Prehistory 101 [TWS]

Venture forth into the darkness.

You venture forth into the darkness.

Slowly, in front of you, a light begins to glow. A faint, cool breeze touches your cheek, entwines in the scraggly hairs of your beard, and dashes off, gagging at the filth in there.

Suddenly, the fluorescent lights above you flicker on, followed by the next set down the wide corridor, and the next, and the next, and the next.

The last one illuminates a sign, a prominent crack in the wall splitting the gedan and ken.

Under it are several doors, all dark and forbidding except for one; the exception has a weakly glowing blue light underneath it.

You make your way there. For a second, you hesitate. You barely understand what's about to happen. Fear, your old friend, entwines his serpentine body about your heart and whispers horror stories of the monsters lurking in the light. You welcome his presence. You know his touch every day, and you never complain when he takes what he wants from you.

But...

Curiosity. She is beautiful. From the tips of her feline ears to the twining, twisting tail that carefully nudges Fear's familiar tendrils aside, winding her own path around your puzzled, disheartened heart, she is beautiful. She takes your other ear, and sings a soft, sweet melody: the song of understanding, the song of knowledge. The song of a lake's reflective clarity where Fear's raking of the surface and muddying of the bottom has subsided - no, been defeated by a long forgotten urge of humanity's. Curiosity. She is its totem, as Fear is of fear, and her voice, smooth and silver and velvet, guides your hand as you pull the door open along rusty, complaining tracks and step into the little gedanken chamber. Your fingers tremble. But not with fear. With anticipation.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Joseph (bb3421[jijj17]1421bi):

[memscan...]

Lesson Plan: June 12th, 2042 - Commissioner Brown's House Party [UIN009910|d1|oV]

Welcome to today's gedankenexperiment. As this is your first session, a brief tutorial is in order.

Tutorial

A gedankenexperiment (lit. thought experiment) is a form of simulation designed to train students of practical prehistory. A historically understood event is presented in immersive simulation to the student, to be prehistorically simulated in an experimental manner. Following a set number of world-line deviations, the simulation will be locked, presenting a grade, consequent prehistory, desired prehistory and final history.

Commissioner Brown's House Party [UIN009910|d1|oV]

You are SAMUEL BLACKBURN, STEEL MAGNATE. You have been invited to COMMISSIONER HAROLD BROWN'S ANNUAL HOUSE PARTY, a highly prestigious black-tie affair. At the party, billed as one of the great international events of the 2040s, representatives of many governments will mingle with those of high society, creating a gigantic PREHISTORICAL NEXUS.

You are not in fact SAMUEL BLACKBURN, even though the scanners identify you as such when you pass through security checks. Samuel Blackburn does not, in any actual fact, exist. Other than a collection of bits in a global database, a comprehensive record of witnesses and relationships, the steel manufacturing giant known as Blackburn Industries and your physical presence, you might say that Blackburn may as well be a complete and utter fiction. And since every piece of evidence there (excluding your presence) is a fabrication, you'd be right!

You are in fact one of many COVERT AGENTS of the PREHISTORICAL ORGANIZATION, here to direct the future as it needs to turn out. 'Today creates Tomorrow', as they say. And at the moment, the future looks awfully dire, especially with the thing in -

"Champagne, sir?" A carefully modulated voice from a carefully modulated humanoid WAITERBOT, patiently standing by your side with glasses balanced on its outstretched tray.

"Thanks." You pick up a glass of CHAMPAGNE from a helpful waiterbot and cast a gaze like a fishing line across the semi-crowded hall. You spot some likely targets to start in on.

THE LADY ARDEFINE - With her red, pampered frilly dress and simpering attitude, you'd never guess that she's the power woman behind some of the biggest fish in the sea. Not a big player in
politics or economics, but in behind-the-scenes puppeteering? You bet she knows someone who knows someone who knows something about someone's wife. Anything she decides? Probably a new world line right there. Fortunately (or unfortunately) she's awful stubborn, and doesn't do anything for nothing.

SENATOR KILROY - A young man, just starting into politics, but definitely going places. His decisions could hold some weight, especially down the line, but it wouldn't look good at all if he was seen talking to a multibillionaire corporate investor like you. Which...kind of limits his choice of conversation partner, to be honest. Still, maybe you could send him a message or get a private word in later.

THE SHEIK AL-KHARIZARD EN AL BINBUN - Not a real sheik. He's Arabic by blood, but so out of touch with his culture that he may as well be from New York. He's both an oil magnate and the current head of the United Arabic Alliance, so he may as well run what's left of the Emirates. Rumor has it he won't be coming to many more of these parties, what with the world hurtling towards peak oil. He certainly looks nervous underneath that blanket of a hat.

>_