Chocolate-flavored Dessert Cream on the House

[thespaceopera]

[The bunks are filling up, but the new faces just keep appearing!

Are you a travel-weary passenger having trouble keeping your crew roster straight? Perhaps you are a fresh new recruit, finding themselves dumped into a new (and much less shiny) home. Or, maybe you've been around for a little bit and just haven't bothered meeting the other weirdos on this ship yet--what is their problem, anyway?

Well, this is the place for you!

All new passengers from the last few Shuffles, especially those who haven't met their crews yet, are welcome to post starter-comments here to invite those living on and visiting your ship to come and interact. Newbies could be just arriving on the ship, busying around where others can find them, or you can offering multiple options for interaction--however you'd like to set up your thread is fine. Just make sure to include the name of your ship in the header, so your crewmates can easily find you!

Everyone else-- go meet those newbies! Whether they are new to your own crew, or on ships you frequently visit, now is a great time to bump into them.]

Comments

[resnipstance]

... Oh. Well-- that's fair.

[Ahsoka tilts her head-- she can't sense nausea, since it's not an emotion, but you don't need to be a Jedi to see that something is clearly Not Ok here.]

Are you ... feeling all right? ["You seem a little off-colour," she almost says, before realising-- no duh, Ahsoka. He's in the medical bay.]

[astrobleme]

[Currently, Shinji's emotions are an unbroken clusterfuck of pain. Everything from fear to self-hatred has blurred together into one silent scream. He lifts a hand, then, rubbing at his face, which still feels strangely numb--disconnected. Every small, insignificant sound aboard this ship is grating at his nerves.]

In a situation like this... [He stares at the floor in between their feet.] As one of Atroma's newest inductees... [He tugs an individually wrapped aspirin out of his pocket. If he's lucky, it will help with this ugly headache.] How am I supposed to feel?

[resnipstance]

[WELL THAT'S CHEERY.

Ahsoka seems somewhat taken aback.]

Oh-- um. Right.

... Sorry. I-- guess I never thought about how this would all feel to a civilian before. Are you, um... at least familiar with space?

[It's a valid question. A lot of people here aren't, Ahsoka has discovered. It's weird.]

[astrobleme]

[Shinji sort of understands that he's being an uncharismatic loser, but it's hard to stop moping when he's in the mood to mope.

Instead of divulging the fourteen years he spent trapped inside a tesseract in Earth's orbit, he says,] Not exactly. [He slips the aspirin tablet onto his tongue.] But I always wanted to have a visit. Just... under different circumstances. [A dry swallow, then.] You knew about this stuff beforehand?

[resnipstance]

That's right. Where I'm from, transports like this one are fairly common. I used to fly all over the galaxy-- though, my ships were much faster.

[astrobleme]

[Is she... bragging? Shinji has a very weird, warped flashback to his earliest days with Asuka. Asuka, who had memorized every last detail of Unit-02. Asuka, who delighted in pointing out any deficiencies between 02 and 01. It isn't a special memory. Rather, it's refreshingly mundane.]

Really? How much faster?

[resnipstance]

[Eh... Jedi aren't supposed to brag, but... well. It's a bit of a brag. Anything to insult the Atroma.]

Well we have hyperdrives, for starters. A hyerdrive is what makes travel in hyperspace possible. Going through hyperspace, it's possible to travel faster than the speed of light, because you're technically travelling outside of space and time. So you can get from point A to point B quicker! ... Provided there's nothing in your way, of course.

[TL;DR nerd talk.]

[astrobleme]

[The longer Ahsoka expounds on hyperspace, the wider and brighter Shinji's eyes become. It gets to the point where he actually looks alert instead of snuffed out by his own misery.] That's... [Ahsoka is talking about the stuff dreams are made of. Shinji's knowledge of astronomy pales in comparison to this. Earnestly, he says,] That is so awesome.

Do you... know how it works? A hyperdrive, I mean.

[resnipstance]

The... physics of it, or the mechanical aspect? Because I'm a pretty good mechanic, but a lousy scientist.

[astrobleme]

Anything you can tell me. [Shinji blinks a few times, then realizes how embarrassing his own behavior is. He's pumping this person for information when he hasn't even asked...] Oh, before that... what's your name? I should have asked before now, sorry. I'm Shinji.

[resnipstance]

[Ahsoka smiles. Poor guy. He must be disoriented.]

I'm Ahsoka. Ahsoka Tano.

As for hyperdrives... [she wanders over to the empty nurse's station desk and finds some paper and a pen, before looking up at Shinji and grinning.]

