hadriel | 001 [Video]

[For those who frequent the tops of the various climbable buildings in Hadriel, they might recognize that this broadcast is from the roof of one of them due to the angle; otherwise it's just a rapidly darkening cloudy sky for a backdrop, sun setting and rain clearly threatening to roll in at any time.

It's pretty, and that may or may not be the reason why Connor is out on a roof in the first place, but it's definitely not the point of this impromptu broadcast. He's just been wondering some things, and it's in his nature to actively search out answers rather than waiting for them to come to him, so he's decided to just go for it.]

Hello everyone; my name is Connor, and I just arrived a few days ago.

[Always good to start with introductions, and also to avoid saying exactly how many days or hours it's been since a given time when pretending to be human. He's getting a little better at this.]

I've been catching up on the situation at hand, and although the context is somewhat different, there are parallels to current events in my world that are difficult to ignore. Before I arrived, we were dealing with what might be the beginning of a civil war between humans and machines.

[He's trying to tread carefully, projecting enough genuine interest without sounding over-invested. He's just asking, after all, nothing more; there's definitely no personal reason why he wants to know.]

So I'm curious; I'm aware that what the Null have done is enough reason to be against them, but does what they are play any role in your feelings toward them?

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[She shakes her head.]

No. They've spoken to us before, but it was just to t-try and use us. They won't-- if you tell them you won't kill for them they'll try to kill you. They invaded last year and it, uhm... they killed a lot of people.

[It was baaaaad.]

And, uh... yeah! Yeah, k-kind of. I mean, he's a monster like me, so it's not a human SOUL or anything. But he has his own thoughts and uh, stuff, so...

[Alright, that matches up with the rest of what he's been hearing.]

There is no way to contact them directly ourselves?

[...The monster and SOUL stuff is a little outside his experience--not necessarily the soul thing, at least in how he presumes she means it, but as far as he's concerned that's a metaphysical issue that humans like but he's not interested in--but that's interesting. Her use of pronouns is also interesting; most people, at least in his world, use 'it' for androids if they don't consider them alive.]

Why did you create him?

[She shakes her head.]

No, they have to contact us first. It's been a while, though. At least six months.

[As to uh, not sell out the little Null running around the city. But that second question is a little harder to answer.]

Well, uh... I was t-trying to become the Royal Scientist, back home, and I needed to present the King with something really incredible, in uhm, in SOUL research, so... his original body was kind of plain, but I was working on a nicer one! One he liked. The first one was kind of a prototype, but, uh, he really wanted legs. He likes shoes.

[One day Mettaton will show up and blow everyone's goddamn minds and it'll be incredible.]

[He files the first part of that information away, but for now that seems like a dead end and so he focuses more on the rest of what she said. He isn't entirely impressed with the idea of this robot being made just to make her look impressive to some king, but he's inclined to forgive that considering the rest of what she said. She clearly cares, between the use of pronouns and not just the recognition of her creation's likes but being willing to try to indulge them.]

Is he the only one of his kind? What's his name?

Yeah, uh-- I only ever m-made one SOUL, so. I don't know how easy it would be to make another one. Certainly not here, uh, too.

[Because she technically never did. But that's a secret for absolutely never- she wouldn't betray Mettaton like that.]

But, uh, his name is Mettaton! He's actually been in the city here, uhm, before, once, but I d-don't know if he'll be back. But maybe you can meet him one day!

You made a soul?

[Okay, now things are definitely getting lost in translation, or at least he presumes they are. But he files away the name in his memory in case he ever needs it, although he's more interested in her enthusiasm and is more and more convinced she at least means well. She could be a potentially important ally in the future, if she not only knows how to handle technological issues but cares about people who might be mechanical in nature.]

Maybe. How common is it for people to arrive from the same world as someone who's already here?

Uhm, yes? Sort of?

[Thank goodness, he gives her something else to talk about, because that one is complicated. And a bit of a lie. Shhh.]

Well, uhm, I'd say it's about as c-common as people coming in from other worlds. The real random thing is how long you stay, I think. When I showed up, there was a lot of people from my world, but uhm... I'm the only one left, now.

[Well, that makes sense from a statistics standpoint, and yeah he's distracted from the SOUL topic for sure. He doesn't know the first place to start asking about that anyway, so talking about people showing up it is.]

Were they people you knew, personally?

[Because that could be good or bad for Connor, if people from his world arrived here. He's known about the possibility, of course, and that's part of the reason he's kept his LED, but preparing more actively for potential arrivals is probably smart.]

[She nods.]

Some of them. When I showed up, it was my b-best friend and his brother who found me first. There were people I didn't know, though, or uhm, people I'd only met once. So I guess it's kind of random.

[Alright, hm, that's still very unlikely to have happened by chance; for it to be someone she knew, even in passing, let alone someone like a friend, would be a very low chance presuming her world has more than a few hundred people in it.

But she's been very informative and he doesn't want to push too much, and he has answers to his main questions now anyway, so--]

I see. Thank you for all your help.

[Alphys smiles, hands clutched together and trying not to look super weird about this.]

It's no problem! If you, uh, have any other questions or s-something, I'm usually at the lab. If I can, uh, help in any way.

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