Lord Greyscale
Getting out there.
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Very interesting questions.
Hope you keep it up!
Hope you keep it up!
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Look Again (RWBY SI) (NO POWERS)
- Thread starter Emiya Pendragon
- Start date
-
- Tags
- ruby rose rwby si self insert.
Ryven Razgriz
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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- Oct 30, 2016
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The SI is going to inadvertently make up an entire school of thought and spawn a research facility in his name somewhere, somehow. I just know it.
miner045
Getting out there.
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- Nov 21, 2024
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That's definitely someone from Salem's faction. Has to be.
dazzle_dork
Versed in the lewd.
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a few people commenting on it is OK, but everyone would not notice it. Majority of livestream viewers dont actually remember the chats names unless they are like mods, or very active
Raphiel
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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pretty excited for the moon/earth stream. Because most origins of earth give it sacred, holy, or descriptive names like earth and terra and gaia etc
But remnant, despite having no noticeable marker for being a remnant of the gods' creation, is still named that way. I'm sure they'll land on the gods' leaving remnant behind as the theological reason, but I'm curious on what they theorize for the scientific reason
Also, they know about gravity so the moon should realistically form a ball. They can observe the moon so I'm sure they'd notice any gravity dust, and they also note how gravity dust doesn't work the same in higher atmospheres. They can try gravity dust in a vacuum simulated to provide no gravity and see how it behaves and realize the moon still shouldn't remain shattered.
But it seems like no one has gone outside remnant, so they can't know for sure if the laws of physics are the same, even though we know they are. Again, theological reason is the gods doing shenanigans, but I genuinely think they won't be able to find a scientific reason.
BlueCladOne
Actually here for plot, somehow.
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This is extremely entertaining, thank you.
There are a few AI-isms that resulted in some repeated phrases too soon - "that's the most honest ____" was the one that stuck out the hardest.
This doesn't feel like it was all written by AI or anything. And it's still good. It could also be a human habit that lead to the repetition. But if you are using AI for editing/structure, I'd keep a closer eye on it.
There are a few AI-isms that resulted in some repeated phrases too soon - "that's the most honest ____" was the one that stuck out the hardest.
This doesn't feel like it was all written by AI or anything. And it's still good. It could also be a human habit that lead to the repetition. But if you are using AI for editing/structure, I'd keep a closer eye on it.
Charadrius
Getting out there.
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- Dec 16, 2024
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- 354
OK but if creating life and souls is magic then what is childbirth and sex? I suppose it's so common no one sees it as magic. 
Chapter 13: The Moon
New
Emiya Pendragon
The Boundary
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- Mar 9, 2018
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[CCT Network — Livestream: "I did math about the moon and now I can't sleep" — 👁 11,382 viewers]
* * *
(Looking noticeably more tired than usual, a notebook full of scribbles beside him.)
SI: Okay. Moon stream. As promised.
I did something dumb. I went to the public library, pulled the numbers from the Atlas observatory reports, estimated the mass of the moon from the pieces we can see through telescopes, and asked one question: if the moon was whole once, how much energy would it take to break it?
Here's the screen. Check me. Please. I want to be wrong.
* * *
ROUGH NUMBERS (from public observatory data, approximated)
Total mass of all moon fragments ≈ 7.3 × 10²² kg
Radius if it were one whole sphere ≈ 1,740 km
Energy to break a moon apart (gravitational binding energy — the energy needed to pull every piece away from every other piece):
U = (3/5) × G × M² / R
= 0.6 × (6.67 × 10⁻¹¹) × (7.3 × 10²²)² / (1.74 × 10⁶ m)
≈ 1.2 × 10²⁹ joules
For scale: largest dust bomb ever tested anywhere ≈ 2 × 10¹⁷ J, so the moon needs ~600 billion of those. In megatons ≈ 30 trillion megatons. The sun's entire output for about 5 minutes, all aimed at one rock.
If it was an impact: a rock hitting at ~20 km/s would need to be around 6 × 10²⁰ kg, roughly 700+ km across. That's not a meteorite. That's a small planet.
Lower bound: even if it only cracked the moon instead of fully blowing it apart — say 1% of that energy — you still get ~10²⁷ J. Still absurd.
* * *
SI: That is ABSURD. What the hell does that much damage?
A meteorite? Okay, say it was a 700-kilometer rock. Then where's the debris? If even one percent of the moon's mass fell on us, that's about 7 × 10²⁰ kg hitting at orbital speeds. That's around 4 × 10²⁸ joules landing on the planet. The sky would've caught fire. The oceans would've boiled. Every living thing would be gone.
But humanity's still here. We're right here. Streaming.
And the part that's actually keeping me up: the pieces are still clustered. They're just sitting there in a group. Physics says broken chunks that close together should either pull back into one moon over time or spread out into a ring. Neither happened. They're just... hanging there.
What. How. When. Why.
* * *
LIVE CHAT
grimm_bait_420: stream guy did HOMEWORK
ValeCommuter_22: it's the moon
SI: @ValeCommuter_22 I know it's the moon, Vale guy, I need to know WHY IT'S BROKEN
ValeCommuter_22: it's a broken moon
AtlasTechStudent: Okay, checking your math. Binding energy formula is correct for a uniform sphere. Mass and radius are in the right range from the published estimates. Your answer is right to within an order of magnitude.
SI: I was hoping you'd say I was wrong.
AtlasTechStudent: I was hoping so too. You're not.
HunterWannabe_Tom: wait so the sun would need to point AT the moon for FIVE MINUTES
SI: The WHOLE sun. Every direction. All of it. Aimed at one moon.
HunterWannabe_Tom: i hate this
AtlasTechStudent: To be fair, the real moon may never have been fully "blown apart." The pieces are close together. That suggests fracturing, not total dispersal. Your 1% lower bound is probably more realistic.
SI: Which is still a hundred quadrillion megatons.
AtlasTechStudent: Yes.
SI: So "more realistic" is still "impossible."
AtlasTechStudent: ...Yes.
GreatHunterPPort: Young man, I once fell from an airship onto a Deathstalker, and I can tell you that even THAT did not produce such numbers!
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Peter, nobody compared you to the moon.
GreatHunterPPort: I am simply providing SCALE, Bartholomew.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: A historical note, as always. There is no written record of the moon shattering. None. Every surviving account, from the earliest fragments we have, describes it as already broken. Whatever happened, it happened before anyone was writing things down.
SI: Before anyone? Not even carvings? Cave paintings?
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Some very early artwork depicts the moon. It is always shown broken.
SI: So humanity has never, in all of recorded history, seen the moon whole.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Correct.
grimm_bait_420: okay THAT'S creepy
FaunusRights_Now: so either humanity got here after it broke, or we survived it and forgot
SI: And by my math, "survived it" isn't an option. Nothing survives that. So...
MistralMom_Jenna: So we came after. Which means before us... what?
SI: I don't know. That's the question.
DustTrader_Mo: what about the "held together" thing? port said grimm fall apart when nothing holds them together. what if the moon pieces are staying clustered because something IS holding them together?
SI: ...
SI: Okay, I did not have that thought, and now I will never sleep again.
GreatHunterPPort: I COINED "HELD TOGETHER."
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Peter.
AtlasTechStudent: To be clear, there are natural explanations for fragment stability. Gravitational interactions between fragments, orbital resonances, time scales that are longer than we assume. It could take a very long time to reaccrete or spread.
SI: How long?
AtlasTechStudent: ...Depends on initial conditions nobody knows.
SI: So we don't know.
AtlasTechStudent: We don't know.
grimm_bait_420: every stream ends with atlas guy saying "we don't know" and i've grown to love him for it
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Some very old teachings say the moon broke when the Brothers left. That it was the last thing they did.
SI: Okay. That's... actually the only answer anyone's given that fits the numbers. If something could make souls and Grimm and a whole planet, breaking a moon's probably not that hard.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: There's more. Most people don't teach this part anymore. The oldest versions say humanity did end. Once. That the Brothers were angry, and there was a first humanity, and it didn't survive. And that we're what came after.
grimm_bait_420: WHAT
HunterWannabe_Tom: church guy you CANNOT drop that at 11pm
MistralMom_Jenna: I have work in the morning
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: It's not commonly taught. Most modern teachers treat it as allegory.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: It is a minority tradition, poorly attested, and the surviving texts are fragmentary and late. It should not be taken as historical fact.
SI: But professor, it's the only story that matches the math. My numbers say "humanity should be gone." The old story says "humanity was gone." That's not nothing.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Consistency with a hypothesis is not confirmation of it. You know this.
SI: I know. I know. I'm just saying it's weird.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: It is weird. I will grant you weird.
AtlasTechStudent: For the record, an alternative is that the fragmentation was gradual, or tidal, or happened extremely long ago, and the debris fell over millions of years in amounts the planet could absorb. There are natural paths. They just require assumptions we can't check.
SI: That's fair. That's genuinely the best non-god answer anyone's given. It was slow, it was a long time ago, and the planet healed.
AtlasTechStudent: Thank you.
SI: But it still doesn't explain why the pieces are still clustered.
AtlasTechStudent: No. It doesn't.
VacuoVeteran: Here's what gets me. We look at it every night. It's on flags. It's in songs. Kids draw it. And nobody's ever asked what broke it.
