[Open]

[willyousee]

Forgive me, but I am unfamiliar with what liminal space has become this time. Can anyone tell me what it is? What the cultural significance of it is? Are there usually balls of mice which try to run you down? There must be some reason it is what it is this time.

Comments

[willyousee]

.....what are they testing that a rat would be more useful than a human being?

[shiroganeheir]

Various things, mostly different stimuli on the rats that would be either dangerous or unethical to do to humans. Sometimes a rat will be given some substance or another and be made to run a maze, sometimes the maze itself will have different variables that would be impractical to run with human subjects.

I am not too familiar with that sort of behavioral study. I mostly watch people.

[willyousee]

And yet they find it ethical to give these things to animals?

[Small, disapproving pause. Someone's a bit disturbed by this.]

Well. Those parallels are painfully plain. It seems almost too clear for the Trumps' usual form. Is it covering for something, or deliberately something we might misconstrue? Or are they truly trying to rub our noses in this?

[shiroganeheir]

Actually, the ethics of such tests is a matter of debate. Some quite heavy debate, in fact.

It is possible that there is a point here that the Trumps want to make certain we see. The last time the imagery was this blatant was in the store with the death imagery before the Grid. In one of my conversations with Sun, he told me that the information of why we are here, and why some of us are Marked is out there to be found.

[willyousee]

[You may count him moderately mollified.]

Did he? Interesting. "Out there" meaning within the bounds of liminal space, or on Jaunts, I wonder. Or both.

[shiroganeheir]

Possibly both, but I have taken it more as in Liminal Space itself. This is the place where the Trumps can most directly send us messages.

Although, to be fair, at the time, I, er, thought he was just telling me 'you're a detective, you find it', which is possible. There is information out there, and it can be found, and I cannot put my finger on why, but especially this particular space is giving me the feeling that the Trumps want that information found.

[willyousee]

[Is it? He has his doubts, but no solid evidence as such, so he sits on that notion for the moment.]

As I recall, The Sun is meant to be a card of clarity, is it not? And you his Chosen. Do you think it likely that he would tell you the truth?

[shiroganeheir]

It is. Optimism, accomplishment, and honesty.

I do not believe he would outright lie to me, no. In our conversations, if he did not wish to give the information, he was up front that it was not the time to give a particular bit of information. So while he did not reveal everything, I believe I can trust what he did say.

[willyousee]

Well then. Perhaps we ought to focus on the message they are attempting to communicate. These clues... are they meant to concern our general state as Travelers, or is it more than that?

[shiroganeheir]

Junes Hell, as Kanji and Naoki-kun call it, was a very specific message. These Trumps are dead.

This is one of the clearer messages we've had, so I would guess it is specific, but I do not know specific to what. If it is general, it is implying we are on some sort of test and will be rewarded. If it is specific....are we going through some sort of trials for some reason?

[willyousee]

Can it not be both, I wonder. As noted, the Jaunts seem much like these mazes - many paths and obstacles with little notion of the goal, but if completed, we are dropped back into liminal space with an indication of success or failure. We also may retain skills or abilities which our counterparts within the Jaunt acquired - perhaps as a reward for our services. Additionally, the Trumps use the Jaunts to choose those who demonstrate to them, in some manner, that they fit with that Trump's agenda. I doubt that is the sole reason for the Jaunts, but it is reason enough for our purposes.

[shiroganeheir]

That is quite true. Perhaps the message is specific in its generality. A pointed message of a sort.

But does it truly reveal anything we did not know in the first place? I would perhaps say it is merely a confirmation of what we all thought. We have a mission and we are being watched.

[willyousee]

[He is silent for a long moment.]

In the past the second liminal space has sometimes pointed toward what the next Jaunt will entail. I am thinking particularly of one before you arrived, Naoto-kun - an inoperative train station with four tracks, each of them labeled and no time on the boards or clocks to indicate when a train might arrive or leave for those destinations. Each destination named was one of the countries in the next Jaunt, and the track reflected something of what the place was like. Of course, we did not see that as clearly at the time.