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Post by miokalia on May 31, 2006 17:55:03 GMT -5
"I think you will find most of our residential architecture very logical, then.", said President Phong, "Much of our more common architecture is very utilitarian in it's objectives. However we do have many buildings which depict somewhat crystalline forms." The secretary answered a phone said something, then turned to the president and said, "Ok, let's go. Since we're on the subject of architecture and aesthetics. Let's go to the art museum first. Shall we?" President Phong answered, "Yes, let's go. It is a very short drive from here." Security officials led the delegations to the luxury tour bus in front of the hotel. Everyone boarded the bus and they departed for the hotel. The tour guide was already on board. A brown and black raptor tiny mechanical spikes running in a line down his back, to the tip of his tail. He wore thin square glasses with tiny rims and a brown, button-down shirt. He said, "I will be your guide for some parts of this tour, My name is Hako Dorriker. I will point out things of interest, explain them and answer your questions." The door closed and the bus began the trip. "On your right, you can see an example of our prefabricated modular apartment buildings.", he said. You will find that this style is very commonplace here. As it is extremely inexpensive and easy to assemble. It is also made from recycled materials. The structure is made from old intermodal shipping containers. The insides have been finished though so they look like any normal soft-modern home. Let me assure you, we find a use for everything here. Nothing goes entirely to waste. On your left you can see some of the 'normal' average urban residences. I should tell you that it only gets weirder. Oh, and here's the Zye City Art Museum. We have arrived." The delegation looked out the windows of the bus at the building. First Speaker Izixs said, "Are you the curator of this museum?". "No, that would be a red fox by the name of Garret Knat. But I will be giving the tour.", replied Hako. The museum's interior was very minimal. Every wall ending in a subtle, but distinctly unusual angle. Each room had a directed sound system, you could only hear it once you entered the room. In the first room, you could hear the warm sound of old-fashioned jazz. Hako began pointing out paintings, most of them very impressionistic. They went to another room which was at an awkward angle to the last. The music in this room was very unusual. Almost cacophonous. What sounded like an accoustic guitar harmonizing with an anolog synthesizer apreggio and backwards piano track. "This room is somewhat of a gestalt of sorts. On the walls, these are all various pieces of art from the last 40 years. The um... graphic sculpture in the middle of the room is from 70 years ago. It is a Malych piece called "2099". At that time a lot of bad things were happening to the Malych. The humans were exploiting them and some subspecies of them were made almost completely extinct.", explained Hako.
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Post by Erenmor on May 31, 2006 18:21:11 GMT -5
"Compared to the usual fare in Erenmor, your architecture still falls under highly decorative... if a bit odd at times," Xander commented as they passed the various buildings along the way.
"I can see what you meant about the look of the place," the grey fox muttered as they arrived at the art museum. Inside, he kept his ears perked, turning them towards the tour guide and doing his best to seem interested, though it wasn't hard to tell that fine art was hardly his strong point.
The two guards, quite predictably, didn't even try to feign interest and simply trailed along with the group, patiently watching the surroundings.
"Looks... hm, interesting, certainly. What's it made of, though?" Xander asked as the topic of the sculpture was brought up, stepping over closer to it to get a better look.
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Post by miokalia on May 31, 2006 20:24:58 GMT -5
"Aluminum and copper", said the raptor.
They left the room and went into the next one, similarly styled but different in shape. This one featured a wall covered with LED lights flashing at different rates, producing a abstract patterns.
"This is our media art room", explained the raptor, "This video monitor here is playing a looped video of a vacuum cleaner sucking up dirt. It's more-or-less pop-art, perhaps a statement about advertising for household items maybe. My specialty is actually in other areas so I'm not sure"
He brought the group over to a white table with a nothing but a basket of fruit, the fruit was shiney, as if it were made of sequins. From the table emmitted some strange music.
"This is a compact installation piece with inedible plasic fruit. What you're hearing is actually traditional Dincotian space music."
The music was focussed on subtley changing iterations of arpeggios and layers of other melodic iterations layered on top to change the sound over time. While some of it was definately electronic, some of it sounded accoustic. After a while, it became hard to tell the difference as they blended together and took on eachother's sound qualities.
