text; un: higgs

[finalrequest]

I have a couple of questions for y'all, and I'd be much obliged if you could answer them.

1.) How many realities have you visited, and what were they like?
2.) What is the last thing you remember before coming here?

It probably goes without saying that I'm new around here. There's not much to say about myself, really. Name's the same as the username, this place is a step up from home; the usual, I'm sure.

[He makes it sound like he's been world hopping before but really he's just read a lot of science fiction.]

Comments

[iseegoblins]

1. I'm sorry to hear that, is not a good situation. They came to ours to try to try to prevent our world from turning into something like theirs. I hope there's some chance in yours to fix things.

2. Yeah, outer space. It's really beautiful, I can't imagine not seeing stars. Why can't you see them where you're from?

At least a beach sounds kinda nice.

[finalrequest]

It's a bit of a story.

The summed up version is that the land of the dead and the world of the living merged in an accident called the Death Stranding. These particles from the Beach, the land of the dead, became trapped in the atmosphere and blotted out the sky in permanent clouds. It cut off communication with the rest of the world in an instant; the chiralium in the atmosphere means satellite communication is impossible.

There's a network that uses chiralium as a means of communication, but it really only works across the continent, so other countries are still completely cut off, if they even still exist.

[There's probably several questions in there, one of the biggest ones being the implication that the internet is now powered by purgatory.]

[iseegoblins]

At least this place is letting me see that my life wasn't nearly as weird as I thought it was. I want to ask how the chiralium somehow makes it's own network that you can use to communicate, but I'm not sure I'd get it.

If you were on the Beach before you got here, does that mean you were in the land of the dead?

I apologize for this nerd

[finalrequest]

Oh, the network is all technology. The Internet, the technology they used before, was fiber optics. It was long strands underground, some of them spanning across continents under the ocean.

The Chiral network is like that, except it uses the abundance of chiralium in the atmosphere instead of relying on enormous physical wires.

You'd be correct. More specifically, the Beach is a waystation of sorts. You're not meant to STAY there, but those who die end up stuck; the only way to move forward it to destroy the body otherwise they try to come back. They're not human anymore when that happens.

haha no worries

[iseegoblins]

Normal internet then. Kinda sounds better than wires. Seems like less chance for things to go out without wires? Or I could be completely off. Technology was never really my department.

So like some sort of purgatory? Does that mean you're dead? Wait. That's pretty personal to ask. Sorry.

[finalrequest]

Well, if you ignore the fact that its mere existence could end the world at any moment it works fine. Bit of a downside to using the afterlife for your everyday power source. It also doesn't work beyond the one country, but I'm not so sure there's anything left outside of it to begin with.

You can travel there, if you know how to. It's a physical place, of a sort. It's just usually inaccessible for people who don't know how to navigate it.

[That doesn't answer her question, though.]

[iseegoblins]

Okay world ending sounds like a pretty big downside. That kinda sucks to not even know if there's anything beyond.

So you're not dead you just know how to navigate inside of it?

[finalrequest]

I know how to navigate TO it, more precisely.

Or I did; I've lost the ability to do it. It's not a common one to begin with. For people with it, it's sort of like needing to picture a place clearly in your mind, but you also need to be able to picture where it is within the space beyond it.

It's possible to use it to quickly travel from one place to another, but if you fuck up somehow and overshoot it somehow, it might not be possible to leave. Time doesn't pass normally on the Beach, so it's not ideal at all.

[iseegoblins]

It sounds kinda complicated. But useful as long as you don't mess up. I know a few teleporters that work pretty similar when it comes to needing to see things in your mind.

Did you lose the ability when you got here?

[finalrequest]

Sometimes trigger objects can work, to anchor yourself to someone or someplace, but they need to be significant in some way to work. You aren't going to get anything from trying to use someone's toothbrush.

No, I lost it before coming here. It didn't have anything to do with this place.

[iseegoblins]

What if it's their favorite toothbrush that was a gift from their favorite uncle?

Ah. I want to ask how you lost it, but that seems kinda personal.

[finalrequest]

In that case, maybe? If you knew the uncle.

It's not really that interesting. After a time, my powers can fade on their own. There's a way to "recharge" them so to speak, but I don't much care for doing it.

[iseegoblins]

Oh. That's pretty weird, I've never heard of powers just fading.

[finalrequest]

I suppose so.

I've never met anyone whose powers worked just like someone else, though. In my case, they're never gone completely, they just become weaker over time.

[iseegoblins]

True. Most powers where I'm from are all pretty different. Even the ones that are from the same kind of category.

[finalrequest]

Exactly.

The only real thing people with abilities have in common where I'm from is the ability to sense BTs. Think of them as hostile, vengeful spirits completely invisible to most people.

Even at the lowest level, one can sense the connection BTs have with the Beach, a purgatory of sorts. It's everything else that comes with the abilities that's different.