will you witness me in a pit of fire | march catch-all

[terriblepurpose]

Who: Paul Atreides, Junia, and associates
What: Event prompts, Fated Leviathan aftermath
When: March
Where: Various

Content Warnings: General event warnings, fungal hallucinations, hallucinations of corpses, discussion of death

Comments

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul hadn't expected the interest to be so immediate, but he reminds himself that most people here seem to come from single worlds, one where experimentation with ecology is - by very practical necessity of having nowhere to go, if such experiments go awry - uncommon. Imperial ecology is an art soaked in the heart's blood of a thousand murdered worlds, or so it's said. Paul thinks the number must be higher.]

I wanted to understand the world I was going to live on, where I come from. Arrakis is harsh. Harsher than here, if you can believe that - a true desert world, almost uninhabitable. It would be, if not for its resources.

I'd hoped we might be able to improve on it.

[It feels like a child's ambition now. The lack of terraforming on Arrakis was no accident, but the purposeful hand of the Empire shaping the world to pacification via environmental control.]

If we think of blood pollution as a pollution, as much as it is a curse, I think the principles of bioremediation should still apply. That's using certain lifeforms to take things out of the soil, and others to put things back in. I've been doing some work with blood leeching that's seemed promising.

[righthemisphere]

That's a clever idea, I haven't really considered that. I think I saw something on the network about dogs? Was that the same thing?

[He could be wrong. He often is. But that's not all he's thinking about as wets his lips, feeling particularly boyish (and somewhat inept, again) in the moment.]

It must be amazing to travel between planets. We haven't gotten there where I'm from. A little scouting but- man. That must be amazing. This place- are there natives? There is life out there, right?

[terriblepurpose]

I was thinking about them too. They're worth looking into, if nothing else.

[It would take time to develop a rapport with one, but it seems as though that part is already accounted for. Paul's eyes don't brighten, but instead dim in his excitement, some of their hideous glow abating.]

There is life out there. Nothing sapient, but there are the furred whales of Lankiveil, and the sand worms of Arrakis, to name two.

[righthemisphere]

Man... I would love to see that.

[And he means it, full of wonder and awe. Genuine awe.]

What's your planet called? How long have you been exploring space?

[terriblepurpose]

I'm from Caladan. It's an ocean planet, with rocky archipelagos in the north hemisphere and tropics ranging into boreals on the southern continent.

[Paul answers Raleigh's enthusiasm with his own, his love of his world a warm, living thing in his voice. He says Caladan the way that he would say home, the entire planet held in the same esteem.]

We've - humanity - been in space for at least twenty millennia. We came from an Earth, originally, much like this one. This might be silly of me, but - it's interesting, talking to people who are really from there. It's like going through time, not just space.

[righthemisphere]

I feel the same way but the other way around. We've only just began our exploration into space. Lots of probes, a handful of manned missions to our moon.. one little space station inside the planet's sphere of influence.

[So, basically nothing in comparison.]

Man, I'd love to go to space. Just once. I used to dream about it all the time when I was a kid.

[terriblepurpose]

[The thought of all of humanity contained on a single fragile world is an arresting one. It's something Paul has always known, as any student of ecology does - every species has an origin point, even if it's lost or unknown - but it's different when it's your species. He thinks of the threats Raleigh's great war machines were built to fight, and he feels a pang of nearly existential concern.

The whole of humankind, dependent on the actions of a few. It's no wonder that Raleigh carries so much weight on his shoulders as a habit.]

We might be able to from here, one day. It's not out of the question. If you and your team could build Jaegers... [Paul shrugs, slightly, making an effort to moderate how his eyes light up at the idea.] But food first. The essentials.

[righthemisphere]

Yeah, the essentials.

[Back to business with a nod, but don't be fooled, he's now full of the idea. Could they really get to space form here? They have no idea what's beyond the horizon much less space. What is this solar system like? The galaxy? They don't know anything at all.]