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Who: Beverly Crusher, Ezri Dax, James Kirk, Leonard McCoy, and Pavel Chekov - and you, should you like to stop by!
Broadcast: video
Action: Málum
When: April 5

[So Beverly may or may not have taken a few tequila shots. And she may or may not be quite drunk and affectionately effusive about... everything. Thus she has something Very Important to tell the Fleet, which she does from inside Málum with some of her Starfleet companions around. Thankfully, one of them is holding the camera or this feed would be a lot more intolerably shaky.

It's also one of the rare times you'll find her in her Starfleet Uniform.]

Today! [Beverly claps her hands together.] Today is an important holiday back home - First Contact Day! It marks the time when humans finally launched the first spaceship powered by warp drive and that was also the same day we met the Vulcans. [She frowns, her thoughts coming more slowly than is usual.] I don't think we've had any Vulcans here in the fleet, unless it was a long time ago before I came. Which is really weird when you stop to think about it, that there's been Humans and Cardassians and Trill but no Vulcans. Or anybody else really. Vulcans kind of look like elves so I've often wondered if maybe they are but just so many universes removed that it's not quite the same.

[Clearly someone is giving her A Look from behind the camera and she points an admonishing finger at them.]

I'm getting there! [She straightens up and pats her hair, getting back into "lecture" mode.] What probably many of you don't know, is that I saw all of this, first hand, the last time I went home. You see there were the Borg - only we're not going to go into them because this is supposed to be a celebration - and they were trying to go back in time to ruin the warp ship so the Vulcans wouldn't come down to see us so of course we had to go stop them even though we're not supposed to time travel - and for good reason too, it's a pain in the ass. One time Mark Twain followed us onto the Enterprise and it was this whole thing though I guess it worked out all right in the end because then he wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court so that's good. And he really was very nice and understanding of why he couldn't tell anyone what he saw.

[Another pause as she tries to figure out why she started talking about Mark Twain. Ah! Right!]

So anyway we had to go back in time to stop the Borg and so we met Zefram Cochrane who invented the warp drive and he was completely not like any of us expected and you know, sometimes they say you shouldn't meet your heroes? We'd all been taught about what a great genius he was, and that's true, but I guess they didn't really want to mention in the history books that he really liked to party and building the ship wasn't some noble, selfless endeavor to advance science - it was a difficult time in human history, and he needed the money. But that's the beautiful thing isn't it? People are complicated and may not always be what you expect but they still can do great things. And that's really what First Contact Day is about, celebrating the amazing things we've already done and the things we'll do in the future too. Together.

[This nerd, y'all. You should come party with her.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[ He flashed another smile, though it was warmer rather than charming
this time. ]}

Good - I'm glad Beverly's had such a good friend around.

That's a little... Well, I didn't make a good first impression, but I hope I count as a good friend now.

[Her own smile is pretty wry.]

From the look Beverly had talking to you earlier, I would say so.

_{[ He grinned over his drink. ]}

If it helps, I don't think I made a stellar first impression either.

Well, she seems to like you anyway. But I will bet you mine was worse.

[she's getting a drink herself, finally]

Hmmm? And how exactly did your first meeting with her go then?

Badly. And awkward. I accidentally made her storm off from the beach.

Oh come on, you have to give me more than that!

... I told her that I'm planning to kill the Atroma?

That - that does seem extreme enough to make her storm off, yeah.

I- I already said it was a bad impression!

[notably, she's not saying she changed her mind about the Atroma. because she's still planning on it.

but mostly she's just embarrassed because she has no social skills.]

_{[ Kirk's a bit buzzed, so he's not paying super, super close attention
to every word or the things not said. He's having to good a time of it
anyways. ]}

How did you make her not mad though? Bev's a doctor, that's a tall order. They hold grudges like you wouldn't believe.

_{[ He's looking over at you Leonard, yes he is. ]}

[She snorts.]

You think she's bad? You should see my best friend from home.

But we talked it out.

[There's a lot more to it, but frankly she doesn't know Jim well enough to get into it.]

Well, good. It would be awkward if we were having a party and you two were mad at each other.

If we were mad at each other, I wouldn't have come to the party.

You could be friends with someone else here.

_{[ He gave a shrug. ]}

I hope you're enjoying yourself though.

You seriously overestimate how social I am.

[socializing is hard, okay.]

I am, though. I don't really get all the Earth stuff, but the drinks and the company are nice.

You can't be any less social than Fenris - just so you understand where my level of "anti-social" is set.

Guessing that means you're not one of the people from an Earth world then, huh?

Fenris?

[guess who she's never met]

Definitely not. Ashvara native, born and raised in Delwight. Earth is pretty annoying, honestly.

He's an elf on my ship, with a very alarming anger to body-height ratio.

_{[ So angry. But it's charming once you get used to it. ]}

Hah, and what makes you say that?

Bet I can out-anger him.

[she is also much, much smaller than him.]

A lot of reasons. First and foremost that it's always Earth people who try to say there's no such thing as magic.

Also, the fact that I just can't get away from Earth shit. I haven't been home for years, or seen anyone else from my world, so every time yet another Earth person shows up, or we get events here from Earth's calendar, it's just rubbing salt into the wound.

Well, in the Earths Beverly, Bones, Chekov, and myself come from - there is no magic. I suppose you could consider science a sort of magic, though. It's just that the word magic has a different connotation for us - usually mean a trick involving sleight of hand or mirrors, that sort of thing.

But I can see your frustration with the latter part.

Why don't you share some of the holidays from your world? Maybe we could do the math and work out when they fall on the Earthian calendar and celebrate them too.

[She shrugs, and holds out her arm.

Her arm suddenly is coated in crackling electricity, sparking and popping.]

Next person who tells me there's no such thing as magic is going to get slugged in the face by it.

[And then the electricity fades, and she takes a sip of her drink like nothing unusual just happened.]

... I've thought about it, but it doesn't really work. Full Moons' Night needs both moons to be full at the same time, which we can't do in space. Children's Day is embarrassing, so I'll pass. The Day of Peace... I doubt we can find people willing to dress up like dead gods so people can fight them. And that's not even getting into the headache of trying to convert them from my calendar to Earth's.

_{[ That got a raise brow, but he's been around Fenris and others long
enough now to kind of accept things like that. ]}

I can't deny you can do that, for sure. I think the problem is the word itself - the meaning is being missed by whatever is translating for us. The connotation of the word is different between our worlds. Humans can produce electricity too, but we call it science, not magic.

_{[ A shrug. ]}

You would be surprised. If it's really important to you, your friends should want to help you celebrate, even if there's a bit of modification needed to make it happen. And I know of a couple of people who would find the challenge of the conversion fun.

We have science, too. And magitech. Magic is just any effect caused by the aspecting, conversion, or expenditure of mana.

[She shakes her head, taking a much longer drink before continuing.]

I don't really care about the holidays themselves. I'm just homesick. I haven't even seen anyone from my world in a couple of years now.

_{[ He chooses to leave it, because she could say it existed all she
wanted, but it didn't exist in his world. ]}

I'm sorry. But if there's anything we can do to help with that, you should let us know.