#babelposting

The game makes you place a box top lane that redirects the assassins away from the blue box and into Theresa (and also Amiya by extension!). This is the only way to beat the stage. You can do otherwise. You can not place the box or retreat it, but then you lose the stage. You cannot proceed unless you place the box and leave it there killing Theresa.

The thematic resonance of JT8-1 is that it gives you no control. There is nothing you can do here but watch in horror as it unfolds. In contrast, BB-9 gives you the choice of doing one thing and you must do this one thing and enact this horror yourself. She cannot allowed to turn Terra into a beautiful but short-lived dream. Cut off any possibility of her survival and end her life, ensuring that the Originium will devour and eventually ensure the survival of all.

The event "begins" with the Doctor being awoken from 13,000 years of stasis in the Sarcophagus (it doesn't actually, but much of the events of Babel are set in motion by that) and it ends with the Doctor being placed back in the Sarcophagus to heal.

Theresa repeatedly phrases her ideal as a wish for the land to be able fall into "peaceful slumber," while the Doctor's goal of allowing the Originium to devour all is framed similarly.

Minus a few things (like, you know, the blood), the CG of Amiya and Theresa lying on the ground almost looks as if they are just sleeping.

Theresa's last words to Amiya (although she can't hear them at this point), is to tell her to "sleep in peaceful slumber" and that she will "always be with [her]."

BB-1 / BB-EX-1:

BB-2 / BB-EX-2:

BB-3 / BB-EX-3:

BB-4 / BB-EX-4:

BB-5 / BB-EX-5:

BB-6 / BB-EX-6:

BB-7 / BB-EX-7:

BB-8 / BB-EX-8:

When we first meet her, we find out much about her anxieties and fears.

She fears loss, she fears loneliness and being once again left behind. She fears becoming a burden to others, of not being able to help other people, that if she is a burden she will be left behind, to the point where she's willing to feign not feeling pain from her Oripathy:

The Doctor promises that they'll never leave her behind, and for a happy few years, they make good on that promise. Amiya spends several joyous years with Kal'tsit and Theresa and the Doctor, until one day, the Doctor reneges on that promise, the tower crumbles, and it all comes falling apart.

The thing that gets me most about this is that, Amiya, who is too young to understand the vast conspiracy that she has been inadvertently caught up in, and who still harbors the doubts and fears about herself that she had in the past, thinks this is on her. She thinks that her inability to move or even scream means that there is more that she could have to help Theresa, that when Theresa plunges the blade into her, she deserves to feel its pain.