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trans_92009-06-19 11:19 pm
brainy-bot.livejournal.com) wrote in trans_92009-06-19 11:19 pm
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Adjustment Period [Open]
He'd been deliberately avoiding people since they returned from the mission and Leela had been safely transported to the MedBay to recuperate from her injuries. Brainiac 5 didn't like to admit it, but even he needed some time to process things if the events were significantly large and life-changing enough.
And finding himself here, in this bizarre ship with no idea how he'd come here, then meeting an alternate counterpart of himself who was similar enough to be disconcerting, but different enough to make him more than a little jealous and defensive, and topping the entire experience off with suddenly having to be involved in a mission that he didn't understand his role in and with a group of people he didn't know? It was enough to make even his considerable intellect need a break, if only for a short while. Particularly when he factored in the... unfortunate circumstances before his arrival.
Fortunately Stacy had more than enough room for him to find a place to just take time to work things through in his head without being distracted by the presence of others.
And he'd since resolved to try and avoid sleeping in the 'bed' provided by the ship at all costs.
But experiences with the sleeping area aside, he's now feeling a little more accepting of what's happened so far. He's far from happy about being here, but there isn't much to be done about that - and it's not like he's particularly unique in that regard either - and he'd rather do something productive with his time, so he heads down to the laboratory in Special Weapons his counterpart had shown him around earlier.
After checking that the area is indeed currently empty by cautiously elongating his neck until his head could peek into the room without being too noticeable, Brainiac 5's body follows the rest of him into the room and his neck returns to its normal length. He's alone in what passes for a laboratory, and therefore feels a bit more at home.
And also free to poke through other people's projects.
It's not meant to be rude or anything. It's just that he's not used to having other people working in his lab back with his Legion and while he reminds himself that this lab is a shared space, he can't help but occasionally make a note on someone's equation or a footnote on a diagram to suggest a different idea.
He's just trying to be helpful, really. It doesn't really occur to him that others might not see it that way.
And finding himself here, in this bizarre ship with no idea how he'd come here, then meeting an alternate counterpart of himself who was similar enough to be disconcerting, but different enough to make him more than a little jealous and defensive, and topping the entire experience off with suddenly having to be involved in a mission that he didn't understand his role in and with a group of people he didn't know? It was enough to make even his considerable intellect need a break, if only for a short while. Particularly when he factored in the... unfortunate circumstances before his arrival.
Fortunately Stacy had more than enough room for him to find a place to just take time to work things through in his head without being distracted by the presence of others.
And he'd since resolved to try and avoid sleeping in the 'bed' provided by the ship at all costs.
But experiences with the sleeping area aside, he's now feeling a little more accepting of what's happened so far. He's far from happy about being here, but there isn't much to be done about that - and it's not like he's particularly unique in that regard either - and he'd rather do something productive with his time, so he heads down to the laboratory in Special Weapons his counterpart had shown him around earlier.
After checking that the area is indeed currently empty by cautiously elongating his neck until his head could peek into the room without being too noticeable, Brainiac 5's body follows the rest of him into the room and his neck returns to its normal length. He's alone in what passes for a laboratory, and therefore feels a bit more at home.
And also free to poke through other people's projects.
It's not meant to be rude or anything. It's just that he's not used to having other people working in his lab back with his Legion and while he reminds himself that this lab is a shared space, he can't help but occasionally make a note on someone's equation or a footnote on a diagram to suggest a different idea.
He's just trying to be helpful, really. It doesn't really occur to him that others might not see it that way.
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Yep, still avoiding the subject of 4.
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This can't end well.
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"Brainiac 4 is my mother, as I stated at the meeting. She is severely unbalanced."
Do not make him talk about it, B5. That way lies Badness.
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He wouldn't normally be this pushy about it. But then again, normally he'd be likely to go through Brainy's personal files after the answer himself, and that option isn't really available here. Saturn Girl might have told him off several times for snooping on friends, but that just meant he got better at keeping what he found to himself.
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"I'm sorry, I wasn't..." 'Thinking' sits unspoken on the end of the sentence, but it's not entirely true. He had been thinking, just not about anything beyond his own burning desire for knowledge.
"I'm sorry," he repeats, quieter this time.
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"Did you have any parents? With the way your version of Coluan society is structured?" he eventually asks.
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He's not surprised at all by the question and though it touches on things he'd normally not talk about, considering who he's talking to and the awkward subject raised not long ago, it seems only fair to answer.
"No. Not as you might think of it. Biologically speaking, yes. But Coluans are created in laboratories where the most suitable DNA is chosen and combined. I assume Brainiac 4 was one of my... contributors, but nothing beyond that."
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"My paternal DNA was obtained in such a fashion. Colugov wanted optimal results, of course."
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For a lack of anything better to do, he pulls out his omnicon and starts work on a few ideas, glancing up only when the other speaks again.
"Of course."
A moment's pause.
"But I assumed you must have had a more..." He stops, searching for a word before finally settling on, "Human upbringing."
It doesn't quite fit, but he can't think of anything else to explain what he means. It's an entirely foreign concept, one he's only learned of through reading and observation in the Legion.
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This is what happens in a detached, logical society.
Coluans can love, they can care for their children, have hopes and needs and aspirations, they can form friendships, but generally, there is a lack of that...intensity of feeling, that warmth.
