closed to select individuals: intel obtained

[wolfish]

[ For Yuri, opening Communion has always been like cautiously cracking a door open on a stormy day. He's never wholly prepared for what may come in, but if he doesn't open that door to begin with, they'll get nowhere.

And now that the research they'd worked to hunt down is in his hands, there's the small matter of what to do with it. Coalbrand had cautioned him against attempting to release the information publicly. Sain-Breq had died trying. He'd also suggested leveraging this knowledge against those in power. Against those who have kept them in the dark, used them... And if the dreams are truly memories as the research suggests, they've spent and broken them too.

It begins with opening the door. ]

I've alluded to a certain pursuit with some of you, carried it out with others... Some, I can't reach anymore.

[ Cid, Sentience, Midna... He drifts off for a moment, the lingering question of what became of them giving him pause. Then he spurs himself to proceed. ]

We've got it now: Sain-Breq's research. There's just the one copy, so now that my guest has taken his leave, I'll go over that with you.

[ The others will have to forgive the little extra nudge of Yuri's mind, like a playful elbow to the side, before he shares a first-person view of the documents, page by page. It's a slow process, allowing for differences in reading speeds, before at last they reach the end. ]

So, that's...a lot to take in, I realize. And a little bird tells me Shardbearers stopped being capable of dreams long ago, so those visions we saw after our power-nap? They'd be explained by all this. The cycles that preceded this one... And the content of mine, more than the warning that came with these documents, is why I'm starting with all of you.

[ There's a pause, and the distinct sense of him gathering himself. For his fellow Harbingers, it comes with the air of a shaky sigh. ]

This information was threat enough to those in power to kill. If my dream wasn't a dream at all, they'll bend and break us for less. Shave away what makes us who we are until what remains is so brittle it snaps one day. I have reason to suspect the higher we harmonize, the easier that is to achieve.

[ Hence notable high-harmonization exclusions he does typically trust. It could make things harder or more dangerous for them... In all this time, it's the most he has ever spoken of his terrible dream. ]

We need to play our cards right on this. It can be leveraged against those in power and our people deserve to know. Damned if I know the best way, given our position — so I want to open a discussion. How we use this, how we avoid making anyone a convenient target for them. Between us, I know we're capable.

[ He leaves it at that, another mental nudge suggesting the metaphorical floor is wide open for any takers. ]

[ ooc: This Communion is open to those involved in the Wheel of Fortune questline: Shez, rip Joshua, Byleth, and Gavial as well as Ryouma, Dimitri, Claude, and Jade. Please feel free to assume Yuri failed to reach your character if you want to opt out, the list is just who he tried to reach out to for this initial discussion. Thread hop/jack and respond to one another as desired! ]

Comments

[hauntedking]

...this is quite a lot to take in. Forgive me, I need a moment to consider.

[ His mind is a slow swirling of considerations. Of costs and potential. It is a lot. ]

I'm trying to understand why they would to suppress this so much. Or at least kill someone over it.

[wolfish]

Couldn't say that part, myself... But it was heavily implied that if I followed Sain-Breq's lead without a clever little plan, it wouldn't be pretty.

[ And given his dream-memory-thing? Yuri doesn't want that for himself or anyone among them.

Losing oneself, he knows, is a thing at least one of his friends has had reason to dread. ]

[hauntedking]

I don't much care for that.

[ Or a lot of things that have developed, honestly. ]

I doubt we'll make much headway with those in power in general...

[wolfish]

That's a distinct possibility, too... Though they feared this research enough to try and bury it, so there may be a way.

[ It's just a matter of how, exactly. ]

Might've been a simpler matter before all this change.

[hauntedking]

Why do they fear it, though? Do they imagine it would mean they couldn't control us?

[kaientai]

... Huh.

[ It's not the most dignified or intelligent response, but it's something. He's surely not the only person who needs time to process. ]

That'd explain why no one ever seems to know anything useful about the other cycles, I suppose. Makes you wonder how deep the lies go.

[ And since Harmonisation is involved, he imagines pretty deep. ]

[wolfish]

It does, doesn't it? Then there's whatever purpose they even serve...

[ Who set up all of this, what will is behind it?

Now that they have some answers, they have even more questions. ]

The only clear gain is keeping us easy to control, but there must be more to it.

[kaientai]

If we can, I think we should try to gather more information related to this.

