The Practice War [Complete]
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
Growing Up
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
You were lucky compared to many when the Shiplords inflicted the Week of Sorrows upon humanity. Gifted with a large family, you and your siblings were well acquainted to caring for each other. And when your parents were ripped away, you were able to share the grief and pain, letting the venom that could have turned to hatred or iron simply drain away. It is not that you emerged from the cataclysm that was the Week of Sorrows unharmed, but your wounds did not scar. They healed and faded with time, and in the family you had been left behind you were able to find a semblance of peace.
It wasn't enough for just you and your sibs to be freed of pain, however. With the clarity that even limited peace can bring, and a firm belief that for all that your past had been of pain it would not define your future, you chose to try and share that gift. Many of the children of the generation of the Second had siblings left behind. Few indeed found it in themselves to share as you did. Children are, after all, selfish.
You were not most children. But it was a little more complicated than that.
In the pain of your fellows you saw something, some fragment of beauty and utterly human majesty that went far beyond the mere material. Something almost more sensed then seen, in truth, for even as an adult you stumbled to explain such a thing. To children, when you were one yourself? And not just children, but children cast adrift by their lack of a firm foundation and with little to hold to. In hindsight it is a miracle that infant mortality rates didn't explode upwards for a generation, if only from the influence of suicide. For many of your generation that miracle were the sleeved virtual intelligences that served as your primary caretakers in the Institutes that were built quickly before the Week of Sorrow came to an end. For those who shared the Institute with you and your sibling family, the miracle ended up being quite different. And far more human.
It was hard and often frightening to break through the shells of pain that choked the joy from many of those within, but for you it was worth it. To see eyes full of pain blink away the haze of sorrow that clouded them. To see laughter and hear joy, outside of the rooms that you shared with your family. To see many single people become something more, and know you had played a part in the healing that led to it. There was no greater privilege, and no greater reward. That is not, however, to say that you were good at it to begin with.
"I said go away!" The door slammed shut in your face, and your shoulders slumped. You were starting to realise that maybe the social instincts that your siblings had taught you were maybe a little ill-suited to the task that you had set yourself. Take the current example, an Orphan Entire in their early teens that you'd seen a few times watching the little meetings you'd started to hold with those willing to talk. It wasn't much, but it was also far more than the nothing they'd had before. That was what you told yourself, at least. You had been so certain that they'd been interested too, why else would they have been watching? Although in fairness, it might not have been wise to lead with that statement. The blazing anger that had resulted from that had made you feel like you'd been on them, instead of the other way around. That just wasn't fair!
Both fortunately and unfortunately, you were stubborn. You tapped the intercom switch.
"Look, I just-" The light on the comm flicked red, cutting the link. You sighed, then tried again – had you mentioned that you were stubborn?
"I only-"
"It isn't as i-"
"I'm sorry." The light remained a steady green this time and you took a hopeful breath.
"Sorry for what?" The reply was short, guarded. Everything you were not equipped to deal with effectively. But you'd come this far, and not trying would be giving up.
"I…" you stumbled on the words at first, "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'm very sorry that I did, I just wanted to help."
"Is that what you call your little power games? Help?"
"That isn't what it's about." You were on more familiar ground here, you'd met this worry before and in a very similar way. "Not at all!"
"Oh really?" Their tone was almost caustic.
"Yes." You took a steadying breath, then spoke carefully. "Look, we all had families once, before the Week of Sorrow-" you were cut off again, by tightly leashed anger.
"And you just want to add us all to your own, don't you!" Only years later would you recognise the fear that drove the anger beneath that statement.
"No…no!" You shook your head, even though you knew they couldn't see you on the other side of the door. "That isn't it at all. I don't want siblings, I want to try and build a family. I remember being told once, that you can't change your blood, but that friends are the family you choose." You stood in the silence for a moment. "The Shipords made us alone, but there's no reason that we have to stay that way."
To this day you're not sure where those words came from, only that they ended up being the right ones. There was a very long pause, but the comm light remained green, so you waited. A minute went by, then another, and you possessed yourself of what little patience you had at that age. Then, finally, the door slid open and a slender figure extended a hand.
"What's your name?"
Name:
[Write-in]
Are you:
[] Male
[] Female
"It's nice to meet you." You said, taking their hand. "So…would you like to come to the next meeting?"
"I would like to see it. I will tell you afterwards if I will be a part of it."
In the end the group grew despite your occasional mishaps, steadily increasing in size as what you wanted to create penetrated through seemingly endless layers of blindness. Pain and grief are hard veils to cast aside, but the hope of peace, of healing are as powerful as they are terrifying. And the friendship you offered in the foundations of what would become the Circle provided a beacon of human goodness that all were free to join in. Many did not join so much as they became a part of what you had made, and without them it never would have grown to such a size. Those who did join, however, became a part of its heart. For many, the Circle was a place of friendship, somewhere that offered human interactions in a world so deprived of it. But for those at its heart, it was the chosen family.
Perhaps it should have been expected then that such good work would attract the attention of the adults who minded the Institution as best they could. At first they were confused, for the pattern you had made was not a common one, for it was entirely without the power games that some had chosen to play in other Institutes. It was simply a safe home and harbour for any searching for it. You rejected any commendations, however, for to you it was only what was right. Humanity had been wounded, but it had not been lost. Part of humanity was its spirit. And the body healed poorly without a healthy mind and soul behind it.
Little wonder then that when you rose as part of the Second Awakening, you found your Focus in the work of Mending. Instead of building things anew, you sought to repair that which had been broken, and make much of it impossible to break. It separated you a little from those at the heart of the Circle who were not like you, but it did not break your connection with them. You sometimes wonder if anything ever could.
Your greatest gift was that of a rebuilder, and that power led to the offer of studying under those of the First Awoken whose Focuses lay in wisdom and renewal themselves. It would take you away from the Circle, but the First Awoken's understanding of Potentials was beyond compare. In the end, you decided to:
[] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[] Apprentice to the First – The offer of teaching, and the potential understanding you could gain as a benefit of it, was too vast to ignore. Although you were torn to leave the Circle, you believed in the strength of the bonds between you.
You have wondered if you made the right choice on a few occasions, but what you gained always feels to have been worth what you might have lost. With your path set as a Potential, your years as a child passed quickly, but you did have some time for things beyond Practice. You even had the chance to pick up an interest or two:
[] Music – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways (Write-in an instrument if you have one in mind, or I'll pick one myself).
[] Sports – whilst the advanced training regimes of the Institutes did not allow for any to neglect their bodies, for you there was something clean and clear about the simple pleasures of competing with your peers in the purely physical. This only became more so after you awoke as part of the Second Awakening.
[] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
[] Visual arts – there was something special to you about being able to record part of the world in a way that was permanent. Sketches, painting, you even ended up being involved in some of the beginnings of holo-sculpting as a true art form. Being able to visualise the world around and what it could be was quite a gift.
[] Write-in (something appropriate to a teenager)
It wasn't enough for just you and your sibs to be freed of pain, however. With the clarity that even limited peace can bring, and a firm belief that for all that your past had been of pain it would not define your future, you chose to try and share that gift. Many of the children of the generation of the Second had siblings left behind. Few indeed found it in themselves to share as you did. Children are, after all, selfish.
You were not most children. But it was a little more complicated than that.
