[hatch log] everything happens so much

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: DAY :039
SUMMARY: New faces and old losses - a hatch occurs and a number of older hosts go comatose. Coma'd hosts include all auto-piloted dropped characters to date.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and suddenly you're a different person. No. That's not right. You're you and there's no suddenly about it. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or like surfacing up from the darkness of the ocean and right there in your own head there's something both familiar and strange. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye. While it’s impossible to tell exactly how long ago or how exactly you escaped the danger that had been breathing down your neck, you're certain it was more than a moment ago.

But here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber, a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been briefly calmed. There's something strangely peaceful about waking up here. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But once the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. A wave of emotion fills that peaceful void - fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety. Maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party happening behind a closed door.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. Maybe it's time for a change? Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone. The closer you are to these stranger, the louder the sound in your head becomes. --Actually they're not quite strangers either, are they? Something is wound about and between you and these people, whoever they are, are as familiar as this place you've never been is.

Welcome to Station 72. The air buzzes with activity. Somewhere deep in the Station, other minds call to yours. They are bright, brilliantly celebratory spots in your subconscious. They are sun-warm gentle, or they are fire and the taste of ash, or they are a vibrant frenetic whirl, or they are a tangled garden, or they are the feeling of flight through dense cirrus clouds. No two links are exactly the same, but you know for certain that you are connected to all of them in at least some small way.

Which is why it's easy to tell when something goes terribly wrong:


OLD HOSTS
THE ENDORPHIN RUSH of making it back to Station 72 (relatively) unharmed, having successfully acquired exactly what you'd set out to get your hands on can't be denied. Even if you're not necessarily the type to celebrate, there's no ignoring the thrumming celebratory sensation from those Hosts who are.

After a few hours of being back in the void, something else stirs in the air: the clear, prickling sensation of new hosts hatching on the Nesting Deck. They're a rush of mental information - as if someone's turned the volume on the radio all the way up -, a cacophony of sensation and emotional feedback for anyone unprepared to shield against it.

The swell of feeling might make it easy to miss what follows immediately after: the dull, gut-deep quiet as The Darkling, Chuuya Nakahara, and Nasu Rei go suddenly comatose.

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new hosts. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care do. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE. You can find additional setting information about the Station HERE If you have any questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[miscreant]

Perhaps they do. I have never seen a record.

[Or, if she had, it was prior to her death. Her conversation with Murphy suddenly needles at her, viciously.

She remembers a time or two, when there were rumors of the Titans coming to Azeroth, along with their keepers. Perhaps they, or those that interacted with them, might have known better.]

I suppose it would be fitting, in that case.

[earthborn]

Okay listen, I'll prove it. [Her tone as an unmistakable air of Challenge Accepted about it.] Your people, the Sin'Dorei, right?

[She waits a beat, for confirmation, but only that long and then continues.]

You've got your own language. So, what's the word for the sun, in Sin'Doreish.

[miscreant]

[She nods dimly when she mentions it, but when she goes on to ask her question...]

Thalassian, Commander.

[Its a correction, slightly scandalized, alongside a click of her tongue. She's not entirely sure where Shepard is going with this, but she answers dutifully:]

Belore.

[earthborn]

[Shepard grins the shit-eattingest of grins. She knew it was wrong, and she said it anyways, partly because she's a bitch and a half...and partly to get Seviilia out of her head about Darkling.]

There you go. One star, named. [Hands spread as if to say and there you go. ] Belore, home-star of the Sin'Dorei.

[miscreant]

[Her head tilts, as if the logic isn't quite there, but she seems to eventually understand what Shepard is trying to tell her. One ear flicks, followed by the other, before they both return back to standing upright.]

What did they call your's?

[She moves when she asks the question, gone to retrieve two towels: one for herself, before another coat of rime could form, and the other for half-drenched Shepard.]

[earthborn]

Earth's star is Sol.

[She holds up a hand, toss it, and then continues.]

