Work Text:
Protagonist of universe 4995833364888.5 has died. Reassessing universal strain, calculating resources…
Universal strain re-established, universe 4995833364888.5 will resume in XXX.
Error!
No suitable Protagonist characters detected! Estimated time to build a new protagonist: XXX in-universe, XXX seed universe. Bridge character required.
Calculating available character resources, searching for valuable candidates…
No suitable candidates found in available character bank.
Beginning protagonist rebuilding now…
Desmond gasps into life suddenly and without warning, with the feeling of dying still etched into every cell. He's standing on - on nothing, looking into nothing, surrounded by nothing -
"What the -?"
He's standing - or maybe floating? - in grey nothingness. It's kind of like the Animus loadspace, but… more, somehow. The accounts loadspace was only so big, just a circle with him perpetually stick in the middle and nothing beyond, not even space - this, though… this is endless. It feels endless. Unfathomable.
"Uh, hello?" Desmond calls, more confused than anything, flexing his tingling right hand. "Anyone here?"
It doesn't feel like the Animus, but after everything he's gone through, he can't dismiss the possibility. The last time he'd almost died their solution was to throw him into the Animus backroom with Clay - not that they knew Clay was there - so it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that he might have somehow survived and gotten put into a nice healing Animus-assisted coma.
There's a ripple in the not-air in front of him, and then a white text inside a rectangle border appears. It's like an Animus inventory screen. It tells him, in bold white letters…
[YOU HAVE DIED!]
"... oh," Desmond answers the text. "Well, that's a bummer."
The text box hangs in the air, completely still until Desmond shifts his footing - then it moves with him, keeping a set distance from his face. It's attached to his face, apparently. "Okay, floating text box of Doom. What's going on?"
That gets him more text.
[YOU HAVE DIED! As the result of a Protagonist death, universe 4995833364888.5 cannot resume. The ••• has calculated the need of a bridge character until a New Protagonist can be established. In absence of suitable Protagonist characters, a bridge character is required. In absence of a suitable bridge character, the First Protagonist was rebuilt.]
Desmond stares at the white text box in silent dismay. He, somehow, understands every word. They don't make sense, but he understands them. And he does not like it. "... What?"
The text box empties in a little blip, and then text appears again. It's the same text.
[As the result of a Protagonist death, universe 4995833364888.5 cannot resume. The •••• has calculated the need of a bridge character until a New Protagonist can be established. In absence of suitable Protagonist characters, a bridge character is required. In absence of a suitable bridge character, the First Protagonist was rebuilt.]
"Okay, yeah, I got that," Desmond tells the window. "But what the the actual fuck do you mean by Protagonist? "
[Desmond Miles is the First Protagonist of universe 4995833364888.5. Desmond Miles has died. Universe 4995833364888.5 is deemed too unstable to continue without a Central Protagonist. In absence of suitable candidate characters to fill the role, First Protagonist was rebuilt.]
Jesus fuck, that's a lot of numbers. "You - you mean there's," Desmond stops to count. "There's almost five trillion universes?!"
[Incorrect. There are -]
The numbers start with 7, and then they don't stop.
"Okay, okay, stop," Desmond croaks. "Those - those are alternate universes? They're all, there are - what the fuck? What the fuck? "
The text box doesn't answer.
"A-and my world is just one - it's the four trillion nine hundred billionth or whatever universe?"
[4995833364888.5.]
"There are decimals?!"
[Universe 4995833364888.5 is the offshoot of universe 4995833364888.]
"And that universe has a Protagonist too?" Desmond asks suspiciously. "Wait, is it a Desmond Miles too?"
[Incorrect. Protagonists of universe 4995833364888 are the Unnamed Princes of Persia.]
Desmond opens his mouth, closes it and then opens it again. "I have no idea what to say to that," he says, completely baffled. "They sound cool. What the fuck. How is my universe the offshoot of one where the protagonist is a prince - wait, how am I the protagonist?!"
[Desmond Miles is the central, pivotal Protagonist of universe 4995833364888.5. Without a Protagonist, the plot cannot move forward.]
"But I barely did anything?" Desmond mutters, shaking his head. "Just sat around in a chair watching other people do stuff in the past, and then I just died!" In an admittedly pretty cool, self-sacrificial protagonist way...
