[text post from Gil]

[mongoosecrow]

Who: Gil and OPEN
Broadcast: Fleetwide, Text this time
Action: The Blameless
When: Another 3am post from Gil. Insomina makes people do weird things.


Back home I took a stab at poetry once. Let's see if I'm any good at it now.

......

Musings on The Fleet

They say that an audience is watching me
And I don't mean to be contrarian
But how's it nice to see me crash
And face down at least one barbarian?
I'm used to fixing ships on the fly
But back's so sore I might be an octogenarian.
My stomach's tired of eating gray paste
It's enough to make me a vegetarian.
There's plenty to do and read on the network,
We've captured the dreams of a librarian.
Just wish that I had say in what I do,
Without it sounding like a disciplinarian.
At least the company's pretty nice,
Much better than an annoying salarain.

......

Yeah I'm still rubbish. I think I'll stick to my day job.

Comments

voice

[monolike]

[omg publish this immediately] That's not true at all, I think you're really good!

[mongoosecrow]

Aw, thanks. It's not often I get compliments on my late night creative endeavors.

[monolike]

I wonder why. Y'know, I always feel more creative when I'm tired too. Is that a thing?

[mongoosecrow]

Not sure if I'm really tired, really. That's part of why I'm still up.

[monolike]

Too much on your mind?

[mongoosecrow]

That or too little. Hard to imagine tiny sheep jumping over fences.

[monolike]

Is that what you do to try and go to sleep? I have some other tricks too if you need something!

Video

[dandyofawolf]

I don't know about that. I found it rather good.

[Certainly amusing.]

[mongoosecrow]

[Gil switches to video easily enough and offers Biffy a smile.]

Well, someone has to.

[dandyofawolf]

I've certainly seen far worse at the very least.

[mongoosecrow]

That sounds almost like a challenge.

[dandyofawolf]

Oh? You think you can be the worst?

[mongoosecrow]

I'm not sure. It is pretty bad.

text

[scanninggaydis]

[No freshly woken up Felix onscreen this time, though it is like 4:30 am when he replies.]

I'm impressed by the rhyming, though.

...What's a salarian?

[Sorry Gil, he is definitely not trying to argue that it's...a good poem...]

[mongoosecrow]

[If he did, Gil would have to question his taste.]

They are an amphibious alien race from a planet called Sur'Kesh.

Known for being wicked smart. They have minds that remember things a little too well and supposedly run a mile a minute. So fast, in fact, that they have short lifespans. About 40 years.

The one this poem is about was a particularly annoying breed. Flew the Tempest. But also helped design her. Didn't like the engineer doing, you know, engineering things to her.

[scanninggaydis]

[And he does have.....such good taste....

That's all very curious, though.]

Their intelligence is linked to their shorter lifespans? Do they just burn themselves out?

That sounds limiting. And maybe dangerous. Why did he object to you doing your job?

[mongoosecrow]

That's a good question. I think it's just that everything runs at triple speed for them? Thought processes are faster.

And he objected because he didn't like the idea of her changing. He wanted everything to be the exact way they designed her, but they couldn't have anticipated the challenges of a whole new galaxy. Some adaptations have to be made. Or you end up just as dead as everyone we left back home.

[scanninggaydis]

Though processes, but also probably aging? That's interesting.

[Felix may not like the idea of being faced with aliens - not initially - but that doesn't mean that he doesn't find them scientifically interesting in the abstract.]

Definitely dangerous. [He knows that he's taking Gil's side of things at face value, but Gil has always seemed very straight-forward to him.] Your Pathfinder didn't have anything to say about that? Kind of seems like a liability to me. I mean, was she okay with the changes?

[mongoosecrow]

Eventually he left the cock-pit to come yell at me and she stepped in. Gave me the go-ahead to make whatever changes I want.

Ryder's pretty smart. She gets why we need to be prepared for anything.

Text

[alwayscomeback]

Wow.

Deep, buddy. Deep.

[mongoosecrow]

[Oh Sokka, don't ever change.]

I know, right? And you can think that without even knowing what a salarian is!

[alwayscomeback]

[Never gonna happen.]

I'm gonna go with 'alien'. I mean, knowing you, that seems the safest bet.

[mongoosecrow]

Good guess. Though, if you ask them humans are the alien ones.

[alwayscomeback]

That makes sense. We're all aliens to one another, really. Well, except for the tons and tons of people from Earth, I guess.

[mongoosecrow]

Back home, humans might have come from Earth but there's enough of us around that you sort of stop classifying them that way and just go by species. So you, being human, would be less an alien so much as a cross-cultural transplant.