05-09-2016, 09:13 AM
Meh. STMB has been kinda in a lull for a while, but it's not dead. Here's a snippet from episode 5.
Rhaomi: Afraid of heights, are you?
Yellow: Aren’t you?
Rhaomi: Of course not! Back home, I can fly!
Yellow: Oh yeah, that’s right. Come to think of it, with Avalon’s low gravity and thick atmosphere... if I could get a light space suit and a pair of wings, I could fly. That would be so cool.
Rhaomi: I’m trying to picture a flying human… “cool” isn’t the word I’d use. Also, I’m not from Avalon, I’m from Pirral, a colony not far from our border with the United Systems.
Yellow: Big colony?
Rhaomi: No. Pack Arma are what you humans call “country folks.” We grew up in a tiny settlement which mostly grows piru.
Yellow: Same here. My house is a couple miles out from a miniscule town in the middle of nowhere. Pasture and alfalfa fields everywhere. Farming wasn’t our thing, though.
Rhaomi: We didn’t care for it either. We wanted to study engineering. The only high-level school on Pirral is a branch of the ADF academy, so we went there for about a year. Then they transferred us to the main academy on Avalon.
Yellow: You’re an engineer? I had you pegged for a platoon leader.
Rhaomi: I’m fleet command. We took top ranking in the placement test, and Commandant Ruko Khaala said he didn’t want to waste our talent on engineering.
Yellow: Engineering a waste? What, did this guy get booted upstairs for incompetence?
Rhaomi: No! Pack Ruko were the high commanders of the fleet for twenty years! They’re living legends!
Yellow: But they don’t have the sense to let their students follow their passions, apparently.
Rhaomi: There’s plenty of passion in fleet command! We get to be heroes! Travel the galaxy, see amazing worlds, protect our people, meet all the different races!
Yellow: …And kill them.
Rhaomi: Well, the humans anyway. It’s better than sitting in a lab all day!
Yellow: Oh yes, being in a lab is vastly inferior to, say, being stranded on a MiniKnog world, desperately trying to retrieve a worldkiller before they weaponize it. Seriously, Rhaomi, imagine if you’d stayed an engineer. What would you be creating? New metamaterials? More versatile survival gear? New starships for the exploratory fleet to push the boundaries of Avali knowledge? Doesn’t it catch your imagination to be out there making new things with science instead of killing people?
Rhaomi: My pack has been playing wargames since we were children! Everything up to elaborate combat sims, including fleet command! I know the Commandant made the right decision
Yellow: Oh come on, I did all that stuff too but it’s not what I decided to do with my life!
Rhaomi: Well, it doesn’t matter! Whatever I might have been, I’m a soldier now, there’s no getting around that! Sitting around wishing I was building next-generation drones doesn’t help anyone! I’m here, and I have a problem to fix! And, frankly, it’s a good thing I’m here—most of my colleagues would rather go mad than work with you, and neither of us is going to stop the MiniKnog by ourselves!
Yellow: Aren’t you?
Rhaomi: Of course not! Back home, I can fly!
Yellow: Oh yeah, that’s right. Come to think of it, with Avalon’s low gravity and thick atmosphere... if I could get a light space suit and a pair of wings, I could fly. That would be so cool.
Rhaomi: I’m trying to picture a flying human… “cool” isn’t the word I’d use. Also, I’m not from Avalon, I’m from Pirral, a colony not far from our border with the United Systems.
Yellow: Big colony?
Rhaomi: No. Pack Arma are what you humans call “country folks.” We grew up in a tiny settlement which mostly grows piru.
Yellow: Same here. My house is a couple miles out from a miniscule town in the middle of nowhere. Pasture and alfalfa fields everywhere. Farming wasn’t our thing, though.
Rhaomi: We didn’t care for it either. We wanted to study engineering. The only high-level school on Pirral is a branch of the ADF academy, so we went there for about a year. Then they transferred us to the main academy on Avalon.
Yellow: You’re an engineer? I had you pegged for a platoon leader.
Rhaomi: I’m fleet command. We took top ranking in the placement test, and Commandant Ruko Khaala said he didn’t want to waste our talent on engineering.
Yellow: Engineering a waste? What, did this guy get booted upstairs for incompetence?
Rhaomi: No! Pack Ruko were the high commanders of the fleet for twenty years! They’re living legends!
Yellow: But they don’t have the sense to let their students follow their passions, apparently.
Rhaomi: There’s plenty of passion in fleet command! We get to be heroes! Travel the galaxy, see amazing worlds, protect our people, meet all the different races!
Yellow: …And kill them.
Rhaomi: Well, the humans anyway. It’s better than sitting in a lab all day!
Yellow: Oh yes, being in a lab is vastly inferior to, say, being stranded on a MiniKnog world, desperately trying to retrieve a worldkiller before they weaponize it. Seriously, Rhaomi, imagine if you’d stayed an engineer. What would you be creating? New metamaterials? More versatile survival gear? New starships for the exploratory fleet to push the boundaries of Avali knowledge? Doesn’t it catch your imagination to be out there making new things with science instead of killing people?
Rhaomi: My pack has been playing wargames since we were children! Everything up to elaborate combat sims, including fleet command! I know the Commandant made the right decision
Yellow: Oh come on, I did all that stuff too but it’s not what I decided to do with my life!
Rhaomi: Well, it doesn’t matter! Whatever I might have been, I’m a soldier now, there’s no getting around that! Sitting around wishing I was building next-generation drones doesn’t help anyone! I’m here, and I have a problem to fix! And, frankly, it’s a good thing I’m here—most of my colleagues would rather go mad than work with you, and neither of us is going to stop the MiniKnog by ourselves!