(This is a continuation of
Marooned in Morrowind. It is recommended that you be familiar with the original before reading here.)
Prologue
:
"Hello, my little humans. Welcome to-":
"Shut it, Tia. Nobody likes you anyway."Celestia raises an eyebrow then takes a sip of tea.
:
"I suppose you'd rather we hear this from Azura?":
"Oh, right, like that would make any difference. Look at me, I'm Loki! Suddenly that makes everything I have to say more relevant!"With both a bang and a whisper, Michael appears.
:
"Gah! What...where am I?":
"MICHAEL!":
"Woofy? Hey, good to-"The werewolf zooms up and glomps Michael.
:
"...can't...breath...":
"I missed you so much!":
"Indeed! I missed you so much too! Oh, shall I count the ways? Fifth with an orange, negative fifteenth with an ICBM, fiftieth with a rusty glass of water-flavored jello...":
"Very well, I suppose this is appropriate.":
"Azura!"Azura smiles.
:
"Yes, Michael.":
"...what...how..."Michael stumbles over his words trying to figure out what question to ask. Meanwhile, the werewolf shoots one hand on the air and hops excitedly while transforming into Pinkie Pie.
:
"Oh! I know what to ask! I know! I know! Ask how-"Sheogorath grins and a gag materializes on Pinkie's face, silencing her.
:
"Mfph eh dznt! ehkn ttlly stuhl tk!"Michael glances around, the room? It's not exactly a room. There don't seem to be any walls and the floor is an indistinct mist that isn't entirely solid.
:
"Pathetic. Is this really the best design you could come up with, bucket-boy?":
"Who are you talking to? Who's 'bucketboy?'":
"Oooohh, finally the protagonist asks a question." Q rolls his eyes.
"I was beginning to think I'd have to make myself mortal and bludgeon myself to death with a sponge...AGAIN, just to keep from dying of boredom."Michael considers the being standing before him.
:
"I know who you are, Q."Q mocks a look of great shock, then smiles with amusement.
:
"Do you? Do you really know who is moi?" He raises his hands and looks up.
"Then tell us! Oh, great wise one, WHO. AM. I?"Michael frowns and doesn't answer right away.
:
"Didn't think so. Now get on with it before pink fluffy over there tries to turn this into a party."Pinkie's eyes light up and she-
:
"Not on my watch."Q snaps his fingers and Pinkie Pie disappears, along with the room, and its occupants.
All is dark.
:
"In the beginning, there was light."An alarm sounds and a dunce cap appears on Azura's head.
:
"EHHH! Wrong!":
"Are we telling this story or not, Chaos?"The djinn raises an eyebrow, then slowly transforms into a horrific visage of eyes and mouths, with long spindly arms and legs, and a head that hangs beneath its shoulders.
:
"It is early to be revealing ourselves, Light."Azura removes the cap.
:
"It's become very clear over these past two years that they won't understand unless we explain. Possibly even if we do."Tzeentch turns back into Sheogorath.
:
"Would you care to bet on that? I choose to have some small amount of faith in the mortals. At least as much as I have in 17 and 20 mustard seeds, anyway."Shegorath pulls a frozen hot dog from his jacket and takes a crunchy bite, as Azura grows wings and becomes once again Celestia.
:
"No, dear friend. I would not care to bet on it.":
"No! Back, foul monster! Not the puppy dog eyes! I'm melting!" Sheogorath shrieks, then sighs.
"Oh, very well. Have it your way. I shall entertain myself elsewho. Or possibly elsewhy. Certainly no chance at all that I'll be entertained here, how or now."Sheogorath vanishes. Celestia turns to you.
:
"Hello, Michael.":
"Princess? What happened here? What was all this?"Celestia smiles kindly on you, wraps you up in one wing and affectionately nuzzles the top of your head. You feel the top of your skull tingle as if electricity is passing through it. Your feet feel as though they've been washed.
:
"It's not so very simple, my little human, my little spell, my little audience. You ask what happened 'here' but where is 'here' depends very much on 'who' you are when you view it. So what happened 'here' depends on which 'here' you mean, and that depends on whom the 'you' is who is doing the viewing. There is more to 'you' than any individual 'you' is aware." She smiles gently. "
Which is why this happened.":
"I don't understand.":
"Some of you does. And some of you doesn't. Different parts of you are observing different a 'here,' and they each have a different understanding of what they perceive." she pauses.
"Perhaps it would help if I broke the story up into smaller pieces, rather than try to explain all at once?"You blink a couple times.
:
"Ok."
Episode 1: IntroductionYou're a freshman liberal arts student at your local community college. You're an average student, and you don't do sports. No real hobbies except the internet, games, watching My Little Pony and reading the occasional fanfic on Equestria Daily.
