Not an entirely serious Aside, but still sort of canon. Originally I wanted to get this out by Christmas, but it just refused to flow.

Author: XCVG
Canon: Partial
Context: The Remnan Exchange, 2016


Emergence: Aside
On The Web

The Internet has revolutionized the way we work, play, and connect with each other. In just over two decades, it has gone from a limited-access academic installation to a globe-spanning infrastructure used by billions every day. Every imaginable service and every piece of human knowledge has been brought to our fingertips. The internet can be accessed in even the poorest and most remote corners of the world.

Soon, it will be available on Remnant as well.

Sponsored by technology giants on both sides of the portals, the initiative is set to bring high-speed access to citizens in the four Kingdoms by the end of the decade. At first, access will be limited to so-called "internet centers" located in schools, libraries, and other institutions. Over time, cellular, wifi, and landline connections will be installed and companies and new hardware and software introduced to access this network.

Proponents of the project say that bringing the Internet to Remnant will open up new opportunities for cultural and technological exchange. Many believe that both sides have much to learn from each other, and that this initiative will bring disparate peoples together as it has on Earth. Critics argue that it's too soon. The flow of information through the portals has been fairly tightly gated, and providing Internet access to Remnant would blow the gates wide open. Concerns have been raised that the sudden exchange of information could have unintended and negative consequences.

Though bringing the Internet to Remnant is controversial, all regulatory hurdles have been cleared and construction has already started. Ready or not, the world is opening up.


Dennis Grassmere exhaled deeply as he collapsed onto the battered sofa shoved in a corner of their "breakroom"- really a glorified trailer. He tossed his hard hat onto the seat beside him and ran a hand through his greasy hair. "Ugh."

"Hey, Dennis," a tall woman with a long dirty ponytail called from the other side of the room. "You're on TV."

He glanced at the screen, an old Toshiba flat-panel with a cable snaking upward to an aerial on the roof. "That's a reporter."

She laughed and pointed to a corner of the screen. "No, you're the dot on top of the cherry picker over there."

He squinted at the dot. "How can you even tell?"

The woman was about to answer when the door swung open and another woman; shorter, slimmer, and dressed in bright cyan, stepped inside. A badge declaring her as Callaiea Skye, network engineer from Vale Telecom, hung loosely from around her neck. Like most of the Remnan workers, she didn't believe in hard hats and her cyan hair hung loosely around her shoulders.

Unconsciously, Dennis tensed up slightly, and it wasn't because of the safety violations.

He considered himself a fair man who didn't judge based on race- he was part Indian and an eighth Native himself- but there was just something unsettling about Remnans. Maybe it was the fact that you couldn't tell by looking they were one of the normals or one of the ones with superpowers. Maybe it was the brightly coloured hair that looked fake but not fake the way dye did. Maybe it was the slightly different motions and slightly different language.

She wasted no time with pleasantries and asked simply, "How is the project going?"

"They relay tower is up," he answered smoothly. He was a tech guy at heart and talking about their work was a great distraction from the creepy. "We're just waiting on your guys in Vale now, then we'll be able to calibrate the antennas and run a full systems test. If that works, there's nothing technical between us and Internet on Remnant. It's just a matter of flipping the switch."

"You objected to some aspects of the project," Callaiea said. Her tone was more curious than conspiratorial.

"I'm not saying we're doing it wrong," Dennis answered. "I'm saying I wish we could run fibre- that'd be the proper way of doing it- but that's not happening unless the road goes through, and, well..."

"I heard that they're gonna do it," the ponytail woman chimed in.

"And I heard they aren't. I think we'll have to wait and see," Dennis argued. "I mean, if trade becomes big, it'll happen, but you kinda need the road for that, so-"

"Egg and chicken?" the Remnan woman suggested.

"Chicken and egg, but yes."


"Kludge! Megakludge to the max!" Jay Singh exclaimed as he ran his hand over the cables leading into Beacon's humming mainframe. He turned to the shorter, red-haired man standing next to him. "Damn, I've always wanted to say that!"

"Is our equipment really that bad?" Hal Flannery asked. Realizing he might be misinterpreting the statement, he added, "Or good?"

Jay laughed. "No, man, I just always wanted to say that. You know, Seaman Jones, The Hunt For Red October?" He scratched his beard. "I guess not, huh."

Hal shook his head. The mainframe room was hot, something he was used to but his counterpart apparently was not. He started moving, asking as they headed toward the cooler hallway, "What's the plan?"

"Still waiting on the masts," he answered. "Telco's got the wireless link in, but we've got to mount our own links up there too for the other buildings. I guess we can wait on the other ends since we don't actually have any clients, but I know they'll want it soon and we've got the hardware so we might as well put it in now."

"Sounds good." He had no idea if it was good, but it sounded good.

