REUNION - V - Education (z)
Friday, November 4, 2011
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A LOT of knowledge can be even more dangerous.
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 1672 RATING: 0 (G) SERIES: FIREFLY
By now they’re hungry, and Jan offers to take them to one of the finest restaurants in that area. “A wonderful place. Their desserts in particular are the talk of the planet – what they can do with Strawberry Shortcake is nothing short of miraculous!”
Kaylee is intrigued; “Oooh, Shiny! But what do you use for money here?”
Again they have reminded Jan of their ignorance: “Money? For what? No-one has paid for food on Earth for centuries.”
When Inara asks who pays the wait staff, Jan says “Everyone has a specialty when working on UniWiki – and those writing about restaurants and food have to learn the subject somewhere, so they volunteer.”
The dinner becomes a joyous time, and Jan seems to fit right in. They end up discussing what they should do now, both on Earth and after, and even if they should go on…
Little is decided except they should do some exploring before they decide. Jan explains how to navigate the city, and they split up. Simon and River head off to explore the medical facilities (for Inara’s condition, but that’s not said). Diana and Zoë are off to see where the full details of the “Book” records are kept. When Jan says that’s at the museum, which also has a technology sector, Kaylee wants to see the spaceship machinery, and joins them… Mal, Inara, Jan and Jayne are off to the Planetarium to see other worlds.
Kaylee is soon lost in happy investigations – she finds “Museum Piece” machinery two centuries beyond anything she ever saw in her ‘Verse – she’s soon convinced that she can teach Serenity some new tricks!
Simon’s trip to the closest hospital shakes him – he cannot even understand the textbooks! He’s also somewhat taken aback to find all the ‘Doctors’ are actually bed-machines that do the operations, shots, etc. all while the patient just lies there! The humans in the place are only there for handholding and spiritual comfort.
Diana is absolutely fascinated at the number of “Books” there have been in the galaxy – many Millions – the total number of stories collecte
So because of relatively, I'm to guess that they're probably been gone eight to ten years or so, right? Hopefully no-one will still be looking for them.
It could get interesting - many individuals will have forgotten, if not actually died off.
But institutions and governments have long memories - think of the numbers of laws on the books which have long outlasted their usefulness:
If you ever find yourself driving at night through rural parts of Pennsylvania, state law requires that you stop every mile to send up a rocket signal. It's true.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, a law left over from the 1800's says women must be swathed in at least 16 yards of fabric before stepping out into public.
Even obviously silly ones remain. Here's one of my favourites: In Texas, "When two railroad trains meet at a crossing, each shall stop and neither shall proceed until the other has passed."
"All businesses must provide rails for tying up horses."
And in Quebec, you may not swear in French. The 'Verse's Chinese would go over big there.
Sorry about all that - got carried away.
I could fairly easily change the numbers to match, and in fact use "34Tauri" instead of "'Verse" in a few places throughout my story, but it's rather late, and would make no real difference to the final outcome of the tale.
Anybody think it would be worth it?
so even a couple of hundred years covers only a small part of it. That's why Star Trek pretends warp drive exists.
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