Janet worked for a few seconds trying to convert the thought file into a workable three-dimensional image. After a while, she finally managed to get a wavy, staticy, image going. She turned to the aven, but he seemed distracted by a gazelle at the moment. So she sat there, listening to the two talk, while she tried to clear the image a bit. When she had it as good as it was going to get, she saved the file and fluttered up to the two of them. "A Reclamation Specialist?" She asked, checking her data bases. "You gather broken-down materials and reuse them, correct? Like someone with the job name, Starfix?" She hummed for a moment to herself, "I actually considered that last name when I came of age, but exploration was in my deep sub-mind. So, I became a Starhatcher instead. I'm Janet Starhatcher, by the way." She introduced herself to Kara.
((The Morga Nalafe have last names according to the job they take. Ergo, starhatcher means pilot, Starfix means finding and fixing ships, though it does encompass slightly more than just that. Of course, you all probably figured that out, huh?))
Looks back over to Janet and then picks up his pad again to have a look at the news broadcast that she tried to clean up. "So, I'm an interstellar TV celebrity now?" he asks, rather flattered by the thought of it.
Before the drink could come to her lips, Kara's attention was pulled away by the butterfly that had flittered her way. Now she was the center of attention. This was just getting better and better. "Oh, no. I'm not a specialist per se. I'm just a freelancer. I'm certainly no star... space... fixer... thing." Schlepping a freighter around junkspace and collecting odds and ends was one thing, 'reclamation' was an entirely different category. After all, what happens in deep space, stays in deep space. "Nice to meet you, Janet. I'm Kara."
Kara took a deep drink of her beverage. She felt the liquor slide into her belly like liquid silk, warming her all the way down, then entered her system with the grace of a lightning bolt falling down the stairs. The gazelle took a deep breath and blinked. "Wow, good stuff." She said, eyeing the glass. She'd have to remember this stuff. If it let her.
Noting the avian looking at the screen, Kara took the opportunity to change the subject as her drink started making her brain spin ever-so-slightly to the left. Drinking on an empty stomach in any galaxy was a bad idea, and Kara knew her coherence clock was ticking. "Hm? You on the newsfeeds or something, Ryan?"
Gabriella Valentine's Signature
“Well-behaved women rarely make history”
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Janet, glanced to the gazelle as while plugging her antennas back into the tablet. Her musical voice drifted on the air. "He was in a thoughtcast on my home planet." She turned her back to the gazelle and lifted her hairlike antenna up a bit to show the transmitter. "This connects me to my planet, and the people there." She rewound the video to the beginning of the story, and turned back around. "If I was a programmer, I would be able to write a program to get the sound going. Though, it would be in the sung language." She thought for a moment and a crackle came out of the speakers, but nothing else. "See? I cannot get the sound, Sorry." She started to play the video, a circular desk came into view, and sitting at it was another of Janet's species who's antennas were not tipped in the silver adapters that Janet had, but they still seemed to be plugged into the desk. Nearby the desk, a three dimentional image of Janet came up. Though, it showed her wings in an opaque pink color, as opposed to the shimmering clear they were now. "Here, they are introducing me and explaining my mission to everyone who doesn't know what it is already." Janet put her lower pair of arms behind her back and crossed her upper arms, her species version of blushing. "I used to dye my wings." The image of Janet disappeared and an image of the aven came into view. It was a little blurry, but you could tell it was him. "When I sent in your image, i didn't have your point of view, so it ended up a little less clear than most images." After a while his image left, and a sky view of a field with several Morga Nalafe came up. They were playing with a ball that had four spikes on it. Then the video stopped playing. "That brings us to sports," Janet explained, "So I stopped it there." She unplugged from the tablet and flitted up to eye level again, "What did you think? Kind of neat, huh?"
((oops, long post is long....the female Morga Nalafe have two pairs of arms, due to the fact that they evolved from insects. Males have three pairs of legs and look like beetles, interestingly enough. Just thought i would clear that up for you guys.))
Ryan smiles at Janet, looking quite amused by the whole thing. "Wow, I guess being good with technology finally came to some good use. I'm glad I could help." he pauses then and reflects on the broadcast a bit, "Odd to think that even in another Galaxy that news shows are all still the same too."
