video;

[caeruleae]

[Aqua looks pensive, troubled as she addresses the network. This isn't the way she wanted to do this, but one can't change the past. No one knows that better than she does.]

I've been wanting to apologize to many of you. I've been putting it off, out of embarrassment, but that's cowardly of me. I know....I hurt some of you, before we moved to this world. And I'm told that it's not entirely my fault, that such...effects....have happened to people here before, but that doesn't matter. They were still my actions.

I'm sorry.

[She bows her head briefly.]

I also wanted to ask a question that I know there may not be an answer to. Before I came here, I was alone for a very, very long time. I'm told it was more than ten years, but time didn't really exist where I was, so I don't know for sure.

I met some boys who came through the Door after I did, who came from the same worlds. They told me a little about what's waiting for me there, if I make it home from where I was trapped, and from here, and then they were gone. I'd like to know....is there any meaning at all behind those who come here, and those who leave again? I feel like there must be a reason that I was bought here, that they were. But maybe that's just wishful thinking.

[She lets out a long breath.]

My name is Master Aqua. I may not have been here as long as some of you, but the dangers we're facing, the storm to come...I'll fight beside you. And do my best to make sure that we all make it through.

[video] ready for more plot

[hot_mes]

[Law would like to interrupt your currently scheduled sobfests and chest-unburdening to bring you something somewhat urgent. Maybe seeing Jon and Dany taking initiative inspired him, who knows.]

The Null are coming and the fight is coming, we know that. But anyone who was here for the last round might remember just how desperate it was. The only reason it stopped was because Fear moved the city, not because the Null gave in or we won or anything. I foresee the same thing happening again: that when they come, they won't stop coming until we're all dead or something else intervenes.

[he sighs; he hasn't asked Sorrow directly, yet, so he can't blab about his research into the gods. But he can dance around it pretty damn well, providing as much as he knows without going into his secret research.]

I have a proposal for a way to put a permanent end to the war between the Null and the gods, but I need assistance to pull it off. Technological assistance. I have some expertise, but the mechanics of this idea will require other skill sets which I don't have and can't learn in a few weeks.

The essence of the conflict is emotion; the gods live off it and the Null hate it, and the Null's own unique brand of logic leads them to conclude that the only way to protect themselves from emotion is to destroy the gods. Our chance at getting home dies if they do, but there are simply too many Null for us to fight - we can't win this war that way. Ending the conflict is going to take creativity rather than swords and magic. That's where I come in. The Null will have no reason to destroy the gods or us if they're put into a situation where whether or not they catch the virus becomes moot. Either they need to be rendered permanently safe from emotions, or permanently afflicted with them.

As a doctor, my preference is inoculation. But as much as I understand transmission of viruses and that emotion is likely a biological state, I don't have the means of adapting that to robotic systems. If a vaccine is impossible, then we can go the opposite way and turn it into a weapon. [his eyes harden] I have my own reasons to detest such a path, but if it's that or our deaths, then I'll take unethical means over death.

Contact me if you have the skills to assist with this. I admit it's out of my area of expertise. The sooner we get on this the better, because even with the most skilled fighters preparing for months, it's not going to be enough. If all we have is physical fighting, we're all going to die anyway.

[yep that's why he has the worst bedside manner]