Where Are We? | video; un:b1-of-a-kind

[thelastb1]

[Roger begins a video stream with a screen showing a symbol. It's a triangle, with a wrench radiating out light, with a title in a surprisingly well designed font with one part above and one part below the symbol, saying (in Aurebesh script) "Roger Reviews: The Empty City," as if this is supposed to be some kind of series. It is shortly followed by a caption saying "Where Are We?" before fading out to reveal the interior of an apartment with a mess of blank papers stapled to the wall, creating a collage of blank sheets, with only the same words, "Where Are We?" written in permanent marker at the top. Then, onto the frame walks a battle droid, wearing a greenish-grey leather jacket underneath his transmission backpack, with a mop handle that's had the mop head removed to be like a staff strapped to the back of the jacket, and with a kitchen knife tied to his leg with a belt. He has an open permanent marker in his hand. Evidently he has a presentation prepared.]

Looking through this network, I've seen a lot of questions. How did we get here? Why did we get here? Who brought us here? Where are my friends and family? Will we find out there is one or more spies planted within our midst, or will we kill each other trying to find one? These are all good questions, but it's probably going to take forever for us to get any of the answers.

But I think there's one question we can already come up with some kind of answer for: and that is Where Are We? Where in the universe is this City? There's a lot of information we have on that. [He begins writing down data on the compiled wall canvas.] We're on a planet with a g-force of 1 g, an atmosphere habitable for humans and therefore mostly nitrogen with a little bit of oxygen, with vegetation but seemingly no native fauna, intelligent or otherwise. We have one moon in orbit of us, and are in a star system with one sun.

From what I can gather, this is mostly consistent with a planet called Earth, in a galaxy called Milky Way. [He creates a dot on the canvas away from his list of data, then draws a spiral in such a way that the dot is toward the edge of it.] Apparently this is supposed to be the homeworld of humans, which is confusing because I always thought Coruscant was the human homeworld, but anyway. The only problem with that, aside from the complete lack of animals and how hard it would be get an empty city in a fully populated planet, is that the constellations don't seem to match the ones from Earth. They don't match anywhere in my galaxy, either.

Which leads me to conclude that we are... [He puts the cap on his marker] in the middle of nowhere! I'm pretty sure whoever's done this has taken us so far across the universe that none of us are going to have any idea where we are, not to mention that they're probably using time travel too.

But, I'm hoping maybe that I'm wrong, and one of you in this city can actually recognize these constellations and tell me what they mean.

Comments

[blackwaterchild]

No, I mean-- You don't look emotionally sad, you're just...

[Hmmm. She decides to just stop there]

Anyway, robot's cool.

So we're on basically planet Earth, but like, not exactly Earth? So what, like a replica Earth?

[thelastb1]

Oh, so it was an insult to my appearance. Thank you so much for clarifying. [He speaks in a pretty much dead tone, except to draw out the word appearance. Then in a hesitant, confused voice, he adds] But I'm glad it's... cool.

I don't exactly know if it's intended to be some kind of copy. For that I'd need more data than I have. Soil composition, the exact species of the plants; right now they seem kind of... generic. Like you could find them on pretty much any world with grass and trees. I'd also want to measure its exact circumference and mass, what the inner layers are made out of. I'd need a lot more information both on this planet, and on Earth to compare. All I really researched was the basics and the constellations around it.

But I can say for sure, wherever we are, I think it's supposed to be comfortable to humans especially.

[blackwaterchild]

[Miu shrugs becuase, yeah? Have you looked in a mirror my guy? Miu is unapologetic about it.

But she listens, because it is all super interesting information]

Generic...So, almost like when you put a bunch of basic stuff in a fish bowl. And things to take care of us keep just. Appearing.

I wonder if we're supposed to be some powerful thing's pets. Like hamsters in a cage, only it's a bunch of humans in a fake city.

[thelastb1]

[Roger honestly considers his line of droid to be quite aesthetically well-made, and might assert that point, had his comment been answered verbally. A shrug on its own, though, is too difficult to interpret, so he lets the point drop in favor of addressing the qualities of the City.]

Well that's a disturbing way of putting it... ["but it's probably true," he tries his best to imply with his tone. He doesn't trust the network, certainly not enough to openly comment on any negative aspects of the City.]

Not only humans, though. I'm living proof of that. [If not for Connor, he might think he alone is an outlier, but there's at least one other mechanical being present.] Although it's possible that everyone is either human themselves or ingrained in a human society, whether that's on Earth, my galaxy, or completely different places.

I'm not saying we should specifically go looking for non-humans, because getting a bunch of humans hunting for aliens seems like asking for trouble, but it may be useful to collect more data on this, too.