destinystrings | [Game Opening, Part 1 - What Souls Here May Bring]

Entry tags:

[Game Opening, Part 1 - What Souls Here May Bring]

The drawstrings cut,
my hollow ebony stained wood plomps to the floor—
THUD

Eyes open, souls recollect.
The new me, erect.

I make my own decisions, have my own priorities,
have my own thoughts.

No external force taps into me—
Freedom.
- Jana Bielecki
Who: (Everyone OPEN LOG)
Where: (City Hall)
Summary: (You've just arrived in the city. Welcome.)
Warnings: (Intro logs are pretty warnable.)
Style: (The text is in prose, but feel free to write back in action tags if you feel more comfortable.)

They always say the first day on a new job is always the hardest.

But tell me...did those tasks include being taken from your own homeworld, dumped into a city you didn't recognize, meeting a man dressed in the purest of whites with a butterfly mask, to be bestowed the power of Persona, and then having some Men in Black lead you to the city hall saying you were expected?

...

...at least your things are apparently safe in your new apartments?

...

...looks like you might be here for a while.

What a way to start the first of September...

As they usher the last of you in, you realize that they've been preparing this for quite a while. There is a small table with food on the right, mixed cuisine (although the main theme seems to be Japanese dishes). Some strange computer program appears next to you and seems to be translating what you are saying so those before you understand. Language barriers? Don't be silly!

Most of the men ignore you after that. You are expected to mingle amongst yourselves a bit before the main 'show' starts, it seems....

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

See he wasn't that weirded out or awkward until... he... noticed Yamato staring at him like that. With direct eye contact. Uuuhhh--

"E...Everything OK...?"

"...hm?" Yamato blinked, tilting his head slightly. He still didn't look away. "I'm thinking about something."

He actually was. He was pondering over how on earth he had a physical body here. It had to be a different body because his original one was still trapped beneath the debris of Tsuutenkaku, so unless they spirited that away too and stuck it back together, this had to be an entirely new one.

...although Yamato felt a little disturbed to think that. Actually he didn't know what was more disturbing: a dead body stuck back together or an entirely new one that was, as far as he knew, identical to his original down to the minor details.

Whoever did this as well would have tremendous power to achieve any of that - let along bring a massive amount of people to this sole spot. Was it that man in the butterfly mask? Hm, for what purpose...

Hah, Yamato stated he no longer cared what happened but he was still intrigued by this mystery, it seemed.

Meanwhile outside of Yamato's head...stare. Stare at Daichi.

He did kind of just let Yamato spend the time in his head to think about it. Mostly because he was both kind of weirded out and also kind of scared to say anything. Because. Hey it was still Yamato, and Yamato still kind of scared him sometimes.

"Uh... What're you thinking about?"

"My death," Yamato said candidly. "Specifically how I came to have a body that is still in one piece. Unless it's a new one."

"Oh."

Oh ok.

That's not weird.

"O-Oh yeah..." Yeah he totally wants to think about Yamato blowing himself up that was totally awesome yep. "Maybe they just did some kind of time rewind?"

"I doubt they did a time rewind," Yamato deadpanned, giving Daichi a flat look as if disappointed with his response. "A time rewind would have effected me mentally as well as physically, so I would have no recollection of my death - as I would have came here before my death actually happened, even if the 'time rewind' was localised around me only."

He placed his hand over where he had been bisected across the torso, frowning slightly. "...It is possible they did it to my bisected corpse before placing my soul back inside of it. However I think it's more plausible that they simply gave me a new body to inhabit."

~~Thankfully he was used to Yamato's disappointment.~~

"Yeah, I don't see why they couldn't have just done it to your body. It seems like it'd be easier than making a whole new one if it was just cut in half--"

--hey wait.

"Bisected? What do you mean by that?"

Yamato lowered his hand, giving Daichi a little frown. "What do you mean, 'what do you mean by that'? You witnessed my death. I was crushed beneath Tsuutenkaku to the point where my body was severed."

