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[rebelsamurai]

[ Amidst the impressive technological marvels and distractions present on the ship, Johnny found it impossible to resist the allure of commandeering the network for a brief moment. While he's no deckhead or with a fancy BD strapped to his head, Johnny at least knows how to work a camera. This is why everyone is getting a good view of the scowling rockerboy as he puffs smoke directly into the camera.

Yeah, he's smoking again already. Don't ask how he got his hands on another e-cigarette. It probably involved a five-finger discount and a lot of schmoozing. Despite being such a complete asshole, Johnny is at least charming.

He's a charming little parasite. ]

Okay, chucklefucks. [ He mutters before taking another drag on his cigarette. Smoke billows from his nose as he exhales, resembling an angry demon/oni graphic on his tank top. ] Let's have a little talk.

Where the fuck are all of you from? Half of y'all look like your average Joe, while others look like wannabe supermodels who just walked off a Jinguji photoshoot.

[ Johnny lets out a chuckle as he brushes some ash off his cigarette. ]

So, who wants to go first? State your name and where the hell you're from.

Comments

text | un: thelastsamurai

[rebelsamurai]

Why, thank you for the compliment. You're the first.

[ More like second with Izaya up there glazing him, but who's counting? ]

So, Yi—what's Penglai like? I take it to be very similar to Earth, my world.

[rebelsamurai]

Hey, Nia! Thanks for droppin' by.

I can't say I ever heard of Ruetama before, but color me intrigued. What's the Dark Sentencer? That sounds like a killer band name.

[sisterspider]

I guess it's sort of a backwater, as planets go. The Five Houses thought so, anyway.

The Dark Sentencer is--or maybe it should be was--a prison planet. Hope that doesn't ruffle any feathers, I'm not likely to reprise what put me in there!

[rebelsamurai]

A prison planet!? Holy shit! Those actually exist?

By "was," do you mean the entire prison planet is gone now? Like it exploded or something?

[sisterspider]

They do where I'm from. If they don't exist where you come from? Be thankful. It sucks pretty hard.

And yeah. I don't think it exploded--I was paying more attention to getting the hell away when I left, but if it didn't blow up, all that was going to be left was a husk anyway--it was being mined out for its core energy.

[rebelsamurai]

Choom, that gotta be the lamest joke I've ever heard.

[ But he still won a snicker from Johnny. ]

Okay, Mister Funny Guy, where the fuck are you from?

[solless]

Did you create it yourself?

( the apemen (read: humans) that yi is familiar with were primitive, but by this point he knows it was because of the situation that solarians (read: yi) had put them in. considering how brilliant shuanshuan had been, he's not at all surprised they could have developed such technology, had they not been meddled with by his own people. )

"Earth"... Is that what humans ended up calling it, then?

( if they had had language to name their own planet with when the solarians had arrived, they hadn't cared to learn it. )

They share similarities, yes.
Penglai is also dominated by vast oceans. More so than Earth, actually.
What little land it has is not particularly arable. My people had to develop techniques and technologies to farm it effectively.
I am curious. How would you describe Earth, in your own time?

[precocity]

[ izaya is still cackling at his awful pun ]

tokyo and we don't have any place that sounds like your city soooo probably a different earth
this is fascinating you know
the collection of people here is wild

text | un: networkday | i am so sorry!! somehow i marked this notif as answered by mistake

[weekending]

[ Truly a way with words, indeed. ]

It does sound like you've had quite the busy life, Mr. Silverhand, but no, I haven't heard of you or your band. My name is Sunday, and I am from Penacony in the Asdana system. One of the 'wild variations of freaks and aliens,' as you so charmingly put it, at least from your perspective

no worries!

[rebelsamurai]

Wait, you're an alien? Really?

You mean I'm texting with E.T. right now? No bullshit?

[ Huh. This feels rather underwhelming for him, and Johnny isn't too sure why. ]

Okay, so what makes you an alien? You seem...really human-like judging from the text.

[rebelsamurai]

Nope, I wish. This...this arm was a "gift" from my time in the military.

[ There's a reason why he places quotations around the word "gift." ]

More like my arm was blown off when I was just a sixteen-year-old jarhead. I was fresh out of basics when shit got real.

Not a fun memory.

[ Pushing aside decades' worth of trauma, Johnny rereads what Yi texted next. ]

So, you've heard of Earth before, and this Penglai of yours is mostly oceans? Well shit, does that mean everyone from there is half-fish or something? Mermaids?

[ Man, can you imagine a world like that filled with hot mermaids? Johnny can't. ]

Well, Earth is kind of fucked these days. It's ruled by soulless corporations and greedy old fucks who are little by little robbing the land of its beauty. However, that's just capitalism for you.

[rebelsamurai]

I can only imagine what mass incarceration would be like in other worlds. After all, there are entire cities on Earth that operate like one giant jail cell. It's a highly privatized venture operated by the corpos who already make a buck sellin' sellin' our asses down the proverbial river.

In my world, power and wealth dictate everything—even jail time.

Well, shit. It's a good thing you fucking escaped, but what exactly happens to a world when its core is completely dead? Does it freeze over or something?

