LA: Hello, past-Pnimm.
AA: !!
AA: Hello future LA!
LA: You haven't talked to me before at this point, have you?
AA: Haha no but your username is clearly visible and it sounds like in the future we're friends
LA: So it is possible to surprise you. Every time we've talked it seems like you know everything already.
AA: Ooh so in the future I know everything
AA: I like the sound of this
AA: Did I say how I found out all of it?
LA: A combination of time shenanigans and mysterious researches you never wanted to say much about.
AA: Does this have something to do with my Aspect
LA: I suspect so.
AA: Well don't keep me in suspense!
AA: I haven't been able to figure out what it is yet, though I guess I haven't had time to look beyond the Observatory
LA: The Observatory? That's something you've never mentioned before.
AA: Huh that's kinda weird
AA: Well I'll tell you about the Observatory if you tell me about my Aspect
LA: I hope you can tell me more about the Observatory than I can tell you about your Aspect, because that was one of the things you never talked about. You said you could do certain things like getting places really fast, but at the time you couldn't go anywhere for mysterious reasons. It was real frustrating trying to talk to you about it.
AA: Getting places really fast??
AA: I thought it was an Aspect about mysteries and stuff
LA: Couldn't tell you.
AA: Well I guess that means we find out together
AA: Oh what's your name by the way
LA: It's Tahomaz. Farmer, if you care about surnames.
AA: Are you a farmer?
LA: Yep, that's why they call me that.
AA: Cool
LA: Do you have a surname? I'm not sure if you ever mentioned if mydians have them.
AA: Oh yeah it's Ouweld
LA: I mean, your society doesn't really have inheritance or anything, does it? What's the point of surnames?
AA: Well, kinda
AA: If someone dies their dependents have priority to get their house and any valuable stuff they had
AA: Basically I think if nobody in the neighborhood thinks you were close to someone and you want some of their stuff you have to take it to the local court
AA: Plus it helps keep track of who's legally responsible for a first or second moult or like emergency contact stuff
LA: Interesting. Here we have something not too different--half of everyone I know is called Farmer when we have to talk to any King's people, so it's not much use for inheritance. But other places in Amdai they're real strict about primogeniture, which means a person's oldest child has priority in inheritance and a bunch of other stuff I won't bore you with.
AA: So Amdai is your myd? Is it a nation or a planet?
LA: Haha, now I get why you know so much in your future. Let's see, there are fourteen Amdaian planets, but they don't have too many settlements. On my planet, which is Vivid, there's four citystates worth knowing about, around nine million people all told. But some of the bigger planets have almost a hundred million.
AA: YOU CAN GO BETWEEN PLANETS??? YOU HAVE WORKING VOIDSAILERS????
AA: OMG
AA: CAN I SEE A PICTURE
LA: Haha, sadly no, though if you want to see one you'll find plenty in the Medium. The people from Adma Cadma knew how to make aethercraft, which is how they got to the Amdaian worlds, but not a single one of the settlments managed to preserve the aethercraft or the texts.
LA: I think you'll like this--the stories say they were written inside of stones, and our ancestors had some trick to make windows that could see in.
AA: Woah
AA: I don't even know what to be excited about first
AA: This is so cool!!!
AA: Mysterious unreadable lost texts??? Real working voidsailers that have disappeared??? An actual alliance of world-nations??? Aaaaaa!!!
LA: You're real different now, huh?
AA: But where did the aethercraft go
AA: It's a physical object, isn't it
AA: Wait how long ago did they arrive on your planets
LA: Four hundred fifty-four years ago, or around seven hundred of your seasons. I think most of the aethercraft were taken apart to build other stuff.
AA: How do you standardize time across multiple worlds??
LA: Luckily we didn't have that problem until we'd already discovered the Source Clock.
AA: What's the Source Clock!!!
LA: The divine timepiece of the True Word itself. As far as we can tell it keeps time since the universe was created. We don't know where it is physically, but any angel can read it out for you, if you ask.
AA: WHAT'S AN ANGEL
LA: Omnipresent divine messengers. But are you sure you want to keep doing this? Taking into account time shenanigans I could probably sit here and answer questions all day, but you're never going to run out of them, and at some point you've got to actually play this game.
AA: Oh nooooo you're right }:(
AA: I still have to find answers about my Aspect so I can get some translation done when I go back to the Observatory
AA: Oops I was supposed to tell you about that
LA: Please do.
AA: It's on Derse's moon, they have telescopes and I guess audio telescopes so they can watch and listen to the Dwellers in the Furthest Ring
AA: Supposedly they say stuff about the future of multiple universes or realities, and the last head researcher managed to decipher some of it before they disappeared
AA: But their notes barely make any sense!
AA: The current head researcher said maybe if I figure out my Aspect I can make some progress since it's somehow related to the Furthest Ring, but uh like you said I do have to get down to my land first
LA: Huhhhh. This is adding some very interesting new pieces to my Pnimm puzzle.
AA: Really
LA: Find out some stuff about your Aspect and we'll compare notes.
AA: OK!! I'll go right now
AA: I think I'm getting close to the bottom
AA: See you soon!
LA: See you soon.