driftfleet | video ♟ first complaint

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video ♟ first complaint

Who: Murphy and YOU
Broadcast: Open
Action: HS Marsiva
When: Early morning

[It's been a while since he's sent a wave on any kind of network like this, but it's not like it's hard to remember how.]

You know - being back on a spaceship, alright, fine.

[The face onscreen is of a wiry, annoyed teenager. He keeps carding his fingers through his dry, soft, clean hair; it's a feeling he's not used to and it's still novel. His eyes are rolled skyward as he considers the room, sketching around at the ceiling and searching for something before he regards the actual camera.]

Weird... cleansing rituals. Sewing my clothes. There was probably some feet stuff while I was out. Whatever. I guess I'm not here to judge your lame kinks as long as I get some grub out of it.

[He looks back up again, and ticks an irritated finger towards the roof above him.]

But if we're gonna keep playing this new age, virgin with denial and a saxophone jazz crap all day long? I'm gonna need a damn weapon back.

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No, I'd say being set on fire is worse.

[ but this argument is dumb, and she's so confused why he's offended ]

You shouldn't assume that would kill everyone, though. And how much I make depends a lot on what's happening in my life every week.

[It's more of a fake offense, like insinuating he'd shoot a unicorn in the face or something. If you haven't gotten stabbed at least once on the ground, you're probably doing something wrong.]

Never mind. Holy crap. You have killed the comparison. The joke is dead. How have you made it this far in life being so literal? [She really is like Clarke.] Like a fun suck.

It wasn't a good joke.

[ but she sighs ]

Since you're new and all, is there anything else you wanted to know?

[A million. And no idea where to start.]

Nope. Just send me directly to the selling my body for money and entertainment portion of my life, by all means.

How about a name, you got one or are we stickin' with 'princess'?

[ Good lord. This boy is double dunked in the sarcasm sauce. ]

Ino. Captain of the SS Three Twins.

And you?

[Wait, what? Was that here? Already pissing off members of the guard, he was off to a great start. The question was whether he would pick it up here or not.]

Murphy. [He pauses.] Commander Jonathan Murphy of the surviving ground unit of the Ark, actually, and here, uh - live in studio.

[Whatever, she wouldn't know the difference. Nobody else had shown up, for some reason. And he definitely wasn't getting his start as a freaking criminal again.] Pleasure's all mine, captain.

... Huh.

[ She looks a little surprised when he says "Commander", but lucky for him, they promote people pretty early in her world, so it's not entirely unbelievable. So she doesn't question that part of it, at least. ]

The Ark? What is that?

[Good sign at least, she didn't even know what it was. People really weren't from this world, huh? Well, tree people breathing radiation deep and living off bugs and sweat weren't believable a few months back either.]

Mankind's last-ditch effort to, I don't know, matter? "Long ago when the Earth was on fire, twelve stations floated through space all alone. One day -" Some crap happened and everyone was happy smiles for a hundred years in one big ship until something about follies and we crash down on Earth. Less happy smiles.

Really doesn't ring any bells?

[ Well, that sounds ... bizarre. ]

Uh, no.

But you should know that there's, like, a thousand different versions of Earth. Alternate universes and all that. The place where I come from hasn't invented any kind of space travel yet. In fact, I think you're probably one of the few people out of everyone here who's ever been on a spaceship before getting brought here.

[Okay. Alright. He can at least appreciate some of the concept. It was hard to believe anyone on the Earth he knew could have not seen the Ark crash-landing out of the sky, so she had some merit there.

But he didn't want to talk much about his world. There wasn't much for him there in the first place, and divulging too much more would only get him caught in an eventual lie. Definitely helps lend to his curiosity instead:]

So what's that make your Earth like, huh?

Uh, well ... not on fire, for starters.

[ Look! She can make a joke too! Wow! ]

I live in a military village in between a big forest and a big set of mountains. There's one for every big country, but ours is the most powerful of all of them. Though -- I guess that doesn't really matter anymore since we all united for the war going on.

I don't know that there's a whole lot that really separates it from any other Earth other than the events that happened on it in history, though.

[Technically speaking - she sounds an awful lot like a grounder.

Too clean, though. None of that bones in her hair crap. Showered recently. Didn't jump to conclusions like she had an electric charge held to the bottoms of her feet at all times. Same Earth, different circumstances, huh? But still pretty similar at its core concept. Really, really weird to think about.]

History, and about - a couple hundred layers of radiated air. But, yeah, sure. Leave it at history.

What makes yours the best anyway? Your village.

Radiated air? [ She looks surprised ] I've heard of that happening with a certain type of bomb. Is that what it was?

Uh, well ... [ She has to pause to think about how to put this in a way that doesn't exactly betray the whole "ninja" thing. ] ... Basically, where I come from, a lot of the fighting skills you learn are determined by the family you're born into. There are certain things that are passed down in that way -- skills that are kept a secret to anyone outside of that family. So, if you gather together a lot of families that are particularly skilled, and they reproduce a lot ... you end up with a lot of people who are just really good at fighting. And are powerful or skilled enough to stay alive and keep having more kids.