Interested by the comment, Janet decided to connect to the wireless on the station to look up some of the local newscasts. She had connected before before, but had to use her ship. With her headgear fixed, she could now connect directly. The entire network was an interlinking mess, but she managed to navigate it. Filtering through, she saw several broadcasts at once and her eyes glazed over a bit. She stopped flitting about and landed on the table sitting silently. It was a few minutes before she finally spoke, eyes still glazed. "(Insert musical notes here)... Sorry, I forgot to switch back to the common language of the area." She started to repeat what she said before, "Your information shows seen to be more about opinion than facts. They also conflict with each other in several regards. Someone does not have factual information, but I can't tell who has the correct and who doesn't." Janet blinked a couple of times, shaking the post-heavy-search haze off. She looked questioningly at Ryan, "Why is that?"
((Janet's people all connect together in a similar way to a social network, or like computers on the internet, but because they have access to each other's minds, there is no such thing as a lie. She has no concept of how to lie, or why anyone would want to. She doesn't even have a word for it, or a word for truth because that is just talking for her. ))
Ryan smiles over to Janet. He can see her confusion at having seen so many news broadcasts. "Well, facts are facts, but how someone interprets those facts is another matter entirely. You can have a point of view based on facts that contradicts another point of view. It's all in how people want to see things. You mean they don't do that on your world?"
Sitting back in her chair a bit, Kara took another gulp from her drink. Attention had shifted, and she didn't feel on the spot anymore.
She took the chance to better take in her surroundings. Janet seemed like a pretty nice person, though she was certainly the first of her kinds that Kara had met, but she'd long heard about the telepathic insectoids being around. It was pretty shocking how often they popped up in conspiracy feeds where she came from, usually along the lines of "they're too smart and too nice, they must be planning our destruction!" Kara smiled just thinking about it. On one hand what could a creature of that stature ever do to harm anyone, but on the other hand there was an old soothsayer who used to warn: "No one suspects the butterfly."
The avian was something completely different. On one hand, he seemed like far more than just the station engineer. Something in Kara's gut sensed a much more interesting story than that, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Not that she expected him to share his life story and sordid history with folks he just met (Kara certainly wouldn't, you never know who's a cop anymore!) but there had to be more there. Kara's curiosity was piqued.
Worst case, after a few more drinks and a few more hours, perhaps the three of them would get to know each other better. No such thing as chance, right?
"If his news is anything like ours, call it 'the curse of non-collective thinking.'" Kara interjected, her nose starting to tingle a bit from the drink. "Different perspectives leads to different interpretations, different interpretations leads to different histories, different histories leads to nations, wars, and some of the most ridiculous grudges in the galaxy. Back home the news is little more than a sales pitch for one groups' politics."
Gabriella Valentine's Signature
“Well-behaved women rarely make history”
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Janet looked curiously at Kara. "So the shows are not about spreading information, but an advertisement?" She shook her head in disbelief. "You alien species' are very strange, but it will be fun to observe and learn from you." She accessed the wireless system of the station again, making sure to keep a constant connection. She set some constant search perimeters for the opinionated 'news' casts in case something of importance came up. *PING* She read the message that came up, it was about her staregg. The computer on the station didn't recognize it, and when she tried to go into the system to fix it, it rejected her claiming that she was a virus. With a sigh, She turned to Ryan. "Something's wrong with your station! It doesn't recognize my staregg as a space vessel!" She then addressed Kara. "I remember you saying that you collect broken machinery, which I do have some of on board, if you would like to take a look?"
((I thought we were on the topic of the newscasts for a little too long. So i decided to change it. I really hope her naivety doesn't become annoying. She's one of the few thousand that is actually seeing the outside universe where there is another species, maybe few hundred thousand. I have a bio sheet for the species posted in the sins part of the site, somewhere...."
Ryan smiles at Janet. "Oh, well I can imagine that the station has never seen or knows what to make of a StarEgg, as you call it." He taps a few UI elements on his tablet, then slides it over to Janet. "If you fill that in then you can get registered into the system and then it won't bother you anymore." he grins, "Oh, don't forget to smile for the picture!"
After a moment, he looks over to the cafe's stage that's being setup for the evening's performances. He smiles, "My night job, or hobby, whatever you like to call it..."
She smiled at Ryan as he passed over the tablet. "Thank you, this should solve the problem easily." She plugged herself in and filled out the paperwork, and was surprised by the built in flash of the camera on the tablet. The work called for a three-dimensional image of the ship, and Janet put the best she could from the thought file into it for an image. It seemed to accept the paperwork when she submitted it. Ryan looked to the stage and said something about it being his night job. "A stage?" Janet asked, "What kind of performance will it be?"
