hadriel_logs | Intro Log: None Hadriel With Left Shark

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Intro Log: None Hadriel With Left Shark

Who: New arrivals and everyone else!
What: The intro log for February
Where: The colosseum and all around the city.
When: February 10th-16th
Warnings: Shark week

Once more, new arrivals will wake up on the ground level of the ruined colosseum. There isn't anything particularly comforting about it, either- everything is a bit cold and impersonal and there is, of course, the fact that nobody remembers just how they managed to wind up here in the first place. That can all be explained in time, though- until then, you've got quite a bit on your plate already.

And why is that? Well, that may be because you're also surrounded by sharks.

Yes, on land.

It doesn't mean that they're totally incapacitated though- you still have your two headed sharks, your giant sharks, and your sharktopus that are more than capable of flopping in your general direction before taking you into a death roll. And don't forget the (far more dangerous) sand sharks, capable of swimming through the ground as if it were water itself. You might want to start to find ~~a life raft~~ high ground soon.

But hey, if you manage to get away from the sharks, feel free to help yourself to one of the odd food shaped blankets. These cozy comforters are perfect for your new bed, but they tend to carry a faint scent of the food they represent, so be sure not to sleep on an empty stomach!

Listen to the Jaws theme, grab a harpoon, and get cozy! On your way to safety, make sure to explore the rest of the city! Find a house, a new monster, a project to help with, or simply scavenge for supplies. Good luck, and enjoy your stay in Hadriel!

► This log covers February 10th-16th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► All characters arrive with phones that have network communication and the newbie guide installed.
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!

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"I am fairly familiar with it." An understatement however Rosen finds it interesting that the frog allegory is known outside his own reality. "Though, at least in the version I am familiar with, it never answers the question of who put the frog in the boiling water in the first place."

There was a question of agency there.

"Beyond whatever action the frog takes, there was an action to put it in that situation to begin with." Rosen is staring at his feet as he speaks, hands now clasped behind his back. "And if one follows that line of thought, they also have to ask if the alternative, the frog jumping out, is actually better? We tend to think, out of some sense of common decency perhaps, that it must be. But if there was an outside agent that put it there in the first place, would it not be reasonable to guess that that that same outside agent might also be capable of putting it in a worse predicament should it free itself?"

This is all a roundabout way of Rosen asking about the road not taken. What would have happened if the humans and the monsters had never been divided? What would have happened if Rosen had left things as they were back home? Would war have broken out, such as Parrish hoped? Or would things have been alright? Was Rosen a frog or the one holding the pan? Or is that assuming too much influence on his part entirely.

After a moment he laughs at himself, "I'm sorry. It seems I am getting more ridiculous in my old age. That was all nonsense." He doesn't think of himself as old, but its easier to say than 'in my failures'.

"So...is that how things have been left, then? Divided?"

Heh.

Who did put the frog in the boiling water, huh? In this case - a bunch'a humans, human magicians, the strength of seven human SOULs and the commendation of their entire species at their backs. But nobody ever talks about that, nah. They talk about the frog's reaction, and they'll analyze the science and the psychology of it to, uh, to death, but never once do they take to thinkin' about the hand that stuck the thing there in the first place. For a thought experiment it's a pretty big oversight, ain't it?

"Wasn't nonsense at all." Does he...count as old, strictly speaking? Who knows, really - it ain't like Sans has any sorta bead on what ages any humans are; the only exception bein' that the kids tend to be littler ones. Mostly wearing striped shirts. But the numbers and ages they hand out like calling cards are all but useless.

"For a thought experiment, it seems pretty short-sighted, don't it? Who put the frog there?" A matter of pickin' the devil you know? More than simply bein' too stupid, or too acclimated to the temperature to go springin' outta there, but rather, knows that it'd rather die slow, knowing it could protract its last moments, than make it quick and possibly even more painful?

