thisavrou | (no subject)

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So, because I mention it in another conversation, I am going to say this here where all new people can hear it, and it does not need to be said a bunch of times.

You will sometimes see people with faces like people you know, but they aren't them. You will see people with names and histories of people you know, but look a little different. You will see two different versions of the same person, that looks exactly the same, but with slightly different pasts. Sometimes someone will go away, and when you see them again? They won't remember you.

This is called 'alternate universes'. Most of the time. Maybe sometimes it's a pretty bad prank. That would be shitty of someone to do but it could be. Usually though? It is that you get two versions of two very alike things.

So don't get too confused if someone shows up and doesn't remember you, or someone remembers one of your friends, or someone is looking for a different but much alike person with same name. It just happens. It is pretty shitty that this becomes normal but ah... whatever. Someone good at science can explain how it's possible.

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How many times do you think something like that could happen at once?

[ He's already met an alternate version of his best friend. Could there be several more coming through the Ingress? Another him as well? Steve doesn't actually feel comfortable thinking about it. ]

Edited (spelling is hard) 2016-02-12 08:46 (UTC)

As many times as we can get fucked over by shitty new places.

I have met four of you, and two of them were on old ship at the same time. I met a woman named Samus twice. I met the friend of a man here who I saw die.

It gets very old, and sometimes sad to go through things with someone, only to see them again and find their eyes empty when they look at you.

You have a friend, right? Bucky. Knows Russian. Metal arm. I met him, but he is different from the Bucky that's here.

Edited 2016-02-12 18:48 (UTC)

[ Way to hit a guy with too much information all at once, Niko. Steve wants to address everything he's said, especially just how sad it can be when someone looks at you without recognizing anything about you or what you've been through together, but... How do you know about that? is right on the tip of his tongue despite Niko having already said how. ]

When did you meet him? [ Was he okay? What did he say? Too many questions, and each one hurts to think about. ]

Back on the Nehada. We broke a code together. I recognized it as locations after he worked out the numbers. It was in Russian. Only those that spoke Russian could understand the numbers when they were said. They would not go through any translator.

Why?

[He sounds as if he was at least okay enough to do that.]

[ It makes sense he'd known Russian. Steve's pretty rusty on the language himself, though he knows a passable amount thanks to Natasha. He tries to keep his expression in check. ]

I've been looking for him. Back home, he did a lot of bad things for the wrong kind of people. [ It's a lot more complicated than that, but. ] Did he tell you any of that?

Steve, we were all doing bad things for the wrong type of people. [That's what the CDC was.] Me and him, we did our whole lives. We were probably among the better of those handling it, when so many were new to it.

The you that was there found him, though. And he had a lot of support. So I think compared to what he could be, he would be okay.

Maybe we all made it out if we're lucky.

[ But Steve doesn't know about the CDC. It's actually alarming how little he knows about Niko prior to their time the Moira. ]

And the ones who didn't? What happened to them? [ He's trying not to grill him. This isn't Niko's fault. ] Wherever that was doesn't sound so different from the one we're in now.

The murdered officers who refused to help them and would broadcast recordings of it to make us behave. Warn us that we would pay for breaking contract. They would torture people, too. Not for going against them, also for failure to complete a task. Even if it was not their fault. They had brainwashing programs to get people used to killing.

Tali was one of those that was made to suffer. [And it still bothers him that she didn't even realize what had been done to her. She was nearly crushed by a planet's gravity, the air ripped from her lungs, she had ached in his arms.]

The CDC is a business. It spans many universes, many worlds, and it destroys planets for money. Legal for them, like how you would trick native peoples out of their land and develop it. But the natives are part of that territory- they don't get to escape. And it was so big, there was no way to fight it. It was a good scheme. They tricked us into these contracts. We had to help them, or we would be giving our own planet to them. Either people resisted and they get what they wanted, or they would make you so desensitized and self interested nothing else mattered than the rewards and gratification you got from a "job well done".

And that is why after this destination, I can't go home. But the you in that place? He almost talked me into standing against them. He was actually making me consider it. Me, who sees little escape from capitalism.

[He is shallow, though. He wanted to rip that business down just for threatening his family. Helping save the universe? He doesn't have enough ego to think he can do anything like that. Avenge his family? Protect them? He wants to think he can do that. Anything else is a side-effect.]

Ratchet and Alice were also from this place. They are good people. But we all had to help them destroy a planet. More were meant to come. So I hope everyone was disbanded. This place may not be as bad, but I never fucking forget that I am owned here, too.

Edited 2016-02-14 22:07 (UTC)

Let's hope we never see anything like the CDC out here then. [ Not that it makes much difference considering the last planet they were on. There will always be businesses and corporations who take advantage of those who don't know any better—and some who do but can't help it. He's trying not to let it get to him, but something like this... it's big. It makes him angry.

That there are helpless people being used for something like this isn't okay at all. ]

But doing what you have to isn't the same. If they're gonna push us down, you fight back. And even if you don't see it now, there's always a way out. There are a lot of good people on this ship, Niko, and they would help you get home. If you wanted. [ Because that's still a choice he has to make for himself. Steve can't do that for him. ] I would too.

[ They're not stuck here. This is a temporary stop along the way, and he'll keep going until he absolutely can't anymore. ]

I can't go home. Not after this. Not after what I did.

It's not even completely guilt. I don't want to hate my family for being the reason I did it. It was my choice. I decided that strangers were less important than my loved ones. But I would look at them, and I would know I fucking would kill a million people to make sure they would okay. I would see my cousin's baby and all I would think is death.

[Honestly, though, that's always been his mindset. He learned to kill after his brother's death, because his town needed defending. He didn't want to see more people fall, and he killed so many, only to still keep losing.]

So I don't get to go home.

But I will help anyone here make it to theirs. I will ride out this contract until I can go. [Despite everything, he still thinks the luckiest thing for everyone would be if he didn't even make it that far.] But this thing is on my arm, and it is still a way of keeping me around.

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