You just got home from a terribly dull basic algebra class. You're not sure why you were placed in it. You already know the material, but it's your first year, and that's where the matriculation tests put you. At least the homework is easy.
"Anyone home?" No answer.
"Mom? Dad?"Looks like nobody's home but you at the moment. With no particular plans, you head to your room. You sit down at your computer, turn it on and pull your college textbooks from your backpack while you wait for windows to load. It's slow. You could really use a faster computer.
Eventually windows comes up and you're staring at your favorite desktop wallpaper: an adorable picture of princesses Celestia and Luna nuzzling together before a glorious sunset. It warms your heart, but your mind is restless. What are you going to do? Homework? No...you can do it later. Maybe a game? Yeah, sure. You open up your start menu and...
...mumble...mumble...shall We...mumble...You look around. You could of sworn you just heard a voice. You listen carefully, but you don't hear anything. Shrugging, you go back to your start menu and begin browsing though-
...but We're out of...mumble...Your heart skips a beat. You
totally heard someone talking. A female voice. You strain to hear, but all you hear is the sound of your own heartbeat. It's kind of creepy. You glance at your computer and notice that the speakers are powered on. Instantly you relax and giggle the anxiety away. Obviously your speakers were just picking up radio interference. Probably just a ham radio operator passing through the-
...mumble...what about this...mumble...That's totally not coming from your speakers. At least you don't think it is. Curious, you reach to turn up the speaker volume when suddenly your chair drops out from beneath you and you feel yourself falling backwards. You see a blur, then sunlight in your eyes, then.
SPLASH!Yeah. No sense denying it. You're in Morrowind.
:
"I remember that. That was when I first arrived. But where was I before that? Where did I come from?"Celestia folds her other wing around you and holds you securely in them both. It's very reassuring. Like a womb.
:
"'You' weren't before that. 'You' came into existence when this forum game began.":
"Forum game? What forum game?":
"Forgive me if I answer that indirectly. Let me tell you that exact same story as before, but from a different point of view."
Princess Celestia sat regally on the throne room. It had been a rough day, dealing with petty nobles and bureaucrats.
:
Why must they create such terrible mountains of paperwork? Don't they understand-":
"TI---AAAA! We're soooooooooooo boooorrreed! Is there nothing to DO in Equestria anymore?"The Solar Princess smiled at her younger sister. She was very proud of how little Luna had adapted to-
:
"BOOOOOOOORRRRRRRREEEEDDDD!" the purple alicorn whined, adorably stomping her forehooves on the palace floor, leaving several holes in the stone in the process
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"Oh, Lulu. If you're so eager for something to do, why not-":
"Nay! Thou shalt NOT waste a single precious iota of Our time on that atrocious tax code of Thine! We must say, sister, hadst Thou not banished Us to the moon, a thousand years of darkness would have been the lesser evil by far!":
"Perhaps. Well, I do have some few hours before sundown, and it's so wonderful to have you back, dear sister. Perhaps we might play a game together? Just like we used to, Lulu?"Luna sat on her throne and regally humphed.
:
"We have better things to do with Our time than waste it on mere games.":
"Like sit around and be bored?"Luna's ears twitched.
:
"Very well, We shall consider Thy proposal. What game?":
"Chess?":
"Nay.":
"Boulder toss?":
"A filly's game.":
"Alfalfa monster?":
"Thou wouldst not dare!"A few more suggestions were made, but Luna found none of them appealing. Being an immortal alicorn, she'd had her fill of every game that her world had to offer. And so after a time, Celestia began to call upon the games of
other worlds known to her.
:
"When shall We give up on this fool's errand, dear sister?":
"Not until my little Lulu is entertained. Unless you truly believe there is nothing in the entire multiverse left to amuse you.":
"Mayhaps, but We're out of other ideas.":
"Then let's continue.":
"Wait, stop. What about this? Morrowind?"Morrowind had caught Luna's interest. And so Celestia called upon the game from her alternate universe counterpart, and cast a great spell to simulate the program code of that game.
:
"Ha! Indeed this looks fun! Thank you, sister. I shall avail Myself of Your offer. No more of this ridiculous pretty princess nonsense! Just like the olden times, again shall I be the Princess of the Night! Hark! Dost Thou remember, dear sister, how friend and foe alike wet themselves in fear at the merest rumor of My coming? How the world itself shook beneath My hooves as I danced in the blood of the wicked?":
"I remember, Lulu.":
"Huzzah! Then fear Me, mortals, for today, I am risen! Again shall I feel the crunching of charred bones beneath my hooves! Again shall I taste the blood of those who dare to stand before Me! Again shall I bathe in the viscera of- :
"Don't be up too late, Lulu. Remember you have a table manners lesson tomorrow morning. Ponies consider it rude to gore the waiter merely for the wine not being to your taste nowadays.":
"...stupid modern civilization."And so Luna immersed herself in this new game while her sister watched, happy to see her happy . But, after a short time, a curious thing happened. The game...
