Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

Well, Julian was referring to the sink in the kitchen that was specified as small, but anyway:Ah, Japanese style toilet

I examine all the knobs with growing confusion. This is worse than that two button toilet. "Which one makes it flush?"

I briefly recall a show where some guy got knocked over from all the spraying from multiple angles by the shower, and smile at the thought.

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

Oh, I forgot to answer that:
Slam: "This is the normal size. They bigger where you come from?"


Does he dare touch anything?

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

"Yeah, how else are you going to wash the big dishes?"
He thinks better of potentially wasting water.

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

Slam: "In the washer?" He points.

Hopefully he'll figure it out at the right moment...

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

"Even when there's baked on grease and stuff? Even when it's fragile?"

Well, I figured he asked Slam about it. And if not, I guess he'll look it up at the conclusion of the 'Future Living 3417' segment.

When we get around to the 'browsing the web' segment, here's a list stuff that he'll look up:

Any information on the Bay Islands. Even if they've completely sank into the sea, surely there's some note about them somewhere. I'll start by looking at a map of Earth to see what they're currently listed as.

Information about cloning. Florence doesn't seem to think that it's wrong to clone someone because it's convenient, but why? Surely somebody out there has a more tactful way of presenting her arguments.

Information about the war going on. The news reported something about a weakness with the rebel's missiles, and I didn't have that dream for no reason...

A summary of 21st century history. Even separated by a thousand years, I still find myself wondering about the time and place I left behind... I doubt anyone I knew has anything written about them, but maybe I can imagine what the time they lived through...

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

Slam: "That's what I do. It gets it clean somehow!"

"Just use that one" Slam points to a robust metal push button and chuckles.

Currently, they're part of the West Caribbean Ecological Preserve. And part of the Unido América Central... which doesn't include the rest of Belize. Belize is part of something called "Caricom"

He finds some basic maps. The war is... complex. Panogos has a fair amount of land on it, and the borders get intricate in places. Often a coastal city will be a holdout for one side or the other. The scope of the war is enormous. There are Six or seven cities being actively contested, in addition to the air war.

It seems that the Rebels have captured more population, but arms from the concordance and foreign forces like mercenaries give loyalist forces a technological edge. This is especially important in the air war.

OCC: that's a really tricky one! handwave handwave handwave.

Julian reads about the formation of the internet, A bunch of proxy wars, pressure from population growth, some expansion into "earth orbit" and the "Satellite System"(which is about governments running other nations governments indirectly) and the growth of "Multinational Unions".

Julian types in the search and hits enter. The screen goes black. After about five second, Julian hears a voice come from it. "Hey Kid! what are you trying to do? I thought they told you not to get into trouble?"

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

Wow, future dishwashers must be something else then.

One button. Good, easy to remember. Just press that one button.

And in order to avoid spending the next week in the bathroom, Julian won't look for the toilet paper and/or be confused about the relative advantages of bidets.
Well Caricom is a thing in reality, and by the high inertia of Julian's homeworld, probably exists there too. Though Julian might not remember and this might not be the same Caricom either.

My eyes dart around the map. How did the Bay Islands end up in the Spanish sphere? I guess the next step is to read up on UAC history. That should mention when the Bay Islands diverged from the other British colonies?

Not too surprising; it's literally a world war. But it is a heck of a lot more violent than, "oh, there's some people who are upset about closing cloning facilities."

If that's the perception I guess I'm safe here.

Hm... I look for that news story about the Rebel missiles. Maybe the dream was about the Loyalist missiles?

Yeah, yeah. Mostly I was expecting an answer like, "this continues from nowish" or "Here's an obvious contradiction, like Bush wasn't president". Though the "Huh?" of contradiction is inevitable anyway.

As usual, Julian comes up with three questions in ten seconds?

"Hold on, you explain what's going on first."

"I'm just looking stuff up. Is... Is what I accessed monitored centrally somewhere?"

"What's so troublesome about looking up stuff about cloning anyway?"

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

Yeah, I've lived in the carribean a little. I've seen a fair amount of Caricom infrastructure.



Julian dives as deep as he can into the history. He finally finds it out: the spainish burned every settlement on the island to the ground in 1782, and then england evacuated all the settlers in 1788. The islands were later unwillingly repopulated by Indians and Africans from St. Vincent, and the United States forced the British to give the island to Honduras in 1850.

There are many stories, all seemingly scoured of an identifying information, at least as far as damage done to combat craft.



"I monitor this connection so that nobody stupid gives our location away by doing something dumb on the networks. My concern appears to have been validated."


"I'm Seven. I'm the team's computer expert. You tripped off one of my warning flags, so the computer shut down and alerted me."


"Because cloning opinions are one of the best ways to identify which side of the civil war you sympathize with, and looking up cloning answers is considered a sign of defection."

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

Hm. Didn't think of that. Guess that's the case of visiting a place one hasn't visited.

And if he went back further he would have noticed that the Spanish booted out the earlier settlers in the 1650s but that's neither here nor there.

I read it, I pause, then I read it twice again, with growing alarm. I stop, and then I think about it for a moment. History is different somehow. I'm nuts-- No, I thought that before and that doesn't bear out. What else could it be? I traveled to the future. I traveled somewhere where reality bends around on itself and chalk and rock can let you teleport.

What if Riask is in the future of the future? I could have traveled from 2023 to the far future and then back to 3417. What if, Tarbreth, or a descendant of Tarbreth was supposed to go back in time to the 18th century and stop the Spanish, but now he's dead and that's not going to happen? What if breaking a Starpus out of this tank throws history further off? Well, clearly nothing bad will happen because I'm not fading out of existence or anything like that.

Hm. That could mean anything I guess. Maybe they want to keep things quiet for propaganda reasons.

"Oh, uh, sorry. I didn't know better."

"So, the government pays attention to searches made on idle whims? Sounds like they take that rather seriously. Or is it just that even a little attention is too much for us?"

"So could you please turn it back on, not connected to any network or anything? I won't look up anything odd now that I know somebody's watching."

Re: (IC) Lost in Dreams (Julian)
 

"Well now you do."

"They don't have the resources to stick a dedicated person on anyone who searches for cloning, but its generally a bad idea. And especially for us."

"Why are you curious about cloning anyways?"
The screen boots back up. "You still have the network. You also still have my checks. I have your back."