RE: The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [TALKIN' 'BOUT IMPORTANT SHIT]
01-22-2014, 04:44 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-22-2014, 05:33 PM by Elpie.)
GOTO CAMERA VII-1
”Hello, this is Kracht, bringing you the latest installment of Causal News from our new hard-light studio inside the worldship “Lucky” VII, not affiliated with Lucky Strikes tobacco company. As our new forms have all become free from entropy--and by extension news--we will be introducing something of a new format here on what we’re now calling “GBNVII”--following the worldship itself into Round Five of “the Glorious Championship,” and boy, is this one a doozy!
“For those of you catching up back home, it seems that the Glorious Champions were all saved from certain fiery death when ‘the Convolution’ was broadcasted into some sort of informational singularity. As this may be the closest that the Convolution can experience to ‘death’ as we understand it, the Hedonist declared the round over and sent VII and the gang over to a galactic scrapyard colloquially known as ‘Planet Junk.’ Let’s go to our battlemetrics analysts to see what--”
The Indolent wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what Kracht was talking about when he mentioned an informational singularity and the “death” of the Convolution. He was perfectly, 100% aware of what was going on. It was all quite clear:
The conservative media was biased against the Convolution. Kracht, formerly a journalist of some integrity, had sold out to the fascist High Admiral Itzel at the first sign of getting dropped into the sun. Now he was using his media clout to help secure VII an unearned Grand Battle victory. Typical. This was everything that was wrong with the media in this country.
He ought to do something.
The Indolent placed both hands against the couch cushions and began to liftpush. The cushions were infinitely soft, and so he could feel his bulky hands retreating forever into their softness, enveloped in space/time “memory” foam. He attempted to lengthen and bulk up his arms, change the couch into some new exotic form of matter, generally to put to use the Grandmaster powers his nature compelled him to neglect. He emitted fluorescent orange Cheeto dust which crackled and then self-annihilated in the cosmic ruin of his neckbeard. Sweat the smell of a hundred death camps oozed from his armpits--the sin of his own sloth recalling all those in need who had ever cried for help while he was sitting there watching television.
The Indolent felt his feet touch the floor for the first time since the concept of “floor” existed as separate from “ground.” He found that hours had passed.
”This is Kracht reporting from Planet AMP! We estimate that AMP has now assimilated over 60% of the planet’s landmass and developed enough split personalities to populate that landmass with a functioning police force. We know Taccha Maowyn to be in their custody. It is risky for us to broadcast because of AMP’s sensing technology, but we’re doing what we can to scramble any attempts to trace us. So, AMP, if you’re listening, know that you can never stop the signal. GBNVII lives on. If you can think of any way that the Admiral and her crew can defeat a contestant that has spawned an entire Type I civilization, call our toll-free number at 555-777-4267, and we would just love to hear from you.”
555-777-4267. The Indolent held that number in his head. He thought it might be a good idea to give this new station a piece of his mind. He missed the old GBN2. He missed Silver Manor. It seemed so long ago already.
Of course, the phone was all the way up the stairs…
The Indolent rose to a standing position. Every bone in his spine shattered and rebuilt itself a dozen times, flooding him with unimaginable pain. Sharp as that pain was, it was at least something different from the pain he’d been experiencing before--the white-hot angina, the neuropathic pins and needles assaulting his extremities, the unfulfilled desires from a genital structure he could no longer see nor manipulate.
The Indolent took one agonizing step toward the staircase and everything became a little clearer. The pain helped him focus. He took another step. The way walking felt wasn’t that bad. It didn’t feel like dying at all.
”--Really helps that the Convolution has definitively been pushed out of the game,” Kracht was saying. “Aiding and abetting a revolutionary movement of rogue AMP-aspects would have been a highly problematic endeavor if we were worried about exposing ourselves to viral ideas. Now that that menace is gone, we can feel safe in the knowledge that we here on VII are always on the side of the authorities, so long as the authority is us.
“Early projections of the Battle of San Elimine show no clear advantage to either pro- or anti-AMP forces--”
The Indolent’s palm was so slick with sweat he could barely grip the rail, let alone get enough of a grip to pull himself up that first step. There was honestly no physical or metaphysical accounting for how he managed it, but he could feel his supplementary organs--his spleen, appendix, the poor ruin of his pancreas--bursting like popcorn kernels inside of his body. It felt like a really intense back-massage, only inside-out.