SI: That's the Semblance thing again. When it's always been there, nobody asks.
anon_viewer_4471: Your arithmetic is sound. It's rare for someone to check.
grimm_bait_420: OH THEY'RE BACK
FaunusRights_Now: anon's back and only for the MOON
SI: ...hi. We missed you last stream.
anon_viewer_4471: Rocks are less interesting than the sky.
SI: Fair. Do you have a theory? About what broke it?
anon_viewer_4471: I think some questions are asked most safely with numbers, and least safely out loud. Goodnight.
grimm_bait_420: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
HunterWannabe_Tom: anon is being SO weird tonight
SI: ...okay. That was a little ominous. Moving on.
SI: Summary:
The math: Breaking a moon this size takes roughly 10²⁹ joules. Even a partial crack is around 10²⁷. That's trillions of megatons. Minutes of the sun's total output.
The meteor theory: Would need a small planet as the impactor, and the debris should've wiped out all life here. It didn't. Unless it happened so long ago, and so slowly, that the planet recovered. Possible, but unverifiable.
The records: No human has ever recorded seeing the moon whole. Ever.
The clustering: The pieces should have pulled back together or spread into a ring. They didn't. Nobody knows why.
The old stories: Say the Brothers broke it when they left — and some fringe versions say humanity ended before us. Poorly attested. But it's the only story that matches the numbers.
AtlasTechStudent: You labeled the myth correctly. I'll allow it.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Careful, well-bounded, and you gave the natural hypothesis a fair hearing. A-minus.
SI: A-MINUS?? PROFESSOR, THAT'S MY FIRST A!
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: You did arithmetic. I reward arithmetic.
GreatHunterPPort: And he credited me for "held together"!
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Nobody credited you, Peter.
ValeCommuter_22: it's the moon
SI: It's the moon, Vale guy. It's the moon, and it's broken, and I have no idea why. Goodnight, everyone.
[STREAM ENDED — Peak viewers: 14,760]
* * *
(Looking noticeably more tired than usual, a notebook full of scribbles beside him.)
SI: Okay. Moon stream. As promised.
I did something dumb. I went to the public library, pulled the numbers from the Atlas observatory reports, estimated the mass of the moon from the pieces we can see through telescopes, and asked one question: if the moon was whole once, how much energy would it take to break it?
Here's the screen. Check me. Please. I want to be wrong.
* * *
ROUGH NUMBERS (from public observatory data, approximated)
Total mass of all moon fragments ≈ 7.3 × 10²² kg
Radius if it were one whole sphere ≈ 1,740 km
Energy to break a moon apart (gravitational binding energy — the energy needed to pull every piece away from every other piece):
U = (3/5) × G × M² / R
= 0.6 × (6.67 × 10⁻¹¹) × (7.3 × 10²²)² / (1.74 × 10⁶ m)
≈ 1.2 × 10²⁹ joules
For scale: largest dust bomb ever tested anywhere ≈ 2 × 10¹⁷ J, so the moon needs ~600 billion of those. In megatons ≈ 30 trillion megatons. The sun's entire output for about 5 minutes, all aimed at one rock.
If it was an impact: a rock hitting at ~20 km/s would need to be around 6 × 10²⁰ kg, roughly 700+ km across. That's not a meteorite. That's a small planet.
Lower bound: even if it only cracked the moon instead of fully blowing it apart — say 1% of that energy — you still get ~10²⁷ J. Still absurd.
* * *
SI: That is ABSURD. What the hell does that much damage?
A meteorite? Okay, say it was a 700-kilometer rock. Then where's the debris? If even one percent of the moon's mass fell on us, that's about 7 × 10²⁰ kg hitting at orbital speeds. That's around 4 × 10²⁸ joules landing on the planet. The sky would've caught fire. The oceans would've boiled. Every living thing would be gone.
But humanity's still here. We're right here. Streaming.
And the part that's actually keeping me up: the pieces are still clustered. They're just sitting there in a group. Physics says broken chunks that close together should either pull back into one moon over time or spread out into a ring. Neither happened. They're just... hanging there.
What. How. When. Why.
* * *
LIVE CHAT
grimm_bait_420: stream guy did HOMEWORK
ValeCommuter_22: it's the moon
SI: @ValeCommuter_22 I know it's the moon, Vale guy, I need to know WHY IT'S BROKEN
ValeCommuter_22: it's a broken moon
AtlasTechStudent: Okay, checking your math. Binding energy formula is correct for a uniform sphere. Mass and radius are in the right range from the published estimates. Your answer is right to within an order of magnitude.
SI: I was hoping you'd say I was wrong.
AtlasTechStudent: I was hoping so too. You're not.
HunterWannabe_Tom: wait so the sun would need to point AT the moon for FIVE MINUTES
SI: The WHOLE sun. Every direction. All of it. Aimed at one moon.
HunterWannabe_Tom: i hate this
AtlasTechStudent: To be fair, the real moon may never have been fully "blown apart." The pieces are close together. That suggests fracturing, not total dispersal. Your 1% lower bound is probably more realistic.
SI: Which is still a hundred quadrillion megatons.
AtlasTechStudent: Yes.
SI: So "more realistic" is still "impossible."
AtlasTechStudent: ...Yes.
GreatHunterPPort: Young man, I once fell from an airship onto a Deathstalker, and I can tell you that even THAT did not produce such numbers!
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Peter, nobody compared you to the moon.
GreatHunterPPort: I am simply providing SCALE, Bartholomew.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: A historical note, as always. There is no written record of the moon shattering. None. Every surviving account, from the earliest fragments we have, describes it as already broken. Whatever happened, it happened before anyone was writing things down.
SI: Before anyone? Not even carvings? Cave paintings?
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Some very early artwork depicts the moon. It is always shown broken.
SI: So humanity has never, in all of recorded history, seen the moon whole.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Correct.
grimm_bait_420: okay THAT'S creepy
FaunusRights_Now: so either humanity got here after it broke, or we survived it and forgot
SI: And by my math, "survived it" isn't an option. Nothing survives that. So...
MistralMom_Jenna: So we came after. Which means before us... what?
SI: I don't know. That's the question.
DustTrader_Mo: what about the "held together" thing? port said grimm fall apart when nothing holds them together. what if the moon pieces are staying clustered because something IS holding them together?
SI: ...
SI: Okay, I did not have that thought, and now I will never sleep again.
GreatHunterPPort: I COINED "HELD TOGETHER."
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Peter.
AtlasTechStudent: To be clear, there are natural explanations for fragment stability. Gravitational interactions between fragments, orbital resonances, time scales that are longer than we assume. It could take a very long time to reaccrete or spread.
SI: How long?
AtlasTechStudent: ...Depends on initial conditions nobody knows.
SI: So we don't know.
AtlasTechStudent: We don't know.
grimm_bait_420: every stream ends with atlas guy saying "we don't know" and i've grown to love him for it
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Some very old teachings say the moon broke when the Brothers left. That it was the last thing they did.
SI: Okay. That's... actually the only answer anyone's given that fits the numbers. If something could make souls and Grimm and a whole planet, breaking a moon's probably not that hard.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: There's more. Most people don't teach this part anymore. The oldest versions say humanity did end. Once. That the Brothers were angry, and there was a first humanity, and it didn't survive. And that we're what came after.
grimm_bait_420: WHAT
HunterWannabe_Tom: church guy you CANNOT drop that at 11pm
MistralMom_Jenna: I have work in the morning
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: It's not commonly taught. Most modern teachers treat it as allegory.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: It is a minority tradition, poorly attested, and the surviving texts are fragmentary and late. It should not be taken as historical fact.
SI: But professor, it's the only story that matches the math. My numbers say "humanity should be gone." The old story says "humanity was gone." That's not nothing.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Consistency with a hypothesis is not confirmation of it. You know this.
SI: I know. I know. I'm just saying it's weird.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: It is weird. I will grant you weird.
AtlasTechStudent: For the record, an alternative is that the fragmentation was gradual, or tidal, or happened extremely long ago, and the debris fell over millions of years in amounts the planet could absorb. There are natural paths. They just require assumptions we can't check.
SI: That's fair. That's genuinely the best non-god answer anyone's given. It was slow, it was a long time ago, and the planet healed.
AtlasTechStudent: Thank you.
SI: But it still doesn't explain why the pieces are still clustered.
AtlasTechStudent: No. It doesn't.
VacuoVeteran: Here's what gets me. We look at it every night. It's on flags. It's in songs. Kids draw it. And nobody's ever asked what broke it.
SI: That's the Semblance thing again. When it's always been there, nobody asks.
anon_viewer_4471: Your arithmetic is sound. It's rare for someone to check.
grimm_bait_420: OH THEY'RE BACK
FaunusRights_Now: anon's back and only for the MOON
SI: ...hi. We missed you last stream.
anon_viewer_4471: Rocks are less interesting than the sky.
SI: Fair. Do you have a theory? About what broke it?
anon_viewer_4471: I think some questions are asked most safely with numbers, and least safely out loud. Goodnight.
grimm_bait_420: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
HunterWannabe_Tom: anon is being SO weird tonight
SI: ...okay. That was a little ominous. Moving on.
SI: Summary:
The math: Breaking a moon this size takes roughly 10²⁹ joules. Even a partial crack is around 10²⁷. That's trillions of megatons. Minutes of the sun's total output.