Our village has the most and the biggest of those families of anyone else -- to the point where other villages have tried to kidnap kids from us to raise on their side to get the upper hand.

Big ol' bombs. But it was, like, a hundred years ago so don't go askin' me about it cuz I don't know.

[That is definitely something. Fighting as he knows it is more human than she knows, with guns and metal and rifle rounds, but it still paints a clear enough picture for him to get it. She's tough, that means, and she knows her way around a weapon. Probably knows which parts of him are the squishiest too, but fortunately this is just a video.]

So you guys run the show, sounds like. Kinda rigged the game, but - congrats? [It's a compliment, sort of, but it still sounds loaded.] If you're that top of the class, it's no wonder you made captain.

[ Well, that sucks. But it makes sense not to know much if he wasn't really there, so ...

She laughs a little at his last comment, though ]

Oh, Captain is only my rank here in the fleet. I don't really ever talk about my rank at home since it's not like anyone else would know what it meant or -- you know, care, for the most part. Every ship in this fleet has a captain, though, so I'm in charge of the one I live on.

I mean, it can't've - hurt. Figured it gave you some kinda foot in here.

[Which is starting to get into territory that's going to - really quickly betray that he knows so little about the actual political system other than the gritty. He sidesteps the conversation.]

It's gotta drive you nuts, goin' from a whole life in the outdoors to cooped up in one of these things.

[ She just shrugs. ]

It's not that it hurts, but the people here are from such different places. Titles that make one person a god where they come from can mean absolutely nothing to the next. The respect you get is usually the respect you earn from the people around you, not from what you did where you come from.

[ She puts her chin in her palm with a sigh at that last comment ]

Yeah, seriously, it's a hell of a change to get used to. But we do stop at different planets and stations a lot so it's not like we can never get off the ship. Thankfully.

[Weird. People keep telling him that actions are what give people their social consequences in the end. It's like it's significant or something. Murphy's caught somewhere between there and vague skepticism about this freaking idea following him around.

Gods? Different planets? Habitable ones? His mouth starts to form the 'wh' in his question, but it hangs there for a few seconds as he debates what he even wants to bring up first.]

What - else is even here? [Beat.] Who the hell - actually calls themself a god?

[ She laughs a little at how baffled he is, because -- he's one of THOSE. Adjusting to being here for him should be very ... Interesting. ]

Just a tip? Pretty much anything is possible, here -- so it's a good idea to just accept that weird stuff is gonna happen. Stuff you've only heard about in stories is totally real. You'll see once you get off the Marsiva. It's impossible to walk around any ship without running into someone who can do magic, or a talking horse, or someone who's considered a god where they come from ... So on and so forth.

And I guess there's a lot of habitable planets out there? We stop pretty often and most places seem to have a decent population.

[Murphy's eyes can't help averting downward midway through Ino's advice. The very last thing he'll admit is that the idea makes him nervous. Uncertainty was a void most everyone could cop to fearing, never mind that on top of 'god' being mentioned as a roster possibility, now Ino's added 'talking horse' to the list. That part was probably bullshit, but his imagination was on top gear regardless.

Staying out of trouble had been hard enough to avoid back when the world had been split into simpler factions, grounders and sky people and mountain men, but this place was a free-for-all. And Murphy routinely expected the worst.]

Alright. [To his credit, he sounds fairly accepting, albeit wary. His fingers play anxiously in his hair, but he rolls his eyes back upward to Ino again.] That really the best advice here for we few simple humans? - Don't ask questions and you might not get stepped on..?

[ She blinks, looking confused for a moment ]

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Just that you'll save yourself a pretty big headache if you don't bother with the "but that doesn't exist" or "that can't be real" stuff. Most people understand there are places without magic and elves and all that and don't mind if you ask about it.

I've just seen a lot of people get really worked up about needing stuff to have some kind of explanation that fits in with where they come from, instead of just accepting that things are different in other places.

[It's hard not to assume the worst in whatever she says, but adjusting to change has never exactly been one of Murphy's strong suits. Not unless it was in his favor, of course; he'd happily accept that. And that felt like fairy tale shit, but so was the stuff she kept listing. What the hell was an elves?

She's seemed legitimate so far, but it's a pretty big leap from glowing trees and genetic mutations. Everything else, he can rationalize.

Murphy laughs at himself in some quick huffs of breath, waiting for a few long seconds before he can even gather a response, and proceeds to compartmentalize exactly the opposite of what Ino has just advised him to do.]

Nah, I get it now. Screw with the new guy, right?

[ He gets a long, flat stare through the camera ]

I'm not screwing with you. It's the truth.

[Take a screenshot, it lasts longer!!]

You are literally asking me to believe in magic right now.

Because it's literally a real thing that exists here?

Seriously. Ask around. People will be happy to show it off to you.

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video ♟ first complaint

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