Spock
- Ingenious Pilot -
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Apparently he's GQ?%\0\%
Posts: 142
|
Post by Spock on Jun 19, 2009 16:34:57 GMT -5
"You have also indicated that Lorien may change locations. We should allow for the possibility that we may in fact be here a number of terran days. Your funds may be sufficient for tonight, but we should think to the future. If we are to remain in each other's company," he added as an afterthought.
|
|
|
Post by James T. Kirk on Jun 19, 2009 16:46:45 GMT -5
Kirk didn't know if that was a question, but it certainly denoted a lack of information.
"Good thinking. I think you're likely correct, which, if we can't find Lorien, means finding another way of procuring funds. As to sticking together... I think it would be prudent," he said, not adding that he would be loathe to part with Spock for any but the most pressing of reasons. "Don't you?"
He wasn't this man's captain, though he had an unconscious tendency to take the lead in any situation. With his Spock, it would not have been a question, but he had resolved that it made no sense to pull rank on someone from another universe in a situation so unlike, say, the Terran Empire. Not unless it became necessary, and Kirk didn't want to test this Spock's loyalties or feelings.
|
|
Spock
- Ingenious Pilot -
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Apparently he's GQ?%\0\%
Posts: 142
|
Post by Spock on Jun 19, 2009 17:10:17 GMT -5
"Yes," Spock said immediately. He spoke 10.1% more rapidly than usual when he continued, "The benefit to remaining together far outweighs any expediency which would be gained by independent exploration. We will be better matched against any threatening elements this world may possess, and our knowledge complements each other. You have been here longer, and are more familiar with this world's ways, while I possess a tricorder and the ability to more precisely process odds and statistical information.
Spock paused. "Furthermore, should we stay together longer, I will have the opportunity to challenge you to further games of chess."
|
|
|
Post by James T. Kirk on Jun 19, 2009 17:37:31 GMT -5
Kirk smiled at Spock, not so much for his agreement to stay--which Kirk pretty much expected--but for his tacking-on of the somewhat extraneous motivation of chess. Translated into regular English, this was tantamount to a profession of some regard, and that made Kirk happy. He agreed, of course, with Spock's logical assessment but it had been a long time since Kirk's job was all about the job. It was also his life. There wasn't much difference, for him, between away missions and what McCoy reluctantly called his recreation.
"I look forward to that, Mr. Spock," he said warmly. "And I fully agree with your analysis. Besides which, the communication technology in this world is incredibly primitive. It would be easy to lose one another, should we separate for any length of time."
((So, I guess they should just keep walking? Unless you have more to say, which is cool too. You can also make it dark whenever.))
|
|
Spock
- Ingenious Pilot -
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Apparently he's GQ?%\0\%
Posts: 142
|
Post by Spock on Jun 19, 2009 17:58:42 GMT -5
((They're walking now, right? Do you mean doing something like narratively saying, "They kept walking until well after nightfall, at which time they began to look for accommodations"? I don't want to make it dark. Can you make it dark? ...I'm not trying to be perverse by saying I hope we both have more to say, or else we wouldn't still be playing...just confused here.))
"Are funds not required for lodgings and sustenance Lorien?" Spock was dividing his attention between both their surroundings and the captain as they walked. "I know little about twentieth century fictional elves."
|
|
|
Post by James T. Kirk on Jun 19, 2009 22:06:58 GMT -5
((Oh no, you misunderstood. I meant that at any point that we don't have anything specific to do, and we need to to be night or whatever to propel the next bit, we can do that. I wasn't sure what exactly was happening with that. In case the conversation had a natural lull or something, and it would help to be like "and then it got dark" to get to the next talking.))
"It's complicated," Kirk said. "From those I know, and what I've read, it's an idyllic community where all provide and are provided for according to need, living in harmony with the forest. But in practice, at least recently, many seem to have adopted many of the practices of human society and formed towns and left some of their sylvan lifestyle behind. There's a political situation that's difficult to decipher, and the elf I know best has the unenviable task of attempting to return the society to its somewhat miraculously Edenic roots." Kirk shrugged. "I have a theory about this involving the difficulty of putting utopian systems into practice, but that would suggest that this wood, and this people, did not exist until it was here, in whatever universe we now find ourselves in."
|
|
Spock
- Ingenious Pilot -
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Apparently he's GQ?%\0\%
Posts: 142
|
Post by Spock on Jun 19, 2009 23:25:08 GMT -5
((I did say I didn't understand. ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png) I hope you don't mind: I would be more comfortable if you made it dark, etc, whenever you think is good. CAPTAIN KIRK IS THE LEADER, KRIS.)) "You mean that it is not transplanted, as we are transplanted. That Lorien has only ever existed here, but that its people remember an idyllic past which in fact was only fiction. Made reality, they struggle to maintain a lifestyle which they believe is possible in theory, but in practice is impossible. If so, it would seem more evidence that this world has been constructed by some controlling power, would it not?"
|
|
|
Post by James T. Kirk on Jun 19, 2009 23:31:24 GMT -5
((MY NAME HAS MANY OF THE SAME LETTERS AS KIRK'S.
Um, also Erik. Just sayin'.))