Was now halfway through her drink and feeling just great. This was going to be an interesting evening after all. Kara had noticed the stage when she first came in, but most places she'd been had at least one sort of entertainment venue for travelers. Most of them were holograms or bots of some sort, but this one looked like a legitimate stage for actual sentient (or if it was open-mic, somewhat sentient) performers.
The gazelle smiled at the butterfly, deciding she was more than pleasant enough to help and was most likely not going to viciously kill and rob her. "Sure I can help with some stuff. I mean, I'm no expert, but I could lend a hand if you've got some things for me to look at." She said, taking up Janet's offer.
Maybe it was the drink that had slowed her senses, or perhaps the phrase just didn't sink in the first time it passed through her psyche, but after the word bounced around in her head for a minute it finally stuck. "I'm sorry, did you say a StarEgg?"
Gabriella Valentine's Signature
“Well-behaved women rarely make history”
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
"Yes," She replied to Kara. "A StarEgg is an egg that travels the stars. The closest thing to it you would know of would be a space ship." Janet paused for a moment, to let it sink in. Kara seemed to have slowed down a bit from the alcohol. "That's why my last name, my job name, is StarHatcher. The names go back to when we first learned to travel in space, we believed the stars to just be shining eggs. Of course, they are really just balls of gases, but in honor of the old beliefs we have stareggs, starhatchers and other names and objects that relate back to the old beliefs." Looking back to the stage, "Maybe I could preform something?"
Ryan smiles at the two of them. "Yeah, I'd better go and get ready. I'll be playing tonight for the first time. They kept telling me that I should do it and that I was pretty good. Well, I guess we'll find out." He gets up, "I'll go get ready, shouldn't be too long." he heads towards the backstage entrence.
A few minutes later the bird comes out wearing a rather flashy outfit and carrying a guitar case. He puts the case on the floor and opens it, pulling the guitar out. Then he plugs in to the amplifier and tunes up. When he is satisfied, he looks around the cafe, then starts playing in earnest.
Janet watched the aven play, and at first thought that he was trying to say something in Janet's sung language using the stringed instrument. As she listened there were a couple of coherent words, but it was mostly just sounds. Sounds arranged in a beautiful pattern, the likes of which she had never heard before. When he was done, she cheered with the other people who had been listening, and clapped with both sets of hands. "That was complete gibberish!" She called up to him, "But it was the most amazing arrangement of notes and nonsense words I have ever heard! Is this what all foreign music is like?"
((Any questions you have about the species can be pmed to me and i'll do my best to answer them.))
After Ryan finished playing, he unplugs from the PA system and heads back through the stage entrence, giving the stage up to someone else for their turn at open night. Once he's done stowing his guitar, he heads back to the table, pleased to see that at least his performance hadn't completely appalled the two folks he was talking to.
Sitting down, he looks over to Janet as she makes her comments.. He blinks, "Gibberish, but that was.... Oh wait, so your species communicates on a tonal rather than a verbal level?" he asks, genuinely curious. "Well, I'm glad you liked it at least, I have to admit I had fun up there."
She nodded at Ryan. "Yes, my species sings to verbally communicate." She sang the same sentence in her language to emphasize the point. "We normally communicate through the One Mind. Though, we do like to chatter in person when we can." Janet sang again, this time she sang about the performance, knowing that he couldn't understand, but using it as an example. "What you call notes, we call phonemes. A result, we all, or mostly all, have to have a perfect pitch. Though, it is a miracle that we even came up with a 'spoken' language, due to the direct links we form."
((I'm coming up with a prototype of the language soon so i'll be able to put more than just 'she sang this'))
Ryan nods slowly. "You certainly are an interesting species. Definitely one of the more dynamic that I've come across. It doesn't hurt that you liked my playing either. I guess if it's good enough for an alien race then it's good enough for me to keep doing." he smiles then looks around. "So, could you show us this StarEgg of yours? I am intrigued to get a look at it and see the sorts of technology you folks apply."
[[Sorry for the delay in posting. Cursed RL came and kidnapped me again!]]
Had taken the time to sink into a corner and just watch for a bit. StarEggs? Guitar-playing avians? Maybe the drink was thinking for her but this was a lot to swallow on top of ... other concerns she had.
After making the poor decision to order a second drink, she had quietly pulled out her comm-box once more. The little synthetic cube hummed to life as a small screen appeared in her hand. She flicked through the various pages that popped up: star maps, photos of stations, several encrypted contact lists and a 3-D blueprint of some sort. She shook the box a few times. Either the projection lens was dirty or she was starting to go cross-eyed, but she wasn't going to get out of this mess at this rate.