"My mother abandoned me at birth." That much he will relent, though it's said without the smallest hint of emotion. It's when he was reunited with her at least that is so difficult to put into words. "I was put into the custody of two politicians in the Governing Council of Colugov, and throughout my childhood, was tasked with serving the planetary interest. My status in Coluan society was similar to that of royalty. At the same time, I was considered state property."
It makes one wonder exactly how much parenting those two politicians did.
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That somehow manages to be more unsettling than the idea that his counterpart might have had a happy childhood.
"Normally Coluans are raised in creches until such a time that we're considered ready to be incorporated into society," he explains. "However much like you, I was raised separately and expected to serve the interests of the Council and the Hive Mind."
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He tilts his chin up just a bit, his face illuminated by the light of his tools.
"It was a somewhat cloistered upbringing, but it was what I preferred, of course. No distractions."
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"You preferred it?" Once he'd come to the decision to leave Colu, that he wanted to be something more than he was, he hadn't been able to get out of there fast enough.
He watches his counterpart work for a moment. "I suppose that information shouldn't have surprised me," he murmurs, mostly to himself.
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Glancing up at his counterpart, he looks somewhat amused. This seems to be a distinct similarity--and perhaps it's why, despite their personalities being different, they do have seem to have quite a bit in common--but as one of either of their team-mates might say, Colu "sucks."
"For once, I'm having lexical difficulty--but then how does one describe a species of intellectually-oppressive, mentally inbred cretins, who insist upon unyielding and undeserved arrogance in the face of true genius, and complete conformity to their ideals and methods, stifling off any intellectual creativity in the process?"
Don't hold it in, Brainy, tell us how you really feel.
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He's not sure if he'd really apply the 'mentally inbred cretins' part, since his Colu was more willing to advance technologically then this other Colu seems to have been, but 'complete conformity' is something he can definitely agree with.
"At least you wouldn't have had the Hive Mind to contend with," he remarks.
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"Had you conformed, would you have been accepted by Coluan society?"
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It's pretty obvious what that would mean for his personality and sense of self.
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"Fortunately the Council seemed happy enough to allow me to leave, even if only because they learned of it once I was well away from Colu. If I were to attempt returning now, however, I'd be reprogrammed regardless."
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Partly because it's horrible, of course. To be forced to have one's individual mind essentially erased? Never. He personally would rather die first than lose his mind and personality, whatever the flaws of the latter. He can certainly understand B5's choice.
But the rest of his silence is perhaps due to the thought that the reason his counterpart was rejected was because of a choice he made--one that made sense, obviously, as the alternative was unthinkable. It was also entirely the fault of this alternate Colu for providing such horribly limited options.
...But it was still something he'd done, a marked action that the rest of Coluan society disagreed with. Brainy's silence is due to him wondering if there had ever been any option, however untenable and barbaric, that would've allowed him to be accepted into the fold on his own homeworld.
Rather quickly, he comes to the obvious conclusion: There were none.
"I think I might have preferred your Hivemind, provided they offered the same options, and allowed me to leave Colu unhindered," he says somewhat enigmatically. "It sounds as if there is a grievous flaw in their society if individuality is stifled in such a way, but at least there's an obvious logical progression to their reactions to your desires of having a mind of your own. It seems...like it must have been predictable, if difficult and unfair."
He'd rather have had to deal with machine logic, and escaping it, than people, is what it boils down to.
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When he'd first joined the Legion, he'd thought that his people would try and force his return - in fact it had been a subconscious fear of his for some time - but he'd been surprised to learn later that the Council had been entirely unbothered by his choice to leave. So long as he kept their most secret technologies to himself, then he was free to indulge what they believed to be an unhealthy desire for individuality.
"However I suppose I also owe them a great deal. If I hadn't been allowed the degree of freedom in my research that I was, I wouldn't have know anything different than their society."
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"After all, you're one yourself. It seems... strange that you'd be so against them." It's also off-putting, as if it were possible, he'd happily switch with his counterpart for the chance to experience what it would be like to actually be organic in a way that complicated programs can't mimic.
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"I'm not against them or I wouldn't be a Legionnaire. There is certainly something worth saving and preserving among the sentient life of the universe. I simply mean that my own people are...prone to all the faults all sentients are without realizing their intelligence does not place them above them," he explains, gesturing with his hand, fingers curling, trying to figure out how to explain it.
"Machines are not often cruel, for instance, sentient or not. Callous, perhaps, logical, but not cruel. That's why I'd prefer to have dealt with your HiveMind over the other Coluans, my legal guardians, the Governing Council, the rest of Coluan society..."
He tries to figure out how to word it.
"They were and still are all irrational, despite claiming to hold to logic. You made a choice--a wise one, given your options--that went against the standards of your people. You were forced to make that choice, by the Hivemind limiting your options, but there was still a marked action with a predictable outcome."
Brainy continues. "To this day, I understand their fear, given the infamy of the Brainiac line, I understand their jealousy, but I cannot understand why the Brainiacs are reviled from infancy onward when Colugov itself was responsible for continuing the Brainiac line."
He tilts his head. "I made no choice like you did. Until I was older, and my tendency towards experimentation without safety review alarmed them, I did nothing that went against the standard practices and norms of Coluan society."
It still confuses him.
"I simply existed."
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