Silicon 2026/07/17(Fri)13:07 No. 1129420 ID: 360d4d
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You already know, but you ask anyway: "What are you advocating, exactly?"
"You know the answer," you remind yourself, "But first you need to... You need to..."
"I must remember what it is I needed to do," you gather.

Part 3: Poison Silicon 2026/07/17(Fri)13:08 No. 1129421 ID: 360d4d
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"Or everything you've done will have been in vain."

Silicon 2026/07/17(Fri)13:08 No. 1129422 ID: 360d4d
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You are woken by a gently nudging hand.
Someone's saying your name: "Disq?"
Or rather, saying a name you have given yourself. You are still not exactly sure who you are.
Opening your eyes you find yourself once again face to face with Shyama - your captor - and that quietly content smile of his.
"I apologise for interrupting your rest," he says, "but we need to talk."

Right, you blink a few times as you gather your thoughts.

Silicon 2026/07/17(Fri)13:08 No. 1129423 ID: 360d4d
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You are an amnesiac. This is a problem, because you have this anxious, nagging feeling that there is something important you were supposed to do but you cannot remember what that is.
Since you woke up with no memories, you have figured out, among other things, that:
- You are in a Habitat on the moon, locked into your room by your captors.
- You are a time traveler and likely the only survivor of the vessel called the History Unmade.
- The body and science officer uniform you wear belong to Disquiet-247. Thinking about her makes your heart ache.
- She apparently saddled you with a last wish, but you don't remember what it was.
- There was an engineer called Rage-828, who was shot. You suspect you might be him.
- The History Unmade was lost with all hands. Half a million dead.
- Could this have been your doing? Sabotage?
- The crash occurred in 112 BCE, coinciding with the destruction of ancient Rome.
- You are apparently over two thousand years old. This still seems preposterous to you.
- You understand and speak Kushani, a language that you're pretty sure didn't exist in the timeline you came from. You can't read it.

Your captors represent the Coalition of Kushana, a relatively primitive civilization on Earth, locked in a nuclear cold war with its ideological opponents. As part of the 13th Dyauspitr mission, they have come to the moon to breach your lunar habitat, seeking a technological edge over their enemies. So far you have met:
- the secretive and cautious Shyama, who appears to be in charge
- the friendly time travel enthusiast Vijaya
- the empathetic physician Gamal Elsheikh, and
- the excitable information tech Maya Ramesha

Silicon 2026/07/17(Fri)13:08 No. 1129424 ID: 360d4d
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You sit at the table with Shyama. Odd. This is the first time he's ever come here alone. And he doesn't seem to have brought the tape recorder this time.
"How are you feeling now?", he asks pleasantly. You don't really know how to answer that question.
You say: "Fine. Not great, but fine."
"Good to hear. Now, the topic I'd like to discuss is the end of your arrest," he says, "It's been decided, collectively, that you should be free to roam the facility, despite the risks this might entail."
You nod. "Mhmm, Maya did allude to that."
"She has already put the door controls back together, so you can come and go at your leisure," he explains, "but I would very much prefer if you let us know when you go out, so someone can keep an eye on you."
You have a suspicion as to why he feels that way, but you ask anyway: "Why's that?"
He replies: "Believe it or not, I am worried for your safety. You've already fallen and hit your head quite badly. We found a bomb in your room that as far as we know only you could have put here. And you are prone to mental breakdowns. I'd breathe a lot easier knowing someone is around in case something happens."
There is a moment of silence.
"I moved the bomb to another room while you slept," he adds.

Right. The bomb. The one that you apparently made and then just kept on your shelf for some inscrutable reason. You're still unclear on whether it is inert or possibly a dud just waiting to go off.

Silicon 2026/07/17(Fri)13:08 No. 1129425 ID: 360d4d
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You decide to cut past the insinuations.
"Is that why you don't trust me? You think I'm crazy?", you ask.
Shyama shakes his head and says lightly: "Not at all. I trust that you want to help us, Disq. I trust that you mean well. What I'm worried about is that we might disagree on what that help would look like."
You have to admit there is a certain pervasive uneasiness that comes up whenever you think about giving these people the keys to advanced technology that they ask for. So maybe he has a point there.
Well. You don't have to admit it out loud.
"You seem to be wracked by an immense amount of guilt and shame. In fact, you have told me so. And guilt and shame are a kind of mental poison, Disq," he says delicately, "They often promote unwise and self-destructive behaviour."
"Wh- Huh?"
He continues: "Those feelings are important, because they clearly trouble you, but given the stakes of the situation and the small time window we have to work with, I would like you to focus your attention on the future. What life would you like to live when all this is done?"

You're flabbergasted. What do you even say to that?

Although you've forgotten a lot of it, it seems clear that your primary concern for about 2 millennia has been the safety of people in this new timeline. The most honest answer you can give is that you want to live to see a safe world, free from man-made disasters.

You'd like the world of the future to be protected from dangers, like uh... you. Maybe dying? You'd like to see the world outside of that one room before you decide. There's also something important you need to do first. If you don't remember what that is, there might not be any life to live after this is done.

Maybe you'd just like a world where being evil doesn't automatically save the world. Ever.

>>1129423
>very nearly too late, because they are already here
Ah. I think I know what you were supposed to do, BEFORE people arrived. You were supposed to prevent them from getting access to the ship's tech, either because the tech itself is dangerous, or because it would turn the cold war hot and lead to nuclear annihilation. You could do this either by dying and scuttling the ship, or by traveling somewhere else... but I think the intent was the former. You put it off because you couldn't quite do it, due to self-preservation instinct or an aversion to damaging your friend's body.
Alternatively, you were meant to prevent them from getting to a specific part of the ship, to prevent them from seeing or doing something in particular, and you didn't need to destroy the entire thing or yourself. Like I guess preventing them from getting the time travel tech specifically. Maybe it doesn't matter if they get access to the rest of the tech.

Also you probably know the language because you were monitoring the civilization, and that's what kept you going for thousands of years. You had to see the outcome of your actions. To know it was worth it.

>>1129425
Tell him you would like to be an advisor of some sort. Your knowledge of potential futures and potential pasts means you know a lot of different mistakes that can be made, and some successes. Also, you would like to save as many lives as possible. You have a lot to make up for.

Hmm. If you could give a powerful *defensive* technology to both sides, so that nuclear weapons couldn't be used, wouldn't that be the best result?
...do you remember how war evolved in your timeline? Was there anything that resulted in conflicts being resolved with less loss of life? Battle by robot proxy perhaps?