Scene #4795: SPACESHIP!

Owner	Pose
Staren	Staren's decided to host a get-together at his place! The thing is, his place is a spaceship floating in orbit above Equestria. Sokka may require coaxing to get him to return through the warpgate, but shortly after he and Alden arrive, they're turned into beams of light and find themselves on the teleport pad. (Kotone can teleport over directly from her own ship, and Twilight has a device to remote-activate the teleporter from anywhere outside.) Hub - SSC Stranger than Fiction (Location #0) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The walls, floor, and ceiling of the Stranger than Fiction's lower deck are covered with a facade that makes the structure look as if it are constructed of large stone bricks. The 'hub' room is about 25x15' across and about 7 1/3 feet tall. The teleporter pad is in the fore-starboard corner, the doorway to the lab is in the center of the fore wall, and the doorway to manufacturing is in the center of the aft wall. A spiral staircase to storage and the residential deck is in the aft-port corner. Through thick transparisteel windows, you can see space outside. Large storage cupboards are against the walls here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staren is leaning against the wall next to the port window with his hands in his coat pockets. As people arrive, he smiles and waves. "Hey, glad you could make it!" Twilight gets a hug, and then he turns to the others. "Welcome to my humble abode, the Science Space Castle 'Stranger Than Fiction'!" He waves his hand in a grand gesture to indicate the room around them. Confirming they are indeed in space, outside the window one can see stars against the black, and if one moves close to the window they can see the planet Equestria below, looking much like any other earthlike planet, the nightside dotted with magical lights indicating centers of civilization like Manehattan and Canterlot.
Sokka	Sokka had required a lot of coaxing to come into the mlp verse. After all, ponies. But, after a lot of sarcasm, grumbles and a healthy interest in wanting to see space, he did actually manage to make his way to the ship. And what a ship it was. Now that he was ON the ship, his eyes were practically glowing. He ran around a bit, poking, proding, trying to determine the use and function of EVERYTHING. Most infuriating part about it? His guesses about what things did half the time weren't wrong. He'd been spending a lot of time in the library and while he still only had a basic understanding of how these things worked, he was getting a general feel for things like gravity, orbit, all of that stuff. He was no rocket scientist, but he'd still end up annoying the rocket scientists with all kinds of strange questions. On top of that, it wasn't so bad. "So this entire thing is just science, right? Logical explanations for everything? None of that magic avatar spirit stuff, right?" He was completely okay with flying so long as it made sense. Then gasped when he saw the stars. "So... all the stars are giant orbs of fire... that's awesome. The fire nation would just loooove that." He was like a little kid sometimes. In a candy shop.
Alden	Alden is actually familiar with the idea of being transformed into light (or raw data) to be sent somewhere else!, tho normally, that ends up being inside his D-Ark!, he never got to try transporting instantly like this!. He is certainly impressed, not quite familiar with sci fi things up to this level!. "It's a very, very nice place." he tells Staren, eyes open wide as the digimon slowly peeks through the window, glancing down at the planet, "Wow.". He is also impressed at Sokka, who seems to know quite a bit of these things, "You know a lot!" he says, smiling to his friend, "I admit to know... very little of technology and stuff..."
Staren	Staren is impressed as Sokka displays knowledge of space! Someone's clearly been reading up! When he asks if this is just science, Staren responds, "Yeah! Uhhhhhhh, as long as you don't ask how the artificial gravity or FTL drive work. Those are basically magic. Some kind of psychic crystals I don't really understand, but they work!" He looks at the window, folding his hands behind his back. "Well... not your typical fire. Typical fire is a chemical process, where heat energy is released as things oxidize. Stars are nuclear, hydrogen and helium being compressed into such a small space that they form heavier elements in a reaction that releases tremendous energy! On a smaller scale, nuclear fusion is a common power source across the multiverse."
