I'm writing this in the early pillowfort era.
At this point, I personally have several questions about Tempo's character. We've really only seen her 'on duty,' and it's hard to know what to think of her. So I'm speculating that she's a very dedicated woman who will put a lot of work into making sure that Alex isn't a Hierarchy / Umiak construct. Just in case.
By logical extension, that would mean that she really wants a peak past Alex's lotai. Given that 3 Teidar couldn't break their way in, the Mizol approach may be to try subtlety. To whit: sneak in while he's asleep.
So I propose a writing prompt: Tempo has snuck into Alex's dreams, and has bitten off more than she can chew. I was thinking that whoever is interested could post a story of some kind. This could be a grab bag of one-offs, or something longer. At risk of sounding suicidally optimistic, I suggest adding your own title at the head of your post.
PS: Remember the comic is PG13. So go easy on the ultra-violence.
[Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Moderator: Outsider Moderators
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Notes:
---------------------
It's full of stars.
Tempo was tired. The last few days had been difficult; first the huge argument with Stillstorm, then trying to comb through as much of the Bellarmin debris as possible, and now they were ballistically falling through space. A trip to Seren had seemed so attractive; she would both get away from Stillstorm and hopefully wrangle some favour with the Seren sector leadership. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life trying not to die in a raider fleet. And Stillstorm knew it, which did not help with their arguments.
Leaving the raider fleet had turned out to be more dangerous than staying inside it.
But she would be able to rest soon. The others had improvised a mattress and found blankets and almost concluded the 'handshake' ritual greeting. Spiral reported no telepathic contact. Reed reported no telepathic contact. Everyone but Firesong, who hand't offered her hand, reported no contact. Except, she realised, she herself hadn't tried. She must be tired; this was an excellent opportunity to see for herself.
She presented her hand to Captain Jardin. He took it in his strangely warm hand and gently jerked it up and down a couple of times.
"Parat Tempo," he said smoothly.
"Captain Jardin." She replied. It seemed to be the expected form. She felt nothing telepathically; his hand was warm, and the faint ghost of electric fields inside agreed with the medical scans. But his mind was simply invisible.
She needed something. Stillsong was possibly right - he might be some kind of Hierarchy infiltrator. But Stillstorm's initial attempt to break the lotai by brute force had yielded three aching Tiedar, one unconscious Humaniti, and no information at all. Clearly, Tempo though, subtlety was required.
She would try again when he fell asleep.
...
It took a while, and some effort to stay awake, but he fell asleep first. She had pulled rank to get a spot right next to him. Beryl had claimed his other side and fallen asleep immediately. That Listel was almost childlike in her desire to know as much as possible as fast as possible. But prone to getting excited and saying too much.
Slowly, carefully, she reached out for Captain Jardin's hand. It was, again, disconcertingly warm. Once the shuttle got really cold, even Fireblade might be interested in lying next to someone so warm.
Nothing.
The security feed had shown that he seemed to sleep in cycles around 128 mammals long. Tired as she was, she could wait. This opportunity might not come again.
She waited.
...
She woke up. She was horribly, totally alone. And she wasn't lying on a nest of pillows and blankets but strapped into some kind of box. She tried to breathe steadily, quietly.
Hello! She shouted.
She heard no reply as she explored the box. It wasn't totally dark, but the lid was so close to her face that she couldn't see anything. A small display to her right showed something she couldn't read. The characters were very simple and angular. Feeling around turned up some kind of buckle over her chest and a little handle by her right hand.
This wasn't a cage. Rather than wait for whoever did this to come and find her, she fiddled around, unbuckled the catch, and pulled the release tab. The lid of the box opened and she saw an empty room.
On second look, the room was strange. It was narrow and long. It was largely white, and when she looked up, she could see ... a round horizontal column and, beyond that, a ceiling with some boxy equipment mounted to it. After a moment, she re-oriented.
A spin ring. Who uses a spin ring?
She traced the floor off to her left, then watched it curve up, back, around, and reappear on there right. This whole room was a centrifuge, and the pillar must be the central hub. Neither the Loroi Union nor the Hierarchy built like this. On the upside, she couldn't see the whole room and there wasn't anyone else in it.