The Asari have Parnitha, the Krogan got Arlakh, Turians come from Trebia. [She's not yet an expert at this, and Sev isn't really brood or anything, but Shepard does her best to show each species in turn as she says them, focusing on the image. Liara... Wrex... Garrus...] I could go on. Every star out there is a sun, and a lot of those suns have worlds, with people on them. Most of the stars probably have multiple names.

Just like yours and mine.

[miscreant]

[Its easier to understand, when she thinks of them as suns rather than stars. At this distance, they all seemed to be the same, except for the largest.

She remembers Wrex, when she shows the other races and speaks of their suns. It offers such philosophical questions as 'Did the Legion ever bother to name the suns they burned out?'

Maybe that was why demons and the undead were considered constructs, tools, and creatures -- because they didn't think about things larger than themselves. The sun must have had a name. But whatever language it was spoken in had been warped fifty times over.

Suddenly, she feels incredibly small. For someone who had the center of their own world for almost long as they could remember, it is an awkward feeling that she doesn't know what to do with.]

What have you both chosen to call your brood?

[earthborn]

Haven't decided yet. More than a trillion trillion stars out there, most of them don't have names that I know. Maybe... three hundred that I do? I could just pick at random, and it wouldn't matter.

[Shepard takes the towel, scrubs it over her face. She listens, idly, to the expanding discomfort of Seviilia's world, and considers it the correct reaction. At some point, every soldier in the Alliance Navy stands out in space, looks back, and sees the distant disc of the homeworld, small enough in the sky that if you put your hand up you could block it from view.

It's appropriate to feel small, in the face of infinity.]

I'm just sick of calling it "Sam's Brood" or whatever. If we're making the distinction, we should name them.

[miscreant]

If you are going to assign a name, it should have meaning.

[Brightwing. Frostbringer. Icereaper. Scourgeborne. Every name in Azeroth had a story. Anything else feels dishonest.]

But...I suppose three hundred is a good starting point.

[She volunteered to lead the naming committee after all. Seviilia hides her amusement behind the towel.]

[earthborn]

[Shepard scoffs at this, from where she stands, emptying the water out of her boots. They're going to need a couple of days to fully dry out and she has nobody to blame but herself. Worth it.]

Yeah, but I figure most star-names have meanings, they're Stars. I don't know about your world, but people on mine have a hundred legends for every constellation. Here--

[Straightening up, she activates her omni-tool, surrounding her arm in an orange, holographic display. A few taps later, and there's a list of named stars-- she stabs one at random.]

There. Miaplacidus. Part of the Carinae constellation, brightest southern star in Earth's sky, means "Calm Waters". [There is a pause. Misato had said, pick a powerful one. Didn't get much more powerful than that.] Now my brood's got a name. What's your brood got?

[Murphy. Her brood has Murphy, that's what.]

[miscreant]

[She pulls the towel from her hair to lean in to observe the omni-tool in action.]

It has me, of course.

[This time, her smirk is on display as she takes the time to wrap the towel around her waist. Obviously, she never meant to cover up with it. Modesty is not her strong point.]

And an angry human boy, I suppose.

[earthborn]

Ha.

[She holds out the list, well past oogling. We're into that delightful realm where once can walk around naked and it's not more remarkable than anything else one might do.]

You wanna pick one?

[No need to ask an angry human boy for an opinion. Shepard never does.]

[miscreant]

[Seviilia observes what she can see of the list -- nothing looks familiar, or even sounds familiar to her. Probably, she imagines, they are the stars of Shepard's homeworld. That's likely not too much of a leap in logic.

So, she waits for the list to be scrolled for her, and points one long black nail at random, just as Shepard had.]

Elnath?

[It...almost sounds elven?]

[earthborn]

Horns of the bull. [She say it with satisfaction, as if by simple assurance, the name would stick.] Part of the old Taurus constellation, supposedly. Figures.

[Shepard drops her hand, waving off the omni-tool with a satisfied air. That's that, then.]

I think that'll do just fine.