text ↪ un: dostoevsky

[dissemblance]

Can we all take a moment to admire the fact that 2801 technology still supports emoji functionality? 🤩 👍 🕷 💁 🩰 💫 🍆 🧊 💅 👁‍🗨 🎯 🤡 🔋 🐈 💲 🧙‍♀️ 🐦💋 🐜 👽 🕶 ⚡ 🕵🏻‍♀️ 💦 💦 💦

It seems like they're pretty set on calling us 'Hatchlings', so... hello, fellow Hatchlings, I'd like to play a game.

Two truths and a lie. I'll start.

  ① Starbucks makes the best lattes.
  ② I've never watched All Dogs Go To Heaven all the way through.
  ③ My birthdate is May 21st. What year? Every year. 😉😉😉 But my party in 2018 was 🔥🔥🔥.

Comments

[dissemblance]

Yes. 😌 It's one of my favs.

（ in all honesty, all three are lies. but they're deliberate ones just the same, and which she selects to serve as 'true' doesn't matter in the long run. ）

I'm going with the evil scientist one. You just don't seem the type.

（ she's fascinated by that one about food, but — the spy in her isn't going to pivot away from evil scientists. ）

[cleaningsolutions]

Is it a play or a movie?

[She's not actually sure if it's 'moving picture' or 'movie' but goes for the shorter form because of the casual nature of the discussion.]

That one's true. I suppose it's up for debate if Dr. Adamopoulos was really evil. The biographies of her are biased, I can imagine why. Still, she helped to cause the end of human civilization. Intent stops meaning much by that point.

[dissemblance]

Movie. I mean, at least the version I saw.

Huh. So what did she do?

（ road to hell. she's been there, and she's curious. ）

takes a running leap off of what's actually stated in canon

[cleaningsolutions]

Dr. Adamopoulos was the head of a project that developed a virus with unusual effects and a high infection rate. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a bioweapon, or a way to make people tougher, or if it was something else entirely. And it's impossible to know the circumstances of its release.

The biographies are closer to articles and they aren't as credible as they might be. When they were written everything was already in the process of breaking down, so there wasn't much in the way of primary sources or fact checking. She was important in developing the feral plague, anyway.

godspeed

[dissemblance]

'Feral plague'?

So why did you take her name, then? It must have meant something to you.

[cleaningsolutions]

Pick one.

1. To remind myself where I come from and what my people did to themselves, and what we owe the Krakau for giving us a second chance.
2. My Awakening and Orientation officer didn't like this name when I floated it and I was defiant.
3. It's a beautiful name. When you say it out loud, it flows.


[Only a few people actually call her Mops.]

[dissemblance]

They all sound like pretty good reasons to me.

What are the Krakau?

[cleaningsolutions]

The Krakau are the aliens who came fifty years after we destroyed ourselves. They wanted to invite us into their alliance of peoples, but we weren't people anymore and ate their diplomats. They saw that, and how we had turned ourselves into animals, and still wanted to help us.

[dissemblance]

'Ate their diplomats'.

Huh.

They sound like a pretty decent people, then. We could be so lucky here.

[cleaningsolutions]

They sent five pairs down as contact teams, each to a different inhabited area and with minimal armament or defensive equipment. Only three people escaped, and with missing limbs.

I won't lie, the Krakau are like anyone. There are bigots and grifters and a lot of them look down on humans. Some of them are just assholes. Many of them are good, though. I'm proud to serve.

[dissemblance]

So what's their stake in everything? From your point of view.

[cleaningsolutions]

Pity for some. Philanthropism. The basic respect due to anyone in the Alliance. Admiral Pachabel D Major just likes us.

There's also the threat of the Prodryans, which has to be an influence for all of them. Most cured humans serve in the Earth Mercenary Corps, though not all as dedicated combatants. Our infantry troops are the best in the Krakau Alliance, and we're the only species that can tolerate truly strategic A-ring travel, the Alliance's FTL. Everyone else takes a lot longer than an hour to recover from a jump.