[network] @hotstud_xxx; audio; Morning 282 [open]

[rubikscomplex]

[It's House's voice that comes through the tablet, but his accent and tone are markedly different. Rather than the harsh and sneering Jersey boy, there's something softer and he has a far more generic American accent with some vaguely French and Arabic inflections.]

Captain's Log, Stardate 197005.3. I've escaped Sinai and crash-landed on a mysterious snow planet. There are monsters here according to the locals. And lots of dead bodies. I must have been captured when I crashed. I was in a body bag--it was pretty creepy, but cool! Maybe they thought I was dead. The Vulcan resurrection hypo must be doing its work... I'm really old for some reason, though. Could be a disguise.

Trying to get in contact with Mo... with Lieutenant Blythe, but dialing her communicator isn't working. Suspect sub-spatial interference from the sinister General John and his entourage.

Anyway, I found a graveyard outside the nearby chapel--What gods could these people worship? The Prime Directive forbids me from interfering, whatever it is, of course. They basically look like Christians, though, which is kind of boring. No. Delete that last sentence, computer. Their god's a giant cross. That's burning with light. It's probably symbolic of something. I'll have to find the nearest library and study up on their history.

But first I'm doing some rubbings on the graves. The visible inscriptions have faded away, but I have some paper and crayons. I don't know what happened to my charcoal... but this works, too. I'll add to this log once I have more. Over and out!

Comments

[rubikscomplex]

[So, what House is getting here is that Enoch is a religious nut who was hired by some cult to track down rogue cultists. That seems relatively cool, even if the guy sounds crazy.]

You didn't seem unfriendly, just kind of crazy. [A pause.] Uh... sorry, sir. I just mean you're right. Those things don't exist where I'm from. [Neither do a lot of the things he's just accepting here, like the girl who isn't human. Fantasy is a lot easier to believe than faith, though. He'll just... take Enoch like he's talking about--

--wait a second.]

Enoch. Your name is Enoch. Like in the Bible? Is that a code name?

[warriorscribe]

[That actually gets a chuckle out of him.] It's something I would hear a lot if I was as open with my mission at home as I am here. All of our collective strangeness is liberating, in a way.

And no, I have had many aliases, but Enoch is my real name. And, assuming any mention of "the Bible" means the same book, it isn't only "like" the one from it. I understand I'm not much more than a curious aside, a man who did not die.

[rubikscomplex]

[...Jesus was probably an actual guy, so it stands to reason some of the people in the book were real, too. He's still highly skeptical.]

Not dying seems like it'd get boring after a while if you're stuck on one planet. There's only so much to see.

[warriorscribe]

It isn't good for everyone. Anyone with the means to become immortal and a choice in the matter I'd advise to consider it carefully, especially if fellow immortals would be in short supply.

But...no, Earth isn't so boring, not to me. It's always changing, and so are the people on it. The other night- [He pauses, makes a sound that might have been the start of another laugh.] - I heard of a supernova that will happen if I only wait, if I live thousands of years more to see it. And while I wait for nature's slower pace, there's the advances mankind will make. By the time I see that supernova, what will I be able to see in it that I wouldn't have before, because of what man has learned of the world?

[rubikscomplex]

[Okay, when you put it that way...]

That does sound pretty cool. How come you don't die? Are you an alien?

[warriorscribe]

It's a blessing. Or "enchantment", if you'd rather a more neutral term. Suffice it to say if God can't find whatever He's looking for immediately, a human will take more than a normal lifetime to do the same. It took me three centuries.

[rubikscomplex]

So, God isn't all-powerful and all-seeing where you're from?

[Because why else would he need some random human to wander the Earth for centuries?]

[warriorscribe]

No, though He is commonly thought to be, by humans and angels alike. His limits simply had never been reached. Or they had never needed testing. I wonder what His attention span must be....

[He trails off thoughtfully, apparently never having examined this, but also not treating it like the mind-bending thing it probably should be to someone so pious.

Then again, his first encounter with an angel in Heaven dismantled all his preconceptions of both angels and Heaven, so it's really no surprise that he treats nothing he thought he knew from before living there as solid fact.]

[rubikscomplex]

Why did he choose you to ask for help?

[Not that he doesn't think you seem all right and all, Enoch, but you just seem like a guy at this point.]

[warriorscribe]

I'm not entirely sure anymore. I was ostensibly invited to Heaven in the first place for my faith, but I was also invited to serve them as a scribe.

The mission itself was my own doing - I volunteered for it - but there are...ah, details, that suggest He is taking the opportunity to further plans of His own. I can't say how deliberate it was, how far He thought ahead. If He was planning on my contribution.

[A complex answer for a kid but House was clearly very intelligent even then.]

[rubikscomplex]

Heaven must be hard up if they're hiring living guys instead of just using any of the guys who are already dead. Or angels. [There's not a whole lot of logic in this that House is seeing.]

