ninth. voice (when the system's wrong, you gotta tear it down).

[torrefied]

[Mello is all business today - it's Door day, which means new arrivals are likely scanning the network looking for answers, and those who have been here may be looking for signs of those they know who have just arrived. No time like now to make his appeal to his fellow captives.]

We need better documentation. I know this isn't the first time I've said this, and it's maybe even more true now than before - the Null's recent contact with us and the information we've been able to glean from them makes a compelling argument for this, I think.

[He pauses, collecting the words for the rest of what he has to say.]

Frankly, we're not very well organized. We can do better than we have been. What I'm proposing is this: I want to assemble a team to collect and maintain information about our circumstances here - the entities responsible for bringing and keeping us here, their enemies, this war in which we've found ourselves caught in the crossfire. It's not an exaggeration to say that our survival could very well depend on these efforts. Now, I don't care if you have special qualifications or prior experience with this sort of thing - all I ask is that you agree to work as a team, and that if you say you'll do the work, you follow through reliably. If you're new here, familiarize yourselves with the introductory guide and the historical record. Ask questions. Bring us your ideas. If you uncover relevant information, you can contact me, Mello. I'm in the directory, under M.

Comments

FINE YOU PARANOID JERK HERE'S A VOICE RIGHT BACK

[nonscriptum]

[Nathan Drake, who is also (technically) a criminal, has no issues with showing his face because he usually flies so low beneath the radar that he's under the ocean. And the government doesn't use sonar to find guys like him, check and mate.]

Read through the messages, sure, but I wasn't about to hold a conversation with what looked like a computer program.

[He doesn't know shit about computers beyond basic Word processing, The Google, and and using GIS maps for triangulation, so Nate wasn't exactly keen on opening up a dialogue unless it was going to tell him where to find the best Chinese takeout.

He shifts uncomfortably, even though Mello can't see it, and adds:]

...I don't really get why they'd call themselves - itself? - Null, though. Null means nothing. Or...zero. It cancels out opposing force. It sounds like something you'd name a bottle of weed-killer.

[Parasites, they'd said. With such definition. With decisiveness.]

Maybe we're the weeds.

[torrefied]

They seem much more sophisticated than mere computer programs. Programs respond in logical ways, with defined parameters, and while I can follow the logic in their reasons for wanting the gods dead, there's something more to it. They don't seem to be blindly following code - it's like they've thought about what they're doing. Like they're sentient.

[And if they consider the gods to be parasites, they certainly wouldn't think much of their host population. Weeds indeed.]

They display an absence of emotion, which is what the gods embody. In a way, they would cancel each other out. Logic and emotion are opposing forces, after all.

[nonscriptum]

...yeah, you might as well be talking rocket science.

[It's a little hard to say "it's all Greek to me" when you actually know Greek.]

But I'm assuming you're suggesting that they invalidate the gods? I'm fine with the heavyweights duking it out so long as it doesn't screw us over, but it feels like we're gonna be strong-armed into picking a side because either way we'll be collateral damage.

[torrefied]

Something like that, yes - the gods seem to be antithetical to the Null, and vice versa, with the Null's mission to wipe the gods out entirely. As far as picking a side goes ... I don't think that's necessarily true, that we have to choose to ally ourselves with one or the other. There is a third option.

[nonscriptum]

What's the third option, denial?

[It's usually Nate's third option, but if you asked him about it he'd deny it exists.]

[torrefied]

No. [Denial is not an option, in Mello's mind.] We fight them both.

[nonscriptum]

[Holy shit, Mello, that’s a terrible idea.]

Sure, let’s throw ourselves right between the Axis Powers and the Allied Forces and hope it sticks. What are we, Belgium?

[torrefied]

I didn't say it was a good idea, and I'm not suggesting it's what we should do. But there's always another option.