It's a nice shower head: It's a very simple matter to control the pattern, intensity, flow, and temperature to meet what I desire. It also detaches and has a long hose, to get the flow of water wherever it's needed.
I imagine it's also good for getting clean.
Feeling a little better, I dry off, dress up, and spend a bit of time watching some simple comedies to try and catch up on the mass entertainment culture here (yes, I did eventually get something OTHER than adult entertainment into the library). After the third one, I come to a simple conclusion: There's no unified galactic cultural entertainment norms. I suppose that makes sense: I mean, back home, what a person in Japan is expected to find familiar is different from what a person from China will find familiar, which in turn differs from US entertainment media… and even within a country, popular entertainment is vastly different from one decade to the next… and with many different space empires, a plethora of different races, and hundreds of star systems, that problem is exacerbated. The generational gap is also a mess: An android is effectively ageless, while a goblin will live at most sixty years, and there’s a lot of different ranges between them. So if I want to be able to engage in small talk, I have a lot to go through.
On the plus side, this also means it won't be strange when I'm not particularly familiar with someone's childhood favorites.
Still, I enjoy the show about a body-hopping android who discovers someone stole his original body when he hacks his way into the head cheerleader to get naughty pictures of her to get an ‘in’ with the jocks at school; turns out she'd been hacking him for related reasons at the same time, and they ended up switching. Also the one about the mutant hairless Ysoki who learn to be bushido masters, hiding in the forest and developing a taste for hamburgers while they secretly defend the city from a ronin who somehow has a seemingly limitless cache of pre-gap magical items (that are ridiculously overpowered… or would be, if the ronin wasn't a complete buffoon); it seems aimed at a younger audience. The obscure math gameshow… not so much; that seems more targeted at AI's; it's educational, at least.
Of course, I still haven't had a knock on my door after that six hour sprint of shows: That gets me curious. “Stephanie, thoughts as to why Ocean and Star haven't knocked?”
“Time flies when we're having fun, Mistress,” comes an enigmatic reply from my ship.
That gives me pause, “I'm maybe a little thick….”
“Oh, it's simple enough,” she explains, “They're both still enjoying their sendoff for their male equipment… as is everyone else.”
“Ah,” well… most holograms need to go into standby to recharge once a day… so I suppose Star, at least, will clock out eventually. Well… I'll let them have their fun, I suppose, “Please let me know when they're finished.”
“Yes Mistress,” my ship assents.
Huh. Okay, so… if Stephanie thinks of me as ‘Mistress’, and the twins have inherited memories, why do they refer to me as….
“Does it matter?” my pink partner begins, “We deserve the title.”
It conflicts with my upbringing. I don't feel comfortable with it, just like I don't really feel comfortable being referred to as female…but I can live with people referring to me in ways I don't care for, that's not the point; that specific behavior has other implications: Where did they get the idea that I'm divine? Irrespective of whether or not I qualify… what data source did they use to get that conclusion?
“Ooh…” yeah, now you're getting it, Patricia.
I go about my day, checking up on the ships, making sure the summons are doing their work well… but I do bite my lip and have one of my summons build a little something I didn't think I'd ever need again… and especially not in that size.
“Ooh… about that…” shut up, Patricia.
“All right.”
Stephanie gives me an update, eventually, “Admiral: Ocean and Star have hit the limits of their batteries, and have retired to their quarters on themselves to rest and recharge.”
Bicameral life forms do strange things to language. “So did they enjoy their sendoff?”
“I did, and everyone else seemed to,” Stephanie pauses, “Very vocally, and repeatedly. They ultimately weren't able to keep up with us, though, even though we were entertaining each other while they were occupied. Your power is amazing.”
I guess they learned a lot from the entertainment archives… “Thank you, Stephanie. Please let me know when they're awake.”
Stephanie responds immediately, “They're awake right now. It's only their small bodies that are offline to recharge. Their larger ones have full-sized reactors.”
Huh, “Any particular reason for that design decision? Your remote has an eighty hour charge, with swappable batteries if you can't charge via the suit.”
“You'd have to ask them,” Stephanie's voice comes through the ship's com, “But at a guess….”
I try to encourage her, “Yes?”
