tushanshu | text; anonymous; English

When I arrived here, I assumed the barrier had been meant to keep us in and that the Emperor controlled it. By now, I think it's obvious that that's not the case. The barrier is meant to keep things out. When Tu Vishan dove underwater, the barrier stayed up and held back the jingashi. But they broke through and, judging by the kedans' reactions, that had never happened before. In fact, I asked around. It hasn't ever happened before, not until lately.

Point two: a satellite falls out of the sky, breaks through the barrier, and lands on Tu Vishan. First of all, this suggest that there is-- or was-- some kind of long-distance communication technology. It also suggests that the barrier is weakening even more. Before, it took the stress of thousands of jingashi to weaken the barrier. Now all it takes is debris. Big debris, sure, but decidedly less stress than the jingashi.

As for the Emperor, it's possible she's contributing power to maintain the barrier, but it doesn't originate from her. Tu Vishan is the one maintaining it.

I know everyone's concerned about what's coming, but we can't let that distract us completely from the big picture. My point is that we need to slow down and rethink what we think we know. Since the barrier is our first line of defense against any outside invasion, let's start there. What do we know, what do we think we know, and how can that help us?

[The text has been helpfully translated into French, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, German, and Japanese.]

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[Texting. Ain't nobody got time for that.] If the turtle's increasingly getting sick - possibly even dying - it's not really surprising that the barrier is getting worse alongside it.

It probably won't get better unless Tu Vishan does, too.

Possibly. But the barrier failed before Tu Vishan was outwardly ill.

Outwardly ill, yes, but there's no way to tell just how early the sickness started. Maybe the barrier blips were a sign we didn't realize.

It's possible. If we tie Tu Vishan's health to the strength of the barrier, it means it will eventually be too weak to keep anything out-- or any of us in.

But that still leaves the question: why did he suddenly get so sick?

It's something to definitely keep in mind, especially if the turtle is serving as a general power source.

It was just after the jiangshi invasion, wasn't it? He took a lot of damage, but none of it strikes me as something that would create this kind of sickness. Maybe - [There's a pause, a sudden realization that Eva's arrival on the turtle coincided with Asti's illness.] Maybe it's related to the threat we're here to fight.

I've been considering that possibility. I wonder if it's possible that it coordinated the jiangshi invasion, or at least boosted their energy so they could push through. Ultimate evil, the undead.

Of course I've got nothing to support any of those ideas.

That was the first real sign of the barrier breaking down, too. That we're aware of. The threat could have reanimated the corpses or something.

I'm not sure anyone does.

The jiangshi killed people to steal their souls or life-force or whatever. Wonder if their real target was Tu Vishan and we just happened to get their attention. It would explain why they burrowed themselves into the shell. They didn't particularly coordinated as a whole. Their desire might have been exploited by It.

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