Trial 001 [Radio, audio only] [Public]

[portal_refugee]

I'll admit, you've got one interesting place here.

[The voice belongs to a young woman, and sounds to be in her early to mid-twenties. A bit tired perhaps, but whatever stress she feels is being carefully restrained as she begins her plea for information - with an introduction naturally.] As practiced as that orientation is at the Welcome Center, I take it everyone is rather used to newcomers. So, hi. Name's Abigail, and I'm from a city called San Fransokyo.

[There's a pause that follows, but the hesitation is shaken off as she proceeds to her point.]

Just walking into the city in the first place showed me a lot. And keeping an open mind, the whole Great Turtle is begging a lot of questions, but I have one thing I would like to confirm.

For lack of a better way to say it, did time really stop back where we came from? Has anyone been able to verify it somehow? I ask because I transitioned here at a really...inopportune moment.

Comments

audio;

[lasergrenades]

San Fransokyo? Did Japan collide with California or something?

[Because clearly that is the most important thing to discuss out of everything Abigail has just said.]

As far as we know, that's how things work. It's part of the spell. We forget everything here when we go home, so it's kind of hard to, you know, experiment. Some people come and go, though, and things apparently just... pick up wherever they left off.

The turtle is totally real, by the way; you can go walk out to his head and see if you want. Also, hi, I'm Pepper. Welcome to Keeliai.

Audio

[portal_refugee]

In a sense. Back after the 1906 earthquake there was a lot of rebuilding to do, and the Japanese-descended portion of the population really stepped up. So San Francisco became San Fransokyo.

[There is a touch of pride being a part of such an amazing city.]

So in other words enjoy it while you can.

Nice to meet you, Pepper. If I can figure out which way his head is, I might just do that.

audio;

[lasergrenades]

Oh. Wow. Okay then. That renaming didn't happen where I come from, but the earthquake did.

[Yet another Foreigner from some version of Earth. They were rather common, weren't they?]

That's a good way to think about it. Most people don't. [Which was reasonable, but Abigail's reaction is refreshingly different.] Nice to meet you, too, Abigail. People go up there all the time. Apparently it used to be super peaceful, but now that he's in a coma it's just like walking anywhere else. We're trying to figure out how to wake him up now that we're beached, just FYI.

Audio

[portal_refugee]

It didn't? Huh. [Abigail will figure that out just how common versions of Earth are soon enough.]

If what you said is accurate, then, even if I could, rushing home will not make any difference in how anything progresses from where I left. [Even if it will torture her in the meantime.] I've seen more new things walking down one street than I have for a long time. It might be fun to see more.

[A beat.]

The Great Turtle is in a coma? Any idea why?

audio

[solo_patria]

So I've heard. Although, oddly, most of the Returning that I know, who found a way back home, do not remember their first time here. [Enjolras himself, apparently, is of that number, as mad as he finds the idea.] It is as though they've...started again or something. Quite odd.

Audio

[portal_refugee]

No souvenirs. Harsh policy for such a rude awakening. Then again, talking about a place like this could make people suspect you've gone mad.

Interesting mechanic forcing a restart. I wonder if there's an intended purpose to it or if it's a side effect of something else.

Audio:

[solo_patria]

It IS rather odd. I am told that I was once here too, before I came, and it happened to a few friends I made, but I had nothing at all to remember. Perhaps that is for the best. I cannot GET home, after all, even if it were a ready option, and having it dangled would be painful.

I do wonder too. It hardly seemed as though any of us were in danger or near death at the time. I was offered a CHANCE to go back, after the war's end, but that was very different by then. Though Hmm. The process IS said to be mostly unchanged, despite all else that has changed here.

[androit]

San Fransokyo? You wouldn't happen to... nah. I just realized how annoying that would sound.

[ He's heard of the city before, but what are the chances she'd know some random professor from the same city??? Dur. ]

I'm not too sure about the time thing myself.

[portal_refugee]

[Those chances are far better than what he seems to believe. Unknowing of what that question may have been, Abigail is glad to move straight to the topic of her main concern.]

There is a lot to be uncertain of here.

Been here long? [That will help determine why he isn't able to answer. Whoever he is.]

[androit]

[ Yeah, but he hasn't learned that yet. So sorry, Abigail. ]

Way, way too much for my liking.

Uh, no, not really. Two weeks-ish? Which... means I probably shouldn't be trying to answer questions, but I'd already started to talk before I thought about it.

audio

[looksfine]

While I have not been able to personally verify such claims through first-hand experience...there have been sufficient testimonies from a wide sample of individuals to give reasonable validity to the idea.

