psychic bridge II (main jaunt --> humans)

[leftbehindagain]

I think we can all agree everything this jaunt chooses to be sucks, yes?

This is Naoki. I'd have checked in sooner, but I'm half-infiltrating, we didn't have reason to think there was a network divide until just now, and it's... already been a very busy week.

So. We know the midges are cameras, we know there are at least a few actors among us - it's far from everyone, but I think we've pinpointed at least two - we know everyone was delivered here from space after unknown time spent in a lab, and we know this is Earth. If anyone remembers whether Karachi is India or Pakistan, that's apparently roughly where we are, going off stuff someone found underwater. We have about twenty minutes to compare notes and start working on a plan.

(OOC: Up to fourteen Beastfolk-side investigators can join in on this discussion!)

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[razorblade_empress]

Finally.

[Someone's a tad stressed. Then again, her Jaunt experience started with a Moebius flashback, so.]

Okay, you know the reality show part already. That reality show is called the Mythic Saga, and it's been running up here for over four centuries. The corporation that produces it is called Orwell Productions - I'm assuming there's a reference there because that's how Jaunts seem to work these days - and they're quite a bit older than that. Orwell controls about 45% of the entertainment industry; their main rival controls 40%, and the remaining 15% is niche companies, most if not all of which are actually controlled by one or the other of those. That rival company, not incidentally, has a reality show of its own - a live broadcast of genetically recreated animal species on another terraformed part of Earth. More on that in a bit, because it's likely relevant to what Orwell's planning for your group.

Orwell and this other company have an agreement in place that both companies need to agree before any new terraforming is started on Earth - I'm guessing you know by now that most of it's currently uninhabitable. Humanity is confined to space stations and moonbases at this point - the three space stations are Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania. Human society is regimented and micromanaged all to hell, with extensive childhood tests that determine what your eventual job is going to be. Their entire lives are planned practically to the millisecond - there's a garden up here with strict time limits, for example - and there's almost no social mobility at all. Given that, it's probably not a surprise that entertainment is big business - it keeps the masses distracted, and gives them something they sort of control.

Anyway.

Orwell's been accused and cleared of shady shit from time to time, but it's always been buried - I didn't have time to do a really deep dive into their systems for more specifics. I did find stories about "extreme" body-mods which are now made "by permit only" - three guesses as to how legal that is, however carefully worded - and references to side effects and deaths. I'm pretty sure brainwashing is involved on some level, but you'd probably know better than I would on that score. I have been talking to someone up here who's slated to be sent down as an actor, though, and he noted that no one ever comes back from their stints on the show. The humans up here... a lot of them don't think the Mythics are even real, and the ones who do are under the impression that being retired without dying onscreen is basically like actual retirement - easy job, decent pension. I haven't been able to learn much about recruitment yet, but I highly doubt that's on the level either. I mean, we're dealing with a so-called entertainment company with access to terraforming and extreme body-mod and/or mind-altering technology at the very least. There's gotta be some reason people don't seem to be noticing any familiar faces among the "Mythics."

Meanwhile, that other nature show? That's doing really well. Really well. "Talking about sponsoring Very Expensive trips down to Earth so paying viewers can actually interact with the animals" really well. So far Orwell's response has been to sponsor a month-long viewing extravaganza bullshit thing where lucky winners get to spend a month watching unedited live feeds and answering goddamned surveys. One of the questions on this week's survey? Which of these natural disasters would you like to see.

[letsgetdowntobismuth]

You know what, I think we're all loving this one less and less with every new piece of crap we discover.

[She says like they didn't all hate it before it even started.]

You doing okay up there, girl?

[razorblade_empress]

What's to love?

[The humor's a bit weak.]

...Not really.

[letsgetdowntobismuth]

Hey, it's better to be in the lions den watching the prey than the other way around. You're a lot safer up there.

[razorblade_empress]

Yeah... I just have to watch everybody else go through it instead. And up to now I couldn't even tell any of you, much less stop any of it.

