@peter.benjamin

[thwipandrelease]

So I know I can't be the only one who's had the unexpected pleasure of coming into possession of messages that aren't intended for my consumption. I'm not talking about you getting someone's private love letters or metaphorical cat video links, which I've gotten and deleted.

If I were back home, I'd be sliding this info to my nearest and dearest investigative journalist type. Since I'm not, well, I guess I've got to take matters in my own hands.

It's an interesting read, so, I'm just going to include the unedited details for all.

[what follows is a copy of the message that peter had received earlier, sent from lydia gill-jade, which seems the sort of thing that would come up in a current headlines search if it weren't presumably a secret. well, so much for that, huh?]

Maybe it's just me, but do people usually name successors for campaign donations?

Comments

@hope.mikaelson

[tribridfreakshow]

i got something similar. both of our messages involve the same person. i'll attach a copy of mine too.

[Attached is the message that she randomly received, a conversation between Katelin Jovavich and someone called JPG discussing terraforming Juptier's moons.]

anyone referred to only by their initials immediately screams shady to me, but i don't have any context for any of this. maybe someone else does.

@goro.akechi

[impede]

Definitely shady, given the communication in this world. Knowing someone's identity is unavoidable once you've begun to speak to them online. Handles are meaningless dressing.

That means the initials are meant to conceal something. From us in particular.

As for the contents otherwise: what could she be looking for? Success? Approval for her efforts? Or is there something in particular that she's seeking at this time?

[thwipandrelease]

Something smells mighty fishy here and no, it's not my sushi lunch.

My knowledge of the local political climate is sadly pretty lacking, but I definitely want to keep piecing together all this information. Even if it's all innocuous — unlikely but possible — I think it deserves to be looked into further.

What could possibly be so important on Jupiter's moons and what if any interest might it hold for those companies?

@ren.amamiya

[variate]

[ man, corrupted politicians bring him back. ]

Someone wants Jovavich to win, but we don't know who yet, even if we can make a good guess.
I wonder if they have stake in these terraforming projects.

@riku.masterson

[inherited]

I'm guessing politics doesn't work that way.

There was another drop that had to do with an urban legends site I've been following. It was new information. I think something that big would've been there still wracking up comments when I checked, but I didn't check all the time. I've been busy. And I can't check now, because ... well.

Anyway.

That forum happened after all the weird dream stuff turned up when we woke up. It's all connected to the same hot spots.

[thwipandrelease]

Generally speaking no, that's not how it works.
Or well, perhaps it IS how it works, but maybe not so blatantly.

Political corruption's as old as government itself.

I will say it's definitely frustrating to only be able to blindly sort through these scattered breadcrumbs. I wish I was better at this sort of thing.

@goro.akechi

[impede]

On the surface, it's less typical. No one wants to point out the obvious about political establishments and the like. They usually hide that information where no one can see it.

The better question is why this was packaged for you, in particular. Or the general view of us all.

As you've pointed out, this doesn't match up with the love letters and the like. These seem to be extraordinarily purposeful in their meaning.

[thwipandrelease]

You're not kidding. Frankly, I'm surprised it wasn't encrypted or otherwise obscured the identities of the parties involved.

I wondered if maybe I should've kept it to myself. Or if this wasn't a deliberate misdirection by some third party who was counting on me to spread this. You know how conversations warp the further down they're passed? Like the game of telephone if you will.

This is definitely not how I wanted my day to go.

@james.holden

[hoss]

I had something land in my inbox.

[ message.txt ]

[Bad username or site: leo @ fitz] and [Bad username or site: kylo @ ren] mentioned the creatures sounded like a reference to something that happened here in June.

[thwipandrelease]

Oh good
Mutant warm-blooded reptiles
That's just what we want more of.

Why couldn't it be tasty and plentiful chickens?

June was before my time but the date of your message is interesting...

@daenerys.targaryen

[dragonwarder]

"Discovery" would imply these creatures were native born, yes?
Perhaps changed in some way by the ill state of the world.

[She'd said as much to Kylo Ren. This seems to support that theory.]

Where is "Antarctica"?
Is it accessible? Habitable?

@cassian.andor

[evasives]

Corruption in this government is not a surprise, but talking about it so blatantly just seems too overconfident.

I suppose if Jovavich wins we can look back to this message and say we saw it coming.

@yalena.yardeen

[motivation]

only in this one?

[thwipandrelease]

Yeah, but is it enough to just say that we saw the inevitable car crash?

Or should we be doing something to stop it?

[hoss]

Nice that some things stay the same no matter where you go.

What do we know about this new one? Jovavich? Besides that she's keen to terraform Jupiter, if the message [Bad username or site: hope @ mikaelson] got is anything to go by.