[solless]

I see.

( yi's own people have not been at war in large scale since the Turbulent Era, many hundreds of years before his own time. but what he'd read about that time in their histories had been terrible. war so vicious and all-encompassing that their entire species had retreated away from technology, instead practicing ascetic Taoism.

still. he has never been at war, so he believes commenting on johnny's past misfortune as a soldier to be trite. so he doesn't. )

No. There is no sapient ocean life.

( though the comment about mermaids does make him laugh. )

The land masses are smaller than the continents of Earth, and there are more islands.
Other than that, though, they are similar in atmosphere and ecology.

( having met so many of these more advanced humans, yi's assumption is that they all come from the future of the Pale Blue Planet that he had returned the apemen to. that hypothesis, at least, is more likely to him than any concept of multiple universes (though he would have to change his mind on this eventually).

so it is saddening to hear that the same corruptions that had eaten at the roots of solarian civilization are plaguing that of humans as well. is it a cyclical problem of all intelligent life, once they organize to such high levels? )

Another similarity that our species share, it seems.
It was the avarice and arrogance of the rich which led to my people's undoing.

[weekending]

[ Maybe a little bit of semantic bullshit. As a treat. Because he definitely rolls his eyes before formulating something a bit more polite than what he actually wants to say. ]

I imagine that's because I am human. But I am not from Earth, nor am I the same species as you, unless you've found a way to hack these devices and doctor your earlier video footage

[ Which seems... highly unlikely in this scenario ]

To more directly answer the intent of your question, however:

[ Sunday attaches a picture of himself in the library, angled to give a decent view of the feathery wings protruding from behind his ears and the halo just kinda floating there behind his head; the angle of the light from a nearby lamp or screen has caught his pupils such that they reflect a dark blue in a way not dissimilar from many birds, dogs, and other animals that retain their tapetum lucidum. ]

[mikoshi]

[ Spoil the mood. Yeah, that's one way to describe it. But between being fresh off his latest death via Soulkiller (is he even human anymore, person to cyborg to code?), the gnawing dread he still only has six months left to live, and the whiplash of Johnny's loss then his (near) immediate return, all his nerves are shot. Taut, like a pulled rope holding by a few fibers.

Everything hurts. And it hurts that everything hurts, even when it shouldn't — weakness, in Night City's best merc, the guy who needs to hold it together for them both. ] 'M so tired, Johnny. [ He admits, the pain of existence overwhelming. ] I'm happy — happiest I've ever been — but I'm also so fuckin' tired. [ Can't even reciprocate what he knows is a monumental step — a soft kiss, vulnerable and true. ] I love you, and I gave it my all, but now I'm afraid got nothin' left to give. Just... a ghost, fadin' in this dying machine.

[rebelsamurai]

Then let me carry the load for a while. [ He whispers while wrapping his arms around Vincent's waist. Vincent looks like he could keel over at any second. It's a little scary, especially from this angle. Now that Johnny can see and touch him, he doesn't plan on letting Vincent die a dog's death halfway across the gallery. ]

You don't have to fight anymore, Chente. I'm here.

[ By "here," he means being alive and whole again. Vincent has no reason to fight with him around, which is how Johnny rationalizes things. However, he must find a way to keep the man he saved alive, and that’s the real challenge. ]

You're not dying on me, not if I can do anything about it. I saved you once; I can save you again.

[sisterspider]

Man, that sounds painfully familiar. Except for the fact that it was a planet, instead of a city. And instead of unnamed corpos, it was the Five Houses of the Star Supremacy. Same thing, just on a bigger scale, I guess.

As for your question--I don't know, I didn't wait for long enough to find out. It could've just been a dead husk, or it could've exploded before it died. All I knew was that I wanted to get the hell out of there.

CW: Body Horror

[mikoshi]

[ Skin too tight over a frame too heavy, the disturbing sensation of burrowing beneath his muscles and tendons — is this how cyberpsychosis starts? What have you done to yourself asks an atrophied sense of self-preservation, vaguely familiar and all the scarier and louder for it, ready to pull him under as soon as Vincent lets down his guard. It'd be so easy to sink into that bubbling tar pit of despair and loathing, let the chips fall where they may.

But Vincent can't. There's another voice, formerly-disembodied-but-now-blessedly-solid, anchoring him to this plane of existence as readily as his arms around his waist.

You did this to yourself! For him!

... y-yeah, you fuckin' idiot, that was the idea.

Anythin' to keep him safe. ] O-okay. [ That nickname brings Vincent back from the brink, forces back his focus. His mother only used it when the stakes were high, when she had something important to say. The opposite of over-enunciating every single legal entry — Vicente Alejandro Tanaka Fernández — whenever he was in trouble. ] Can we go take a siesta? I'm fuckin' beat.

[gobrolygogo]

You are from Earth? Vampa is a planet a long way from Earth. At least in my universe.

Bro...lic. This means "strong"?

Oh. I see. It was very hot on Vampa usually but there were no parasites like you described. Only big spiders and large furry worms.