01 - Video

[mothergoose]

[As the gear crackles to life you can see there is a tired looking woman sitting on a stump. She appears to be taking a break on one of the routes.]

Yes, this appears to be broadcasting after all. Very well. Let us try this, little one.

[There is a floating Solosis who floats into view who is probably the one she was speaking to before she looks at the screen. When she speaks it is with a thick German accent.]

I am Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, I was told to try this device to perhaps get more answers then I have received from the locals in the strange town I woke up in yesterday.

If there is a way back home, I would very much like to know it. I was in the middle of a very important project before I was taken here and I am needing to return to it soon.

However, if such a thing is unknown then if anyone has information on what this world uses pokemon breeders for I would be most grateful. It appears I am one and while I suppose my studies of genetics may be helpful with such things, I refuse to do this work unless I know what the results may be used for.

Thank you.

Comments

[schachmeister]

Not as far as I know. They currently have a beta tester program where skilled trainers can apply for one and it is created to order. There is also an adoption program. Those Type: Nulls have been... neutralised for battle as they put it, so anyone can apply for one. They say the Nulls they adopt out are ones who have lost their owners or were returned for some reason.

[Does Armin entirely trust this? No. No he doesn't.]

[mothergoose]

If they were coming up with temporary cures for the glitches that they then sold that would make at least some sense.... Unless perhaps the market is not as powerful as some places.....

[This brings up a lot of questions.]

But, what sort of world is this? I should have asked this right away but I've been distracted by- everything. Who is in charge and what sort of government is there, if there is one. Should I be worried about strict laws or no laws?

[She's seen a lot of different types of government throughout her life. A lot of them were terrible. Some of them were cults.]

[schachmeister]

It's... vague. I'm fairly certain this region does not have a monarch. At least, I've never heard anyone mention one. It seems the Elite Four are in charge of most things, but it is also possible that they are simply a liaison from whatever actual government exists here. They are, at the very least, in charge of just about everything pokemon league and battle-related, which admittedly, seems to be most of what everybody cares about in this world.

And, uhm, I guess the question of whether it is strict or not depends on what you are used to. Within these regions, we are free to go where we wish, we are free to learn and discuss what we want and to get whatever jobs we'd like. They have a police force, but I'm not sure if they have an actual army.

Some of my friends find this world a bit strict because they do come down hard on any physical fighting in public, even if it is consensual, but then, their world is more or less lawless.

[mothergoose]

[She has money so she knows there's capitalism. But a figure like Andrew Ryan or Sophia Lamb would not go unnoticed. They thrived on attention. So that was good.]

That is both stricter and freer then some places I have lived.

At least nothing seems to be on fire.

[She's lived in post civil war Rapture. It was...really bad.]

I suppose that means there may be a chance they care about scientific ethics here.

[schachmeister]

I can't speak for everyone, but the researchers I work with really care about the pokemon they study as well as the pokemon we keep at the centre.

[mothergoose]

I am glad to hear this.

[She actually really is. This is all interesting but she'd force herself to stop if it turned out surprise to do any of this she'd have to be terrible again.]

You work with researchers?

[schachmeister]

I do. I've been working at the Sevii Islands Marine Research Centre for... [A short pause as Armin tries to count it all together.] practically two years now.

[Even Armin is a little surprised.]

[mothergoose]

That is quite a while. You have been here this long?

[Does not bode well for the going home thing.]

Are marine pokemon similar to marine animals?

[schachmeister]

I've been in this world for three and a half years now.

[and he hopes for many more years to come.]

I suppose. People have told me they recognise certain marine pokemon as being similar to marine animals back in their own world. Unfortunately, I was never able to see the ocean in my own world, and nothing is known about it where I live, so I can't really make those comparisons.

[mothergoose]

People do not know of the ocean where you are from?

[She kind of wishes she had never heard of the ocean. She never would have found the sea slugs. ...then again she never would have found her morals.]

....I am from a very different place. For a while I was ...surrounded by the ocean at all times. Around, above. You simply looked at a window and there were creatures of all kinds.

[schachmeister]

Really? That sounds amazing.

[Says the boy who loves the ocean.]

And we don't. Where I am from, my people live isolated behind huge walls. Going outside those walls or even just discussing what exists out there is punishable by death. I had some knowledge of the outside world because of an illegal book my grandfather owned, but most people don't know anything about what is out there. Nor do they want to know.

[mothergoose]

It was supposed to be.

[It was supposed to be the greatest city in the world.]

You know if the city lasted longer, I am sure we would have ended up with a similar fate. We were brought down when it was built but going up to the surface was forbidden. Material from the surface was forbidden. They were just starting to punish more things with death when the civil war started.

I can only imagine that if such ways had continued, the surface would be viewed the same as the world outside your walls.

[schachmeister]

What reason was there for building a city like that in the first place?

[mothergoose]

There was a man. He was a rich and powerful man and he decided he no longer wanted to be told what to do. So he built a city underwater for himself and people who thought like him or at least would play by his rules. He brought down experts in their fields and told us to do what we wanted, there were no restrictions, no petty ethics, no censorship. It was a city run by the free market and nothing else.

[Have a deep sigh. Yup she needs to smoke.]

We created his dream and this dream destroyed the lives of everyone who lived there.

[schachmeister]

[Oh god, who gave Jack permission to have an interdimensional twin.]

But it ended, didn't it? You speak of it in the past tense.

[mothergoose]

[She gives this a lot of thought before speaking.]

Yes, I suppose I do. This may not be accurate. The city itself remains underwater. Rapture still stands as much as it also leaks.

The city Andrew Ryan created is gone though, and the city, years later, Sophia Lamb tried to create out of its ruins is gone as well. And yet the structure of the city still stands and there are no doubt ...people who still live there.

There are things connected to that I was working on before I came here.