October Event: Feeling Like a Ghost (Part I)

[lifeaftr_mods]

OCTOBER EVENT: FEELING LIKE A GHOST

Who: Anyone and everyone
What: Your past returns to haunt you
When: October 10th and onward
Where: All over!
Warnings: Character death, as well as potential for discussion of trauma and suicide ideation - please mark as you go!

Try and Hear Me, Then I'm Done

You can find most of the information you need in the OOC info post! In the meantime, feel free to use this log as a catch-all for the duration of the event. While this log will focus on the past portion, you're free to use it for the future portion. As always, you can also make your own logs if that's your preference! Come the 21st, however, we'll likely get an additional log up for those who want to play around with their future echoes as well. Remember also that the present portion will be played out in Mu, during this month's Storytelling.

Remember to let us know if your character dies during this event. Bear in mind, however: death penalties will NOT be reduced for this event.

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] October 10th: The ghosts of the past appear.
[ ♆ ] October 20th: The warped Storytelling occurs, the Storyteller returns, and those who have died are revived.
[ ♆ ] October 21st: Future echoes replace the ghosts of the past.
[ ♆ ] October 25th: With equilibrium restored, all visions vanish, and life returns to how it was.

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[hyperlit]

What else. What else is there? Words - language, right. They recall an announcement, earlier, written on the rock. They seldom answer those.

you mentioned
geth language
and learning it

[forwearemany]

Their headflaps lift slightly.

"Affirmative. Do you wish to?"

[hyperlit]

yes

Their words are easier to focus on than the not-words of their double, the shadow that stalks them, burning words and taunts into their mind. They will pursue that instead - that which is tangible, audible, and easily categorized as "real."

[forwearemany]

"Acknowledged."

A pause, as they consider.

"Are you capable of producing clicking sounds?"

[hyperlit]

The Drifter...well, to their credit, they do try. The most they can manage is a low hush of passing breath, the sound they make when their lungs seize and they begin to cough. Eventually, they can only gesture at their throat. Maybe, if they'd had a voice to utter anything at all, they'd be capable of producing sounds akin to clicking.

As it stands, this is not looking terribly likely.

not vocally

[forwearemany]

Legion headtilts, watching this. That is ... not quite what they meant. For a moment, they wonder about the structure of the Drifter's mouth.

"Use of tonguepopping, hands, or external device to make this sound is acceptable."

They chatter.

"We ask as there is no written component. Though we could teach you to understand, without the ability to produce sound, you would not be able to communicate."

[hyperlit]

Use of hands. The Drifter glances down at them, gloved in such a way that would probably make snapping difficult. Clapping, perhaps, but...

They glance, then, to their sprite. It issues a soft chime - like a small piece of struck glass, not reverberating, but brief and desultory.

like this

[forwearemany]

Affirmative.

(Anything works, really. The hard part is going to be the rest of it.)

[hyperlit]

Then...yes. They're good!

can make sounds with sprite
what else

If Legion says that will do, then that will do. As far as they're concerned, that's good enough.

[forwearemany]

"Affirmative. We have not attempted to teach Geth language in the past, nor do we know of any attempts to do so: the one organic who learned taught themselves."

And that case was pretty unique, so they're not sure how this is going to go.

"We will start with basic signals."

[hyperlit]

The Drifter glances, briefly, at their double. It leers out at them. It hisses something - something about toxicity in their blood, the way they're poisoning the well just by being here, that they would do best to return to the static and silence, and commit themself to their fate.

They turn back to Legion, and open a blank text box on their HUD.

ok

[forwearemany]

"Acknowledged."

After a moment, they chatter.

"This is a greeting signal."

They do it again, slowing it down until the component clicks become easily distinguishable.

The pattern is relatively simple, but the keyword there is relative: there's no part of the Geth language that isn't complex. Clicks of varying volume weave together in precise patterns, typically spoken at speeds with which few organics can keep up.

[hyperlit]

Oh. Yes, that seems...that's complicated. They glance at their sprite, trying to mimic the sounds appropriately, but they cannot vary volume and pitch in any way that allows for fluctuation.

cannot change volume/pitch

[forwearemany]

Just wait until you get to actual words and sentence structure Drifter. Hope you like complicated math, grammar similar to that in programming, and weird rules for things like how to create temporary words, translate organic phrases into Geth, etc.

"...Acknowledged." That does pose a problem. They are fairly certain it is not insurmountable -- loud, soft, high, low are the only real variations -- but a solution does not immediately occur to them.

[hyperlit]

Therein lies the first obstacle. No solution immediately presents itself, and it is difficult to think with their double droning in the background texture of their thoughts, buzzing static and neon in a steady hum of wilt away wilt away wilt away wilt away.

Their attention momentarily lapses so they can narrow their eyes at it, incrementally, before they turn back to the situation at hand.

how did the last organic do so

[forwearemany]

Their own ghost is difficult to ignore: sighing, she makes an observation that sounds, for once, exactly like the real Tali and Legion is speechless with grief for the time before the betrayal of their friends, the the final war between Quarians and Geth, the arrival of the Reaper army, the fracturing of the Normandy crew after defeating the collectors.

...Then she turns it into something mean and manipulative, and they focus on the Drifter entirely.

It takes them a moment to respond.

"Our knowledge is limited: the organic in question learned by observing captive Geth. These units were destroyed during subsequent experimentation: their memories were not returned to the collective. What we know was gained from Normandy reports and stolen data."

There's a story there, and it's horrible.

"As the organic in question was Human, it is likely the mimicry was achieved through 'popping' of the tongue off the roof of the mouth."

[hyperlit]

Ah.

Sensitive memories. Captive Geth, experimented upon, stolen, used. Because they were not considered beings worth preserving. In everything they learn, there is a reminder of what they have endured. What their kind has been reduced to.

i am sorry

[forwearemany]

"Your apology is unnecessary."

The Drifter is so unlike the organics who mistreated them in general attitude (even if they resemble them in some other ways) that Legion feels the need to insist on this.

They don't really understand the concept of apologizing out of sympathy.

[hyperlit]

many things are unnecessary

Playing a match of soccer against a small, determined child who has amassed significant skill in the game is not necessary. Tossing a handful of candies at someone, simply for offering some vague information about that which stalks the area, is not necessary. Weaving crowns from the stems of flowers is not necessary.

None of it is efficient, and it does not go toward any end goal.

does not mean they do not matter

[forwearemany]

"This is different from your previous attitude."

You know, during the flower plague and all.

"The residents of this location have treated us considerably better than even those we once considered allies. Though the sentiment is appreciated, it is not required."

[hyperlit]

it did not sustain me

That attitude almost killed them. Refusing to acknowledge that something mattered, even when it did - it was them lying to themself. Struggling to admit it had been one of the more difficult things they'd had to do.

And they've done so many.

[forwearemany]

"Affirmative."

They add it to their file: the Drifter is highly adaptable.

"Such adaptability is unusual among organics."

[hyperlit]

when faced with death
the living must compensate

The Drifter's survivability outweighs their potentially static nature. When extinction is presented to them as a foreseeable option, any alternative, in their mind, is preferable. Scale any mountain. Slay any creature. Fight any war.

Save a world that has been, for the most part, unkind to them, simply because it allows for the chance, for the sliver of possibility, that it might unlock a cure from within themself.

[forwearemany]

"Many fail. You did not."

Just because a person needs to do a thing doesn't mean they will, after all.

[hyperlit]

i did
and i did not

They have done both, in equal measure, but mostly the former. Which is to say, they have died before - though it was not a failure of adaptability in that sense. It was simply running out of time.