[OPEN MINGLE]

[justscribing]

WHO: Everyone! It's a mingle!
WHAT: Discussing recent reveals about the simulation
WHERE: Pairidaeza Architectural Studio
WHEN: Feb 3rd morning to evening
WARNINGS: Potential existential crises, discussions of death, memory manipulation, basically everything to do with their actual situation in a simulated environment.




[The actual setup within the garage-turned-studio is away from all the actual workbenches.

On one folding table are copies of multiple documents available around the X: The main document is a summary of a resident from a prior iteration that's clearly been redacted via scanning copies with stuff blocked out. Additionally are copies of the most recent newsletter with the memo on the back and photos of the hotel journal printed in black and white.

Lined up on another folding table away from the one with the documents is an array of finger foods: hummus, chutneys, and yoghurt dips with a variety of sliced vegetables, cheeses, cold cuts, and fresh pita bread. cardamom cookies, panipuri, and both vegetable and chicken samosas take up the other side. Mint water and fresh juice are in pitchers to the center. It's actually a little crowded.

Chairs are set up in small grounds and around the document table. And finally, a whiteboard has been rolled in for people to make use of in group discussions.]



((This is a mingle, so everyone is encouraged to threadjack, make toplevels, etc prior plot mingles have been done. Alhaitham and Kaveh will be around and participating but not taking the lead beyond making sure people stay orderly in the studio and have enough papers.

If you character has discussed the simulation with either Kaveh or Alhaitham, you can also handwave they texted them directly about it.))

Comments

[featheradrift]

[ What if they were just virtual duplicates of themselves? That'd been something the Wanderer had worried about ever since learning the city was a simulated environment. With this latest memorandum though, a part of him relaxes knowing he doesn't have to entertain that theory anymore. ]

Wonderful. A bunch of idiotic researchers, free to do to us whatever they please. How reassuring.

[ But with this, now he has to wonder why Nahida hasn't contacted any of them yet. Perhaps it's just that difficult for even a god to reach them. That doesn't sound promising at all. ]

This shouldn't change any of our plans.

[wordchain]

[ Yesod glances over at "Hat Guy" to acknowledge his remarks with a nod. The methods being used may not come as a surprise by now — "the good of the many over the good of the few" is not an unfamiliar justification, either — but that doesn't make the extent of their control over every resident less uncomfortable. Erasing memories that the affected individuals might have wanted to retain, the removal of all autonomy. ]

To strain our current environment, I presume? No, I would imagine that everyone involved already intended to proceed with care.

[ If anything, that seems comparatively harmless then, unlike the possible impact of the researchers' experiments and various invasive procedures on the brain. ]

[featheradrift]

Good. Knowing this won't change our future ending in one of those simulated apocalypse scenarios. We still need to figure out the limits of this simulation. The only thing this confirms is that if even one of us manages to wake up in our real bodies, we'll be able to confront those damn researchers and give them what they deserve.

[ Oh, he's very, very angry to be in their physical possession, and more than ready to unleash that anger on their captors. ]

[wordchain]

[ Anger is an understandable reaction. This is all too familiar. Yesod takes a moment to scan the available information once more, contemplative. ]

...I wonder whether waking up will indeed be an option, if disrupting the simulation succeeds. Assuming that we have only become aware of our situation to this degree during our iteration, we could liken it to lucid dreaming.

[featheradrift]

[ He scoffs at the comparison. If it were a dream, then one only needed to find the dreamer and wake them to end it. Simple. They would have hardly needed several meetings to figure out this information and how to investigate their environment. But this was not a dream. ]

Are you suggesting that we'll remain asleep even after disrupting the simulation? That our 'dream' would merely end, and that's it?

[ It was one possible conclusion. Just as waking up was, among other conclusions. He frowns. ]

Are you going to let that possibility stop you from trying?