Or did they need someone alive?

[warriorscribe]

Yes, precisely: they needed a living, flesh and blood person. The dead have earned their rest, and either way they're more vulnerable to demons than a soul still attached to its body. It couldn't be an angel because an angel wouldn't have been able to volunteer for the mission - they lack free will.

[Yeah, it's weird. Weird enough that Enoch is still unpacking parts of it even here, when it's all over.

...Might it entertain House, though, if it's so bizarre and complex? He'll keep going.]

...I didn't realize the extent of this at first, honestly. I had no idea why I was the only one coming forward.

[rubikscomplex]

How did you find out? Did your god actually tell you or someone else?

[warriorscribe]

I was told by the angels themselves they lack free will - or told it makes humans special. I still didn't understand until I observed it over the years.

That's the only way to learn such outlandish concepts, I think. Life without free will is difficult to imagine, isn't it?

[He says it and the second it's out of his mouth he flinches, remembering just barely too late House lost his free will as a result of a death price once. And how will this sound when he looks back on this conversation when he's back to normal?]

[rubikscomplex]

It depends on what you mean by free will: the ability to do what they want or the ability to think what they want. Controlling what someone thinks seems like it'd be a lot harder than controlling what they do.

[warriorscribe]

[Is the angelic lack of free will a lack of free thought, or...? He takes a second to think over everything because it is but it also isn't.]

That's a clever distinction to make. Their minds are their own, but they are created for a specific purpose, unlike us, and they may not interfere on Earth without permission from God. However...being created fully-formed, with personalities crafted by another rather than built themselves might be considered a means of controlling...well, their thoughts.

[He's starting to feel uneasy, and his voice wavers a little at the end. Maybe he should avoid the topic of thought control.]

[rubikscomplex]

So your angels are basically god's robots? That's actually kind of cool! I mean it probably really sucks for them, but it's an interesting concept. [And a construction of Heaven that House has never heard before.]

Is Lucifer still a thing where you're from, then? Or does he not happen? [How would the whole Garden of Eden nonsense kick off without him?]

[warriorscribe]

He exists, yes. A very dear friend, in fact. His name in the original tongue is Lucifel.

[All that uneasiness? Gone in an instant. Also yes, that is an abomination of a name mashed together from two different languages.]

He's rather different from the stories, of course. He's known as God's own right hand, and is one of the few capable of speaking to Him at any time. There is no Fall - in fact, I've never known an angel more loyal.

[rubikscomplex]

[House's brows furrow in confusion.]

Is your Garden of Eden legend fake, then, too?

[warriorscribe]

[He's about to just repeat his theory to the child like he had to the adult but then he realizes there's an opportunity to entertain him:]

Oh, the Garden was quite real. I believe I've determined why it happened the way it did, but you enjoy puzzles, don't you? Would you like to try deducing it yourself, as I had, or would you rather I simply told you?

[rubikscomplex]

[A game! He likes deduction games.]

Give me the facts you had.

[A pause.]

Please, sir.

[warriorscribe]

Gladly. The version of the story known to humanity likely hasn't changed very much. God created Adam and Eve, told them not to eat from this one particular tree in the very center of the garden - though we're instinctively drawn to things placed in the center of an area - they did at the goading of a serpent, gained knowledge of good and evil, and were cast out.

It's true, but missing pieces we never learned or understood the full extent of.

The pieces I have to add are: According to angels, free will is what sets us apart. We are meant to make our own path. The greatest transgression of the Fallen Angels was not merely abandoning Heaven, but giving humanity that which we should have earned. They understand that our potential is limitless, but do not understand why, or what it truly is to have free will.

[He pauses.]

...It seems more obvious to me, all laid out at once like this, but perhaps that's merely my own bias of perspective. When I learned all of this, I hadn't even thought of Eden in hundreds of years. It took me some time to connect them.

[rubikscomplex]

[House frowns.]

So humans still gained knowledge. It was just someone else who played the snake?

[He's not following why this is very much different from the other story, but House isn't a particularly religious man or child.

[warriorscribe]

It could have been. I've never asked and I doubt I would be permitted to hear the true answer. But I do suspect Lucifel was the snake anyway. He loves fashion, he would have loved the chance to set the very concept in motion.

[By...creating the concept of nudity taboo at the same time. Questionably silly angel factoids aside, he sees what he forgot to mention (and what he just hinted at by saying the snake could have been someone loyal to Heaven)...]

We're mostly correct about what happened, when, where, and with whom - or we're mostly correct to the best of my knowledge. The missing piece I gained insight into is none of these things.

[rubikscomplex]

You learned why, which is the whole free will thing. It seems kind of... not good that God would set up humans to have free will and then throw them out of the Garden when they took it.