Hidden Truth [Log]

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

What: A log for everyone to gain the information in the Hidden Truth video tape.
Where: The Observatory.

There had been a flurry of letters sent out from Jack and Chiaki, first to Zelda to ask to borrow the Observatory, and then to every Hero of Light, alerting them that they had uncovered some intelligence received in the Heran Empire before the Capital had fallen to Crystal, and that everyone needed to see it immediately.

Jack, Chiaki, and a few others brought in a screen connected to a machine that some would recognize as a VCR. "With our peace mission to the Imperial Capital over Christmas, we returned with a recording made on 20th-century Earth technology, the kind that doesn't have an analogue on Crystallis. It took us time to build a machine to be able to play it. This information comes from Kalki, recorded what appears to be years ago. We obtained it from the Imperial Spy, Jenni. As of right now, we still have no reason to believe that Kalki is alive. But this comes from her, and I apologize to everyone who might be upset by seeing her again."

With that, Jack plays the recording. He stands by the screen and repeats the words for everyone to hear, for those who cannot understand English. Since Kalki's first words are to explain why she is recording it this way, it makes sense why he has to do this. He keeps his own emotions in check throughout, until the explanation of the Bard song that everyone gets to hear. That seems to upset Jack.

Once the recording is over, Jack pauses. "We will need some help from any other English speakers to create a written transcript of the recording so that anyone can access this information at any time. The tape and player will remain here for any Heroes to review. We ask that you please be careful with the machine."

Finally, Jack sits down to let the room descend into the inevitable chaos.

Comments

Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Once some discussion has started, Jack is happy to answer any other questions about where the tape came from, and what else he can. But he does have one opinion he has to share. "Becoming God. Damn it, Kalki, and here I thought you were after something real."

He takes a deep breath, and shakes his head. "I don't know if anybody gives a damn about my opinion, but I am trusting that nobody is going to use that fucking nuclear option that Kalki presented. Kill Garland, but kill us all?"

"Coward or Killer?" Jack speaks wistfully, as if he's quoting something. "Coward. I was always much better off as a coward."

"We find another way than that." Pouring as much disgust as he can onto that last word.

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

[not_most_days]

Once all is done and she speaks to the others around the room she makes her way back over to Jack. "Of all the worlds we Heroes come from, interesting that she'd take to fancying Earth. I suppose I can't blame her in that. Each time I learn about the technology in the future I find myself missing home."

Looking around the room she briefly considered the fact that Bard was in her own collection of Jobs. Not one she touched but now armed like the cannon on a man o'war. "No. I don't think any of us want to think of using it now, but I fear that the one thing the Sage was right about was that we won't come to a decision on something like that easily."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Jack shakes his head slightly. "Easiest decision I've ever made. You're the one telling me to learn from my past mistakes." He glances up at Kidd uneasily. "There's always another way. There's always a better way. What we're fighting against isn't even a race of people, or an invading army. It's just a force. Unnatural, but a force. Killing will do us no good. Killing everyone even less so."

"The Doctor isn't the one standing here saying no. So I guess I have to, instead. Not even for his sake, because I know it's the damn right thing."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

[not_most_days]

"Aye. That's the thing been troubling me. A normal force of people usually has a leader, but here we're dealing with multiple heads of the same beast. Multiple faces, each with their own agenda. And should we cut down one it may well make another stronger. Clearly even the ones on our 'side' aren't precisely allies."

"It may well be there's nothing that can be done for this world, or ourselves. But if we act foolishly we may unleash this all on our homeworlds. I don't expect we'll like the answer but what we need to find out how we're all connected to the Calamity ourselves. That's the one question that's remained in the air." For all they knew, Kalki may have thought she was doing good by breaking their connection to it when she was actually making things worse.

"I pity Kalki. I don't think she had control over what she was doing. It's clear now she wanted to help us, but I think the Calamity was affecting her."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

"I feel sorry for her," Jack quietly admits. "Didn't- wasn't she our fault?" He finally looks up at Kidd, his eyes shining with a deep guilt. "That room, the Crystal of Fire, it was our fault that she fell in and turned from the scientist that we all met into what she is now. Did we reveal her nature to her?"

"We-" no, that's not right, "I scared her. Me. It was my fault. And then instead of dying, she survived falling into the Crystal. She came out the other side as an Avatar." Jack stares for a moment at Kidd's face, searching for any kind of guilt or blame in return. He's right, isn't he? But is this one that he needs to be carrying with him? Questionable.