[Which, for Aya, was the next best thing.]

And alternative hypothesis, of course, is not that time itself has frozen, but that the source of our arrival here has a strong enough mastery of the space-time continuum that, regardless of our duration of time here, we will be returned to precisely the moment we were taken from upon completion of our mission.

Audio

[portal_refugee]

[Huh. Another technically minded individual perhaps?]

Any estimation of a sample size?

Actually that is the more likely theory. Translocation of a relatively tiny mass from a singular point in time is far more efficient than widespread effect to an entire timeline. In theory at least.

I was just trying to avoid causing confusion in the phrasing of my inquiry. Not everyone is well versed in sciences.

Audio

[looksfine]

[...finally, someone who speaks in words she can unmistakably comprehend!]

Estimation? ...a minimum of two dozen individualized accounts that I am currently able to recall. Both of those who had been able to return to their universes of origin only to come back with full memories of the subsequent events that took place during that time...as well as selected individuals who were noted to come from not only the same universe, but at varying points in their mutual timelines.

Of course, as I have not taken it upon myself to interview every person who has come and gone, the actual numbers could be much higher than that.

And you have no need to apologize. It is understandable to wish to convey yourself in a manner that the majority of the general public would be able to fully comprehend.

Audio

[wolf_of_war]

[Have a synthesized, mechanical-sounding voice.]

I believe that the "world turtle" myth began with the Chinese, and was later adopted by the indigenous people of the American continent. That the world we know is carried on the back of a giant turtle. This place...seems to take the myth to it's next logical step.

As for your other question, I am afraid I do not yet have that information. Though that is hardly surprising, as I just arrived.

Audio

[portal_refugee]

[The mechanical nature is unexpected, but not an unfamiliar quality for Abigail to hear. It certainly piques her curiosity about the speaker on the other side of signal.]

Good catch on the reference. Even at this smaller size a turtle this large shouldn't be physically possible. At least not under normal circumstances. [But apparently magic is a thing here.]

Been here about a day myself. Have you been to the Welcome Center?

Audio

[wolf_of_war]

Realistically, for a turtle of this size to exist, the ocean in which it swims would need to be several orders of magnitude larger than anything known on earth. I am unable to access any satellites which may be orbiting the planet, which would allow me to make a rough estimate.

[The curse of being technological in nature. Bladewolf relies on technology for everything.]

I have, yes. The welcome information was most informative, but has done little but raise more questions.

[highprofilerichkid]

San Fransokyo? [Tony snickers. That's some kind of joke, right?] What a coincidence. I'm from New Yortimore.

[But in all seriousness:] Yeah, it's verified. Sometimes people leave here and come back. We don't know why it works like that, but it's worked that way for everyone so far.

[portal_refugee]

You don't say...

[Hear that lack of amusement? She might forgive him if only because he answered her main concern.] Do you know who was able to verify it or how?

And for the record, if you're going to try to mash two city names together to make a fusion city up off the cuff, might want to try two different countries of origin. New Yoscow works much better.

[highprofilerichkid]

Sure. Me, for starters. I can get you a list of other people, if you want to talk to them.

...Wait, were you serious about San Fransokyo?

audio

[brewglory]

[With the driest of tones:]

Don't you mean San Francisco?

[And then a horrifying thought strikes him: what if she doesn't? What if there's a place in some world somewhere called San Fransokyo? A place where World War 2 was lost, perhaps?

Suddenly, Severus has mentally invented for himself the plot of Man in the High Castle.]

Audio (With her mundane squealing)

[portal_refugee]

[This question is odd to her. These poor other universes without a San Fransokyo.]

Not really, no. San Fransokyo was San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake hit, but with so much of the reconstruction being taken on by the Japanese-descended portion of the population, it got a new flare. So the old name didn't fit and it became San Fransokyo instead.

Audio

[brewglory]

It isn't the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, I suppose.

Have your questions been answered?

voice

[pompous_today]

I believe it does. My sister arrived here some weeks before I did, and yet back home, I saw her maybe half an hour or so before I departed.

Audio

[portal_refugee]

[Someone direct experience of a mutual timeline!]

That speaks to a separation of the time here and your own timeline, but did you both come from the same point in your time back home?

Audio

[pompous_today]

We did not, no- I remember things that happened several months after the time she says she was brought here.