[ That's obvious, but with a find like this, it's tempting to want to use it. It's big, even knowing only a part of the story. ]

I had one of those "dreams" myself, and I want to investigate.

If we follow whatever clues we can pull from those visions, we might have a better idea of what to do with all of this.

[wolfish]

I don't know that mine would prove much of a lead in that way... But at least it serves as a warning.

[ It's the most positive spin he can put on what he saw now. As personally disturbing as he found it, that's not nothing.

Clues though... He wonders whether the others had dreams more like Ryouma's. Hopes as much. ]

You think yours might yield something though?

private;

[kaientai]

It might.

[ He knows there are Zenites in this Communion, but that isn't the only reason he filters everyone out, so it's just the two of them. He just doesn't like drawing attention to something he hasn't had a chance to get a look at himself. ]

Remember the factory? I never got a chance to try and get in there before we all went to sleep for a hundred years, but now I've got to find out what's in there because that other Me apparently had something to do with its construction.

[dreamflowers]

I see.

[A bitter laugh as she tries to process everything.]

Dimitri wasn't kidding around when he mentioned there being a kind of "Cycle" going on in this world, too.

Either way, I had one of those "dreams" as well -- and if this tells us anything, it's that I don't think we should write those off as delusions. How useful they are is another story. [Shrug.]

[wolfish]

Guess mine was a cautionary tale. What about yours?

[ He'd have loved to dismiss his, as personally disturbing as it was for him, but the research says otherwise. ]

Could be that we'll find odd bits handy, for all we know.

[dreamflowers]

Hm. I'm afraid ours was more literal -- and apparently it's something that's been happening for hundreds or thousands of civilizations before.

[How it works exactly is still beyond Jade. She was only gathering the pieces to help stop history from repeating itself as best she could.

[Which is to say she's an utter failure at it.]

Fair enough. What happened in your dream? Was this other version of you also aligned with Zenith?

[wolfish]

[ She hit the nail on the head, and it ripples through their connection as Harbingers before he can do anything about it. His feelings on the memory of it are mixed, but none of them are positive.

Mercifully, it passes quickly. ]

Sure was. Biggest damned mistake he could've made, at that.

[ He's trying to put it lightly, though the truth is anything but. ]

Tried to change their ways and couldn't. Somehow garnered "special attention" from Yima, which... I'm pretty sure is how the whole personality went down the drain, if you get my meaning.

[dreamflowers]

I do. Sounds like it went down about as well as it did for my other self.

[She scoffs.]

Y'know, there was a point in my life in which I probably would've agreed with Zenith's ideology. Actually, if it hadn't been for all the shit that's happened to me recently, I probably would've been all on board with it.

So... I can't say I'm entirely surprised that other version of myself ended up making the choices that she did.

[kinaesthesia]

[Gavial's scowl can practically be felt through the mental connection as she takes this all in and turns it over in her head for a moment. The information dredges up more questions, but it simultaneously makes a few things a lot more clear.]

Well, a lotta things sure are falling into place, huh.

[The dreams, the hush-hush nature of this all, the conspicuous lack of records of any of the previous generations of Bearers... Why, though?]

Definitely agree that we gotta let people know. As for the "how"... you know I always favor the more straightforward route—just get it all out there at once, publicly. Gives us the advantage of catching those who have been trying to keep it buried on the back foot.

[wolfish]

It was my first impulse too. It'd be the fair thing, yet it could paint targets on backs. Not just ours, but others around us.

[ While Yuri has every intention of surviving this, of going back home, people around him becoming collateral damage concerns him even more. This isn't Fódlan; he doesn't have the numbers or intel he's built up and been accustomed to.

Here, they're such a small portion of the populace. ]

The factions may need us, but they don't necessarily need our personalities intact... And my dream-but-not showed me what happens in that situation.

[kinaesthesia]

Yeah, despite all the fuss they put up about the importance of Shard-bearers, everything I’ve heard and seen myself about those past-life dreams make it pretty clear we’re not immune to targeting like that. And they probably would be the exact kind of cowardly to go after other people too…

[The disdain is clear there in her voice and the annoyed little sigh she punctuates her words with.]

Still, I think there’s merit in the whole “strength in numbers” thing. If your fists aren't strong enough on their own to beat back your problems, you just add more. Harder for 'em to strike back if there's a whole lot of us getting in on this.

[Gavial...]