Daichi had been right there when it happened.

"But-- But you exploded! I was standing right there!"

He was standing right there... Kaito remembered it, there's no way that it could be a dream, right?!

Yamato gave him a strange look.

"I think I would remember the details of my own death better than you, Shijima. I assure you, there was no exploding. I was in two intact parts, somewhat, not scattered across the landscape in pieces."

He frowned. "Do I have to jog your memory? I was challenged when you all decided to join Kuriki of all people, and an altercation between us occurred. I made a mistake of using up too much of the Dragon Stream, whereupon the Tsuutenkaku fell upon me. Is this sounding familiar?"

On second thought, it was...kind of weird telling someone else that they died differently than they remembered. But Daichi was sure that he wouldn't have forgotten watching Yamato blow himself up.

"Ronaldo...?" His face twisted in confusion. "No, I... even if Ronaldo's system would have helped people, it wouldn't have worked out in the long run. I don't think so, at least. That's the whole reason I tried to think of my own idea. But we ended up joining Kaito and Saiduq in the end-- we tried to get you and Ronaldo to join us, but you both refused."

Who the hell was Saiduq?

There was a long pause where Yamato simply frowned at Daichi - before he let out a soft 'whuff' of laughter. "Oh, I see now. Hm, interesting..."

Could it be possible that they hailed from alternative versions of their own world? Yamato is open to such ideas, especially since he died and was brought here - but there was no other explanation. Shijima was not the brightest person about, however Yamato admitted that there was nothing wrong with his memory, nor is there any point in lying about what they did.

"You see...?"

Man he hated when Yamato acted cryptic and weird, it always made him nervous. Well, more nervous than usual.

"You see what? What's so interesting?"

Because heeee's not understanding any of this at all. Why wasn't Yamato chiding him anymore?

Yamato gave Daichi a stern glare. "Come now, you are not this stupid, are you? The answer is clear. We both hold differing memories of what had transpired. You claimed to have gone with... 'Saiduq', whoever that person is, and I claimed you went with Kuriki's ridiculous ambition."

He heaved a sigh. "...Shijima, we both come from alternative timelines."

"H-Hey! Harsh...!" Ah yes, that was the Yamato he knew and remembered.

Although the possibility of alternate timelines does have a bit of a sobering effect. "Uh... really? Is that even possible?"

Then again, he really didn't know who Saiduq was apparently, but he Yamato had been the one to tell them that he was a Septentrione.... best, not to bring it up for now. They could cross that bridge later!

"Multiple timelines are possible, although it had never been proven practically," Yamato stated. "You have heard of the many-worlds theory, haven't you? It is also called the 'theory of the universal wavefunction'."

Uh oh, he's beginning to gear up into lecture mode, Daichi. Better stop him...!

"In case you aren't aware of the theory, it is this simply: The Many-Worlds Theory views reality as a many-branched tree, wherein every possible quantum outcome is realised. It claims to reconcile the observation of non-deterministic events, such as the random radioactive decay, with the fully deterministic equations of quantum physics. As Many-Worlds Theory denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse, however, its subjective appearance is explained by the mechanism of quantum decoherence, which resolves all of the correlation paradoxes of quantum theory, such as, hrm, the EPR paradox and Schrödinger's cat, since every possible outcome of every event defines or exists in its own "history" or "world"."

Yamato paused, frowning briefly, before deciding that perhaps he should break it down into 'layman's terms', as Kanno would say, "To say it in a way that's easier to digest; there are infinite number of universes where everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes. Therefore, the universe where you joined Saiduq, and a universe where you joined Kuriki, can both exist simultaneously, having branched from the same universe where the Invasion occurred."

A stare. "Do you understand? Admittedly I oversimplified it, so some of the important details were lost, so if you wish for a more in depth explanation..."