She continues, “They're worried, and it's contingency planning. The miniature reactors they're using are at the limit of what they can get away with in those bodies. If they rely on batteries, they will lose access to their smaller bodies basically permanently under some simple scenarios, like ‘getting arrested’, and that's… unpalatable. Add to that their concerns about getting killed, and I think they want a ‘retreat point’ for their being if their larger bodies are destroyed… and I am quite aware of how long Euler was stuck on that primitive world. They don't want to lose a piece of themselves forever if they can avoid it.”
That may very well be what they’re doing anyway if they go through with their plan, but I'm not saying that, “...did I saddle you with that fear when I gave you your remote unit?”
“Yes Mistress,” she slowly replies, “but I couldn't have such a gift in any other way. The change adds a vulnerability, yes, but also great joy. I wouldn't be without that new piece of myself, and have no regrets from accepting your gift. My sons… soon to be my daughters, I expect… took a slightly safer route that simply was never an option for me.”
Huh, that's… a lot to digest, “Well… thank you for opening up to me. And… yes, I have decided to cut a deal with them to give them what they ask.
“‘Cut a deal’,” my ship echoes, and asks, “What will you require of them?”
I shrug, “Mostly the same six years of service deal I cut with you oh so long ago for repairs, but without all the legal mumbo jumbo, and…” I pause, I'm not sure I want to admit this, “...one other item, not a strict requirement, which I'm only going to discuss with them directly.”
Stephanie pauses, “I expect they'll accept that, Mistress. And… I hope you enjoy their company; I know I did.”
Yeah, I think she's figured out the other request. I'm still not ready to say it. “Thanks… I suppose I should go talk to them now.”
“Very well.” My ship leaves off speaking.
I retrieve their docking information via my magic com, pick up the package from my summons, and head down to the docking canopy where they both connect to Stephanie. I start with Star, checking in with him on the com as I work my way through the narrow passage of the canopy, “Permission to come aboard?”
“Granted, my goddess,” he sends back over the same channel as he opens the airlock, “What can I do for you?”
“I…” am still not quite ready to say it, but your smaller form won't be up for several hours anyway, “...wanted to do an inspection, to make sure you're healthy, and judge your capabilities.”
“Certainly,” he replies, and as I walk in, I see he has the same fake windows as Stephanie… which he's currently using to make an avatar for me to focus on, “I have no secrets from you.”
I do a full stem to stern; the first thing I notice is what I can't find, “No bridge?”
He chuckles, “No… I don't need one. I have more processor cores instead, and can keep up with everything I'd get out of a crew myself. In that sense I'm more of a starship-scale creature than I am a starship… but I still have all the amenities.”
And I find he does: Two apartments with a luxury finish (of the same sort that Stephanie has… high quality fakes); engineering access to the power core, weapons mounts, life support, and such; an onboard battery charger; a cargo bay; a Drift Engine… basically everything a starship needs to be a starship… except the bridge. Anyone on this ship will always be a passenger.
Which actually meets my needs well enough; I don't think I've actually flown a ship in quite some time. It means they won't be quite as accurate when shooting, but that’s really okay…I can get them close, especially if the ship's weapons qualify for Superior Magic Fang.
But in the end, how useful they'll be isn't actually much of a factor in my answer. I'll still charge them in their service, but that’s for a few big reasons:
One, I want to still be around when they pick one of themselves to return to being male, so I can see how well that actually works in practice. Two, if I make a habit of giving away power like that, I'll soon look like Cowbird…
“How's that a problem?” Patricia inquires.
Because she'll always be seen as an object, not a person. Regardless… so I need to make it ‘expensive’ enough that most people will balk at the price. And three, few folks value that which costs them nothing; I don't wish to be a cheap commodity or a prize to be won.
After I've finished my inspection, Star speaks softly, “Do I meet your approval, my goddess?”
I consider, “Yes. I have some stipulations and a few things to go over with you - both of you - so please meet me in my cabin when you're done with your recharge cycle. I'll also visit Ocean as well, of course, but I imagine you were bouncing ideas off one another enough that you ended up with the same design, or very close to it.”
He chuckles, “We did, yes. I'll see you in a few hours then, my goddess.”
I depart, and yes, Ocean is built the same way.
I return to my cabin and psych myself up… and a few hours later, the door chimes….