Noticing the delegation from Erenmor's average boredom with the place so far, Hako decided to take the group to another exhibit room. This one lacked windows, it was glossy grey and indirectly lit. In fact, there was so much stuff in the room, many parts of it were obscured. Over the sound system one could hear what sounded like chatter over a radio coming in and out, with an occassional distressed chord from a string ensemble coming in and out.
There were huge pieces of mechanical viscera all around the room, scattered about. On the walls were paintings, in a particularly Romantic-era style, featuring people in various states of alarm, dispear, and dread. Hako began pointing them out and explaining them.
"This red painting is from 2124, If you look closely you can see a small bereft allosaur in the middle."
He pointed to another one "This is a painting by Narharko of a hundred dead Malych he saw after the battle of Hokyldaryon in 2150"
And another "This is a painting by a Malych painter. It is considered to be one of the first paintings the Malych ever produced. It is dated back to 1998, the year that another anomally popped up on it's own in their programming that gave them the ability to create as organic life forms do..."
The painting was a 10x10 grid of colored boxes. Each one with a different color produced using several different individual pigments. It almost looks like flowers in the background.
The Erenmor guards who had managed to show no interest in anything thus far actually looked at this painting with slight hesitation. Pausing a bit as if it meant more to them than expected.
The group left the room and went through a red hallway. The corners of the hallway were rounded, making for a very strangely minimal space.
Hako then said, "Pardon my asking, but why is it that your body guards are so heavily obscured? They're is nothing they need to be hidden from in this city, and I'm sure the Tinisian delegation wouldn't be too bothered by it."
The mechanical spikes along his back moved up then down. "Or whatever. If you feel more comfortable this way, nevermind my asking."
They got to the other end of the hallway and Izixs asked, "If you're not the curator, are you just a coneisseur of art?"
"I'm an architect and an engineer." he answered, "My firm actually designed this and a few other buildings in this city."
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Post by Erenmor on Jun 1, 2006 7:47:35 GMT -5
Xander at least showed a fair bit more interest in the last room they were shown. Art telling a story he could deal with well enough, it was the philosophical kind that he just didn't get.
He was about to respond to the tour guide's question when one of the guards spoke up on its own. Though it did so again with that odd mix of claw-on-blackboard scraping and grinding sounds.
"Ah... it's more to do with one of their preferred combat tactics than hiding anything. It keeps any assailants in the dark as to what exactly they're capable of and I'm told it has a fair bit of shock value when they rip into an enemy before those robes even fall to the ground after being cast off," the fox explained and translated, smiling briefly.
One of the guards leaned forward a bit, its face showing under the hood... or rather, it showed the smooth, featureless silver face-plate, polished to give a perfect reflection. It emitted a few more of those odd scrapes before straightening up.
"That, and they do tend to draw even more attention without the robes," Xander added.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Jun 1, 2006 16:24:13 GMT -5
"Attention grabbing they are," agrees Waldo. "But with the variety of characters that pass through the halls of the federation council I'm afraid I'm starting to loose the ability to be shocked."
Ashely the bear looks slightly more at ease despite the description of the Erenmor guards.
Izixs nods to the answer to his question. "Interesting. I must say then you do good work. If we ever are looking to start another major construction project we might have to offer your firm a deal. Might be a little ways off with the Crystal Eye and the partical accelerator taking up our construction budget presently, but maybe in a couple years."