Sokka	Sokka gives a little sqwee as he goes about, nodding. "Wow. Okay, I've heard of this nuclear power, but we don't have it where I'm from. However, there has been a lot of talk in some of the books about electrical power. Considering the number of lightning benders in my world, I've been considering trying to find if there's a way for us to harness that energy. I'm sure by now someone has tried starting to di it." He hummed and looked around, before glancing to Alden. "Huh? Oh, no. I really don't know that much yet. I've just been maxing out Toph's library card every chance I get and spending most of my time in the library. As a new member of the union I'm still, more or less, just sent on busy body work. But my free time I'm allowed to spend however I want. There's so many different sciences I can learn about here. It's amazing how many things I figuredo ut on my travels that turn out to be common knowledge in so many worlds. Submarines, blimps, the egg thing. Can you believe it? Here I thought blimps, the way the hot air works, was so amazing. But then you have the way planes themselves work! And then vessels that can go into SPACE! There's still so much to lear!"
Staren	"Ooh... I guess that'd be kind of like how they do it here, where magical equipment is powered by unicorns? I hope they can make it work, powering stuff sounds like a boring job." Staren smiles a bit. "You read a lot, huh? You know, Twilight has a library..." he smiles more and claps his hands together at the sight of someone SO ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT LEARNING HOW STUFF WORKS, "and I'm happy to explain whatever you like!" He looks away. "Ugh, so many people aren't interested and don't get it, you know? And they don't care. And they don't realize that the same principles by which you learn about, well, all this" he gestures to the walls of the ship, "apply to magic and stranger things too, you know?" He looks back to Sokka.
Sokka	Sokka shuddered. "Ugh, tell me about it. And well, while the bending itself is magical, the lightning isn't. You see, it's made by the same principle that real lightning is made. It's just smaller and... likely as deadly. More directed. So it's still scientic." He sounds kind of proud of that. "None of that magical Avatar stuff just making it work somehow." He then perks up. "I know! Back home, everyone always treats all this stuff like it's unimportant. Like in the end, only the bending magic works. But you know what almost cost us the war? Air ships. Not flying bison or air benders. Air ships. Completely normal and non-magical air ships. And that's where the important stuff is. Not in using the magical stuff, but in finding non-magical ways to get things done. So, how does all this stuff work? If I remember corectly, it's a mix of speed and lesser gravity to keep aloft up here, right?"
Eclipse	Eclipse seems a bit disoriented as she warps in. "Unusual feeling," she says, leaning against the wall as she gathers herself. "I wonder if this is what it's like for the eladrin." She looks about at those gathered. "Greetings, friends. I have heard that the hunt on which we embarked has reached a good ending, Staren," she adds, giving him a smile. "The bonds of friendship must have brought it about. I suppose I should visit Yunomi sometime. Someone who inspires such loyalty among her friends is special indeed."
Alden	Alden has... not much of a clue of whatever technical info Sokka is talking about, nor how most of hte things work!, but he is trying to pay attentino at least, perhaps in teh future he might need such information!. "I am very curious about how all this works, but I only know how to read, some first aid, taking care of plants and some basic math." he says with a chuckle, "I'll admit never had... a reason to learn more.". Then he adds "Perhaps I should... learn more of this and make it more common back at home.". When Eclipse appears, he is happy to turn to face her and wave a few times, "Hi!". He wags his fluffy tail a few times, noticing the somewhat unusual details, "I'm Alden.".
Twilight Sparkle	Twilight rears up to give Staren a hug in return, then stands by to help greet visitors. She gives a warm smile and a friendly hoof-wave to each new person that appears in the teleporter. And might surprise someone with her being a cute little purple unicorn pony and all. She seems somewhat distracted, but smiles cheerfully as the others start talking. "Knowing how and why something works is very important if you want to make innovations. Some people have the skill or talent to simply do something, but if you know how that thing was accomplished you can recreate it with much less effort." the purple pony adds to the conversation. Twilight likely knows much about how Staren's ship works, but doesn't want to spoil it for Sokka. Discovery is even more fun than being taught something!