He made a go at the second step. 555-777-4267.
”We’re back and it’s time for Round Six of the Glorious Championship. It’s down to the Maowyn/Gaurinn composite, the typewriter Etiyr and us here on Worldship VII as the Hedonist sends us to our latest exotic destination: the Palace of Nine Initiations. A statement from High Admiral Itzel suggests that the worldship’s first priority is to track down Taccha Maowyn and gauge the extent of her hostility. Although following the revelations of the previous round, Etiyr may be more dangerous than ever--”
At the top of the stairs (had he climbed up all thirteen steps?) the Indolent ran into the problem of the doorframe. He wouldn’t be able to fit. How long had it been since that door had shut behind him? The door, he remembered, was possessed. If he was perceiving it as too small for him, that might only be a certain perspective on the truth.
The door required a sacrifice.
The Indolent, still holding the rail with one hand, reached into his own chest and pulled out his asthmatic little heart, still frantically pumping enough blood to reach the important parts of his body. He laid it at the feet of the door. The door opened wide enough to let him into the kitchen.
The heart began to whistle and let off steam. He would only have minutes now and he could no longer hear the television. That separation was a sort of death in itself, or at least an ascension to a higher state of being. Was this really the kitchen or only a dream? And was that the phone on the wall? Hundreds of pounds of fat, heated to melting temperatures by the friction needed to escape his own singularity, were falling all over the floor, a rancid magma slush. He wondered what was going on on the TV.
His fingers were almost, but not quite, too stubby to dial the numbers.
The hard light construct that had once been a duplicate of a being removed by infinite timelines from the rock born into our multiverse as Kracht was enjoying a good news day. “--So what do you think, folks? Will Etiyr really be able to banish Maowyn by proving she doesn’t exist, just like that? And can we truly have confidence in a sentient typewriter that only passed eight of the temple’s initiations? Here at GBNVII we try not to half-ass our enlightenments, folks. When I was--”
The call-in line rang. “And we have a caller!” yelped Kracht nervously. “First one ever. Strange.” He hit the button as though he didn’t know what to do with it. “You’re on Causal News. What’s your--”
A nasal, wheezing voice sounded from the other end. “Let’s cut the crap, Kracht. I’m calling in to let you know that I’m very disappointed in what your network has had to offer lately.”
”I’m sorry to hear that, caller. Can I have your name?”
”What happened to the days when television just meant good storytelling and catchy jingles and none of this reactionary stuff? I understand VII is the hand that feeds, but can’t we have one show--and I’m not saying it has to be a Rexxcer Diaries reboot, though that wouldn’t be remiss--one show that doesn’t promote this Lucky-For-Season-Three-All-Stars agenda?”
”Caller.” Kracht was aware that for whatever reason--some heightened nature of reality in this place, maybe, or just the fact that being in front of a camera turns everyone into a character--he lacked the emotionless calm associated with the prime Kracht. However, if he’d had it, he would have been losing it now. “Caller, tell me who or what you are, please.”
WARNING: MEMETIC ANOMALY DETECTED
”And of course now you’re going to make it all about me. Ad hominem attacks from a television personality who ought to know better. So what if I’m unemployed and about to die? I’m still the consumer base, aren’t I?”
”Caller, I need to know who’s--”
MEMETIC EMERGENCY. HARD LIGHT SIMULATION DISABLED.
Go to camera [ERROR].
Static.
Itzel’s eyes widened in a way not normally associated with insects when she got the memo. “Did we get it in time?” she asked, almost begging. “Did we contain it?
“Is it back?
“Who’s going to tell Etiyr?”
Taccha Maowyn, at the same moment, reached the end of the sheet, struggling to find a flaw in Etiy’rs argument. She could not. She shrugged, cawed “Fair enough” and vanished into nothingness.
This proved a problem for Gaurinn, whose guts were no longer being held in by his adjunct goddess’s shoulder. He fell to the ground and all of his necessary organs began to ooze out of his back end. “Oh God,” he whimpered. “Oh God, am I dying? Just like that?”
Etiyr began to type.
“Etiyr, are you going to help me? I’m not like her. You know that.”
