Council Meeting #2 and #3

[runs_on_batteries]

[Like the last one, this is intended to be face to face. This format is easier with multiple people talking at once like a meeting. The starters are topics of discussion, but please add starters if your character wants something else discussed too.

Both of these meetings are set up the same way- Tony has refreshments set up in the dining carriage and he makes an announcement earlier in the day to let the council members know it's going to happen and when and then a second one to say it's happening and get your rear over to the dining carriage.]

[Meeting on Basoon 27]

[Treats are pumpkin cookies with icing and lattes.]

[Meeting on Catfish 2]

[Treats are apple fritters that may or may not have been made out of the apple he got as a prize for the red team winning. Chia tea is also served.]

Comments

[tinkerheart]

I don't have much to add to that. [He's mostly just happy his son is back and in one piece.] Three things about the Inspectors themselves and one about the strange phenomenon that coincided with their appearance. [This is just the most recent crazy thing Curufin has done. Not the first. Certainly, to his father's perpetual heart-attack, not the last. Fëanor still wants to strangle Reigen. He won't but the urge is strong.]

First, I was quite surprised by how detailed information they had on every one of us. It is less surprising now that we know there's actual organized effort being all of this. Yet, to know for example my exact age they needed not only to have access to records of my world but have enough knowledge about it to factor in the correct count and difference in calendars. [And to take into account that all the years that passed from his death shouldn't technically be added to his age. They needed to know the very fact that he was dead.]

Second, when I have told them [Bless, Gwen, that girl is a living miracle. He wouldn't have been talking with them if not for her.] that I'd prefer to give my consent to any Void travel before it begins the Inspectors dropped a name: Void Travel Agency, as I understood it the organizer of this whole endeavor. The exact wording was "That is something you would have to take up with your Void Travel Agency." My Void Travel Agency. Meaning there is more than one.

The third thing is more of an observation as I don't have anything to support that other than my own perception of what happened. [There's a trace of irritation in his voice as he says that.] They might be versed in some sort of [He makes a pause to collect himself before he almost spits the words.] mind control. They tried to suppress me when I wasn't complying, in their opinion, with the inspection. It wasn't anything specific they did. Just a feeling. [It was enough to almost make him blow up.]

The phenomenon I mentioned is that most of us experienced different rates of discomfort. [What a roundabout way to say dread and horror.] The message we received through ICPs after the Inspectors have left stated it was due to, as it said, Void particles. Not connected to the Inspectors themselves but the fact they had to enter the train while still in Void. I am for once inclined to believe it might be true. There was one feature of this whole event that stands out for me. The singing. I heard it very clear. I know that at least Maglor heard it too. After everything ended and calmed down I realized that I have heard it before. In a situation that had nothing to do with the Inspectors. I was just passing from one carriage to the other and there I heard it. Very faint but it's there.

[Yes, he now wants to study the Void. Try and stop him.]

[runs_on_batteries]

Very curious.

[This would take a bit for Tony to process, but it was a great start.]

I heard that others had been aware of voices or singing too. I was only aware of the emotional manipulation.

[He then recalled something the inspectors said in his room too.]

They mentioned that we were supposed to have agreed to this kind of work but we might have had some kind of Void-sickness and no longer remember agreeing to this. I wonder if it isn't the same situation when people leave and come back also not remembering anything.

[so_dark_a_road]

I heard the singing.

The inspectors told you the passengers were supposed to have agreed but might have no memory of this? But if we forgot it due to Void-sickness, then why wouldn't we have forgotten other important things? And wouldn't we have some sort of symptoms of that sickness? I felt fine when I boarded the train, and so did everybody who boarded at the same time as I did. I find the inspectors' reasoning a little suspicious.

Even if people leaving and coming back find they've forgotten being here at all, that could be due to some sort of deliberate memory-tampering on the part of the train authorities.

[runs_on_batteries]

Yes, that's what they told us. I, too, found it questionable. I would normally agree that there should be some kind of lingering effect, but there are at least three individuals on board who have been in a situation similar to this- like taken to a world outside of other worlds and weren't given any explanation or means to get home, but one of them had clear gaps in his memory. The other scenario is Evie's departure and return on the same platform. She's from a later point in her world's time than the one we previously met and has no memory of being here. While her example alone could mean she's simply from a different universe and is only a version of the same Evie that left, it's not wise to dismiss it with the other incidents. Not to mention that anyone who does vanish even temporarily has no recollection of the time in between being asked to speak with the conductor and waking up in a suitcase. So we know memory manipulation is a phenomenon here.

I'm not certain this is relevant either, not everyone who arrives here is well. Though two of us, Jessie and myself, it was a pre-existing condition. I'm not sure what the hell happened to that Uldren fellow.

[Someone please get this guy to stop rambling. Finding some kind of logic to this situation was quite literally driving him a little crazy.]

[so_dark_a_road]

Very strange, the situation of those who have left and returned with no memory of their previous stay here. I have seen that happen a few times in the worlds I inhabited before I came here, so just as you do, I suspect that there may be different versions of the same person existing in different universes. But the memory loss that goes along with a temporary vanishing, I have experienced that myself. I can't remember anything between exiting the Void Travel office and finding myself in the luggage car. So I must agree with you, there is some memory manipulation going on here.

I wouldn't discount the state of health of a passenger in that matter of memory loss, however. Though I don't have the experience to make a judgement.

[ lol, Curufin won't stop Tony from rambling. He's in the habit of learning from anything anybody says, ever. The chance to pick up a new idea or perspective is useful to him, so he won't try to discourage Tony. ]