The meteor theory: Would need a small planet as the impactor, and the debris should've wiped out all life here. It didn't. Unless it happened so long ago, and so slowly, that the planet recovered. Possible, but unverifiable.
The records: No human has ever recorded seeing the moon whole. Ever.
The clustering: The pieces should have pulled back together or spread into a ring. They didn't. Nobody knows why.
The old stories: Say the Brothers broke it when they left — and some fringe versions say humanity ended before us. Poorly attested. But it's the only story that matches the numbers.
AtlasTechStudent: You labeled the myth correctly. I'll allow it.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Careful, well-bounded, and you gave the natural hypothesis a fair hearing. A-minus.
SI: A-MINUS?? PROFESSOR, THAT'S MY FIRST A!
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: You did arithmetic. I reward arithmetic.
GreatHunterPPort: And he credited me for "held together"!
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Nobody credited you, Peter.
ValeCommuter_22: it's the moon
SI: It's the moon, Vale guy. It's the moon, and it's broken, and I have no idea why. Goodnight, everyone.
[STREAM ENDED — Peak viewers: 14,760]
Chapter 14: The Assumption
New
Emiya Pendragon
The Boundary
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2018
- Messages
- 1,317
- Likes received
- 45,297
Beacon Academy — Lecture Hall 3B, History of Remnant, 8:47 AM
Thirteen minutes early. Every seat was full. Students were sitting on the steps. Someone from a third-year Atlas exchange team was standing in the back with a notebook.
Doctor Oobleck stopped in the doorway and simply stared.
"I want it noted," he said, "that when I taught the Faunus Rights Revolution, I had four empty rows."
"The moon, Doc!" Yang called. "You gave him an A-minus!"
"He did arithmetic, Miss Xiao Long."
"You've never given me an A-minus."
"You have never done arithmetic."
* * *
He didn't show the stream right away. Instead, he walked to the board and wrote the streamer's equation in large, precise chalk strokes.
U = (3/5) × G × M² / R
"Before we watch anything," he said, "someone is going to check this. Personally. In front of the class. Because a historian who accepts a number without checking it is not a historian." He turned. "Miss Schnee."
Weiss blinked. "Me?"
"You are the only person in this room I have seen voluntarily do mathematics."
She rose, took the chalk, and began working through it on the board. The room watched in silence as she squared the mass, multiplied, divided, and muttered under her breath about exponents.
"...one point two times ten to the twenty-ninth," she said finally. She stepped back and stared at it. "He's right."
"What's that in, like, normal words?" Jaune asked.
"In normal words," Weiss said slowly, "if you took every bomb ever built by every kingdom and set them all off at once, you wouldn't even scratch it. Not even close."
"BOOM," Nora whispered reverently.
"Much bigger than boom, Nora."
"BOOOOOM."
"Closer," Ren conceded.
* * *
The stream played.
When the streamer showed the comparison to the sun, a collective noise of horror went through the room.
"The whole sun," Ruby breathed. "For five minutes."
"All aimed at one rock," Yang said. "Yeah, I'm not sleeping tonight either."
When he pointed out that the debris should have wiped out all life on Remnant, the room went quiet. When the Atlas student confirmed his math, it went quieter.
When HistoryIsNotBoring_BO stated there was no record, anywhere, of the moon ever being whole, several students turned to look at Oobleck.
"Is that true?" Velvet asked from the back. "Nobody's ever drawn it whole?"
"It is true," Oobleck said. "I have spent a great deal of my career looking. Every depiction, from the oldest fragments we have, shows it broken." He paused. "I have always found that strange. I simply never had anyone to say so to."
* * *
Then came the church viewer's message. The oldest versions say humanity did end. Once.
The room went completely still.
Ruby's hand drifted to her sister's sleeve. Blake's ears flattened beneath her bow. Even Cardin, slouching in the back, sat up.
"That's..." Jaune started, and then didn't finish.
Pyrrha, near the front, had gone very pale.
Oobleck paused the video.
"I want to be very clear about this," he said, and for once, he wasn't moving at all. "That tradition exists. It is real, in the sense that some very old texts mention it. It is also a minority tradition, found in only a handful of fragmentary sources, most of them written long after whatever they claim to describe. Most scholars treat it as allegory. A story about loss and renewal, not a historical record." He looked around the room. "I said as much in the chat. I stand by it."
"But it matches the math," Ren said quietly.
"It is consistent with the math, Mister Lie. So is the Atlas student's slow-fragmentation hypothesis. So, I imagine, are several explanations none of us have thought of yet." He took a slow sip of coffee. "When two explanations fit the evidence, and one requires gods and the end of the world, and the other requires only time... a scholar prefers time. Until time stops fitting."
"And if it stops fitting?" Blake asked.
Oobleck held her gaze for a moment.
"Then we will have a very interesting lecture," he said, and pressed play.
* * *
When the chat noted that the moon's pieces were still clustered, and DustTrader_Mo asked whether something was holding them together, the room groaned.
"I hate that," Yang said.
"Professor Port's going to be unbearable," Cardin muttered. "He's going to say he coined it again."
"He did not coin it," Oobleck said.
"He's going to say he did."
"That, Mister Winchester, is a certainty."
* * *
Then anon_viewer_4471 reappeared.
Blake leaned forward so fast her chair creaked.
"I think some questions are asked most safely with numbers, and least safely out loud. Goodnight."
The video played through to the end, but nobody was really watching the summary. When the stream ended on its record viewer count, Oobleck clicked off the projector and the room stayed silent.
"Discuss," he said.
Blake's hand was already up.
"Miss Belladonna."
"That anonymous viewer," she said. "They skipped the Dust stream. Came back for the moon. And then said that." She shook her head. "'Asked most safely with numbers, least safely out loud.' That isn't a theory. That's a warning."
"Or someone being dramatic online," Yang offered. "The internet's full of weirdos who like sounding mysterious."
"Maybe," Blake said. "But every other time, they asked him something personal. Where he grew up. Why he thinks about lost knowledge. And this time, they just... told him to be careful." Her voice dropped. "Why would anyone need to be careful asking about the moon?"
Nobody answered.
Oobleck set his thermos down very deliberately.
"Miss Belladonna raises a fair observation," he said. "I would caution everyone against building a story out of a handful of messages from a stranger. That is how rumors are born." A pause. "But I would also say this. Mister Streamer is asking questions in public, to an audience of fifteen thousand people. Most of whom are kind. Some of whom may not be. That is true of anyone who speaks loudly in any age." He looked around the room. "It is always wise to notice who is listening."
* * *
"I have a different question," Ruby said, a little hesitantly.
"Miss Rose."
"If nobody's ever seen the moon whole... and nobody remembers what broke it... then how do we know it was ever whole at all?"
The room turned to look at her.
"...Huh," Weiss said.
"Like," Ruby continued, "what if it just formed like that? Or what if it's not a broken moon, it's just... a moon that looks broken?"
"The physics wouldn't support that," Weiss said slowly. "Fragments that close together should either merge or disperse. The Atlas student said so." She frowned. "Though he also said nobody knows the time scale."
"So Ruby's idea is..."
"...not disproven," Weiss admitted. "Technically."
"That," Oobleck said, "is an excellent question, Miss Rose. The streamer assumed the moon was once whole. So did the chat. So did I. Every one of us built our reasoning on that assumption without examining it." He zipped to the board and wrote beneath the equation: ASSUMPTION: the moon was once whole. "Always check your foundation. Miss Rose, you have just done what an entire livestream and a professor failed to do."
Ruby turned bright red. Yang ruffled her hair.
* * *
"I want to talk about the fringe thing," Jaune said. "The first humanity. Even if it's allegory." He paused. "Why would anyone write that story? Like, what's it for?"
"A good question, Mister Arc. What do you think?"
Jaune thought about it. "Maybe... to remind people that it could happen? That we're not guaranteed to last?"
"Or to explain loss," Ren said. "Every culture has stories about a world before this one. A golden age, or a flood, or a fall. It helps people understand why things are the way they are."
"Or," Pyrrha said quietly, "because someone remembered something, and the only way to pass it on was as a story."
The room turned to her. She was looking down at her hands.
"That's the least comfortable version," Yang said.
"Yes," Pyrrha said. "I know."
Oobleck watched her for a moment, something thoughtful in his expression. Then he moved on.
* * *
"No assignment," he announced. "Instead, one question to take with you. The same as before, but sharper."
He wrote on the board:
What would it take to prove the moon was once whole?
"Not what broke it," he said. "That comes later. First, the foundation. What evidence would you need? Where would you look? What would you measure?" He capped his chalk. "Discuss it with your teams. We'll return to it next week. Dismissed."
* * *
The students filed out in a low buzz of conversation, quieter than usual. Nobody was shouting about lightning wizards or Grimm factories today.
"I'm going to look at it tonight," Ruby said on the way out. "The moon. Really look at it."
"We look at it every night," Yang said.
"No, I mean really look."
Weiss was still staring at the equation on the board. "I want to redo his math with a non-uniform density model," she murmured. "Moons aren't uniform. It'll change the number."
"Up or down?" Blake asked.
"Probably down. Not by enough to matter." Weiss sighed. "It'll still be absurd."
Blake glanced back at the empty projector screen. "I want to know who anon is."