[letsgetdowntobismuth]

With the way this one feels like it might go, I don't think I can make any promises to be safe.

[Her tone shifts a little playful, trying to lighten the mood.] Especially since Riddick and I are gonna go hunting later. Nothing that fancy, it just sounds like a big bear.

[leftbehindagain]

I knew this sounded a little too Dr. Moreau for comfort. If there's any kind of silver lining here it's that we're probably not talking vivisection. [Probably. But Naoki wouldn't put it past the first experimenters to have tried. He doesn't say anything about Yukino's grumpiness - given how strongly Liminal was hitting the Moebius vibes, never mind everything that's happened since they got here, he can't blame her at all.]

Oh, lovely. At least I've got a good sideline in food preservation going, but what to do with it depends entirely on what they plan to drop on our heads. Whatever we come up with, I'm not going to count on us being able to pull it off before they do that.

[razorblade_empress]

Hopefully.

The listed choices were sandstorm, hurricane, earthquake and tsunami, or tornado. Which unfortunately does not preclude some dipshit or other adding a write-in.

[leftbehindagain]

Great. [You know. Not remotely great at all.]

We'd be best able to pick up and move on after a sandstorm, compared to the others, if they won't let you get away with 'none of them, I'm not here for manufactured suffering.'

[razorblade_empress]

I'll keep that in mind.

[waitatick]

It is indeed less than comforting.

My apologies; of those of us up here I believe I have the least information, though if anyone needs anything specific found out I'm fairly competent in such endeavors.

[razorblade_empress]

How are you at systems intrusion?

[waitatick]

Quite gifted, really. A great deal of experience in it, should it be necessary.

[razorblade_empress]

Do you have a computer on you you can work with? The complementary interfaces are nice, but I don't think I trust them for something like this.

[carbonatedscientist]

That's...completely and totally unacceptable.

I should go up there. Find where they're doing this, and shut them down.

[razorblade_empress]

[Oh for fuck's sake, not this. Didn't they just have a Jaunt full of people going off half-cocked to fight the goddamned ocean?]

And your plan to prevent reprisals against the Mythics or even the human population is...? Or to stop Orwell from spinning it as some kind of terrorist attack and turning the populace against us that way?

[carbonatedscientist]

[If he goes quiet for a little bit, well...he's actually had his actions framed as a terrorist attack to turn the population against him back home.]

Dammit, we can't just let them get away with this! If we could at least empower the population to seize some control back...

[razorblade_empress]

No, we can't. But we have to make sure we do it right - without giving them the opportunity to spin the narrative to something that will let them reassert control. And they will treat it as a narrative.

[And fuck, does she hate thinking of it in those terms.]

The news media's under tight control up here, but Orwell's cocky. They've had a lot of power for a long, long time and there hasn't been anyone to really challenge them. I think we can work with that; it's just a matter of figuring out how.

[thornsofmalkav]

George Orwell, probably. He wrote the book 1984, which is a pretty famous dystopia--and the whole Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania thing would go along with that, since they're the three superpowers--in the nation sense--from the book.

[What? She was an English major.]

[razorblade_empress]

So they're being about as subtle as a brick to the head with all this.

Then again, with all this power they've got, they probably don't need subtlety.

[thornsofmalkav]

Probably not, yeah. I bet they think they're so clever.

[razorblade_empress]

Probably. And I have noticed that certain types of stories are notably absent from their available offerings, so we can probably throw de facto censorship on the pile, too.

The competition calls themselves Swift Productions, by the way.

[helborn]

With a good chunk of Brave New World, sounds like.

[thornsofmalkav]

Yup. So far it's just adult dystopias, but I'm honestly wondering when The Giver or The Hunger Games is kicking in... oh. Wait. Returning to the gods is probably being released to Elsewhere, isn't it?

[helborn]

It's been a while since I read The Giver, but I don't know what The Hunger Games is.