video (& action) // un: majortom

[winscenario]

Hello to everyone. My name is James T. Kirk, to those of you I haven't met yet.

[ The background of his room is neat and tidy, and so is he. He looks much more like himself now, particularly after a few nights of fairly decent sleep, and some time to get his thoughts back in order about the end of that mission. Anyway, this isn't necessarily a social message, so he moves along. ]

Back in my world, I'm Captain of a starship, and I'm very used to space travel, and just generally living in space. It's not too dissimilar from how things are on this station, all things considered.

I realize there are a lot of people here who aren't familiar with space travel, or only are familiar with the concept itself, mostly from movies and stories. But we are all here, for a seemingly indeterminate amount of time, and I believe it's critical that everyone on this station has at least the most basic knowledge of the science behind space travel, and how to adapt your life to space.

I know many of you are still recovering from our first mission, [ He says, tone more solemn. ] And I understand if some of you don't want to have to worry about more things yet. That's fine, we all need our own time to get our heads back on straight. But we really don't know how long this lull might last, and while we all should use that time to do some R&R, we might not have much time to further adapt to our predicament before we're thrown into another unpredictable situation.

That said, I'm going to set up some classes. We're starting with basics, and if more people want to join in later, I can look into starting a second class from that basic level again. For now it's nothing concrete or defined. I'm setting up a first session tomorrow at 2PM, at the mess hall. I'll be there for a few hours for those who want to come by, ask questions, share what you might've learned here so far with the rest of the group.

Others who are familiar with space travel and want to join me as tutors, I'll happily accept the help. If there's enough interest, I'll look into actual structured lessons, teaching materials, and a decent place on the station to hold these lessons. So if this is something you might be interested in, please let me know here, of just show up tomorrow. [ He smiles. ] I'll be glad to see you there.

[ With that he leans over to end the feed, not without a parting greeting and a small salute. ] Kirk out.


(( ooc: since I'm probably not putting up a log for this first lesson, feel free to go for action during the lesson the following day by having your character pop by! ))

Comments

[winscenario]

Fantastic. The more of us, the better. We can talk about the technology each of us is used to, how it has evolved in our respective worlds, where it might be similar and where it might differ. There should be plenty of commonalities, between all of them and this station too, so we can cover the basics just fine like that.

Anything in particular you're more of an expert in?

[coordination]

There do seem to be a lot of similarities. But I'm not a mechanic or an engineer myself, so I'm not as well-versed in the intricacies of the power sources here outside of some basics of the systems we use. There is one teammate who did sound like he specialized in that area, so once he gets a better [ And safer, since Ratchet'll know better about what to touch or not fuck with. ] idea of the ins and outs, that can be passed along to others as well.

—when the first of us came here, the station lost power for a while. There were backup generators, of course, but for those who weren't as familiar with that sort of thing ... energy issues in space can be alarming. So if it happens again, which I hope it does not, at least we'll be better prepared.

[winscenario]

I should know my way around, I do pretty well when it comes to engineering, but right now I'd say the main problem is access. There are a lot of sections of the station we can't get to, and that limits our scope, and what we might be able to do. I'd wager the AI is protecting the vital areas of the station, not knowing whether the people here would be able to handle things here or if they'd blow it all up.

Yeah, I heard about that. [ He frowns. ] That kind of thing happening again, even on a smaller scale, worries me. Crews often are trained to cope with that kind of surprise and stress, but the people here don't have that training. Even if the station manages to keep itself going with backup generators, I worry about panic spreading and the consequences that might bring.

I'm thinking of talking to Viveca about putting together a maintenance crew. Among us all, we should be able to get a few knowledgeable heads together. We might just be able to spot any issues before they become serious problems.

[coordination]

Not to mention it's where that commander is keeping the orbs we retrieve.

Thankfully, everyone handled things pretty well back when that shit happened, even if some of them weren't as familiar with how it all worked. Still, it's not something I'd like to see repeated. As well as losing communication from Viveca.

[winscenario]

Right. It wouldn't do to just have them easily accessible to us, would it? But in this case, I'd be more interested in keeping the station running in top shape, so my hope is that we'd be able to find some kind of
balance and reach an agreement here.

Everyone here seems to be adapting pretty well, which is admittedly surprising to me, but in a good way. I've gotten a lot of interest in the lessons too, so hopefully most everyone here has an interest in having a more active role for however long we end up staying here.

[coordination]

When there's as much on the line as there is on this undertaking, people can be surprisingly adaptive. Having a goal as important as the one we've agreed to is a pretty good motivator.

[winscenario]

[ That... just makes Jim frown uncomfortably. It's not the first time people talk about the goal they've agreed to, which frankly makes his stomach twist. More and more he feels like he's never agreed to this, never agreed to the kinds of actions they took on that mission.

And truth be told, they don't even know what the orbs are for. That makes him feel even less comfortable about collecting them for this Commander and the station's AI. ]

Guess we'll see about that. So far people generally seem to be doing well. Better than I would expect from a group of people largely unfamiliar with space travel.

[coordination]

[ Yzak notes his change of expression and, in turn, raises an eyebrow. ]

What? Did I say something weird?

[winscenario]

No, not at all.

[ He smiles at Yzak, albeit weakly. It's not the kind of conversation he'd like to have with someone he's just met, at least not unprompted. Maybe in person, though. ]

Just got things on my mind, is all. It's not you.

[coordination]

[ Good thing Yzak doesn't particularly care enough to push when it comes to someone he also just met. So he just shrugs it off and taps into his own curiosity instead. ]

Anyway, you said you were a Captain - what kind of ship is a "starship" exactly? Battleship? Transport? And what about living in space, is that situation something you've accomplished recently, or long ago?

[winscenario]

[ Maybe one day they'll get to that. Probably, actually. It's just not the kind of talk he wants to have right now, or even over the network. ]

My ship was the Enterprise— Constitution Class ship, built mainly with deep space travel and exploration in mind. She's the flagship of the Federation, so our missions often involve exploring uncharted space, First Contact situations, diplomatic missions and scientific research. Space travel is fairly common where I'm from, so I've done it a few times even before joining the Academy, but long-term space living, I've been doing it for a little over six years.

[coordination]

If you're talking uncharted space and first contacts, you sound like you're a ways into the future compared to where we are. We still haven't really gone beyond the reach of our own galaxy yet. But there are plenty of expansions on Mars, and like I've said, I was born and raised on PLANT. Those are space colonies that were built around thirty or so years ago.

[winscenario]

We haven't gone beyond the limits of our own galaxy yet either, but the galaxy is considerably bigger than what most people think. We've only explored about half of it, but we have gone well beyond the limits of our solar system, so there is that. Mars has been an inhabited planet for over one hundred and fifty years where I'm from, for instance. Terraformed over a hundred years ago.