@margaret.carter

[revlon]

The word in local government is that Jovavich is the favourite to win. Easy to see why now. I doubt anyone is pleased with Gill-Jade's performance as of late; according to the grapevine at City Hall, she hasn't been showing up to work lately, and I've never seen a public statement about her decision to not run. (Until now, I suppose.)

I'd heard rumours that the Maeda family backed Gill-Jade's campaign (the wife and husband both hold chairs on the Board of Directors for Giles Bell and Pulsar respectively) and this clearly supports that claim. I'm afraid that's all I know through public records.

While we're on the topic of next year's elections, Joseph Lynch has a strong showing in the polls. But I don't think anyone believes he can win — at least not anyone I work with.

@james.holden

[hoss]

They give a reason why they think he's a long-shot?

@angel.fortran

[girlcorrupted]

From the looks of things, you're far from the only one. It may be worth compiling a spreadsheet of all these messages together in order to find their links, and to see if they hold any relation to DAWN's message.

@ianto.jones

[torchwoodteaboy]

It's a work in progress, but I've been combing over this thread and the other made, attempting to find all the messages shared across the network thus far...

[Attached you will find Ianto Jones' first in-world google doc, though certainly not the last.]

I've been looking for a common theme between the lot of them. Do we know if I'm missing anything thus far?

[Torchwood trained him well.]

@jon.snow

[998]

All the candidates for governor seem to be coming from a corporation job anyway. I don't know if that's normal either.

[he genuinely doesn't, because he only has the most cursory knowledge of the various governments of the free cities as reference.]

It would be well if we could get this information out to the people before they vote. I suppose we have plenty of time to figure out the best way to do it once the mess outside's been sorted.

@daenerys.targaryen

[dragonwarder]

Given my meager knowledge of this realm's power structure, I would venture to say it is quite normal. I might even go as far to say that it is expected.
Coin is the currency of power here, after all. That much is plain.

@alex.benedetto

[windowsills]

[ well... that’s not good. ]

It’s already been decided? But someone in the race will notice that it’s a hoax, won’t they?

[thwipandrelease]

[hey alex. it's been awhile, hasn't it?]

I don't think that the powers that be think so.
And I'm not sure that most people around here would consider rocking the boat to try and uncover the truth.

@gabriel.reyes

[gravemistake]

Are you really surprised the elections are fixed? I'm more concerned about what they put in our heads.

@diana.prince

[monomachy]

It seems to me like they're more keen on taking things out of our heads because as far as I can tell, none of us can remember exactly how we got here.

Do you think that has something to do with the implant?

[she wants specifics, man. tell her your conspiracy theories.]

@ziggy.stardust

[transuniversal]

I did not think I would miss the postal service but now seems like it would be extremely useful to have analog leaking infrastructure.

[ It's those little things of 500 years ago that really get you down. Where's Ben Urich and the Bugle when you need them? ]

The only thing that surprises me about the message I received was that they were not already using the implants to mine for this kind of corporate stalking.

[ Followed by a copy of this depressing message. ]

@goro.akechi

[impede]

It's not dated.

@ojiro.juniper

[deicider]

Ooh, this is way better than a love letter. Thanks for sharing.

[thwipandrelease]

I could've shared those too, but they were rather cringeworthy.
Like lovesick teenager bad.

@ren.amamiya

[variate]

A lot's going on right now, and I know people are getting messages that aren't met for them, but I wonder if it's just us that got these. If it's everyone in the city.
If it's not, then it means something else.

@goro.akechi

[impede]

Great point, Ren!

The plot thickens, doesn't it? It may even prove to be something that we can't discover ourselves. It's not as if this world is very open with certain types of information, at least from what I've seen. It could very well turn out that we're the only community of our kind. One that's secure and able to pass along information such as this.

@deimos.fighter

[tishina]

i'm not too sure about politics but it seems others have already cleared that up.
what do you think of it?

[thwipandrelease]

Not good would be an understatement.
First impulse was to spill it all to the general population, but I figured I'd come to all of you first.

Less likely to get myself noticed and carted off to who knows where.
Maybe that's a worse case scenario kind of thing, but no less a concern.
People disappearing for reasons unknown isn't unheard of.

@rodney.mckay

[doubledoctornocitrus]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or are you actually talking about corruption in politics?

[Rodney slaps a linke to his own misfire into the message. ]

I might be biased, but the one thrown at me has the heavily implied 'people dying in space' subtext, which I object to on a personal level.

[thwipandrelease]

No, you're right. There's nothing new about this sort of thing. It's human. History books — man I miss those — are full of these stories.

Your message is very disconcerting. Are these people volunteering for this sort of work? Or are they "volunteering", because if that many people are dying in space, I can't imagine people would want to put their lives at risk, regardless of the reward.