"You and the entire internet," Yang said.
* * *
When the hall was empty, Oobleck sat down heavily at his desk and looked at the two lines on the board.
ASSUMPTION: the moon was once whole.
What would it take to prove the moon was once whole?
A soft knock sounded at the door.
He looked up. Headmaster Ozpin stood in the doorway, cane in one hand, mug in the other, with his usual mild expression.
"Bartholomew. I hear your lectures have become rather popular."
Oobleck stood quickly. "Headmaster. Yes. Well. The students have taken an interest in a... particular series of public broadcasts. Purely as a teaching tool. Critical thinking. Source evaluation. I assure you, I've been extremely careful to frame everything as—"
"I'm not here to reprimand you," Ozpin said gently. "Curiosity is the reason this academy exists." He glanced at the equation on the board, and then at the question beneath it. His gaze lingered a moment on the words once whole. "It's a good question."
"Thank you, sir."
"I did want to say," Ozpin continued, in the same mild tone, "that you were quite right, in the chat, to steer the young man toward 'forgot' rather than 'erased.' And to call the older traditions what they are. Fragmentary. Unreliable." He took a sip from his mug. "It's always wise, in a public forum, to prefer the boring explanation."
Oobleck studied him for a moment. "Of course, Headmaster."
"Good." Ozpin smiled faintly. "Carry on, Bartholomew. And do give my regards to Peter. I understand he coined 'held together.'"
"He did not—"
But Ozpin was already gone, the soft tap of his cane fading down the hall.
Oobleck stood alone in the empty lecture hall for a long moment, looking at the doorway.
Then he turned back to the board, and, after some hesitation, wrote a third line beneath the other two. Smaller. For no one but himself.
Why does everyone keep telling me to prefer the boring explanation?
He looked at it for a while. Then he erased it, picked up his thermos, and went to find Peter.
Thirteen minutes early. Every seat was full. Students were sitting on the steps. Someone from a third-year Atlas exchange team was standing in the back with a notebook.
Doctor Oobleck stopped in the doorway and simply stared.
"I want it noted," he said, "that when I taught the Faunus Rights Revolution, I had four empty rows."
"The moon, Doc!" Yang called. "You gave him an A-minus!"
"He did arithmetic, Miss Xiao Long."
"You've never given me an A-minus."
"You have never done arithmetic."
* * *
He didn't show the stream right away. Instead, he walked to the board and wrote the streamer's equation in large, precise chalk strokes.
U = (3/5) × G × M² / R
"Before we watch anything," he said, "someone is going to check this. Personally. In front of the class. Because a historian who accepts a number without checking it is not a historian." He turned. "Miss Schnee."
Weiss blinked. "Me?"
"You are the only person in this room I have seen voluntarily do mathematics."
She rose, took the chalk, and began working through it on the board. The room watched in silence as she squared the mass, multiplied, divided, and muttered under her breath about exponents.
"...one point two times ten to the twenty-ninth," she said finally. She stepped back and stared at it. "He's right."
"What's that in, like, normal words?" Jaune asked.
"In normal words," Weiss said slowly, "if you took every bomb ever built by every kingdom and set them all off at once, you wouldn't even scratch it. Not even close."
"BOOM," Nora whispered reverently.
"Much bigger than boom, Nora."
"BOOOOOM."
"Closer," Ren conceded.
* * *
The stream played.
When the streamer showed the comparison to the sun, a collective noise of horror went through the room.
"The whole sun," Ruby breathed. "For five minutes."
"All aimed at one rock," Yang said. "Yeah, I'm not sleeping tonight either."
When he pointed out that the debris should have wiped out all life on Remnant, the room went quiet. When the Atlas student confirmed his math, it went quieter.
When HistoryIsNotBoring_BO stated there was no record, anywhere, of the moon ever being whole, several students turned to look at Oobleck.
"Is that true?" Velvet asked from the back. "Nobody's ever drawn it whole?"
"It is true," Oobleck said. "I have spent a great deal of my career looking. Every depiction, from the oldest fragments we have, shows it broken." He paused. "I have always found that strange. I simply never had anyone to say so to."
* * *
Then came the church viewer's message. The oldest versions say humanity did end. Once.
The room went completely still.
Ruby's hand drifted to her sister's sleeve. Blake's ears flattened beneath her bow. Even Cardin, slouching in the back, sat up.
"That's..." Jaune started, and then didn't finish.
Pyrrha, near the front, had gone very pale.
Oobleck paused the video.
"I want to be very clear about this," he said, and for once, he wasn't moving at all. "That tradition exists. It is real, in the sense that some very old texts mention it. It is also a minority tradition, found in only a handful of fragmentary sources, most of them written long after whatever they claim to describe. Most scholars treat it as allegory. A story about loss and renewal, not a historical record." He looked around the room. "I said as much in the chat. I stand by it."
"But it matches the math," Ren said quietly.
"It is consistent with the math, Mister Lie. So is the Atlas student's slow-fragmentation hypothesis. So, I imagine, are several explanations none of us have thought of yet." He took a slow sip of coffee. "When two explanations fit the evidence, and one requires gods and the end of the world, and the other requires only time... a scholar prefers time. Until time stops fitting."
"And if it stops fitting?" Blake asked.
Oobleck held her gaze for a moment.
"Then we will have a very interesting lecture," he said, and pressed play.
* * *
When the chat noted that the moon's pieces were still clustered, and DustTrader_Mo asked whether something was holding them together, the room groaned.
"I hate that," Yang said.
"Professor Port's going to be unbearable," Cardin muttered. "He's going to say he coined it again."
"He did not coin it," Oobleck said.
"He's going to say he did."
"That, Mister Winchester, is a certainty."
* * *
Then anon_viewer_4471 reappeared.
Blake leaned forward so fast her chair creaked.
"I think some questions are asked most safely with numbers, and least safely out loud. Goodnight."
The video played through to the end, but nobody was really watching the summary. When the stream ended on its record viewer count, Oobleck clicked off the projector and the room stayed silent.
"Discuss," he said.
Blake's hand was already up.
"Miss Belladonna."
"That anonymous viewer," she said. "They skipped the Dust stream. Came back for the moon. And then said that." She shook her head. "'Asked most safely with numbers, least safely out loud.' That isn't a theory. That's a warning."
"Or someone being dramatic online," Yang offered. "The internet's full of weirdos who like sounding mysterious."
"Maybe," Blake said. "But every other time, they asked him something personal. Where he grew up. Why he thinks about lost knowledge. And this time, they just... told him to be careful." Her voice dropped. "Why would anyone need to be careful asking about the moon?"
Nobody answered.
Oobleck set his thermos down very deliberately.
"Miss Belladonna raises a fair observation," he said. "I would caution everyone against building a story out of a handful of messages from a stranger. That is how rumors are born." A pause. "But I would also say this. Mister Streamer is asking questions in public, to an audience of fifteen thousand people. Most of whom are kind. Some of whom may not be. That is true of anyone who speaks loudly in any age." He looked around the room. "It is always wise to notice who is listening."
* * *
"I have a different question," Ruby said, a little hesitantly.
"Miss Rose."
"If nobody's ever seen the moon whole... and nobody remembers what broke it... then how do we know it was ever whole at all?"
The room turned to look at her.
"...Huh," Weiss said.
"Like," Ruby continued, "what if it just formed like that? Or what if it's not a broken moon, it's just... a moon that looks broken?"
"The physics wouldn't support that," Weiss said slowly. "Fragments that close together should either merge or disperse. The Atlas student said so." She frowned. "Though he also said nobody knows the time scale."
"So Ruby's idea is..."
"...not disproven," Weiss admitted. "Technically."
"That," Oobleck said, "is an excellent question, Miss Rose. The streamer assumed the moon was once whole. So did the chat. So did I. Every one of us built our reasoning on that assumption without examining it." He zipped to the board and wrote beneath the equation: ASSUMPTION: the moon was once whole. "Always check your foundation. Miss Rose, you have just done what an entire livestream and a professor failed to do."
Ruby turned bright red. Yang ruffled her hair.
* * *
"I want to talk about the fringe thing," Jaune said. "The first humanity. Even if it's allegory." He paused. "Why would anyone write that story? Like, what's it for?"
"A good question, Mister Arc. What do you think?"
Jaune thought about it. "Maybe... to remind people that it could happen? That we're not guaranteed to last?"
"Or to explain loss," Ren said. "Every culture has stories about a world before this one. A golden age, or a flood, or a fall. It helps people understand why things are the way they are."
"Or," Pyrrha said quietly, "because someone remembered something, and the only way to pass it on was as a story."
The room turned to her. She was looking down at her hands.
"That's the least comfortable version," Yang said.
"Yes," Pyrrha said. "I know."
Oobleck watched her for a moment, something thoughtful in his expression. Then he moved on.
* * *
"No assignment," he announced. "Instead, one question to take with you. The same as before, but sharper."
He wrote on the board:
What would it take to prove the moon was once whole?
"Not what broke it," he said. "That comes later. First, the foundation. What evidence would you need? Where would you look? What would you measure?" He capped his chalk. "Discuss it with your teams. We'll return to it next week. Dismissed."
* * *
The students filed out in a low buzz of conversation, quieter than usual. Nobody was shouting about lightning wizards or Grimm factories today.