And in that case - is the breaking of the Barrier little more than that? A pipe dream? Steppin' outta the frying pan and skippin' into the fire?

"Last I checked, yeah. But accounts may vary."

Turns out there's all sorts of endings, down there. All sorts of different ways for things to shake out.

Wasn't nonsense at all

Rosen stares at Sans for a long moment, silent, his lower lip caught beneath his teeth. He feels emboldened by the skeleton's validation but still he hesitates. Lee has been staring at the world from behind bars for so many days now that he finds himself feeling small and pathetic outside of them. A sickly creature turned out of its cage.

And the circumstances of his arrival here do not help.

Clearing his throat with difficulty, he drops his gaze away again and continues, "There is also the question of intent. Hard as it may be to comprehend...or at least to comprehend from the perspective of the frog...there is the possibility that whoever or whatever put it in the pot thought they were acting in its best interests. Some....misguided good intentions.... or perhaps we are too hasty in assuming the innocence or helplessness of the frog..."

His nose wrinkles as he recognizes his own descent into the rabbit hole.

"Where I am from humans have divided themselves." They divide, and they divide, and they divide. "Though...so far as I know...no one has been sealed underground."

"That's the big question. If sealin' that frog in a pot of water was considered the best option for everybody." If trapping monsters Underground was simply the best course of action. If the frog's interests got put on hold for the sake of somebody else's, someone with the power to decide for it. Maybe the frog lost a coin toss. Maybe the frog just wasn't granted the ability to decide for itself.

Maybe they're overthinkin' this. Entirely likely, really, but what's the point of a thought experiment if not to think?

"What'd they do that for?" He keeps his hands buried in his pockets, but he hasn't blinked or looked away since the doctor's started talkin', his interest wholly fixed. "Is that just a human thing? Division for the, uh, sake of it?"

Lee makes a small pensive noise in his throat at the misleadingly simple question. In essence it is asking him to explain the history of human behavior. Territorialism. Religious divides. Economic struggles. Race. Gender. Sexuality.

"If I am honest with you, Sans, humans aren't that picky about it. It may be that the better question is 'what won't they divide themselves for?" A deep, frustrated breath follows. He is aware that, to someone not from his own world, that was far from a helpful answer, and as such he braces himself for another try.

"Humans have been on the earth for centuries, and in that time we have divided ourselves on any number of reasons. Competition for land, for food, for-," he stops himself before he says 'mates' and changes course. "-those things were the start. As with any living creature dependent on food, water, and shelter. But as humans advanced, things like religion, race...whether you were male or female or if you loved men or women...all of these things were...and still are...used as reasons to make 'us' versus 'them.' All evidence suggests that, if it were not necessary for survival, we would not necessarily be social creatures."

Can't say that's surprising to hear. In the time he's been here, he's gotten to learn first-hand that humans have all sorts of quaint little categories for things. They're all more or less interchangeable from the perspective of a monster, and yet there's still people who act all shocked when they realize that a skeleton like him and a dinosaur-lizard scientist like Alphys are the same species. That kinda variation just don't occur to 'em.

So he's honest. He can appreciate that, on top of everything else.

"Can't say I can really understand the point of it. But, uh, I guess I shouldn't be surprised." Monsters must'a been sufficiently different enough. Turns it all into an us vs. them, as the Doc said, and then - what? They move onto assigning the next them to drive away and divide?

"But you eventually reach a point where it ain't really feasible to divide anymore, y'know?" Can't divide by one, or divide by zero. Just don't work like that. Viruses, maybe, can compensate for high rates of division with high rates of population, but humans ain't viruses.

And for good reason.

Rosen smiles but the smile is taut and mirthless. "I wouldn't underestimate the human capacity for intolerance. Even human bodies turn on themselves. Organic mechanisms fail, cancerous cells spread and devour a person from within."

He realizes then that his tone has turned bitter, his own personal resentment for human behavior seeping through his more scientific rhetoric. Though he knows it is not required, he feels compelled to offer some explanation.