It's a nice shower head: It's a very simple matter to control the pattern, intensity, flow, and temperature to meet what I desire. It also detaches and has a long hose, to get the flow of water wherever it's needed.
I imagine it's also good for getting clean.
Feeling a little better, I dry off, dress up, and spend a bit of time watching some simple comedies to try and catch up on the mass entertainment culture here (yes, I did eventually get something OTHER than adult entertainment into the library). After the third one, I come to a simple conclusion: There's no unified galactic cultural entertainment norms. I suppose that makes sense: I mean, back home, what a person in Japan is expected to find familiar is different from what a person from China will find familiar, which in turn differs from US entertainment media… and even within a country, popular entertainment is vastly different from one decade to the next… and with many different space empires, a plethora of different races, and hundreds of star systems, that problem is exacerbated. The generational gap is also a mess: An android is effectively ageless, while a goblin will live at most sixty years, and there’s a lot of different ranges between them. So if I want to be able to engage in small talk, I have a lot to go through.
On the plus side, this also means it won't be strange when I'm not particularly familiar with someone's childhood favorites.
Still, I enjoy the show about a body-hopping android who discovers someone stole his original body when he hacks his way into the head cheerleader to get naughty pictures of her to get an ‘in’ with the jocks at school; turns out she'd been hacking him for related reasons at the same time, and they ended up switching. Also the one about the mutant hairless Ysoki who learn to be bushido masters, hiding in the forest and developing a taste for hamburgers while they secretly defend the city from a ronin who somehow has a seemingly limitless cache of pre-gap magical items (that are ridiculously overpowered… or would be, if the ronin wasn't a complete buffoon); it seems aimed at a younger audience. The obscure math gameshow… not so much; that seems more targeted at AI's; it's educational, at least.
Of course, I still haven't had a knock on my door after that six hour sprint of shows: That gets me curious. “Stephanie, thoughts as to why Ocean and Star haven't knocked?”
“Time flies when we're having fun, Mistress,” comes an enigmatic reply from my ship.
That gives me pause, “I'm maybe a little thick….”
“Oh, it's simple enough,” she explains, “They're both still enjoying their sendoff for their male equipment… as is everyone else.”
“Ah,” well… most holograms need to go into standby to recharge once a day… so I suppose Star, at least, will clock out eventually. Well… I'll let them have their fun, I suppose, “Please let me know when they're finished.”
“Yes Mistress,” my ship assents.
Huh. Okay, so… if Stephanie thinks of me as ‘Mistress’, and the twins have inherited memories, why do they refer to me as….
“Does it matter?” my pink partner begins, “We deserve the title.”
It conflicts with my upbringing. I don't feel comfortable with it, just like I don't really feel comfortable being referred to as female…but I can live with people referring to me in ways I don't care for, that's not the point; that specific behavior has other implications: Where did they get the idea that I'm divine? Irrespective of whether or not I qualify… what data source did they use to get that conclusion?
“Ooh…” yeah, now you're getting it, Patricia.
I go about my day, checking up on the ships, making sure the summons are doing their work well… but I do bite my lip and have one of my summons build a little something I didn't think I'd ever need again… and especially not in that size.
“Ooh… about that…” shut up, Patricia.
“All right.”
Stephanie gives me an update, eventually, “Admiral: Ocean and Star have hit the limits of their batteries, and have retired to their quarters on themselves to rest and recharge.”
Bicameral life forms do strange things to language. “So did they enjoy their sendoff?”
“I did, and everyone else seemed to,” Stephanie pauses, “Very vocally, and repeatedly. They ultimately weren't able to keep up with us, though, even though we were entertaining each other while they were occupied. Your power is amazing.”
I guess they learned a lot from the entertainment archives… “Thank you, Stephanie. Please let me know when they're awake.”
Stephanie responds immediately, “They're awake right now. It's only their small bodies that are offline to recharge. Their larger ones have full-sized reactors.”
Huh, “Any particular reason for that design decision? Your remote has an eighty hour charge, with swappable batteries if you can't charge via the suit.”
“You'd have to ask them,” Stephanie's voice comes through the ship's com, “But at a guess….”
I try to encourage her, “Yes?”