In the pain of your fellows you saw something, some fragment of beauty and utterly human majesty that went far beyond the mere material. Something almost more sensed then seen, in truth, for even as an adult you stumbled to explain such a thing. To children, when you were one yourself? And not just children, but children cast adrift by their lack of a firm foundation and with little to hold to. In hindsight it is a miracle that infant mortality rates didn't explode upwards for a generation, if only from the influence of suicide. For many of your generation that miracle were the sleeved virtual intelligences that served as your primary caretakers in the Institutes that were built quickly before the Week of Sorrow came to an end. For those who shared the Institute with you and your sibling family, the miracle ended up being quite different. And far more human.
It was hard and often frightening to break through the shells of pain that choked the joy from many of those within, but for you it was worth it. To see eyes full of pain blink away the haze of sorrow that clouded them. To see laughter and hear joy, outside of the rooms that you shared with your family. To see many single people become something more, and know you had played a part in the healing that led to it. There was no greater privilege, and no greater reward. That is not, however, to say that you were good at it to begin with.
***
"I said go away!" The door slammed shut in your face, and your shoulders slumped. You were starting to realise that maybe the social instincts that your siblings had taught you were maybe a little ill-suited to the task that you had set yourself. Take the current example, an Orphan Entire in their early teens that you'd seen a few times watching the little meetings you'd started to hold with those willing to talk. It wasn't much, but it was also far more than the nothing they'd had before. That was what you told yourself, at least. You had been so certain that they'd been interested too, why else would they have been watching? Although in fairness, it might not have been wise to lead with that statement. The blazing anger that had resulted from that had made you feel like you'd been on them, instead of the other way around. That just wasn't fair!
Both fortunately and unfortunately, you were stubborn. You tapped the intercom switch.
"Look, I just-" The light on the comm flicked red, cutting the link. You sighed, then tried again – had you mentioned that you were stubborn?
"I only-"
"It isn't as i-"
"I'm sorry." The light remained a steady green this time and you took a hopeful breath.
"Sorry for what?" The reply was short, guarded. Everything you were not equipped to deal with effectively. But you'd come this far, and not trying would be giving up.
"I…" you stumbled on the words at first, "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'm very sorry that I did, I just wanted to help."
"Is that what you call your little power games? Help?"
"That isn't what it's about." You were on more familiar ground here, you'd met this worry before and in a very similar way. "Not at all!"
"Oh really?" Their tone was almost caustic.
"Yes." You took a steadying breath, then spoke carefully. "Look, we all had families once, before the Week of Sorrow-" you were cut off again, by tightly leashed anger.
"And you just want to add us all to your own, don't you!" Only years later would you recognise the fear that drove the anger beneath that statement.
"No…no!" You shook your head, even though you knew they couldn't see you on the other side of the door. "That isn't it at all. I don't want siblings, I want to try and build a family. I remember being told once, that you can't change your blood, but that friends are the family you choose." You stood in the silence for a moment. "The Shipords made us alone, but there's no reason that we have to stay that way."
To this day you're not sure where those words came from, only that they ended up being the right ones. There was a very long pause, but the comm light remained green, so you waited. A minute went by, then another, and you possessed yourself of what little patience you had at that age. Then, finally, the door slid open and a slender figure extended a hand.
"What's your name?"
Name:
[Write-in]
Are you:
[] Male
[] Female
"It's nice to meet you." You said, taking their hand. "So…would you like to come to the next meeting?"
"I would like to see it. I will tell you afterwards if I will be a part of it."
***
In the end the group grew despite your occasional mishaps, steadily increasing in size as what you wanted to create penetrated through seemingly endless layers of blindness. Pain and grief are hard veils to cast aside, but the hope of peace, of healing are as powerful as they are terrifying. And the friendship you offered in the foundations of what would become the Circle provided a beacon of human goodness that all were free to join in. Many did not join so much as they became a part of what you had made, and without them it never would have grown to such a size. Those who did join, however, became a part of its heart. For many, the Circle was a place of friendship, somewhere that offered human interactions in a world so deprived of it. But for those at its heart, it was the chosen family.
Perhaps it should have been expected then that such good work would attract the attention of the adults who minded the Institution as best they could. At first they were confused, for the pattern you had made was not a common one, for it was entirely without the power games that some had chosen to play in other Institutes. It was simply a safe home and harbour for any searching for it. You rejected any commendations, however, for to you it was only what was right. Humanity had been wounded, but it had not been lost. Part of humanity was its spirit. And the body healed poorly without a healthy mind and soul behind it.
Little wonder then that when you rose as part of the Second Awakening, you found your Focus in the work of Mending. Instead of building things anew, you sought to repair that which had been broken, and make much of it impossible to break. It separated you a little from those at the heart of the Circle who were not like you, but it did not break your connection with them. You sometimes wonder if anything ever could.
Your greatest gift was that of a rebuilder, and that power led to the offer of studying under those of the First Awoken whose Focuses lay in wisdom and renewal themselves. It would take you away from the Circle, but the First Awoken's understanding of Potentials was beyond compare. In the end, you decided to:
[] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[] Apprentice to the First – The offer of teaching, and the potential understanding you could gain as a benefit of it, was too vast to ignore. Although you were torn to leave the Circle, you believed in the strength of the bonds between you.
You have wondered if you made the right choice on a few occasions, but what you gained always feels to have been worth what you might have lost. With your path set as a Potential, your years as a child passed quickly, but you did have some time for things beyond Practice. You even had the chance to pick up an interest or two:
[] Music – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways (Write-in an instrument if you have one in mind, or I'll pick one myself).
[] Sports – whilst the advanced training regimes of the Institutes did not allow for any to neglect their bodies, for you there was something clean and clear about the simple pleasures of competing with your peers in the purely physical. This only became more so after you awoke as part of the Second Awakening.
[] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
[] Visual arts – there was something special to you about being able to record part of the world in a way that was permanent. Sketches, painting, you even ended up being involved in some of the beginnings of holo-sculpting as a true art form. Being able to visualise the world around and what it could be was quite a gift.
[] Write-in (something appropriate to a teenager)
Next up will be working out your adult life, settling a few bits from your childhood, and then we should be heading into the story proper.
A mechanics update: I'm probably going to run this on a d100 base, with percentage chances of success assigned to possible actions. Not sure how I'm going to split them up, exactly, but I'm getting there.
A mechanics update: I'm probably going to run this on a d100 base, with percentage chances of success assigned to possible actions. Not sure how I'm going to split them up, exactly, but I'm getting there.
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Apprentice to the First – The offer of teaching, and the potential understanding you could gain as a benefit of it, was too vast to ignore. Although you were torn to leave the Circle, you believed in the strength of the bonds between you.
[X] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
[X] Female
[X] Apprentice to the First – The offer of teaching, and the potential understanding you could gain as a benefit of it, was too vast to ignore. Although you were torn to leave the Circle, you believed in the strength of the bonds between you.
[X] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
Zeitgeist Blue
Currently Made of Metal
- Location
- Manila, Philippines, GMT +8
[X] Darryl Hall
[X] Male
[X] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Piano. – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Visual arts – there was something special to you about being able to record part of the world in a way that was permanent. Sketches, painting, you even ended up being involved in some of the beginnings of holo-sculpting as a true art form. Being able to visualise the world around and what it could be was quite a gift.
We're quite metaphorically the Heart of our Circle and most likely in the larger Institute.
I feel like going an atypical, but not too rare, route and make us a guy. Most characters like this, you'd think girl. I doubt gender has any effect mechanically, since this is the future, but I like the image of an empathetic guy who becomes the rock to a great many people. A bit atypical, but it's been done before.
The way the update was written I can't see the protagonist going any other way. He should stay, even if that means not minmaxing. The Circle is his family, and he has been shown to be stubborn. Force of will to be set in his path, for good or ill he stays with his family.
