man who calls himself God. he truly does have extensive power, moreso than any of us even with our magic. he gave us that magic, he resurrected billions of lives, he pulled our species from the brink of extinction. but he also is still a man with flaws and follies. most will never know this, as he's quite reclusive for reasons good and bad, but my past nine months were spent in his personal ship learning advanced necromancy straight from the lips of its inventor.
and while i appreciate your clarification, i am also quite used to being judged. other people's opinions do not affect me; i spend far too much time making careful choices to let anyone else's sway me.
gods I was just doing AC and realized I misnamed poor Ianthe, sorry!!!
Date: 4 Nov 2022 04:26 (UTC)You are wise and strong-willed, however, not to let the opinions and judgements of others deter you from your own chosen path. I take it that this ... advanced necromancy, whatever it is, was something you were learning for your own benefit and toward your own ends, not for the sake of your reclusive "God"?
npnp!!
Date: 4 Nov 2022 06:41 (UTC)i was a princess of my House and the greatest necromancer we've produced. i could lay claim to greatest of my generation, with perhaps only two other heirs to reach my heights, and one is quite dead.
to answer your question, yes, certainly by that point it was entirely for myself. perhaps some answered his call with altruistic intentions, but i've been working towards my own ends since i was quite small.
these two are awful already and I love it
Date: 14 Nov 2022 05:02 (UTC)I am glad to hear that you were working for your own benefit and edification. That is the only true path to success. Relying on or working for others only invites weakness and failure.
no subject
Date: 15 Nov 2022 05:03 (UTC)certainly no one else is going to work on my behalf.
[she's had no one but herself to rely on her whole life.]
that is an interestingly religious-adjacent name for your scientific discovery.
ours were called thanergy (death) and thalergy (life).
am i correct in guessing you are also from earth and a four-digit year? it seems to be the most likely so far, in whom i've asked.
no subject
Date: 16 Nov 2022 22:07 (UTC)In my defense, I was not the one who named them. I personally abhor organized religion.
You are, however, correct. The year for me was 1960, not that it would necessarily mean anything to you.
no subject
Date: 1 Dec 2022 01:03 (UTC)[strange for someone who personally knew God to say they also abhor organized religion, probably. or maybe not. knowing him means knowing how much he objectively sucks and how wrong everybody is.]
it does not, as i am from a five-digit year and a colony in space. :)
but i appreciate the data nevertheless. it's very interesting how concentrated your general timespan seems to be here.
no subject
Date: 5 Dec 2022 01:16 (UTC)[Andrew doesn't think a thing of the apparent hypocrisy: he imagines if he actually got to meet someone considered a God, he'd hate them on principle as well. Sea of Stars help either the Fog or the Fourth if he ever does decide to strike up a conversation]
That is quite a difference in eras, I must say. But you raise a valid point. If these so-called Gods have all of time to choose from, they are being extremely selective. Almost as if their knowledge of their options is more limited than they would have us believe.
no subject
Date: 5 Dec 2022 01:44 (UTC)my preferred area of necromantic study was Resurrection theory and flesh-shaping, rather than spirit magic, so i am unfortunately not an expert. but one of my tutors was the very best in that field, and much of my training of late involved learning to traverse the other realm. obviously not everything will work the same way, it's quite evident the magics here are of an entirely different sort than my home. but nevertheless, the similarities intrigue.
no subject
Date: 5 Dec 2022 04:08 (UTC)A very rational approach to the problem: I commend you. I myself know very little of this 'multiple worlds' business, but as a man of reason, I can contend that since there is proof of it all around me, it must be so. A is A, after all.
It fascinates me that death would have so many facets. What have you to make of those of us here who are normally considered undead, such as myself? Before arriving in this blighted Fourth God city, I was what most call a 'vampire': an anglicized version of my own culture's word 'upir'.
no subject
Date: 5 Dec 2022 05:18 (UTC)i've read fictional stories of vampires before, but they were not a real phenomenon in my world. undead creatures certainly existed, but were largely byproducts of necromancy, for obvious reasons. most of us made use of skeletal constructs for general physical labor, especially in places that would be hazardous for a human being to be. however, they did not have any sort of sentience or free will - they were merely organic machines. we would program them for specific tasks and routines and do maintenance as they deteriorated over time.
ghosts are the lost spirit remains of those who died and did not find their way into the afterlife and thus the River. often byproducts of violent, unexpected death. could sometimes be tempted back to converse with the living, if appropriate offerings were made, but their cooperation was always short-lived.
revenants are the collective term for a ghost that has become deranged and feral, often as a result of possessing something and sticking around much longer than they ought to. just like a body without a soul cannot have true life or sentience, a soul without a body cannot maintain its sense of self and reason for very long. even revenants who haunt their own corpses generally can't maintain their sanity for any significant length of time, and become violent and aggressive.
my most recent training involved the culling of planetary ghosts and revenants, actually.
no subject
Date: 11 Dec 2022 04:49 (UTC)Your necromancy skeletons are not unlike the repairmen of Rapture, who were also designed to work in more hazardous places. I was not involved in their engineering, but as one of the chief financiers of the project, I did get to see the process as it developed. And what some called "ghosts" in my city were simply memories which lingered in doses of ADAM due to the process by which it was harvested ...
Revenants, in particular, sound extremely difficult. Were there so many of them that a great deal of necromancers needed to be trained in that fashion?
no subject
Date: 11 Dec 2022 05:29 (UTC)their existence was a closely guarded secret, however. we were not informed of the second half of the deal until after the contract was made, nor of the fact that said beasts are inevitably drawn to Lyctors like moths to a flame.
