shitposting rave 4: (almost) anything goes

Sloane considered this and then nodded, grinning. "Yeah, then afthead's a good word for him. ....how do time travel shenanigans play into your revolution, though?"

 

"Au contraire, my friend. I have taste and a resemblance of manners."
Simon toasts the giant robot with a cup of coffee.

 

He's an outlier.

 

Kill the charismatic rebel who united the lower classes before he ever has a chance to be more than a miner keeping his head down, and it turns out a whole lot of nothing happens instead of a revolt. No 'Cons, no 'Bots and no successful overthrow of the Senate; no successful overthrow of the Senate, no war spanning galaxies between forces previously united against the common enemy. A great thing for all the planets destroyed and civilizations eradicated... not so much for anyone not in perfect lockstep with the governmentally- and religiously-mandated social system. Thoughtcrime was a thing for us.

 

Considering your powers I'd almost think you're agreeing with my point here.

 

No man, I meant the statistical kind.

 

"Oof," Sloane said, wincing. "If I were in your position, I'd also be pretty glad that whoever fixed the time-travel stuff was a bit selfish....living in the kind of world you just described isn't something I'd want for anyone."

 

Also calling me an outlier is heresy do you want me to get a high priest? Pfff, no one who's constructed can be an outlier. Especially not cause Sweep's got prettymuch the same skill set.

 

Okay, so if 'Scanner with manners' is a statistical outlier, that means also implicitly accepting 'in any given universe he exists in, Scanner probably doesn't have manners'. Right?

 

Let's please stop digging for well-behaved me's, I really don't want that guy to come here.

 

Yeah.

I mean, outside Weird Dream Rave [he gestures vaguely at the space in its entirety] I've only heard rumours of anyone even trying time travel, it's widely considered scientifically impossible, but. Only case I've ever heard of, so.

I don't wanna be That Guy but I heard this thing about Zeta's New Institute running these experiments... [more joking wingflicks.]

I'm using you as an example 'cause I don't know who else you know well enough to make assumptions about their personality.

Point is: a lot of universes come together here, so even though there's only one of a person in any one universe, sometimes we end up with more than one iteration of them here. And even though they are technically different people, it's not too stupid to assume, once you see a trend, that they'll act similarly, right? Most Scanners are gonna be rude glitches, most Torisens are on the nervous side, most Eclipses are dumb fraggers that don't know when to leave well enough alone?

 

[He deadpans] Zeta who?

And it's not like the squishie immortal is so short on time he can't at least wait until they prove themselves assholes instead of immediately assuming the thing.
Primus on a fragging joyride sicne when am I a defender of the weak here?

 

He's used to being short on interaction time, though, if I remember correctly? [He looks @Norm the Genie for confirmation.] Just long enough for three orders from his master of the decade. That'll incline a guy towards trying to figure people out quick instead of waiting and watching. Kind of a spike move, but no more than you jumping on him 'cause he sounded like your old CO.

 

Yeah but I regularly remind people that I'm an absolute trainwreck. It's not like anyone about to engage the local disaster in conversation hasn't had ample warning.

 

Sloane shrugged. "Our magic doesn't really seem to run on scientifically understandable things.....or it is scientifically understandable, but not yet, and probably not for a while in the future. But time travel's very much a possible thing for us."

 

You engaged him, man, that's on you.

 

I am not known for making good decisions either.

 

So yeah, maybe it'll work out better for you if you can figure out how to lengthen your jump window or whatever the time equivalent to quantum transportation is.

Just saying: you can't say he's "had ample warning" when you just jump into a conversation he's having with someone else. Not everyone likes carrying a big neon sign saying "I'm a trainwreck of a survivor, come hit me in the weak spots."

 

"The problem with democracy," Ford says quietly, "is that without the right controls, checks and balances, it becomes plutocracy, because the very wealthy have a lot of money to spend convincing working people--particularly if you keep them worn out, worn down and undereducated--to vote for them, both by throwing bones to their supporters and by convincing people with spurious logic that policies which are actually significantly to their detriment will benefit them. Once you have a population broken down and fragmented, it's relatively easy to convince them that thinking only of themselves and not of their neighbours is an excellent survival strategy. And of course, if you can follow that up by making a lot of relatively harmless things illegal, you can create a police state and simultaneously encourage organised crime."

He sighs. "I don't know. Democracy is a lovely idea. Has it ever really been tried? In Athens only wealthy men could vote; this was also true during at least part of America's history. I would like to believe in it. But I've seen how it gets subverted--I've been part of the subversion, though it wasn't what I wanted--and I've seen the results. The problem with our current system is of course that it's also very easy to corrupt one or more of a very few people, and it's difficult to ensure that power stays in the right hands after someone dies."

 

"My brother and I have done time travel!" Mabel says cheerfully. "We don't know exactly how it worked, but we met a guy from the Time Police and he had this thingy that looked like a tape measure on a reel, only the amount you pulled it out was how far you went! We got him in a lot of trouble, but we fixed things for him too. Time travel is really weird, because it turns out if you change just one little thing you can mess everything else up real good. But that might be exactly what Sloane needs to do."

She glances at Sloane, biting her lip. "I need to go back and read the books again. Or actually I should just put them on your phone, but...if I do that, will you get into trouble? Your phone could be bugged. I don't think Time-Turners are restricted to just one hour; I think they're just more dangerous that way."