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Post by miokalia on Jun 2, 2006 1:30:03 GMT -5
There was a final lobby on the other side of the museum. A room with swoopy-shaped, glossy red chairs. There were two placards on the wall, commemorating important figures. Hako went over to the wall and explained the pictures. "This building, like many around here, was dedicated to General Tachakita Zagckza. And yes, our current secretary of defense here is related to him." Secretary Zagckza looked away slightly embarassed. Hako started into some history: "Zagckza was the first major Malych military leader here. At the end of 2099, Zagckza led the Malych rebels to a decisive victory by organizing a massive sabotage of enemy military weapons. He was one of the first Malych to actually try to be allies with the humans in Dorigan and fight along side them for independance from the United Factions. Which was the first time the Malych had ever allied with another species other than dinosaurians and draconids. After the battle of Hokyldaryon in 2151 (which he won), he experienced several cascading programming failures and had a bit of a personality change. For the last 20-some years of his life he had attacks of feral behaviour and random hardware failures. After sufferring a massive core failure, he finally went to the Probe and merged with the Malych Centroid. They say the battle of Hokyldaryon had just overloaded him." Secretary Sorenson elbowed the stoicly unamused Secretary of defense and said quietly, "I see the relation, you've got his eyes, horns and hydraulics" Gladarus quietly said back, "I hate placards." There was an awkward silence for a bit. So Hako continued, "And this building was completed during President Phong's term, so we have here a placard for him too" President Phong also shrunk down a bit and said jokingly, "It's like they're waiting for me to get destroyed or something so they can fill in the date I cease to exist... Let's move along" The group moved outside, where Hako said to Izixs, "Much of what my firm specializes in is actually prefabricated modular civic buildings. Schools and Libraries and Museums like this one. They can be assembled in a matter of days for a fraction of the cost of conventional building methods... Oh, I should stop, though. This is not the time to be advertising."
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Post by miokalia on Jun 6, 2006 0:07:50 GMT -5
The group departed in the tour bus. The next stop was a research laboratory. Hako said, "We will be heading to the University of Dorigan campus. They're working on small-scale, modular energy devices to eventually replace PBMR nuclear reactors. Pardon me while I get technical for a bit here. UOD has a few small accelerators, but nothing large. However, Hokyldaryon University has the big cyclotrons. They're working on a new generation of particle accelerators for producing anti-matter for industry. The biggest problem with it at this time is safety. While nuclear reactors have radiation, antimatter of course, has gamma rays (which are more powerful, but do not linger). Ok, I'll save the rest of it for the experts." They arrived at the physics building on the campus in Dorigan. A red dragon greeted them. "Hello, I'm Dr. Collin Vath. Let's go look at dangerous hot stuff." He was a very light-hearted, good humored dragon with what looked like a completely mechanical claw replacing one of his regular ones. He noticed people looking at it. He explained, "This is what happens when you're hand decides to die because it's eaten off by an aggressive microbial-and-nanite lab sample. It was stripped to the bone in a matter of seconds. The smell was awful. I suppose it could have been worse. If I had spilled the mixture all over myself, then I'd be a dracoliche now.", he said. First he pointed out a cyclotron in one of the rooms. A huge machine with a bunch of tubes coming off of it. "This is where we take little pieces of nuclei and make them go real fast." He continued into the next room, there were a couple of Malych in front of computers. Another draconid and a raptor. They looked breifly but just continued talking amogst themselves in Kohtohkhan. The dragon lead the group through a heavy door into another room with huge metal cylinders. "This is where we're working on a new way to package antimatter. The problem we've had with antimatter in the past has been being able to store it. Because it doesn't take but a thousandth of a gram of the stuff to react with literally anything. And by react, I mean massive nuclear-like blast that produces so much gamma radiation it would kill, if not vaporize everything for miles. We're trying to find a way to make it safely storable. So far we've used magnetic bottles, neodymium tubes. But those all take energy to store the stuff. So if energy were to fail, you have to use up all your antimatter super fast or else you explode. The Malych already use the stuff in their ships, but it takes huge freaking magnetic vats to hold just a gram of the stuff in their applications. We're working on a way to make it completely safe until activated by artificial means. This is what we've got." The dragon picks up a light-grey box, chalky in texture. "This contains a microgram of antimatter. Completely suspended in chalky layers of neodymium dust and nano-magnets. It is 100% passively holding the antimatter. And it's even safe to touch. Just don't eat it", he said "How much energy is in here?", asked President Phong. "About 30 megawatt hours", he replied. "I would never have to eat again", said the president, looking at the chalky box as though it were a pastry. "It's not to be eaten.", said the dragon, taking it from the president's claws and putting it away, "It takes a mixture of nasty nanites and flesh-rotting bacteria to activate the anti-matter in there. I've been working on this for years, that's how this happened." The dragon once again held up his mechanical claw, the details of which were more pronouced. His claws consisted of several articulations and knobby hinges, much like that of a Malych, except some organic components were visisble. It looked as though the claw grew it's mechanical parts into the dragon's bones. Using them as guide for form, but ultimately taking over their job as structural support. It looked as though the mechanism had worked its way up the dragon's arm a little bit before it was satisfied and stopped growing.
