Re: The Grand Battle II! [Round 3: Escheresque!]
12-16-2009, 06:20 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.
"Of course I'm scared, Galus. Believe you me, behind whatever facade I might haphazardly display, there's one scared individual. You ask the right question for the right reason - you've noticed the disadvantage that hampers us both - we are only human. I mean, I have the awkward feeling that, whatever I might tell myself, there is no way that I am going to survive this ordeal. I suspect, deep down, you have a similar feeling that troubles you, masquerading as those butterflies that inhabit your stomach."
There was a pause, presumably left deliberately, in which Maxwell just tried to let things sink in, not just into the mind of Galus, but also into his own thought processes, for there was about to be a clash of beliefs...
"I don't want to have to kill. I've never killed another living crea- well, never knowingly kil- OK, never purposeful- sentience. That'll work. I've never killed another sent- relatively... Galus, how many deaths are you responsible for? How many people have you killed? At least you have some violent streak in you, if you'll excuse my rashness - all I have is a dangerously unstable little bit of my mechanics that goes all wobbly over whether or not me being partial to a nice steak makes me a murderer. But dare I show that emotion? It is possibly in my interests to survive for as long as is humanly possible - see what I did there? - and portraying oneself as the man who is most likely to faint when internal organs become abnormally external is not the way to go about that!"
Galus tried to interrupt, but when Maxwell had a stream of conscious thought going, well, it was better described as a river in full flow.
"I was taught that life was precious. Life does not exist everywhere, does it Galus? You're a space pilot, right? There are a lot of stars out there, with an awful lot of planets orbiting them, but then there are a shedload of factors, tiny details on a universal scale, that do their best to stop life from happening. Any life that gets past then has another load of cosmological bureaucracy to get through if it wants to thrive. The chances of proper life getting started up - tiny, Galus. In this competition, there are eight specimens of life... well, eight specimes of sentience at the very least, and the whole purpose of this contest is to whittle that number down and down and down and down until there's one bugger left who's gone through enough trauma to get psychiatrists hunting them down every second of their lives outside the contest. And then, I bet you, the Observer will get bored once more and have another shot at this sort of thing. And if there's one Observer, why not assume there are more with similar powers? "Don't disappoint us" he said, right at the beginning of this madness. "Us". It's wrong, Galus. Erm... Galus, yeah... sorry 'bout that. Yeah, I, um, blabber a bit. Well, I say "a bit"..."
Through the relative protection of his helmet, Galus smirked.
"You're mad, Maxwell. You're completely mad."
"Have been since birth, never probably will stop being so. Now, anything else... oh, but of course! Have you seen Vyrm'n at all this round, Galus? Have you seen h- it?"
"Of course I'm scared, Galus. Believe you me, behind whatever facade I might haphazardly display, there's one scared individual. You ask the right question for the right reason - you've noticed the disadvantage that hampers us both - we are only human. I mean, I have the awkward feeling that, whatever I might tell myself, there is no way that I am going to survive this ordeal. I suspect, deep down, you have a similar feeling that troubles you, masquerading as those butterflies that inhabit your stomach."
There was a pause, presumably left deliberately, in which Maxwell just tried to let things sink in, not just into the mind of Galus, but also into his own thought processes, for there was about to be a clash of beliefs...
"I don't want to have to kill. I've never killed another living crea- well, never knowingly kil- OK, never purposeful- sentience. That'll work. I've never killed another sent- relatively... Galus, how many deaths are you responsible for? How many people have you killed? At least you have some violent streak in you, if you'll excuse my rashness - all I have is a dangerously unstable little bit of my mechanics that goes all wobbly over whether or not me being partial to a nice steak makes me a murderer. But dare I show that emotion? It is possibly in my interests to survive for as long as is humanly possible - see what I did there? - and portraying oneself as the man who is most likely to faint when internal organs become abnormally external is not the way to go about that!"
Galus tried to interrupt, but when Maxwell had a stream of conscious thought going, well, it was better described as a river in full flow.
"I was taught that life was precious. Life does not exist everywhere, does it Galus? You're a space pilot, right? There are a lot of stars out there, with an awful lot of planets orbiting them, but then there are a shedload of factors, tiny details on a universal scale, that do their best to stop life from happening. Any life that gets past then has another load of cosmological bureaucracy to get through if it wants to thrive. The chances of proper life getting started up - tiny, Galus. In this competition, there are eight specimens of life... well, eight specimes of sentience at the very least, and the whole purpose of this contest is to whittle that number down and down and down and down until there's one bugger left who's gone through enough trauma to get psychiatrists hunting them down every second of their lives outside the contest. And then, I bet you, the Observer will get bored once more and have another shot at this sort of thing. And if there's one Observer, why not assume there are more with similar powers? "Don't disappoint us" he said, right at the beginning of this madness. "Us". It's wrong, Galus. Erm... Galus, yeah... sorry 'bout that. Yeah, I, um, blabber a bit. Well, I say "a bit"..."
Through the relative protection of his helmet, Galus smirked.
"You're mad, Maxwell. You're completely mad."
"Have been since birth, never probably will stop being so. Now, anything else... oh, but of course! Have you seen Vyrm'n at all this round, Galus? Have you seen h- it?"