Staren	Staren turns to face Sokka again. "Well... magic shouldn't be underestimated. I used to make the mistake of thinking it wasn't worth studying when I was young just because not everyone could use it. That said... some types of magic are more amenable to study than others, and sometimes it's hard to make much progress." He nods at Twilight's words. Staren smiles. "'All this stuff' is rather broad... But if you mean how we're staying so high up and not falling down? It's kind of like, if you swing a weight at the end of a string," he mimes doing so, "it goes around in a circle, right, even though the string is always pulling it towards your hand. Because it's moving so fast that it's only pulled a little before the angle of 'towards your hand' changes. Same deal here. Gravity is always pulling the ship 'down', but the ship is going so fast that 'down' keeps changing, and it will never hit the ground." Staren nods to Eclipse, "Welcome! Yeah, Yunomi's a pretty friendly and caring person. Things haven't always gone well for her, but I'm glad to have her back and her name cleared!"
Sokka	Sokka nods rapidly. "Of course. I wonder if we'll ever be able to do something like that. My world is just incredibly frustrating. We seemk to have all the proper way things SHOULD work, without magic and all that. Then we end up having things like flying bison and spirits and bending, all that weird magic stuff." He coughed. "yeahhhhh. I'm one of those... unable to magic sorts. I won't deny it can be a bit frustrating. I've learned to fake it often enough, though." He nodded. "So, changing which direction down is often enough... I wonder if you could make it so rather than you moving fast enough down changed, that you could make it so down changed often enough on its own..." It was obviously apparent even if he was pretty smart, he still lacked the basis of how all this worked and so he was going to end up having a LOT of weird ideas about it.
Eclipse	Eclipse gives a surprisingly warm look to Alden as he greets her. "Hello, Alden," she says. "I am Eclipse, of the Den-of-Oaks clan," she answers his introduction. She attempts to follow Staren's explanation of orbits but is just left scratching her head. "I rarely have reason to leave the ground, let alone travel so far away from it," she says. "And yet... do you actually live out here?" she asks Staren. "So far from the living things of nature?"
Staren	Staren uhhhhs, "I guess you could, but that's harder. Even some sort of magical anti-gravity system is going to require energy..." He scratches his head. "'Down' isn't just some... arbitrary thing. Gravity is a force between all objects with mass. The force of gravity between any two masses is directly proportional to each mass involved, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. So even though we're like 22,000 miles above the surface, the planet below us is /massive/. Like, thirteen trillion trillion pounds if you could somehow put it on a scale. So it's always pulling the ship down a little bit. In most planetary systems, if the worlds weren't always spinning around the sun, they'd all fall into it eventually. Don't ask me why that doesn't happen here," he scratches his head. "it's probably magic." Staren looks back to Eclipse, and scratches his head. "Well... Part of it is, I'm 24, so I figured I should stop living with my parents. And I /had/ this ship which is big enough to live in. It's not really meant to land on the surface, though -- taking off and landing every time I need to fly it somewhere would be a huge expenditure of energy. Thanks to the teleporter, I can go down to the surface any time, to go grocery shopping or visit my girlfriend or go to the warpgate, so it's basically like living down there except I use a teleporter instead of a door." He scratches his nose. "The teleporter is also linked to the AMATERASU moonbase and the AMALGAM colony owned by the Flotilla and Murasame Zaibatsu, so it's kind of like I live in three places at once."
Sokka	Sokka nodded, rubbing his chin. "I see. See, you know, I always just assumed down was just... well... down. I mean, we knew the planet was round ages ago, but I never really understood the whole gravity thing. I figured it was all just... going down. But to imagine all those stars and other places have their own down is just mind boggling. I wonder how big our universe is supposed to be, too." His mind was racing as he pushed a random button. Because that's what he always did, just pushed buttons. He was very much a 'science through discoovery' type of person. "I wonder if my world would be capable of nuclear power. Or if it would be possible to gather the required power through the use of lightning energy..."
