The Velvet Key Shadow Event tl;dr cut
(This post serves as part of a prompt for the November event at thevelvetkey ( Log Link here) because I type too much. It's dated out of order because... well, I'm not sure why I did it, but I did.)
Devola and her Shadow had been speaking for most of the Dark Hour, perhaps with interruptions, perhaps without. English merged into whatever heretical language the other tongue was and back again seamlessly, and the Shadow, for whatever reason (any PC-attacks on it's person aside, naturally) remained mostly docile. Near to the end of the Dark Hour, it leaned forward, hands on it's cheeks and elbows on it's knees, staring Devola straight in the eyes.
"Alright. This has been lovely and all, but I'm gonna have to cut to the chase. There's a few things I need to make sure are drilled into your head.
"...Alright. What?"
"First, simplest to say. Stop 'Observing', already. Observer #22 or not, its you and Popola having such a laissez-faire attitude that's screwed everything up so bad back home."
"Tha-"
"Ah-ah, not done. It's not entirely true, I'll admit, but it definitely didn't help matters. Just show some more initiative for once, alright? Second, and here's where I'll get a bit more verbose. You saw all the conversations I recorded for you a few days back, didn't you -- silly question. I woulda read 'em if I was you, which I am. You never asked why I did that."
"I figured I could avoid the subject until the hour had passed. Whoopsie!"
"Har har, cute. You wanna know why I left 'em?" The shadow waited for an answer that was not forthcoming, before sighing and continuing on. "You'd choose duty -- we would choose duty. And so did just about everyone else here."
"And...?"
"Well, think about it. You've got a human body, a human brain right now. You'd still choose duty. What's more, and I know this has been eating at you for a while, you barely feel any different than you do back home, right?"
"I don't really see where you're trying to go with this, you know. Cut to the chase."
"Ugh. Fine. The Replicants aren't the only ones who've evolved. You and Popola both. You're so stuck on your programming that you can't even notice it. All that bitterness and envy -- and those are emotions, by the way, not just things you aped off the Replicants -- just help make you even more blinded. You two aren't just hollow shells anymore."
With that statement, the room was silent. For over seven hundred years, Devola had watched Replicants -- soulless husks like herself -- change into something more. The short time that it had taken they and their society to become as emotive and, well, human as true humans were was absolutely preposterous. Meanwhile the Androids remained static; certainly, they could mimic emotion, and blending in with the new society, composed of the beings they were ordered to watch over, was a simple task.
What wasn't so simple was dealing with the fact that, unlike the Replicants, it seemed they could not change. In the end, the androids were still just tools of the original humans, self-sufficient puppets created for the sole purpose of bringing an entire race back from extinction when the time was right. Logically, what the Shadow said was true enough. Hadn't Ledah said as much to her in that conversation? An artificial body coming to contain 'artificial' emotions -- it was no less genuine than those who were born naturally and fully-emotive from the start.
But that would mean denying over thirteen-hundred years of emptiness. Admitting that almost half of that time-frame was spent, wasted, on petty jealousy and envy.
"...Well, I appreciate the sentiment." She began, tone anything but appreciative. Her tone was flat, inflection robotic. She spoke without the barest hint of emotion -- strange indeed from the woman who put on such a mask of cheer. "But I doubt that's the case. If you're me, you should know just as well as I do. All we've got is that mission. That one purpose. There's nothing else." She trailed off, watching the shadow with eyes dead to the world.
Devola and her Shadow had been speaking for most of the Dark Hour, perhaps with interruptions, perhaps without. English merged into whatever heretical language the other tongue was and back again seamlessly, and the Shadow, for whatever reason (any PC-attacks on it's person aside, naturally) remained mostly docile. Near to the end of the Dark Hour, it leaned forward, hands on it's cheeks and elbows on it's knees, staring Devola straight in the eyes.
"Alright. This has been lovely and all, but I'm gonna have to cut to the chase. There's a few things I need to make sure are drilled into your head.
"...Alright. What?"
"First, simplest to say. Stop 'Observing', already. Observer #22 or not, its you and Popola having such a laissez-faire attitude that's screwed everything up so bad back home."
"Tha-"
"Ah-ah, not done. It's not entirely true, I'll admit, but it definitely didn't help matters. Just show some more initiative for once, alright? Second, and here's where I'll get a bit more verbose. You saw all the conversations I recorded for you a few days back, didn't you -- silly question. I woulda read 'em if I was you, which I am. You never asked why I did that."
"I figured I could avoid the subject until the hour had passed. Whoopsie!"
"Har har, cute. You wanna know why I left 'em?" The shadow waited for an answer that was not forthcoming, before sighing and continuing on. "You'd choose duty -- we would choose duty. And so did just about everyone else here."
"And...?"
"Well, think about it. You've got a human body, a human brain right now. You'd still choose duty. What's more, and I know this has been eating at you for a while, you barely feel any different than you do back home, right?"
"I don't really see where you're trying to go with this, you know. Cut to the chase."
"Ugh. Fine. The Replicants aren't the only ones who've evolved. You and Popola both. You're so stuck on your programming that you can't even notice it. All that bitterness and envy -- and those are emotions, by the way, not just things you aped off the Replicants -- just help make you even more blinded. You two aren't just hollow shells anymore."
With that statement, the room was silent. For over seven hundred years, Devola had watched Replicants -- soulless husks like herself -- change into something more. The short time that it had taken they and their society to become as emotive and, well, human as true humans were was absolutely preposterous. Meanwhile the Androids remained static; certainly, they could mimic emotion, and blending in with the new society, composed of the beings they were ordered to watch over, was a simple task.
What wasn't so simple was dealing with the fact that, unlike the Replicants, it seemed they could not change. In the end, the androids were still just tools of the original humans, self-sufficient puppets created for the sole purpose of bringing an entire race back from extinction when the time was right. Logically, what the Shadow said was true enough. Hadn't Ledah said as much to her in that conversation? An artificial body coming to contain 'artificial' emotions -- it was no less genuine than those who were born naturally and fully-emotive from the start.
But that would mean denying over thirteen-hundred years of emptiness. Admitting that almost half of that time-frame was spent, wasted, on petty jealousy and envy.
"...Well, I appreciate the sentiment." She began, tone anything but appreciative. Her tone was flat, inflection robotic. She spoke without the barest hint of emotion -- strange indeed from the woman who put on such a mask of cheer. "But I doubt that's the case. If you're me, you should know just as well as I do. All we've got is that mission. That one purpose. There's nothing else." She trailed off, watching the shadow with eyes dead to the world.