"Where I am from I work...or worked, rather....with men and women known as 'Alphas'. That honorific is overly simplified, but in essence these are people with super enhanced physiological abilities. Abilities that are extremely rare in humans. Some can manipulate thought through enhanced hormones while others, as a result an over developed lobe of the brain, can see miles farther than the average human or smell something that would be impossible for the average human nose to detect, or hear something many city blocks away. I've even met one who has managed to entirely halt his aging process, in essence rendering himself immortal. These people are still very much human but their capabilities are miraculous. Entirely physiological," he makes the distinction to contrast the Alphas abilities with Sans' earlier demonstration of magic, "and they all have scientific explanations. Even so, there are people who fear them. In fact the government has done everything in its power to keep the existence of such people a secret from the world. They lock them away. They...experiment on them...."

Rosen had a hand in that. If only he had known what he had been a part of. Would it have changed anything?

"Whether now or later, I fear there will be a breaking point. A war."

Edited 2017-03-01 21:36 (UTC)

Suppose that ain't too strange a notion. The human child from above, the one that changed the king and queen's life for the better - the stories always said they got sick. No explanation, no discussion of how or why.

Then again, it might be it didn't really count as sickness at all.

He don't get much of an explanation as to why they do that. What he does get, instead, is a description of somethin' that reminds him some of the human magicians that once frequented the Surface. Once, because he can't be rightly sure that that's still common knowledge among their lot. Can't be rightly sure what kind of enhancements those might be, other than the examples he offers.

Cripes. And here he thoughts humans didn't need enough power.

"So you got one group of people who're...powerful. More so than your average bear." Just outlining things nice and neat, for clarity's sake. "And you've got the average fella, who might not take kindly to feelin' like there's somethin' out there that could wipe 'em off the map. Has advantages no one else has."

No wonder he fears there'll be a breaking point, given everything. Way he lines it up, it sounds all but inevitable.

"We divide." Rosen brings the point back around to the start. "We find something different and in that moment we have our reason to divide ourselves further."

He makes an awkward gesture to indicate his clothes, a blue cardigan, white shirt, and white pants, now dirtied with the dirt from the arena. "This is an institutional uniform. I thought perhaps I could preemptively stop a war between Alphas and humans by going against the government's wishes, by telling the wider world the truth about the existence of Alphas. I thought the...err... the "average fellas" as you called them... and the Alphas could make the decision for themselves to live together peacefully if the issue was presented to them openly and honestly." He shoves his hands roughly back in his pockets then.

"But I miscalculated. Instead I was locked away and the government hopes that with time they can convince the world that I am just mentally unbalanced so they'll move on. Forget. Go back to pretending like the others don't exist. And this...I... will be just another division."

Find a reason to divide themselves or possibly simply generate one. Fabricate one, if necessary. Wish he could say he's surprised, but it ain't much of a surprise at all. That's just kinda how humanity rolls, ain't it? First it was monsters. Then, it's humans who're different. And whoever's in the position to define different - makes it pretty damned arbitrary, don't it?

There's a sharper tunneling of focus, a subtle dilation of the lights buried in his eyesockets, at that last comment.

"How d'you mean, locked away?"

And how does he mean, someone can just up and get away</i. with that?

"How?" His eyes go wide at the question. "Well, it was all pretty efficient. I was arrested and the government department that I used to work for guaranteed that, without the due process that is promised by the legal system, I was declared mentally unstable. I was then put into a cell in the psychological ward of a New York prison. And I have been there now for- well- for perhaps over a year now."

Rosen straightens. "Today has been the freest I have been for a long time now. And this conversation," He offers Sans a sad smile, "Is the most I have been able to speak to anyone about any subject other than my supposed insanity since before I was incarcerated."

Edited 2017-03-02 02:44 (UTC)

Huh.

