festival day!

[thespaceopera]

Who: EVERYONE
Broadcast: Up to you
Action: Everywhere in the Yadrolla system!
When: 5/30

[At last, the day has come: Festival Day! Once again, the Starstrikers have taken the trophy this year. But that doesn't mean members of other teams, or those who didn't play, can't celebrate with the rest of them!

There are parties everywhere. Ribbons, streamers, and confetti litter every major street in the system. (Remember what they say about glitter...) There is food on every block, and people cramming into shops to get in on the merch.

Don't forget about the reason for the festival-- the pet adoption drive! A large playground-type area has been set up on the Starstrikers' desert moon where people can play and interact with the lovable creatures needing new homes. Whether you're looking for companionship or just something to do, there's plenty to coo over! Every pet comes with an info card listing a fanciful name and a general description of their age and temperament. Maybe Sir Pringle the puppy or Marquess Mariana the fish can become your new best friend.

Sadly, the Fleet will be drifting in about a week... but feel free to party until then!]

Comments

[candothat]

[He grins right back. Success at something! Yay!]

Thank you. Keeping me company is a chore, I know. It was brave of you to volunteer.

[axi]

[He receives an admonishing smile from her.]

Nonsense. It's been nothing resembling a chore so far.

[candothat]

Most chores are bearable for the first five minutes.

[axi]

By my estimate, it's been about seven now. I think we're safe.

[Kaname takes another sip, letting the alcohol sink in.]

So, water cooler chatter. What augment do you have?

[candothat]

[He lets the aggressive self-deprecation go with a smile and orders another drink for himself.]

Communications--proof that the Atroma have a sense of humor. And you? For you, I would guess pilot.

[axi]

[Before answering, Kaname spots a bench, and taps his arm to indicate they should hurry and claim it. Once they're seated, she looks at him curiously.]

Personnel, actually. But I have to ask: why humor, and why pilot?

[candothat]

Humor because communications officers are generally more intelligible, pilot because you seem like someone who would be a pilot. [A helpless shrug. You just DO, Kaname.]

[axi]

Hm, I'm understanding you just fine. [She chuckles at the shrug.]

I can guarantee, I shouldn't be someone's idea of a pilot. While I worked closely with them at home, my own profession was different.

[candothat]

Thank the alcohol. You will find that Russian accents are always more understandable when you're drinking.

[She worked with pilots? He's intrigued!] May I ask what your profession was?

[axi]

Possibly, but I've had exposure to many different ways of speaking.

[Grinning, she nods.] I'm a singer. Part of a group back home, and the pilots served as support. Air shows or protection on the battlefield.

[Because that makes total sense!]

[candothat]

[No, hey, woah, wait. There's a prolonged moment of incredulous staring as he attempts, unsuccessfully, to make sense of those three sentences as a group.]

You are a singer... who performs on battlefields...?

[axi]

See? Better you than me as communications right now. [Ha.]

Yes. Our group, Walkure, sang to control the Var. It was a disease that caused people to go berserk and lose control of themselves. It hit military personnel more often than most, so we'd be dispatched to contain the situation.

[Kaname takes another drink.] Space travel like this isn't new to me. I lived on a planet called Ragna, but we could be sent to any number of planets to do our work.

[candothat]

You are a member of a group that uses singing to combat a disease. [Just. Making sure he has this straight.] ...I suppose I've heard of stranger things.

[He brightens a bit at 'space travel.'] The same for me--space travel not being new to me, I mean, not the specifics, and Starfleet rarely resolves situations with singing.

[axi]

[A laugh escapes her, and she nods.] Apparently despite all the different places people come from, they still find this one odd. Go figure.

[Oh, good!] It's a relief to find people who are used to it. There's a surprising number of worlds where it's not commonplace.

[candothat]

Alternative timelines, dramatic memory discrepancies, and super powers are all entirely reasonable, you know. Healing singing? That is universally unbelievable. [He's honestly a little embarrassed that it tripped him up.]

It is! This is all new to them--space, other systems, new beings. Which is exciting for them, and I'm happy for them, but I like knowing that it isn't such a novelty for everyone.

[axi]

It's not healing. It only works on one condition. So far. [Kaname's almost finished her drink.] But I'm glad you didn't get too comfortable. No one should be.

[Nodding again, she understands what he's getting at.] There's so much to do with Earth. I've never even been there. It's where humanity originated, but we're making our way across the galaxy now. Most people haven't been there, either. That doesn't take into account the other species we come across, either.

[candothat]

So far? [There's no time to drink, he's much too busy listening.]

Ah, yes. Earth, specifically Earth of the twenty-first century, is where and when most of the people I have met in all three of the universes I've been in are from. There must be something significant about that. [But he's intrigued by this idea of Earth as a distant ancestral home.] Is Earth still habitable? Have you wanted to go there?

[axi]

There've been some newer effects here on some species. It's strange. [But not unwelcomed at the time.]

Oh, it is. There was a space war roughly sixty years ago that wiped out much of the population, but they've since recovered. People are still born there and still live there, but there's many more across the galaxy. It's crossed my mind of course, but it's not a prevalent desire. I'm fond of my home on Ragna.

[candothat]

You even think that it's strange? [A smile.] It must be very strange indeed.

Are you able to visit there often? Ragna, I mean. It seems as though your singing would keep you busy and away from home.

[axi]

I do. [She grins back.]

We're stationed on Ragna. It's my home, but not where I was born. I've lived there for about six years now.

[candothat]

Ah, that's lucky, being stationed somewhere that feels like home. I was on a starship that felt that way for nearly five years. [And then it was ripped apart by a swarm of robo-insect-things, but.]

[axi]

It is my home now as well. I got lucky that way. [Kaname smiles.] Then you know the feeling. I won't say the ships here are cramped, but they're certainly smaller than what the Elysion had to offer.

That was the main Macross class ship we had. When standing, it's about 800 meters high. More, I think.

[candothat]

800 meters? Kljovo! [No translation is provided for the interjection, but he's clearly impressed.] Our Constitution-class starships are only 365 meters long. The propulsion systems in your world must be more advanced than ours to make a ship of that size a viable option.

[Hope you wanted to talk about spaceships.]

[axi]

I did mention when standing. The Macross class means it changes forms-- one's more of a ship type, the other is a humanoid shaped mecha. The left and right arms serve as flight decks for the fighter planes and pilots I talked about. They can also separate and serve as smaller ships if need be.

[Drink now gone, Kaname places the glass on the tray of a waitress passing by.]

The propulsion systems, the ships themselves, and the valkyries-- the planes, were all developed from technology reverse engineered from an alien ship that landed on Earth about seventy years ago. It was turned into the first Macross class.

[candothat]

Oh, well. That's far more reasonable. [His smile says that it is not, that's kind of ridiculous. And cool. And ridiculous.]

Were humans space-faring before that? And how did this begin, this singing to cure a disease?