Then back to the common. He's a Heart. Artistic pursuits are the norm for these characters and for good reason. Both musical and visual are avenues to express himself. And if the powers here work as I think they do, these works can have the power to heal people beyond what merely human art can.
[X] Male
[X] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Piano. – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Visual arts – there was something special to you about being able to record part of the world in a way that was permanent. Sketches, painting, you even ended up being involved in some of the beginnings of holo-sculpting as a true art form. Being able to visualise the world around and what it could be was quite a gift.
We're quite metaphorically the Heart of our Circle and most likely in the larger Institute.
I feel like going an atypical, but not too rare, route and make us a guy. Most characters like this, you'd think girl. I doubt gender has any effect mechanically, since this is the future, but I like the image of an empathetic guy who becomes the rock to a great many people. A bit atypical, but it's been done before.
The way the update was written I can't see the protagonist going any other way. He should stay, even if that means not minmaxing. The Circle is his family, and he has been shown to be stubborn. Force of will to be set in his path, for good or ill he stays with his family.
Then back to the common. He's a Heart. Artistic pursuits are the norm for these characters and for good reason. Both musical and visual are avenues to express himself. And if the powers here work as I think they do, these works can have the power to heal people beyond what merely human art can.
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- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] Darryl Hall
[X] Male
[X] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
[X] Male
[X] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
- Location
- Land of Bureaucracy
- Pronouns
- Plural/They
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
[X] Female
[X] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
BBBence1111
Harbinger of Bad Luck
- Location
- Magyarország
-[X] All other stuff I'm lazy to copy
I'll start actually voting someday, but busy atm.
Edit:
Upon rereading the votes I saw it wasn't a 2v2, so:
[X] Veekie
Last edited:
Twei
I have a face!
- Location
- the land where they write things
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
[X] Female
[X] Circle Child – You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. – you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science – you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
So I'm going to need to ask for a tiebreaker again, or I really will have to flip a coin.
Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Apprentice to the First - The offer of teaching, and the potential understanding you could gain as a benefit of it, was too vast to ignore. Although you were torn to leave the Circle, you believed in the strength of the bonds between you.
[X] Science - you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
No. of votes: 2
veekie, BBBence1111
[X] Darryl Hall
[X] Male
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Piano. - you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Visual arts - there was something special to you about being able to record part of the world in a way that was permanent. Sketches, painting, you even ended up being involved in some of the beginnings of holo-sculpting as a true art form. Being able to visualise the world around and what it could be was quite a gift.
No. of votes: 1
Zeitgeist Blue
[X] Darryl Hall
[X] Male
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. - you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science - you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
No. of votes: 1
Walker
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. - you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science - you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
No. of votes: 2
Serafina, Twei
##### 3.21
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Apprentice to the First - The offer of teaching, and the potential understanding you could gain as a benefit of it, was too vast to ignore. Although you were torn to leave the Circle, you believed in the strength of the bonds between you.
[X] Science - you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
No. of votes: 2
veekie, BBBence1111
[X] Darryl Hall
[X] Male
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Piano. - you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Visual arts - there was something special to you about being able to record part of the world in a way that was permanent. Sketches, painting, you even ended up being involved in some of the beginnings of holo-sculpting as a true art form. Being able to visualise the world around and what it could be was quite a gift.
No. of votes: 1
Zeitgeist Blue
[X] Darryl Hall
[X] Male
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. - you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science - you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
No. of votes: 1
Walker
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. - you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science - you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practice.
No. of votes: 2
Serafina, Twei
Zeitgeist Blue
Currently Made of Metal
- Location
- Manila, Philippines, GMT +8
Switch.
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. - you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science - you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practic
[X] Amanda Hawk
[X] Female
[X] Circle Child - You would learn as your fellows would, and grow stronger from the bonds you had chosen to build with them, not those offered. That which you could learn from the First from a distance you would accept, but you would not abandon your family.
[X] Music. Singing. - you were an avid lover of this expression of human beauty, and learned to play an instrument in your teenage years. The skill has never left you, and it is a skill that reminds you intensely of Practice in some ways.
[X] Science - you were, to put it simply, a huge nerd. Science was a joy to you, and your advanced understanding of how the world fit together helped a lot when learning how to Practic
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Teaching and Choices
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
"Amanda. Friends call me Mandy." You smiled a little, but restrained yourself from anything more, reaching out to shake.
"Mary." The reply was a little less terse than before, and you chose to take that as a victory of some kind. It wasn't as if it was untrue. She was a slender girl, with dark brown hair that was soft just to look at, although few could manage that for long without flinching from her gaze. Those green eyes of hers had seen far too much in her early years.
Although it took time, Mary grew eventually to be one of your closest friends within the Circle; after managing to extract herself from the many-layered shell that had long contained her. Some of those layers were of pain, and those you and the fledging Circle could empathise with and share, but the rest? The rest were older and in some ways even stronger, for they lay with her name. Mary Alessandra D'reve; only daughter of the leading scientist for the project that unlocked the First Secret. She'd been with her family on Mars at the start of the Week of Sorrows, and had only survived due to the sacrificial genius of her father. That loss had hardened her, but it had been a brittle thing in truth. Made all the worse by the minor celebrity accorded to her by a great many of the adults, and the few who despite all attempts could not change their belief that the same father who had saved her had been responsible for the Week of Sorrows itself. It is not that they were exactly wrong, but it is a hard thing to be subjected to the sins of lost family when you are all of twelve.
Behind the pain and guilt, however, was one of the few ways to reach through it. A deeply powerful analytic mind that even buried beneath trauma was able to see the world in a way you've never been able to match. Mary had all the genius of her father, maybe more, and it was in that shared passion for science that you were able to slowly help her put to rest the shadows that choked her heart. She, more than anyone else in the Institute, was the one responsible for the joy that you still feel in the pursuit of discovery through science. It reminds you of what it was able to do, even if the material was entirely unrelated to matters of the mind. And in truth, Mary was the reason you knew so much of how the world worked when the Second Awakening came to pass. Today, she is one of the few scientists capable of keeping up with Potentials.
A long way to come, and though she jokes sometimes about the part the Circle played in it, you know her well enough to see below the laughter. Although she's never said so, and you'd never dare to yourself, the truth is that the Circle saved her. Just as much as she saved it, if what she told you when you were fifteen had been an accurate prediction. Try as you might, you couldn't quite bring yourself to discount the predictions of a theoretical prodigy in reality physics.
***
Fifteen. Four years after you had begun trying to create the Circle, with it growing now towards full bloom, and six months after you became a Potential. That was the year that the offer from the First Awoken came, the leaders of the entire world extending a hand to aid in your teaching. You almost accepted it, too. The chance to study under those who had honed similar or matched Focuses to your own for decades, it had been beyond your wildest expectations. What you might have been able to do now, or understand, sometimes you curse for the opportunities lost to you. By the time you had time to focus on that offer again, almost all of the elder First had died. But there had been the Circle to leave behind, and Mary's prediction to take into account; given bare hours before you had to make your choice.
She'd called you that morning, and when you'd met her you had been shocked by the state of her. Tablets and hardcopy scattered around her rooms, full of scribbling and what you were able to guess was a sociological analysis of some type. You didn't have time to look any closer before she dragged you over to one of the slightly less cluttered tables and sank down in front of it. Being currently connected by handholding, you sat down beside her.
"Mary, what's wrong?" You asked, gesturing at the absolute state that your friend and her room were currently in. "I've not seen you get this focused on something for over a year," you ran back through your memory of the last few days, trying to remember when last you'd talked with her. "Have you been locked up in here for the whole week?"
