mogmelodies | To All Heroes

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To All Heroes

To Everybody:

Whether we've met or not, I'd appreciate a reply from as many people as are willing, especially if you didn't just come from a version of Earth.

So, let's talk holidays. Christmas, I was willing to let pass as a coincidence. Any civilized planet out there with a winter season ends up with some version of a winter solstice. It doesn't matter the time or the planet or the alien race, they've got some kind of tradition that we would recognize. Celebration for being 'almost out of the dark,' as a friend of mine would put it.

But Valentine's Day? Definitely a product of Earth, of a specific time period of Earth, to be sure. At least, in my experience. And that's where you guys come in. Anybody else, not from Earth, have a custom or a legend like this? Something specifically surrounding a holiday, something that's celebrated. Also, is anybody else reading up on Aqures Ixen legends enough to know if we're going all going to be dealing with rabbits and eggs in two months? If so, I'm calling shenanigans now.

-Captain Jack Harkness

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Jack-

I have sent a few letters out to several Heroes over the past few months. I am sure that you must have read one of them.

My world is similar to this one in some ways. We have legends of a Calamity, chocobos and magic, although there are some differences. out technology is more along the lines of the Empire's than of this country, however that is where things become strange. Most of our advancements are made to work with a type of magical energy and only recently have we gone back to the use of coal and gas after a disastrous battle that exposed the wrongs that came from using said magic.

---Genesis

Genesis:

Undoubtedly you've already explored the possibility, but are there any similarities to the story of the Calamity in your world and this one? I've been trying to look for any similarities to any of the other worlds we've been pulled from, so, I apologize if this is going back over things, but is there anything you've found?

-Jack

Jack-

They came from the sky and they then started to destroy the world. It took the sacrifices of many Heroes to suppress them, and they may not be fully defeated. Unfortunately, I cannot read the ancient books that may hold more than the whispers of legends.

However, the Calamity of my world was defeated the second time she rose.

---Genesis

Genesis-

Better and better. That is ridiculously close to the story here. 'She,' you said, so the Calamity was an entity? Any indication that that's similar to the vague threat we're supposed to be on the lookout for here?

And, well, you knew I was gonna ask: How was she defeated the second time?

-Jack

Jack-

'She' is the term we gave her because the Calamity infected a female Cetra in an attempt to subvert the Cetra race. She was found out and was imprisoned but because of the weakened number of Cetra and the Planet, they were not able to fully remove her.

She was scattered to the point of unable to heal by the combined efforts of a number of people and the very life force of our Planet. Unfortunately, I have yet to come across anything similar to that life force in this world.

---Genesis Rhapsodos

A life force, of a planet? Not just the life of the people on it, but the life of the planet itself? That's absolutely incredible. How would you even describe such a thing, or how would you know if you could tap into the life force of a planet? In theory, any planet should have it.

Planets have a life cycle, just like humans, only it's across a much much longer range. Eons. But stars, planets, galaxies, they all have their end points. I've just never heard of that life being expressed as a force before?

Is there anything else you can tell me about it? It's so hard to know where to start asking questions.

-Jack

Jack-

It's very hard to explain on paper without it sounding too strange. It might be better to talk in person about it, if you are so inclined to ask me a lot of questions.

---Genesis Rhapsodos

Certainly.

[Jack leaves the location of one of the bars in the city, close to the center of town.]

-----

Jack stands out from the rest of the crowd. He's not wearing his job gear, but wearing the Captain's coat that came along from home with him. He actually looks eager, a touch excited. What Genesis was describing is something he's never seen before, but in theory, it should exist everywhere, right? Pulled to a totally new world, and Jack still can't inhibit his excitement about discovering something new.

Genesis always made an entrance. It was a part of his personality to walk into a room with all the swagger of a rock star or a celebrity, and even here he did little to curb that tendency. It took him a moment to spot Jack in the crowd and make his way over to him. Like Jack, Genesis dressed more like he did back home - long red coat with the strange weave patch job on the one side, black sweater and pants with a number of pockets and zippers, and heavy combat boots, the hilt of his sword peeking over his shoulder like it belonged there, and in the dimness of a bar, his eyes still held a slight blue glow to them.

"I take it you are Captain Jack Harkness?"

Oh, if Genesis was trying to call attention to himself, he got it, but maybe not in the way he had intended. The look on Jack's face gets gradually more amused as he takes in the sight of the person he's here to meet. "The one and only. Genesis Rhapsados, I presume?" He gives Genesis a very interested once over.