She looked at the pod she had awoken in. It was fairly simple - a contoured bed, hold-down straps, a few air vents and a thick, translucent lid. Best not let them know I woke up she thought, and closed the lid. She tried to be smooth and quiet and utterly failed when she saw her hands, jerking the lid closed with a thud.
They were brown. She pulled back her ugly sleeves - someone had taken her armour! - and her wrists and forearms were brown too. She felt suddenly ill, but she had to know. The lid was shiny enough to be used as a mirror. Her face was brown. Her eyes were brown. Her ears had lost their points. Someone had taken her. Someone had done this to her.
Someone will die for this. Someone like Alexander Jardin.
--------------
And that's the first instalment. I figured that Tempo is quite pigmented for a Loroi, and would therefore be quite pigmented as a human.
- This has been kicking around for days but pesky things like work keep getting in the way. So I'm going to release it in dribbles.
- It's sadly not going to be as good as Orion1836's Armitage.
- I'm using italics to indicate thoughts or sanzai.
---------------------
It's full of stars.
Tempo was tired. The last few days had been difficult; first the huge argument with Stillstorm, then trying to comb through as much of the Bellarmin debris as possible, and now they were ballistically falling through space. A trip to Seren had seemed so attractive; she would both get away from Stillstorm and hopefully wrangle some favour with the Seren sector leadership. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life trying not to die in a raider fleet. And Stillstorm knew it, which did not help with their arguments.
Leaving the raider fleet had turned out to be more dangerous than staying inside it.
But she would be able to rest soon. The others had improvised a mattress and found blankets and almost concluded the 'handshake' ritual greeting. Spiral reported no telepathic contact. Reed reported no telepathic contact. Everyone but Firesong, who hand't offered her hand, reported no contact. Except, she realised, she herself hadn't tried. She must be tired; this was an excellent opportunity to see for herself.
She presented her hand to Captain Jardin. He took it in his strangely warm hand and gently jerked it up and down a couple of times.
"Parat Tempo," he said smoothly.
"Captain Jardin." She replied. It seemed to be the expected form. She felt nothing telepathically; his hand was warm, and the faint ghost of electric fields inside agreed with the medical scans. But his mind was simply invisible.
She needed something. Stillsong was possibly right - he might be some kind of Hierarchy infiltrator. But Stillstorm's initial attempt to break the lotai by brute force had yielded three aching Tiedar, one unconscious Humaniti, and no information at all. Clearly, Tempo though, subtlety was required.
She would try again when he fell asleep.
...
It took a while, and some effort to stay awake, but he fell asleep first. She had pulled rank to get a spot right next to him. Beryl had claimed his other side and fallen asleep immediately. That Listel was almost childlike in her desire to know as much as possible as fast as possible. But prone to getting excited and saying too much.
Slowly, carefully, she reached out for Captain Jardin's hand. It was, again, disconcertingly warm. Once the shuttle got really cold, even Fireblade might be interested in lying next to someone so warm.
Nothing.
The security feed had shown that he seemed to sleep in cycles around 128 mammals long. Tired as she was, she could wait. This opportunity might not come again.
She waited.
...
She woke up. She was horribly, totally alone. And she wasn't lying on a nest of pillows and blankets but strapped into some kind of box. She tried to breathe steadily, quietly.
Hello! She shouted.
She heard no reply as she explored the box. It wasn't totally dark, but the lid was so close to her face that she couldn't see anything. A small display to her right showed something she couldn't read. The characters were very simple and angular. Feeling around turned up some kind of buckle over her chest and a little handle by her right hand.
This wasn't a cage. Rather than wait for whoever did this to come and find her, she fiddled around, unbuckled the catch, and pulled the release tab. The lid of the box opened and she saw an empty room.
On second look, the room was strange. It was narrow and long. It was largely white, and when she looked up, she could see ... a round horizontal column and, beyond that, a ceiling with some boxy equipment mounted to it. After a moment, she re-oriented.
A spin ring. Who uses a spin ring?
