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001

[The camera clicks on. Sma is sitting in her quarters, smiling. She's had some time to get her feet under her and now feels up to introducing herself.]

Hello, Tranquility. [Still amused by the stodginess of the ship name.] It seems like the thing to do is introduce oneself, so—my name's Diziet Sma. A very nice ship you have here, I must say.

I'm something of a veteran of space travel, although my usual bailiwick is diplomacy and arts patronage—and I doubt there's much call for that here. But if there's anything I can do to make myself useful, I'd be glad to help.

[A pause, and then she seems to come to a sort of decision.]

And if there is anyone here who knows what I mean when I refer to the civilisation known as the Culture, I'd like to meet you.

[Because even if it's an enemy, she'd like to know about it. And on the off-chance that another Culture citizen is here, bonus.]

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What else do you think you could offer?

Well, I like to think I'm a quick study. I'm organised and I pay attention. If there's any kind of all-purpose operations and management jobs available, I could probably make myself useful there.

Check with the Support Staff, or maybe Ianto, he might be able to find something for you.

And can't say I've heard the Culture in terms of civilization tossed about before.

I will—thank you for the tip.

I thought it might have been a bit of a long shot, but I couldn't not ask. It would have been a pleasant surprise to find other Culture citizens here.

sure.

where's this culture located?

We're spread out over a number of star systems in the—well, I suppose one of the names for it is the Milky Way galaxy. Less on planets than Orbitals—artifical habitats, much more resource-efficient than terraforming a planet. And a significant number of us are spacefaring and spend a lot of time on ships.

[ interesting. granted, kara has never heard of them, but the fact that there are others out there like her and her group of people, always seems to be something of an interest to her. and she can't help but want some more details on it. ]

Why are you guys out there?

Exploration. Making new friends amongst the other sentient races, ideally.

That simply, huh?
Peace time?

For us, yes. The Culture's last major war was about four hundred years ago.

[ it's always amazing to kara that worlds just aren't like hers, and she can't help but wonder just what her world did to frak up so bad. ]

Can't say mines the same, so consider yourself lucky.

Believe me, I do. We've had over nine thousand years to work on it, admittedly. But nevertheless, it's only through a lot of hard work and luck that we actually made it this far.

Well if you do happen to need something, you can stop by the shuttle bay.
The group of us there can at least relate in ways.

Shall do. Thank you.

There's always a call for diplomacy, Diziet Sma. One good diplomat can have the power to replace one thousand soldiers.

Has there ever been call for a thousand soldiers here?

And Diziet is fine, by the way.

Not that I know of, no. I wouldn't be so naive to think that there won't in the future, but the sentiment remains. A negotiator's touch is always preferable to a warrior's blaster - but by the sounds of it I reckon you already know what I mean.

Don't know anything about the Culture, however. Are they your people?

Very much so. A few years ago I helped organise a peace summit that accomplished more for the involved parties than a solid five years of cold hostilities had done. I only take credit for the organisation, mind you—everyone involved was good enough to step up and act like adults over it.

I'm of the Culture, yes. We're a multi-species group-civilisation, spacefaring and comprising a number of star systems within our native galaxy.

And you?.

I'm impressed. Getting the combatants in the same room as each other after five years of war must have been a mission in itself. The path to diplomacy can be long and hard but your efforts must have saved lives.

My name is Quinlan Vos and my home world was Kiffu for a while - but I'm a Jedi first and foremost. The Jedi are the defenders and peacekeepers of the Galactic Republic, which I'm going to go ahead and assume the Culture hasn't been in contact with.

Oh, the real war had cooled off a long time ago; it was mostly just frosty silences and punitive tariffs and similar annoyances. But I like to think I helped prevent it from heating up again.

Pleased to meet you, Mr Voss. And no, I don't believe we've contacted your people before; the homeworld and the word "Jedi" don't ring a bell.

[Actually, it sort of does, but don't worry—she's not going to mention it.]

I'm getting the impression there are more galaxies and universes represented on this ship then anyone seems to realise. Between that and the atmosphere on fear on board it's probably not going to be long until those diplomatic skills of yours will be put to the test.

Well, it will be nice to be useful, I suppose.

What's the source of the fear? The generally unknown nature of the mission?

That - and more. There's a dossier on the network that describes about murders, mutinies, mystery diseases and unexplained disappearances. There's darkness on this ship and I don't think it's just coming from the passengers.

Lovely. I'll be sure to read the dossier thoroughly, then.

Pretty informative when you get to the incident reports. Some real troubling things have been happening to the passengers here and not all of it is easily explained. Hope you've got a head for mysteries.

I've been known to dabble. I'll see what I can learn.

Diziet Sma. Do you have any other qualifications or training that you have not yet mentioned? It may be very important.

I write poetry and can speak a number of languages. I'm afraid I'm not particularly technical, however—I can learn quickly, but I haven't been specifically trained in, say, programming.

Edited 2012-10-16 04:48 (UTC)

I don't believe the number of languages you currently retain is necessary or useful information in this place. Seeing as languages are translated automatically, it seems.

I will keep the information you have told me in mind. Thank you.

You're welcome. 

Might I know who I'm interacting with?

A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Sma.

I take it, from context, that you are not referring to the Culture which flourished briefly but brightly in the yoghurt swamps of Metabillis 5?

The—I'm sorry, did you say yoghurt swamps?

Indeed. Cocks his head to the side, with accompanying clicks and whirrs of machinery inside him. The name is perhaps misleading as the deposits of calcium and lactic acid-rich streams within the Metabilis wetlands are not, properly speaking, yoghurt, despite the bacterial cultures within and the exploitation of their products for delecation on a pan-galactic scale.

But no doubt you are unfamiliar with all of these.

[She wonders if the clicks and whirrs she can just hear are due to something near him, or the man himself.]

I have to admit, that's a new one for me. But as you guess, our Culture has little to do with any kind of tasty fermented products. Except insofar as people might take up yoghurt- or cheese-making, or beer-brewing as a hobby.

Settling in?

More or less. Thanks for your help, by the way.

You're very welcome. Any thoughts on what you've found so far?

It reminds me of the kinds of shipboard communities we have where I come from, in some ways. Culture ships are massive—the biggest ones have populations on the order of lightly-populated planets. This is more LSV- or GCU-sized.

And like those ships, the people have a way of forming communities and defining their own rules and ways of doing things, I see. Even a kind of folklore.

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