Literary Inquiry [ Video ]

[universal_charm]

[ So, Luceti, you have Kirk showing up today on our totally hi-grade, super deluxe communication system (haha, yeah right). Anyways, he's there, and he currently has a copy of George Orwell's "1984" displayed in hand. ]

So... I have an honest to god sort of question for everyone. 

How many of you ever thought or believed the stuff in books like this would come true in the future? Or better yet, does anyone actually live in a world like these books describe?

Because, really, the twenty-first century view of the future is... interesting. 

Comments

[Voice]

[whatwalls]

[Okay, so some of her friends seem to be from slightly different points in time, but she didn't realize that there were going to be differences that extreme.]

...seriously?

Re: [Voice]

[universal_charm]

Yup!

_{[ He is grinning so brightly right now. ]}

I'm captain of a space ship too, the Enterprise.

[stilldontgotit]

Sure, all you'd have to do is dump white paint all over him and throw in one eccentric captain out for his head.

[He snorts.]

None of us really cared to hunt him, though; we were more concerned with getting out in one piece.

[And, well, he might have tried kidnapping a puppet, but that goes unsaid.]

[universal_charm]

_{[ There's a pause as he considers that, eyes narrow a bit, but he can't help it. He has to ask. ]}

So... what entrance did you come out of?

[stilldontgotit]

Neither.

[Fortunately. The idea of getting coated in whale slobber isn't exactly appealing.]

Sometimes you luck out and find convenient loopholes... like hopping through portals.

[With darkness, at that. Sure, he kinda ditched his best friend, but he'll leave that detail out for now.]

[universal_charm]

Oh, well, that's a hell of a lot better than what I was thinking.

... You can use portals?

Re: video;

[universal_charm]

Yeah, I think that would be weird. At least the guy I met wasn't from my time stream, so the things he knew weren't exactly the same.

[universal_charm]

It's a vision of the future for this author. It's basically a book about a terrible future where everything you do is watched and controlled. 1984 is the year it's set in.

Not a terrible read, but I wouldn't read it to give myself good dreams.

_{[ Oh, he knows you dodged - for now. He's reloading the question gun, Don, don't you worry. ]}

[semper_cogitans]

Ah, I... I see... [Robert hesitates. Like Don predicted, that sounds... kind of uncomfortably close to home.]

Is monitoring of others inevitably c-considered negative...? There are public communications channels that are... e-examined, on Terra... [It doesn't end there, though.]

video;

[ex_tessen852]

Weren't from your timeline? What does that mean?

[i_speak_softly]

[He will offer this:] I found the part about the rats implausible and offensive.

In 1984, it wasn't just public activity that was watched. The government could see people in their own homes.

[universal_charm]

_{[ His brows raise up, curious for a second. ]}

The rat part? Why?

_{[ He returns his attention to Robert. ]}

Exactly. Even in my time people use security cameras to watch you in their stores and on streets, but your homes are... well, your homes. You are spied on there - or you hope not anyways. Nothing like what's in that book though.

Re: video;

[universal_charm]

Okay, how to do this....

Think of time streams, as well, streams. See, mine was flowing one way, and then this big boulder smacked down in the middle and split it in two. So now you have one time-stream or universe, whichever you want to call it, flowing one direction, and the one I'm in flowing the other. So there are two me's, in two different universes, our lives playing out totally different.

Does that make sense?

video;

[ex_tessen852]

[She has to think about it for a second.]

Actually... yeah. That does make sense. And here I thought I was going to be confused about it for days, like most things about this place.

[Video]

[knightofratatosk]

What if your world is someone else's future? I mean, my world doesn't have anything like spaceships right now, but that doesn't mean they aren't something that might not be invented in my future.

Maybe someday someone will show up here from my world's future and I'll be able to find out.

Re: video;

[universal_charm]

Maybe reading those books did help... because it kind of confused me at first, but somehow I learned to rationalize it in my head.

But, good, awesome, so you get it.

And don't worry, stuff about this place still confuses me and it's been almost a year.

Re: [Video]

[universal_charm]

True, but as I've learned, the future's not always set in stone. It's mutable. So what would your particular vision be? What do you think?

[Video]

[knightofratatosk]

I think I'd be happy with a world where everyone got along and there weren't any conflicts between humans and half-elves or Sylvaranti and Tethe'allans. Things are getting better, but it's still going to be a long time before everyone is able to change their way of thinking.

Re: [Video]

[universal_charm]

I wish I could say it was like that in my world, but it's not. People are people, so you have to try your best but there's always going to be someone starting a fuss.

[Video]

[knightofratatosk]

Yeah, you're probably right. But it would be nice if that only happened once in a while instead of all the time.

video;

[ex_tessen852]

Same here, actually. I've been here for almost a year too, and I'm still learning so much. Lucky for me, people don't really mind explaining things.

[semper_cogitans]

[Robert is all-too-aware why Don might not like a "rat part", but he doesn't feel like he ought to presume and so doesn't speak for him. Instead:]

Much of the i-information on Terra is... digitized. As a result, I... p-presume it is simpler to keep track of it...

... And I suppose that could b-be used nefariously... [He hasn't ever actually had to think about it until Luceti, because it was just... normal that everything could potentially be on display.] Additionally, all Terran c-citizens are assigned identification chip cards... at b-birth, which alone are a compendium o-of... information.

... None of this was... c-considered questionable, and... at any rate, there are l-legal ramifications in place for the m-misuse of data... [But his own tone suggests that maybe these legal ramifications might not have stopped higher-ups before.]

[i_speak_softly]

Rats just don't normally act that way.

[But don't let him derail this fascinating conversation about data security.]

[universal_charm]

_{[ Kirk would be interested to know why a talking turtle seems to have such insight into rat behavior, but later. Later. Data discussion now, and his world is all about data. Paper was getting close to becoming a luxury these days. ]}

My world is like that too - everything stored in 1s and 0s. It's easier to keep track of, I guess, but a lot harder to control of it gets loose when you don't want it too. Believe me, more than one fight has been started over leaked data that someone wasn't supposed to have in the first place. But it makes it easier to speak between races too - easier to translate electronic words than it is to try and rewrite the written.

But the ID doesn't surprise me. The US used to have a big system like that - Social Security. It was your.... life, basically, in a set of numbers. If someone stole it, you were screwed more or less.

Re: video;

[universal_charm]

I think you could be here forever and you'd still need things explained to you. There's a lot of similarities, I'm finding, but enough differences you always have to ask.