#freelife

Fast Life

Dima 🇳🇱🇸🇾

I think we all figured out the truth about Amalia. Or at least something pretty close. I wasn’t sure if Amalia’s mind was fully replaced after her suicide or if her and Zephyr memories were jumbled and that’s why she seemed to not know some important information about why and how she was there. Now we know that it was just Zephyr’s memories - at least until know since Galanthi shown her Amalia’s life - but she didn’t know because she just didn’t know that much about the alien to begin with. And she also didn’t even know she was coming to the past with it. She was just a grunt soldier. A very good one. But then how could she not be when she was Claudia Black?

We learn that the future people destroyed thought a nuclear war over whether to take the alien help or not. That both sides were fanatical but the  one that fought against the aliens for human purity were especially cruel. They justification of it was that the PDC were traitors to human race. The PDC had Touched who believed Galanthi want to help humans but they developed their own religion around it including the whole “names are sacred and you tell them to no one” thing.

We also know even PDC know very little about Galanthi and what are their plans and how their gifts work. Stripe is convinced every Spore knows how to communicate with the aliens but we see it’s untrue - both because it’s what Stitch tells her but also because all the Touched have Spores but only Myrtle seems to be one that can understand the alien. But it also seems like the ones who can communicate really have more understanding of the powers since future Myrtle seems to know Zephyr is seeing her from the past and tells her to forget it.

We also know that only few people react to the Spores by getting powers. This explains why not all people who were outside that day got them. Like why Lord Massen didn’t get any while his daughter did (I hope we’ll learn soon what is it and why he keeps her in the cellar). Or why Augie is Touched but Lavinia isn’t - although I keep wondering in that case as it seems like there is something off about Lavinia and I wonder if she is Touched after all and that’s why she wants a cure for it or if she’s one of those who came from the future and the was FLA and that’s why she wants to kill Galanthi and thinks it wants to destroy them all. She keeps saying it wants war and will corrupt their minds and all this seems very FLA.

Of course it depends on how choosy Galanthi was with taking people along.Was it everyone in the base who was still alive? Or anyone it could reach? Could it chose who to take? But then why would it include FLA at all? Could it tell who is who? Does it know where they all are in their new lives? I mean it knew not just Zephyr but the name she took in this new time so we should assume it has some connection to all of them still.

I assume it was limited to the base and only to those still alive. However we don’t know who else was fully dead when Galanthi left. Any of the other shot - including that FreeLife Army major and the guy who helped him - could’ve been still alive (they were shot but we didn’t see them die) and hitched a ride.

There were also the other two PDC (shot guy and the other one) so maybe Zephyr isn’t alone in the past. Maybe there aren’t just enemies who were brought along but also back up. And since bodies were doled out based on availability who knows what they look like. Maybe that woman’s voice belongs to one of those guys.

I wonder if giving Zephyr Amalia’s memories was to help her understand her powers. I mean Zephyr had her first flashback - to when she got her scar - when Galanthi first tried to use its tentacles to take the Team but that might’ve been just it trying to communicate. It  looks like she only got the flash forwards after being placed in  Amalia’s body and maybe that’s why she became receptive to Spore. She didn’t have those powers before. She thought they were proof of her being in sim at first after all.

I wonder how much of Zephyr involvement with Cousens is less love and more convenience. He was just at the right place and right time - he just happened to  be the first Touched she knew about in her new world - and she knew they  end up having sex from her vision. And she needed someone in that moment to not feel so alone in this new time so he is one who knows the truth about who she is and how she’s there so she can be herself with him.

So how much of it is just that she  has very different views on sex and commitments than 19th century  British and how much is real attachment? She still called Penance her heart and it’s Penance she told her real name. We know from some Zephyr’s memory flashes she seems to be bisexual.

Of course it seems like in general friendships are more important to Zephyr than romantic relationships (she hadn’t told her neither of those she married her name for 3 years they were married). And maybe she just learning to trust people more. Those two years in less hostile times clearly changed her. It’s clear when you compare the Zephyr who sacrificed Sarah to Hague even though she understood how creepy he is because she was there and already crazy (was being committed before becoming Touched) with one we know now. She always had it in her (we see in her flashback with Knitter) but the war taught her it was unwise to get attached. Penance and others brought her out of that. And now she’s ready to tell all the Touched where she came from and how.