exsiliumlogs | (open) flight of the concord

Date & Time: 1200 Island Standard Time
Location: Exsilium, Warehouse 13
Characters: All boarders and pilots and staff listed here, and everyone else to come and see!
Summary: The space shuttle has finally been fully restored, and now the Initiative has cleared it for a practice flight out past the exosphere. The flight is a success, thus guaranteeing future goals brought around by the Transports rewriting history to reshape the present.
Warnings: None at the moment. Space excitement!

There's a sense of excitement almost strong enough to taste for people waiting past the safe-line, watching for the space shuttle liberated by accidental chance from the United Earth. She's been refitted and reworked by countless hours of labor intense love from Transports and Initiative members alike, and today, she's finally ready to reclaim the skies.

With the flight path chosen, and the cloud patterns promising no heavy rain or turbulance in the lowest level of the atmosphere, or the one right above, everyone is relatively confident this will go well.

And if it doesn't... they'll deal with the fallout.

Yet today is not a day to mourn failures. Today will be a day of success -- and to each person strapped in on the space shuttle herself, it will be a flight into the skies to remember. For the four hours the crew will stay in rotation with the Earth from beyond her exosphere, memories will be made, champagne knock-offs will be had back on Exsilium, and absolutely no potty breaks will happen up in the skies.

Let's ammend that earlier statement: there is one failure. That failure is the sonic toilet, but in the face of every other challenge, to only have the toilets break down is nigh on miraculous!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hmm.

[A pause.]

Where are you from that such technology is primitive?

I've spent the majority of my life aboard starships.

[Seven's hands pull back, away from the controls. There's nothing that demands her attention as of this moment.]

Or do you mean to ask about my world of origin in a more general sense?

'Starships' answers my question well enough. My world had barely managed the most rudimentary of orbital rocketry.

I am from a reality that closely resembled this one at some time in the past. I am not sure exactly where the divergence occurred, as there are many factors that could have led to it.

Most people seem to be from something similar. Other versions of 'earth.'

It's strange to think of things that way. There is only one Gaia, as far as I am aware.

Our current circumstances demand that we adapt.

[Easier said than done for some.]

That said, alternate realities are documented where I am from, by many different species. I may have an easier time coming to terms with it due to that.

I believe mine may have been unique. [She hesitates.] Nothing functions as it should here, or from what I have determined, from any of the worlds that other people have come from.

Science does not work the way it should, here.

[There might be a hint of frustration there.]

I have not noticed any significant difference. Aside from a distinct lack of advanced spacefaring technology.

[Your science might be weird.]

Of course you haven't, you're from some variation of earth.

A planet which shouldn't even be able to sustain life, and yet it does.

I was not born on Earth, actually. We visited briefly, my father's family still lived there, but I do not really recall any time I spent there.

[She glances back to the console for a moment.]

I do not understand your meaning, though. Earth is the proper distance from its sun for life to evolve, the atmosphere is a mix conducive to its development. It's hardly a remarkable planet, but there are forms of life adapted to much more inhospitable regions.

You are human, whether you were born there or not, so it is the same basic idea.

[Shelke hesitates. How to explain.]

A planet requires a lifestream. Without it, it cannot sustain life, it cannot even generate life. And yet earth does not have one. No one else has ever even heard of one.

[Okay, now that she is talking about it, she is definitely frustrated.]

[Seven's head tilts, with a curious/confused look on her face--add another one to the 'haven't heard of this' pile. But she's heard stranger--seen stranger.]

Perhaps this is the case in your reality. Or, perhaps, that is how your scientists understand your world.

[She's not going to say what she thinks--that it sounds more like religion instead of science--because someone's managed to beat tact into her head over the last four years.]

Life is strange. There are organisms that live in space itself, without assistance, and in regions of space devoid of natural matter entirely.

[Infinite diversity in infinite combinations and all. A Vulcan philosophy, but one Seven could understand and appreciate.]

[Shelke frowns.] I have most of their research in my head, and it isn't simply our...misunderstanding our world. The lifestream is not a religion, it's a physical thing. We tap it for energy and use it to create materia.

[A pause, as she settles herself back into her normal passive self.]

I am discovering we are simply...an exception to other established rules. But it leaves me on awkward footing with science here.

I did not say it was a misunderstanding.

[She's got years, thousands of species worth of knowledge wrapped up in her head. There's so many different ways to interpret the world that she can't disagree with many of them.]

Merely different.

[Shelke is quiet for a moment before she nods, her faintly glowing eyes studying the woman.]

I can't argue with that. But it makes things here still...frustrating, at times.

[Were she normal herself, she might feel uncomfortable. As it is, Seven's rather used to being gaped at.]

I am sure you could find a sufficient instructor, if you wish to learn alternative theories.

[She doesn't put herself forth as one of those because what is patience and teaching. ~~She's actually pretty good about it, but.~~]

I have been reading what I can, and determining the differences between the laws of the universe here and there.

Most of it I believe I can understand on my own.

[Says the girl who looks nine.]

[Seven is in absolutely no position to be throwing stones there, since when she was 9 she was already physically mature and had been a Borg drone for 3 years. The children on Voyager--Icheb and Naomi, and the others too while they were still there--were extremely intelligent themselves. She knows very well that appearances can be deceiving. She just looks vaguely appraising/approving. She likes smart people. Even better when they're smart people with initiative.]

Should you have questions at some point in the future, I will make myself available to answer them.

[...granted, that offer comes with the risks of answers couched in complete technobabble but YOU TAKE THAT RISK.]

My specialties are engineering and astrophysics, however I am well-versed in most of the sciences of my reality.

[The redhead gives a nod at the offer, and perhaps the barest of a smile, but then...]

...Astrophysics. [Shelke shifts.] I've never even heard of that.

It is the study of the physical characteristics of spatial bodies. What they are made of, their behaviors and interactions.

[That's about as simple an explanation as she can give.]

My posting aboard the starship I am from is Astrometrics officer. I interpret computer data in order to chart the space surrounding our vessel so that we can traverse it quickly and safely.

A science we had absolutely no need for. [Shelke shifts.] More things I know nothing about.

[Frustrating.]

(open) flight of the concord

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