Work Text:
[Click]
[RUSSIA]
—and quite contrarian to— ah, it's on. Give me a moment. (In Russian) No, Avrelian, I can't really— get off, give me a few minutes or so. Then we can continue. Alright. What— no, take the two somewhere else. I know they're rowdy, but I need to record something, you can feed them can you not? I feel like I left some in the fridge. God, I should've done this some time else, somewhere else. Please. Okay. Thank you. Shut up. Stop.
(Pause)
(In English) Pardon the disturbance from before. Frankly, I can't be bothered to cut that off from the recording, despite how unprofessional the prior conversation might be.
(Harrumph) Greetings, my name is Yelena Stellanovna Romanova, but I am referred to as the Country Personification of the Russian Federation within the International Prosopon Council; or you can call me Russia Moscow. The capital functions like a surname. But don't call me Mrs. Moscow, because that's the City Personification of Moscow herself. Well, Ms., not Mrs., but I digress. Just Russia works. I'm not that stuck up to demand you to use my complete prosoponal title.
My standing inside the International Prosopon Council other than as an obvious member of The High Prosopon Council, is as the Head of the Research Department—succeeding my predecessor, the Country Personification of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And, no, she is not my mother, despite what France may say. Really I don't understand why she keeps pushing that belief. Now everyone thinks Union is my mother and that Soviet is— if I end up going off course in this recording a few more times, ignore that. Maybe it'll be useful information for you as well. Who knows.
Where was I? Oh, yes, introduction. If you are listening to this, surely you would've seen the title of this recording. If you haven't, well, you're an idiot for not doing that, but I'll be kind and recite it for you.
This is an introduction to Project HERON, in which is an acronym for Historical Esoteric Records of Neoincarnations.
This project, started by myself and supported by the Leader and Founder of the International Prosopon Council, Ulrich Neumann, the Organisation Personification of the United Nations, is an effort to record—it's in the name—the reaction of the Personifications present whenever any sort of historical event occurred. This tracking would only go as far from the first known Representation to the turn of the 21st century, nothing onwards, due to the lack of defining features available for extraction. Unless World War III happens, at least.
Neoincarnations are basically Terrestrial Incarnations, just to explain the possibly-new term in the name. I hope its meaning is obvious. It might not be, actually. Well, if you're too dense in the head to figure it out, Terrestrial just means Personifications within this planet. Not the Cosmic Incarnations such as Earth and the rest of the Milky Way's planets. That is, if they even exist in the first place. I mean, personally, I think they do, but people keep doubting me for some reason.
I don't understand why. Have I ever been wrong? Exactly. Never. And they still think I'm not trustworthy. Well, I know I'm not, but you can quite easily parse through my words and differentiate the full truth from the half and the lies. It's really not that hard. But of course, somehow, the humans I'm... friends with for not even a whole decade can tell them apart with no effort wasted, while these colleagues of mine I've familiarised myself with for centuries, even a bit over a millennium, can't. Really, what is up with them.
Back to the topic in hand, the way the records work is that, through a certain, well, artefact I forged not a long time ago, of which is derived from the research papers of my predecessor, would be used as the device to, ah, you know, record. The original purpose of this artefact is to fundamentally be a backup storage for my memories, which may be known to be adamantine, but they... aren't. Once I reach a certain moment in time, I'll lose all the "unimportant" stuff. Which is bullshit, in my opinion, because everything is important. But of course my opinion is ignored. Oh well.
The artefact basically records my experience. And because I have a— ah, extraterrestrial being which... hm, let's just say, is in close proximity with myself, this allows the recording to be both first-person and third-person limited. Actually, no, omniscient is more accurate; because of what that thing is, I'm sure it can do other stuff. And the artefact in itself is powered by a fraction of that thing's... eugh, magic? I don't know.
Either way, I managed to find a way to make this artefact a reliable source to not only record my memories, but of other people. The caveat is that I must've talked with them at least once. If I have, then this artefact would do it's thing and practically have this other Personification's memories and voilà, recording complete. It's just not going to be in first-person, though, but in third-person limited. Not omniscient too.
I didn't mention this yet, but this project is only known to be an existing thing by myself, United Nations, and no one else. For now. Yes, not even America knows of this. Really, the only reason why I'm recording is because of formalities. Only United Nations would see this anyway. Maybe. Unless you aren't, which would mean you're breaking and entering into the archives. Doesn't matter, though, I can't bring myself to bother.
With that being said, what else haven't I spoken of... well, in general, this recording project would mainly be Eurocentric because I don't really interact with everyone before the last turn of the century. I certainly do recall talking to more people outside of the continent in the Cold War, but, well, from what I see in the artefact's recordings, it's not too, well, thorough. I think this artefact also factors in how often I talk with the targeted Personification to demonstrate full effectivity. Which is a shame, honestly.
