EoC...Or A Tale Between Two Cities

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You can't really blame EoC for being the way he is.  He comes from the stretch of inside-out space that rests (in one sense) between Boston and Providence.  He and his people have been warped by the cultural attraction of the two cities...It's kind of like a LaGrange point, where the attraction of the two cities cancels out, and there's no culture or society in effect at all.

This explains a few things about EoC, but not all.  It explains why he has an extra navel.  It explains the extra joint in his fingers and toes (and the odd distribution of those digits).  It explains his mustache.  It even explains his work environment.  It explains why it ALWAYS rains where he lives, and why nobody you meet anywhere else comes from that awful place.

It reminds one of the tap room stories the spacers tell, about how sometimes ships reenter normal space wrong, and wind up in one of those places where nothing looks right, and there's no other species to talk to...Just an empty galaxy that seems like a prop of some kind, a backdrop to a sick joke of an Earth where they actually run around building atomic bombs, while most of their world's population goes hungry.

Of course those stories are just "bilge water".  Every school child knows that the universe is full of intelligent life, and that no country's citizens would ever tolerate being led by suicidal warmongers or thieves...It simply isn't in their interests, and they would just replace that government through sheer force of numbers.  But spacers do tell their tales, and some of them remind me of that place.  Just saying. 

Yes, his location explains damn near everything.

Everything except why he can't park worth a damn, and has an open account with the city of Providence, as witnessed by yours truly.

Or Kill Me.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Ack... I for just a moment had a glimpse of the real universe, and realized that I've been shafted.

[Suu]

You know Roger, you hit this spot on.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Ack... I for just a moment had a glimpse of the real universe, and realized that I've been shafted.

Your universe is defective.

A proper universe would imply that a species that gained enough intelligence to have some sort of sense of self-interest wouldn't care about things like national "pride", race, or even making weapons specifically designed to wipe themselves out entirely.

It would probably also have great big Goddamn lizards stomping around.  Because that would be kind of cool, too.

[LMNO]

If there was ever a case to be made for Quantum Jumping, this would be it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

If there was ever a case to be made for Quantum Jumping, this would be it.

Your other self would kill you in self defense.

And not do a day of jail time, because it's also technically suicide.  Hell, given the self-defense aspect, he could probably collect on his life insurance and retire.

[LMNO]

That might make a cool sci-fi short story.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

You can use my womp of lmno and antilmno for that if you like

[Suu]

If there was ever a case to be made for Quantum Jumping, this would be it.

New Bedford?

[Eater of Clowns]

You might say strange things like physics don't work here.  You might say that oceans don't look like that.  But they do.  It's just the work differently.  The blots we keep getting on our walls aren't from something we've dropped.  They're blood splatters.  Someone got stabbed or shot for some petty reason or another in the city and the ground sieves their blood into our tenements.  See, your cities are all sleepy and subdued, even the lively ones, but New Bedford is awake and it knows it's all wrong.  It knows there's no way it can go from what it once was to what it is now so it sends us little signals.