[pre-Emodriver Liminal] We interrupt your Jaunt preparations for some metaplot

[razorblade_empress]

[It's relatively late in the Liminal when Yukino contacts the network, although in fairness she's been a little busy being stuck in a dungeon for much of its duration. Still, though.]

A little while back, Judgement had this whole dungeon... thing... going on that a bunch of us got dragged into. One of the rooms was Belljar, and there was a closed-circuit TV showing a selection of images, one of which was a portal in a field of crystals that the Travelers of the time were evacuating into. So after we got back from this Jaunt, I tried to do some digging, and, well... I got this.

[This being a memory, which she is now sharing:]

The network was not full of happy chatter, during the visit to the place with the crystal fields. Granted, having to deal with ‘nation-eaters’ would likely put a damper on anyone’s mood, but on top of that, the Protectorate’s built-in psychic intrusions to enforce their idea of what’s best for everyone are Not Helping. The intrusions probably wouldn’t have helped in any round, but especially not with how freedom-minded the Travelers Fortune’s rig pulls in tend to be.

It’s quickly becoming apparent that there are two courses of action available to the Travelers: Back the Protectorate’s 'right-think' and keep the peace, or assist a violent coup so that the people can start fresh. If the coup works, and there’s no guarantee that even the Travelers can help convince enough people to defend their minds against their own government. There are two choices, but they both suck.

If it's a choice between this and the Champs being displeased, someone says on the network (it’s all text, of course, so discerning who might be difficult), I'll take my chances with our local True Fae.

After a pause, they add, Si se puede. Let's strike.

The strike itself isn’t that flashy, memory-wise; it consists largely of herding all the investigators into Liminal and camping out with whatever food they'd stashed or could manage to manipulate until the Jaunt's clock runs down. It's pretty clear when that happens: Liminal Space suddenly upends itself, with everyone falling endlessly away from a planet they'd know above them - since this is Yukino's memory, that planet is Earth - towards clouds they never reach, with swords falling along with them...

[The memory cuts off there.]

Next stop after that was Moebius.

Comments

[leftbehindagain]

Judgement had a dungeon?

[He'll get back to the rest later, possibly - it's of more interest to the other Moebius survivors, in all likelihood.]

[razorblade_empress]

Yeah.

[leftbehindagain]

That... sure sounds like it would've been a Thing.

One of the rooms being Belljar makes sense, though.

[razorblade_empress]

It sure was.

The other rooms were for Hierophant, Fortune, and Tower.

[thornsofmalkav]

Si se puede, huh.

[There's an odd note to Thorne's psychic voice. She kind of really wants Yukki to replay the memory for her so she can get a better look at some of those pre-Moebius Travelers... but is also kind of aware that might be a weird request to make just now.]

[razorblade_empress]

[She noticed that odd note.]

You all right?

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah. I mean, I was just kind of startled by the 'si se puede' bit, I guess. I'm used to being one of the only Latines around in Liminal, you know? If not the only one.

[That's not the only thing, but. Well. As we've already established, she feels awkward about asking for a memory replay just yet.]

[razorblade_empress]

[Yukino's not quite sure she entirely buys that explanation, but okay.]

I can see where that'd be startling, yeah.

private, double protected

[claudiometer]

You thinking maybe A Timey-Wimey Christmas wasn't his first outing?

[If Thorne hadn't commented on it, Claudia probably would've missed it entirely.]

DOUBLE PROTECT 5EVER

[thornsofmalkav]

I'm. I'm being stupid. It could be any Hispanic Traveler.

[letsgetdowntobismuth]

[Bismuth is quiet, but her presence is intense.]

Do you remember who they were?

[razorblade_empress]

The speaker? It's like on the tip of my... brain, I guess, but it's not quite coming to me yet.

[letsgetdowntobismuth]

We should get back onto some memory fixing. See if putting our heads together doesn't bring back who they were properly for you.

[desperate_times_right]

Well. Guess that answers my question about what happens if we choose not to play.

[razorblade_empress]

Probably didn't help that Devil helped come up with the punishment.

One thing Judgement did say, though, was that Fortune tried to argue against Moebius but was overruled.

[desperate_times_right]

You don’t even get veto power in your own universe? Fortune’s had rotten luck.

[claudiometer]

I mean, Bando was nothing if not a violent coup, so whatever uncertainty was tied to this one must've been bad for 'you both suck, we're leaving' to win out.

Bet the whole thing could've been avoided if they were just more talkative at the time. Or at least the aftermath could've been handled some way other than Killer Death Jaunt.

[razorblade_empress]

I haven't been able to remember any more of the Jaunt so far, but yeah, probably. I don't remember enough to know for sure, though.

Or at least don't rely on Death and Devil to design the punishment.

[claudiometer]

I'm guessing at least enough of them feel bad about that clusterfuck that they went with something different after the Tower clusterfuck, so that's something, anyway. Still would've been better if it hadn't happened at all, but... [Presumably, if Moebuis was going to be retconned, it would've happened when Fortune was also retconned.]

[reallymean]

I've only read about what happened in Bando, but there are few enough of us left who were there for Moebius that it might well be less a question of what was involved than of who.

[claudiometer]

It's possible.

The short version of Bando is that the Travelers showed up to the parent empire going 'hey, three provinces of political cast-offs, how about you all kill each other for the fabulous prize of being cannon fodder for our next glorious conquest?' Supposedly the winner would've also gotten to keep the loot.

My overlay didn't buy it for a second. Neither did anyone else, so instead the provinces ganged up and kicked the empire out. The empire was also hoping to use that civil unrest they were prodding for as a cover for wiping out one of the provinces entirely, and that mostly didn't happen because of the Travelers.

[awitchdidit]

Bando was a sort of ad hoc revolution prosecuted at least in part by Infiltrations. The aware Travelers on that Jaunt did more to prod the locals in a certain direction than actively overthrowing the Shogun.

I do have to admit, the memory of my Overlay blowing his brains out was pretty satisfying, though.

I think the difference between Bando, or Newport, and this memory is that there were more immediate potential consequences to revolution. Bando was in for a long, hard war, but there wasn't a risk of everyone dying to some monster without the authoritarian attention of En Zhenming's emperor. It was a less double-edged choice, albeit still probably a hard one for the Investigators.

[insidegalra]

That memory has implications.

[Ones Thace doesn't like. Maybe he'd been infiltrating but...]

Have you recovered anything else that might help clear it up?

[razorblade_empress]

Not yet, no.

[insidegalra]

Perhaps we can recover more memories from that period if we pool our efforts.

[It's pretty clear that the 'we' is Moebius vets there, and there's just a little regret that Thace hasn't actually unlocked any missing memories of his own.]