She traced the floor off to her left, then watched it curve up, back, around, and reappear on there right. This whole room was a centrifuge, and the pillar must be the central hub. Neither the Loroi Union nor the Hierarchy built like this. On the upside, she couldn't see the whole room and there wasn't anyone else in it.
She looked at the pod she had awoken in. It was fairly simple - a contoured bed, hold-down straps, a few air vents and a thick, translucent lid. Best not let them know I woke up she thought, and closed the lid. She tried to be smooth and quiet and utterly failed when she saw her hands, jerking the lid closed with a thud.
They were brown. She pulled back her ugly sleeves - someone had taken her armour! - and her wrists and forearms were brown too. She felt suddenly ill, but she had to know. The lid was shiny enough to be used as a mirror. Her face was brown. Her eyes were brown. Her ears had lost their points. Someone had taken her. Someone had done this to her.
Someone will die for this. Someone like Alexander Jardin.
--------------
And that's the first instalment. I figured that Tempo is quite pigmented for a Loroi, and would therefore be quite pigmented as a human.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
I always thouht she was pale and Fireblade that was pigmented.And that's the first instalment. I figured that Tempo is quite pigmented for a Loroi, and would therefore be quite pigmented as a human.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Dang it, you’re right. Must have been hung up on hair colour or something. Oh well
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Still, off to a start that wants me to read more!
The Ur-Quan Masters finally gets a continuation of the story! Late backing possible, click link.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
It seem to me that she somehow have her consciousness uploaded to a human. A human that may or may not regain control of her body from time to time and be curious about her mysterious blackouts. I guess she is onboard a space station in humanity space that still use spin gravity. In Stargate SG1 series that actually found an ancient device that allowed for instant communication over long distances by letting people exchange consciousnesses with each other. Another device where later used in Stargate Universe or whatever the last series was called. You want an edge in the war, well a technology like that could do it.
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1944
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
My wager is that this is a dream and Tempo is intruding into it.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Is is entirely possible. Anyway Alex DID admit to humanity knowing about the concept of Sanzai as "old stories" Maybe humanity ARE psychically active, at least enough for detection but we are "sending" on another "frequency" that the loroi can pick up. Maybe the frequency change somewhat during a sleep cycle?dragoongfa wrote:My wager is that this is a dream and Tempo is intruding into it.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Or the human subconscious can use whatever telepathic hardware exists in our brain, but the conscious mind cannot. In this case, I'm guessing that would be what the Soia built on/modified.
My personal headcanon from the comic is that humans sense Loroi telekinesis as radiation on the visible spectrum (like astronauts will see lights when bombarded by cosmic rays). This is why Alex "sees" Fireblade, but only her because she is very strong and has little control over when she emits. He might not see, for instance, Tempo if she moved a datapad a few inches.
My completely subjective take on relative Loroi skintone, dark to light:
Fireblade > Ashrain > Talon/Spiral > Beryl > Stillstorm > Tempo
My personal headcanon from the comic is that humans sense Loroi telekinesis as radiation on the visible spectrum (like astronauts will see lights when bombarded by cosmic rays). This is why Alex "sees" Fireblade, but only her because she is very strong and has little control over when she emits. He might not see, for instance, Tempo if she moved a datapad a few inches.
My completely subjective take on relative Loroi skintone, dark to light:
Fireblade > Ashrain > Talon/Spiral > Beryl > Stillstorm > Tempo
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EdwardSteed
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2018 12:17 am
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
I wouldn't get too hung up on it, we don't even know if Loroi skin tones are caused by the same biological mechanisms as human skin tones. Being a potentially engineered species maybe Loroi don't tan at all and their skin tones, much like their crazy anime hair colors, are just random genetic filler rather then something selected by thousands of years of evolution to improve survival.kiwi wrote:Dang it, you’re right. Must have been hung up on hair colour or something. Oh well
Since I assume this is Alex's dream (or at least one created by his mind for Tempo's benefit) there is another explanation. Much like the scientists at Jurassic Park using frog DNA to fill in the gaps for dinosaurs Alex's mind may be using something similar to fill in the gaps of what a human Tempo should look like. Maybe at the academy he had an dark skinned female instructor who talked to him with the same kind of attitude that Tempo does, so now his subconcious is borrowing from that associated memory to fill in the gaps of what Tempo's human appearance should be (In fact even awake our brains actually do this kind of thing a lot with visual information, read about the blind spot to discover just how much of what we think we see is actually fake information our brains are guessing at.)