Maybe it's good for the Personifications I barely talk to, though, because then I don't have access to their deepest, darkest secrets. How terrifying. Good for them. I don't think Germany would like me knowing things about her that she doesn't even remember. She loathes me enough. Well, she also does think of me as—
(Pause)
I shouldn't say that.
I still have respect myself, so I wouldn't disclose these secrets to anyone else. You know, this free information trick would've seen better use in the Cold War, but oh well. Too late, I guess. Too early? Who knows.
(Pause)
I should— God, I hate this. I didn't need to know that. (Sigh) Give me a moment.
[Click]
[Click]
[RUSSIA]
Pardon for the abrupt pause, I had to gather my thoughts over what I just said.
Returning to what the whole point of this recording is, the way for you to access the individual historical recordings from the artefact is to simply activate it and then you experience it from a third-person limited point of view. Like a video. It might sound easy, but good luck in finding the artefact in the first place, that thing has a mind of its own. Usually it'll show up if you really need it, though. Higher chance if you're a Personification. It could do the same to humans, I think, but less likely. Descendants of Personifications have a slightly higher chance, though.
As with the name, it only records stuff correlating to historical events. So, unless it has some sort of tie with a monumental event, the artefact wouldn't record it. No slice-of-life available, you can say. Unless it's "important", of course. There's bound to be a lot of death in it.
Yes, even viewpoints belonging to Personifications long dead exist. As long as I talked to them. Oh, and another thing, this artefact for some reason shows deaths of Personifications very vividly. Even if I haven't talked to them a lot. I really don't know why. But I swear if it's because of my affinity to Death...
Doesn't matter.
There are a few anomalies, though. There exists recordings of stuff which never exactly happened. Of course, I can just file them as false memories or misremembering, but with how clear they are, I think putting them as "happened in another universe" is more likely. Yes, I do think alternate universes exist. I just have no idea where to expand from there. If you don't agree, then we agree to disagree. Simple as that. There was this one time I saw myself in a world overrun with zombies. Thankfully that's not going to happen here. That version of myself was smart enough to figure out inter-universal inter-temporal communication. I'm sure I can as well.
I really don't understand this artefact. Yes, I did create it, but that doesn't mean I control it fully. It's its own being at this point. If I were to name it, I'd name it Mikhail Arkhangelsky due to totally not obvious reasons.
It takes a while for those recordings to appear, though. I'm not too sure why. But they're there. And it's the most reliable form of tracking possible for this project's purpose. The first non-personal recording dubbed a clear success was transcripted on the 24th of December 2022. Which happened, ah, let me check the date. Oh, yes, a week ago. I'm sure more stuff would appear in the coming days. That recording I mentioned is the only one I deem a success, actually. The rest is... less clear. But they're there. I can comprehend it but I don't think anyone else can, so I won't talk about—
[AVRELIAN]
(In Russian) Lenochka?
[YELENA]
(In Russian) Yes? I thought I told you to give me a moment.
[AVRELIAN]
You did. Rodya asked for me to come by his place, though. I just wanted you to know.
[YELENA]
Ah. Well, alright. I'll take care of the little stars. You should meet Avdotya there too, no?
[AVRELIAN]
Yes. It shouldn't take too long.
[YELENA]
How long?
[AVRELIAN]
Twenty at the latest.
[YELENA]
Nice to know.
[AVRELIAN]
Yes. █ ████ ███.
[YELENA]
█ ████ ███.
[Click]
[Click]
[RUSSIA]
(In English) ... sorry. Where did I stop again? Oh, yeah. I'm sure more would appear. If another success happens, it'll be transcripted by me. The rest would just be stored in the artefact with no official manuscript. You might think I should transcript everything nonetheless, but in my opinion, it's better to be laughed at than wrong. I don't like any discrepancies between anything I write.
(Chuckle) It'd be funny if I publish those manuscripts online. People would just think of it as normal Countryhumans fanfiction. No one would know, after all.
I think that's it. I can't recall anything else important for me to say here. Maybe there is something I'm withholding, maybe there isn't, but that's up for you on figuring that out. It's not fun if I tell you everything, is it? I mean, you would know if you're me, but if you're not, then I think you should play with your head a little and sharpen it. I'm sure it's possible.
If you're wondering why I choose to record this on a tape recorder from decades ago, my only reason is that it's more tangible and harder to falsify compared to digital recordings. Plus, it's got a nice atmosphere to it, you know? Makes it feel as if this project was launched in the Cold War. Well, it's not. But one can imagine.
I'll bring this to a close. I look forward on seeing more visible recordings sometime soon. I know you hope for that as well, whoever you are. It'd be best if there was something concrete you could place your beliefs in. I'm sure I'll see a bit more of Germany suffering in the near future.
(Pause)
God, I'll have to edit that out.
[Click]