where you think you're going | Glowfic Constellation

Onward and onward. Maze maze maze maze.

This looks like an unusually large Sphere.

Actually, it kind of looks like a planet.

Actually, it kind of looks like a familiar planet.

Also, once he gets clear of the giant crater where the complex housing the portal used to be, no one is shooting at him and nothing is blowing up. There are no more portals in sight.

from_scratch

"Oh, that makes so much more sense," says Cam.

slash-of-gold

"What?"

from_scratch

"I found a planet. I found a real planet. I found the planet humans come from in my world. You don't have weird physics, you just have a weird magic system which allows pocket dimensions with weird physics. This planet looks perfectly normal if somewhat the worse for wear."

Azair Kevarsin

slash-of-gold

"Well, that's... strangely plausible," says Azair.

from_scratch

"Yep. And it's overrun by aliens. I will... wander around watching bits of the Earth self-destruct, I guess."

slash-of-gold

"I guess you will."

from_scratch

And Cam flies around, looking for aliens, possibly evacuating in something he'd like to get a tracking device on.

It took him long enough to get here that an astonishing number of aliens have already left. Huge sprawling cities cover much of the planet, uncharacteristically failing to explode as he passes over them, largely empty of life.

from_scratch

This place is just depressing. Poor Earth.

Come out come out wherever you are, aliens.

No aliens here. No aliens there. No, no aliens anywh—

Aliens!

Cowering terrified aliens, attempting to hide from him, absolutely not shooting at him or blowing themselves up at all whatsoever!

from_scratch

Yeah you better be cowering and terrified. Just look what you did to the Earth. Cam likes the Earth.

Cam lands.

These particular aliens are using some unfamiliar words, but it's possible to decipher their yelling as far as, "DO NOT KILL US! DO NOT BEFOUL US!"

from_scratch

Cam wonders vaguely how his program figured out "befoul", decides this is really not the time to go look at its inference backchain, and fumbles around with his vocabulary until he has his best approximation of "talk to me so I can talk to you".

Well, he can have lots more frightened yelling, if that's what he's after.

from_scratch

Does he have the word for 'words'. Is that a thing he has.

Not yet, no. Although he can tell that the aliens are saying things like "You are frighteningly powerful!" and, again, "Please do not destroy us!" and, for a little variation, "We want to live!"

from_scratch

Can he say 'I do not intend to kill you unless -'. Or 'you can live if you cooperate'. Or something.

He doesn't currently have that vocabulary, but the panicked yelling of these aliens is teaching him some new words.

Sentences such as the following begin to come clear:

"The others will destroy us!"

"They will destroy the planet!"

"We are befouled already!"

"I am frightened!"

"We are unclean!"

"I don't want to die!"

from_scratch

"I don't want you to die," Cam asserts through his translator. He is pretty sure the promises police will not come after him for not incorporating the conditional.

"You are unclean!"

"Do not [untranslated] the filth creature!"

"The filth creature will kill us!"

"Please do not kill us!"

from_scratch

"I do not want to kill you," Cam continues.

"We are unclean! The filth creature has befouled us! We should all die!"

"I don't want to die!"

"What does the filth creature want?"

"How would I know? It's a filth creature!"

"Terrifying filth creature, what do you want?"

from_scratch

"I want you to talk." He pats his computer. "This can talk to me and it can talk to you. Talk to me."