Twilight Sparkle	Twilight blinks at Sokka's reasoning, then giggles a bit. "I suppose you could look at it that way, but down never really changes. All down is is the direction parallel to whatever gravitational force is pulling you most strongly. It is very easy to recognize on a planet or other large celestial body, or in an artificial gravitational force like the one on this ship. If we were far enough away in a more primative spacecraft, we would be essentially weightless. We would be able to float between surfaces with very little effort, and would not be able to stand on a surface without some sort of help." she says. When the subject of Equestria's gravity and lack of being destroyed by the sun comes up, Twilight giggles. "Staren, you know that the queens control our sun and moon. We may have followed a gravitational orbit if the queens once didn't control our sun. But now, they carefully control the sun and moon to ensure the optimal conditions for life on our world."
Kotone Yamakawa	It seems someone else is on board and here's Kotone she was rummaging about the back end of the ship and seem to be in a good mood as she arrives. "Hey sorry I'm a bit late, "Upa nd down is relative in space honestly Sokka! Oh hello Alden, Staren, Twilight!" She looks to Eclipse "You could say up is down short is long." She seme sveyr amused as the joins up with the rest of the group. "It's so big we can't figure out how big it was and even if we did we couldn't grasp it with our minds honestly. Hummm Lightning energy? If you have lightning you have electical power poential I'd wadger."
Staren	"Pretty big." Staren starts explaining. "It's hard to be sure how big the universe is, because the speed of light is only so fast, but--" The button is on a storage locker. It opens. That particular locker contains a suit of armor (it looks like something a space SWAT officer might wear) and some guns. Staren stares at him a moment and then decides to keep an eye on him. "I don't know how powerful lightning benders are. Umm..." he stares into space. "Average bolt of lightning is about half a gigajoule... about the same as a large vehicle fusion reactor running for five seconds... umm..." he shakes his head. "I dunno, maybe. We'd have to test some of this lightning and see how powerful it is." he shrugs. "As for nuclear power... possibly? You need some trace elements and a way to harness the right kinds of hydrogen or helium for fusion... for fission, you want uranium or something similar. Maybe with modern equipment, you could detect it." Staren nods to Twilight. "I could turn the artificial gravity off, if you want to see. Um, and I know the queens control it, but I mean, when they aren't actively moving the sun and moon, are they holding it in place? Or is there some natural force of the universe holding it in place until they move it again? I guess we'd have to ask. Though it might be something they do unconsciously and don't know about... Celestia had to sleep sometime, after all."
Sokka	Sokka stares at it, nodding as he rubs his chin. "I see. Hey ,does this mean if we were to go outside, what would happen? Would we fall to the earth, or would we be drawn towards the ship itself?" He glanced to Staren. "Well, I could probably find a lightning bender easy enough. For science, at least. It seems to follow the same principles as actual lightning. If you get hit by it, you're likely to die and the techniques to counter it apparently work on normal lightning. But yeah, mostly the whole dying thing." He nodded matter of factly.
Staren	Kotone gets a nod in greeting. Staren umms, "It works out to be pretty relative. Since the force is proportional to your mass, but more force is needed to move... accelerate heavier objects. If you went outside, there would be an infinitesimally small pull between you and the ship -- relative to the ship, you'd seem to drift weightlessly. If you pushed off the ship towards Equestria, as you drifted closer to the planet you'd slowly be pulled down more and more until you fall into the atmosphere and burn up. If you pushed off /away/ from the planet, you'd drift further and further away until eventually you stop circling the planet and get flung out into space. Um, imagine if the person was pulling the string in, or letting the string out and then eventually running out of string. Although it's more like the string gets weaker and weaker and then fades to nothing, rather than someone letting go. If you pushed off to the side, you'd circle ahead of or behind the ship or go into your own orbit." He strokes his chin. "I'm not sure exactly how much electricity is needed to kill a human. The bolts could well be weaker or stronger than natural ones." If Sokka peeks through the aft door, he sees: 6. Manufacturing/Workshop One of the largest rooms in the ship is devoted to manufacturing and a general open space for any project that requires it. Here is a large nanofabricator that could entirely enclose a large bed, as well as a few smaller cornucopia machines the tops of which double as workbenches, and a large squad of assembly robots. A section of the floor can rise up as a lift to Containment, which can also be reached by ladder. Approx. Dimensions: 40'x14'x14'
Sokka	Sokka was suddenly completely distracted as he peeked into the aft room. His eyes glowed and... "Can... I?" With the go ahead he'd run into the room and start, well, with explanation start touching and modifying everything. It would take him a few minutes to figure out how everything worked... but only a few. Dang, he was a quick study. "Well, we should go ahead and try that, though. Like, if you have rope you'll be completely fine, right? Just attach yourself to the ship? And why would you burn up if you went back to the earth? Err, Equestria?" He puns. "Wait, is that planet a PUN? That's AWESOME!"
