IC Inbox (v2.0)

[jumpthegun]

You've reached Dr. John Watson. Please leave a message.

Comments

okay done now

[howdull]

JOHN!

audio

[jumpthegun]

Jesus Christ, Sherlock! I was taking a shower. We've just learned the nanomachines are 1,000 years past due on maintenance. What's that tell us? Ruminate on that.

[howdull]

It doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know, it's useless information.

[jumpthegun]

We're a thousand years off from our estimates and that tells us nothing? What does it say about the way the world's gone, Sherlock? About how likely it is that Eve's automated?

[howdull]

We already knew that she was probably automated. But that doesn't mean people don't exist, I believe Robert Miller is human, and there are probably others. We knew the world had gone downhill after a series of nuclear blasts, why does the time frame matter? A hundred years or a thousand, the only appreciable difference for us will be the background radiation levels and the slight shift in continental positions.

[jumpthegun]

It has incredible implications, Sherlock. Whole civilizations rise and fall in a thousand years. You have to think about what state the technology of the world is in, too. Even if a lot of it is automated, what does that mean if we get to the center and can't leave? It's not just a hundred years of missing repairs, it's a thousand.

[howdull]

No. It has no interesting implications, why can't you see that? It doesn't change our end goal, it doesn't change who and what we might be now, and it doesn't change the puzzles we have to solve. It's background information. I don't care if civilisations have risen and fallen, it's irrelevant.

[jumpthegun]

[John purses his lips.]

You'll care once we get to the end and potentially have to deal with it, is that it?

[howdull]

Precisely. Before that, it's meaningless background noise, of no bearing on our current situation or the puzzles we need to solve.

[Ergo, it's boring news. It's not as interesting to him as it possibly should be, anyway, because he's deleted the amount of time it took some civilisations to rise and fall, and so the gravity of it is lost on him a bit.]

[jumpthegun]

[This is going to come back to bite him. John supposes he'll just have to be the one to worry about it, per usual.]

So, what puzzles immediately are there that we can work on? Seems like the third residential zone's covered. What's here that we can do? Or downtown, or in the industrial area or tunnels?

[howdull]

I think it would make sense to retread very old ground, investigate areas that were picked over before we even arrived and assumed to be complete, but look at them with the fresh eyes of experience.

[He shrugs, not that John can see.]

The original residences, the hospital, places like that where the primary investigations likely predated discoveries like the Prophet eye.

think we can move toward a wrap here, too

[jumpthegun]

[John nods before realizing that means nothing at the moment to the other man.]

Right. That sounds like a plan. I've been wanting to go visit the retirement home, anyway. Seems like it might still be important for something.

yarp

[howdull]

Good, then I hope to see you shortly. In both meanings of the words.

[And with that, he hangs up.]