Jay breathed a sigh of relief as they emerged into the hallway. "You know, Terran IT guys don't work well in hot rooms, and neither does our equipment. Please tell me you got a cooler server closet."

"It is cooler, but it's literally a closet," Hal answered with a shrug. "I got a... you'd call it a portable AC unit. Runs on freeze Dust and it'll keep your mainframe cold enough to store meat in."

"Good, good. Have the servers come in?"

"Yeah, they just came in yesterday," he responded affirmatively. "Quite a few boxes- smaller than I expected- but quite a few boxes. How many mainframes are you putting it? Can you not build a powerful enough single computer?"

Jay shook his head. "Redundancy, my man. Two servers, fully virtualized and running Redmond's latest and greatest. Just AD and some infrastructure today, but before you know it they'll want more, and if we start putting in more labs we'll want to hang some stuff on it too. Plus the dedicated file server. I would have preferred something more UNIX-like for that, but, well, their money, their rules."

"You know I still have no idea what any of that means," the Remnan deadpanned.

"And I still have no idea how your network hasn't collapsed," Jay replied. They'd been trading barbs since their first conversation, and the bearded Terran still had no idea if the Remnan tech loved him or hated him. "You'll figure it out pretty quick, but for now all you have to do is run the- how did you put it?- thin but stiff cable with flimsy little ends, and I'll set up the rest."

"I'm not sure if you're excited about this or dreading it." Hal unlocked his office and bolted into his large reclining chair before the Terran could steal it from him.

"Both," Jay replied, taking the smaller chair in front of him. He kicked his legs up onto the desk. "Schools have the worst lusers you've ever seen. This is going to be the deployment from hell. But, I'm one of the first Terrans on Remnant, so you win some, you lose some."


Connecting Remnant to Earth's virtual world had been a tremendous undertaking- albeit more a political than technical one- but none of that passed through the minds of Team RWBY as they half-led, half-dragged their quarry into the newly outfitted computer lab. It was mostly empty in the dead of night, with a few students still there enthralled by Wikipedia articles and forum threads an the tech guy slumped over the table with a half-empty can of cola by his hand.

"Friend Ruby, I still don't understand the point of connecting to this Internet," the ginger-haired girl protested.

"You will, Penny, you just have to try it!" Ruby told her, pulling her toward a computer station near the edge of the room and pushing her into the chair.

The station was dominated by a thick black opaque display showing a heavily stylized blue window with surprising colour and clarity. Below it was a black rectangular box trimmed with a hexagonal pattern and featuring prominent blue and yellow ports on the front. Several cables led to the back of it. Two of them snaked forward- one toward a physical keyboard in plain black except for a prominent silver branding and the other toward a peripheral unfamiliar to her. A placard declared it as station 19 of 25.

"How do I use it?" Penny asked. She held up the unfamiliar peripheral, an oblong object with a wheel in the middle and a cable leading to the black box. "I understand the keyboard, but what does this do?"

"That's a mouse. It moves the pointer on the screen," Ruby told her. She grabbed the mouse and demonstrated.

"Ah, I see," she acknowledged. She scanned the screen. Username, password. "What do I put in?"

"Guest, beacon. All lower case."

Penny guessed correctly that those were the username and password. She typed in both and clicked on the login button, and was greeted with another unfamiliar screen. A picture of Beacon was in the background with a few colourful icons above it. At the bottom of the screen was a long strip of icons, one of which looked similar to the stylized window at the login screen. A clock sat at the far right.

It couldn't be that hard, could it?

Weiss prodded, "Just open Chrome. It's the round one with the colours."

"Chrome is for this Internet you talked about?" Penny asked, finding the icon and clicking on it. "Why not just label it Internet?"

"It's a long story," Yang said dismissively. "Something about competition."

At first, the ginger-haired gynoid was slow, carefully typing on the unfamiliar keyboard and awkwardly pushing around the mouse with both hands. She searched for a term, frowned, put in another, and tried again before opening a link. At first she looked up basic mathematical concepts, then a few terms none of the others recognized, and then she started on the massive subject of Earth history.

It didn't take long for her to speed up. The keys clacked constantly beneath her left hand as she deftly manipulated the mouse with her right. Her queries were more refined and she cycled through pages faster.

"I think I'm getting the hang of it!" Penny said excitedly. "It's not too different from what we have, just with a lot of annoying dumb things!"

"That's great, Penny!"

When she started moving too quickly for anyone else to keep track of what she was reading, that's when they started getting worried.

Blake said nervously, "Uh, Ruby..."

The crimsonette tapped her fingers together, grimacing. "Ooops."

Finally, the gynoid stopped. She let go of the mouse, rolled backward a few inches, and stared blankly at the colourful and very familiar images on the screen.

Weiss summed it up for them. "I think we broke her."