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
It's full of stars pt 2
Here's the next instalment. Sorry about the delay, and the short instalment - I've had a busy weekend.
------------------------------------
Tempo looked for weapons. There should be an arms locker somewhere on this ship. She would first find a weapon, then find a person, and then she would find some answers. She began by searching every locker she could see.
She found... nothing much. There was a crude medical kit, crude clothing with no armour at all, a crude tool kit - which did contain a reasonably large spanner - and a surprisingly elegant construction of fine curved wood, with metal strings. After knocking on it and cringing at the hollow, resonant sound, she realised it was a musical instrument.
So, she had a spanner. Apparently spanners were universal because it looked exactly like a Loroi spanner, give or take the writing on the side. Now to survey the rest of the room. There were - crude - computer interfaces and more of the pods she had woken up in. Along the ring to her left, a ladder ran up the the central hub.
She didn't want to open the pods, and she didn't know and of the human English so there was no point trying the computer systems. That leaves the ladder.
----------------------------
The central hub of the spin ring was cramped and white and octagonal. Surprisingly, there only seemed to be the one ring. Right outside the hub was a stationary corridor, also white, also octagonal. It disappeared down to a vanishing point, clearly many mamals long. Bulkheads to the sides lead outwards to ... whatever. And there was a window. Normally, looking out the window of a spacecraft was pointless, but she currently knew nothing about her location.
She saw a planet. A gas giant, huge, with red and orange and cream stripes. Colours swirled between the stripes, like liquids mixing. It was beautiful, and she had never seen it before in her life. She was no Listel, but she had studied all the reports and looked at no end of planets. I would remember this one.
She stared, transfixed. A tiny crown of aurora swept over the pole and into her vision. Eventually, a new weather pattern turned into view underneath her. A huge red spot slowly came over the horizon.
"Tempo." She spun around. Alexander Jardin had snuck up on her, damn his lotai.. And somehow, horribly, he had the spanner. "Oh, sorry, I startled you. Did you sleep well?" She stared at the spanner. She had just been holding it.
He manoeuvred into place next to her deftly. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
She struck out with her psychokinesis. She wasn't very strong, but she was precise. A squeeze on his heart would let her take control of the situation.
Nothing happened. Nothing. She had no sanzai - or no one close enough to sanzai who didn't have a damned lotai - and no psychokinesis. And he had the spanner. Oblivious, he continued. "I could stare at the king of the gods forever." He smiled at her. "But we need to be careful of our dose."
And then she realised she was utterly screwed. Because he wasn't speaking trade and someone had taken her psychokinesis out and stuffed a whole new language in.
EDIT: fixed italics oopsie
Here's the next instalment. Sorry about the delay, and the short instalment - I've had a busy weekend.
------------------------------------
Tempo looked for weapons. There should be an arms locker somewhere on this ship. She would first find a weapon, then find a person, and then she would find some answers. She began by searching every locker she could see.
She found... nothing much. There was a crude medical kit, crude clothing with no armour at all, a crude tool kit - which did contain a reasonably large spanner - and a surprisingly elegant construction of fine curved wood, with metal strings. After knocking on it and cringing at the hollow, resonant sound, she realised it was a musical instrument.
So, she had a spanner. Apparently spanners were universal because it looked exactly like a Loroi spanner, give or take the writing on the side. Now to survey the rest of the room. There were - crude - computer interfaces and more of the pods she had woken up in. Along the ring to her left, a ladder ran up the the central hub.
She didn't want to open the pods, and she didn't know and of the human English so there was no point trying the computer systems. That leaves the ladder.