Etiyr kept typing but Gaurinn couldn’t get over to read. He was alone. He thought Etiyr was probably trying to warn him of the way he kept flickering and how time was starting to loop around but he couldn’t get over to read, he was dying too dead to take the time to read a letter, he couldn’t be sure, he was dying.
“Etiyr, listen to me,” he clicked. “I’m dying. The round’s going to end and it’s going to be you and-- listen to me. I’m dying. The round’s going to end and it’s going to be Lucky and-- Listen to me. It’s going to be Quantos and the end’s going around. Etiyr. Listen to me. It’s going to have been Cailean. I’m dying. Listen to me.
“One. There is only one time traveler at a time. Etiyr? Maowyn it’s going to be Cailean. Listen to the Operator, Epigen. The round’s going to purple.
“Two. It is a time traveler’s duty to protect the timestream from paradoxes. I’m not even a time traveler! I can remember an orgy but we’re all dyslexic in this place. Etiyr can you see this place? The Maowyn’s going to end. I’m even a time traveler! Listen to dying. I’m me.
“Three. Whenever a time traveler is about to die about to die about to die chronal dyslexia Etiyr listen to about to die three. There is only three VII at a time. We now return to Magic Fighter About To Die. Two and a half. Whenever-a-time-traveler-is-about-to-die-they-meet-the-next-time-traveler-to-inform-them-of-these-rules-before-passing-on-to-the-next-life-listen to me Etiyr it’s back it’s back the Convolution it’s been in all of us the jungle but only I remember
“I think I always knew one day a time traveler would die, I just had to get here so I could tell me it was me the whole time. I’m seeing everything and it’s a centipede, like Da Vinci but dying I’m. Segments like we now return to. Me listen to Etiyr. I never knew I would be an arm. I’ve seen such beautiful things. Thanks for breakfast. I have to do this now.”
A final power surge fried the rest of Gaurinn’s fading, chronally jittery nervous system and reached out across the universe. Far enough to reach the appointed next time traveler and bring him across the lightyears to the Temple of Nine Initiations. The last thing Etiyr saw in the sixth round was a faceless, tripedal, very confused alien finding itself cradling the corpse of a centipede, cradling a severed arm, cradling a time machine.
Cut!
”Hello, this is Kracht, bringing you the latest installment of Causal News from our new hard-light studio inside the worldship “Lucky” VII, not affiliated with Lucky Strikes tobacco company. As our new forms have all become free from entropy--and by extension news--we will be introducing something of a new format here on what we’re now calling “GBNVII”--following the worldship itself into Round Five of “the Glorious Championship,” and boy, is this one a doozy!
“For those of you catching up back home, it seems that the Glorious Champions were all saved from certain fiery death when ‘the Convolution’ was broadcasted into some sort of informational singularity. As this may be the closest that the Convolution can experience to ‘death’ as we understand it, the Hedonist declared the round over and sent VII and the gang over to a galactic scrapyard colloquially known as ‘Planet Junk.’ Let’s go to our battlemetrics analysts to see what--”
The Indolent wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what Kracht was talking about when he mentioned an informational singularity and the “death” of the Convolution. He was perfectly, 100% aware of what was going on. It was all quite clear:
The conservative media was biased against the Convolution. Kracht, formerly a journalist of some integrity, had sold out to the fascist High Admiral Itzel at the first sign of getting dropped into the sun. Now he was using his media clout to help secure VII an unearned Grand Battle victory. Typical. This was everything that was wrong with the media in this country.
He ought to do something.
The Indolent placed both hands against the couch cushions and began to liftpush. The cushions were infinitely soft, and so he could feel his bulky hands retreating forever into their softness, enveloped in space/time “memory” foam. He attempted to lengthen and bulk up his arms, change the couch into some new exotic form of matter, generally to put to use the Grandmaster powers his nature compelled him to neglect. He emitted fluorescent orange Cheeto dust which crackled and then self-annihilated in the cosmic ruin of his neckbeard. Sweat the smell of a hundred death camps oozed from his armpits--the sin of his own sloth recalling all those in need who had ever cried for help while he was sitting there watching television.
The Indolent felt his feet touch the floor for the first time since the concept of “floor” existed as separate from “ground.” He found that hours had passed.
