trans_9 | Adjustment Period [Open]

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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.

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"I was, perhaps ironically, raised by care-bots." Very similar upbringings. "I had very little humanoid contact during my formative years. Generally, my two guardians acted as a liaison between myself and the Council and most of the time, our correspondences were digital, rather than in person."

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."

Very similar indeed. Though while the details might have been the same, the other's attitude to it surprises him.

"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.

"I assume you're referring to the fact that most other Coluans are..."

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.

Edited 2009-06-22 08:46 (UTC)

He stops, blinks once or twice in surprise, then an amused smile tugs at his mouth. "You mean 'Coluan'?"

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.

"Perhaps, but from what you've spoken of so far, your issues with Colu were due to your lack of desire to conform to the standards of your people, correct?" he clarifies.

"Had you conformed, would you have been accepted by Coluan society?"

"Accepted isn't exactly the best term for it. More... integrated. If I had conformed to the Council's wishes, I'd be reprogrammed back to what they deem acceptable."

It's pretty obvious what that would mean for his personality and sense of self.

"You would have suffered a loss of individuality and self."

"Yes. I'm sure you can see why that isn't something I'd consent to." Or for that matter, what anyone would consent to.

"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."

Brainy's just oddly silent on that.

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.

Edited 2009-06-22 10:04 (UTC)

"My people are nothing if not logical," he agrees. "So I suppose there was that. It did allow me a degree of freedom with predicting what steps would be taken against me and coming up with ways to avoid it. If they hadn't been like that, perhaps I wouldn't have had as much success leaving when I did."

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."

"My own people are sentient organics, obviously. Despite decrying themselves as a logical society, they are prone to the same inadequacies all sentient organic lifeforms are--irrationality, prejudices, self-serving choices..."

Brainiac 5 frowns, his eyes locked on his counterpart. "I understand from what you've told me so far that your experiences were somewhat upsetting, but I wouldn't go so far as to decry all sentient organic lifeforms that way.

"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.

"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."

Brainiac 5 frowns. "That doesn't make any sense..."

And yes, he gets that that's the point, but it's a lot to wrap his mind around. Despite how different he is, how much he's changed from the norm of his own people and how much he's learned from his five, nearly six years on Earth, he's still shaped by his upbringing and sometimes completely illogical things like the prejudice his counterpart experienced confuse him.

It's hard enough to imagine a Colu populated by organic Coluans, like this other Brainiac 5, let alone imagining his people acting in a way that isn't dictated by their own logic and programming.

"If the Brainiac line is considered so... problematic and disliked, then the most logical course of action would be to stop from continuing it."

A significant pause.

"But, if that had happened..." He takes a tentative step closer and touches the other's shoulder for maybe only a second or two, but the meaning is there. "Then you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't have the chance to make the name mean something else. Something better."

He actually doesn't shrug away.

"That would be one benefit of irrationality, yes."

There's a pause as he pushes the goggles to the top of his head.

"And perhaps a commonality between us. Though our situations were different, we both moved beyond the ill regard of our species to accomplish what we have in our respective Legions."

"That is true. Perhaps despite our differences, we actually have more in common than either of us initially thought?" he muses, and it's directed as much to himself as it is to his counterpart.

"Though I'm not sure if our achievements are entirely comparable." But Brainy's voice is more teasing than smug this time. He's... venturing a joke? One of them has a ~~small~~ sense of humour?

"Of course not, but with differing conditions, you surely can't be faulted for it."

Maybe both do.

"That's unusual, I had been about to say the same to you."

He smiles briefly, then flicks his eyes to the project the other is working on. "I don't believe I recognise it from the schematics I looked at. What're you working on?"

He's learning, if a little slowly. He didn't just start scanning or poking it on his own, after all.

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Adjustment Period [Open]

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