"I'm going to look at it tonight," Ruby said on the way out. "The moon. Really look at it."
"We look at it every night," Yang said.
"No, I mean really look."
Weiss was still staring at the equation on the board. "I want to redo his math with a non-uniform density model," she murmured. "Moons aren't uniform. It'll change the number."
"Up or down?" Blake asked.
"Probably down. Not by enough to matter." Weiss sighed. "It'll still be absurd."
Blake glanced back at the empty projector screen. "I want to know who anon is."
"You and the entire internet," Yang said.
* * *
When the hall was empty, Oobleck sat down heavily at his desk and looked at the two lines on the board.
ASSUMPTION: the moon was once whole.
What would it take to prove the moon was once whole?
A soft knock sounded at the door.
He looked up. Headmaster Ozpin stood in the doorway, cane in one hand, mug in the other, with his usual mild expression.
"Bartholomew. I hear your lectures have become rather popular."
Oobleck stood quickly. "Headmaster. Yes. Well. The students have taken an interest in a... particular series of public broadcasts. Purely as a teaching tool. Critical thinking. Source evaluation. I assure you, I've been extremely careful to frame everything as—"
"I'm not here to reprimand you," Ozpin said gently. "Curiosity is the reason this academy exists." He glanced at the equation on the board, and then at the question beneath it. His gaze lingered a moment on the words once whole. "It's a good question."
"Thank you, sir."
"I did want to say," Ozpin continued, in the same mild tone, "that you were quite right, in the chat, to steer the young man toward 'forgot' rather than 'erased.' And to call the older traditions what they are. Fragmentary. Unreliable." He took a sip from his mug. "It's always wise, in a public forum, to prefer the boring explanation."
Oobleck studied him for a moment. "Of course, Headmaster."
"Good." Ozpin smiled faintly. "Carry on, Bartholomew. And do give my regards to Peter. I understand he coined 'held together.'"
"He did not—"
But Ozpin was already gone, the soft tap of his cane fading down the hall.
Oobleck stood alone in the empty lecture hall for a long moment, looking at the doorway.
Then he turned back to the board, and, after some hesitation, wrote a third line beneath the other two. Smaller. For no one but himself.
Why does everyone keep telling me to prefer the boring explanation?
He looked at it for a while. Then he erased it, picked up his thermos, and went to find Peter.
dazzle_dork
Versed in the lewd.
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Damn, that's a good quote by possibly Salem.
Can I say something, I find it weird that no other men could make Salem fall in love again after Ozma in all the years she has been alive. Like the only times she fell in love is with Ozma. I do not believe she never tried, when you make this much complex plan to kys. She probably tried once or twice to move on, No?
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VovaKostyuk
Know what you're doing yet?
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- 1,575
Maybe being half grim is something to do with her inability to form new attachments or whateverDamn, that's a good quote by possibly Salem.
Can I say something, I find it weird that no other men could make Salem fall in love again after Ozma in all the years she has been alive. Like the only times she fell in love is with Ozma. I do not believe she never tried, when you make this much complex plan to kys. She probably tried once or twice to move on, No?
Bastilosaur
Verified Honkai Enjoyer.
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- 2,987
Don't think they've ever been shown to be, at least. The circle was smol.
SpyShadow13
Getting sticky.
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- 526
One possible explanation I have seen is that Salem doesn't actually see the second humanity, including faunus, as 'real people' due to being made without magic. To her, they're all somewhere between animals, images in a photo/mirror, and dolls. She sees them as either intrinsically lesser or just alien enough to not be truly attractive.Damn, that's a good quote by possibly Salem.
Can I say something, I find it weird that no other men could make Salem fall in love again after Ozma in all the years she has been alive. Like the only times she fell in love is with Ozma. I do not believe she never tried, when you make this much complex plan to kys. She probably tried once or twice to move on, No?
There is also the possibility that she doesn't interact with anyone that she would be attracted to, either because of her inhumanity or plans, to develop into romance.
Spooky_Scribe
Getting some practice in, huh?
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Honestly, this feels like what was likely the closest thing to canon. She never really saw modern humanity positively, iirc, so she has no reason to form any connection outside of useful tools.
As for my theory on why the moon broke? Well, I think that someone, long ago, had an announcement to make.
Moon_Shroom
Experienced.
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Man you are KILLING IT with this story! I just love how you have created this subtle air of tension and unease amongst the core and supporting cast by having them realize that the things they took for being normal are very much not, and that the further they question things, the more unsettling they become.
Chapter 15: The Gardeners Left
New
Emiya Pendragon
The Boundary
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[CCT Network — Livestream: "Moon follow-up + a question for church guy" — 👁 16,904 viewers]
* * *
SI: Okay. First, homework. Apparently a certain professor's class got the question "What would it take to prove the moon was once whole?" and someone sent it to me.
Honestly? I think the answer's pretty obvious. Every other big body we can see through a telescope is whole. Round. Normal. Only our moon is sitting there in pieces. If one out of everything is shattered, the simplest explanation isn't "it formed that way." It's "something happened to it." It was obviously once whole.
AtlasTechStudent: I'll add one thing, since you're half right. The strongest evidence isn't that everything else is whole. It's the fragments themselves. Observatory imaging shows several large pieces with fracture surfaces that roughly match each other. Like a broken plate. Things that formed separately don't have matching edges.
SI: Oh, that's WAY better than my answer. Broken plate. Yeah. That's the proof.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Matching fracture surfaces would be strong evidence. I'll accept that as a sufficient answer to the question. Thank you both. My class will be pleased.
grimm_bait_420: the professor outsourced his homework to the chat lmao
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: I crowdsourced a peer review.
* * *
SI: Okay. Now tonight's real question. And this one's not science. This is purely mythology, and it's for church guy specifically.
Last stream, you said the oldest versions of the story say humanity ended once. The Brothers got angry, the first humanity didn't survive, the Brothers left, and we're what came after.
So... who made us? If the Brothers were gone, they weren't around for the second humanity. So what created the new one?
* * *
LIVE CHAT
grimm_bait_420: oh he's going straight for the theology
ValeCommuter_22: people made people
SI: @ValeCommuter_22 I mean, yes, eventually. But who made the FIRST ones of the second batch?
ValeCommuter_22: people
SI: ...you're consistent, I'll give you that.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: It's a good question. It's one of the oldest questions in the tradition, actually. And there isn't one answer. There are several, depending on which texts you follow. I'll give you the main ones.
SI: Please. Floor's yours.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: First version, and the most common among people who believe the story literally: the Brothers made the second humanity before they left. They ended the first, regretted it or saw that the world needed people, and planted a new beginning. Then they departed. We grew from what they left.
SI: Okay, so they made us on the way out the door.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: In that reading, yes. A last act.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Second version: the world made us. The Brothers had already shaped the land, the water, the living things. Some teachers say that once life has been woven into a world, the world keeps making it. Humanity grew back out of the earth the way a forest grows back after a fire.
SI: WAIT. That's the sap thing. From the Dust stream. The planet making things on its own.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Yes. I thought of that when you said it. It's an old idea. The world as a garden that keeps growing after the gardeners leave.
VacuoVeteran: that's a comforting version honestly
MistralMom_Jenna: I like that one. I'll take that one.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Third version, less popular: humanity didn't fully end. A few survived, hidden, and everything after came from them. Most teachers reject this because the texts say ended, not nearly ended.
SI: That would contradict my moon math, too. If the moon broke when they left and it's anywhere near what I calculated, nobody hides from that.
AtlasTechStudent: Unless the moon didn't break at the same time. The myth links them, but there's no evidence they happened together.
SI: Oh. Good point. The myth might have mashed two separate events together.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: That is extremely common in oral traditions. Events centuries apart become a single story. A very good observation.
AtlasTechStudent: Thank you. I've been waiting weeks for the professor to say that to me.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Fourth version. This one is rare, and I'm only mentioning it because you asked for all of them. Some fragments suggest the Brothers didn't leave the world completely empty. That something of theirs stayed behind. Gifts, or power, or a piece of their will. And that the second humanity came from that, or was guided by it.
grimm_bait_420: okay that one's creepy
SI: Something of theirs stayed behind... like Tier Two. Leftover creation. Dust, Grimm material, the soul itself.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: That's one way to read it. The texts are very vague. Most teachers don't take it seriously.
FaunusRights_Now: question for church guy. do any of the versions talk about Faunus? like, were Faunus part of the second humanity? or separate?
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Honestly? The oldest texts don't distinguish. They say "people." Later texts added a lot of ugly ideas about Faunus being "made differently." Scholars now mostly agree those were added much later, during periods of conflict.
FaunusRights_Now: so the original story just says "people." both of us.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Yes. As far as I've ever read. Everything else was added.
FaunusRights_Now: ...thank you. genuinely.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: I can confirm this from the historical side. The division appears in texts from the pre-war period. It is not original.
SI: Honestly, that might be the most important thing anyone's said on any of these streams.
GreatHunterPPort: I would like to contribute my own theory! Humanity was made by BRAVERY! We simply refused to not exist!
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Peter, that is not a theory.
GreatHunterPPort: It is a MOOD, Bartholomew.
grimm_bait_420: port's theory is actually the most hopeful one lmao
SI: Okay. So let me try to put this together.