----------------------------
The central hub of the spin ring was cramped and white and octagonal. Surprisingly, there only seemed to be the one ring. Right outside the hub was a stationary corridor, also white, also octagonal. It disappeared down to a vanishing point, clearly many mamals long. Bulkheads to the sides lead outwards to ... whatever. And there was a window. Normally, looking out the window of a spacecraft was pointless, but she currently knew nothing about her location.
She saw a planet. A gas giant, huge, with red and orange and cream stripes. Colours swirled between the stripes, like liquids mixing. It was beautiful, and she had never seen it before in her life. She was no Listel, but she had studied all the reports and looked at no end of planets. I would remember this one.
She stared, transfixed. A tiny crown of aurora swept over the pole and into her vision. Eventually, a new weather pattern turned into view underneath her. A huge red spot slowly came over the horizon.
"Tempo." She spun around. Alexander Jardin had snuck up on her, damn his lotai.. And somehow, horribly, he had the spanner. "Oh, sorry, I startled you. Did you sleep well?" She stared at the spanner. She had just been holding it.
He manoeuvred into place next to her deftly. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
She struck out with her psychokinesis. She wasn't very strong, but she was precise. A squeeze on his heart would let her take control of the situation.
Nothing happened. Nothing. She had no sanzai - or no one close enough to sanzai who didn't have a damned lotai - and no psychokinesis. And he had the spanner. Oblivious, he continued. "I could stare at the king of the gods forever." He smiled at her. "But we need to be careful of our dose."
And then she realised she was utterly screwed. Because he wasn't speaking trade and someone had taken her psychokinesis out and stuffed a whole new language in.
EDIT: fixed italics oopsie
Last edited by kiwi on Tue Oct 01, 2019 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
This is interesting.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Dreams are weird.
But if she can remember it after waking up, it'll tell her a lot about Humaniti....
But if she can remember it after waking up, it'll tell her a lot about Humaniti....
The Ur-Quan Masters finally gets a continuation of the story! Late backing possible, click link.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
It's full of stars pt 3
Well, I successfully managed to draft this without accidentally hitting 'submit.' I'll count that as a win.
One of these days I may even pull out all the stops and proofread something
Edit: added last minute idea to make it worse... or better?
----------------------------
I am Loroi, Tempo thought, I will succeed. As the person not holding the spanner, or the telekinesis, she would need to use her words. In fact, she would need to try the horrible trait of non-telepaths: small talk. The human seems to respond well to it. "It is a very striking view," she ventured.
Alex smiled. "You can see it from Earth with a telescope, but there's nothing like seeing it face to face. I could watch it all day."
That was interesting. This planet was in the same system as Earth. And for some reason Alex expected her to know that. And, he hadn't made any reference to her being brown instead of blue. Exactly what is going on?
There was a silence. Come on, come on. What else can I say?. This had always been difficult for her in training - the Loroi tradition was to be concise. Give her something of value to say, and she would say it. So she said "Frank would have loved this." What? Who is Frank?
"Yeah, he would have." Alex sighed. "What a time to break a leg." He tapped the spanner against his right leg, then waved it at the window. "Still, you got the biggest 'told you so' in history."
She remembered now. Frank had always loved his motorbike, and simply refused to slow down. She had told him time and again that he'd crash one day, and a month before launch he'd slipped on some unexpected glass fragments. "At least he was wearing the pants," she said.
Alex smiled. "You know why he wore the pants." They stared out the window a little while longer. "Sam would have loved this too.
"Let's go get some breakfast. I didn't want to eat without you."
Oh, of course. Humans don't segregate their males, so they would eat together.
-----------------------------
Breakfast consisted of unfamiliar, round, foamy objects from a dispensing machine, and equally unfamiliar yellow fruit in a very suggestive curved tube shape. Tempo had chuckled while Alex scowled.
"Hey now, we've been saving up this meal for monolith day. Don't make me feel weird about the bananas," he said.
"I just remembered why he wore the pants." No I don't. I don't remember why he wore the pants. And what is monolith day?
Alex looked concerned. "Surely it was to protect his legs in the event that he fell over!"
