Lingering Worries

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa 10/2 near Recolle Police Station

I've got a question, and I don't mean for it to scare people, because what I'm really looking for is proof that I'm wrong. If these other people, the ones Retrospec is giving us the memories of? Retrospec is also slowly giving us their bodies. A piece at a time, it seems. What if they were sick? Is it slowly going to happen to us, too? How can we help each other out if it does start happening? So that I'm not wasting everybody's time with this, though. I've been asking about Dr. James Halliday, a memory researcher a bunch of us came across the name of in August. Despite the fact that Retrospec seems to have been interested in his work, I don't think they're using it. It specialized in deep-brain stimulation, but I personally had a check done to see if there were any changes to my brain from being on the app for eight months now, and there's nothing. Just so we can rule that one out.

Comments

[skald]

Yeah, of course. I mean, I don't really know how to test that sort of thing, but we can definitely find a way!

Exactly! It was like that with the monsters, right? Things broke and the monsters started attacking and a bunch of people disappeared, but at the same time they gave us magic and weapons to fight the monsters, and a bunch of resources to help look for them. Maybe it's more like a consolation prize than fixing it, but it's worth a try!

[standalonehuman]

I prefer the idea that they're doing what they can, but they are actually limited in how much they can do. They said that giving us the powers and sending us places drained their resources pretty badly. It might be why we're going to see future problems. So they're helping us as much as they can. But maybe it has to be slow.

I had this thought that maybe they've tried to do this memory-restoring thing before, and it failed, but they could get away with it because they could make everyone forget it ever happened?

Is that too paranoid?

[skald]

Oh my god

Like what if we've all been through this before and we don't even know because we forgot everything that came before us???

I don't know if that's too paranoid but it's definitely making ME too paranoid

Like a bunch of people disappeared last time and we found them-- what if this isn't the first time that's happened, it's just the first time they've managed to come back?? What if there used to be more of us, and we CAN'T remember because we failed too badly? How do we even

what do we even DO about that either way?

[standalonehuman]

The only thing I can think to do. The thing I keep coming back to? We've got to keep an eye out for more records. They might only be found in the Retrospec building, but inside there, they love records.

Somebody has to have documented a previous try, and we can see if any of us came up last time.

You're very right, and that might have even been true for Retrospec employees, too. Maybe that's one reason there are so few of them.

[skald]

I like that suggestion because at least it's something to do, but

Is that really the sort of thing people write down and leave lying around? "Note to self, remember how all of your coworkers and 50% of the town disappeared! Love Jim"

I mean if that's how they work, that's lucky for us, it just seems... like a lot to hope for.

[standalonehuman]

I'd expect something more like experiment logs. "We tried this last time with 300 people and it was too many, we can't maintain more than 200." Or, "The process stays stable with Subjects A and B, Subject C doesn't remain in, so don't bother trying again with them."

I don't know.

[skald]

Oh, yeah. I guess that's a little more realistic.

I mean, comparatively. That would be a really cool scene in a scifi novel but reading it as potentially related to our own lives just made me shiver.

Do you think employees at Retrospec can forget too? Like how we can forget the app and everything that happened related to it, do they just forget their workplace?

[standalonehuman]

I think not, because it was something Maurice and Joanne said, growing up with the company, growing up knowing each other? Somehow I doubt they've got big memory gaps. Somebody's got to remember from time to time, right?

Although it would be neat if they didn't and just had to go on their notes from the previous run.

Neat also from an abstract scifi sense, terrifying if that were the case.

[skald]

Woah, they grew up WITH the company? What sort of company has kids in it? Maybe they just think that because they're getting hallucinomemories or something like that too? They "remember" the way we remember some of the things that happened to us.

(I'd definitely watch a movie where they're trying to work off of old notes, though.)

[standalonehuman]

The kind that asks their employees to give up everything about their old lives and they want to recruit someone so badly (Janet) who refuses to leave her sister (Joanne) behind that they have to take them both? My theory, at least.

Somebody has got to remember the truth. I hope.