unfinishedlibrary | I'm not saying that it's aliens

Entry tags:

I'm not saying that it's aliens - TAKE A LOAD OFF, LOG 2

Who: Readers and Actors
What: Beta Story final log
When: November 28 - December 11
Where: Woodhurst (UK) and the SS Radiance (in space!), 2019
Content warnings: Please tag warnings in comment headers!

In Woodhurst:

There is quite a bit of confusion in the village as the weeks pass by- by now it is clear that some people are very much not themselves, and there are multiple theories as to why. Aliens, obviously- the really weird bit is that it’s not just certain edgy teens purporting this theory, but since there’s been some (alleged) activity previously, maybe they’ve come back! Some tourists (and perhaps some locals) have made signs of the ‘Take me with you!’ variety, mostly loitering in the town square or in the park, whenever they get chased out of one or the other.

Suffice it to say, those people aren’t being taken seriously by those in charge- though even they have to admit that something strange is going on. Prevailing theories amongst officials are ‘gas leakage’ and ‘water contamination,’ neither of which are suitable explanations but no one seems to want to think too hard on it. As a result, the friends and families of those acting out of sorts are in a strange position. Do they try to seek medical help? Wait and hope it sorts itself out? Or do they join the crowds bidding welcome to their potential alien guests, demanding their real loved ones return?

Visitors of all stripes might find themselves a bit more scrutinized, as a result. Didn’t a bunch of weird people show up just as people seemed to start changing? Readers and aliens alike had best be on their most normal behavior, or it’s possible they’ll get cornered by someone asking what’s happening, or… a fanatic who wants to be taken up into their spaceship. Some of whom have some weird questions about probes. Good luck figuring out what that’s about.

On the IMW Group Supply Ship: Radiance

Things are not all well further up in the atmosphere, either. The staff have had to deal with much more pushback than they were expecting, including some people who seemed to not enough understand the concept of mental health (which was not in the briefing- shouldn’t they have at least heard of it before?). A few cases also seem to be quite severe, involving a level of intervention that they weren’t really prepared for- but of course, they’re here, so they’re going to do the very best they can to get all the humans the help they need! Hopefully legally.

Most alarmingly, however, it seems there have been some kidnapping attempts! …Kidnapping attempts that didn’t involve them! Someone, or multiple someones, have managed to get the patients off the ship without first filling out their discharge paperwork, and that simply will not do. As a result, security is ramped up on the ship… sort of. There’s very little in the way of a security crew, after all, and it’s not like they can call in reinforcements. So mostly this means that there are some very tired counselors who have been put on hallway shifts, and everyone has been assigned a little name badge that they MUST wear at ALL TIMES.

(There are actual people guarding the shuttles now, but again… there’s only so much security. The real question is, do you really want to beat up the aliens who are just trying to help?)

To their credit, the various Group members are trying to listen to the concerns of the patients who are here… less than willingly, and are beginning to filter some cases back to the planet by request. But they are going to do it properly, which means the proper forms. A wrap up visit with their counselor, a form agreeing to be finished with treatment, a politely worded request to maybe not tell people about the aliens (it’s not an NDA, because the Group has never needed those, it’s really just a form asking if they’re going to talk about it so management can figure out how badly this is going to go). Oh, and would you mind filling out this survey about your experience?

Of course, not everyone is in a hurry to leave- or at least needs something to do while waiting for bits of paperwork to approve. All the regular classes and sessions are still going, and they even retrofitted one of the spas to have water instead of… whatever it was before. Now certified safe for humans!

[Information on what's available on the ship is in the first log; info post is here.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Just because you don't believe in something doesn't make it a lie. People can believe things!" Like about, uh, aliens? And the goodness in the world, and that everyone wants to be nice.

"You don't seem very amused. You seem sad, but also eager." Which is why perhaps the stranger was delaying this so much--as much as the lack of a private space for murdering.

The Night Haunter snorts. "If it were true it would be fact, not belief. Belief is fallible and inevitably fails." He leans back in his seat, stretching a little, as if it will somehow actually do anything about the discomfort of these plastek chairs, black eyes dropping back to the table top where cards lay waiting, half revealed and half not.

