[ open ] .002 though I am empty, I still warn the sailors on their way

[watermarks]

Who: Katara
Broadcast: Written, Video
Action: Yes! Blue Fish and Planet
When: Message sent Monday, midmorning. Some backdated shuffle action.

[After giving it some thought, Katara decided to make an open network post. She wanted to write it out, but as part of her habit from living with Toph, she decided to both transcribe and say it aloud:]

I want to thank the person who put the memorial into place. If you get in touch with me, I can help you get the number to fill in.

I know that a lot of us have been pretty impacted by what we found here. I don’t know how long we’re usually on a planet, but I was thinking… it might be good to have some kind of remembering ceremony by the memorial? It feels important to find a way to show honor to the lives that were lost here. I don’t know what kind of funeral rites they would have preferred, and there’s no way to respectfully move them, so… maybe some fire and some music? Does anyone have any ideas?

I know that this might not be for them as much as it is for us, but… I think that’s important too.

(OOC: Please feel free to threadjack all up in this conversation; Katara would like to make this a community effort, because it feels like it’s something that’s needed to her.)



[The confetti is still as annoying as the last time it happened, but Katara is happy to be on her brother’s ship. She’ll want to wander around and meet everyone, though no doubt Sokka will soon join her to give her an Official Tour. (Did she really need to know every single detail about the ship and all its history? Probably not, but now she does, unless someone saves her.) She’ll spend some time in the kitchen and try to figure out what she needs to bring up from the planet, and then do the same thing in her new room.

Before she heads back down to the planet, she’s going to try to linger long enough to meet everyone.]


[Since the Blue Fish will likely be her permanent home as long as she’s on the fleet, that means that Katara will be doing what she can to take advantage of the free… everything. Her first stop is a hardware store where she picks up a wheelbarrow and several cans of water-based paint. The color - some shade of blue, though she wants something a little lighter too. She’ll be there pondering over choices for a bit.

She also has no qualms about stealing a good idea from the Vanquish when she sees it, and will pick up a chalkboard for the kitchen there as well. She spends a long time staring at a small electrically powered fountain for noise, trying to decide whether or not to get it. For now, she walks away.]

Hmm… maybe I should get different chair too?

[So feel free to find her, either at the hardware store or wheelbarrowing her way back to the shuttles! After dropping the paint off in the cargo hold, she’ll return once more to the planet for a bunch of canned fruits and vegetables and rice… and maybe go back for that fountain.]

Comments

[watermarks]

...I can see why that might be useful in extreme medical situations, but anything else seems like a terrible violation of privacy.

[mucked]

Some would argue privacy has no place in a prison.

[ ... ]

But I digress. We ought to have our privacy here. Although it's often assumed we don't.

[watermarks]

[She thinks of the prisons that she's heard of, seen. Thinks of Hama's description of how she'd been kept. Thinks of the earthbenders kept on ships. Thinks of what she'd heard about her own father's incarceration.

She thinks of what she would like to happen to Azula.]

...I think that I would argue with those who said that. I understand the need for guarding prisoners, and I understand the need for punishment, but there is a line. When you're stronger than someone else, when they're under your control, you have to be even more careful to treat them like people - for your sake as well as theirs.

[She frowns.] Otherwise, you lose something. Like the Atroma must have - to take people from all around the world and watch us for entertainment.

[mucked]

[ interesting. peggy does agree with katara's reply -- to a point, at least. but telling katara that she may as well be preaching to the choir isn't a necessary diversion. besides, it's useful (perhaps) to see how easily the woman is goaded into taking a position.

she's like steve, peg suspects, in that way. not a bad thing at all -- even if it runs quite counter to her own behaviour. ]

Provided what we're told is true, yes. Certainly someone is watching us; I'm not yet convinced our audience is as wide as we're told it is.

[watermarks]

[ Katara was externally processing as much as she was making her position clear; she shifts easily with the change in conversation, tilting her head slightly. ]

Because there's no evidence of the "show" on any of the worlds we visit?

[mucked]

For all our sponsor "gifts" and lauded ratings, you'd think someone might have heard of us -- but very little evidence supports so.

[watermarks]

Yeah... that's what I've heard. [ It's a little creepy. ] And the planets we go to haven't heard of the Atroma either, right?

[mucked]

Not unless there's some massive conspiracy on their parts to deny any knowledge of them and -- frankly, the simpler explanation is simply that they genuinely have no idea who the Atroma are. Or the television programme. Or us.

[ ... ]

Which only makes it all the more maddening, really. Because why on earth would the Atroma sell us a story with so many obvious holes in it?

[watermarks]

...unless the people on the planets aren't the show's target audience? You said they often need help, right? To pull off something like this... I have to guess that the technology and power is on a level I've only seen with the Malnosso, and they were using the planet's ability to shift. Nothing like - [she touches her augment] this.

[mucked]

And yet we have also stopped in highly advanced systems -- systems with their own networks, technological marvels, the like. Perhaps if these planets were more removed from another, if they didn't have an obvious and thriving intersystem economy...? I might believe it.

[ peggy's tone has fallen into a professional patter. although it's not exactly cold, it's certainly not friendly either -- it focuses on delivering information rather than warmth. ]

After all, we are rewarded in the same currency that nearly every planet accepts. That suggests a kind of common denominator that we have yet to discover.

[watermarks]

[ The change in tone does not go unnoticed. Katara is not exactly offended, but she is a little taken aback before she refocuses. She's not the sort of person to be intimidated by a challenge, but this isn't a fight - it's a discussion, working with limited information, to try to get at a truth that even if they guess it, they won't know for sure if they did or not just yet. ]

Does it? Or does it just suggests a lot of power? I don't know the kinds of places that we've stopped, but it's obvious enough that they send us to these places, why shouldn't they "reward" us with the same currency? It's just as likely that there's a whole, I don't know, entire dimension out there where Atroma is a broadcasting to and they just - keep sending us to places without their influence so that it doesn't ruin the show. We just don't know enough to say.

[mucked]

It is possible that the currency, being digital, is being counterfeited down in its coding.

[ -- her lessons with winn have stuck with her, even if the fellow is long gone. peggy had become quite a happy little novice computer programmer before he left. ]

And thereby 'created' at a distance, interdimensional or otherwise.

[watermarks]

[ Okay, those are a lot of words she didn't really understand. ]

Well, it has to be created at one level or another. Either way, we just need to keep our eyes opened for any real evidence. Right now, we can't know anything for sure.