Eclipse	"Giga... jewels?" Eclipse questions. "Aiyah, all your science-words are beyond my understanding," she says, looking a bit frustrated. "I did not come here to be taught such things!" She heads off to a different part of the room, trying to see if she can see for herself what went on here. Experiencing things for herself was always better than being lectured about it.
Staren	Unfortunately for Sokka, most of the manufacturing equipment is wirelessly controlled. When he finally finds a manual terminal, it boots up and asks for a password, because Staren doesn't want random enemies commandeering his own equipment if they board the ship. Staren wanders after him and holds out a pair of glasses. If Sokka puts them on... OH GOSH SO MANY BUTTONS HOLOGRAPHIC INTERFACES EVERYWHERE And also a young woman in a simple electric violet dress with long, curly electric violet hair. She smiles and tilts her head. "Hello! I'm Dawn, Staren's muse, a type of support AI!" The voice comes from speakers in the glasses. "Most nanofabricators, weapons, armor, and computers here respond to voice commands. Would you like to read a manual?" Meanwhile, Eclipse has wandered into the 1. Science Lab This large room is a curious juxtoposition -- high-tech lighting and computers, with furnishings that look fresh from the middle ages. In addition to various tools for physical measurement and chemical analysis, computers and access ports here allow one to make use of the erchius particle accelerator built into the ship. Equipment from transhuman space is close to the door along the port wall, including a photocopier-sized nanofabber, a healing vat, an ego bridge (kind of like a compact MRI machine), and a couple of synths hidden inside storage lockers. Stairs heading upward and aftward are against the starboard wall, allowing access both to an upper level of the laboratory and to the living area. Forward from the lab is the cockpit. The lab is approximately 40x15', with the partial second floor about 7 1/3' up.
Sokka	Sokka nodded, going through the interface and, well... "Hey, you're pretty cute. What's an AI? That some kind of alien thing?" And then, soon... "WAIT, WHAT?! You can MAKE intelligent creatures? That's AWESOME! How do you do that?" And then he disappeared into the world of programming. Which... he had about five different manuals open now, perusing them, going through and trying, and failing, to figure out how it worked. It was a bit too advaned. Even for him.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa looks over to Staren as she just falls in with eeryone else. She pauses at Eclipose heads off she can get how she might feel but she also knows somethings to experiance for one self? Could be fatal when dealing with space. She however does keep an eye on Sokka. "You know I have seen people's head explode at the concept of space, you seem to be catching on pretty fast. "A generations of work on develping the techology to do it, much how like say your world has got better with metal working over the ages, right? Programming things is much the same way. "We might want to start you off with a simple lanuage if your serious about trying to learn more about it Sokka."
Staren	Dawn smiles at the compliment. She explains that her intelligence isn't the same as a human's -- while she's programmed to interact with people and provide a face they can feel comfortable talking with, but she can't learn or grow. There are such AIs though, and he's referred to Rory White as an example of an 'Artificial General Intelligence'. Nanoprogramming is hard. It's a mix of conventional programming along with CAD work and miniaturized materials engineering. Making basic plastic shapes is pretty easy, but that's about as far as he can get. "Perhaps it would be better to start with writing simple computer programs?" Dawn offers.
