Getting Out of Tight Situations- Period 5- Class #5

[solo_sword]

When the students got to class today, they'd find themselves in the middle of a hilly forest area. At least it wasn't too humid or too cold this week?

"Hey, guys," Jaina greeted them. "Today you're going hiking. You can pick up a few essentials to take with you, the trail is marked, and you even get a companion on your hike." As she spoke, a nondescript teenage boy appeared next to her, waving at the students. "This is Bob. Something's going to happen on your hike, and I'm not going to tell you what. But once it happens, you're going to have to figure out what tools you have available to you and what you're going to do about it. Good luck, and I hope you all wore study shoes."

Comments

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

Ender had whatever the opposite of anger issues were, and he had a kill count to his name that vastly dwarfed Jaina's; it was likely he'd have more nuanced opinions on the matter, if it ever came up.

Regardless of the way his narrative liked to pick at his psyche, Ender nodded thoughtfully. "But would you say it was instinctive for the Killiks to make themselves subservient to one sentient in that way?" he asked. "They must have had leadership before the Jedi came along."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

"That's one of those things where my knowledge is iffy," she said apologetically. "The entire time I was a Joiner, Raynar was in charge, and Killiks don't have thoughts like 'The guy before him was so much better,' or anything, so I'm not sure on how things normally worked. I know most insect colonies have the same sort of caste system, usually with a queen at the head of everything, so I assume it still worked that way with the Killiks, but that's about all I have on that."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

He nodded. A little disappointed, but not entirely surprised. "Thanks anyway," Ender said. "What did you guys eat while you were in the nest, anyway?"

He was thinking about the Formic orchards they'd found recently.

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

Jaina smiled a little. "Somehow I didn't expect that question. By the time I was there, there were quite a few Joiners, so normal food was fairly common. It was kind of weird at first, actually; you'd get a craving for something and the Killiks would just know what you wanted and have the food brought in from offplanet, even."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

"So they were pretty well connected," Ender said; it was half-serious and half-joke. "I'm asking because the whole reason the subject of Killiks came up is when I got news that some of our xenobiologists had found a Formic orchard. We... didn't really see that one coming."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

"An orchard?" she repeated, raising her eyebrows. "That's... new. I'm guessing you haven't found out why it's there yet."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

"Presumably, for gathering fruit," Ender said, lightly. "What they needed the fruit for is still a mystery. As is a lot about them. We weren't exactly prepared enough to get into the mind of an insectoid race when we met them."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

"It's a little difficult even when you're prepared. How have things been with them so far?" she wondered.

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

"We've been colonising their worlds since the last war," Ender said, "But obviously, most of the colonists are soldiers, not biologists. It's early days."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

"And the Formics are okay with this?" That had been one issue with the Killiks, so she felt she had to check.

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

Ah. So his use of tenses hadn't rung any bells.

"At the end of the last war, the Formics pulled all their Queens back to their home world," Ender said, after a short pause. It was mostly to keep his own emotions under wraps, because he knew those tended to ping with Jedi. "We blew it up."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

Jaina sort of wished she hadn't asked now, seeing as how she had a few issues with that sort of thing, due to personal experience. "Why?"

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

Because I thought it was the only way to get out of a game, he thought, Because people were scared, so they aimed and primed me and got what they were afraid to do themselves. Because I'm a killer.

"A hundred years ago, they came to our solar system hoping to colonise," Ender said, figuring the start was a good place to begin. "They knew as little of individualist mammals like us as we did of them. They figured that killing a few of us just meant letting our leaders know about their intention, like poking us in an arm or a leg. We obviously didn't take it that way. We barely managed to fight them off, but they came back again a few years later, and nearly conquered us."

He took a breath. This was a hard topic for him, too, and he didn't want to show any fatigue.

"We were afraid that they'd come back to finish the job, so we sent a sleeper ship to invade them back, and end it before they could."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

Jaina had been expecting something different as an answer, which she knew was her own pro-Killik views poking out. But while it'd be easy to go off on how wrong it was to do that... She could understand the reasoning. She probably wouldn't have passed up the chance to take out the Vong that way if it'd been there.

And kind of disturbingly, she finally understood the Chiss point of view on things.

"I'm kind of surprised they didn't conquer you entirely," she admitted. "I don't know that I can say preemptive self-defense was a bad move."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

"After the second invasion, they figured out we thought like individuals," Ender said, sounding a little distant. "That every human death was on par with the death of a Queen. They weren't planning to come back. We just didn't know that."

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

"Sometimes when you have a shot, you have to take it. And then it sucks when you have to pick up the pieces afterward," Jaina said calmly. She'd had that sort of thing happen more than once, though not on that scale.

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

"Maybe," Ender said, "But as a member of my race, you can understand I'm feeling obligated to figure out as much about them as I can. It's the least we can do."

Mostly because he felt-- because he was personally accountable, but that wasn't an issue he was about to raise.

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

"Completely," she nodded. "What else do you want to know?"

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

"How did you wind up Joined?" Ender asked, after a moment to get his own cool back. "And where was Ben in all this?"

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

"You spend enough time around the Killiks, and you start to think like them, basically. Supposedly it's pheromones that can change the structure of the brain over time. For reasons I'm sure you can understand, I'd rather not think about that," she told him. "I was there for a few months to help Raynar in what was looking to be the start of a war, and a couple of us stayed behind after everyone else left, and while the others were connected to Taat, the extra time there made me into a full Joiner. Ben came with his parents, then, and apparently had a Killik hitchhike along with them, but if you want details on that, it'd probably best if he told you." If Ben wasn't comfortable talking about being kind of joined with a Gorog, she wasn't going to go there. "Otherwise I don't think he was too involved. As far as I know he was mostly at home or working with Jacen."

Which still bothered her when talking about this, yes.

Re: Talk to Jaina

[endsthegame]

Honestly, Ben had dropped enough background info to start tallying things up; he'd just wanted a general sense of where everyone he cared about was at the time.

He weighed the significance of asking her something about Jacen against the Killiks, and wound up in favour of the latter. When he spoke again, it was hence a moment or two later. "So pheromones, a mental connection, and body signals," he said. "How about their young? Did they care for them? How were they born?"

Re: Talk to Jaina

[solo_sword]

"From what I understand, some nests did things differently." Like the Gorog, who were gross about it and ruined it for everybody. "But Taat had a giant area where the Killiks would go to lay their eggs, up to a thousand at a time," she said. "I didn't spend a lot of time with the young, but I know that the eggs at least were tended to, and within a year they were already ready for battle."