No wonder he don't seem real unsettled about bein' down here. Might be a small cage, but it's more spacious than the one it sounds like he was stuck in for a year. Linear time - it sure is something.

A system that lets somethin' like that transpire without complaint, well, that's even better. Yeah, sounds pretty fantastic for just about everybody. You say somethin' somebody don't like, and you disappear. Sounds, uh - familiar, in its own way...?

...

He won't pursue that thought.

"You seem pretty sane to me, pal." He tips one eyesocket shut in a wink. "I doubt anybody here'll lock you up for any sorta reason like that."

And if they do, it ain't like they'd be real successful at it. Incarceration ain't exactly one of the Hadriel guard's specialties.

Its only dawned upon Rosen himself that perhaps this is why, beyond a daze fueled by adrenaline and rapid heart rate, he doesn't feel distraught. The sense of upset and helplessness he should feel have been delayed in coming and now he wonders if they will come at all.

"Thank you."

Its a strange thing to have your sanity confirmed by a talking skeleton, but he will take it for the moment.

"Then let me ask you, Sans, when the monsters and the humans became divided, was there a singular reason? Was there a specific catalyst for the war?"

What had been the last straw.

So, uh, yeah, maybe Sans ain't the best person to confirm a subjective experience; talking skeletons aren't what he thinks humans would generally consider a very sane thing to be chattin' with. But if it helps, then it helps.

That's what matters.

He reaches up to scratch at the crown of his skull with the rasp of ossein against itself, a wholly reflexive and by and large generally useless gesture, since he lacks the skin to be technically itching up there in the first place. But it helps him think. Grounds him some.

"They say it was the SOULs," he says, sortin' through all the different explanations. 'Cause there were plenty of 'em. Hard to say what the real cause was, though he supposes the King would know. "We had the potential to take theirs, and with that power - we could wipe 'em off the map. Suppose that's how they justified it. Never happened, though. We're generally a pretty peaceful people."

"So then if I understand correctly souls are quasi-tangible things where you come from? Or are in some way transferable?"

So far as he knows there has still been no success in quantifying the soul or confirming its existence by any medical means. There have been experiments in weighing the body before and after death, but the results have generally been inconclusive or dodgy.

Thus the idea of 'taking a soul' is another step above the assumption of its existence. And he does not think Sans is speaking allegorically about the taking of souls. This is not the field of preacher men and their flocks.

"How would a monster take a soul? Is this also magic?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Everyone's got one. Human SOULs are just, uh...unique, kinda. They can persist after death; most monster SOULs can't." Boss monster SOULs are the only exception there but, uh, he ain't really eager to go down that road right now. Too complicated.

"Generally, you gotta kill the person it belongs to. Hence why it ain't necessarily a big thing, where we come from." He inclines his skull, faintly. The general moral consensus is that killing shouldn't be necessary, and if it is - it's a hell of a burden.

Asgore didn't wanna kill those six kids any more than they wanted to die.

"Is there a particular-," Lee struggles to find the word he wants, "- value to a human soul?" The word 'value' doesn't sit right with him though he hadn't been able to think of something better. Even so he doesn't like how cold that sounds, almost like an auctioneer's appraisal of an artifact. "What I mean is, what would any monster want with a human soul?"

Sans had said it had never happened before. If that is the case, then what would be the basis of the human's fear? Or is it just another case of human's preemptively acting in self-defense? Or perhaps it is another issue of human's arbitrarily choosing reasons to create divisions between themselves and the 'alternative'?

"Humans're stronger, generally. Their SOULs follow that same kinda pattern. So a monster with that kinda power would be, uh...pretty nigh unstoppable, it turns out."

Humans, they got those special qualities to 'em. They got determination, and they got the will to persist where most monsters do not. They're made of more than just magic and the hopes and dreams of those who live Underground.

"Humans have this thing we call determination." He opens a bony hand in artless supination, one eyesocket lidding at half-mast with the other dropping shut entirely. "With the right intent, one human could tear up the entire population of monsters."

