Work Text:
It started with denial. Even the most powerful forces could not have succeeded in wiping out all of humanity- after all, they were still here, even the last ditch effort to kill off the dozen or so that remained had failed. It had to be true of other places as well.
Remote settlements that weren't on the map, isolated groups wandering the world, hikers and loners that weren't accounted for.
Somewhere, someone had to be alive. There had to be someone else.
The math checked out as well that the likelihood that every single human being left alive was in one place was astronomically low, so it started in that denial.
A distress signal.
Every frequency, every channel, as far as it could be broadcast Chaldea called out even knowing the perpetual storm and bounded field around the facility likely blocked any call.
The facility sung out into darkness, contained in it's own bubble residing in a smoldering world.
It didn't take long for it to change to a literal song, after months without a response, still hoping that there was someone out there who would respond. That someone out there would at least hear them calling, and hearing music filtering through every frequency, AM, FM, Ham, Emergency Broadcast, they would at least have hope if they couldn't sing back they could listen and might be motivated to continue surviving.
It started with the phones and music players the staff had on hand, one of the controllers building a playlist so that at all times something played, calling out to the dark. Eventually a laptop was taken and dedicated solely to that purpose, making copies of every bit of music, podcast, radio show they could find and scavenge through the archives of the internet, that which still remained of it.
It wasn't unlike the golden record, that tiny computer constantly plugged in and broadcasting through their systems, guarded from the heroic spirits not yet trusted to not break it. It became the last song of humanity as they cried out into the dark.
Mournful and hopeful, their last pieces, the songs they loved, that sparked debate, hidden genres and gems.
Eventually when the staff became over tired and forced to take breaks, the servants were allowed to use it too, as Chaldea itself listened in. They took rotating turns as they became accustomed to the constantly playing radio and often formed their own groups, some playing music but many more simply talking among each other. What they talked about varied and breathed new life into what had become a tradition in the facility- no matter what, someone was listening even if just from within Chaldea, so someone had to be playing something.
The majority of heroic spirits talked about their lives at first, their experiences, bragging or being too humble and sometimes both in the same breath. It was a reminder of how human most of them were, even the ones that objectively were never humans to begin with. The small things that cropped up again and again helped with that. The simple stories. Their favorite foods and places, ones they hoped to someday go back to or gently had left behind, tales of times long since passed. Customs that were long lost and could never again come about because the wheel of time always turned and would always move forward to the future where cultures and ideals would be different from the past often came up, shedding light into the ways of life now unthinkable.
So many shared their own tips and tricks to get by in a ravaged world, that despite all that had happened to them they were willing to reach out and lend a hand to those who may have listened. How to fish, how to find clean water, to navigate by the stars alone.
Cú, Robin, many of the pirates and so many hunters shared how to make a snare and a fishing line and how to find the best fishing holes because a starved man was not one who could fight for his survival for very long.
A surprising few of the heroes stayed on task with the original purpose, calling out to those they all knew weren't out there and weren't listening but they still hoped and denied and refused to accept were gone. Most of them were the artists, the writers, the revolutionaries.
Nursery Rhyme, for a time, came every night, 8pm sharp, to read to whomever may have been listening, her voice patient, gentle, and hopeful. She only read the nice fairy tales that left behind the warm feeling that could carry someone's soul to the next day to keep moving and believe in the good, to believe in princes and true love. She never stopped coming, only moving her time earlier, for the other child servants who often missed her segments.
Da Vinci of course talked about the arts, how to see beauty in nature's construction, giving kind words encouraging anyone out there to create, to live not just for survival but to leave something behind for the world, to make for the sake of making something.
Promises of drinks were given to anyone listening from outside the facility who managed to get their way to them.
"There'll be the best sake for whoever manages to walk in that door, first one, it'll be on me."
"If you don't drink it all first-"
"Shut your yap, I've got a stash!"
Interruptions were common but made the broadcasts that much more human. It made it alive, that there was not just one desperate person but many, excited, hopeful, willing to take in the strangers they so desperately called out to.
Of course over time it became obvious that even if on the slim chance someone was out there, they would never hear the calling, the songs, the stories. It never stopped. Even with the obvious, that Chaldea could not be heard beyond Antarctica, that there were no survivors beyond them, that long dead heroes outnumbered the living, there was not a moment the broadcast stopped.
Chaldea was humanity and it was its last beacon and just as they were determined to fight and repair and solve until the world had come back on its feet they were determined that the first thing the world would one day hear was the best of what they had to offer and their best was that they had not given up.
Bloodlines, legacy, status be damned because even one person being alive at the end of it all was a victory.
The goal was to have something to welcome the world back from its stagnation. Ideally when Solomon was defeated things would simply go back to how they always were, without a whisper of what had happened, but there was no certainty to that. Time marched on. It could be months of discrepancy, years, perhaps centuries if something went wrong. There was the thought that maybe even despite their best efforts, the closest outcome would be a blank slate to start again from. Who would be there, to ensure something of what had come prior remained? That the culture, art, and song of the old world would be heard by someone one last time?
A fail safe was implemented. The everlasting blizzard blocked most light from the sun but howled on with winds powerful enough to knock a servant to their knees- it was more than enough for a generator. A small one, fed by a small turbine disconnected from most of the power systems. If all else failed, if all else shut down, if in the end they were all condemned to die and no one would be there to continue to make sure they could one day be heard, the very forces of their isolation would. Nature would. The planet itself they were trying to save would keep it going.
That computer taken from one of the labs and purged of all else had to keep playing, keep recording, go into backup mode of not given input and play until it gave out. It would take years for the electronics themselves to give out, but there was a silent hope that things would never have to come to cannibalizing another computer to keep it going.
With time there would be an answer. With time someone would hear them. As more grails and more singularities were repaired, the likelihood of life increasing by the day and chances that someone would eventually be able to call back.