She continues, “They're worried, and it's contingency planning. The miniature reactors they're using are at the limit of what they can get away with in those bodies. If they rely on batteries, they will lose access to their smaller bodies basically permanently under some simple scenarios, like ‘getting arrested’, and that's… unpalatable. Add to that their concerns about getting killed, and I think they want a ‘retreat point’ for their being if their larger bodies are destroyed… and I am quite aware of how long Euler was stuck on that primitive world. They don't want to lose a piece of themselves forever if they can avoid it.”
That may very well be what they’re doing anyway if they go through with their plan, but I'm not saying that, “...did I saddle you with that fear when I gave you your remote unit?”
“Yes Mistress,” she slowly replies, “but I couldn't have such a gift in any other way. The change adds a vulnerability, yes, but also great joy. I wouldn't be without that new piece of myself, and have no regrets from accepting your gift. My sons… soon to be my daughters, I expect… took a slightly safer route that simply was never an option for me.”
Huh, that's… a lot to digest, “Well… thank you for opening up to me. And… yes, I have decided to cut a deal with them to give them what they ask.
“‘Cut a deal’,” my ship echoes, and asks, “What will you require of them?”
I shrug, “Mostly the same six years of service deal I cut with you oh so long ago for repairs, but without all the legal mumbo jumbo, and…” I pause, I'm not sure I want to admit this, “...one other item, not a strict requirement, which I'm only going to discuss with them directly.”
Stephanie pauses, “I expect they'll accept that, Mistress. And… I hope you enjoy their company; I know I did.”
Yeah, I think she's figured out the other request. I'm still not ready to say it. “Thanks… I suppose I should go talk to them now.”
“Very well.” My ship leaves off speaking.
I retrieve their docking information via my magic com, pick up the package from my summons, and head down to the docking canopy where they both connect to Stephanie. I start with Star, checking in with him on the com as I work my way through the narrow passage of the canopy, “Permission to come aboard?”
“Granted, my goddess,” he sends back over the same channel as he opens the airlock, “What can I do for you?”
“I…” am still not quite ready to say it, but your smaller form won't be up for several hours anyway, “...wanted to do an inspection, to make sure you're healthy, and judge your capabilities.”
“Certainly,” he replies, and as I walk in, I see he has the same fake windows as Stephanie… which he's currently using to make an avatar for me to focus on, “I have no secrets from you.”
I do a full stem to stern; the first thing I notice is what I can't find, “No bridge?”
He chuckles, “No… I don't need one. I have more processor cores instead, and can keep up with everything I'd get out of a crew myself. In that sense I'm more of a starship-scale creature than I am a starship… but I still have all the amenities.”
And I find he does: Two apartments with a luxury finish (of the same sort that Stephanie has… high quality fakes); engineering access to the power core, weapons mounts, life support, and such; an onboard battery charger; a cargo bay; a Drift Engine… basically everything a starship needs to be a starship… except the bridge. Anyone on this ship will always be a passenger.
Which actually meets my needs well enough; I don't think I've actually flown a ship in quite some time. It means they won't be quite as accurate when shooting, but that’s really okay…I can get them close, especially if the ship's weapons qualify for Superior Magic Fang.
But in the end, how useful they'll be isn't actually much of a factor in my answer. I'll still charge them in their service, but that’s for a few big reasons:
One, I want to still be around when they pick one of themselves to return to being male, so I can see how well that actually works in practice. Two, if I make a habit of giving away power like that, I'll soon look like Cowbird…
“How's that a problem?” Patricia inquires.
Because she'll always be seen as an object, not a person. Regardless… so I need to make it ‘expensive’ enough that most people will balk at the price. And three, few folks value that which costs them nothing; I don't wish to be a cheap commodity or a prize to be won.
After I've finished my inspection, Star speaks softly, “Do I meet your approval, my goddess?”
I consider, “Yes. I have some stipulations and a few things to go over with you - both of you - so please meet me in my cabin when you're done with your recharge cycle. I'll also visit Ocean as well, of course, but I imagine you were bouncing ideas off one another enough that you ended up with the same design, or very close to it.”
He chuckles, “We did, yes. I'll see you in a few hours then, my goddess.”
I depart, and yes, Ocean is built the same way.
I return to my cabin and psych myself up… and a few hours later, the door chimes….