"I locked myself in, but yes, pretty much." Mary replied, quietly focused on the tablet in front of her. Looking down, you saw a progress bar and an elapsed time of over three days on the current calculation on the screen, with another timer ticking steadily down towards zero. You tried again.
"Mary." You looked over at your friend, doing your best to be as serious as possible. "What is this about?" For a moment you thought she hadn't heard you, then she looked up from the screen.
"You really don't know, do you." She said softly, shaking her head. "Amanda, the choice you have right now, it doesn't just effect you. It affects me, your friends, and everyone else we try to help." You opened your mouth, but she waved you to silence. "These last few days I've been trying to put together simulations on what would happen if you left. I think you recognised the basic social analysis, but what's running on this is a lot more complicated." She nodded at the tablet.
"Even though it's still in progress, I'm almost certain I know the results. What you started can survive without you here, but it will not prosper. There's no one to take the place that you have in its centre." She held up a finger and swiped it across the space between you to underline her point. "Mandy, there isn't. Trust me." You swallowed.
"Why didn't you come to me about this earlier?" You said at last, your thoughts whirling. "Did you not think it would have changed my mind?" You would be angry with yourself later for how hurt those words were.
"Of course I thought it would!" Mary snapped at you. "Stupid girl." She sighed. "I wanted to be sure before I said anything. If I was wrong, and you gave up the opportunity because of what I said to you…" Your anger flared out as abruptly as it had risen as Mary explained.
"I…" you reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mary. And you're right, it is a great opportunity, but at the same time." You gestured at a picture on the girl's desk, of the of you and your close friends who lay at the centre of the circle of friends that you'd made. "Do you think I'd risk giving that up?" You asked gently. "The offer from the Elder First is one that is incredibly generous, but I never was one for accolades, you know that. And I think you of all people can testify to my stubbornness." Mary managed a laugh at that, but it was a high thing, grounded in heavy tension and an unsure mind.
"Are you sure? It's a chance of a lifetime…"
"I'm sure." You nodded at the picture again, and your voice was very soft. "The Elder First could give me power in my Practice, and great understanding too. But if you and the others, my chosen family, would not prosper as a result of that? That's not who I am, Mary." You squeezed her shoulder again. "If it was, what I'd made would be just what you'd accused me of it being the first time we met." You took a breath, searching for more words and were cut off as Mary hugged you.
"I'm glad." She said when she drew back. "Do you think the Elders will understand?"
"I don't really care." You chuckled at the expression of your friend. "They gave this as an offer, at least a little because of what I'd done at this Institute. Some of them had to know I might refuse for the very same reason." Reaching down, you turned off the tablet on the table, then sprang to your feet. "Now, you need some food."
That afternoon you thanked for First dearly for their offer, but told them you had no choice but to reject it. The bonds you had made with those at the Institute were more important to you. A few seemed a little snubbed by the behaviour of one so much their junior, but most seemed to understand. The current head said that they would arrange for what long distance work they could manage, and then you were free to go.
***
That act set the tone of your teenage years, a firm focus on that which was most precious to you. You were separated from your friends often in class, few of them waking as Potentials so many of your classes were very different, but you were still in the same place. That was enough. They might jokingly complain about the differences in homework; where theirs was mostly papers and writing, yours was far more practical, but it was good to be with them. It sometimes helped, too. Practice at its deepest level was a method of making more of the hard work that went into an item or piece of technology. You had to have the basics of a thing down before you could do anything with it. Here is where you were so lucky to have made friends with Mary. Although you didn't understand the complexities of it, you'd ventured deep enough into the avenues of physics and chemistry related to what you were doing with her that you could understand that basics. And that was far more than many of the others in your classes as Potentials had.
That more advanced understanding was what led to you working out for yourself that you could actually fix Practiced items that others had made. It was a surprise to you at the time, but after actually working on some you started to realise why. A Practiced item was willed to be what it was, a far closer to perfect example of what it had started out as, but that was the problem as well. When one of those magnificent creations broke the exemplary qualities were also damaged and it was easier for most Potentials to simply discard the work at that point and build it again. But for you, with the focus of Mending? It was simple, if not exactly easy at first, to take broken pieces and fuse them back into what they had been before. The science behind it was insane, the equations that Mary showed you on the subject made your brain want to break, but you didn't need them. Just time and Practice.
There was more to it than that, however. Before the Week of Sorrows, humanity had worked out how to modify much about themselves, including their own lifespan. Such gifts, however, had been forbidden under the Directives. With the slow beginnings of a new generation, however, there was suddenly a need for new ways to grant similar things to the new children of humanity that would come to be born in the future. And in your late teens into early adulthood, this is where your focus would lie. A good thing then that you were also well versed in biology, if your teachers hadn't ensured it, Mary had been insistent that all of her friends would have a well-rounded knowledge of the sciences. You're pretty sure she got some of the stubbornness in that pursuit from you.
But there was time for some, more artistic pursuits around your classes. Whilst the visual arts drew your interest at first, this soon transitioned towards music when you found that you had sadly little talent for painting, although you did do your best to refine your sketching until it was at least presentable. It was in music that you found a gift that rivalled in your mind the incredible power of your ability to Practice. You'd not actually practiced it until you were thirteen, but it had been the steady ear and fine voice you displayed around your friends on occasion that had led to one of them dragging you off to the music tutor for the Institute one day.
He'd sat you down for a full day and given you instruments to play, until about half way through you told him that you liked to sing. He'd chuckled, then shrugged, handed you a songbook and asked you to pick one. Four hours later you'd left the room with a sore throat and a spark of light dancing in your eyes.
Even if my spirit is broken in to two.
I swear on all that's left that I will never cry.
If there's hope still in my heart, when belief's the hardest part.
That's why my song must still continue on.
After that day, you made a point of at least four hours a week dedicated to practicing. The first few weeks you thought your voice would actually break, but the muscles in your throat grew stronger with time. And you found an outlet for the creativity that you'd long, albeit unknowingly, suppressed. It wasn't that you'd meant to, but the creation of the Circle had required a price of time and also passion. Passion that had no outlet once it became stable, until you found music.
Singing became your escape from the rest of the world, but over time it expanded to be more than that as well. From it you learned to see the beauty that lay in words and music when arrayed together, and that idea wormed its way into many other things. The carefree joy you felt when singing was similar in some ways to the feelings that surged through your soul when you were one with your Focus. That was often a hard place to find for those new to being a Potential, but your singing gave you something similar to reach for. You've wondered in later life if it might be possible to work your Practice into the words that you sing, but you've never gone beyond idle thought.
***
But finally, your time in the Institute came to an end and you graduated into the world, a Potential of Mending. Your first task was set for you, working with the others who shared similar Focuses to find a way to replicate the biotechnology that had done so much to improve your own quality of life without breaking the Directives. After that however, you had many years to pursue your own goals before the discoveries that shook the world so terribly nine years ago.
Pick up to three:
[] Working with Mary – your friend was a true prodigy by any standard, but she lacked the practical skill to truly realise what her mind could create the theory for. What else were friends for?
[] Fostering Circles – the Circle you had created in your Institute had been a fragile thing that grew into something much more. Many Institutes had nothing like them, however, and the children inside them suffered for that. That wasn't something you could abide.
[] The Gentlest Balm – singing wasn't just a hobby for you, it was something that was a deeply personal part of who you are, and you were rather good at it. Although you were never able to focus entirely on it, you had something of a career as a singer and discovered a true gift as a songwriter.
[] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
[] A Focused Soul – although you did reject the offer from the Elder First to study under them, after graduating you found time to read as much as you could of their writings on Practice and spent many years honing your craft as a Potential.