What was the point of even bothering with that? It wouldn't save the xenos. No information gleaned there would do any good. "Give it time." He'll find it amusing later. "Where were we?"

"But you don't see your thoughts as beliefs? Just the ones that are positive and nice?" That, sir, is a toxic thought loop. Tsang could help you with that.

Maybe you just hate optimism. Ever think of that? HUH? "Maybe your beliefs will also fail." There's a certain frenetic boldness because as Tsang has discovered, once you accept you're going to die, things you thought mattered...didn't so much. Because the 'what's the worst that could happen' was already happening.

"We are where you tell me about your childhood." See?

He hates optimism because good things never happen! "I form my thoughts and ideas by a lifetime of empirical evidence." If it can go badly it will, and usually he's at the root of it. "Little is there of 'positive and nice', and that often a mask for duplicity or manipulation."

Well. At least he beat Nostramo into submission, and for a while there had been nothing but serene silence and obedience. That had been nice. "I welcome my certainties failing. But they will not." Rare was the future he saw anything but wretchedly awful, and those glimpses of something brighter were fewer and fewer as the decades wore on and his power grew.

"Mm. Assumptions again. I did not have a childhood." What primarch did?

Ah HA. "Little of it may be nice in your world, but you can magnify the good, and perhaps create your own. You're not trapped by a cycle of negativity." Except of course he seems to be.

"You did, though. Everyone has. You did not...appear as an adult, as you are now." He might not be an expert, but that kind of...everything the stranger is is the result of trauma and that takes time!

"This grows to be another reason why your species deserves annihilation, if they are all as you are. I grow tired of repeating myself." Nothing changes. Nothing could change. Every moment of every step from now until the heat-death of the universe was already set in stone. All they could do was move along the path, helpless puppets in the puppet show.

He's simply unfortunate enough to be aware of it. "Very well. My earliest memory was my gestation capsule punching through the crust of my home world, finding myself within the mantle, and having to claw my way out through molten rock back to the surface. The fissure caused by the impact remains to this day."

That can't possibly be true. Can it? "A delightful 'childhood', wouldn't you say?"

Well, that's a way to feel like a failure on a cosmic level: to have one's entire people condemned to death simply by existing. Is Tsang the biggest loser in the known universe? It sure feels like it.

Still, it has a job to do and it's going to therapy for as long as it could distract the stranger. "That sounds terribly lonely." It truly did. "Who was your first caregiver?"

Tsang's species won't be the first to be erased. It won't be the last. "I have never had a caregiver." He does understand on some level that he should have. That every one of his brothers had something at least; even Russ had wolves. Lion eventually had the knighthood he joined. "Nostramo is not a planet that rewards taking on additional unwanted burdens, and you are imminently edible by those stronger than you."

...that pronoun use raises Tsang's poor little hackles. Was it edible? It did not want to find out. "Are...are you going to eat me?" Because the stranger absolutely was stronger than Tsang--its wrist was already coloring from the bruise of the other's tight grip.

Every time Tsang opens its mouth, his opinion of the creature drops further. Context alone should have made it obvious, but no, this creature was denser than a neutron star. "That is a generalized 'you'. If you were going to survive much longer I'd recommend more lessons on human languages and what context is, and how it shapes words being used."

Look. Grammar matters! It's by our word choices that we often reveal our psychological wounds!

And right now Tsang's is worrying about becoming Stranger Chow. Because that cup of soup did not look like enough to sustain the stranger. Should it want to be tasty? Or not? None of its classes ever covered this!

"So how did you survive, then?" Hopefully by not eating innocent graduate students.

"With difficulty." He hasn't even touched the soup yet! Or the meat pie thing! He would, probably, eventually. Or take a bite out of the alien, but that's less likely while Tsang is still alive. If he's going to bother, he'd be more interested in the inside bits than the outside ones. "Rats and stray dogs were usually enough to stave off hunger. Shelter was.. broadly unnecessary."