Jack gestures to the chair across from him. "Have a seat, your letter was giving me a lot to think about."

There was definitely a smirk on his lips as he sat down, easily shifting his sword and coat in a way that was very natural to the former SOLDIER. He was actually used to people being interested and he was a terrible flirt, unlike the other two 1sts here.

"I wouldn't say that I am the only one," he replied. "It seems that the Fire Crystal had felt I needed a sister to spoil, but Yes. That is my name. You sounded very curious to know about the Planet, but you are not the first I've tried explaining it to."

Jack's head tilts curiously at the mention of a sister. "A sister? A sister you didn't have in your own timeline?"

Jack leans forwards a little, rests his elbows on the table, prepared to hang on Genesis' every word. There's this extra light in his eyes, something that's always present when Jack is talking about something incredible. "I mean, I was very curious about the idea of a life force being tied into your planet. Like I wrote, it's all theoretical. There should be some life force around any planet, but I've never heard it described as an energy that someone could tap into. So, for starters, how would you explain it?"

"A sister as in a Genesis Rhapsodos that just so happens to be female," he said. "I think that she comes from an alternate version of my world since her history differs from mine in some places, while in other places we are nearly identical."

It was a bit odd, but still she was like a sister to him and he found it rather nice to have someone around that he could relax with. They had the same little quirks and yet were different enough that they weren't too uncomfortable with each other.

"I don't know about how other planets are, but ours live." To explain the Lifestream, to put it in ways that someone who never seen it or felt it, that was going to be hard. Genesis bit his lower lip, thinking for a moment about how to simplify it. "The soul of the Planet is the Goddess, or maybe She is the guardian of the soul. I've seen her, been touched by her, and felt the Lifestream move at a hint of her command. The Lifestream is where all life comes from. It's a living flow of energy, moving between the Promise Lands and back to the Planet, like a river. All things spring from this and all things go back to this.

"Then there is pools of mako, which is like the concentration of the Lifestream, rising to the surface of the Planet and nourishing all living things. Magic comes from it, as do raw materia formations. The materia is a kind of crystal that we humans managed to craft into spheres that we use for spells. Some of us SOLDIERs don't need most of them for the amount of mako in our system gives us a touch of magic.

"It is a fragile balance though, the balance between the Lifestream, the mako and humans. Humans drain the mako to power their cities and don't realize that they are draining the Planet's lifeblood as they do so."

Edited 2015-02-16 07:03 (UTC)

"Hunh. Well, congratulations, you're the second person I've met who has an alternate universe double of themselves here. Kind of proves the theory of the multiverse. Thinking of her as a sister is probably more healthy than worrying about the existential crap of whether or not you're the same person."

Every single word that is coming out of Genesis' mouth is utterly fascinating. The look on Jack's face slowly melts into one of wonder, and then one of sympathetic frustration, as Genesis describes the situation on his home planet. Of course, the only time anyone would notice or define such an energy source would be when they were trying to use it for something.

Once Genesis is finished, Jack slowly nods. "It all makes perfect sense. I've met beings, entities that transcend time, or space, or just encompass something so much greater than us simple humans. If a planet has a life force, of course it should have a consciousness, a soul, to go along with it." He frowns. "But, of course, the people on that planet are using it for their own ends without knowing what they're doing. As different as our universes are, some things are completely the same." A dry tone as he says that.

"But there's no mako," he uses Genesis' term, "here. So there's no way to connect to the life force, if this planet had one?"

"Also, betting you've already been asked this question, but, materia," he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his own crystal, sets it on the table. "Different than whatever's being used for these?"

"Thank you, I think. I would find it exceedingly boring if I worried about that all the time. I had enough of it during my rotting phase to start doing it over someone who may be a different me."

He had a short in which he asked himself about his own existence but that was long before finding another him. The fallout from that moment in time was still being felt and he really saw no need to restart that sort of thing again, especially now he knew what he did. Doubting himself yet again would just be ridiculous.

"There is no mako here," he said, nodding and making a waving at his eyes. They were mostly a pale green in color, though there was a faint trace of a glowing blue at the edges. "If there was mako, the eyes of myself and my colleagues would be glowing from it. But there is nothing to say that there is not something similar in this world. After all, the Lifestream and mako was only discovered being more than a natural product recently on the Planet."