[] Unbreakable Shield – the Focus of Mending was able to do more than repair. It could also make things stronger, even able to repair itself. Aware of how much humanity had lost, you chose to make those things that had been created to defend them stronger. If you could, you would make them unbreakable.
[] Mysteries of the Void – you helped those Potentials of Knowledge and other, similar things in their search for answers about humanity's enemy. Although Mending was of little help in finding the answers themselves, your Focus let you repair equipment when it broke with the need for it to be completely remade.
[] Personal Practice – although generally Practice could only be worked on objects, Potentials were able to extend some parts of their Focus into their own body. In general, this gave the same gifts, but some chose to go further in their attempts to make their own bodies instruments of Practice. You were one such Potential.
[] Write-in
A bit more about you.
Eyes:
[] Blue
[] Green
[] Brown
[] Write-in (within reason)
Hair:
[] Black
[] Brown
[] Red
[] Blonde
[] Write-in (within reason)
This took a bit longer than I'd expected. Sorry about that. There should at most be one more set of votes after this for building Amanda, then we'll be into the thick of things.
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
I rolled for who Mary was going to be. I rolled for it. And this is the result. One of the only scientists in the world who can keep up with what Potentials do on the theoretical side of things. Someone you'd have had to have spent weeks if not months getting to know if you needed her help.
And you landed her as one of your childhood besties. I don't even words.
And you landed her as one of your childhood besties. I don't even words.
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] Working with Mary – your friend was a true prodigy by any standard, but she lacked the practical skill to truly realise what her mind could create the theory for. What else were friends for?
[X] Fostering Circles – the Circle you had created in your Institute had been a fragile thing that grew into something much more. Many Institutes had nothing like them, however, and the children inside them suffered for that. That wasn't something you could abide.
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
Eyes:
[X] Green
Hair:
[X] Red
[X] Fostering Circles – the Circle you had created in your Institute had been a fragile thing that grew into something much more. Many Institutes had nothing like them, however, and the children inside them suffered for that. That wasn't something you could abide.
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
Eyes:
[X] Green
Hair:
[X] Red
Zeitgeist Blue
Currently Made of Metal
- Location
- Manila, Philippines, GMT +8
[X] Working with Mary – your friend was a true prodigy by any standard, but she lacked the practical skill to truly realise what her mind could create the theory for. What else were friends for?
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
[X] Personal Practice – although generally Practice could only be worked on objects, Potentials were able to extend some parts of their Focus into their own body. In general, this gave the same gifts, but some chose to go further in their attempts to make their own bodies instruments of Practice. You were one such Potential.
[X] Amber
[X] Brown
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
[X] Personal Practice – although generally Practice could only be worked on objects, Potentials were able to extend some parts of their Focus into their own body. In general, this gave the same gifts, but some chose to go further in their attempts to make their own bodies instruments of Practice. You were one such Potential.
[X] Amber
[X] Brown
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[X] Working with Mary – your friend was a true prodigy by any standard, but she lacked the practical skill to truly realise what her mind could create the theory for. What else were friends for?
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
[X] Fostering Circles – the Circle you had created in your Institute had been a fragile thing that grew into something much more. Many Institutes had nothing like them, however, and the children inside them suffered for that. That wasn't something you could abide.
[X] Blue
[X] Blonde
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
[X] Fostering Circles – the Circle you had created in your Institute had been a fragile thing that grew into something much more. Many Institutes had nothing like them, however, and the children inside them suffered for that. That wasn't something you could abide.
[X] Blue
[X] Blonde
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Working with Mary – your friend was a true prodigy by any standard, but she lacked the practical skill to truly realise what her mind could create the theory for. What else were friends for?
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
[X] Fostering Circles – the Circle you had created in your Institute had been a fragile thing that grew into something much more. Many Institutes had nothing like them, however, and the children inside them suffered for that. That wasn't something you could abide.
[X] Blue
[X] Blonde
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
[X] Fostering Circles – the Circle you had created in your Institute had been a fragile thing that grew into something much more. Many Institutes had nothing like them, however, and the children inside them suffered for that. That wasn't something you could abide.
[X] Blue
[X] Blonde
FaeGlade Plural
Semper Legens
- Location
- Land of Bureaucracy
- Pronouns
- Plural/They
[X] Working with Mary – your friend was a true prodigy by any standard, but she lacked the practical skill to truly realise what her mind could create the theory for. What else were friends for?
[X] Personal Practice – although generally Practice could only be worked on objects, Potentials were able to extend some parts of their Focus into their own body. In general, this gave the same gifts, but some chose to go further in their attempts to make their own bodies instruments of Practice. You were one such Potential.
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
Working with Mary is nice for character development. But the combination of Personal Practice and Restorer sounds particularly potent to me, providing (as far as I can tell) improved physical abilities combined with self-healing
Eyes:
[X] Green
Hair:
[X] Red
[X] Personal Practice – although generally Practice could only be worked on objects, Potentials were able to extend some parts of their Focus into their own body. In general, this gave the same gifts, but some chose to go further in their attempts to make their own bodies instruments of Practice. You were one such Potential.
[X] Restorer – your Focus was Mending. That meant you repaired things, made them new again. The world had lost a great deal in the Week of Sorrows, so you took it upon yourself to repair some of the damage that had been done then. You helped rebuild many of the rather broken cities that had been left to wither without people in them since then. It was hard work, but good for your soul, and you learnt much.
Working with Mary is nice for character development. But the combination of Personal Practice and Restorer sounds particularly potent to me, providing (as far as I can tell) improved physical abilities combined with self-healing
Eyes:
[X] Green
Hair:
[X] Red
A Place in the World
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Graduation brought many opportunities for a Potential, but it brought responsibility too, especially for those of Restoration aspects. With the first new children beginning to be born, it was seen as entirely wrong that they not benefit from the same gifts your generation had enjoyed. Whilst much of what had been given by the Second Secret would breed true, some would not. And it wasn't as if you and those like you disagreed with the sentiment. The result was Project Prologue, the combined work of almost two score Potentials building upon a comparatively ancient piece of nanotechnology. Research into the field had been all but abandoned after the discovery of the Second Secret, but the Directives made use of that impossible. So we searched for another way, and in a discarded beginning we found the solution.
Project Prologue took the few practical examples that had been built before the Second Secret had made mechanical enhancement entirely obsolete and made them something more. From a rudimentary system only just capable of interfacing with the human biological system without triggering rejection, you and the other Restorer Focused created a marvel. Historians have come to refer to it as the first Practiced Miracle. It was and remains a shining proof of what Potentials are capable of when they work together.
First you had to rebuild the labs that had created your examples, and the truer miracle of your combined powers restored not just the equipment but all the data that had been corrupted or lost over more than a decade of neglect. Then came the hard work of deciphering and coming to understand what the scientist had been trying to do, and how to modify it to suit your needs. With Practice as your aid, it took only a bare few months, most of them spent learning the basics needed to understand what you had to do. Here, as would become a running theme in your life, your friendship with Mary proved invaluable. Her influence at the Institute meant you were one of the few who could give the information context.
It was hard at first, focusing all of your powers into something that none of you could actually build on your own. Until the last few months of the project, you could not even touch what you were changing. You had all been trained well, however. The First couldn't have passed on all they knew, and you had rejected the offer of teaching that might have given you their understanding, but there was enough between you. Except for one thing. For months you laboured, imbuing your shared creation with everything you could think of, but it wouldn't mesh properly. None of you could understand it, you were all working together towards a grander vision, but it wasn't enough. Every example you created together broke within seconds of activation, and the ones created solo weren't capable of what you needed them to be.
