The Second Session: In Which Everybody Is Me

[bayesianMechanist]

Having more or less successfully navigated my way through my first session, mind and body mostly intact, I begin my second session with this log.

I normally do not prefer to document my adventures in Sburb, but this session seems unique enough, after a bit of asking around over the IRC, that recording its events may prove useful to future players.

To be honest, I almost chose not to do so; this session's contents are... personal, to an alarming degree, even more personal than the many other stories I've heard snatches and pieces of in the IRC. I don't know what Sburb's intentions were, when it assembled this session out of the dust of dead universes, nor if it is specifically targeting me, and if so whether this is to be considered an exotic form of torment or an attempt to teach me a lesson of some sort.

...I've rambled on for far too long. I should start by introducing our cast of players.

----/^\----

In order of entry:

bayesianMechanist, Page of Time, age 18.
brainyMathmind, Knight of Space, age 10.
belittledMartyr, Mage of Mind, age 14.
abyssopelagicDepths, Heir of Light, age 13.

----/^\----

You may have noticed something of a pattern with the pesterhandles of the first three of us to enter.

Namely, our handles are all some variation or other on the abbreviation of bM. This particular quirk set off alarms during pre-entry, but I didn't realize the exact ramifications until someone told me the story of spacetimeCounselor's alternate persona from the future, spacetimeCataclysm.

Of course, Sburb never quite gives you what you expect, though. In this case, it turned out that these other bM players were indeed alternate versions of me... In a sense. I apologize if the next section is too verbose; it seems that rolling Time has increased my interest in temporal operations.

Apparently, every universe can only support one planet which grows to fruition and obliterates itself through the act of playing Sburb, and consequently every single first session is composed of the only survivors of that particular universe. This means that, upon a replay of the game, you will inevitably be shuffled into a session composed of people literally from a different universe than yours. I apologize if it sounds as if I am stating the obvious, but the implications of this are enormous.

For example, it opens up the possibility of universes diverging from a single instance, in much the same way time can be split into alpha and beta timelines. Based on what my universe understood of quantum physics and everett branches, these splits happen near-infinitely, spawning an infinite number of alternate universes.

Apologies for the verbosity, again. The point that I am coming to, ultimately, is that, when Sburb selects players for a session, it apparently has the option of selecting universes which only diverged after the destined players arrived on the planet itself, assuring that the players would exist in all of these universes but develop differently in each one.

Or, to be succinct, my session is composed of alternate versions of me who are the exact same as me in every way, except that Sburb was released at different times in their history and thus they entered at different ages.

brainyMathmind is me as I was, when I was ten years old. A precocious little elementary schooler, still innocent and free of sadness and injury.

belittledMartyr, me at the age of fourteen... I don't really want to think about those times, if you'll excuse my transgression in this recording. Those days were both a disgrace and an embarrassment to what I consider myself today.

...And finally, abyssopelagicDepths, who seems to be quite detached from sburb's temporal shenanigans, thank goodness for her. I'm not sure if I could handle another version of myself in this session.

----/^\----

At this point, I'd usually write something along the lines of a hope that this session will go well and that we can work together as a team and get to know each other. I thought teamwork, unity, and trust would be the most important things, in a session where nobody knew each other and were meeting for the first time.

But we already know each other, and it is because we know each other that I'm having trouble thinking straight. I will be honest; of all the things Sburb might have thrown at me for this second session, I was not expecting to confront the demons of my own past of all things.

It's just a feeling in my gut, but I don't think... This session is going to go very smoothly. I do hope I'm fully wrong.