They ate. The 'pancakes' were largely tasteless until covered with sugary 'maple' syrup, after which point she nearly inhaled them.
-----------------------------
And now they were ready for the day's mission. They had crammed into an observation ... cupboard ... it was tiny, and they bumped shoulders and shins as they squeezed in. There was a viewfinder for an optical telescope sticking out of the wall, basic mechanical controls, and the irritating noise of air fans.
Alex had dived in first, saying, "I was going to say 'ladies first,' but after the pants joke, I claim first viewing."
And so her stood in front of the telescope, head pressed against a retaining strap, and fiddled with the controls. "Jovian shield is in place. It should be coming over the horizon about now." He fumbled around and hit a button marked 'transmit.'
"Alexander Jardin, recording first observations with the optical telescope. Tempo Poole is waiting her turn." More fiddling. "I think I see a corner. Yes. Just visible now. Right on target. Taking photo one." There was a mechanical noise, and then some whirring. "I'm seeing a right angle corner, like a large brick. It's occluding stars and widening. I don't see any thickness yet.
"I've got another corner now. They form two corners on a rectangle. Taking photo two. Edges appear to be parallel.
"The object is getting a little thinner. Taking timed photos three through eight.
"I'm not seeing any reflections. It's all black.
"Oh, the other end has come around the curve. Taking photo nine. It looks about twice as long as it is wide.
"It's getting thinner as it twists. Taking photo 10. Testing the automatic tracking... still on target. I'm setting up the long timed exposure set... done. All right Tempo, you're up."
He slipped away from the telescope and she slid into his place. She may not know how to operate the telescope, but she absolutely wanted to see this object. After a moving her head back and forth a little, she got a clear picture through the eyepiece and saw the largest Soia artefact in history. It was a huge, absolutely black, rectangle. Clearly thousands of mamals long - she didn't know the proper scaling - and had just risen above the planet. She could only see it as a shadow against the stars and faint light of the planet's exosphere. This is huge! This could be an active artefact - in a human star system! Why don't they have better technology than this.
The telescope was actually quite good, if primitive. It maintained tracking as the object grew thinner and thinner. She watched, confused and entranced, as it slowly shrank to a thin line. It began to widen, and on the other side, she could see writing. "Alex, there is writing on it."
"Can you make it out?"
"Not yet."
They waited. The object got slowly wider as Tempo stared. The writing was white and stood out very strongly, but was still too slanted to see.
Alex began: "I never expected to see writing on it. That could tell us so much..."
Finally, she could start to see individual letters. "I can start to make out letters now. There are several lines of text. It's nearly turned over."
All ..... E ..... ........
After a few moments, the letters came into focus. Strange, English focus. "It says 'All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there.'" Alex had mentioned that his language, English, was quite young, so that meant The Soia live! Somewhere, they are alive and watching over us!. Somehow, somewhere, the Soia had chosen her to come to a human system and see their first message in millennia. She had been worthy.
"In English?" Alex interrupted her thoughts.
"Yes"
"Fuck."
Well, I successfully managed to draft this without accidentally hitting 'submit.' I'll count that as a win.
One of these days I may even pull out all the stops and proofread something
Edit: added last minute idea to make it worse... or better?
----------------------------
I am Loroi, Tempo thought, I will succeed. As the person not holding the spanner, or the telekinesis, she would need to use her words. In fact, she would need to try the horrible trait of non-telepaths: small talk. The human seems to respond well to it. "It is a very striking view," she ventured.
Alex smiled. "You can see it from Earth with a telescope, but there's nothing like seeing it face to face. I could watch it all day."
That was interesting. This planet was in the same system as Earth. And for some reason Alex expected her to know that. And, he hadn't made any reference to her being brown instead of blue. Exactly what is going on?
There was a silence. Come on, come on. What else can I say?. This had always been difficult for her in training - the Loroi tradition was to be concise. Give her something of value to say, and she would say it. So she said "Frank would have loved this." What? Who is Frank?
"Yeah, he would have." Alex sighed. "What a time to break a leg." He tapped the spanner against his right leg, then waved it at the window. "Still, you got the biggest 'told you so' in history."