[wolfish]

[ They're important, but in the way a unique tool is, from all indications. Yuri had thought it as much, from what others had told him of their earliest days in this place. The degree to which it's shaping up to be accurate, though, is concerning.

He hears what Gavial's saying. His people are a martial sort, and in many cases, the right application of concerted force can prevail. ]

I get your meaning. [ He does, if only their numbers were greater. ] But those who have harmonized far more than others may be forced to act against their will or otherwise harmed if we don't land that punch at the right place and time.

[leicesters]

Nice find, Yuri. [He's both impressed and not surprised, in a good way. If anyone would be able to dig up intelligence with such important implications, he'd expect nothing less from him.]

One thing I can say for sure is that we shouldn't share this info with those most harmonised. At least, not right now.

[It's not easy for Claude to admit, all things considered, but he's used to playing his cards close to his chest even from those closest to him. He can handle it.]

I mean, if your suspicions are right, this affects them the most and so they have a right to know... but if it also makes them more pliable, we can't trust they won't just sell you out with a little push from above.

[There's a pause, and it seems like he has nothing more to add -- but it's more that he has too many thoughts, and has to shut them off from Yuri for a moment while he turns them over in his head. Moments later, though, he continues:]

...If we're the last generation in this big cycle, that means -- according to this research -- that our souls are near completion, right? That might give us power as Shardbearers that Zenith and Meridian would want to keep in check. How we go about doing that, much less using it to our advantage... I suppose that's up to us to figure out.

[wolfish]

It does seem safest to hold off for now, much as they deserve to know. If I accept what I saw as genuine, we can be bent and broken far more easily than we'd like to imagine. I don't want to see that happen to them.

[ He can't be entirely sure as to whether that other Yuri had been forced to keep harmonizing, but he can't think of another explanation. When has he ever stuck to something that wouldn't allow him to further his cause? Everything he witnessed tells him that there was an immovable wall of privilege he couldn't surmount. Normally, that'd mean he'd find another way, and yet...

Well, there's little use speculating. It's enough for him to be concerned for those around them who have waded deeper into the pool than they have. ]

But there's the rub. We've got this, and the people up top wanted it buried. So they're threatened by it, and were, considering this all started before we leapt forward in time. Yet how to use it... [ He trails off with the mental impression of a sigh. ] Not to mention, keep our people safe.

[ They've all got to make it through this. It's just a matter of how. ]

I do think we should make a few copies, to be on the safe side.

[fishfearme]

Wait, so... correct me if I'm wrong, but does this imply that we've been here before? Another version of ourselves in previous Shard-bearer generations, or... us but we simply had our minds erased of the experience?

[Excuse him fumbling over such a specific part of the research, but the implication that this was an ouroboros of a cycle where they would inevitably return to Kenos, memories wiped and fresh to start a pointless cycle anew, was deeply unnerving to him.

Just how many times had they come here, to this place?]

[wolfish]

[ Byleth's not alone there. Everything since their long, long sleep has added to the pile of unnerving information. ]

I'm...pretty sure that's what happened to me one cycle, and this is some sort of rebirth thing?

[ It's dense text, and difficult to parse at that. Yuri knows his way around fiddly minutiae found in legal documents — trade agreements, contracts, and the like — but he isn't himself a scientist. Neither of them are. ]

Best I understand it, this research concluded we've returned each generation with a different Aspect, and it's happened a handful of times prior to this go-around.

[fishfearme]

Then, doesn't that imply that Meridian has won every time? The original worlds must've been restored for us to repeatedly come here every 'generation'...

[Or was he missing something? Byleth was somewhat scholarly when it came to esoteric magics, but the realm of trans-dimensional and reincarnation nonsense was well beyond his understanding and experience. Sothis might've known more, but she was too busy snoozing away...]

[wolfish]

[ Though they're not of the same aspect, they are friends, so there's not much use in Yuri trying to filter all that much. A brief ripple of confusion is followed by consideration, as he hadn't read it that way — but he can follow Byleth's reasoning. ]

From what I've heard, every previous cycle's been considered a failure. Not that I trust the people saying so farther than I can throw them [ despite the figurative language, he's sure Byleth knows full well that distance is zero ], but it would stand to reason — what with going through all this repeatedly.

[ It's still unreal to him, but having read the documentation repeatedly, Yuri is pressed to deny it at this point. ]

So, on our side, it may be a damn long time since we were home, and we just don't remember because of these cycles.