It was at the height of this spell of failures that one of the other project heads requested a Potential of Insight. You couldn't understand it yourself, but he insisted that there was something that everyone was missing. He couldn't find it, but that was why he asked for an Insight Focus. You argued about it, stubborn again that between you all you could find a way. Perhaps in the end you would have, but that day you were wrong.
Veda was a slight woman of Indian descent, and she saw in mere moments what had taken Peter weeks to puzzle out. More than that however, she was able to tell you what was behind it. You had all been building something, but no matter how hard you tried you were also each building a different something. Little wonder that it broke whenever you tried to turn it on. After a day spent kicking yourself, and a rather embarrassed apology to Peter about the arguments you'd had, Veda explained what you needed to do. At the time you'd almost had preferred she hadn't.
The entire group of Restorer Focused needed to go into a Practice Trance together. It was the only way for you to reach past your humanity and achieve the level of harmony required.
A Practice Trance is the truest expression of a Potential's power, a state in which they are able to transcend any limit in the pursuit of their Focus. In fairness, the idea mainly annoyed you because it was so incredibly obvious and you'd missed it. It didn't remove the problem of how to get everyone into the same trance, however. Fortunately, that was something an Insight Focused could do a lot to help with. You thought it would take months, Peter was a bit more optimistic at weeks.
It took Veda all of three days.
When you woke twelve hours later, the first generation of Prologue was complete. None of you were quite sure what you did in that time; large scale Practice Trances have been found to have this effect on the memory of Potentials. All that mattered was that it worked. In barely a year you and your fellows created something that was the equal of a secret that took humanity decades to unlock after they became aware of its existence. This is why Prologue is named the first of the Practiced Miracles.
The project had been founded primarily to find a way to bridge the gap between the now forbidden Second Secret bioengineering and the new generation of humanity, but there'd been another reason at play too. The Elder First were, to a one, a product of pre-Secret society. No bioengineering, which meant normal human lifespans. As you were coming of age, they were entering their twilight years. Prologue had been hoped to be a bridge for them as well, one that would allow them to live on so humanity could benefit from their wisdom. In this Prologue failed, but it wasn't anyone's fault.
It lay in the nature of the Potentials, something that you learnt a great deal about in the coming years with Mary as you strove to understand what you were and could do. You continue even today to benefit from the Second Secret's gifts, but no procedure you ever went through gave you some of the abilities you gained as a Potential. Tests showed markedly superior resilience, sufficient to survive exposure to deep space, as well as a lack of a need to breathe and various comparatively minor perks. The reasons only started to make sense after several years of work with Mary, which you dived into with a will shortly after Prologue was released.
At the core of every Potential's power was their soul and the imprint upon it; this much was known by the First. What Mary's work with you allowed her to do was confirm that this state was more than just related to one's Focus. The body of a Potential was a thing of Practice, a frame of biology made more than itself by the soul within. Prologue could not enhance or repair the bodies of the Elder First even as they withered away, because as far as the universe was concerned there was nothing that needed changed. They were as they should be, and there was no way for the system to work around that reality.
Those who were left did all in their power to pass on what they had learned in the time they had left, but so much of it was personal learning that couldn't be passed on. Not properly. There were those who dedicated their lives to trying to understand the secrets that had been left behind in those writings, but you weren't one of them. You grieved for your failure, but looked to the future through the pain. The loss of the Elder First was something that you couldn't Mend, and that hurt. And yet you knew enough of them to know that they would not want those of the new world to despair for the loss of the old. From this grew a realisation, a realisation that became a promise and purpose.
The old world had broken with the Shiplord's coming, shattered under the dreadful weight of pain of the Week of Sorrows. But much of it remained, if broken, and your Focus was Mending. You saw in the world of your parents some things that should not be forgotten, and so set out to make them new. This was where your Focus differed from those of Healing and many others of the Restorer Focused. Most saw the world the same way the Elder First had, winter breaking into spring with your generation's coming of age. You saw the autumn behind the winter, and that the seeds left behind by the old world were still of that world.
Ten years you dedicated to this task, a decade of searching for broken things and piecing them back together. Only a few understood why you did it; products of a schooling that had painted the world before the Shiplords as something that had been lost. You refused to accept that, and even though a decade could not restore everything you did a great deal. Entire cities shine thanks to you, painstakingly restored to their former glory. The Shiplords had not burned Earth, but the neglect of years wore on even modern construction.
You did not spend all this time alone, and you kept contact with your friends and Circle open, but you returned changed. Ten years devoted to your Focus, the expression of your Practiced soul; it would change anyone. The way you see the world, what you see in it with you Focus. And the power in your soul, that burns just a little brighter now than it did before.
So changed, you returned to your Circle and the friends who had waited so patiently for you to come back. They had changed too, taking their own paths through life. It was good to see them all, but Mary most of all. Your closest friend and advisor, she had grown into one of the most respected minds in the world. She was the only person in your Circle who you felt actually understood what you said, about how your own understanding of Practice had changed. She added it to the list of topics to investigate that had grown ever longer since you had been away. It was not that there was a lack of Potentials willing to help her with her work, but she had to know them and they had to know enough to be a help instead of a hindrance.
Another two years passed working with her again, churning through the delicately complex topics that her mind could conceptualise but only Potentials could take and make real. More was learnt, and many more questions made than answered, but your attention was drawn away by something new. Your time with Mary had allowed you to reconnect with the world that you had spent so much time away from them, and in it you had identified a problem that none seemed to notice.
Even now, twenty years after the Week of Sorrows, there were far more children than adults in the world. The Institutes served their purpose as centres of learning, but only a handful were more than that. The Circle you had built had endured with the place it had been founded, but so few others had. Now an entire new generation of children were starting to come of age. Even if many had parents there was more to life, your past proved that.
So you acted to give to those children what you had found in your own childhood. It was not an easy task, but you had not forgotten the lessons you had learnt when building the first of the Circles. And this time you had your Focus as well. Your recent work with Mary had led to the realisation that a Potential could Practice things even on metaphysical levels, even if they couldn't sense it.
It took time to find the children who were able to build the Circles you wanted to foster, and more still for them to bring success, but you were willing to give that. Here and there you sensed your Focus at work, power shining into the works you were building. Mary exulted in these moments, and towards the end of that work she began laying down the basis of an entirely new set of theories on how Potentials could use their powers. It was at this point that the concepts she was working with started to lose you in terms of pure theory. Before you could at least keep up, but here was where you found the limits of your knowledge.
But the Circles worked. They grew slowly with the power of your Practice behind them, but the bonds that made them were even stronger than the ones you remembered at the beginning of your own. With your influence and the help of your Circle, the Institutes of the world became more than places of learning. Places of hope and peace, where students could find friends that would last lifetimes. For a time, many years, you became swept up in your Practiced works, the Mending that you had wrought upon the world and how it had helped it heal.
This was the golden age of the Second, into which the Third woke. A time of learning, peace, hope and miracles. Prologue was just the beginning. The Trance that had created it was studied as best one could, and then built upon. Humanity returned to the sky and branched out across Sol, the knowledge unlocked by others of the Second giving the First the understanding they needed to defend your race. You grew older and wiser in your workings, dividing time as best you could between Circles, the endless work of mending, and Mary. A few times you were convinced to sing again, little things for a world that you no longer could deny having changed.
And the Third woke, a new generation of Potentials with Focuses as widely varied as the First's had been restricted. A generation who had grown to life among empty cities and weapons, but also hope. One day you would go searching for the Shiplords. When you were ready, and had mastered your gifts. Unfortunately, it never occurred to you that they might come to you first.
