TEXT; UN: J.SHEPPARD

[impavid]

Alright, new pop quiz. When you think of home, what do you think of?

[ Open question, which he's not going to expand on unless prompted -- though really he's curious about something specific. Do people consider Olympia or Wyver their home now? Maybe the Natha station? Or do they think of home worlds they've been told no longer exist? ]

Comments

[smithandwesson]

[What a deep and philosophical question good sir.]

I think, home is not so much a 'where' as it is a 'whom'.

[This was also a conversation he had once before, so very many years ago. Perhaps that was why, for once, he had felt compelled to reply.]

[impavid]

Someone else told me something similar. That home's what you love, even if you can never go back. It got me wondering how many people really think of this place as their home now.

[smithandwesson]

I don't think anyone will ever fully see it as such, it's so different from most worlds that they'll probably spend to much time comparing it to their last ones.

But those forming relationships, as well as those familiar faces, will at least help people in coping a lot more. Sort of like, that new house that was nowhere near as good as your old one because of nostalgia but you had to move out because mortgage payments were too damn high?

[Yeah. Like that... Or something.]

[impavid]

Nostalgia is a rose tinted lens, too. It wasn't exactly perfect where I'm from, but there's still a lot about it I miss. People, mostly, but little things too.

I guess eventually it all fades, but I'm not sure how long that kind of process takes. The one that ends up with this place being what I'm nostalgic for instead.

[smithandwesson]

Nostalgia and the feeling of 'home' can almost intermingle side by side to one another I think. As something becomes further ingrained with your memories and way of life the more that thing becomes a part of your home.

[He kind of understood himself, but there were so very many things he was actually nostalgic for. A kind monk from long ago, an annoying pet monkey, the smell of the fresh open road mixed with brand name cigarettes and petrol. It was going to be difficult to get those things back.]

How about you? There's obviously a reason you asked this question.

[impavid]

I guess I'm still thinking about it. I was looking up the prices of bigger places in Olympia and it got me thinking.

[ The realisation that moving into a bigger place means you're settling, means you're accepting something, means you are technically making a new home. ]

[smithandwesson]

Ah I see, you're moving up.

[Says the man who could probably afford something much nicer at this point and yet still lives in a shitty apartment in the slums with his teen-aged card-game-obsessed roommate.]

You live in a nice place back in your old world?

[impavid]

Assigned quarters, pretty small, but the base itself was nice. Ocean views.

[smithandwesson]

So nothing amazing. But something that was still yours in its own right.

You worked for some sort of company or government job?

[impavid]

More the latter. Military escort for a research outpost.

[smithandwesson]

..... Sounds tedious.

[Government work. That stuff is never fun and far too stringent. He can relate to that sort of stuff and the trouble it created far too much.]

So you spent your days guarding a bunch of scientists? They must have been creating some interesting stuff.

[impavid]

Some of them, yeah. We did a lot of exploring and uncovering new things. Some of them were botanists, though. I can't really get excited about plants.

[smithandwesson]

I don't know. Certain plants can do some pretty interesting things if I've learned anything about this world.

You miss it?

[impavid]

I guess. I figure most of us miss what we're used to.

[smithandwesson]

Hmn.
The one problem with human comfort in repeated mundane actions. It becomes that sort of comfort that makes you grow unsettled if you go on too long without it.

You live in Wyver, Olympia, or Nadril?

[impavid]

Olympia. You're in Wyver, right? I remember you.

[ He specifically remembers being talked out of money. ]

[smithandwesson]

[Don't worry bud. He's still working on his big thing. He's just been having a hard time finding reliable researchers who don't bail on him or attempt to use him as a test subject is all.]

I am.

Does it have any similarity to your old world in comparison to the other two cities?

[impavid]

The station itself is a lot closer to what I'm used to. Olympia is pretty okay, but it's a little old fashioned by my standards.

[smithandwesson]

So then why stay in Olympia? Wouldn't Nadril be more similar to how things are up on The Orbiter?

[impavid]

I guess, but I was already settled in Olympia way before Nadril opened the gates. Besides, it's kinda snowy and Magda appears to still be alive. I don't really want to live somewhere that might be full of his followers just waiting to put a knife in me for not damning the Natha.

[smithandwesson]

I doubt Magda's that much of a crazy fucker to just get someone shanked for affiliating with the orbiters. Otherwise, I would have probably heard of some of our own kicking the bucket back when we took temporary refuge up there.

He seems to have more sympathy for us than that. Probably because he sees us as a bunch of similar idiots to those he initially lived with before he abandoned the big space-station in the sky.

He was once a refugee himself after all.

[impavid]

I did say his followers waiting to knife me, not Magda himself. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of questions about his choice to fund terrorism -- but I'd be more worried about hero-worshipping idiots who think they can impress him through acts of violence or who believe slicing me open will make him return to them.

[smithandwesson]

I have a feeling they're more interested in trying to recruit us than knife us to be honest. They're looking for holes and doubt in any of us 'new' refugees when it comes to Dharma and the Orbiters.

Still trying to figure out the source of their hate. Nothing in their records stated much of their history before settling in Nadril.