Here's how they work. [I hope you're really into diagrams and hearing about the mechanical bits and pieces of how to build one, because launches into precisely that. Nerddddd.]

[astrobleme]

[If there's still a slight chance that Atroma's reality show is one of his delusions, at least it's an incredibly detailed delusion. Shinji can be a nerd, too, when he has something to care about--and he cares about space travel. He listens intently to everything Ahsoka has to say concerning hyperdrives. By the end of it, he seems a little winded, even though he wasn't the one speaking.] I didn't understand even half of that, [he admits, slowly shaking his head.] That's the sort of thing... people make movies about...

So you were a pilot? Me too. I mean, not with hyperdrives, but...

[resnipstance]

Sort of. I was a Jedi. But in practice that meant I spent a lot of time in fighters and freighters both.

What did you fly?

[astrobleme]

Jedi... [That term might be a little bit familiar. Possibly just his imagination. (The calamity of Second Impact had a devastating effect on popular culture, anyway.)] Mm, it'd be wrong to say I flew. More like, I walked, or ran. I piloted an Evangelion. [Pause.] I'm going to guess you don't know what Eva is.

[resnipstance]

[Ahsoka shakes her head, thinking.]

I haven't heard of anything by that name, no. I'm guessing by your description it's some kind of... mechanized suit?

[astrobleme]

[How weird. Shinji is expecting to feel horror, or anger, or self-loathing from talking about Eva, but there's just... a hole inside of him, where all of that used to be. Maybe it's because this place pretty much promises he'll never have to pilot Eva again. Maybe he's in shock. Maybe...]

Sort of. Here, let me see that pen.

[In an empty section of the paper, he sketches out Unit-01 for Ahsoka. He isn't a great technical artist, but he gets the general shape of it down: a colossal, stylized, armor-covered humanoid. To emphasize the scale, he adds a tiny stick figure near 01's foot.]

[resnipstance]

... Whoa.

Though-- isn't that design kind of impractical...?

[astrobleme]

[Shinji blinks. He blinks again, and then he looks down at his crude drawing of 01. No one has ever said that about Eva. His mother helped to create Eva, supposedly, and no one has ever criticized Eva's design like that. Even though Eva is the worst thing to ever happen to him, he feels himself... getting kind of... defensive of Eva. He can't imagine 01 looking like anything other than 01.]

Eva is Eva, [he says, frowning a little bit.] If something does its job well, does it really matter what it looks like?

[resnipstance]

... Oh. ... Well. I guess not?

What're they used for?

[astrobleme]

[Shinji reasserts his grip on the pen. He says, simply,] Combat. [Silent, but intent, he sketches out the angles and surfaces of... well, it looks like a floating octahedron. And it's much larger than 01.] There was a war, so... [Drawing multiple arrows, he indicates that 01's purpose was to fight the octahedron. He presses down harder, and harder, until the nib is almost ripping through the paper--

Then he sets down the pen. He exhales. He doesn't know how long he was holding his breath.]

Thank you for showing me the hyperdrives. I learned a lot.

[resnipstance]

[She takes Shinji in, then-- really takes him in. He's younger than her, a little. Maybe the same age as she was when she started fighting in the Clone Wars. But... she was trained for that all her life. Even then, she still found it distressing at times, and she's always had the Force to guide her. What would it be like if you had none of that...?

She puts a hand on his shoulder gently, smiling warmly.]

Hey, it's no problem.

One of my closest friends lives on this ship, so you might see me around a lot. If you want, we can talk mechanics again some time.

[astrobleme]

[A hand. On his shoulder. There's a hand on his shoulder. Even though Shinji feels like he's covered in bubble wrap, all sensations muffled, he can definitely tell that Ahsoka is touching him. He flinches a little, but he doesn't shrug her off. He's learned there are worse things than someone trying to be friendly.]

Okay. I'd like that. [A thoughtful pause, and then,] Who's your friend? I did meet some members of the crew...

[resnipstance]

[She takes her hand off, after a beat.]

Her name is Padmé. Padmé Amidala.

She's like a big sister to me.

[astrobleme]

Padmé Amidala... [That's a beautiful name. Shinji slowly shakes his head, though.] I don't think I've come across her yet. [Another pause.] Is she... a nice person?

[resnipstance]

Who, Padmé?

She's... probably the nicest person you'll ever meet. Whenever I have a problem, she always listens, and takes me seriously. Even when I was younger. [As a fourteen year old, Ahsoka appreciated that-- finding someone who didn't talk down to her on account of her age.]

Back home, she's a senator, and she campaigns in the senate day in and day out for peace. That's the sort of person she is.