driftfleet | (no subject)

Who: Jaina
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: There's a new engineer joining the Bishop.
When: She might manage to wait five minutes after the latest shuffling.

The layout of these controls don't make any kind of sense. Not by any scheme I've seen on a ship, anyway.

[Yep, there is a teenager with her device propped on a nearby console, leaning elbows on another while she peers at it, intent. As she goes, she nearly taps buttons and levers, behaving enough not to actually muck with anything.]

It's not like snubfighter controls. Believe me, I know. But if this were anything like a Corellian YT-series I'd expect this to handle pitch, and...that should be yaw. Are the thrusters strictly forward? Maybe there's a z-axis control.

[These are all incorrect, and she seems to understand that. She chews her bottom lip, distracted with thought, before she finally turns her head to look directly into the camera again.]

How universal are the designs on these ships? I'm on Bishop, and there's a few things I can peg as customizations, but not too much. I've got a feeling I should try to learn as much as I can. Especially if I'm going to have to open a few of these panels up after a while to make sure it keeps working correctly.

[Admittedly, part of that feeling is the simple fact that regardless of the circumstances surrounding her presence in this fleet, she is stoked about learning the intricacies of a new style of ship.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's true--we can't. But even if some of us might be willing to make that sacrifice... [Well, she already knows Han isn't.] Do you understand that you're proposing something that would ensure you'd never exist?

[Which can certainly be arranged in other ways as well ~~just ask Disney~~, but Leia's not sure Jaina really understands the ramifications of the idea. And when it comes down to it, she's not sure she can ask Han to sacrifice his life for that of billions.]

[That's weird to think about, but is it any weirder than the rest of this? She's re-meeting her entire family. She doesn't know her dad's stance, but she's only a few years off from becoming unhealthily comfortable with putting her life on the line for others.]

Well, I'd prefer to keep existing. But if what we do here changes things, it's a little late to worry about it. The bantha's already out of the pen and stampeding.

And in that case, what about Alderaan?

[Leia sighs, resisting the urge to rest her head in her hand. Bringing up Alderaan especially isn't playing fair, and she can't imagine any daughter of hers could get to age fourteen without realizing that.]

Believe me, I've been asking myself the same thing. If it were up to me alone, I'd do it. [She pauses, taking in the sight of her daughter. The eeriness of seeing her eyes in someone else's face hasn't yet abated, and now it's accompanied by the uncomfortable knowledge that she just told her daughter that she'd erase her existence if the decision was hers to make.] But it isn't, and asking Ha--your father to give up his life for a chance at shortening the war? A chance we don't know won't lead to worse things?

[Been there, done that, in no mood to revisit the argument at this point.]

We can't know what trying to change the future would do to the galaxy. We need to tread carefully.

[Alderaan is the obvious thing that could change, the obvious big benefit. If she's arguing for trying to make positive changes, how can she not bring it up? Jaina loves some practical problemsolving, after all.

She's going to do her best to ignore that her mother is hammering home that this course of action (and unsaid, by logical extension all of this, this whole situation) would probably erase her. Someone needs to try keeping some optimism in the mix.]

Promise to use my best judgment. Getting everyone back is probably the priority anyway.

That's right. [And talking about going home is a much less divisive topic, with no need for comments like if Han hadn't run into Luke, he wouldn't have had a reason to join the rebellion.] I've met a few people who don't mind being here, but the majority want to go home. We have a responsibility to get ourselves back to our galaxy--and to help everyone else do the same, if we can.

[It's a secondary concern, as mercenary as it feels to admit it. But if they can, Leia will absolutely help the others around them escape.]