Every version has the same problem I asked about: something had to make the second humanity after the makers were gone. And every answer comes down to one of three things:
One: The Brothers planned it and did it before leaving.
Two: The world did it on its own, because life had already been woven into it.
Three: Something the Brothers left behind did it. Power, gifts, will.
And in two out of those three, the answer is "something stayed." Either the world carried on the work, or something of the gods did.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: That's a fair summary. And it's what makes the tradition hopeful, underneath all the darkness. Even in the stories where the gods left angry, the world didn't end. Something kept going.
SI: "The gardeners left, but the garden kept growing."
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Yes. That's exactly it.
VacuoVeteran: I didn't expect to get emotional on a moon stream
MistralMom_Jenna: Same honestly
anon_viewer_4471: A thoughtful question. Most people only ask who ended the world, not who began it again.
grimm_bait_420: anon's back again
HunterWannabe_Tom: anon only shows up for the cosmic stuff now
SI: ...do you have a favorite version? Of the four?
anon_viewer_4471: I think the one about something staying behind is the most interesting. And the least comfortable.
SI: Why least comfortable?
anon_viewer_4471: Because if something stayed, it has been here all this time. Watching the garden grow. Goodnight.
grimm_bait_420: ANON WHY
HunterWannabe_Tom: every time. every single time.
FaunusRights_Now: anon is doing a horror bit and i'm scared
SI: ...okay. Yeah. That was a little unsettling. But it's mythology, everyone. Fringe texts. Church guy said so, the professor said so.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Correct. Fragmentary, late, and minority traditions. Treat accordingly.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Agreed. Treat it as what it is. A story. A meaningful one, but a story.
SI: Okay. Final notes:
Moon: Was once whole. Proof is the matching fracture edges. Thank you, Atlas guy.
New humanity, according to mythology: Made by the Brothers before leaving, grown by the world itself, or made by something they left behind. Every version agrees something carried on after they were gone.
And the original texts don't split people into humans and Faunus. Just "people." That part got added later.
ValeCommuter_22: people made people
SI: ...you know what, Vale guy? In three out of four versions, you're basically right. Goodnight, everyone.
[STREAM ENDED — Peak viewers: 19,331]
* * *
SI: Okay. First, homework. Apparently a certain professor's class got the question "What would it take to prove the moon was once whole?" and someone sent it to me.
Honestly? I think the answer's pretty obvious. Every other big body we can see through a telescope is whole. Round. Normal. Only our moon is sitting there in pieces. If one out of everything is shattered, the simplest explanation isn't "it formed that way." It's "something happened to it." It was obviously once whole.
AtlasTechStudent: I'll add one thing, since you're half right. The strongest evidence isn't that everything else is whole. It's the fragments themselves. Observatory imaging shows several large pieces with fracture surfaces that roughly match each other. Like a broken plate. Things that formed separately don't have matching edges.
SI: Oh, that's WAY better than my answer. Broken plate. Yeah. That's the proof.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Matching fracture surfaces would be strong evidence. I'll accept that as a sufficient answer to the question. Thank you both. My class will be pleased.
grimm_bait_420: the professor outsourced his homework to the chat lmao
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: I crowdsourced a peer review.
* * *
SI: Okay. Now tonight's real question. And this one's not science. This is purely mythology, and it's for church guy specifically.
Last stream, you said the oldest versions of the story say humanity ended once. The Brothers got angry, the first humanity didn't survive, the Brothers left, and we're what came after.
So... who made us? If the Brothers were gone, they weren't around for the second humanity. So what created the new one?
* * *
LIVE CHAT
grimm_bait_420: oh he's going straight for the theology
ValeCommuter_22: people made people
SI: @ValeCommuter_22 I mean, yes, eventually. But who made the FIRST ones of the second batch?
ValeCommuter_22: people
SI: ...you're consistent, I'll give you that.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: It's a good question. It's one of the oldest questions in the tradition, actually. And there isn't one answer. There are several, depending on which texts you follow. I'll give you the main ones.
SI: Please. Floor's yours.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: First version, and the most common among people who believe the story literally: the Brothers made the second humanity before they left. They ended the first, regretted it or saw that the world needed people, and planted a new beginning. Then they departed. We grew from what they left.
SI: Okay, so they made us on the way out the door.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: In that reading, yes. A last act.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Second version: the world made us. The Brothers had already shaped the land, the water, the living things. Some teachers say that once life has been woven into a world, the world keeps making it. Humanity grew back out of the earth the way a forest grows back after a fire.
SI: WAIT. That's the sap thing. From the Dust stream. The planet making things on its own.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Yes. I thought of that when you said it. It's an old idea. The world as a garden that keeps growing after the gardeners leave.
VacuoVeteran: that's a comforting version honestly
MistralMom_Jenna: I like that one. I'll take that one.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Third version, less popular: humanity didn't fully end. A few survived, hidden, and everything after came from them. Most teachers reject this because the texts say ended, not nearly ended.
SI: That would contradict my moon math, too. If the moon broke when they left and it's anywhere near what I calculated, nobody hides from that.
AtlasTechStudent: Unless the moon didn't break at the same time. The myth links them, but there's no evidence they happened together.
SI: Oh. Good point. The myth might have mashed two separate events together.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: That is extremely common in oral traditions. Events centuries apart become a single story. A very good observation.
AtlasTechStudent: Thank you. I've been waiting weeks for the professor to say that to me.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Fourth version. This one is rare, and I'm only mentioning it because you asked for all of them. Some fragments suggest the Brothers didn't leave the world completely empty. That something of theirs stayed behind. Gifts, or power, or a piece of their will. And that the second humanity came from that, or was guided by it.
grimm_bait_420: okay that one's creepy
SI: Something of theirs stayed behind... like Tier Two. Leftover creation. Dust, Grimm material, the soul itself.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: That's one way to read it. The texts are very vague. Most teachers don't take it seriously.
FaunusRights_Now: question for church guy. do any of the versions talk about Faunus? like, were Faunus part of the second humanity? or separate?
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Honestly? The oldest texts don't distinguish. They say "people." Later texts added a lot of ugly ideas about Faunus being "made differently." Scholars now mostly agree those were added much later, during periods of conflict.
FaunusRights_Now: so the original story just says "people." both of us.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Yes. As far as I've ever read. Everything else was added.
FaunusRights_Now: ...thank you. genuinely.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: I can confirm this from the historical side. The division appears in texts from the pre-war period. It is not original.
SI: Honestly, that might be the most important thing anyone's said on any of these streams.
GreatHunterPPort: I would like to contribute my own theory! Humanity was made by BRAVERY! We simply refused to not exist!
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Peter, that is not a theory.
GreatHunterPPort: It is a MOOD, Bartholomew.
grimm_bait_420: port's theory is actually the most hopeful one lmao
SI: Okay. So let me try to put this together.
Every version has the same problem I asked about: something had to make the second humanity after the makers were gone. And every answer comes down to one of three things:
One: The Brothers planned it and did it before leaving.
Two: The world did it on its own, because life had already been woven into it.
Three: Something the Brothers left behind did it. Power, gifts, will.
And in two out of those three, the answer is "something stayed." Either the world carried on the work, or something of the gods did.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: That's a fair summary. And it's what makes the tradition hopeful, underneath all the darkness. Even in the stories where the gods left angry, the world didn't end. Something kept going.
SI: "The gardeners left, but the garden kept growing."
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Yes. That's exactly it.
VacuoVeteran: I didn't expect to get emotional on a moon stream
MistralMom_Jenna: Same honestly
anon_viewer_4471: A thoughtful question. Most people only ask who ended the world, not who began it again.
grimm_bait_420: anon's back again
HunterWannabe_Tom: anon only shows up for the cosmic stuff now
SI: ...do you have a favorite version? Of the four?
anon_viewer_4471: I think the one about something staying behind is the most interesting. And the least comfortable.
SI: Why least comfortable?
anon_viewer_4471: Because if something stayed, it has been here all this time. Watching the garden grow. Goodnight.
grimm_bait_420: ANON WHY
HunterWannabe_Tom: every time. every single time.
FaunusRights_Now: anon is doing a horror bit and i'm scared
SI: ...okay. Yeah. That was a little unsettling. But it's mythology, everyone. Fringe texts. Church guy said so, the professor said so.
HistoryIsNotBoring_BO: Correct. Fragmentary, late, and minority traditions. Treat accordingly.
ChurchOfTheBrothers_Anon: Agreed. Treat it as what it is. A story. A meaningful one, but a story.
SI: Okay. Final notes:
Moon: Was once whole. Proof is the matching fracture edges. Thank you, Atlas guy.
New humanity, according to mythology: Made by the Brothers before leaving, grown by the world itself, or made by something they left behind. Every version agrees something carried on after they were gone.
And the original texts don't split people into humans and Faunus. Just "people." That part got added later.
ValeCommuter_22: people made people
SI: ...you know what, Vale guy? In three out of four versions, you're basically right. Goodnight, everyone.
[STREAM ENDED — Peak viewers: 19,331]
Slayer 10321
Well worn.
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- Jul 23, 2017
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Considering the theory that the Animal god that made the Faunus might have been the Brother of Light making a temporary sneaky return trip, I wonder how that would be squared away by the streamer and viewers?
trashtaker
The (un)lucky Patreon Saint of borrowed fortune
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Honestly I know that Vale guy is the troll account but they're genuinely getting stale and annoying with those single word answers
dazzle_dork
Versed in the lewd.
