[RFC] The Westerosi

[M Fnord]

Jumping ahead a little. Also, watch this space for further developments...

Log Entry: Surface Day 14

I am not a Connecticut Yankee. I have to remember that.

When the fleet finally shows up, I’m going to spend a good year or so in inquiries about my conduct while on a planet with a preindustrial civilization. Just being here and interacting with the natives is going to cause all sorts of changes, and once the admiralty is done patting me on the back for surviving they’re going to roast me over the coals in order to find out what damage I did to these people in the process. There might even be Senate hearings about my activities when all is said and done. Dad will be so proud.

So I have to try and keep my interference with the good people of Westeros to a minimum. I already made the decision to not just hide out in the woods like a hermit. And living large...ish in a culture not too different from Postclassical Europe has given me a new appreciation for all the little things that make life back home bearable. I thought Ranger training had beaten the fastidiousness out of me but then I tried living in Winter Town for two days before I decamped for Victory again. Some things you just take for granted.

The temptation is there, to remake Winterfell and everything around it in the Federal image, not so much for power but for comfort. I could do it; I have the knowledge. The tools are a little lacking, but any Ranger worth her salt knows there are ways around that. I could jailbreak the autofacs, dismantle the ship to build myself a wizard’s tower, spread that to Winterfell properly. Build some things to spread around Stark’s demense: plumbing, lights, black powder weapons, give him a leg up and me a reason to keep meddling…

Depending on human factors, it wouldn’t take very long. A couple hours for the jailbreak, a couple weeks for the teardown and then a few more weeks to rebuild. Then another six months to get the castle up to Federal standards of living. Probably a year or three to get a minor industrial revolution rolling across the North, then Westeros and then… well, sky’s the limit. Barring accident I’ve got at least a good 250 or so years left before I have to go in for backup or rejuvenation, plenty of time to bootstrap up a society capable of building a ship to get me back to Federal space.

But doing that is tantamount to giving up on going home. I can’t tear down Victory, even if I was inclined to do it, because that would mean stopping work on the radio. And in the event the fleet found me anyway, they’d throw me in the deepest, darkest prison in space for unauthorized enlightenment and de facto planetary conquest.
I’m not a Yankee. If I ever want to go home, I can’t be a Yankee. Until I know help’s not coming for me, I can’t give in to the impulse.

Log Entry: Surface Day 233.1

A call came in from the commlink I left up at Castle Black while I was brooding over my failure. Things on the Wall are getting tense. The northern barbarians are on the move, and according to Maester Aemon they’re acting like something is driving them. The watch commander is no longer quite as skeptical about my hypothesis as he was the last time I was up there.

If the ice monsters are on the move, that’s not good. I’ll take this to Stark but the whole civil war thing is likely to take precedence.

But now I have a pretext. Based on my own observations, as of right now I’m invoking the existential threat clauses in Starfleet first contact protocol and moving to figure out a way to contain whatever the hell it is hiding in the far north of Planetos. This won’t forgive my previous sins but it’ll cover what happens next.

I can’t save Westeros from its own stupidity. I can’t stop the civil war. Not yet.

I might not be able to save Westeros from extinction.

But I’m going to fucking try.

Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

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