Then the Potentials of Insight discovered the Pattern, and the time of peaceful miracles ended.
Your place within the world had shifted many times over your life, but with the knowledge that the Shiplords were returning, you had to choose a purpose for the times to come. Your abilities had prepared you as a Mender beyond compare, and you had some awareness of the stranger sides of your powers that had helped bind the world together. Abilities that could be used in many ways, and as one of the most respected Potentials of the Second Awakening you were able to choose how those gifts would be put to use.
You would be:
[] A Soldier – When the Shiplords came, you would fight together with the First Awoken. You had lived a life of peace, but now was the time to cast it away to defend what you had made. And in that, your power as a rebuilder might turn the tide. (Focus on combat Practice and weapons work. Definite involvement in combat but you'll have been trained for it better than any other choice. Limited time available for other pursuits.)
[] A Maker – You could not build weapons, or fashion shields, but your Focus was well suited to making much more of the tools that others did create. When the First and those of the Second suited to it went to war, they would carry with them your will, and it would protect them. (More industrial, primary focus on imbuing the creations of other Potentials so that they are far harder to break and can restore on their own. Also will explore in more detail what you can Practice.)
[] A Voice – Mary had talked to you many times about the more conceptual sides of a Potential's abilities, and though you still couldn't understand the science behind it you were able to accept that they did exist. You even had some access to them, as your work with the Circles had shown. You would delve deeper into this part of your gift, and use it to make the world stronger. (This would be the 'bard' option. Building Circles showed you that Practice could be used on more than just matter, and this will explore that side of your Focus's abilities.)
[] A Leader – You were one of the most respected, and almost certainly the most well-known of all Potentials when the world changed again. Although you were not the oldest, or most skilled in Practice, there were few Potentials who knew the complexities of the heart and mind as you did. The world needed someone to look to, someone they would follow. You would be that someone. (Choosing this option will turn this into a CK2-type quest, and will start it at the ten years from invasion mark, just after the Pattern was found.)
If you chose an option other than A Leader, do you want to start:
[] A year from the invasion (more abstraction, less customisation, less time to get into the action of invasion)
[] Just after the Pattern was discovered (Far more customisation choices available, but considerably more time to get to the invasion)
Project Prologue took the few practical examples that had been built before the Second Secret had made mechanical enhancement entirely obsolete and made them something more. From a rudimentary system only just capable of interfacing with the human biological system without triggering rejection, you and the other Restorer Focused created a marvel. Historians have come to refer to it as the first Practiced Miracle. It was and remains a shining proof of what Potentials are capable of when they work together.
First you had to rebuild the labs that had created your examples, and the truer miracle of your combined powers restored not just the equipment but all the data that had been corrupted or lost over more than a decade of neglect. Then came the hard work of deciphering and coming to understand what the scientist had been trying to do, and how to modify it to suit your needs. With Practice as your aid, it took only a bare few months, most of them spent learning the basics needed to understand what you had to do. Here, as would become a running theme in your life, your friendship with Mary proved invaluable. Her influence at the Institute meant you were one of the few who could give the information context.
It was hard at first, focusing all of your powers into something that none of you could actually build on your own. Until the last few months of the project, you could not even touch what you were changing. You had all been trained well, however. The First couldn't have passed on all they knew, and you had rejected the offer of teaching that might have given you their understanding, but there was enough between you. Except for one thing. For months you laboured, imbuing your shared creation with everything you could think of, but it wouldn't mesh properly. None of you could understand it, you were all working together towards a grander vision, but it wasn't enough. Every example you created together broke within seconds of activation, and the ones created solo weren't capable of what you needed them to be.
It was at the height of this spell of failures that one of the other project heads requested a Potential of Insight. You couldn't understand it yourself, but he insisted that there was something that everyone was missing. He couldn't find it, but that was why he asked for an Insight Focus. You argued about it, stubborn again that between you all you could find a way. Perhaps in the end you would have, but that day you were wrong.
Veda was a slight woman of Indian descent, and she saw in mere moments what had taken Peter weeks to puzzle out. More than that however, she was able to tell you what was behind it. You had all been building something, but no matter how hard you tried you were also each building a different something. Little wonder that it broke whenever you tried to turn it on. After a day spent kicking yourself, and a rather embarrassed apology to Peter about the arguments you'd had, Veda explained what you needed to do. At the time you'd almost had preferred she hadn't.
The entire group of Restorer Focused needed to go into a Practice Trance together. It was the only way for you to reach past your humanity and achieve the level of harmony required.
A Practice Trance is the truest expression of a Potential's power, a state in which they are able to transcend any limit in the pursuit of their Focus. In fairness, the idea mainly annoyed you because it was so incredibly obvious and you'd missed it. It didn't remove the problem of how to get everyone into the same trance, however. Fortunately, that was something an Insight Focused could do a lot to help with. You thought it would take months, Peter was a bit more optimistic at weeks.
It took Veda all of three days.
When you woke twelve hours later, the first generation of Prologue was complete. None of you were quite sure what you did in that time; large scale Practice Trances have been found to have this effect on the memory of Potentials. All that mattered was that it worked. In barely a year you and your fellows created something that was the equal of a secret that took humanity decades to unlock after they became aware of its existence. This is why Prologue is named the first of the Practiced Miracles.
***
Prologue was the first of the Practiced Miracles, but it was not the last. The First Awoken were on the whole ill-suited to shared trances, but the Second woke to very different Focuses, far more suited to groupwork. This was one discovery that you were quite willing to accept a part in, because it was truly earned. Sadly, your gains were not without some loss.
The project had been founded primarily to find a way to bridge the gap between the now forbidden Second Secret bioengineering and the new generation of humanity, but there'd been another reason at play too. The Elder First were, to a one, a product of pre-Secret society. No bioengineering, which meant normal human lifespans. As you were coming of age, they were entering their twilight years. Prologue had been hoped to be a bridge for them as well, one that would allow them to live on so humanity could benefit from their wisdom. In this Prologue failed, but it wasn't anyone's fault.
It lay in the nature of the Potentials, something that you learnt a great deal about in the coming years with Mary as you strove to understand what you were and could do. You continue even today to benefit from the Second Secret's gifts, but no procedure you ever went through gave you some of the abilities you gained as a Potential. Tests showed markedly superior resilience, sufficient to survive exposure to deep space, as well as a lack of a need to breathe and various comparatively minor perks. The reasons only started to make sense after several years of work with Mary, which you dived into with a will shortly after Prologue was released.
At the core of every Potential's power was their soul and the imprint upon it; this much was known by the First. What Mary's work with you allowed her to do was confirm that this state was more than just related to one's Focus. The body of a Potential was a thing of Practice, a frame of biology made more than itself by the soul within. Prologue could not enhance or repair the bodies of the Elder First even as they withered away, because as far as the universe was concerned there was nothing that needed changed. They were as they should be, and there was no way for the system to work around that reality.
Those who were left did all in their power to pass on what they had learned in the time they had left, but so much of it was personal learning that couldn't be passed on. Not properly. There were those who dedicated their lives to trying to understand the secrets that had been left behind in those writings, but you weren't one of them. You grieved for your failure, but looked to the future through the pain. The loss of the Elder First was something that you couldn't Mend, and that hurt. And yet you knew enough of them to know that they would not want those of the new world to despair for the loss of the old. From this grew a realisation, a realisation that became a promise and purpose.