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Jun 6, 2006 21:59:20 GMT -5
Izixs seems incredibly interested in the storage device. "That's truly amazing. I've heard of systems of storage rings with permanent magnets and powered magnetic bottles, but to have the ability to store it in a self contained structure, that almost blows my mind." Izixs rubs his chin. "There's still the efficiency problem with creating anti-matter unless you've also licked that problem. But even with such issues, the ability to store such amounts of usable energy in such portable forms makes it down right worth it. Have all your conventional power plants in one or two locations, have them generate the anti-matter. Then ship little boxes like this off to the rest of the country as needed. Makes power generation and distribution a completely different system. And there's the bonus of having a few of these on say a ship or space craft.
"But a bit of an odd, and dangerous," he nods to Dr. Vath's claw, "usage mechanism. I guess the bacteria pull apart the containment at a proper rate while the nanites carry the slag off, or the other way around? Or maybe something else entirely?"
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Post by miokalia on Jun 7, 2006 1:18:00 GMT -5
"well", explained Dr. Vath, "At this point production of anti-matter is still quite inefficient. It's basically a more compact, and more dangerous way to do the same thing that hydrogen does. Hold energy. Since you can't exactly mine antimatter out of the ground. The most efficient way to procure the stuff is what the Malych do with their cosmic ray sails. Which they only have two of, because of their size and cumbersome nature. Basically it's a satellite in orbit that has huge (about 1-mile long) fins on it that absorb gamma and other cosmic rays from space. They've got it to the point that they only have to replace the fins every 5 years. Which is pretty impressive since when the method was first devised, the fins had to be replaced every 3 months. The material converts such huge amounts of energy, they burn out quickly. Both satellites are around Malychis. It's where they get the energy to power their ships. The Dincotians have a really small "Umbrella" conversion satellite, but it's just 1/4th the size of each Malych unit. We're also working on a way to make these satellites smaller and less expensive to build. For the Dincotians, putting up their umbrella converter was the single most expensive space-related project in the last 80 years. At a price tag of about 72 billion karats (35 billion dollars). It is however worth it in the long run because of the sheer amount of energy one of those units can produce. (About a microgram of anti-matter every month). I suppose this is the most progressive energy stuff we can show you. The Dincotians basically abandoned fusion research in favor of antimatter 80 years ago. They only got to the Tokomak torus reactor before basically giving up (because anti-matter showed more viability). The best reactors we can show you are the tiny, single-shot industrial ones. They only work for 6 hours before 'burning out'. You've probably got better reactors in Tinis right now."
The dragon led them into another room with a giant piece of light blue, glossy material. Resembling a very long rectangular solar panel. "This is a converter fin for converting cosmic radiation into electrical energy. It looks like a solar panel because it basically is. Just for a higher frequency of electromagnetic radiation. Solar panels convert visible light into electricity, this panel does the same thing for a different section of the EM spectrum above visible light. So everything that would either just bounce off of, or go right through silicon-dioxide solar cells, this would catch as well. It's a funny story how these were invented too. We were trying to develop a more efficient solar cell that uses more spectrum than conventional ones, when we discovered that if we use different photovoltaic materials at different layers, we could capture higher energy photons. For example, 1 square meter of fairly efficient photovoltaic cells capture about 45 watts of power. 1 square meter of double-layered cells capture about 60 watts. When we started using heavier, less stable materials for photovoltaic layers to capture x-rays, this amount of power per square meter jumped to 200 watts. We added more layers with even heavier materials, with flatter molecular structures. Just to give you an idea, by the time we got this technology to the level of being able to capture about 10% of gamma rays that make contact with the panel, it was putting out nearly a megawatt-per-square meter. That's because gamma rays have exponentially more power than x-rays. On the ground these function poorly, because of the atmosphere filtering out most of the cosmic radiation. In space, these things basically burn themselves up from putting out so much power.