[Correct. You are dead.]
Giving the window a wry look, Desmond snorts. "Thanks for the reminder," he snorts. "Okay so, what do you want from me, then?"
[Universe 4995833364888.5 is deemed too unstable to continue without a Central Protagonist. In absence of suitable candidate characters to fill the role, First Protagonist was rebuilt.]
"Right, yeah, sorry, you said that," Desmond mutters, scratching his scalp and narrowing his eyes. "Wait… wait, wait, wait, why can't my universe continue without - fuck, it's not like the universe revolved around me? It couldn't have, I'm just one guy! Why does my - or do all universes revolve around protagonists?"
[Protagonist-centric universes revolve around protagonists.]
"... That clears things right up, thank you," Desmond mutters wryly. "Why though?"
[The plot often demands it.]
The plot. The plot? "Wait, don't tell me - my universe, and the other one too - what are they? Uh, what's the plot of my universe?"
There's a moment before the white text answers.
[Universe 4995833364888.5 depicts a millennia-old struggle between the Assassins, who fight for peace and free will, and the Templars, who desire peace through order and control. It's Central Protagonist functions as a genetic window into past events, and a lynchpin of the plot, combining the many individual narrative threads into a cohesive whole.]
Desmond gapes. That's. Not inaccurate, but. What? "My world is a story," he croaks. "My universe is a book?"
[Incorrect. Universe 4995833364888.5 is based on a video game.]
If Desmond was breathing right now, he'd be choking. "Are we in a video game right now - am I in someone's computer?!"
[Incorrect. You are in the ••••.]
The what? "Uh, I can't read that, what is that?"
[The ••••.]
"It's the same thing again - uh," Desmond runs a hand over his mouth. He gets the feeling that whatever that thing is, his brain just… can't. "Can you, uh, explain in terms would I understand? Simple terms. Poor dumb videogame protagonist here."
[Generating a suitable translation.]
And suddenly Desmond isn't alone in the void with the white text box. There's someone else there with him, idly leaning into the text box.
"... Clay?" Desmond asks feebly.
"Desmond," the other man says and waves a hand. "Not really. I'm more of a temporary simulation built by the ••• to offer exposition in a way you can comprehend."
Desmond let's out a faint noise of agony. Hearing the - the thing not-Clay just said it's no better than seeing it written. "Exposition," Desmond repeats feebly.
"Yeeaah," not-Clay agrees with a snort. "So, you remember what the Grey is?"
"Uh. No?"
"Hm. Must've been in the author's notes, not in-universe yet," Clay mutters. "Well, there's this plot point - okay, an idea, that the Precursors tapped into… something when they were experimenting, trying to figure out how to save the world. Minerva, when she built her machine to look through time, accessed it. They call it the Grey. It's kind of like another dimension, where everything that's matter in your usual three dimensions turns into pure information in the Grey."
"I… am not following you, at all," Desmond admits.
"The Grey is the processor running the Animus, and your generic memories are the world," Clay says.
"Oh. Okay. Still not sure I get it," Desmond says apologetically.
Clay sighs. "It's the Animus load screen just before a new setting is generated, but for the entire universe."
"..."
"Just… go with it for now," Clay says, waving a dismissive hand. "Imagine a space, or a thing, a… computer of galactic proportions. Infinite processing power with infinite capability - a true omnipotence. Now imagine it completely lacks omniscience, lacks any will at all. It has function, but no will. A thing that can do literally everything, but… has no reason to do anything. Because it doesn't want anything, it doesn't have the capacity to want anything.
"Uh. Okay. I'm imagining," Desmond says, while very much failing to do that.
"Great. That's the •••," Clay says and then makes a face. "You know what, let's just call it something else. Call it the System."
"System? Aren't you talking about God?"
Clay snorts. "No. No will and no omniscience, remember? It's more of a thing. And System is a good enough description. It is what it does," he shrugs. "Anyway. The System… is and probably has always been. Now, you have a System of ultimate power and infinite ability to utilise that power. What do you do with it?"
"Uh," Desmond hesitates. "Go back in time and change history?" That seems like something infinite power might accomplish.