The old world had broken with the Shiplord's coming, shattered under the dreadful weight of pain of the Week of Sorrows. But much of it remained, if broken, and your Focus was Mending. You saw in the world of your parents some things that should not be forgotten, and so set out to make them new. This was where your Focus differed from those of Healing and many others of the Restorer Focused. Most saw the world the same way the Elder First had, winter breaking into spring with your generation's coming of age. You saw the autumn behind the winter, and that the seeds left behind by the old world were still of that world.
Ten years you dedicated to this task, a decade of searching for broken things and piecing them back together. Only a few understood why you did it; products of a schooling that had painted the world before the Shiplords as something that had been lost. You refused to accept that, and even though a decade could not restore everything you did a great deal. Entire cities shine thanks to you, painstakingly restored to their former glory. The Shiplords had not burned Earth, but the neglect of years wore on even modern construction.
You did not spend all this time alone, and you kept contact with your friends and Circle open, but you returned changed. Ten years devoted to your Focus, the expression of your Practiced soul; it would change anyone. The way you see the world, what you see in it with you Focus. And the power in your soul, that burns just a little brighter now than it did before.
So changed, you returned to your Circle and the friends who had waited so patiently for you to come back. They had changed too, taking their own paths through life. It was good to see them all, but Mary most of all. Your closest friend and advisor, she had grown into one of the most respected minds in the world. She was the only person in your Circle who you felt actually understood what you said, about how your own understanding of Practice had changed. She added it to the list of topics to investigate that had grown ever longer since you had been away. It was not that there was a lack of Potentials willing to help her with her work, but she had to know them and they had to know enough to be a help instead of a hindrance.
Another two years passed working with her again, churning through the delicately complex topics that her mind could conceptualise but only Potentials could take and make real. More was learnt, and many more questions made than answered, but your attention was drawn away by something new. Your time with Mary had allowed you to reconnect with the world that you had spent so much time away from them, and in it you had identified a problem that none seemed to notice.
Even now, twenty years after the Week of Sorrows, there were far more children than adults in the world. The Institutes served their purpose as centres of learning, but only a handful were more than that. The Circle you had built had endured with the place it had been founded, but so few others had. Now an entire new generation of children were starting to come of age. Even if many had parents there was more to life, your past proved that.
So you acted to give to those children what you had found in your own childhood. It was not an easy task, but you had not forgotten the lessons you had learnt when building the first of the Circles. And this time you had your Focus as well. Your recent work with Mary had led to the realisation that a Potential could Practice things even on metaphysical levels, even if they couldn't sense it.
It took time to find the children who were able to build the Circles you wanted to foster, and more still for them to bring success, but you were willing to give that. Here and there you sensed your Focus at work, power shining into the works you were building. Mary exulted in these moments, and towards the end of that work she began laying down the basis of an entirely new set of theories on how Potentials could use their powers. It was at this point that the concepts she was working with started to lose you in terms of pure theory. Before you could at least keep up, but here was where you found the limits of your knowledge.
But the Circles worked. They grew slowly with the power of your Practice behind them, but the bonds that made them were even stronger than the ones you remembered at the beginning of your own. With your influence and the help of your Circle, the Institutes of the world became more than places of learning. Places of hope and peace, where students could find friends that would last lifetimes. For a time, many years, you became swept up in your Practiced works, the Mending that you had wrought upon the world and how it had helped it heal.
This was the golden age of the Second, into which the Third woke. A time of learning, peace, hope and miracles. Prologue was just the beginning. The Trance that had created it was studied as best one could, and then built upon. Humanity returned to the sky and branched out across Sol, the knowledge unlocked by others of the Second giving the First the understanding they needed to defend your race. You grew older and wiser in your workings, dividing time as best you could between Circles, the endless work of mending, and Mary. A few times you were convinced to sing again, little things for a world that you no longer could deny having changed.
And the Third woke, a new generation of Potentials with Focuses as widely varied as the First's had been restricted. A generation who had grown to life among empty cities and weapons, but also hope. One day you would go searching for the Shiplords. When you were ready, and had mastered your gifts. Unfortunately, it never occurred to you that they might come to you first.
Then the Potentials of Insight discovered the Pattern, and the time of peaceful miracles ended.
Your place within the world had shifted many times over your life, but with the knowledge that the Shiplords were returning, you had to choose a purpose for the times to come. Your abilities had prepared you as a Mender beyond compare, and you had some awareness of the stranger sides of your powers that had helped bind the world together. Abilities that could be used in many ways, and as one of the most respected Potentials of the Second Awakening you were able to choose how those gifts would be put to use.
You would be:
[] A Soldier – When the Shiplords came, you would fight together with the First Awoken. You had lived a life of peace, but now was the time to cast it away to defend what you had made. And in that, your power as a rebuilder might turn the tide. (Focus on combat Practice and weapons work. Definite involvement in combat but you'll have been trained for it better than any other choice. Limited time available for other pursuits.)
[] A Maker – You could not build weapons, or fashion shields, but your Focus was well suited to making much more of the tools that others did create. When the First and those of the Second suited to it went to war, they would carry with them your will, and it would protect them. (More industrial, primary focus on imbuing the creations of other Potentials so that they are far harder to break and can restore on their own. Also will explore in more detail what you can Practice.)
[] A Voice – Mary had talked to you many times about the more conceptual sides of a Potential's abilities, and though you still couldn't understand the science behind it you were able to accept that they did exist. You even had some access to them, as your work with the Circles had shown. You would delve deeper into this part of your gift, and use it to make the world stronger. (This would be the 'bard' option. Building Circles showed you that Practice could be used on more than just matter, and this will explore that side of your Focus's abilities.)
[] A Leader – You were one of the most respected, and almost certainly the most well-known of all Potentials when the world changed again. Although you were not the oldest, or most skilled in Practice, there were few Potentials who knew the complexities of the heart and mind as you did. The world needed someone to look to, someone they would follow. You would be that someone. (Choosing this option will turn this into a CK2-type quest, and will start it at the ten years from invasion mark, just after the Pattern was found.)
If you chose an option other than A Leader, do you want to start:
[] A year from the invasion (more abstraction, less customisation, less time to get into the action of invasion)
[] Just after the Pattern was discovered (Far more customisation choices available, but considerably more time to get to the invasion)
Final choices time before we go into the quest proper. This will also decide the exact mechanics in play at game start, although I can't promise they won't change over time. This is where you get to tell me what you really want this quest to be about, so take some time to consider before voting.
Sorry for being a day late!
Sorry for being a day late!
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[X] A Voice – Mary had talked to you many times about the more conceptual sides of a Potential's abilities, and though you still couldn't understand the science behind it you were able to accept that they did exist. You even had some access to them, as your work with the Circles had shown. You would delve deeper into this part of your gift, and use it to make the world stronger. (This would be the 'bard' option. Building Circles showed you that Practice could be used on more than just matter, and this will explore that side of your Focus's abilities.)
[X] A year from the invasion (more abstraction, less customisation, less time to get into the action of invasion)
[X] A year from the invasion (more abstraction, less customisation, less time to get into the action of invasion)
BBBence1111
Harbinger of Bad Luck
- Location
- Magyarország
[X] A Leader
Seems the most interesting/realistic to me.
Seems the most interesting/realistic to me.
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] A Maker – You could not build weapons, or fashion shields, but your Focus was well suited to making much more of the tools that others did create. When the First and those of the Second suited to it went to war, they would carry with them your will, and it would protect them. (More industrial, primary focus on imbuing the creations of other Potentials so that they are far harder to break and can restore on their own. Also will explore in more detail what you can Practice.)
[X] Just after the Pattern was discovered (Far more customisation choices available, but considerably more time to get to the invasion)
[X] Just after the Pattern was discovered (Far more customisation choices available, but considerably more time to get to the invasion)