high-energy physics

[warpfairy]

Federation political prisons are not particularly uncomfortable. She's not going anywhere, but she can read, she's considering taking up an instrument, the only really awkward thing is that she doesn't particularly want to be supervised while she's sweating her way through her next pon farr one way or another but that's years off. That and she wishes she'd taken longer to get caught. But she was running out of the really low-hanging fruit anyway.

This is what she signed up for. She makes up imaginary profiles of people on the planets she got to, people who can live longer fuller lives with the stars in reach, one per day. One per day and she'll have loads of estimated impact left unused when she dies. Perfectly reasonable tradeoff and she can still read books.

Someone wants to interview her about Vulcan; they don't want to lose anything that anybody remembers; she gives the interview and then picks up some poetry.

Comments

[lintamande]

So they add it to the list, but not near the top.

[subtly_artistic]

And when they have an improved teleportation which can handle Prometheus's dimensions, Bella and Rúmil go to the Prometheus. There is not as it happens anyone aboard (Bella checks), so they just teleport it back to Davlia.

[lintamande]

Fëanáro thinks starships are the second most beautiful thing in the multiverse, after books.

[warpfairy]

T'Mir gives them a tour! And displays the function of the computer, which has more peripherals and voice command than a crystal ball but is conceptually similar. They can try recording sound now.

[lintamande]

Recording and playing back magical songs works!

[warpfairy]

Cool! What can magical songs do?

[lintamande]

"Mostly things that were needed by Cuivienen," Rúmil says. "Heat a rock, light a fire, lure an animal."

[warpfairy]

"...Well, assuming you can sing them without setting my ship on fire or whatever it can't hurt to have recordings of them even if their utility isn't immediately obvious."

[lintamande]

So they do (you can in fact target the fire enough that the ship doesn't catch) and he says he can try to remember the hang of composing new ones.

[warpfairy]

If he can operationalize it enough it's just barely possible a computer could do that!

[lintamande]

That would certainly be interesting. He should try learning computers anyway.

[warpfairy]

Computers 101.

[lintamande]

Computers are even more convenient than crystal balls in some ways.

[warpfairy]

Yep! Interfacing them will be great!

Davlia is tentatively interested in belonging to a friendlier version of the Federation if they're starting one, it transpires.

[lintamande]

Ooooh. They are in fact possibly starting one.

[warpfairy]

"We should name it. At least a working title."

[lintamande]

The Elves definitely agree that names are important. The name should be really pretty, that's also important.

[warpfairy]

Pretty in what language? Different species have different aesthetics.

[lintamande]

...pretty in all the languages but he doesn't know them all, yet, so it'll suffice if it's pretty in Davlian and English and Quenya and Pax.

[warpfairy]

"Well, it could be just a sound, or it could mean something. We could be a League or an Alliance or a Coalition or a Pact or an Entente, if we want to start with English."

[lintamande]

"Those are all English words?" he says suspiciously. "They sound - not. Entente is pretty. What are the shades of meaning, which best communicates the differences between us and the Federation?"

[warpfairy]

"English has been stealing words for a long, long time. It probably stole Entente from French. It'd communicate a friendly, informal understanding between member units."

[lintamande]

"Like, we'll share our magic with you, but we won't fight because that might be courting my fate? That sounds about right."

[warpfairy]

"Huh?"

[subtly_artistic]

"I would be astonished if your fate somehow grabbed you from here. Swords and boats," snorts Bella. "But it's probably still worth being careful about tendencies revealed by the fate, however much I rendered it obsolete in the particulars."