Clay snaps his fingers. "Done. What next?"
"What do you mean what next?"
"You just did one thing and you still have infinite power and capacity," Clay says flatly, like talking to a child. "What next?"
"I don't know - relive my life from the beginning, making different choices?"
"Very self-centric of you, but sure, done," another snap of Clay's fingers. "Next?"
"... World peace? End to the world hunger?"
"Done and done. Next?"
Desmond blinks and then shakes his head. "I don't know. Go to the moon maybe? What's the point of this?"
"Barely a minute, and you ran out of things to do with omnipotence?"
Desmond throws up his hands. "Oh, come on, I've never - I don't know! Create a sci-fi utopia, reverse pollution, turn the Sahara desert into a jungle, make cars fly and cows shit gold - what's the point of this?"
Clay snorts. "Now imagine being faced with that choice for infinity. All the power, and nothing to do with it. The System doesn't have a will, but it has a function, and its function is omnipotence. So at some point it figured a purpose for itself - or someone somehow managed to tell it to do it, or maybe it happened accidentally by a glitch in the matrix. Either way…" Clay motions around them. "Here we are."
Desmond frowns. "It… creates universes?" he asks quietly, incredulously.
"Bingo!"
"From video games?!"
"From any and all fictional and not so fictional works produced in the seed universe," Clay agrees. "Which, I figure, is probably the original Earth, somewhere beyond the System-generated multiverse. Whenever anyone back there comes up with a new world, unusually in the form of a story, the System makes it into reality. And ours, universe 4995833364888.5, is created based on a series of video games, which is a spin-off of another video game series, which is the basis for universe 4995833364888."
Desmond just sort of stares at him, feeling suddenly and inexplicably exhausted. "Oh," he says.
"Yep," Clay agrees.
"And I'm here because…?"
"Your character got axed in the video game, and the narrative sort of collapses without you. So System is trying to do a quick patch-up job until the writers back on OG Earth come up with a New Protagonist - which is apparently going to take a while."
"... Oh. Okay."
Clay gives him a look. "Are you okay?"
"No?" Desmond answers, his voice a little high. "No, I'm not particularly okay."
"Well, get over it. There's not a damn thing you can do about it. Except maybe to talk to the System and convince it to do something. Which you might actually have a good shot at, since it brought you here - clearly it needs help with creating something to prop up the plot until the writers get their shit together."
"Uh… huh," Desmond says slowly, trying to wrap his spinning head around the concept. "Wait, is it the writers that choose what happens to the plot or is it the System that decides?"
"Eh," Clay shrugs. "It's push and pull, after a universe is established. You ever hear that thing that happens to creative people, when their work sort of takes a life on its own and characters and stories go places they didn't intend to? That's the System."
"... Cool," Desmond says, mostly baffled and vaguely terrified. "Cool, cool, cool.Why, though? Why… any of this?"
Clay shrugs again. "When you're an omnipotent machine of ultimate creation, what else are you going to do with your time? Might just as well create a few million billion worlds, because, you know, why not?" he shakes his head and looks at the white, window. "So, you think you got a handle on things now?"
"Definitely not," Desmond assures him. "But I think maybe… I got it. Maybe."
"Great, then I'm out of here," Clay says and waves a hand. "Ciao." And then he's just gone.
… okay then.
Desmond turns his eyes to the literal White Window of Doom. Though if the System just creates universes willy-nilly, then it's not a Window of Doom, is it? It's more of a Window of Creation. Absolutely terrifying either way.
"Uh," Desmond says, scared approximately shitless now. "So what can I, uh, do for you, um. System?"
[The ••• has calculated the need of a bridge character for universe 4995833364888.5 until a New Protagonist can be established. In absence of a suitable bridge character, the First Protagonist was rebuilt.]
"Right yeah, you said,'' Desmond says. "I just don't know what you want me to do about it. I'm dead. And also just a character in a video game, apparently."
[Provide a bridging solution.]
"... Just that, huh? Buddy, I just learned that my life is a game," Desmond says with a laugh. "How am I supposed to - can you bring me back to life in the narrative?"
[Negative.]
"Why not? Clay just told me you're omnipotent!"
[First Protagonist has been written out of the narrative.]