”This is Kracht reporting from Planet AMP! We estimate that AMP has now assimilated over 60% of the planet’s landmass and developed enough split personalities to populate that landmass with a functioning police force. We know Taccha Maowyn to be in their custody. It is risky for us to broadcast because of AMP’s sensing technology, but we’re doing what we can to scramble any attempts to trace us. So, AMP, if you’re listening, know that you can never stop the signal. GBNVII lives on. If you can think of any way that the Admiral and her crew can defeat a contestant that has spawned an entire Type I civilization, call our toll-free number at 555-777-4267, and we would just love to hear from you.”
555-777-4267. The Indolent held that number in his head. He thought it might be a good idea to give this new station a piece of his mind. He missed the old GBN2. He missed Silver Manor. It seemed so long ago already.
Of course, the phone was all the way up the stairs…
The Indolent rose to a standing position. Every bone in his spine shattered and rebuilt itself a dozen times, flooding him with unimaginable pain. Sharp as that pain was, it was at least something different from the pain he’d been experiencing before--the white-hot angina, the neuropathic pins and needles assaulting his extremities, the unfulfilled desires from a genital structure he could no longer see nor manipulate.
The Indolent took one agonizing step toward the staircase and everything became a little clearer. The pain helped him focus. He took another step. The way walking felt wasn’t that bad. It didn’t feel like dying at all.
”--Really helps that the Convolution has definitively been pushed out of the game,” Kracht was saying. “Aiding and abetting a revolutionary movement of rogue AMP-aspects would have been a highly problematic endeavor if we were worried about exposing ourselves to viral ideas. Now that that menace is gone, we can feel safe in the knowledge that we here on VII are always on the side of the authorities, so long as the authority is us.
“Early projections of the Battle of San Elimine show no clear advantage to either pro- or anti-AMP forces--”
The Indolent’s palm was so slick with sweat he could barely grip the rail, let alone get enough of a grip to pull himself up that first step. There was honestly no physical or metaphysical accounting for how he managed it, but he could feel his supplementary organs--his spleen, appendix, the poor ruin of his pancreas--bursting like popcorn kernels inside of his body. It felt like a really intense back-massage, only inside-out.
He made a go at the second step. 555-777-4267.
”We’re back and it’s time for Round Six of the Glorious Championship. It’s down to the Maowyn/Gaurinn composite, the typewriter Etiyr and us here on Worldship VII as the Hedonist sends us to our latest exotic destination: the Palace of Nine Initiations. A statement from High Admiral Itzel suggests that the worldship’s first priority is to track down Taccha Maowyn and gauge the extent of her hostility. Although following the revelations of the previous round, Etiyr may be more dangerous than ever--”
At the top of the stairs (had he climbed up all thirteen steps?) the Indolent ran into the problem of the doorframe. He wouldn’t be able to fit. How long had it been since that door had shut behind him? The door, he remembered, was possessed. If he was perceiving it as too small for him, that might only be a certain perspective on the truth.
The door required a sacrifice.
The Indolent, still holding the rail with one hand, reached into his own chest and pulled out his asthmatic little heart, still frantically pumping enough blood to reach the important parts of his body. He laid it at the feet of the door. The door opened wide enough to let him into the kitchen.
The heart began to whistle and let off steam. He would only have minutes now and he could no longer hear the television. That separation was a sort of death in itself, or at least an ascension to a higher state of being. Was this really the kitchen or only a dream? And was that the phone on the wall? Hundreds of pounds of fat, heated to melting temperatures by the friction needed to escape his own singularity, were falling all over the floor, a rancid magma slush. He wondered what was going on on the TV.
His fingers were almost, but not quite, too stubby to dial the numbers.
The hard light construct that had once been a duplicate of a being removed by infinite timelines from the rock born into our multiverse as Kracht was enjoying a good news day. “--So what do you think, folks? Will Etiyr really be able to banish Maowyn by proving she doesn’t exist, just like that? And can we truly have confidence in a sentient typewriter that only passed eight of the temple’s initiations? Here at GBNVII we try not to half-ass our enlightenments, folks. When I was--”
The call-in line rang. “And we have a caller!” yelped Kracht nervously. “First one ever. Strange.” He hit the button as though he didn’t know what to do with it. “You’re on Causal News. What’s your--”
A nasal, wheezing voice sounded from the other end. “Let’s cut the crap, Kracht. I’m calling in to let you know that I’m very disappointed in what your network has had to offer lately.”
