STEC Archives, Print Document DivisionCurator signature: Tautog. New Jersey
Format: Message, Personal Object
Object: Collection, Personal Correspondences of New Jersey
Location (if known): STEC Archives
Time (if known): REDACTED
Curator’s note:
Did we clear this with RNSTEC? I assume it’s an odd thing to ask since, well, they’re the one that gave this one to us…Yes.
Dear Jer,
I shall spare you the trappings of formality because I do want to have this go off the official record for now, as this is a draft. Once I finish the thing though I do intend to forward a copy to all that I believe matters insofar as major decision-making goes. Our organizations have always worked closely together, and I have no doubt it will be received with all due respect – assuming of course this is not just one of my flights of fancies.
I apologise, of course, because I myself am grappling with the prospectus of these “alternate timelines” as we have so oft referred to them casually, but it is one matter to banter in an academic sense and another to see, well, me in the flesh. A lovely dear, too, that one, with the proper manners I wish I had.
So, I suppose then she’s not me at all, then, right? Hah. But she vanished just as soon as she had arrived – before I or anyone had an opportunity to speak to her.
My apologies, again, as I seldom put ink to page. I much prefer a conversation instead of words-on-a-page, but I shall feel it necessary to document my impressions now. Either the eight of our girls deployed and all of us – up to and including our leadership all collectively hallucinated, MERLIN’s wrong; there was no actual Abyssal incursion, and all our data-systems went haywire and documented an engagement that never existed, or that … we got some help, I don’t know where she’s from, and she disappeared just as fast as she appeared. But she was real, and now I wonder.
I seek a favour. I would like you to disseminate this message to as many persons as you believe it is relevant to our mutual interests of preserving humanity from the Abyssal threat. You needn’t tell them that the idea is from me. I want an honest, unvarnished, sanity check on whether or not this could help us evolve our strategies further.
I have an honest question that I hope that each of you will take some time to ponder.
Each of us is here for the explicit purpose of safeguarding humanity from the Abyssal fleet. Each of us by now have much experience fighting them. Some recall past battles – impossible as that may be. Some of us even carry with us fragments and memories which we may not yet understand, but I imagine will one day be made clear to us.
Tellingly missing, however, is the fact that we do not appear to be able to recall instances where the Abyssal invasion was successfully repelled. Most of us cannot recall anything pertaining to the Abyssals at all, yet we appear intuitively equipped and knowledgeable about their behavior, their weaknesses, and how best to kill them.
Why is this the case?
It is clear that we are equipped to carry out the task. It is clear that the powers that be that graced us with life and intelligence made us for this very purpose, yet we ourselves honestly do not know what we are, or where we come from, or how we even arrive at this world?
Ask yourself why this is the case. Assume our creator is benevolent – and why would we not? Why else would we be gifted with these remarkable traits and arms to fight the Abyssals with? Why, then, are we not equipped even better? If we are spirits reborn from past conflicts, would not having those experiences be helpful to us, so that we do even better?
My conclusion thus far, and this is an honest impression. We are – we are already provided with the best available. But we are not yet at our potential, due to some interference on the part of the very enemy we fight. Whatever way in which we arrive – and I use the term, “arrive” here, we are not wholly complete. If I were to use an analogy it would be like a stick of paras dropped minus heavy gear or other equipment. We, the troopers are here, but not all of our equipment. In fact, something might have, or may be in the process of, shoot down the packages or planes carrying our other comrades.
… No doubt you see my analogy here, right? If my notion has some truth, it means naturally three things.
Firstly, that much of what we assume about the Abyssals are sorely mistaken. At the minimum they ought not to be limitless in number or potential, because clearly they failed to stop us from arriving to this blessed place and time.
Secondly, that we are in fact capable of more. All of us know this in terms of our gear or fairy teams, but I suspect we, too, are capable of further improvement. This knowledge is heartening to me, particularly as I am oft plagued by mysterious illness – something that ought not to affect us in general due to the nature of our being.
Thirdly, that there are more of us out there. Way more. This realisation helps me to answer in great part my own question that I raised at the beginning of this letter. We are here to fight the Abyssals, and we are going to win this conflict through courage, sweat, and blood.
The why is answered by the situation we find ourselves in. Imagine yourself the Jerry facing down the barrels of some undergunned Paras. Someone next to you call out, “Hey look, there’s the wreckage of their plane!”
Were I the one there I would not be concerned with the plane, or be overjoyed by the fact that we shot one down. The very notion that there is someone out there sending planes – that ought to give someone some pause.
The Abyssal here is the same. If they can stop us from showing up, they would have by now. Especially given how much damage to their plans a single one of us can. So why do they not?
This knowledge I should hope cheer you up a bit, because in my view, it can only be the truth. They do not because they cannot.
Somewhere out there the cavalry is coming. Our duty therefore is to survive, then to hold, and if we have any further capability, find out where the proverbial Ack-acks are and help our lads and lasses down the line.
That is what I have envisioned thus far and it is a little rough but I hope you see what I am trying to get across. Your feedback is much welcomed, and I shall keep an eye out eagerly at my electronic inbox.
Warmly yours,
George R