Genesis looked at Jack's crystal and smiled, reaching back and pulling his sword out. He set it on the table and pointed at the large round stones set along the base of the sword. "Those are materia. They don't work here, but what they did do was give a person access to magic." He tapped a pale blue stone. "This was an 'All' and junctioned with another materia -" he tapped the next stone, a dark green one, "- I was able to cast an 'Ice' spell on a group of attackers."

Jack tilts his head and smiles as he looks at Genesis' eyes. "Those eyes could get more intriguing, then? Never seen anything quite like that in a human before." The comment is very flirtatious, but also earnest, he's not pandering to Genesis' ego. Well, maybe a little. "Where would the glow come from?"

"So, you'd need the mako, the connection to the Lifestream, but also, the materia," Jack gestures towards Genesis' sword, "Kind of as a physical focus? And that's where magic comes from on your world?"

It brings up another troubling thought. "Connecting yourself to the Lifestream, that's gotta be a two-way street. You're using the Lifestream as power, through mako, but anyone who's using it as a magical source? As the planet gets weaker, so do you?" And maybe he realizes he's just answered his previous question.

"When mako is in my veins, they are a lovely shade of aqua," he replied, dipping his head slightly and looking up in a very coy manner. While it was flattering, he was very much aware of his own charms and always was a bit of a playful character so long as his ego was given the right stimulation. "Mako has an inner light that is captured in whatever is saturated by it. Hence the Mako Eyes of a SOLDIER."

"Humans need the materia but not mako for magic," he said turning back to business and tapping the stones set in his sword. "The Cetra were intimately connected to the Lifestream and able to use magic as easily as we breathe. The Calamity had tried to use that connection to corrupt the Lifestream but the Cetra found her and stopped her at a cost of their lives. By the time I and my colleagues were created, there was no easy way to use mako. Materia of this size and quality is rare, and the use of it for magic was not a precise science until creating artificial materia was possible."

He smiled, picking up his sword and letting the light catch the runes inscribed along the blade. They knew better now but at what cost to the Planet? Were they going to still weaken it in endless battles until the Lifestream was dead and they no longer had magic or mako?

"Yes, but at first the use of materia was limited and the magic was only a drop of water from the ocean. It was when mako was drained to power machines and build SOLDIERs that we started to truly kill the Planet. The group that created SOLDIER and mako reactors is gone and we are looking to other ways to power our industry, but some say it is too late."

"That is- fascinating." Jack doesn't even notice the way he's leaning in a little closer. He listens patiently, and it's as if every word Genesis says only brings up more questions. But the last thing he says strikes Jack very hard. He very gently shakes his head.

"Life always finds a way. Always. It would be a tragedy if your planet were allowed to fall into ruin. But even 'ruin' is still a point that life can return from. Where I'm from, humans have taken to the stars, left their home planet, spread out through galaxies and into the universe. 'Indomitable,' as a friend of mine put it. Even after multiple civilization collapses, planets becoming inhospitable, wars, both among themselves, and between other races? The human race lives on."

"If the damage could be reversed, yeah, that would of course be the best. But, so long as your people learn from what they've done, there is always a hope for a future." There's a quiet wonder and a promise in those words. Even for someone who has lived through it, Jack is always impressed by what humanity has managed to accomplish. And, if anything, he would want the things he's seen in his timeline's future to act as a source of hope for others.

"But, 'some say' it's too late? Do I detect a hint of cynicism in there?" Jack is a little playfully curious. "Are you among them, or do you think your own people would be able to turn it around?"

"I would not be surprised if life does find a way."

He had been changed fromt he Goddess touch. While it probably only cleansed him a little of the Calamity taint - or at least cure him of the instability presented in his system from his creation - it also made him one of the Planet's few WEAPONs. It was a strange thought given that the others were huge creatures of unbelievable capabilities, but still he felt far more kingship with the Goddess than a mere human.

"What I think? Now... what I think is nothing but accepting my place in the pattern of the Planet, and the amount of forgiveness I seek."

And yet, Genesis' answer only makes Jack more curious, but some of the joking leaves his gaze and tone. Forgiveness? For something that was happening to the whole planet? Ah.

"The mako, some of the lifeblood of the planet, was," Jack gestures towards all of Genesis, "given to you? Injected, infused?" Genesis seemed intentionally vague about how that happened, so Jack will move on quickly.