”I’m sorry to hear that, caller. Can I have your name?”
”What happened to the days when television just meant good storytelling and catchy jingles and none of this reactionary stuff? I understand VII is the hand that feeds, but can’t we have one show--and I’m not saying it has to be a Rexxcer Diaries reboot, though that wouldn’t be remiss--one show that doesn’t promote this Lucky-For-Season-Three-All-Stars agenda?”
”Caller.” Kracht was aware that for whatever reason--some heightened nature of reality in this place, maybe, or just the fact that being in front of a camera turns everyone into a character--he lacked the emotionless calm associated with the prime Kracht. However, if he’d had it, he would have been losing it now. “Caller, tell me who or what you are, please.”
WARNING: MEMETIC ANOMALY DETECTED
”And of course now you’re going to make it all about me. Ad hominem attacks from a television personality who ought to know better. So what if I’m unemployed and about to die? I’m still the consumer base, aren’t I?”
”Caller, I need to know who’s--”
MEMETIC EMERGENCY. HARD LIGHT SIMULATION DISABLED.
Go to camera [ERROR].
Static.
Itzel’s eyes widened in a way not normally associated with insects when she got the memo. “Did we get it in time?” she asked, almost begging. “Did we contain it?
“Is it back?
“Who’s going to tell Etiyr?”
Taccha Maowyn, at the same moment, reached the end of the sheet, struggling to find a flaw in Etiy’rs argument. She could not. She shrugged, cawed “Fair enough” and vanished into nothingness.
This proved a problem for Gaurinn, whose guts were no longer being held in by his adjunct goddess’s shoulder. He fell to the ground and all of his necessary organs began to ooze out of his back end. “Oh God,” he whimpered. “Oh God, am I dying? Just like that?”
Etiyr began to type.
“Etiyr, are you going to help me? I’m not like her. You know that.”
Etiyr kept typing but Gaurinn couldn’t get over to read. He was alone. He thought Etiyr was probably trying to warn him of the way he kept flickering and how time was starting to loop around but he couldn’t get over to read, he was dying too dead to take the time to read a letter, he couldn’t be sure, he was dying.
“Etiyr, listen to me,” he clicked. “I’m dying. The round’s going to end and it’s going to be you and-- listen to me. I’m dying. The round’s going to end and it’s going to be Lucky and-- Listen to me. It’s going to be Quantos and the end’s going around. Etiyr. Listen to me. It’s going to have been Cailean. I’m dying. Listen to me.
“One. There is only one time traveler at a time. Etiyr? Maowyn it’s going to be Cailean. Listen to the Operator, Epigen. The round’s going to purple.
“Two. It is a time traveler’s duty to protect the timestream from paradoxes. I’m not even a time traveler! I can remember an orgy but we’re all dyslexic in this place. Etiyr can you see this place? The Maowyn’s going to end. I’m even a time traveler! Listen to dying. I’m me.
“Three. Whenever a time traveler is about to die about to die about to die chronal dyslexia Etiyr listen to about to die three. There is only three VII at a time. We now return to Magic Fighter About To Die. Two and a half. Whenever-a-time-traveler-is-about-to-die-they-meet-the-next-time-traveler-to-inform-them-of-these-rules-before-passing-on-to-the-next-life-listen to me Etiyr it’s back it’s back the Convolution it’s been in all of us the jungle but only I remember
“I think I always knew one day a time traveler would die, I just had to get here so I could tell me it was me the whole time. I’m seeing everything and it’s a centipede, like Da Vinci but dying I’m. Segments like we now return to. Me listen to Etiyr. I never knew I would be an arm. I’ve seen such beautiful things. Thanks for breakfast. I have to do this now.”
A final power surge fried the rest of Gaurinn’s fading, chronally jittery nervous system and reached out across the universe. Far enough to reach the appointed next time traveler and bring him across the lightyears to the Temple of Nine Initiations. The last thing Etiyr saw in the sixth round was a faceless, tripedal, very confused alien finding itself cradling the corpse of a centipede, cradling a severed arm, cradling a time machine.
Cut!