...
noticed that it was being played.
:
"So you're saying you pirated a game from a different universe to entertain your sister? "Celestia smiles.
:
"That is one way to look at it, yes. One way among many.":
"What does that have to do with me?":
"There is one more point of view that's essential."
LordBucket browsed through the forum games on bay12. It had been a while since he'd hosted a game. Unfortunately games in 'forum games' tended to die after a week. As often as not they survived long enough for character creation and a single turn or two before being abandoned for one reason or another. The Let's Play forum tended to be more reliable. Though posting there would mean playing an actual game rather than completely making something up. Still, that was manageable.
Glancing though the games on his computer...
:
"Violated Heroine? That would be hilarious, but it would be locked fast. Xeen? A Xeen let's play would be fun. Not sure I'm in the mood for that though. Plus, it would take forever. Xeen is a really big game and it would take months, at least, to get through it. I'd rather something I can do for couple months and be done with it."(Somewhere in a distant universe, a chaos god laughed at his naivete)
LordBucket continued looking through his games until he came upon:
:
"Morrowind? Yeah, definitely Morrowind. Actually, I jthink I have an AWESOME idea for a Morrowind Let's Play. Oh, yeah. This is...wow. That makes so much sense. We so need to do this."Feeling inspired, LordBucket started up Morrowind, created a new character and walked around taking screenshots. Then he closed the game, opened up notepad and began typing.
:
"...huh. This is really great. So much potential. I wonder where this idea came from."
:
"I don't understand. Who was that?":
"That was me.":
"What? Since when were you a human...guy?":
Since when was the sword pushed?":
"Vivec? Where did you come from?"Vivec raises an eyebrow.
:
"It's difficult to answer that literally. But in the sense that you mean, I've been here all along."This is some screwy stuff.
Vivec said that he's some kind of blob of technically-hims that are connected but not in a "have conversations with each other" kind of way, as evidenced by his sword analogy. Yagrum said that for every universe, there's an infinite blend of universes diverging from that one in various ways; Fyr (not shown) more directly confirmed that by suggesting that there were probably numerous Fyrs having that conversation with numerous Michaels when we asked him, and less directly by saying it was really easy to have a world that looked completely like home except for one rather massive detail.
So it seems likely to me that "Vivec" is aware of being some kind of... "hivemind" probably isn't the word. Almost the reverse, a one-ish mind or whatever spread out over a large patch of what appear to be discrete entities in their respective dimensions; or maybe just a discrete mind that's much more heavily affected and aware of his variations than normal. He also mentioned that "you might not recognize me in all of them," which would make sense further out from "normal" or "core" Vivec where he's starting to accumulate too many differences to be immediately identifiable.
Well done, IronyOwl. But you seem to have missed the application of this:
The tomato is you. It's me. It's all of us.
Marooned in Morrowind, from it's very conception was always intended to be a
Tomato in the Mirror. The game took place, is taking place, in an infinite omniverse, of which
this universe that you and I and this forum game exists in is but one part of.
Everything Vivec, Divayth and Yagrum said about the nature of the universe was describing
this universe just as well as theirs. This universe, that we're playing this forum game in is
part of that same multiverse that Yagrum and Divayth's particular universe is also a part of. And you guys, collectively "are" the Michael that is in Morrowind. Literally, you're the "this dimension" manifestation of a multidimensional hyperbeing, of which Michael is a "that dimension" manifestation of. Just like Vivec.
: "Is there an instance of you in each of those universes?"
: "In one form or another, there must be, if I am to be aware of them. But were you to look at some of them, you might not recognize them as me."
You are
aware of Michael, and he is
aware of you. But were you to look at each other, you might not recognize each other as other-universe-instances of yourself.
So where do ponies come in? Well, among those infinite universes there is one particular universe, well, probably
infinitely many universes, but one of them in particular, in which Celestia cast a spell recreating the game of Morrowind in her universe, and that
became self aware. This forum game is a manifestation of the
bleedthrough between these various universes. While it might be tempting to say that "Michael is a sentient spellform" the
more accurate way of describing it is to say that there is a multi-dimensional hyperbeing that extends into multiple universes, and one of the extensions takes the form of groupmind on the bay12 forum, in another universe it takes the form of a physical being with no past
who decided that his name is Michael, and in yet another universe it takes the form of a spell that became sentient.
There is no basis upon which to evaluate any of these universes as "more valid" than another.