"Yeah, but Clay said, implied - you can affect the plot, right? You can make characters do things, can make them act out - make the story take a life of its own. Can't you just make it so that someone saved me? Revived me? Hell, cloned me? Or I could be like Clay, ghost in the machine -"
[First Protagonist has been written out of the narrative. Authorial intent is clear.]
Desmond swallows. So the writers… wanted him gone. And omnipotence or not, the system will not go against that. Shit. "Well… I don't see what I can do for you then. Apparently I'm not wanted."
[...]
"Don't ellipsize at me," Desmond huffs. "I'm dead. Nothing I can do. What even is the plot of my universe, anyway - I know it's about Assassins and Templars, I got that, but that's a story that's been going on for hundreds of years, I don't see how I'm so pivotal."
[In universe 4995833364888.5 Protagonist serves as a genetic window to the past and -]
"Okay, okay, nevermind, I got it, yeah," Desmond sighs. It's his ancestry again, huh. He was the way the story was told - through his eyes. Through his genes and genetic memories. Wonderful. "Have them - I don't know, use my DNA? DNA lives for thousands of years, Shaun told me, so… maybe Abstergo figures out how to read a dead man's DNA. I wouldn't put it past them, the creepy fu-"
[Plot alteration acceptable. Generating bridge subplot line for universe 4995833364888.5.]
Desmond's eyes glaze over for a moment, and he can almost feel the crap that happens - will happen - in his universe, to his body. Abstergo is going to fucking dissect him and use his DNA to hash out some more of his ancestors to spy on - it will generate more plot, more games, and more time for his universe to exist. It would tide it over until the writers got their act together and fixed the modern day plotline. Because apparently they killed it along with him.
"I… think I'm going to be sick," Desmond groans, crouching down and clutching a hand over his chin and mouth.
The white window follows him down.
[Universe 4995833364888.5 has been stabilised. First Protagonist is no longer needed.]
"Whoa, hey, wait, wait, I just helped you solve a problem here!" Desmond snaps. "You're not just going to delete me or whatever, right? How about a little gratitude, yeah?"
The System, clearly, doesn't know how to react to that.
[First Protagonist of universe 4995833364888.5 has been written out of the narrative.]
"Okay, yeah, I get that, it sucks and I hate it, I get that you can't put me back," Desmond says and glances around. "And I assume I can't just stay here either. Maybe there's - I mean, there are hundreds of trillions of universes out there, apparently, you're running all of them, right? Maybe I can go into some other story?"
[Desmond Miles in the First Protagonist of Assassin's Creed.]
"Yes, I - Assassin's Creed, really? Huh," Desmond mutters and shakes his head. Not the time. "Okay, yeah, I get that, I got my shot, but like… come on. I don't want to die - and, and you brought me back to life! After I was written out, too! That makes you kind of responsible, right?"
The System gives him the [...] again.
Desmond thinks hard for something, anything, to say, to get out of his impending deletion. "You must have - my world was unstable because of bad narrative choices, right? So there, there got to be others too, other universes that need fixing, a little bit of narrative help? Maybe I could do that, I could help you with fixing plotlines to keep these stories, these universes going! Be honest, how many of them are falling apart?"
[... 86844486.]
"... Oh wow, that many." Desmond grimaces. "How come there are that many universes, anyway, huh? Millions that are collapsing, and there are trillions and trillions that aren't - where are you getting this many stories, anyway?" Humanity can't have written trillions of stories yet. Right?
[Writers start stories, universes are created, and then they are discontinued.]
"Ouch," Desmond winces. It includes all the unfinished stories too? Oh boy. "That's a lot. Well, maybe there's, like… especially good ones that could use some help?"
He again gets the ellipses as the System thinks about it - if it can think about things. Maybe it's running calculations. Who knows. At least it's not deleting him, yet. Small victories.
Wonder what counts as a story worthy of creating a universe for...
[Suggestion has been logged and verified as potentially beneficial. Further testing is required. First Protagonist of universe 4995833364888.5 has been accepted into the Universe Transmigration Programme, and will be given sub-admin access. Transferring First Protagonist of universe 4995833364888.5 to universe 74888574335473...]
"Whoa, wait, what -?"
[... Now.]