paradisa | #003 - Questions & Answers

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kara zor-el (supergirl)

#003 - Questions & Answers

So I’ve been here for about two weeks and I have some questions, after exploring a lot and talking to people. This is going to be pretty long, so if you’re flipping numerous pages in the journal, I’m sorry. (But I’m not actually sorry.)

General

How long has the oldest resident been here? The resident that has been here the longest.
What’s the shortest anyone ever stayed?
Who has been here the most times? I’ve apparently been here four times, and I do not like it.
Why are so many people here from Earth?
How come some people come back with memories and some don’t?
How many people here have come back with memories? How common is it??
What’s the most people that was ever here at one time?
What’s the craziest reaction someone ever had to coming to Paradisa?
What have people tried to get out?
How do you know time stops back home while we’re here?
How many different universes exist here?
Do some of you really come from such, uh... unadvanced worlds?
To people who aren’t from the 21st century: how confused are you?
Are some people here the only people from their worlds? Like, has never met anyone they know, or comes from some sort of “anomaly” universe?
How many people have met people they know, but are actually from other universes?
If we don’t age, does hair grow? Fingernails? Periods??

Death

When you die, what happens? Does it effect the timeline?
How often does it happen?
If people don’t stay dead, are you guys cool with murder or is it still wrong? (It’s not cool.)

Journals

Why do liquids come through?
Why do people bother using them? Can’t we stop using them and instead all get laptops or something? I have never written so much in my life, if it were possible, I would have carpal tunnel already.

“Price Losses”

What do people lose?
If you lose a memory, are you aware that you lost that memory, or is it like nothing ever happened?
If you lose an ability, what happens if you try to do it anyway?
What is the weirdest loss ever? The worst?
Do we KNOW that it’s a price we pay for being here, or is that just an assumption? (And you know what they say about assumptions... Or you should, anyway.)
Why does the castle pick what it picks?

“Temporary Losses”

Why do we even call these “losses”? I feel like that’s a little dishonest, from what I’ve seen and read about, some of these aren’t losses so much as “everything going crazy.”
What’s the extent of what can happen? Basically, what HASN’T Paradisa done, where does it draw lines?
What’s the point? I get the “draws emotional power, we’re batteries” thing but why does it pick what it does?
What’s the longest one ever lasted?
Is there a way to stop them early?

The Building?

I’ve been looking at the way the wires and vents are, and nothing really matches up. Nothing makes sense. Do we know anything else about that? Everything goes down to the ground, has anyone tried going under the castle?
Why do so many people hang out on the roof?
Is the laundry room sponsored by Tide? That’s so confusing to me, you have no idea.

Insolitus

What do we know about the abandoned room in there?
Has anyone tried to map it? I know it seems to change, but is there any sort of pattern, to it? Does Tunnel B go left only on a Monday, that kind of thing?
Has anyone ever gotten lost in there to the point where they couldn’t be rescued?
Has anyone tried drilling or breaking through walls in there? I guess what I’m asking here is does it “match up” with other parts of the maze, or does everything exist on different planes of whatever? I haven’t been able to figure it out.

Outside of Paradisa?

Why don’t people go out there more often?
Is there anyone out there?
Are there no other cities?
I don’t know much about city building, but it’s kinda weird to me that they can have a whole city with no trade or anything. Do the people in the city ever get shipments or whatever?
Why are there all these random abandoned warehouse type things when the city is pretty Dark Ages? Or Medieval Times? Or Renaissance? I don’t know the difference. If someone can explain that, that’d be great.
How far have people travelled?
Do we have a map?
Why don’t we have powers out there? Does Paradisa do that?

Misc.

Why is there a garage full of cars and other vehicles if this place doesn’t have any roads meant for cars?
What’s that big orange crystal on the lawn? I, as a rule, don’t go near random coloured crystals.
What’s the biggest mystery you want an answer to? Having only been here two weeks, I can’t even imagine what I don’t know.
Tell me something cool about the castle that I maybe haven’t thought of.

Thanks!
Kara

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Allen answered the boring ones, so he can focus on the fun ones! Aces.

Also he's not bored enough to recopy the questions, sorry.]

General
4. Possible Earth has the most alternate universes from which to draw from, or that Earth's universes are the easiest to access.