She remembered now. Frank had always loved his motorbike, and simply refused to slow down. She had told him time and again that he'd crash one day, and a month before launch he'd slipped on some unexpected glass fragments. "At least he was wearing the pants," she said.
Alex smiled. "You know why he wore the pants." They stared out the window a little while longer. "Sam would have loved this too.
"Let's go get some breakfast. I didn't want to eat without you."
Oh, of course. Humans don't segregate their males, so they would eat together.
-----------------------------
Breakfast consisted of unfamiliar, round, foamy objects from a dispensing machine, and equally unfamiliar yellow fruit in a very suggestive curved tube shape. Tempo had chuckled while Alex scowled.
"Hey now, we've been saving up this meal for monolith day. Don't make me feel weird about the bananas," he said.
"I just remembered why he wore the pants." No I don't. I don't remember why he wore the pants. And what is monolith day?
Alex looked concerned. "Surely it was to protect his legs in the event that he fell over!"
They ate. The 'pancakes' were largely tasteless until covered with sugary 'maple' syrup, after which point she nearly inhaled them.
-----------------------------
And now they were ready for the day's mission. They had crammed into an observation ... cupboard ... it was tiny, and they bumped shoulders and shins as they squeezed in. There was a viewfinder for an optical telescope sticking out of the wall, basic mechanical controls, and the irritating noise of air fans.
Alex had dived in first, saying, "I was going to say 'ladies first,' but after the pants joke, I claim first viewing."
And so her stood in front of the telescope, head pressed against a retaining strap, and fiddled with the controls. "Jovian shield is in place. It should be coming over the horizon about now." He fumbled around and hit a button marked 'transmit.'
"Alexander Jardin, recording first observations with the optical telescope. Tempo Poole is waiting her turn." More fiddling. "I think I see a corner. Yes. Just visible now. Right on target. Taking photo one." There was a mechanical noise, and then some whirring. "I'm seeing a right angle corner, like a large brick. It's occluding stars and widening. I don't see any thickness yet.
"I've got another corner now. They form two corners on a rectangle. Taking photo two. Edges appear to be parallel.
"The object is getting a little thinner. Taking timed photos three through eight.
"I'm not seeing any reflections. It's all black.
"Oh, the other end has come around the curve. Taking photo nine. It looks about twice as long as it is wide.
"It's getting thinner as it twists. Taking photo 10. Testing the automatic tracking... still on target. I'm setting up the long timed exposure set... done. All right Tempo, you're up."
He slipped away from the telescope and she slid into his place. She may not know how to operate the telescope, but she absolutely wanted to see this object. After a moving her head back and forth a little, she got a clear picture through the eyepiece and saw the largest Soia artefact in history. It was a huge, absolutely black, rectangle. Clearly thousands of mamals long - she didn't know the proper scaling - and had just risen above the planet. She could only see it as a shadow against the stars and faint light of the planet's exosphere. This is huge! This could be an active artefact - in a human star system! Why don't they have better technology than this.
The telescope was actually quite good, if primitive. It maintained tracking as the object grew thinner and thinner. She watched, confused and entranced, as it slowly shrank to a thin line. It began to widen, and on the other side, she could see writing. "Alex, there is writing on it."
"Can you make it out?"
"Not yet."
They waited. The object got slowly wider as Tempo stared. The writing was white and stood out very strongly, but was still too slanted to see.
Alex began: "I never expected to see writing on it. That could tell us so much..."
Finally, she could start to see individual letters. "I can start to make out letters now. There are several lines of text. It's nearly turned over."
All ..... E ..... ........
After a few moments, the letters came into focus. Strange, English focus. "It says 'All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there.'" Alex had mentioned that his language, English, was quite young, so that meant The Soia live! Somewhere, they are alive and watching over us!. Somehow, somewhere, the Soia had chosen her to come to a human system and see their first message in millennia. She had been worthy.
"In English?" Alex interrupted her thoughts.
"Yes"
"Fuck."
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
English is one issue.
The letters are another.
And the naming of Europa (Jupiter's moon Europa) is a third one.
