Retrospection

Posted on Sat Mar 6th, 2021 @ 3:16pm by Lieutenant Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell

Mission: The Jungle
Location: Jungle
Timeline: Current

The terminal did not have records of the Liberty or her crew. But it did have video records and metadata she could sift through which would give dates and times, even locations from which she could extrapolate the information she needed to find their ship.

She sat down, still one arm, she was utilizing her voice and remaining arm to sift through the logs. Alone in the darkness in front of a terminal, a place she often felt she was herself, where she could be who she was meant to be. In one corner of her screen though she watched the chaos as it was unfolding in the real world.

After a generation or more of a game of virtual Survivor, the show was now off the airwaves and exposed as the grotesque masquerade that it was. Unfortunately only time would tell as to the repercussions on the society as a whole. Would they learn from the experience and change who they are as a society for the better, or would they regress and allow the cycle to begin again unchecked.

Her comparisons to previous cultures varied, but her own Earth history stood out as a lesson. There was a time humanity was not just consumed by the media but also driven to a brink of extinction by the effects of commercialism at the hands of unchecked corporate demagogues. They preyed upon the weak, the meager huddled masses and those who thrived on that next bite of information or human interaction, no matter how fake. And this was a time before holograms, before immersive interaction at least as it is known now.

There was a time in the early days of holograms when it was thought a revival of those days might come again. A record number of cases emerged where people were reporting holo addiction on a level unheard of since the media consumption of the early to mid twenty first century. This planet, for all of it’s misguided reality, was no different than where Earth had been two hundred years prior. But as with all things, there was a chance this particular event was an awakening. A perchance moment in time where the citizens wake up and realize there is more to life than watching the misery of others for the sake of themselves.

Metadata extrapolated, coordinates pinpointed, biosignatures recognized. She had an origin point, and a bio lock on the people transported from the Liberty. She had access to the transporters now and could simply reverse the process. They would end up back in place from where they were pulled from. A neat and tidy bow.

As for the other crews of the other ships, they were integrated now. Some had been on the planet for ten years or more. Many would have to be given a choice to stay or leave. A choice her captain would have to make. Only one thing left to do, she activated the transporter system that brought them here and watched the cameras begin to transport people away.

-Snip-
A short time later the same disconcerting transport effect deposited the crew as well as their two main prisoners back in exactly the same location aboard the Liberty as they had left. The Captain looked around bewildered, still holding the half a sandwich she had been eating. Finally this mess was over.
-Snip-

When all was done, and her turn to transport arrived, she found herself back in the computer core where she had been working before this mess had begun. She looked around, allowing a sigh to fill her lungs before hobbling out of the inner core and making her way to the med bay. Tired and hurting, she decided then and there she wanted to see Sapphire again.


END