tobecaprican | the last voyages // 4. video. no filter except for t-x.

Some corners of my culture happen to take religion literally.

[ Gaius is using video, and sitting in his cabin. The lights are currently playing up, as they're wont to do, reflecting off all the glass and chrome of his replicated expensive apartment. He has a cigarette, a cup of tea, and little better to do but seek some conversation to defeat nerves and loneliness.

But not lonely enough to go outside. Visibly on edge, but his voice is calm, where the video feed doesn't flutter. ]

As in, there are-- were-- colonials in the universe who would swear up and down the pantheon that we really did travel in a boat down the river Styx in the afterlife. [ ffrrzzzztttt ] easy to make fun of, but they'd be the ones laughing now, I suppose. I'm dead, and look where I ended up.

I suppose they [ ffrrzzzztttt ] ing pass.

I haven't talked religion in-- well. Ever since I've been here. Not something I miss, to be clear, but there's a

discrepancy

that I'd like to explore. So talk [ ffrrzzzztttt ] your beliefs, Bargeites. Earthers, witches, the lot of [ ffrrzzzztttt ] first and last time - I'm trying to get it out of the way and over with.

[ OOC: My terribleness -- posting and running! I will tag back solidly in a couple of hours, may sneak in a couple here and there beforehand. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Saggitarius.

The Ancient Greeks and the Romans, ancient civilisations on Earth, their mythologies seem to match with yours. Yet your people belive Earth is a myth and we've certainly never heard of you.

Right. Earth is the mythical Lost Tribe, and here you all are. I see you've stumbled across my little mystery, then.

And I'm told that some've us are from each other's fiction but I don't think this is precisely what they mean.

I have been, lucky enough to experience that first hand, though from your lack of reaction to my presence I assume you have no 'Sherlock Holmes' tales in your worlds.

Not even a bit, er, Mr. Holmes. [ Hesitates. ] Sorry.

I'm famous on my world too, actually, but no one knows me here.

Trust me, that's not something you need to apologise for.

No, you misunderstand. I am, apparently, fictional in most worlds except my own. Or at least, a version of myself is. It's a little complicated.

We've drifted off the topic. I'd like to find out out where exactly our myths deviate. If, as it seems, you are not fictional, then the existence of another human species with a belief system so similar to one of Earth's own is quite the discovery.

[ Willing to move on, as he hasn't quite grasped the idea of the whole fictional thing and-- isn't sure he wants to. ]

Yeah, that's what I thought as well, when I heard of Earth. My people would be quite excited by the news. 'specially these days.

[ Pause, then, why not; ] With help, I've identified at least one nebula that our planets can spot from their surfaces. I'm told your people lack advanced space travel, too. Might explain it, if we do share a universe.

Currently we can barely access the closest planets in our solar system. The civilisations I refer to existed more than two thousand years ago.

Some communication must have taken place however. Similar belief systems in the broadest sense, I can understand, but specifics down to the name and roles of various deities, that's a little too much of a coincidence.

Must've done.

And while you lot've never heard of us as a race, you still know the old names of our colonies, somehow, named constellations after them. If you lack space travel, then it stands to reason we're the ones who came across you, but--

Then you wouldn't be a very lost tribe at all.

Indeed not. A conspiracy perhaps?

Biggest coverup of the millennium, or two.

I dunno. I feel like we're too frakking nosy to leave an entire colony to its own devices forever. Gods know we can't leave each other alone.

And you'd expect more cross-influence than just a religious system.

Maybe it was a one-off thing. Some sort of... rift... [Oh look, something Sherlock knows nothing about.]

I suppose I could take a leaf out've my Warden's file and posit time travel.

Either post-your current time, or well before. I should think such a thing happening in one's lifetime would cause comment.

I was actually joking.

But then-- I mean I suppose it's possible, isn't it. We're all from different planets on a giant interdimensional boat on a sea of stars, why can't we also have a few millions of years difference between us?

Why the frak not?

Considering there is a Victorian version of me currently acting as a warden here already, time-travel isn't entirely out of the question.

I wonder what purpose it served. Was it an accident? Random? It seems likely, surely anything with design would have had worse repercussions.

[ While Victorian is not a term he knows, it matches the general naming conventions to describe eras, and-- he's getting better at 'Earthian', so to speak. ] We're talking about an immense amount of time, you understand. One of us is prehistoric to the other.

I don't know. I've no idea. What sort of repercussions do you mean?

Not necessarily. Time travel. We could exist in the same time currently, albeit lightyears apart, but you simply jumped backwards to visit the Greeks. And that seems the most likely, unless freak wormholes really are a common occorunce. Like I said, the Greeks had nowhere near the required technology to make the leap. You at least have space exploration.

Repercussions? Imagine sustained communication with a vastly less developed world. No legal systems in place to deal with allocation of resources. Military capabilities nowhere near equal. And considering your advanced technological capabilities, they probably worshipped you as gods, or at the very least sorcerers... Need I go on?

There is nothing 'simply' in time travel. It's meant to be impossible, but then-- my own Warden is all tangled up in the stuff, so what can I say to that. But I'd have to maintain that any time travel would be accidental. There's a few nutters rattling about that think FTL jumps could trigger a time paradox, but no one takes them seriously, but supposing it could happen--

It'd explain religions and cultures. But that's all.

S'pose it's a start.

A start with very few places to go next, however. Not without an agreeable port in one of our respective realities. Something to check should either of us have the chance to return I suppose.

Indeed. It'll certainly be something of a new hobby for me in the event that I do. There isn't much I can do here without star charts and literature from my own world, but I've made do with Earther texts.

Thank you for the speculation, by the way. [ Mild bewilderment. ]

You could try the library again, its stock regularly changes to reflect the needs of the barge's passengers. Star charts are not my area, though there are others, if you ask I'm sure they'd be willing to help.

... Is it customary to thank people for conversation in your society? That must get tiresome.

Oh, I see. Of course it does, why not. I'll have another gander.

[ ... ]

I suppose that depends on what one counts as smalltalk, but point taken. I'm just used to a certain degree of unhelpfuless and confusion when it comes to this place.

That's not this place, that's people in general.

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