Throughout this entire game, "you the players" have been growing to become aware of your combined hyperdimensional self, of which "Michael in Morrowind" and "spellform in Equestria" and presumably countless other other-universe-selves are also another part, eacj of which also growing to become more aware of its same hyperdimensional self. You've each been seeing your
self through a lens. "You" have been becoming aware of your self through the experience of viewing Morrowind through this forum game, and "you" have been becoming aware of yourself through the experience of viewing this world by communicating with the voices in Michael's head, and "you" have been becoming aware of yourself through the process of ponies interacting with your essence as the game they perceive "you" to be.
Vivec referred to the voices in Michael's head as his "higher self," and throughout this game,
nearly every episode there's been a regular narrative shift back and forth between the first and second person point of view.
That was intentional.
Because each of you individually, the "hivemind" that is your presensc on bay12, Michael in Morrowind, and the spellform in Equestria are all ultimately components of the same hyperbeing. Just like Vivec. His components simply started out with greater awareness of each other. And just like Chaos/Sheogorath/Eris/Loki/Discord. All components of the same hyperbeing.
Even me, the GM, I am not exempt. Here in this universe, my manifestation is me, the human, ffelsh and blood, the Gamemaster of Marooned in Morrowind. But the hyperdimensional entity of which I am part, is also composed of Azura, the narrator/goddess/daedra who sets the game of Morrowind in motion. And in Equestria, of Celestia, the caster of the spell that is the game being played by Luna.
Also known as THE PONY IN LORDBUCKET'S AVATAR I MEAN COME ON
LordBucket was the instigator of this forum game. Azura was the instigator of Morrowind. Celestia was the instigator of the spell. For "Marooned in Morrowind" itself
is a hyperdimensional entity, and "we" are its creator. This game exists and has this entire time been played in many dimensions, that of my own personal computer, that here on this web forum, that of the spellform in Equestria, and that of the Morrowind narrated by the daedra Azura...and presumably
many others.
Which has some interesting implications.
It would be like finding out at the very end of Game of Thrones that Darth Vader was somehow pulling all of the strings.
Reread Conversations With Vivec.
Compare and contrast what Vivec said with what Divayth and Yagrum said.
Consider the implications.
Divayth and Yagrum both explained how this works. Yagrum went into
great detail.
: "Oblivion is basically infinite, and takes up infinitely many dimensions. Well, maybe not literally infinite, but close enough as to not matter. Anything that's possible, exists. Imagine your entire universe where you come from, except one bit of...we'll use your model, one atom in your nose is different. That universe with a single different atom exists and is just as valid as the universe you're from. Now imagine that universe except the atom to the left of that other atom is different instead. And so on for every atom in the entire universe. All of those universes exist."
"Obviously, that means a lot of universes are very similar. In fact, every universe is similar to an effectively infinite number of other universes, because every universe that exists has a universe that's just like it except one atom is different, a universe that's just like it except two atoms are different, all the way up to every atom in the universe. Again, maybe not literally infinite...but close enough for all practical purposes. Especially since the number of atoms in each universe isn't fixed. So after you've counted up all those other universes, start in with universes that are identical to each of them except they have one extra atom somewhere, then two extra, etc. "
"So, not only are a lot of universes similar to other universes, the ways in which universes can be similar is effectively infinite, too. If you imagine all possible universes existing at 90 degrees to each other, any possible pair of universes could be described as existing at a particular 90 degree angle and at a certain distance from one another. And other universes at different positions along that axis will also be similar. When I say 'cultural axes' I'm simply referring to axis sets of universes that are similar in terms of culture."
Of course this universe is part of "all possible universes." But
so are all others.
It would be like finding out at the very end of Game of Thrones that Darth Vader was somehow pulling all of the strings.
Star Wars is
also part of "all possible universes." And so is Game of Thrones. And so is every other fictional universe, every
possible fictional universe and every
possible variation of those universes.
Certainly
you could have met Darth Vader in this game if it had taken that direction.
You did after all meet Q in game. And Loki. And Eris. All individual-universe-instances of the
the very essence of Chaos that was using this forum game as a channel through which to speak to you here in this particular universe, just as it was speaking to Michael in his. Speaking to you both, for you are each the same entity.
He was talking to
you as much as he was talking to Michael. As well as countless other other-universe manifestations of the hyperbeing that you and Michael are part of, but that you simply haven't become aware of in the manner that forum player you/Michael you/sentient spellform you have become aware of each other. There are infinitely many of possible yous in yet other universes that you might have become aware of.
So, that's what was going on here.
The Tomato Is You. And The Tomato Is me. We're All Tomatos.
You/Michael are a multidimenionsal hyperbeing. Just like Vivec. Just like Chaos/Sheogorth/Loki/Eris/etc. Just like LordBucket/Azura/Celestia/Ra/Amaterasu/etc. the bringer of light and enlightenment. And just like the game itself, played on a computer, on a forum and in a spell.
Everything is a Tomato.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Azura"The Winged Twilights are her servants"Tomatos, every one.