here they talked of revolution, here it was they lit the flame

[initiates]

Date: October 1st
Location: The Observatory.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Observatory for the show of the year. Initial briefings are very brief this time around, and that Greeter just won't stop crying.
Warnings: new confused people and old sad people??

Your arrival here has been very unceremonious. One second you were somewhere else, and now, very suddenly, your feet hit the glowing white of the Transporter pad, and you're here. You aren't alone, either. There's a crowd of others around you, each seeming just as bewildered, angry, or confused as you might feel. At the head of the group is a woman in purple robes, with eyes red as if she'd just finished crying. She hurries over a quick overview of your intended purpose here, and gives direct answers when asked for them, but to most things she simply shows you how to access the tablet you've just been given. There, you can find the history of this place and a record of what your new cohorts have experienced — although it won't have Network access for another 8 hours. Someone stands on hand to give you a weapon, and though the armory is now greatly reduced, you should be able to find something to suit you.

You're shepherded down a walkway tunnel and into the Observatory, where you will find screens mounted on three sides of the wide room. The only lighting comes from dull red emergency lights, and the scenes of a dreary, rainy city from various cameras up on the screens; the largest of the screens opens up to a view of Earth from a good distance away -- this one isn't a screen at all, you might realize, but a window. As you watch, all screens in the room fill with light, impossibly bright. It consumes the buildings, the people, everything. There is no sound played, perhaps mercifully, only that white light -- and then nothing.

Through the large window, there's a pinprick of light over one of the landmasses on the blue planet. It grows to a tiny blossom and then dies away, but a cloud begins to mushroom outward in the same spot. It pushes the natural clouds out of the way, claiming that small portion of the world and wrapping it in a uniform gray.

Strings of numbers begin to fill the blanked out screens as the base's AI begins collecting data and calculations, but the show seems to be over. You're free to explore the base, visit and use any of the VR rooms, or discover your new room and roommates, but try not to step out of any airlocks if oxygen is a requirement for your system.

Welcome to the moon base, with front row seats to the grave of Exsilium.

[[ooc; reminder! The Network will be down for 8 hours after the wave of new Transports.]]

Comments

[icy_heavens]

A few hundred thousand, yes. And no, they couldn't. [No mincing words; it's not how he works. In his own world, a ground-zero area like that would become shinigami priority. So many dead to look after, so much despair that could render souls into Hollows. But here, there's nothing that can be done for them as things stand.]

Full evacuation was understandably impossible.

[imperfectness]

[A few hundred thousand. That's a few hundred thousand more than were necessary.]

So that was this...United Earth? They did this?

[He looks at the monitors, streaming data and numbers flooding them, data that he has no reference point for other than it seems...bad.]

But we can go back in time and prevent that, right?

[icy_heavens]

[Under the circumstances . . . not really. Not that anyone sane is happy about it.] It was. Smaller in scale, honestly, to what happened a few months ago.

That would be the objective.

[imperfectness]

Wait, there's something happening here that's worse?

[Worse than an atom bomb?]

Do they just pick people for the missions?

[icy_heavens]

Some months back, they decimated an entire world. Rather worse than obliterating one city.

Mandatory missions seem to be scheduled every few weeks, though others will often leave on smaller scale missions. [His eyes still haven't left the view of the Earth; the dark cloud still lingers over what had once been the city.] I've worked with the records; we can and have changed things.

[imperfectness]

...entire worlds? You mean like other planets, or...?

[A different reality, maybe? It was possible, though quantum theory wasn't exactly his strongest area.]

[icy_heavens]

[Shrug.] Different realities may perhaps be more accurate. We were all drawn from them.

[imperfectness]

Fascinating. So the multiple universes interpretation is correct?

[He really did mean that it was interesting. It was something he had been looking into, as of late, and it was good to know he was possibly on the right track.]

What world are you from?

[icy_heavens]

[A lifted eyebrow, and a glance in his direction. Fascinating. Right. But then, what more is there to be said about the destruction that's just occurred? And there's at least one conclusion he's confident in from that statement.] You're a scientist, I assume.

As to what world I'm from, I can't say that I know of any specific designation it may have.

[imperfectness]

I am.

[He looks away from the Earth, letting his mind grab onto the concept of other worlds, thankful for the distraction.]

Perhaps there should be a catalog of them. Do you know if the Initiative keeps one?