"However it happened, it doesn't make you complicit. Did you have a choice in the matter?" Even if he did, Jack can still argue that it wasn't his fault.

"Yes. SOLDIERs are the ultimate weapons created by the ShinRa Electric Company in order to defend their mako plants from monsters," he said, glossing over some of the truths by speaking of the widely known ones. He did not think that Jack would accept hearing that the three 1sts were actually laced with Calamity cells as well as mako.

"Normal humans are slowly given doses of mako to make them stronger, faster, more resistant to injuries, and able to tap into poor quality materia. Each Class of SOLDIER has more mako until you reach 1st Class, which are the toughest, strongest and most mako infused people on the Planet. SOLDIERs have a choice, but you can say that the choice is not really explained to them.

"To be a SOLDIER is to be a part of the best fighting force on the Planet. It's a guaranteed job for life, with benefits worthy of the task. All jobs are connected to ShinRa, with SOLDIERs being lower only to the administration and the Turks. They are built up as heroes and as peacekeepers, so when someone asks to join the cadet class to become SOLDIER, they do not heed the warnings, which are never really told to them."

The look on Jack's face turns very sympathetic, all of a sudden. He's heard this story before. Okay, not the specifics, ShinRa, mako, that's new. But the basics? A corporation taking over too much control over a planet? The people ending up having little choice but to play along? And then people like Genesis pay the price for experimental tech.

And yet. "You sound like you regret the path that your planet has taken, maybe not your own personal role in it? I mean, it's good, but most people in your position would feel more guilty, even though, like I said, you aren't complicit, it's not really your fault?"

Jack isn't quite sure if he's explaining himself well, but he wants to hear Genesis' reaction. Finds himself suddenly more interested in the man's personal opinion, than the story of his Planet.

"My role had been one of destruction," he said that lightly, a not very pleasant smile appearing on his lips. "The experimentation that gave me mako also gave me a genetic instability that made itself known after I was injured one too many times. When I learned about the extent of the testing, I decided to destroy ShinRa to stop it. It did little to save me entirely, but then I was Goddess touched and became something else."

Genesis wasn't sure what Jack was trying to say but he wanted to make it clear. He was no longer a SOLDIER or part of ShinRa save in only his attempts in trying to keep his friends safe. Even if they were like Sephiroth and keeping their distant.

"The Planet chose me to become one of it's guards. I think that alone speaks to what it feels about me."

Oh. So Genesis had been working to stop it all. Maybe that's what Jack was looking for, because a tiny smile appears when he realizes that. Using the training and the power that he'd been given to make things right? Jack can greatly respect that sentiment.

"So, she does have a soul?" He speaks up, tone full of wonder, at that last part. "Or, it does? Enough of one to make a decision like that? It feels, it grows, it is alive, by anybody's definition of the word? That's-" he shakes his head a little, smile growing, "amazing. Truly amazing. By theory, every planet should maybe be like that, but," he waves a hand at Genesis, "you know. You've felt it. That would be something to see."

"And you're doing the right thing, working to fix it all?"

It does bring up a thought, though. "But, hang on. Your- connection, the abilities granted to you by the mako, they're gone here, aren't they? Just like- a few other people. They lost what they could do from their home worlds, replaced by the Job abilities here?" Jack had lost his own connection to the Time Vortex (if that's really what was powering his immortality, the Doc was never 100% clear on that, but it's Jack's own best guess at this point, thanks for that, Doc.)

"She has a soul, a force or a presence. I'm not sure what exactly to call it, though I always feel the Goddess and the Planet are nearly the same. The Cetra use to speak directly with her and her with them, but when the Cetra died out, humans were all that was left. Some say that is why no one knew much about the Lifestream until it was rediscovered by ShinRa."

Rediscovered and abused. Of course there had been legends, about the power of the Planet and everyone knew that though bodies did happen when someone died, the energy of them dying could be seen as a mist of lights before it faded into the ether. It was easy to assume that the Lifestream was nothing more than energy and not actual souls.

"If the Lifestream dies, then the Planet dies. This is something we have seen, especially around Midgar where the largest mako plants are. Nothing grows there, and only kind of creatures one sees are deformed monsters. But the plants are gone and life was starting to return, though not fast. It will take a long time before it does.

"Yes, my abilities are gone, save for what I am re-teaching myself. It is a pity, though I am glad as well. Mako infusion can be a shortcut to a greatness one may not deserve after all."

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ack lost the tag!