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Its internet bro, it has become his catch phrase. Everyone expects it from him, like that one guy in chat who always posts ascii nudes(i used to do that XD)
Silent Knight
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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author . your patreon ? doesnt work ? doesnt exist ?
explain please ?
Emiya Pendragon
The Boundary
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illl have to reacitivate it.. give me a few
Chapter 16: Just "People"
New
Emiya Pendragon
The Boundary
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- Mar 9, 2018
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- 45,297
Beacon Academy — Lecture Hall 3B, History of Remnant, 8:44 AM
Sixteen minutes early. Every seat full, the steps full, and three students sitting cross-legged in the aisle.
Oobleck didn't even comment this time. He simply walked to the board, where last week's question was still written in chalk, and underlined it twice.
What would it take to prove the moon was once whole?
"Before anything else," he said, "your answers. Teams. Quickly."
* * *
Team RWBY went first. Weiss stood with a sheet of neatly written calculations.
"Our argument is composition," she said. "If the fragments were once one body, they should be made of the same material, in proportions consistent with a single origin. Spectral analysis from the observatories could test that. If the pieces match each other, and differ from other bodies in the sky, that supports a common origin."
"Good," Oobleck said. "Solid. Next."
Team JNPR. Ren stood.
"Orbits. If you trace the fragments' current paths backward in time, and they converge on a single point, that suggests they were once together."
"Also good. Next."
Team CFVY. Velvet, slightly more confident than two weeks ago.
"We looked for historical accounts of the moon changing. Any record of the fragments moving, drifting, getting closer or further apart. If there's any change over time, you could extrapolate back." She hesitated. "We didn't find anything. But the method works in principle."
"It does," Oobleck said. "And negative results are still results. Well done."
"Team CRDL," he said, bracing slightly.
Cardin stood. "We think you'd have to go up there and look."
The room waited.
"...And then?"
"And then see if the pieces fit together."
Oobleck opened his mouth to object, then stopped.
"That," he said slowly, "is actually very close to the answer the chat arrived at."
Cardin blinked. "It is?"
"Matching fracture surfaces. Pieces that fit together like a broken plate. You proposed checking it physically. The observatories can check it visually." He paused. "C-plus, Mister Winchester. You were right for the wrong reasons, but you were right."
Russel slapped Cardin on the back. Cardin looked stunned.
"And now," Oobleck said, "the stream."
* * *
When the streamer said "every other planet is whole, so it was obviously once whole," Weiss winced.
"That's a weak argument," she said. "It's an analogy, not evidence."
Then the Atlas student corrected him with the broken plate.
"...That's a strong argument," she admitted. "Annoyingly."
When HistoryIsNotBoring_BO declared the answer sufficient, the class turned to Oobleck.
"You got the internet to do your homework," Yang said.
"I crowdsourced a peer review, Miss Xiao Long."
"That's what the chat said you'd say."
"The chat," Oobleck said, "is becoming insufferably familiar with me."
* * *
Then the streamer asked his question. If the Brothers were gone, who made the second humanity?
The room quieted. This time it wasn't the silence of horror, like the moon stream. It was the silence of people leaning in.
When the church viewer laid out the first version, the Brothers making humanity on their way out, Ruby nodded slowly. When they described the second, the world growing people back like a forest after fire, her face lit up.
"The garden," she whispered. "The world kept growing us. I love that."
"It connects to the Dust stream," Ren said. "The planet making things on its own."
"Sap," Nora said solemnly. "We're sap people."
"That is not what it means, Nora."
"We are sap people, Ren."
* * *
When FaunusRights_Now asked whether the old stories said anything about Faunus, Blake went very still.
Velvet, in the back, set down her pen.
"The oldest texts don't distinguish. They say 'people.' Later texts added a lot of ugly ideas about Faunus being 'made differently.'"
And then, from Oobleck's own username: "I can confirm this from the historical side. The division appears in texts from the pre-war period. It is not original."
Blake didn't say anything. She didn't move. But her ears, beneath the bow, had risen slightly, and her hands were pressed flat against the desk as though she was holding onto it.
Velvet was blinking rapidly, looking down at her notebook.
Weiss glanced at Blake, then at Velvet, then down at her own hands. She was quiet for a long moment.
"Is that true?" she asked, finally, turning toward Oobleck. Her voice was careful. "That the division was added later?"
"It is true, Miss Schnee," Oobleck said. "The oldest surviving fragments refer only to 'people.' The language separating humans and Faunus appears centuries later, and it appears, almost without exception, in documents written during periods of political conflict. It was not in the original tradition. It was added to justify things people had already decided to do."
Weiss nodded slowly. She didn't say anything else. But she didn't look away from Blake, either.
* * *
When Port's message appeared, "Humanity was made by BRAVERY! We simply refused to not exist!", the tension broke and the room burst into laughter.
"It's a MOOD," Nora shouted, delighted.
"Port's theory is the best one," Jaune said. "Honestly."
"Port's theory," Oobleck said, "is not a theory. But I will concede it is a very good mood."
* * *
Then came the summary, the garden, and the final exchange.
"If something stayed, it has been here all this time. Watching the garden grow."
The laughter died.
Blake's hand went up before the video had even ended.
"Miss Belladonna."
"That's four streams now," she said. "Every time it's the big questions. The gods, the moon, the end of the world. And every time, anon says something that sounds like a warning." She looked around the room. "Last time it was 'least safely out loud.' This time it's 'something's been watching.' That's not someone having fun. That's someone who wants him to stop."
"Or someone doing a creepy bit for attention," Yang said. "The chat thinks it's a horror bit."
"The chat also thinks Professor Port's moustache is a primary source," Blake said.
"It IS a primary source," said a booming voice from the doorway.
Every head turned.
Professor Port stood there, beaming, hands on hips.
"Peter," Oobleck said, with the weariness of long experience. "You are not supposed to be here."
"I was passing by! And I heard my theory being discussed! I simply wished to clarify that it was, in fact, a theory!"
"It was a mood, Peter."
"A THEORY with a MOOD, Bartholomew!"
The class was in hysterics. Port gave a small bow, twirled his moustache, and departed as abruptly as he'd arrived, his laughter echoing down the hall.
* * *
When the room had calmed, Oobleck turned back to Blake.
"Miss Belladonna's concern is noted," he said. "And I share part of it. Not because I believe anything sinister is watching the world." He paused. "But because the streamer has twenty thousand viewers now. That is no longer a small conversation. Any time someone becomes that visible, it is worth being careful."
"Should someone tell him?" Ruby asked.
"He has a chat of twenty thousand people who have noticed the same thing," Oobleck said. "I suspect he is aware."
* * *
"I want to talk about the fourth version," Jaune said. "The something-stayed-behind one."
"Go on, Mister Arc."
"The church guy said most teachers don't take it seriously. And the streamer connected it to Tier Two. Leftover power." Jaune frowned. "But anon said something different. Anon said 'if something stayed, it's been here watching.' Like it's a someone, not a something."
"You noticed that," Oobleck said, quietly.
"It just sounded different. The church guy said power. Anon said watching." Jaune scratched his head. "Power doesn't watch."
The room was quiet again.
Pyrrha was staring very hard at the desk in front of her.
"Miss Nikos," Oobleck said. "Are you all right?"
She looked up, a moment too late. "Yes. Sorry. I was just thinking about the garden idea," she said, smoothly. "I think it's the one I'd choose to believe. That the world kept going on its own."
"Many people would," Oobleck said. He watched her a moment longer. Then he let it go.
* * *
"Final question for today," he said, zipping to the board. "No assignment. Just think."
He erased last week's question and wrote a new one.
Why did someone add the division between humans and Faunus?
"Not the mythology," he said. "The history. Who gains when a story is changed? Who decides which version gets taught? The streamer and the church viewer discovered, together, that an old story had been altered. That is not a mythological question. That is a historical one. And it is one this class is capable of answering." He capped the chalk. "Dismissed."
* * *
The students filed out slower than usual.
Blake stayed in her seat a moment. Weiss hovered nearby, clearly wanting to say something and not knowing how.
"The oldest texts just say 'people,'" Weiss said finally.
"Yeah," Blake said softly.
"I didn't know that."
"Most people don't."
Weiss nodded. She hesitated. Then, awkwardly, stiffly, and with enormous effort, she said, "I'd like to read them. The old texts. If you'd... want to go to the library sometime."
Blake looked up at her, surprised.
"...Yeah," she said. "I'd like that."
In the back row, Velvet was still sitting with her notebook open. She'd written only one line on the page, and she was looking at it with an expression somewhere between disbelief and something much softer.
Just "people."
* * *
When the hall was empty, Oobleck didn't reach for his scroll right away.
Instead, he pulled a small, battered notebook from his desk drawer. It was one he'd started after the Headmaster's visit. He'd told himself it was simply for organizing lecture material.
He opened it and looked at the list he'd been keeping.
Moon. No record of it whole. Ever.
Oldest texts: humanity ended once. Minority tradition. Fragmentary.
Faunus division added later. Pre-war political documents.
"Something stayed behind."