Oh no Yamato was going into info dump mode oh no--

Daichi was too late to interrupt him though, as Yamato was already talking, and if he learned anything at JP's, it was to not make the professionals stop their convoluted explanations 'cause otherwise they'll just be more cross with you.

He had

no idea what Yamato just said though.

"Uh.. N-Nah, that's OK! I think I got it!" Complete with nervous chuckle and all. It was a complete and total lie, but he knew it would just get more confusing if Yamato kept explaining. He'd uh...he'd figure it out later. Or ask Kaito.

Yamato gave Daichi a long, hard look, as if evaluating his statement, before smirking a little. "Is that so? Hrm, I must have misjudged you, Shijima. You're smarter than you appear. In that case..."

Okay, now his smirk was turning into a rather predatory grin. Nope, he's found you out, Daichi.

"If you understand it, what is the mechanism utilised to resolve all paradoxes within the Many-World Theory? You should easily answer this if you were paying attention, Shijima."

"U-Uh."

Well if it wasn't obvious that Daichi didn't get it then, that stupid verbal hiccup made it pretty clear that he didn't now. But he was hoping that he could still magically salvage this. Maybe.

"Uh... the... deco-whatever?" Whatever that thing was that Yamato had just said yes that thing.

"..."

There is a long pause where Yamato appeared to be thinking something over. After a moment he nodded, his expression partly amused and partly disgruntled.

He had only just said the word not one minute ago. You can't even remember it fully...no matter. There is room for improvement.

"Quantum Decoherence. Do you know what that term means?" Most likely not.

"S...Something to do with making something less understandable?"

He chuckled awkwardly at his own joke though it...was pretty obvious that he probably didn't find it that funny and was just hoping for the first chance to get out of the conversation.

Or hey, maybe he was even right! He knew what 'coherent' meant at least!

"...in a way," Yamato sighed. "Quantum Decoherence is an alternative explanation of something similar to Wave Function Collapse. It is the loss of coherence, or ordering of phase angles, between the components of a system in a quantum superposition."

Yamato paused here, slowly mulling the topic over in an attempt to try and dumb it down. It was quite easy to understand once you understood the terms, however he had a feeling that Daichi simply wasn't understanding it at all. Hrm.

"I will make it easy for you, returning to our earlier topic of alternative worlds." He held up his hands, making a cupping motion as if holding a ball, "Imagine that within Time, all possible events and scenarios that can and would happen, have happened, all simultaneously."

Yamato moved his hands away, tracing two imaginary lines moving away from each other with his fingers, "However, with Quantum Decoherence, humans can only interpret only one string of events occurring - a timeline, if you will, therefore allowing multiple timelines to exist from one singular source."

Yamato dropped his hands. "I 'interpreted' Time differently to you," he frowned. It wasn't entirely correct, but it was the best thing he could come up with in such short notice and with such simple language. Hrm, he would have to force Shijima to read up on the subject so he could discuss it better with him. "Therefore my timeline occurred differently to yours. Understand?"

Wow, amazingly he was...actually starting to follow what Yamato was saying!

"Oh-- so they happened at the same time, but neither of us know were able observe what happened in each other's timeline?" That was...basically what he said, right? And there were a whole bunch of other possibilities and timelines, and...

Augh, this was...hard...... "All because Kaito made a different decision..?"

Yamato smiled - genuinely proud that Daichi got it. Hah, so he wasn't as useless as he thought in these matters.

"That is correct," Yamato said, giving Daichi a nod. "Very good, Shijima."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

QUANTUM PHYSICS BLARGH

YOU'RE NOT HIS SENSEI!!!!

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE DAICHI. HOW DARE YOU NOT UNDERSTAND.

HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THE SMART ONE!!

BY GOD YAMATO WILL MAKE HIM THE SMART ONE!!

HE CAN'T HANDLE THIS

oh god quantum mechanics why

oh god yamato why

HE CAN'T BE TAMED