005 Video [OPEN]

[luckyescape]

[The video flicks on and Freya's smiling happily at the screen.]

Hello boys and girls, we have a great program for you today. It'll include fun topics like: why you should NOT use glitter on the 14th floor of the communal housing, how to make a model using a lot of glue and we'll throw in a little bit about forces and how they work. Let's tune in with our co-host for more information! [The picture blurs and then Lockon appears in focus with glitter... everywhere.]

Don't be alarmed that our co-host looks like a stripper. That's his night job... not his day job/

[Lockon shakes his head, which of course just makes the glitter stuck in his hair more noticeable, and chuckles.] Actually, my co-host here decided that since our model is supposed to be in space, there needed to be stars. And threw the glitter. [He's standing next to said model which, in all honesty, looks like a grade five science project.]

You brought the glitter.

To apply carefully to the model. Which is not me, by the way.

But you're so cute with glitter! Look at you shine. I can't look away because you're so pretty Neil.

Hey, only my brother gets to call me that!

How about I call you honey or snoochums?

[Lockon grumbles.] Honey is fine. [Is he blushing a little? Why, yes, yes he is.]

Great! So, kids or whoever our raved viewers are, you'd like to know about how this model works right? Honey? Want to explain the space elevator?

Right! [Lockon clears his throat and tries to look like he isn't shimmering at every angle. He gestures to what looks like a papier-mâché Earth. The oceans and continents are painted on in rough approximations of their shapes. It's a little lumpy for Earth, but it's not like they had a globe they could just modify!]

As you can see, this is Earth. Here, here, and here are the orbital elevators that lead from the surface into space. [Three long spokes, that look like they were once hangers, stick out from the model.] On the Earth I'm from, we use solar power and these three elevators are the key to harnessing it.

For those kids who don't know, solar power is energy that is collected from the sun! [She flashes Neil a smile.] Tell us honey~ where do these elevators go? what are they used for?

They're the support structures for these, [He points to the two rings, which were also once hangers, around the model Earth.] They also serve as a means of transport between the surface and space. After all, someone has to maintain the equipment in space right?

Right. So what do people do in space Hoooooney.

Maintain the equipment that provided solar energy to Earth. Let me add the disclaimer now: I'm not a scientist of any sort. This is the sort of information you'd get on the documentary on the ride into space.

[He pauses, giving a serious look to the camera, before turning his attention back to the shoddy model. ] This outer ring, the high orbital ring as it's called, is home to the disks that harness the sun's energy like... solar panels. Where the ring intersects with the orbital elevator there's a high orbital station staffed with personnel to protect and maintain the function of the disks.

There we have it! Thank you for tuning into today's session of WE HAVE GLITTER! See us next time

[Freya flashes another flirty smile and then the screen goes black.]

[ooc: Actions are open for floor Communal Floor 14. For video's let us know in the subject if it's for Freya, Neil or both. If it's for one of them and it isn't private, the other might chime in! BLUE is Freya & GREEN is Neil.]

Comments

text | un:breq

[breqintopieces]

Aside from the insight into glitter, I presume the lesson and the model were education about the technology and structures used in other universes?

(( text | un: lockon.stratos ))

[lockonstratos]

Something like that. I wasn't prepared for teach an audience great than one. Have you seen Freya pout? It's hard to stay no to that.

[breqintopieces]

I have not. The model was initially for Freya, then?

[lockonstratos]

Yeah. I happened to mention the orbital elevators from my home and she was incredibly curious about them.

[breqintopieces]

They do seem fascinating. Were you involved with them? Or is your experience with them entirely from the documentaries you mentioned?

[lockonstratos]

I just use them for travel. I work... worked in space, so I got to ride in them. I'm not science-y, so what I know is from the informational videos on the ride up to space.

[breqintopieces]

A rarer sort of profession here than I'm used to, I admit.

un: wolfgirl579

[luckyescape]

[Rude, there are a lot of universes and they all don't have space elevators. Though Freya's fairly sure all universes have glitter because there are assholes everywhere.]

In one universe anyway.

It's not like there where I'm from, just Lockon's place. I think it's pretty cool.

[breqintopieces]

I personally have heard that shuttles and stations are more efficient. I agree that it is interesting, though.

Maybe even more so than public service announcements about the dangers of crafts.

[luckyescape]

RIGHT.

I mean, probably. That's what I'm more used too. I like space but I'm also more of a tree hugger at heart.

[breqintopieces]

Being planetside, or moonside in this case, does afford more freedoms. I presume you're from a planet?

[luckyescape]

that is a good assumption but my job is also on said planet.

[breqintopieces]

Is there a distinction that would require it not be? In my experience commuting between a planet and a station takes a good portion of one's day.

[luckyescape]

You're thinking about this in a very small mindset.

There aren't stations or space elevators where I'm from. Just one planet, MY planet, which is important to me and very much has to do with my work.

[breqintopieces]

What sort of a job is it, then?

[luckyescape]

One that doesn't pay me.
I protect the balance of the planet so that it isn't killed by humans or any other species.

[breqintopieces]

Isn't killed?

[luckyescape]

yeah, you know how if something is alive, it can also die. The whole ecosystem is alive.

Do they have schools where you're from?

[breqintopieces]

[Well then. Breq's questions were vague, but this is the kind of response that gets under her skin. She finds herself rather uncharitably wondering if Freya would feel chagrined if she said the answer was 'no,' at least for people like her.]

A living ecosystem is rather different from a living planet. And the question of whether the meaning is literal or metaphorical is more uncertain here than I would ever assume where I'm from. Living might mean habitable, or biodiverse, or alive and sentient through some design of magic. Each answer is equally as likely, in the Quarantine.

[luckyescape]

You should see the Lion King. Not only is Circle of Life a great song, but it explains how it works.

I have no idea how a man made ecosystem will work because people really like playing god and would probably do something funky that may or may not backfire. . . I've probably watched too many horror movies about space.

I like my feet on the ground.

Most systems though would be similar. It'd be a circle where each level fed the next. If you have to many of one thing or not enough food, then the cycle breaks.

There is also magic in all of that but that's also part of the cycle. You know, Newtons Law. Nothing is created or destroyed. Energy is transferred and magic is energy.

[breqintopieces]

A much more dire proposition in a planet that truly is a closed system, as the one you describe. I take it you would find something like the portal, bringing in new mass and energy to your world, quite an unwelcome disruption.

[luckyescape]

That is a very accurate conclusion.