"And she's already told us the answer. We hold a piece of the Calamity within ourselves. Defeat it, and we are awakened... Does that mean we get more powerful, or that we break our connection to the Cycle?"

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

[not_most_days]

Kidd stared back at Jack in that silent moment, chewing over her words. In the end she decided to not bother sugarcoating them. "Aye, it was your fault. She was looking for help and instead you threw yourself on your sword. I know you expected it might help, or that you'd be protected somehow but you didn't for a moment stop to consider the consequences outside of what you hoped there would be. Seeing someone killed, let alone volunteering to be killed is not a pleasant sight. You can only steel yourself against it over time."

She herself was a killer. She was an Assassin. She was a pirate. She'd taken many lives, and many without any time to consider them after their passing. But she never took those deaths for granted. She never took them lightly.

She slipped her crystal from her pocket, turning the white gemstone over in her fingers. "I don't know if I can still battle the Calamity within me, but I'll stand by you. I think you need to take on this 'shadow' she mentioned. If not for this world then for your own sake. You keep mentioning this Doctor like you're hoping for him to show up and fix everything for you." He sounded like a good man, but clearly the Calamity's wasn't the only 'shadow' Jack was shrouded by.

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

[mindofathief]

Duster was ready to sacrifice himself to help defeat Garland, but with Kidd and Jack voice their opinions, he was starting to have second thoughts. He would kill anyone who was directly fighting Garland, not just himself, and very few people would fit all the criteria for that battle.

He looked up from his folded hands. "But if we die while fighting him, won't we come back?"

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Jack nods at Duster's question. "For now. And I'm saying that we should do this the old-fashioned way, exactly that," he raises a hand to Duster. "Fight Garland, forget about some genocidal magic song shortcut that we hope takes him with us when we all die."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

[not_most_days]

Kidd offers Duster a nod as he wanders over. She doesn't plan to get in the way of his own questions but she has a thought on the matter herself.

"Something tells me that Garland will be one of those special cases where we can't come back if we're struck down. Whether we use that song or not." She frowns and glances at Jack, "And then there's the matter of the Crystal's own energy. We likely can't depend on it forever."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[unalive_them]

"Y'know, I hate to break this to ya, but 'becoming God' is usually called 'Wednesday'." Deadpool said. "But, seriously, I think I've been through one multiverse-changing experience in my lifetime to NOT go through with that plan again."

Deadpool looks quite serious under that mask.

"Look, I know you guys think I'm nuts, but this sort of thing happens all the time where I'm from! And nine times out of ten, it usually leads to having a star-spangled shield upside your head."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[nomorecowbell]

"Well, I'm not dying for this world," Nanami said simply. "And I don't trust anyone who would want to be a god." She can think of a few heroes who might be able to handle the power, but Nanami doesn't trust her own judgement. Two years ago, she would have asked her brother to do that, had he been present here, and now she admits that would have been a terrible, terrible idea. Who is to say any of them would do better?

"But Kalki even admits that there's things she doesn't know. Even if she is some kind of Agent of the Calamity. Like what's in the Temple."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Oh, Jack knew there was a reason he liked Nanami. He smiles at her assertion that she wouldn't trust anyone who would want the kind of power that Kalki was talking about.

"Now theere's an idea." Jack nods firmly. "I don't like the ideas of whatever power the black crystals hold, or a magic song that can commit genocide? But the Temple?" Jack's smile turns a little excited. "That's got 'Adventure' written all over it. We're looking for another option? That's probably where it's hiding."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[nomorecowbell]

"And the Eidolons. Whatever Kalki was trying to tell us about them. We don't even know who or what they are, really. But I asked for the Summoner job, so I can find out."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Jack brightens, "That's a really good idea. Have you been by the Eidolon Temple, here in the city? I...think, there's also one in Mysidia? At least, there's a place that more people have been going for more information on them."

"When you do pick it up, I really recommend Leviathan." Jack nods sagely. "I was with the team who helped free him a few months ago, and he seems really powerful."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[wickedone]

"Is becoming God really so strange?" Albel stared at Jack, crimson eyes dark and serious. He remembered this line of logic from the Sage's vision. There were those who had wanted to attempt sacrificing certain worlds and certain heroes to appease the Calamity into going away; there were others who wanted to speed it up, destroy the world because there was no hope. And then there was this plan. Become one with the Calamity to guide it, give it consciousness, and to recreate what had been lost.

