audio / @hello / open

[lunchbreaks]

Hello, um, everyone. This is Aziraphale. I know I haven't met all of you, but I have gotten to know a good number of you as of late, and I've come to like you all a great deal, so it doesn't sit quite right with me not to apologize for recent events.

The sinking of the ferry was inexcusable. Our-- my failure, was a direct result of poor planning and lack of transparency, but I do need all of you to know that the intention had been to find our only way out of Beacon as other methods had been exhausted, and it was always in the plan to make subsequent trips for everyone remaining who wished a return home.

But I know that no amount of good intention will bring it back, nor heal your injuries, nor surface the supplies it was carrying. For all this, I am deeply and terribly sorry; this was, in no way, how I should have repaid all your kindnesses. I understand your anger, and you can direct it at me, if you would like, if you have need of a place to focus your ire.

However, I am afraid, actually, that I must ask a favor. I have, though not for lack of trying, not been able to retrieve much of the sunken raw material - if anyone should lend abilities, magical or otherwise, to help in the rebuilding of the ferry or the docks, you will have my deepest gratitude, for whatever that is worth.

I will try to assist with this as much as I possibly can, and otherwise will be available to assist those who require healing, though my ability to do so has been stunted.

Comments

[webshoots]

But humor me for a second: have you ever done ANYTHING like this before? Do you know how many timelines and versions of Earth are represented here, across our population? And that's not even touching on the other worlds.

IF it worked, IF you left Beacon, how were you going to make sure you returned people to where they belong?

[lunchbreaks]

[ He really doesn't want to tell everyone all this but honestly doesn't see the point anymore. ]

Dear Parker,
I hardly think forty refugees on any planet would be of much consequence or drain on their resources, but the real issue is that no one can escape this particular one. I have observed that many individuals who have, for lack of better term, metahuman powers are unable to access many of them here. I am confident there is some sort of barrier on this planet related to light and light-based magics, that would be accessible outside of it.

Should we have wound up on a timeline of Earth prior to AD 2019 that would be the best-case scenario, quite honestly.

And I did, in fact, put a protective ward onto the ferry prior to the crash. My priority was against wounds, and you are right, I had underestimated my own limitations here and people have been injured. That is my failure, and for that, I am sorry.

But if you intend us not to fight nor run away, what else even is there as an option? Hide? Halt time? Call upon a higher power for whom time and space are not obstacles? I have considered these paths. Share with me a viable option and I promise to lend assistance to it.
Sincerely,
Aziraphale.

i am. so sorry.

[webshoots]

[ this reply comes a couple of hours later, with the response otherwise left on read. (y'know, if the tablets do that.) ]

That would have been your best case scenario.

Look, I believe you when you say you thought you were doing the right thing, that you think with more planning and more transparency, it'd still be the right thing and I guess that's kind of your right. I might even agree with you, but not like this. You're talking about metahumans and magic like they're the only two answers to this. They're not.

I... know how it sounds when someone says "I know a guy and blah blah blah", but humor me for a second. Where I'm from, yeah, we've got metahumans, since ... that's the name we're apparently going with here, who are capable of incredible things. But most people? Aren't like that. Most people are just ordinary humans and you know what? They're still capable of great things. Of coming up with answers to impossible questions.

Anyway, the point is: I've known a few guys in my time. ...Mostly scientists, admittedly, who've ended up in impossible situation — on other worlds, in other times, situations kind of like this and they've all found their way out. The loop that's bringing us here, brought other people here before us, it's going to have a break point. That's probably somewhere away from the shore, given that everyone comes in on the ferry, but I'm not ruling out the lighthouse, if I'm honest.

Regardless, it's probably not going to be a case of sailing back the way we came in. You know how you have those automatic doors with sensors above them? So the exit remains an exit and the entrance remains an entrance, to stop traffic building up, people bumping into each other and just -- causing a mess? If a couple of people try to leave through the entrance, they can't. If they force it, they break it and then what?

