Like this one... but a lot more significant to our own. [There was no good way to put this, really.]
We showed up in the middle of a small residential area, stepping out of a display screen showing places in our universe on the video feed. Videos are.... they show images. Live views of people, places, things... and in the fourth dimension, the attacks by the executioners. People freaked out when we came out of it, and for good reason.
[His lips thin. He wasn't sure how to explain without explaining computers. Programming. Elicoor lacked both those things.
It was already crazy enough without explaining more advanced technology, but they'd promised honesty.] Where Cliff and I come from, there is technology designed to write out scenarios and data into a visual format on objects called computers. This technology can build and function on it's own to a point, following specific sets of complex instructions called a 'program'. We're even managed to create computer programs that can logically rationalize and gather data like a human being would, technology that can learn to a very basic point, called artificial intelligence, but it's far from comparable to a living person. We use it for simulations, to guess how situations would go before attempting them, and for games and training exercises. There's a facility here that does something similar, for combat.
[He takes a deep breath. There was no good way to put this, but he meets Nel's eyes with his own; a calm, serious green gaze that leaves no room for mistaking anything he says as a joke.] I know it sounds crazy.... but the reason I'm telling you all that is because people in the fourth dimension created our universe. And they're not gods. Not like Apris, or any of Elicoor's gods. They made us using complex technology like this. We're.... a kind of entertainment.
Sorry for the tl;dr
We showed up in the middle of a small residential area, stepping out of a display screen showing places in our universe on the video feed. Videos are.... they show images. Live views of people, places, things... and in the fourth dimension, the attacks by the executioners. People freaked out when we came out of it, and for good reason.
[His lips thin. He wasn't sure how to explain without explaining computers. Programming. Elicoor lacked both those things.
It was already crazy enough without explaining more advanced technology, but they'd promised honesty.] Where Cliff and I come from, there is technology designed to write out scenarios and data into a visual format on objects called computers. This technology can build and function on it's own to a point, following specific sets of complex instructions called a 'program'. We're even managed to create computer programs that can logically rationalize and gather data like a human being would, technology that can learn to a very basic point, called artificial intelligence, but it's far from comparable to a living person. We use it for simulations, to guess how situations would go before attempting them, and for games and training exercises. There's a facility here that does something similar, for combat.
[He takes a deep breath. There was no good way to put this, but he meets Nel's eyes with his own; a calm, serious green gaze that leaves no room for mistaking anything he says as a joke.] I know it sounds crazy.... but the reason I'm telling you all that is because people in the fourth dimension created our universe. And they're not gods. Not like Apris, or any of Elicoor's gods. They made us using complex technology like this. We're.... a kind of entertainment.