5. Seems to hinge on whether residents are actually sent home or preserved by Paradisa when they vanish. The residents that have their memories returned to them are kept in storage until we stumble on them, and the memories that are restored are linked to a specific incarnation. [There's page flipping, and then a number written in.] There's reports of people having old memories restored while still in the castle, but it's a rare phenomenon. [and another page number]

10. [He draws an arrow to Allen's answer.] That's the evidence they cite. The reality is: we don't.

16. Yes. Doesn't make sense, does it?

Death
2. Whenever residents feel like killing each other. (Which is not very often, unfortunately.)

3. There are supposed to be repercussions for it, if that's what you mean.

Journals
1. [Another arrow to Allen's answer.] Magic advanced enough to be a reliable method of communication for hundreds of people at once, to regenerate itself and track the owner, but somehow can't tell the difference between blood and ink.

2. They're already connected. Some residents don't know how to use computers. It's the simplest option, so it's the preferred one.

“Price Losses”
3. [Another arrow to Allen's...] It varies. Sometimes the loss physically stops you, other times it replaces it with something undesirable.

5. Presumed. But it's a good presumption.

“Temporary Losses”
1. It's an egregious misnomer.

2. In the unlikely event boundaries do exist, they'd be scribbles, not lines.

[The Insolitus got boring after the first time he went in there, so he skips that section entirely.]

Outside of Paradisa
1. See above re: simplest option.

8. Probably not. Could make the argument that it's Paradisa's influence petering out, but residents have manipulated the range of the Dead Zone before.

Cool.

As far as repercussions for murder goes, does that mean people care in theory but just don't follow through, or that we just don't have the means to enforce it? I tried to arrest someone the other week but it's not like there was anywhere I could bring her or anyone I could turn her over to. And that's just one... if I caught someone with, say, superpowers, how would they possibly be punished?

Also, what makes the purposes of "price losses" a good presumption? I know we were apparently told that we ARE here as power sources, but I want to know if losses are specifically a part of that or if they're just, like... a way of holding us hostage.

[And he'll switch to dictation since the writing part is done.]

There is a prison that was in use for a period of time, but residents squabbled over whether to leave criminals there indefinitely, execute them, release them, et cetera. That's the problem with justice systems, we've all got different ones. Became such an issue that our self-appointed peacekeeping body collapsed in on itself.

In terms of superpowers, we've the technology to keep them contained, as far as I'm aware. That is, if you felt like attempting to revive the prison practice. Bit of a sore-spot with the residents by now. But you should know that Paradisa doesn't care much for the boundaries of our prisons anyway.

With respect to the losses, it's a good presumption because what's taken is always emotionally significant. The loss jump starts the battery, so to speak; if we're here to feed the castle, it's important that the process starts as soon as possible. It's a "price" in the sense that it's the first in a series of exchanges that we make for the supposed luxury Paradisa affords us.

If the losses were meant to hold us, the emotional component wouldn't be a factor. The castle would target powers, knowledge, ability. If anything, the losses as they are impede the castle's ability to hold us. Most residents try harder to escape when they assume their losses will be returned to them if they do.

[Kara sounds like a very plucky teenager.]

I have no interest in doing it myself. I mean, I could do it if I wanted, I might not be great leader material but I could pull it off... I just don't think I'd be very popular. I'm just better at rounding up the troublemakers.

[Or being a troublemaker.]

And that makes sense... but how can it be emotionally significant if it takes, say, a memory? If you don't even realize what you lost, you can't miss it, so it's not like there's much emotion there.

You'll have to find someone who cares enough to go up against the residents, then. Shouldn't be hard, there's plenty of them around.

[He's not keen on the trial and sentencing portion of the process, either.]

Could be the castle's version of playing the long game. Resident stumbles on the gap on their own, or is told by someone else from their world, and we still get the emotional spike, even if it's on a time delay. There's always residents who don't find out, obviously, but that's why it's a working theory.

Are those kind of people really in such short supply? Sucks.

And I guess that makes sense, but it's just not what I'd do if I were a giant, evil, kidnapping castle. Humans just seem like such a weird source of energy. Sure, they're emotional –– I have allies who say Earth is the emotional center of the universe –– but wouldn't the energy required to keep them alive negate what they produce? There's a word for that... entropy?