But what if you get lucky? What if you manage to sneak in the entrance just when -- one person's coming in, and you don't bump into each other, but it's like those grocery stores that have the entrance at one side of the store and the exit at the other, because they need to make sure when you come in, you pick up those little cherry tomatoes you don't really need but look really, really great at this time of the year. (That first part is what you were going for, right?)

Because that's the thing: if you get some people out but you don't really know how? Why? More people are just going to end up here. More people are going to have to figure out a way to stop the World Eaters, and if they don't? If something goes MORE wrong than this town getting reset? Who's to say they'll stop with this world, whose to say they won't go to yours, won't go to mine, won't go to the world's of EVERYONE here? Is that something you really want to risk?

The first part is math. That's ... not the easy part, but it's the easier part and it'll help us with that second part: the World Eaters. What IF we figure out a way to get people back home, to their RIGHT homes? That's the end-game, right? And it's great and I'm pretty sure it's what we all want, but what if we take the time to understand what brought us here, so we can send the World Eaters to, I don't know, an uninhabited planet or dimension that THEY can't leave so that no one else has to deal with this?

bruh i'm sorry you had to write all this out

[lunchbreaks]

Dear Parker,
I know that humans are very innovative, creative, and have boundless amounts of determination and will. But the kind of science and math you are speaking of could be someone's entire life's work, or generations' worth of it. Now I don't know how complex these devices we use to speak to each other are, but I do know of the kind of resources we have at the library, and it's not much. We could possibly find a way to stop time, but to do so is energy expensive.

The goal was to ferry anyone additionally arriving here out until those two years were expended. Should the World Eaters come to Earth-- my version in particular-- the remainder of our galaxy and some neighboring galaxies are devoid of life. They are full of stars, but those can be recreated. There would be, of course, some challenges in baiting them away from Earth, but hardly as impossible as an extended stopper in time.

Sending the World Eaters to an isolated planet, I think, is a good idea, but in addition to knowing nothing of the how or why we came to arrive here, we know little of the properties of their very being or how to contain them. We can't even study them from afar; we have no idea if they are corporeal, supernatural phenomena, colliding black holes... We do not know if they will be affected by what affects us here, nor do we have the leeway for a test run.

If you would like, you can try asking the spirit under the trap door of the church. It seems he may know something about the World Eaters that may help you, but he refused me, and then the church was destroyed.

Perhaps if you think you have enough time to engineer what has brought us here, we could return everyone home through that and shut it down. That should at least keep anyone from being further drawn here, and perhaps allow us to come up with a more solid plan elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Aziraphale.

[webshoots]

Stop time? That's what you got from that? We try to stop time? Geez, no wonder you think we're out of options. Meanwhile, I'm going to (neatly) sidestep that lack of leeway for test runs comment because I KNOW you don't need me to point out the hypocrisy.

But before I do -- if I'd like? That's great, thanks for the recommendation. I'll let you know if the fact that I haven't participated in mass resource destruction runs in my favor.

If you're taking advice though - next time? Maybe try running an opinion poll to see if your great idea actually floats with the general public.

(Oh, and the most complex thing about these devices is the fact that they don't need charging. Just a by-the-by.)

[lunchbreaks]

Dear Parker,
I am not sure what you mean by charging, but it seems like they are not very advanced to you, so I don't know how you would get them to support calculations as advanced as you need. I am not very good with technology, but I believe one of my friends might be more helpful in that endeavor.

[ Except that Peter probs doesn't want to talk to him 'cause this entire thing was his plan.

He also writes out responses to the rest but deletes them because he doesn't think they're contributing at all to the conversation, though there is a metric tonne of "Aziraphale is typing..." "Aziraphale has entered text..." ]

Sincerely,
Aziraphale.

[webshoots]

That is absolutely not where I was going with that.

[lunchbreaks]

Parker,
Yes, but I am trying to be helpful and I can't exactly help you with your computations.
Sincerely,
Aziraphale.