Mayday, mayday, mayday, we have a first-contact situation where the other side knows ALL about is that there is to know.
The letters are another.
And the naming of Europa (Jupiter's moon Europa) is a third one.
Mayday, mayday, mayday, we have a first-contact situation where the other side knows ALL about is that there is to know.
The Ur-Quan Masters finally gets a continuation of the story! Late backing possible, click link.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Since it's labeled 'Writing Prompt', I decided to add my two cents in here. Hope I didn't derail things too much
Think, Tempo, think. Let's recount the facts. We're in a shuttle, adrift and dead in space, he fell asleep and I tried to establish sanzai contact... Then, what is this place?
She tried to list off possibilities in her mind.
For one, I could have been mysteriously transported to who-knows-where on an unfamiliar space station... but then I'd still be myself, and not in a human body. Except... it would be just my mind that had been moved, into a human body. Of one human Captain Jardin is familiar with.
That sounded quite far fetched, but Tempo was ready to go with this theory, just before she hit another snag.
No... that doesn't work. The Captain is here, too, and he doesn't seem to be disoriented. As if he's in a place is supposed to be. As for me... it seems like a mixture between 'me' and 'someone else'. I remembered who this Frank was, but the food was completely unfamiliar. I now understand English better than Beryl, but cannot read their writings. There are things I'm obviously supposed to know, but don't.
Well, scratch relocation off the list, for now. There'd be too many inconsistencies to follow up the line of thought.
What else? Is it some sort of dreamscape? That would completely explain why Captain Jardin is at ease with the environs - he created them, after all, I'd be just a guest. And him being in command of this place would explain why I'm missing my sanzai, my telekinetics and how I appear to him... He wouldn't even know about the first two, and he put me in a form he's comfortable with.
Another thought came to her mind. Would that mean that he prefers females with a tan? Well... Tempo cut off that line of thought.
So, let's assume it's a dreamscape. I'm still me, and possibly I don't know English and we can understand each other because we're talking mind-to-mind without using any language, after all. That would also explain why I cannot read their scripts as well. And, he referred to me as 'Tempo Poole'... This is not how Loroi are named, but still it contains my spoken name... So... did his mind put me up with a human name to go along with this human body?
That ... actually makes sense.
But where are we, then? The human homeworld's solar system, so much I gathered. Though, is there an actual habitat orbiting a brown-red gas giant, and had he been there, on an observation mission, or is this just a figment of imagination?
Tempo wasn't sure. Her training covered altered mental states, in case a Mizol has to lift information from a damaged or delirous mind, and while each case was unique, there were two methods of accomplishing the goal. Either to directly challenge the reality of the mindscape, make the recipient 'see' and display the actual truth, or to let things play out, trying to 'read' the metaphors of ... well, everything there is to be seen.
And that message on this artifact just outside, the black.... yes, monolith ... written not in Loroi Trade, but in English?
The meaning is quite clear, at least the Captain considers ... whatever this means ... to be a revelation to the humans.
'All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there.'
A promise, coupled with a warning. If this artifact is no actual object, but a metaphor, what does it mean? Is this how he sees us? A blessing, but with a hidden danger?
Having been left with even more questions than answers Tempo decided to 'play along' and let the events unfold. And, maybe, when they wake up again, to carefully prod him about the things she had seen.
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Well, if I don’t want others to pitch in, then I should write faster 
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
(Also, the loroi base unit of distance is mannal, not mamal.)
Don't delay, join today!
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
a can lot happen in dream states . . weird stuff, horror stuff, prophetic stuff, please continue
Re: [Fanfiction] Writing Prompt: For what dreams may come
Yes, dreams can be very strange. I thought they could be a good way to drop Tempo, unprepared, into some of the stranger aspects of the human subconscious.
I’m currently working to put out the original planned ending for It’s Full of Stars, and may well pick up the more nuanced option Novius put down. It offers more opportunity for Tempo to learn stuff.
I’m currently working to put out the original planned ending for It’s Full of Stars, and may well pick up the more nuanced option Novius put down. It offers more opportunity for Tempo to learn stuff.