Sokka	Sokka nodded. 'Well, I always knew there was something out here. My sword is made of space earth. I've always been a bit... sharp. Sure, teach me how this programming stuff works. I've never actually used one of you computer things before, this'll be fun." Okay, yeah, he had no idea how any of it was working. But, with proper tutalege, he'd start picking it up. In a few days he'd probably be able to actuall do it properly. "And this isn't so hard to grasp. I've been researching it a bit, it's all purely scientic and has logical reasons for why it works. So that's cool."
Eclipse	Eclipse walks about the room, inspecting the various machines. Unlike Sokka, she doesn't go pushing any buttons just to see what happens, but at least tries to imagine what each thing might be for. Any writing wouldn't provide much help to her, given that she doesn't read. She does take a peek in a couple of the lockers, at least.
Staren	Staren also apologizes to Eclipse before she wanders off. "It's a unit for measuring energy. Um... sorry. I'm just so excited to see someone interested in this stuff!" Then he goes to keep an eye on Sokka. "Yeah. I started programming when I was really little! You can have a computer to take home, if you want. Um, did you want anything to eat or something?" MEANWHILE: Eclipse opens lockers. There's another suit of armor and guns... and then, well, remember when the roomdesc said 'a couple of synths'? That perhaps does not capture the full impact of opening lockers and finding BODIES: One is obviously robotic, looking something like https://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1449025.jpg , and one looks like Dawn's holographic body. It's a machine under the synthskin of course, so it doesn't smell like a corpse, and it doesn't go pale when not in use, but they /are/ room-temperature cold.
Sokka	Sokka nodded, humming as he tapped along. Then he froze. He turned to Staren and stared with stars in his eyes. "I... I can actually have one? Really?" he was on the verge of squealling like a school girl. Aaaaand there he went. "EEEEEEEEE!" His hands clasped into fists in front of him. "That is SO COOL!" "Oh, and yeah. Food would be good. Do you have any meat? Oh, wait, hold on!" And soon... "There, a nice well done steak! Will... be ready in... two hours. Oh."
Staren	Staren blinks, a bit startled, then smiles. "I think everyone should be able to have a computer if they want! The Argonauts agree, and a lot of this is their technology..." He smiles as Sokka has the initiative to order up a steak. "Yeah... You /can/ use these for food, but you have to order ahead of time. I keep some turkey and beef in the fridge. It's two floors up. MEANWHILE There's also a body that looks like Staren. Yeah. It's probably mega-creepy.
Sokka	Sokka eeeeees happily. "This is going to be awesome! yes, gimme! I can--" Then his stomach rumbled and he blushed. "E-err, right. I ummm, yes, food sounds good." He took off the glasses. "Bye, dawn!" He then stood up. "Okay, lead me to the beef!" Just ignore the poor turkey. He'd follow the guy, still talking about all of it as he went. "So, how did all this come to be? It's supposed to be electricity, all ones and zeros, right? That's what the ai said. But then you can make so many different things! I'm not sure how I feel about the weapons, though. Making a sword feels... it should be something you do by hand. When you forge your sword, you put your mind and body into it. I don't think it could get across if you just have it made that way."
Eclipse	Eclipse steps back in surprise after opening the locker, but quickly picks up the lack of living, or dead, smell. "Dolls," she says, poking at the female synth. "Life-size dolls... why are they here, though? This is not a place for play of any kind." There's even one that looks like Staren himself. "The resemblance is... very good," she notes, baffled as to their purpose. Did Staren just have some weird hobbies? ...well, actually, she already knew that he did just by being here.