"I'm not sure if it's evidence," Kirk hazarded. "It's only something I've thought of. My friend--Figwit's his name--" and he was miraculously able to say that with a straight face due to all of his exposure to alien names "--insists that the elves are not living up to their ideals, that in the past things were different, that they have been corrupted by human leaders and so-called modern times. Which is all very possible, as there is certainly an infrastructure that suggests that what he says is true. I just can't see how it was sustainable, unless things were drastically different. I'd hesitate to declare for certain that the people or their history was entirely fiction without more proof."
As they walked, the crowds were thinning, then growing again as people made their way home or to dinner or entertainment.
|
|
Spock
- Ingenious Pilot -
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Apparently he's GQ?%\0\%
Posts: 142
|
Post by Spock on Jun 19, 2009 23:49:46 GMT -5
((...nothing has my letters. ))
"I see." Spock watched the people on the street, and monitored the cooling temperature. "I do not see how it would have been sustainable either. While certain qualities of a society without economy have merit, logically it would be inefficient and impossible to maintain. Have you asked Figwit about the structure of this society as he remembers it?"
|
|
|
Post by James T. Kirk on Jun 19, 2009 23:55:24 GMT -5
((It just means you are like neither of them, and I so am. You are unique.
I so need to write Kirk & Co beaming into the Opera and how Kirk would deal with the O.G.))
"That's just it," Kirk said, rubbing his hands together gently in contemplation. "He doesn't. That is, he wasn't alive for it; he says he's 'destined' to be ruler of these people, to bring them out of this dark age, but he's working from some buried collective memory he never experienced. He means well, and the picture he paints does seem ideal. I think magic accounted for some of it. What they call magic, anyway. But it's my understanding--and I might be remembering my boyhood reading of the society this one either is or imitates--that the elves were failing as a society by the time humans had anything to do with it."
|
|
Spock
- Ingenious Pilot -
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Apparently he's GQ?%\0\%
Posts: 142
|
Post by Spock on Jun 20, 2009 20:37:29 GMT -5
"If the fictional society was portrayed as failing, then the imposition of reality on the ideals of the society may be completely unconnected with its present failure. Do you remember why the society was failing in the fiction, if indeed it was?"
|
|
|
Post by James T. Kirk on Jun 20, 2009 20:48:12 GMT -5
((Gah it's been ages.))
Kirk thought a moment.
"You have a point," he said finally, "but from what I recall, it was a different sort of failure. The book seemed to posit that there was a sort of natural dominance by different races at different times; the elves were once powerful, but men came later and the sense I got was less that men had corrupted the elves themselves than that they had corrupted the world, through war. Disrupted the balance, such that the elves' magic diminished and the physical world was no longer suitable. The elves weren't dying, but they were breeding less, and those who were left were abandoning Middle Earth--that was the name of the world--for a sort of home of the gods.
"It seems natural to think that, should that world be brought into action as it has been here, something more concretely corrupt might take place. I seem to remember something similar in another part of the book, where a simple, agrarian society is overrun by technology."
He glanced at Spock.
"The author was not the most positive of thinkers on that score. But that wasn't the elves, and the industrial revolution was halted, at least for a time."
|
|
Spock
- Ingenious Pilot -
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Apparently he's GQ?%\0\%
Posts: 142
|
Post by Spock on Jun 20, 2009 21:07:00 GMT -5
Spock thought about it. He was fascinated by other worlds, species, cultures, societies, physiologies, anatomies, powers, thoughts, ideas. It was the primary reason he had chosen Starfleet, and his current occupation.
"You implied that in the fiction, the gradual deterioration of the world due to war directly affected the elves' magic. Earlier, you said that magic had accounted for the previous success of the elves' society, your use of the past tense implying that for some reason magic no longer benefits their society to the extent it had. In both types of failure, resultant of two different stimuli--the indirect stimulus in the fiction, and the direct stimulus you believe at work in this reality's present--what is called magic appears to have deteriorated. Do you, or Figwit, have any idea on what this magic is based, or what causes its deterioration?"
|
|
|
Post by James T. Kirk on Jun 20, 2009 21:10:50 GMT -5
"We haven't spoken about it," Kirk admitted. "Not directly. But from what I've seen, it's a very earth-based type of thing: communicating with the elements and affecting the environment. Keeping the trees healthy and productive, remaining aware of changes in the natural world. Not the storybook witches and cauldrons and things. More like... fairies." He frowned slightly. "I don't suppose you're familiar with fairy stories, Mr. Spock."
|
|
Spock
- Ingenious Pilot -
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star.png)
Apparently he's GQ?%\0\%
Posts: 142
|
Post by Spock on Jun 20, 2009 22:46:26 GMT -5
"I have heard mention of the term. In similar contexts to those in which I have previously heard the term 'elf': to designate in a derogatory way another being who possesses attributes different to the one using the designation, attributes which are foreign in a way that arouses suspicion or fear."
Spock paused thoughtfully. "I have noticed, Jim, that some will use some appellations--this one in particular--not to refer to attributes which are completely foreign, but rather attributes the designator feels he himself actually may possess. The fear and suspicion is therefore directed at the designator himself, though the derogatory term is still applied to the other party."
|
|