Terra had thought she could do it. Maybe someone could. But it couldn't be just anyone. The idea still gave Albel a bad feeling, reminded him of Luther and how that man essentially was a "god" to his world. It reminded him of how Luther was willing to destroy that world because it hadn't gone according to Sphere's plan. Albel wouldn't let someone like Luther become a god here. But someone like Terra... a genuinely good, kind person might be able to do it.

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

"Yes." Immediate reaction. Okay, maybe you should elaborate on your answer, there, Jack.

"None of us have the right to interfere with this world on such a scale. Let alone hundreds of worlds? But Garland doesn't have the right, either. Right now, he's as close as a God of this world as exists. So no. That's not the right way. This Calamity shouldn't exist, either. It's the effect, of something. We get too caught up in the Calamity, we don't know what that something might be..."

[wickedone]

Albel's eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips. Jack's quick answer annoyed him. Still, the Time Travel Man usually had a point, and Albel tried to give him the benefit of the doubt rather than outright insulting him. Maybe no one did have the right to take the power and responsibility of divinity. Maybe no one person could be trusted with it. Maybe not even Terra.

"So something else is causing the Calamity? And that's what we need to stop?" he asked. It wasn't a bad idea, exactly... But...

"Do we have time for that right now? If that's true, then of course we must stop the true cause -- but if the Calamity is progressing too quickly, then we'll have to find a way to at least slow it reliably."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[alisaie]

"It isn't as strange as one might think," she admitted freely. "History is proven to transform heroes into legends, legends to gods. It was the norm in my star if man or beastman believed hard enough. One of our comrades had summoned a dream's shade of Shiva within her, but this... becoming one with the very entity that seeks to destroy all life..."

To say it sickened her was beyond an understatement. Not only because of the plans offered, not even out of a sense of betrayal. The cost was too much; even her grandfather wouldn't have...

She shook the thought from her mind. "If only the rest of the footage could have been salvaged. I cannot deny being curious to what else she had to say."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Ah, one of the newer Heroes, Jack assumes. He even met the Lady Ysale, but that side of her didn't come up in conversation. "Shiva, the Eidelon?" A tinge of awe in his tone.

"I keep wondering why we keep giving the Calamity a will or a sense of purpose. It's just an effect. It doesn't want to destroy us, it just is. I don't think it seeks anything."

"This isn't something that occurs naturally. If anything....I think there's something more that caused the Calamity. And that's the thing we need to fix."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[alisaie]

"We called them primals, but you'd be correct to assume so." Though if anything, she seemed much less awed and more guilty for having to utilize Lady Ysayle as an example.

"Locating the source would be the quickest way. However Kalki failed to divulge that detail, or it was within the pieces lost. What do we know about the metaphorical heart of the Calamity?"

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Maybe Summoning works a little differently in their world than this one. "Primals or eidelons, Shiva and Leviathan and Odin? I'd love to hear more, if they exist in your own world, too?" World crisis can bet put on the side burner for now, because this is potentially fascinating. Jack only has room for two more jobs, and he's been debating back and forth on whether or not he wants to round everything out with Summoner.

"Because, well, I think I'm the wrong person to ask about the center of the Calamity. I've got ideas, but nothing definite. You may want to check with the Lady Zelda, or Sir Ramza."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[bloodypast]

"It has been tried once before on a different world." Vincent said quietly in response to Jack's assertion about Kalki's suggestion for godhood.

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Jack leans back in his chair, and he frowns. "I've seen it tried a bunch. Or, more accurately, seen people try to take control of or merge with some kind of force beyond their understanding in the belief that it would make them a god. It's stupid, and I expected more of Kalki than that."

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[bloodypast]

"Stupid it may be, but that never stopped people before." Don't mind the dry sarcasm there, Vincent agrees it's stupid. But that hasn't stopped people from doing dumb and stupid things before--this is just one of the more destructive types of stupid.

Re: Captain Jack Harkness - Open

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

"It probably wouldn't have even worked for her," Jack admits sadly. "If she's a piece of the Calamity like she says." And whose fault is that?

Jack shakes his head. "At least she's given us another pathway. We should figure out who are closest to mastering Onion Knight so we can help support them."