Use a quarter-square mile of these to power some compact particle accelerators, and you have yourself an anti-matter factory in space.
These modular chalk blocks are part of a project to develop a new generation of power systems. Dincota is funding this project and already thinking ahead to industrial applications, perhaps even consumer ones. The Malych have provided us with every piece of equipment we can possibly imagine we might need. I think they might be wanting to use this to eventually replace their other current sources of power which come from modules containing all of the raw materials they need, plus energy in the form of light fissionable fuels."
The dragon led them across the room through another door and into a room full of boxes with dull blue, green and purple colored chunks of material.
"This is what the Malych 'eat'. The blue is planar carbon. A raw material they use to produce their nanites. (Much like protein and amino acids in biological life forms) It is also used as energy for the smaller Malych. The green is deochamchim, a heavy fissionable material that begins to slowly react when exposed to large amounts of ultraviolet and microwave radiation. When exposed to neither, it remains totally stable. You can even touch it, although prolonged contact could cause tumorous growths. Similarly, Ordochalchim (purple) works the same way, except it only requires microwave radiation to catalyze the control substance and begin reacting. Only a few Malych subspecies use these catalytic nuclear fuels. Most use planar carbon, as it requires a smaller system for conversion into energy."
They entered another room full of jars and glass boxes. "As I'm sure you've noticed, there is a lot of nanotechnology around here. Well, just so you know, we didn't invent it, we got all of it from the Malych. We were just beginning to develop biological nano-vectors, which are virus particles with 'corrective' genetic material inside them instead of the usual random and malicious genetic material found in natural viruses. Then we made contact with the Malych, got along with them pretty nicely, and they gave us nanotech."
He holds up a jar with a grey goo inside it and says, "This is Malych Core. Billions of tiny diamond transistor computers that arrange themselves into more complex, ever changing networks, reproduce, and build structures. Just like living cells. To organic things, the substance is benign. However, the substance can be 'programmed' to integrate with organic cells to form prosthetics such as my claw."
He holds up another jar and says, "This is a sample of a more aggressive variant of the previous stuff. The medicinal uses are amazing, however the consequences of it's use are both strange and potent. This type of Malych core will not ignore organic material unless programmed otherwise like the other stuff, nor will it ravenously devour everything it comes in contact with... Because that would be an inefficient way to expand itself. Instead, this Malych core searches for genetic weaknesses in living organic material... and when it find them, it replaces them with it's own cells. Effectively taking over the organism. A process that is much more energy-lucrative than simply devouring it. You give this to a terminally ill patient with serious genetic fragmentation in their cells, in about 3 hours, they will feel little better. But if left in the patient's body for another 2 hours, theoretically, there won't be a single organic cell remaining in their body. Some people have interpreted this as a way that the Malych are trying to 'assimilate' us all. Except frankly, I think if that was their collective goal, they would have done so by now, right Mr. President?"
President Phong looks down sheepishly, "Am I supposed to say 'resistance is futile' now?"
The doctor then points at a glass box with a brown and grey mixed goo and explains, "This is a mix of a powerful bacteria and nanite substance. The stuff that activates the antimatter bricks you all saw earlier. The bacteria eats the magnetic substance (neodymium) and the graphite nuetralizer. As it does this, the nanites regulate the release of the antimatter at the atomic scale. The substance works great, except it does some other weird things too. For one, the bacteria has not just a stomach for magnetic material and graphite, but also living flesh. The nanites won't stop it either, but will attempt to integrate with nerve-endings and assimilate muscle tissue into itself. Basically when you spill it on yourself, you feel a sharp pain as it begins to eat you alive, then the pain turns to tingling, then dull numbness as the nanites bind with whatever is left of your nerve endings. Which is somewhat merciful, I guess, as it would sure hurt a lot more if the nanites weren't so hungry for sucking on anything with neurotransmitters."
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Post by Erenmor on Jun 7, 2006 17:21:04 GMT -5
"Ah... I can't help but notice," Xander spoke up following the flesh-eating bacteria presentation, "but there appears to be a load of tech and substance here that, if it fell into the wrong hands, could be... eh. Doomsday scenario, shall we say? I do hope you take every step to ensure this stuff only goes where it's supposed to," the fox said, looking at the various containers and equipment.