Find a hazard of the environment that'd actually kill a primarch. Good luck. "Occasionally those who thought I was an easy target for a meal would become one in return." Almost absently he runs the pad of his thumb across his nails, sharp and sturdy enough to be considered claws, even if a bit ragged. "I suspect if I did not spend quite so much time starving, I might have had the weight and bulk of my brothers. But one does not tip the scales over three hundred and fifty kilos on meals of rats and detritus." The cup of soup is considered. He really should eat it, it was given to him freely. Wasting it would be spitting in the face of unexpected generosity.

"Someone must have cared for you." It's not possible, as a little baby, to survive alone. It had seen videos of human development. They were quite helpless for some time! "Clothing? Food? Education?" These are all essential. Just look at Tsang and how it grew up. And that's still the bottom tier of Maslow's hierarchy!

Tsang isn't great with conversions so it takes it a second but..."That is very large for your species." And the stranger should take notice of freely given generosity. See? People were good! Also, Tsang was people.

It's very possible. Just not for baseline humans. "No. I had no need of conventional education beyond learning the tongue of Nostramo. I have already described where food comes from, and clothing is... broadly irrelevant when it rarely ceased raining."

He runs around with nothing but a cloak on half the time, on his own ship. Much to Shang's endless frustration, though his equerry knew better than to actually say anything about it. "You are suffering under a misapprehension, I'm afraid." He leans forward, smile brief and terribly savage, voice dropping. "As you wear a disguise, so too do I, though I at least am of human stock. This form I wear is less than half the size I should be." This would be a terrible thing to tell an enemy! ... If the enemy was going to survive the encounter. "I was able to take care of myself quite well from emergence on. I was all there ever was." And as he'd die alone one day, all there'd ever be. "It might have made things easier, as it did with my brothers. But I managed well enough on my own."

Aside from the starvation. Aside from having nowhere safe to rest, of having to dig bullets out of his own hide instead of relying on the kind hands of another. All the vital socializing and morality that could have come from early interaction with others in any way but violence and fury ... simply lost. What might he have been if even one person had reached out?

But none ever had, and he was as feral as the dogs he hunted for sustenance.

Is Tsang an enemy? Really? That would imply the tiny Revanian with its manbun and paint-stained fingers was some sort of actual threat.

"That's so sad, friend. It sounds like you never had a chance." Now the tears welling in its eyes are for the stranger, because it's honestly sad. It's so sad. "You have proven how strong you are, but you can also let that side rest, sometimes, and find out what else you could be." Self actualization! It's a good thing!

Tsang is an actual threat. What it is, and what it represents, and the ongoing issue of kidnapping people and forcing them to do things. Curze isn't fooled by the innocent act, xenos are gonna xenos. "I am not your friend," the Night Haunter points out gently. "I don't kill and flay friends."

He does have them. One. He has at least one friend, and has zero intention of ever taking a knife to that person! "That aside. I am what I was made to be. Whatever else I 'could be' is irrelevant, I don't want it. Leave such things to those who may still be alive once the fires burn out."

Are Earthlings so threatened by art therapy? If so, maybe they're fragile. Or need therapy.

"Maybe you could tell me about your friends." Another stalling tactic, but again, maybe the stranger would eventually have thoughts related to these questions.

"I think you sell your own potential short." Because everyone loves hearing about their potential, right?

The true reason Curze is going to skin this creature alive: he hates repeating himself. "I could, but I won't." Any and all information on his friends remains his own. Finally, finally he decides to do something about his long-cooled meal; it won't last long. "I think I've told you quite enough. More than I should, if you were going to have a chance to tell anyone else."

But he'll see to that himself soon enough. First: soup. No point in wasting it. "Is that drink all you intend to have before the end? I'm not sure what this place has to offer for meals ordinarily, but surely there's something." Could anyone truly have a nice dinner with all of this going on?

He can.

He doesn't have to repeat himself: he could endeavor to answer Tsang's questions from a mindset of healing and growth.

Tsang will keep that insight to itself, though, because further irritating the stranger did not seem wise. "But since you are determined that I die, why not trust me? It's not like I will live to tell anyone."

"It is very kind of you," Sort of? "but I find myself not hungry." Queasy is a better word. Still, the ice chunks are melting and that's a tripping hazard, so Tsang bends down to scoop some of them back into his empty cup.