And beneath that, in smaller writing, a note he'd added two days ago:
Headmaster says: prefer the boring explanation.
He looked at it for a long while. Then he picked up his pen and added one more line.
anon_viewer_4471: "Watching the garden grow."
He closed the notebook, locked it in the drawer, and sat back in his chair, listening to the empty lecture hall.
For the first time in his long career, Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck found himself hoping that he was wrong about something.
Sixteen minutes early. Every seat full, the steps full, and three students sitting cross-legged in the aisle.
Oobleck didn't even comment this time. He simply walked to the board, where last week's question was still written in chalk, and underlined it twice.
What would it take to prove the moon was once whole?
"Before anything else," he said, "your answers. Teams. Quickly."
* * *
Team RWBY went first. Weiss stood with a sheet of neatly written calculations.
"Our argument is composition," she said. "If the fragments were once one body, they should be made of the same material, in proportions consistent with a single origin. Spectral analysis from the observatories could test that. If the pieces match each other, and differ from other bodies in the sky, that supports a common origin."
"Good," Oobleck said. "Solid. Next."
Team JNPR. Ren stood.
"Orbits. If you trace the fragments' current paths backward in time, and they converge on a single point, that suggests they were once together."
"Also good. Next."
Team CFVY. Velvet, slightly more confident than two weeks ago.
"We looked for historical accounts of the moon changing. Any record of the fragments moving, drifting, getting closer or further apart. If there's any change over time, you could extrapolate back." She hesitated. "We didn't find anything. But the method works in principle."
"It does," Oobleck said. "And negative results are still results. Well done."
"Team CRDL," he said, bracing slightly.
Cardin stood. "We think you'd have to go up there and look."
The room waited.
"...And then?"
"And then see if the pieces fit together."
Oobleck opened his mouth to object, then stopped.
"That," he said slowly, "is actually very close to the answer the chat arrived at."
Cardin blinked. "It is?"
"Matching fracture surfaces. Pieces that fit together like a broken plate. You proposed checking it physically. The observatories can check it visually." He paused. "C-plus, Mister Winchester. You were right for the wrong reasons, but you were right."
Russel slapped Cardin on the back. Cardin looked stunned.
"And now," Oobleck said, "the stream."
* * *
When the streamer said "every other planet is whole, so it was obviously once whole," Weiss winced.
"That's a weak argument," she said. "It's an analogy, not evidence."
Then the Atlas student corrected him with the broken plate.
"...That's a strong argument," she admitted. "Annoyingly."
When HistoryIsNotBoring_BO declared the answer sufficient, the class turned to Oobleck.
"You got the internet to do your homework," Yang said.
"I crowdsourced a peer review, Miss Xiao Long."
"That's what the chat said you'd say."
"The chat," Oobleck said, "is becoming insufferably familiar with me."
* * *
Then the streamer asked his question. If the Brothers were gone, who made the second humanity?
The room quieted. This time it wasn't the silence of horror, like the moon stream. It was the silence of people leaning in.
When the church viewer laid out the first version, the Brothers making humanity on their way out, Ruby nodded slowly. When they described the second, the world growing people back like a forest after fire, her face lit up.
"The garden," she whispered. "The world kept growing us. I love that."
"It connects to the Dust stream," Ren said. "The planet making things on its own."
"Sap," Nora said solemnly. "We're sap people."
"That is not what it means, Nora."
"We are sap people, Ren."
* * *
When FaunusRights_Now asked whether the old stories said anything about Faunus, Blake went very still.
Velvet, in the back, set down her pen.
"The oldest texts don't distinguish. They say 'people.' Later texts added a lot of ugly ideas about Faunus being 'made differently.'"
And then, from Oobleck's own username: "I can confirm this from the historical side. The division appears in texts from the pre-war period. It is not original."
Blake didn't say anything. She didn't move. But her ears, beneath the bow, had risen slightly, and her hands were pressed flat against the desk as though she was holding onto it.
Velvet was blinking rapidly, looking down at her notebook.
Weiss glanced at Blake, then at Velvet, then down at her own hands. She was quiet for a long moment.
"Is that true?" she asked, finally, turning toward Oobleck. Her voice was careful. "That the division was added later?"
"It is true, Miss Schnee," Oobleck said. "The oldest surviving fragments refer only to 'people.' The language separating humans and Faunus appears centuries later, and it appears, almost without exception, in documents written during periods of political conflict. It was not in the original tradition. It was added to justify things people had already decided to do."
Weiss nodded slowly. She didn't say anything else. But she didn't look away from Blake, either.
* * *
When Port's message appeared, "Humanity was made by BRAVERY! We simply refused to not exist!", the tension broke and the room burst into laughter.
"It's a MOOD," Nora shouted, delighted.
"Port's theory is the best one," Jaune said. "Honestly."
"Port's theory," Oobleck said, "is not a theory. But I will concede it is a very good mood."
* * *
Then came the summary, the garden, and the final exchange.
"If something stayed, it has been here all this time. Watching the garden grow."
The laughter died.
Blake's hand went up before the video had even ended.
"Miss Belladonna."
"That's four streams now," she said. "Every time it's the big questions. The gods, the moon, the end of the world. And every time, anon says something that sounds like a warning." She looked around the room. "Last time it was 'least safely out loud.' This time it's 'something's been watching.' That's not someone having fun. That's someone who wants him to stop."
"Or someone doing a creepy bit for attention," Yang said. "The chat thinks it's a horror bit."
"The chat also thinks Professor Port's moustache is a primary source," Blake said.
"It IS a primary source," said a booming voice from the doorway.
Every head turned.
Professor Port stood there, beaming, hands on hips.
"Peter," Oobleck said, with the weariness of long experience. "You are not supposed to be here."
"I was passing by! And I heard my theory being discussed! I simply wished to clarify that it was, in fact, a theory!"
"It was a mood, Peter."
"A THEORY with a MOOD, Bartholomew!"
The class was in hysterics. Port gave a small bow, twirled his moustache, and departed as abruptly as he'd arrived, his laughter echoing down the hall.
* * *
When the room had calmed, Oobleck turned back to Blake.
"Miss Belladonna's concern is noted," he said. "And I share part of it. Not because I believe anything sinister is watching the world." He paused. "But because the streamer has twenty thousand viewers now. That is no longer a small conversation. Any time someone becomes that visible, it is worth being careful."
"Should someone tell him?" Ruby asked.
"He has a chat of twenty thousand people who have noticed the same thing," Oobleck said. "I suspect he is aware."
* * *
"I want to talk about the fourth version," Jaune said. "The something-stayed-behind one."
"Go on, Mister Arc."
"The church guy said most teachers don't take it seriously. And the streamer connected it to Tier Two. Leftover power." Jaune frowned. "But anon said something different. Anon said 'if something stayed, it's been here watching.' Like it's a someone, not a something."
"You noticed that," Oobleck said, quietly.
"It just sounded different. The church guy said power. Anon said watching." Jaune scratched his head. "Power doesn't watch."
The room was quiet again.
Pyrrha was staring very hard at the desk in front of her.
"Miss Nikos," Oobleck said. "Are you all right?"
She looked up, a moment too late. "Yes. Sorry. I was just thinking about the garden idea," she said, smoothly. "I think it's the one I'd choose to believe. That the world kept going on its own."
"Many people would," Oobleck said. He watched her a moment longer. Then he let it go.
* * *
"Final question for today," he said, zipping to the board. "No assignment. Just think."
He erased last week's question and wrote a new one.
Why did someone add the division between humans and Faunus?
"Not the mythology," he said. "The history. Who gains when a story is changed? Who decides which version gets taught? The streamer and the church viewer discovered, together, that an old story had been altered. That is not a mythological question. That is a historical one. And it is one this class is capable of answering." He capped the chalk. "Dismissed."
* * *
The students filed out slower than usual.
Blake stayed in her seat a moment. Weiss hovered nearby, clearly wanting to say something and not knowing how.
"The oldest texts just say 'people,'" Weiss said finally.
"Yeah," Blake said softly.
"I didn't know that."
"Most people don't."
Weiss nodded. She hesitated. Then, awkwardly, stiffly, and with enormous effort, she said, "I'd like to read them. The old texts. If you'd... want to go to the library sometime."
Blake looked up at her, surprised.
"...Yeah," she said. "I'd like that."
In the back row, Velvet was still sitting with her notebook open. She'd written only one line on the page, and she was looking at it with an expression somewhere between disbelief and something much softer.
Just "people."
* * *
When the hall was empty, Oobleck didn't reach for his scroll right away.
Instead, he pulled a small, battered notebook from his desk drawer. It was one he'd started after the Headmaster's visit. He'd told himself it was simply for organizing lecture material.
He opened it and looked at the list he'd been keeping.
Moon. No record of it whole. Ever.
Oldest texts: humanity ended once. Minority tradition. Fragmentary.
Faunus division added later. Pre-war political documents.
"Something stayed behind."
And beneath that, in smaller writing, a note he'd added two days ago:
Headmaster says: prefer the boring explanation.
He looked at it for a long while. Then he picked up his pen and added one more line.
anon_viewer_4471: "Watching the garden grow."
He closed the notebook, locked it in the drawer, and sat back in his chair, listening to the empty lecture hall.
For the first time in his long career, Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck found himself hoping that he was wrong about something.