Staren	Staren nods, and looks back to him. "It's a bit hard to explain computers, but I can try over dinner. As for a sword... before you can press a button and get a sword, you have to put in a lot of work telling the computer exactly how it's going to be put together. All that knowledge you need to make the sword by hand is still important -- if the machine just cuts a sword shape out of metal, it won't be very good, right? Perhaps the body isn't involved, but you still have to put your mind into it. Once you create a program to make a sword, though, you could have the machine repeat the instructions for as many swords as you need. That said, nanofabrication usually isn't very efficient for mass production..." As he comes back into the hub room, Eclipse has some odd questions. "They're spare bodies!" he calls out. "The girl one is so my support AI... it's kind of like a helpful spirit, it can possess it for tasks that need to be done in the physical world! Hey, do you want anything? I'm gonna make a burger for Sokka here."
Sokka	Sokka nodded, listening to every word of it before nodding. "I see. That's... really fascinating. I look forward to learning all about this. You know, it's really awesome how much new technology there is out here now. I feel I could do anything! The technology on my planet was so limited, I swear. People just try to use bending for everything, so many people don't want to develop their own things. But you can do ANYTHING with the right ingenuity and hard work." He was looking so happy. "I wonder how much of this I'll be able to transfer back to my world? There's still so much to learn, I wish I had started years ago."
Eclipse	"Spare bodies..." Eclipse mused. "So you have some means of... inhabiting them?" She supposed that would come in handy for him in dangerous situations. If she used such a thing, however, she would undoubtedly be severely weakened by the use of an unnatural form. "I will take a burger as well," she added to Staren as he offered food.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa says "You can store a lot of books on something like that just don't go too crazy. When it comes down to it Math's pretty crazy." She grins and looks between the rest of the people stil gathered here. "To also be fair? Bending has allowed a quicker understanding of many things related to how the world works. Still I get where your coming form on this and Sokka? Sounds like you might like to come see my garage, I build motorcyles and restore various cars and the like. You seen such things already, right?"
Staren	"That's the spirit! I doubt much will catch on, alas... most people don't think like us... but you see what you can use!" To Eclipse, Staren nods. "Yeah. Um..." he rubs the back of his neck. "I don't like talking about it on the radio, but that machine next to them can transfer minds, basically." "Anyway, come on up!" he waves Eclipse over and heads up the stairs. The second floor is the guest room. It's done up sort of like a rec room, with a fuzzy carpet and dark wood furnishings to go with the faux stone walls. There's a bed, a couch, a recliner, a vanity, a table, and flatscreen TVs on two of the walls. The third (and top) floor landing has large windows on the port and starboard sides, a closed door to aft ("There's the bathroom." Staren comments). Through an archway, they can see: 3. Kitchen/Dining Room While the walls and furnishings maintain the medieval feel, the kitchen is supplemented with a modern refrigerator, microwave, stove, and sink. Dimensions:14x14x7.5' Most of that room is taken up by a dining table surrounded by chairs. Another archway on the other side leads to a door and the stairs that go down to the lab. Staren puts a pan on the stove, then goes to the fridge and pulls out chopped mushrooms and ground beef -- He shapes patties out of the beef, then puts them and the mushrooms in the pan and turns the stove on, before washing his hands. "Computers. Hoo boy. The central conceit is that it turns out it's possible to make the universe do math for you. And then anything you can transform into a math problem, you can make the universe solve for you." He scratches his head. "Think about how you can use water to do work. Water at a higher level falls, and you can use a water wheel to harness it. Electricity has something called 'voltage', which is kind of similar. Um... Now, you know how a switch works, right? When you flip it on, you close the circuit... kind of like opening a dam to let the water flow. Well, it turns out you can make an electronic switch, called a transistor. Kind of like a dam that opens or closes depending on whether a second river is flowing by. You connect transistors together, and you get logic gates." He goes on to boolean logic, and how every other kind of gate can be made from NAND gates, and then the burgers are done. He serves them up with cheese and lets people choose condiments from ketchup, relish, and barbequeue sauce. Hetaren launches into an explanation of binary numbers.