Depends on how the energy is allocated. On average, the physical impact of drawing from us isn't significant, so it's unlikely that the base cost of sustaining us fluctuates by much. Assuming the harvesting system is efficient and balanced, it's not impossible for there to be an overall net gain.

Could be why the castle only rarely concocts something with as much physical trauma as emotional. Death and personal injury ratchet up our cost of living.

Okay, so why does it bother bringing people back to life? Why not just pull a new resident? Surely returning someone to life is more than taking them out of a timeline?

Is it?

Think about the effort the kidnapping process must take. It scans a pool of dimensions and universes for potential candidates, isolates them in time and space, removes them, and transports them here with no unfortunate hiccups along the way. It's no small feat.

Then again, neither is resurrection. But if you're going to invest a large amount of energy either way, why gamble on a potential resource when you're able to reinstate an old one?

For us, maybe, or if the castle is doing it manually. I mean, if its abilities are fine-tuned to be able to muddle with space and time, then it's not such a big deal, while repairing a body might. Like, say everything in this castle is something that the castle has borrowed from another time/space... every fork, every piece of furniture, every person. Who says it's any good at repairing people or bringing people back to life?

There we are, now we're asking interesting questions.

Have you been told yet how the death-and-resurrection process changed?

[Yayyy, that feels like a compliment :)]

Yeah, they mentioned that the body used to vanish and then reappear, and now, the body stays... supposedly so that people can "mourn."

[It is! Run with it, girl.

He makes a small, disdainful noise, not quite a scoff. It's less directed at her and more at whoever told her that.]

People don't need bodies to mourn, and anyone who tries to argue that Paradisa acted in consideration of our customs isn't worth bothering with. Changes like that don't happen unmotivated, and never for our benefit.

I know they don't need bodies to mourn, but wouldn't the assumption that the castle never acts without motivation to depend on the castle's... personality, so to speak? I mean, I take it that it does lousy things sometimes, but are we characterizing this place as constantly malevolent or lonely or what?

While I think there has to be a better explanation than mourning, this place apparently celebrates Christmas, gives people gifts, grants wishes... what's the motivation behind that? How doesn't it benefit it?

We're an energy source. It's in the castle's best interest that we stay exactly where we are, despite whatever injustice or trauma it thrusts upon us. Call it malevolence, call it evolution, makes no difference in the bigger picture.

Gifts, wishes. They're placations, not gestures of good will. The more we feel there's something to this "paradise," the less motivated we are to escape it.

Fair enough.

I've been kind of surprised these past few weeks, to be honest. It seems like a lot of people are comfortable enough to stay... people have told me there's no way out, but people also claim to have been here for six years. There is really nothing stopping people from going out beyond the Dead Zone other than losing powers, which, let's face it, lots of people don't have. I mean, humans have accomplished a lot without superpowers, haven't they? So what's the concern? Are people really so invested in some gifts that they'll just... hang out here for three, four, even more years?

[He goes back and circles his answers about "the simplest option."]

It's not investment, it's contentment. The castle is comfortable, they've built friendships, everything they could ever want is laid out in front of them. Staying here is easy, whereas building new communities beyond the Dead Zone would be hard.

They've a promise that they'll go home "one day," and many of them are fit to wait.

If everyone got up and left together, we'd already have a community. There's like two hundred people here, that's a lot to start, but even then, it's not about building a community, it's about finding a way out. If it isn't here, it might be out there, and we won't know until we look.

Can the castle not send you home if you're in the dead zone, or something?

There's no evidence that it can't. If you want the real reasons for why the residents haven't left, try and rally them. They'll give you every rationalization you can think of and more.

Okay. Why haven't you gone?

Because the castle is interesting to me, not the Dead Zone. Since I'm not particularly interested in scouring the land for an exit, either, there's no reason to go anywhere else.

[If he stumbles on one for other people, cool, okay. But it's the puzzle he's looking for, not the result.]

And you don't want to go home, or anything?

No.

[casually:]

I've nothing to gain by going back.

Oh. [She's somewhat surprised.] Really? No friends, no family, no job...?

Not as such. [Does he need to be blunt about it? He can be blunt about it.] Though I'm told the funeral was lovely.

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