[D31] Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids

[stillwinningthehardway]

[Blue is Scout talking, gray is 9S]

So you’ve probably noticed that this stop has a higher technological level and is more diverse than most places we go to. Finally! Now, I need to explain space and aliens.

[From the background comes a disgusted groan that sounds suspiciously like, “Ugh, aliens.” Scout sounds annoyed when she goes on.]

You’re all used to different worlds being sort of isolated, and often they’re different versions of the same planet. But it doesn’t always work like that. In most realities, the stars are very distant suns, and some of those have planets warmed by them, and some of those have life, even people. These worlds can be very different but the fundamental rules of the reality will be the same, and sometimes people can build ships to cross the distance between them. It’s like the different planets are islands in a great sea, and you can’t go into the water unprotected.

[Now she sounds nostalgic.]

The definition gets all complicated when travel’s been relatively easy for a long time, but whatever your species, you call life that originated in a different world from you “alien”, the same term a lot of one-worlders use for people from a different enough part of their world. There are a lot of different species here for this event, and whatever you are, if you leave the Carnival now you become some form of alien. Don’t go out of your way to antagonize anyone and don’t go outside of the domes without an environment suit and it seems safe enough.

Safe? Sure, if the aliens don’t start trouble first. But they will. They always do.

They’re just people, Neens. Don’t be such a provincialist.

Comments

Off the radio

[dressedtothe]

[9S huffs in Scout's direction.]

What's that supposed to mean?

[stillwinningthehardway]

[Scout swivels a long head on a big and heavy neck and glares at him out of the eyes on one side of her long dragony face.]

You're being one of those people. Those oh no I met one species that did something bad, that means every one but mine is bad. It's so predictable.

[dressedtothe]

[9S isn't intimidated at all. It's hard to when he just watched Scout have trouble getting her legs to go where she wanted them to. His ears twitch in annoyance, however.]

It wasn't just one!

[stillwinningthehardway]

Do I look like I care? I've heard that before, too. Galactic history has a list of xenophobic species squatting on their homeworlds freaking out that other people exist.

[soft_focus]

....

[Sir.]

...People who talk about 'who starts trouble first' normally end up making the trouble happen....

[Anyway.] What's a provincialist?

[stillwinningthehardway]

Someone who has a narrow, limited view and a closed mind. There's nothing wrong with starting ignorant, everyone's got some provincial views, but a provincialist insists on keeping them and not taking in life as it is, even when they leave home.

[soft_focus]

[GASPS...well, not really, there's no gasp. But she IS learning things now.]

Does that mean provincial means something narrow?

[stillwinningthehardway]

It can, but not narrow like a blade. Narrow like a worldview. Rude out of ignorance. It's a word you use a lot for someone from the middle of nowhere, some backrocket place, but anyone can be stupid about expecting things to be the same everywhere.

[kingsroads]

What exactly is a one-worlder?

[ this is an honest question from someone who has accepted the fact that he is 100% in over his head and 100% will not have a DAMN CLUE as to what's going on. ]

[stillwinningthehardway]

[It's not a common term and is more polite than what some others might use. Space travel in Star Wars is so well known that people without it are kinda looked down on, but Scout's been with the carnival a while.]

Someone who believes there's only one world, in the space sense, and it's theirs. Usually they're pre-spaceflight and there's a bunch of... nations? Territories? That's the word?

[kingsroads]

But what if for some people there is only one world in the space sense? There's plenty of alternate Earths, it's not too far-fetched a theory.

[chronosynthesis]

I have never even heard of a way into space. That is... incredible.

[Oh, good! Definitions! The industrial-fantasy protagonist greatly appreciates some form of explanation here.] By that definition, are we not all 'alien' [He says it slowly, the word rolling foreign off his tongue.] already, once we begin travel with the carnival?

[stillwinningthehardway]

It takes some doing but when the technology is known, it spreads. It's a lot harder to build a spaceship than a water-ship, and landing on another world is even harder than if every island had really bad... rocks. [She doesn't ocean.] But I like the metaphor.

I'm not sure. What is and isn't alien gets complicated. Where I'm from the definition is usually about species, but not always. We're definitely something similar, though.

[chronosynthesis]

What is the defintion applicable here? [He needs at least a little basis to fake it until he makes it.]

[motivenotfound]

Question~!

[It's not REALLY a question, but she's gonna pretend.]

What if the aliens in question are also human?

[stillwinningthehardway]

[Scout's voice is measurably cooler talking to Mari, I wonder why]

That happens sometimes. But I expect anyone who goes out isn't going to look the same as in the Carnival.

[motivenotfound]

[Oops...!

Well, that's fair.

And she's just going to not address it.]

Well, I'd sure hope not!

But this isn't about possessing the human form, it's about being human.

[There's a difference, you know.]

[dressedtothe]

Then they wouldn't be an alien.

[Duh. Who has exactly the one-worlder view Scout was talking to Strange about earlier? This guy.]

[motivenotfound]

Wouldn't they?

[Mari smiles into the receiver, where 9S can't see.]

How do you know?

[whattaprick]

Kind of left out the part about why there’s a lot of ‘em here now, didn’t you?

[stillwinningthehardway]

[A long pause, as Scout's just kind of been fighting with the robo bigot]

...Oh. Kind of.

[whattaprick]

Let’s hear the report, then.

[ Less for his benefit, more for the rest of the Carnival, though he’s also curious about the concept in general. It’s a weird one to wrap his head around. ]

[everybodypanic]

Woah, hang on! I wasn't ready for all this science crap.

[u g h]

[stillwinningthehardway]

[...]

There's space. There are aliens. Treat the aliens like people, because they are, and don't go into space or out onto the planet surface without protective gear.

[everybodypanic]

What you don't need protective gear? 'Cause I've done that whole space travel thing already.