video | un: undertaker | private

[somakemelaugh]

[He has long figured out how to make network posts private to who he wants, thankfully. Otherwise, this might be a little interesting to have to explain to his roommate later on tonight. That aside, he appears with his usual smile in place, hair hiding everything else, giving nothing away, though for all of his manner he may as well be talking about the weather.]

Doctor Crusher. I hope you're doing well. I was wondering if you might have a moment to speak with me. There are a few things I've had a mind to research, but I find myself needing assistance with them, if you don't mind.

Comments

[somakemelaugh]

Well, then. And to think, we only ever see the stars from the ground looking up and imagine what it's like to be out there in my day and age. [He himself hasn't even seen the stars outside of picture books in a few hundred years, but oh well.]

[dancingmd]

If you hadn't imagine it, we would have never gotten there.

[somakemelaugh]

[There's a small shrug from him. He knows that well enough from his own experiments, but now that's gone for the time being.] Imagination gets us nowhere and everywhere. I like my feet on the ground as well as the next bloke, but there's enough people out there looking up that one of them might have wondered how to get up among it all.

[dancingmd]

Just give it another 80 years or so.

[Prime Directive, what Prime Directive?]

[somakemelaugh]

Will if I'm around that long. Maybe I'll see something like what we've got here. What do you think? Big tall buildings, taller than the ones we have now, and that's everything they have around us? In the middle of England?

[He tilts his head, wide grin.] I'd like to see that. Might like to see your world too, just for kicks.

[dancingmd]

I know London is like that, at least - but they keep a good deal of countryside still open too!

[somakemelaugh]

All good and well. I can't imagine a world covered in tall buildings and nothing green. That'd be something terrible and I think I'd rather miss that feeling of standing on the edge of something so vast and endless.

[dancingmd]

Don't worry, there is plenty of green in the world. We learned from that mistake.

[somakemelaugh]

Very good. ["Learned from that mistake" sounded quite ominous. Just how far had people cut into the very things that sustained them anyway? Maybe a question for a different time.] Looks like they learned that much here as well, at least about the green. Is that what things are like on your ship, too? Green everywhere and buildings in along with it?

[dancingmd]

Not quite...we have extensive greenhouses and gardens on board, and most people keep house plants in their quarters, but it's stil mostly...artificial, so to speak.

[somakemelaugh]

Artificial? [He makes a brief face at that.] Not like those terrible plastic things they call flowers, I hope? They'll last longer, sure, but they smell awful. Pack enough of them into a room and it looks lovely enough, but it's like breathing in old paint.

[dancingmd]

[She chuckles and shakes her head.] No, no all the plants are living. I just mean that the ship itself is by its nature mostly manmade.

[somakemelaugh]

[That she's tolerating him is a surprise on his own. That she's carrying it on this long? He wants to see how far this will go.] Oh, of that I have no doubt. Nothing named that ever came out of the ground on its own exactly as it is, but I am glad to hear that you do keep living plants around. Is that what you keep in your own room on this ship? Living plants? Forgive my curiosity, but I've a great deal of it where you and your world is concerned.

[dancingmd]

[Curiosity about her world is one thing, but if he gets too personal...well, her patience will wear thin.]

I do... specifically orchids.

[somakemelaugh]

[Oh, he won't bother with it. He's just interested in her because of her affiliation with his Earl and her profession.]

Ah, yes. Can't have everything green, but I bet it improves the atmosphere. Doctor's life can't all be flowers and sunshine.

[dancingmd]

It's healthier for you too, to have plants in the house.

[somakemelaugh]

[That was a new take on things he hadn't considered.]

Does it matter the species of plant? I'd only ever considered them as decoration and strictly that, something to care for on idle whims.

[dancingmd]

[Right. She's not sure if in his era they'd realized yet that trees helped clean the air.]

Apologies if I tell you anything you might already know - I'm hazy on the science of the nineteenth century - but trees and other plants help convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, which is much better for us to breathe. And simply on a psychological level, humans are a part of nature, so we like having green things around in our homes.

[somakemelaugh]

[Not news to him, but still! How fascinating, that future.]

Ah, that. We knew about photosynthesis. No worries on that. I suppose it just never occurred to me to use a plant as a decoration. [Really, what was he going to do with them? Maybe grow small herbs and dry them for a special meal, but he had no real use for them otherwise.] I believe the science behind it, but I could see brought about by a little bit of green and leaf making things easier.

[dancingmd]

Especially when you're in space!