"You'll have to excuse my distrust for antimatter, but the thought of the stuff becoming publically available is a bit overwhelming. I can understand its applications for large-scale power production, but I should think any single citizen wouldn't ever have need of that amount of raw power," the fox went on, sighing quietly.
"I do apologise for my bleak outlook on new technologies. Comes with the upbringing, I suppose. First thing our techs look at when they get a new piece of hardware is how someone could turn it against us. A bit paranoid, perhaps, but we prefer staying on the safe side."
"This is all quite fascinating, of course, but I just can't help but worry one of these days it'll contribute to making a giant crater somewhere in the world."
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Post by miokalia on Jun 7, 2006 19:05:50 GMT -5
"A very valid concern indeed.", said Dr. Vath, "Although as a scientist, I have two jobs: 1. Exploring technologies and science and 2. Practical research. Of course it's possible to make an antimatter bomb. Yes, it would be apocalyptic in it's devastation. But the reason why we haven't put a cent into producing one is this: There is no practical purpose for a device that can destroy everything. None. The reason why we are trying to develop industrial applications for antimatter is so that we can procure it in a way that is controlled. So that if it did fall into the wrong hands, it couldn't be used as weapon of mass destruction."
They continued into the next room which was an open commons area.
He continued, "We've been through a phase of moral and ethical confusion over things like this. The thing is, people tend to forget about practicality. Technologies won't be implemented unless they can accomplish something practical. When we started our genome projects a long time ago, there was concern over the possibility of someone making 'super people' that would take over and run everything. Well, it didn't happen. Why? Because nobody wanted it. As for the theorized: design-a-child scenario? It flopped as well.
I guess the big reason why science has pushed forward so much here is because there just isn't anything here to stop it. Our politicians are all secularists. The churches are strictly prohibited from having anything to do with politics, so they don't get in our way (most wouldn't anyway, since it's seen as a corruption of spirituality when a church becomes too political in Draconid cultures)"
The tour of the building was at it's end.
"Well, I suppose now you will be leaving. I hope this was a pleasent tour.", said Dr. Vath.
The group then got back on the bus. "Okay. Now that you're done seeing our snooty academics show off" Hako said jokingly, "I'm sure you are all hungry. We will be going downtown to the Nillama district, to eat at a very... interesting 80th-floor restaurant. I'm sure you're all pretty used to posh restaurants which all look the same and sell the same fine wines, caviar and edible gold leaf ice cream... So we'll be going to a very nice, and very unusual restaurant called ViT4L. It's supposed to be an 'invigorating deconstructivist dining experience'. Don't worry, it sounds more avant-garde than it really is. It's pretty normal food (for this region). I just hope you all don't mind that it will probably be a lot of fish."
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Post by The Union of Tinis on Jun 7, 2006 23:23:35 GMT -5
"Fish is fine," comments Izixs. "Tis not my native diet, but I can enjoy it. Waldo on the other hand may in fact love it, haha." A pause latter. "The motivation to build an anti-matter bomb is indeed not there. It would be horribly complext to design and construct in such a fashion as to be of any use or power. But perhaps the concern is not on direct weaponization, but indirect. There are always creative ways to use and abuse technology that most might never think to. Oh, Waldo. Were you going to say something?"
"Yes. Is there any particular rules of ettiquette that we should follow?" asks Waldo. "When eating of course. We did not recieve any particulars on that matter and would hate to do something incredibly silly."
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Post by miokalia on Jun 8, 2006 1:34:34 GMT -5
Secretary Zagckza finally said something, "Part of the reason we want to put anti-matter into modular bricks of chalky suspension material is to make it harder to weaponize. Be it intentional or unintentional. If each brick of the stuff only contains enough energy to basically emmit a small gamma-ray flash that would only injure the individual holding it, then it would take a very conspicuous stockpile of the stuff for someone to be able to make any sort of home-made bomb out of the stuff. A noticible stockpile, of a substance which is very easy to locate and track. Since the suspension material gives off a small amount of ambient gamma radiation. Plus we've had our technology stolen before and we have... learned from this... and implemented some ways to protect it which I cannot disclose, since not even I have been informed of the specifics. Basically, I assure you that this whole thing is safe right now."