[one of many, many reasons Ianthe thinks God is a motherfucker.]
a large part of our training involved the killing of planets, so as to produce a ghost to hunt in the spirit realm, while our mentors observed.
however, i am, as mentioned, an extreme outlier. my experience is almost wholly unique even among my culture; i had one single other student alongside me in Lyctor training. if you're wondering about the infinitely more common reasons for studying necromancy, it would be for the war effort. our mundane human enemies vastly outnumber the spectral planetary ones.
your repairmen, i assume, were mechanical? it seems metal automation is much more common in other non-magical cultures. was Rapture your kingdom?
cw: body horror talk
Date: 11 Dec 2022 06:03 (UTC)You must have wanted that mastery quite dearly to promise yourself eternally to your God. You do not seem like a fanatical sort, if I may say so. I would be curious to know what turns such a rational mind as yours to that sort of pursuit.
But, yes, in part they were mechanical. And Rapture was my city - a stronghold built and hidden away from the rest of the world in order to protect its best and brightest minds from the blight of nuclear war. It was created underwater, so the repairmen were physioloigically and mentally bonded to diving suits so that they could be protected.
For the most part, most were prisoners: criminals who had committed grevious crimes agianst the people of Rapture: arsonists, looters, murderers. When their minds were genetically grafted to the armor, they were trained to obey certain fixed sets of rules and patterns of movement, so that their work was efficient and safe. We simply called them 'custodians' or 'metal workmen', but the general public decided to nickname them "Big Daddies", after popular slang of the day.
no subject
Date: 11 Dec 2022 06:30 (UTC)i see.
i suppose that is some interpretation of community service, and fulfills the goals both of needing a labor force and of preventing further crimes. engineering an underwater city with the science of your time is quite a feat. i will say also, your concerns were very likely correct; our God claims part of the Earth's demise was nuclear war, which is what necessitated our relocation to the other planets in our system.
as a royal and saint myself, i don't blame you for your feelings on those matters. bloodlines are only important where i am from because necromantic talent has a genetic component. otherwise the concept is quite useless. some of the most brilliant minds or talented hands i've met have come from commoner stock.
the problem is that God is also a man, with all the flaws and folly that entails. one who's lived for ten thousand years and has greater magical aptitude than any of us could ever hope to reach, but nevertheless. as such, i do not worship; it's more a political alliance. i wanted the power and prestige, and i have been given it. i don't appreciate being maneuvered into an extremely deadly game, but i can't say it's a surprise. my own private goals are much more likely to come true if i remain his ally - and his enemies, he's been chasing for those ten thousand years. i would rather not earn his ire until i've subsumed his power for myself.
[ultimate goal: vore god]
no subject
Date: 19 Dec 2022 14:35 (UTC)I am sure you do not need me to tell you that your goals are clever and admirable, but I do find them so.
You would have done well in Rapture, I feel. Our brightest and best scientists had harnessed the power of genetics so that they were available to anyone who had the ambition to work hard enough to obtain them: if we had been aware of your necromancy, it would have likely become a spliceable gene.
As things were, we did develop genetically keyed locks, and a device called a Vita-Chamber which could reanimate those who lost their lives in the Civil War which regrettably marred my city.
no subject
Date: 23 Dec 2022 04:30 (UTC)you're correct, but i appreciate your appraisal nevertheless.
fascinating. genetically keyed locks are one component of what we call blood wards. though they often do more than simply prevent entry, they can also cause horrible pain and death for trespassers if you're talented enough at the art.
full resurrection with mind, body and soul all intact was out of our grasp, unfortunately. that is one of god's exclusive abilities that i would very much like to learn, alongside perfect immortality and the creation of life. we can call souls back from the River. we can attach them to things, or even their own corpse, or carry them in our own bodies for a time. but we cannot fuse them perfectly to their old shells enough to undo the severing that occurs at the moment of death.
i would wonder if perhaps your machines were simply churning out copies with similarly memories, somehow, but we could not produce true life in this way either. your science outpaced ours in this respect, or perhaps souls work differently there.
no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2023 16:54 (UTC)It is a pity that current circumstances prohibit us from meeting in person. I would much like to discuss it in a more amenable setting and formally make your acquaintance.
Alas, whatever Suchong's secret to the vita-chambers was, he took it to his grave. For all his genius, the poor fool made a startlingly idiotic mistake with one of his other experiments.
<sanctumreverentia>
Date: 4 Jan 2023 21:33 (UTC)i can only assume one of them killed him, which is a frankly very expected result when your area of study is unstable monsters.
<AndrewRyan>
Date: 14 Jan 2023 06:31 (UTC)But yes, that's precisely what happened. He had created one creature to guard the other, and ... when he grew frustrated with its charge, it took him to be a threat. ... I saw the security footage. I didn't need to live my life with the knowledge of what a two-foot industrial drill can do to a man's chest, but ... I do, now.
For Carol
Date: 14 Nov 2022 04:40 (UTC)And he doesn't have to be. But that is simply the mandate of art: to exist regardless of the opinions of the unenlightened. Go on, then. Don't waste his time or ours standing there gawping at us as though you're attempting to catch flies, boy.
[Andrew waves him off, scowling, but the scowl melts as he turns back to Carol]
That will at least buy you a song's worth of peace, I should think.