Once Ryan finished his performance, Kara shoved the comm-box back into her pocked and clapped politely. What she'd heard of the music before her mind pulled her thoughts elsewhere had been quite good.
"So, could you show us this StarEgg of yours? I am intrigued to get a look at it and see the sorts of technology you folks apply."
Kara's ears perked a bit. She was still having all sorts of weird pictures in her head of what a StarEgg looked like (she at least hoped it was hard-boiled or this could get messy!) but it might be interesting. Janet had wanted her to look at some things, but Kara hoped she wasn't expecting too much. She was only a "freelancer" after all. That was her story and she was sticking to it.
Gabriella Valentine's Signature
“Well-behaved women rarely make history”
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
"Of course," She replied to Ryan and Kara. Kara was looking a little off from the drinks, but that was fine. "Follow me!" Janet fluttered to the door, and then remembered she couldn't open it. Luckily the window was open this time and she flew through that. She then led them down to the docks where her staregg was located. The staregg sat there, dwarfed by the other ships in the bay, like the description it was shaped like an egg though it was colored in a very pale rainbow looking almost white. There were thin lines running along it where alloy plates where seemed together perfectly to avoid overheating while entering atmospheres and to avoid decompression. It had no windshield because it had sensors that would be transferred to the control room. It made the ship that much safer, due to not having to worry about a broken windshield. With a thought from her, an oval of lines became more pronounced and open downwards, creating a ramp. Most Stareggs didn't have ramps, but this one had to be specially created to allow alien being who couldn't fly to enter. The airlock was also larger, though Kara and Ryan would have to stoop. When they entered the receiving room, she stopped. In the room, there were some chairs and three dimensional projector in the ceiling, bathing the room in swirls of deep reds, violets, oranges, and greens. If the could see into the infrared range like she could, the range of colors would have been greater.
"This is the greeting room." She told them. It's where I am supposed to take my guests first and ask them questions, but I think we can skip the questions part for now." She flew over to a tiny door in the middle of the wall, which opened large enough for her to fly through.
"Make yourself like you are at home, I have over three hundred different color loops which I'm sure you'll enjoy and I'll be right back with some of the broken technology I don't need. I would invite you to see the rest of the ship, but you wouldn't fit through most of the doorways. I do have a projection of it that you could pull up. Just ask the computer out loud and it will help you. Just be careful what you say, it takes things very literally. I'll be back in just a couple of minutes. There are also refreshments that can be distributed from the alcove behind you."
With that she flew off through the door. She worked her way through the hallways, stopping by her room to grab the computer there that didn't work anymore, and then by engineering for a few devices. After a few minutes, she was making her way back to the receiving room, all four arms full. She could barely fit through the door again, but she made it through.
((Really sorry about the really long post.... I hope you enjoy it anyway....))
The gazelle found herself staring through the station glass as the approached. It ... it was actually a big egg. A reinforced, clearly space-worthy egg, but an egg still.
She ducked her way into the airlock, being careful to keep her small antlers covered with her hand lest she scramble this thing from the inside. Taking a seat once they got to the meeting room, Kara smiled politely as the butterfly femme brought up the very reason she was here. "Sure thing." She says simply, watching Janet flutter from the meeting room. Once she was out of the room, her eyes slid over to the avian who had come into the StarEgg with her. Well this was perfectly awkward. It was one thing to bump into a few nice people in a bar on a random station in the furthest corner of the galaxy you've been chased to in some time, it was another thing to find yourself in an over-sized ovary with a butterfly and a guitar playing hawk.
"Good Lord." Kara mutters under her breath. "What in the hell have I gotten myself into?"
Gabriella Valentine's Signature
“Well-behaved women rarely make history”
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Ryan does indeed have to stoop to get through the airlock, though he doesn't have to worry about antlers, so his entry is a little more relaxed than Kara's. He takes a seat as Janet flies off and looks around. "Hm, well, I'll say one thing for their species, they certainly are literal."
Looking over to Kara again he smiles, "Well, this is certainly a unique way of passing an evening, don't you think?" he looks a bit awkward, sitting there with his guitar case next to him, almost wanting to pull it out again and play some more.
Not too long later Janet returns with her hands full, all four of them. "I could check those out to see if I can maybe repair any of them if you like?"
Re: Station Treffpunkt
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