One did, in actual fact. Or was it two?

With the right intent

"Its strange but I am used to thinking of humans as among the more fragile of organic life. We have no outer protective shell, we are immediately susceptible to the slightest changes in climate, we are prone to disease..." Lee numbers each off on his fingers. "And we have no magic. But at the same time it is undeniable that we have the greatest capacity for destruction of any creatures on earth."

His shoulders slouch forward, "and it sounds like that your humans on the surface share in that same capacity. What does that say about us?"

"Yeah, but you got somethin' else. You're able to keep going. Despite, uh...all odds, really." That's the incredible thing, really. Nothin' like the pure determination that's hardwired into damn near every one of 'em. The only monster who'd had that to match was Undyne, and even that power wasn't near enough, when there's an anomaly warping time back every time the game don't go how it wants it to.

They. How they don't want it too. Slippin' up, even now.

"You could be starving, bleeding, arms broken, and you'll keep going. A monster gets a hit from one person who really decides they hate them...?"

He lets the sentence trail off. He don't need to finish, he's sure.

Intent just has everything to do with it.

It is then that something dawns upon Rosen, something about the way Sans talks about human behavior. After a pause he settles his gaze squarely ahead, "Sans. You said that the monsters were sealed underground with humans on top. Were you...um...were you there when this happened? Did you once live on the surface?"

"Please tell me if I am prying, I don't want to overstep any boundaries," his brows knit worriedly, "but its just that the way you describe humans, it seems as if you must have at least known some of them very well."

"I didn't, nah. Some monsters, the older ones - they did. Those that remember the war."

He, uh, really should be more careful 'bout what he lets slip, maybe. How's he say this, exactly? Ain't exactly like you can up and just trot out so by the by, I've been caught in a temporal recursion for god knows how long and attempted to kill the anomaly-slash-human-kid that was causing it and expect things to go over well with anybody.

Nah. He don't really spring for that sorta thing. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, a lazy, equivocal gesture.

"There's plenty of humans 'round here, though." That's not quite the truth, but the truth's complicated. Implies he only really got to know humans once he ended up here, and that ain't really the case.

That is a fair point. Rosen lets the matter go without argument.

"Though I wonder, if there are humans where you are from and human where I am from, and more here from other realities, are all of us humans the same? Or are there variations?"

The world Rosen knows has no monsters, no 'underground', so what says that the humans from the monster-less, underground-less world weren't different from the humans of Sans' 'surface' ? His mind balks a bit at the thought. The endless possibilities of variations, just like the Alphas. The existence of variants in the human genome is undeniable. He's studied them for over half his life.

"Good question." He ain't exactly what he'd call an expert on the subject. Humans from home, he knows, can gain LOVE; Frisk has, and if Chara hadn't hit the roof by now, he's pretty sure they'd've long since done so by the time their evil twins vacated the premises.

"Wouldn't really be the right person to ask. But you could probably poke around, and see. There's plenty of, uh...superhumans on top of everything else."

People like Kate, who more or less named herself as such from the get-go. People like Wanda, who disappeared at some point or another, lost in the linear slide of days creeping by. People who ain't anything other than human, but have skills humans wouldn't necessarily have, typically.

"Now there's an idea." Poking around, that is. There's been an itch at the back of his mind since the fog of the initial panic faded. Now free of the sharks and the tentacles, what is Lee supposed to do with himself in this place? He's been guaranteed that there is no exit so naturally he must decide how he'll get himself off his feet. He's at least free of his cell. He should put that to use.

So why not do what he has always done?

"Maybe that is what I will do here. Research." The corners of Lee's mouth quirk upward, slightly reassured by the idea. Research, the familiar task of thorough observation, rigorous questioning, and copious note taking would be a comfort. "Research what we all are, where we all are from, and everything in between."

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skelebro - 2017-03-03 08:29 (UTC) - Expand

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