Sokka	Sokka was hanging on every word, sitting on one of the chairs, his eyes wide and filled with awe. His world had NOTHING like that! "Ugh, let me tell you about it. sometimes I swear, the people there don't even care about having clean water! I mean, it's clean water! Not nasty swamp water," he shook his head. "It should be the most basic thing. But nope." He followed along, listening to each word. Sure, a lot of it was lost on him, but he was at least trying to follow along. "Hey, this computer. Can you put this information on it? And how big will it be? Like, I've seen some really small ones and, frankly, they're pretty cool." He was going to get a tablet one day. And it was going to be the most awesome thing to him. Ever.
Eclipse	Eclipse is too busy putting stuff on her burger, then eating it, to pay much attention to the computer discussion. "Good food," she comments with a pointed-toothed grin. "Thank you."
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa is now leaning against a wall and she looks to Sokka for a moment. "...Your kidding me? Clean Water tends to be a thing most creatures who need it /want/. You wnat to know how much you can put on it? Depending on the model? You can hold up to likely a small libary's worth on one."
Staren	Staren's ears perk up and he smiles to Eclipse, tailtip twitching. "Thank you!" Then Staren looks at Sokka. "I don't know what other people will care about. It might be better to focus on certain things you care about... like computers. And sure, I can put loads of stuff on it. Heck, you know how radio lets you talk to other people across the multiverse? Computers can talk to other computers, too. It's called the internet. You can look stuff up... though not every world has computers connected to it." He goes back downstairs and comes back up with a big, transparent piece of plastic, about the size of a smartphone. "You can stretch it, to make it bigger," now it's a tablet, "or bend it to wear it like a bracelet." He collapses it and does so. Then makes it a tablet again and turns it on, handing it over. "Courtesy of the Argonauts. And they can hold a /lot/. You can fit a person on one of these, although, um, they'd worry about being dropped and broken, so don't." Staren's expression suddenly brightens a bit more as he has a thought. "Hey, maybe you should join the Daedalus Initiative! Do you like solving problems?"
Sokka	Sokka blinked and took it. He then wrapped it around his wrist, stretched it, folded it, wore it. his eyes were so wide and excited and he looked ready to squeal and there he went again. "Oh my gosh this is the most awesome thing EVER! And you just have these to give away? This is amazing! Do you think I could get one of those AI things, too? Can it talk to me? What kind of other stuff does it do?" Sokka was, sufficiently, impressed.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa looks over to Sokka for a moment as he responsd to Staren and the question about the Daedalus Initiative. She pauses for a moment as Sokka goes nuts about computers. "One thing at a time Sokka, learn how to use that computer first before you think about something like that. hough with Staren's question? Do you have an inters in study the multivese explore, learn new thing and see just what's out there and help people along the way?"
Staren	Staren blinks. "I... um... look up post-scarcity economics sometime. It's, uh... the Argonauts..." he smiles. "Yes, I can just give these away. Mass-producing them would be troublesome, but for elites? Especially someone who will clearly make so much of it. I was going to put a copy of Dawn on it to help explain things, but it comes with a simpler AI that can teach you how to use it. It also understands natural language voice commands... Um... here, you should keep these, too. Maybe you won't use 'em much, but they'll be handy when you can." He hands the glasses back again. "It's a computer. It can do anything you can turn into a math problem, and it has a camera and microphone built in. Um... So, you can check news or references or watch books or read videos from around the multiverse, take pictures, record audio or video, play games, video call people, I mean, the sky's the limit really..." There is too much information to fit through Staren's mouth at once!
Eclipse	Eclipse ends up watching Sokka play with the device while she eats her burger. "A versatile thing," she comments. "Though a warden of nature like myself wouldn't have much use for it." At least none that she could think of. Kotone's description catches Eclipse's attention next. "Actually, I might like that myself. I may not know much of science or mathematics, but I do like to see the natural wonders of this Multiverse," she notes.
Staren	Staren comments to Eclipse, "Combined with an inertial navigation system, it could serve as a map that can show you where you are in relation to where you've been... although maybe you don't need one."
Sokka	Sokka was already tapping away at it, having the time of his life. He'd almost forgotten his food. Almost. He chewed away, while going through all the information and... yeah, he was dead to the world now. He'd found new science. So, so much new science...