The bus had to drive about a half of the way across town, so it was turning out to be a longer ride.
Hako began doing the tour guide thing again and said, "Right, I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet. I guess I'll give you some statistics that I forgot to mention earler:
Zye City capitol
Population: 12.2 million Composition: 45% Malych, 40% Dinosaurian, 10% Humanoid, 5% Draconid.
Dorigan in Zye City metro area
Population: 5.8 million Composition: 28% Humanoid, 10% Mammalian Furs, 22% Draconid, 30% Dinosaurian, 10% Malych.
At least, that's where we've been so far. We will be dining in one of about 4 major downtown complexes in the Zye/Dorigan metro area. Nillama is the largest. We will also see the Ellias district, which is the second largest, (but most iconic).
As for etiquette. Well... There are a few things: 1. noodles and spaghetti are to be cut up, rather than wrapped-up with a spoon and fork. This is a dinosaurian tradition, because dinosaurians have insufficient lips to make the usual method clean.
2. it is impolite to dispense particularly pungent condiments without first indicating that you are preparing to do so. A simple 'pardon me' before dispensing the condiment is sufficient. We can smell a shaker of soy-parmesean cheese from across a room within a second of it's opening. So it's common courtesy to make the time spent dispensing such potently odiforous substances as short as possible. Just so you know.
3. all wine is accompanied by bread. For each sip of wine, it is expected that you eat one thin slice of bread or item of food. This is a tradition of ours, and the waiters will probably just assume you'll do it. Once the waiters leave the table, you can do as you please with your wine.
4. it is acceptable to inspect your meat once it's on the end of a fork.
I think we should all be fine. Especially at the place we'll be going to."
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Post by Erenmor on Jun 10, 2006 13:25:38 GMT -5
"Oy... table etiquette... Sometimes I just can't help the feeling someone way back in the past sat down and decided that simply making sure the majority of the food goes into the mouth and not all over the table wasn't complicated enough," Xander sighed.
"Well, fish I won't complain about so long as they're not raw or still alive," the fox added.
"So, out of curiosity, why is the restaurant called that? Anything in particular we should mentally prepare for?"
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Post by miokalia on Jun 11, 2006 2:21:43 GMT -5
"Well", said Hako, "You may find the atmosphere to be very... unusual." The bus pulled up to the base of a very tall yellow-beige building. The interior decoration was simple and utilitarian but colorful, which the group had become used to seeing by now. The first floor had dark red tiles, while the walls were grey metal lattices over illuminated panels. Building security accompanied the group to the elevator which took them to the 80th floor. The 80th floor was all restaurant. And what a restaurant it was. The entry looked as if an explosive had gone off right at the door. There were pieces of plastic and masonry, stacked in strange ways making up deformed walls that jutted in any direction. The pipes and other HVAC viscera followed a serpentine path through the distressed architectural elements. The place was not exactly "inviting" by most tastes. Their tables were already reserved in a private room that was in the shape of a contorted cube. Hako and the others were seated in a different room off to the side, while the leaders were seated in the main cube. The waitors poured wine and brought bread and sliced salmon. They had already received the orders from the delegations' staff. President Phong waited for them to leave and then said, "So, now seems like a good time to perhaps discuss some politics maybe." After a pause he continued, "Xander, when we first became aware of the presence of another inorganic species in your nation we, of course, became a bit excited about this. Since it trully is such a rare thing. I wonder though, the Malych have never made contact with your inorganics before, so I'm compelled to assume that this indicates that your inorganic species came into being right over there, in Erenmor. From what I understand of your inorganic species, they came to become self-aware in a somewhat different fashion than mine did. I don't think even our science-fiction authors have thought up scenarios dealing with the coexistence of two different inorganic species with somewhat different attitudes toward integration interacting with eachother. Now, I'm going to be blunt: based on intuition and from the stuff I'm reading off of your guards, I'm feeling a kind of tension going on between your species. Maybe not something huge, maybe it's just trivial. Whatever it is, maybe there's something we can do about it."
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