"I have no way of knowing if your species is capable of telepathy amongst your own kind," the Night Haunter points out, watching an ice cube get herded into its cup. "Or if you're wearing a recording device of some form, or a simple vox interface. Such a risk is not worth taking given the scenario."

He's just biding his time, now. This joyless experience had only marginal benefits, and he would stretch them out as long as he could just to get something out of it. "A pity. Given the variety of drinks surely something would be edible." His own, untouched meal perhaps.

"It is strange, in retrospect, that you, or any of your kind, would be so bold as to think you could offer ... mm, what did you call it, 'therapy'? To an entirely different species. The arrogance alone is breathtaking."

"Sirma'am," because the other had still not given Tsang any way to address it, "Had I telepathy, don't you think I would have either summoned aid or already warned them away?"

But it takes the point. "You will not allow yourself to trust anyone. This is not just me. That's an excuse, whether you know it or not. If you would only allow yourself to confide in someone, you would find you had allies and friends." If he won't share, Tsang will just diagnose.

The meal talk is disturbing and it has to ask. "And am I going to be part of your meal?" Delectable Revanian? It probably needs some sort of dipping sauce.

Under its human disguise, its antenna droop. "Perhaps it was arrogance, but our intent was pure. Yours is a warlike race that fights among itself, and in that fighting many, many things are lost--those who could have created great art, or new inventions, or been...whatever, forced merely to hold weapons."

It will, one day, occur to him that he should actually introduce himself when not directly asked who he is. His reputation preceded him for so long that it just doesn't come up to conscious thought very often, and so 'Sirma'am' will continue to suffice simply because names aren't of import. At least, not the one he was given later in life. "Depending on how cunning your species are, waiting and gaining what information you can would be infinitely more valuable than providing warning or inciting conflict."

If this creature was capable of that level of guile. The jury was still out on that. "I don't intend to eat you. Contrary to rumor, it has unpleasant side effects I prefer to avoid." Not prion disease, either. Though that wasn't likely when eating an alien anyway. Curze emphatically has little interest in experiencing Tsang's last moments alive directly.

"If you know our history, then you should have taken it into account. You should already know how mankind reacts to deception by the Other, to their mates and offspring and progenitors being stolen away. You should know the eons of myth and legend about the creatures who do such things." Eons of myth and legend that often had root in alien invasion, he's fairly certain. The patterns remained. So many stories of the fey could be traced easily to Eldar predations. "But you didn't."

The level of guile Tsang personally is capable of hovers around a solid zero. It's not just the human costume, it's that he's as transparent as a glass of water. "I take it that the side effect is not that your people find it monstrous." It could HOPE, but wanly.

"I tell you no one is stolen. Everyone is returned. All one has to do is simply request return and we process them and return them safe and sound." It knows the stranger doesn't want to listen, and likely gets irritated by the repetition, but it is...attempting that thing it is no good at: guile. Deception.

"We mean you no harm." It leans forward as though to lay a hand on the stranger's hand, and then moves, as fast as it can, throwing the ice from its cup at the stranger's face, bolting toward the door.

It turns out that some prey still retains the self-preservation instinct to flee.

"My people are expected to regularly make use of eating others." That's the entire point of that particular organ, though perhaps peculiarly given their predilection for flaying, the Night Lords didn't often bother.

But there's a slow faint smile settling into place, the barest tips of sharp teeth showing. It takes remarkable skill indeed to actually surprise the Night Haunter, when flickers of the future are a near-constant thing. He doesn't move, he just waits. "And again, taking without permission is stealing. Kidnapping in this case."

Every move he makes over the next several seconds is calculated; as the bedraggled remains of ice are thrown at him and Tsang bolts for the door, he's just slow enough to abandon his own seat that it seems like the xenos therapist might have a chance to escape. The shout of 'hey!' from one of the other customers ignored entirely in favor of slinging one of the chairs after the fleeing form, sending it crashing through the glass window beside the door. The point is absolutely not to hit Tsang.

Just incentivize him, and dissuade anyone else from interfering beyond perhaps suddenly calling the police.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm not saying that it's aliens - TAKE A LOAD OFF, LOG 2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject