fandomhigh | 21st Century 101, Tuesday Second Period

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intro to 21st century

21st Century 101, Tuesday Second Period

The class had been asked to meet in the Danger Shop today, which looked like an ordinary classroom when they arrived.

"Good morning, everyone," Steve said, "and welcome to 21st Century 101. I'm Mr. Rogers, your teacher, and as far as my qualifications go, I was frozen in 1945 and woke up in ~~handwavey year, Marvel timeline is sliding~~. It was a big adjustment. While my experience is more toward coming from the past and learning to deal with more advanced technology and different social standards, I'm hopeful those of you from more futuristic timelines will benefit from this class, as well. Learning to deal with less advanced technology than you're used to can be stressful, as well. This week we're going to have introductions, and then we'll move on to a series of activity stations where you can learn about some of the basics of getting along in the twenty-first century. You may already know all of this, in which case it might seem a bit silly, but please try to remember that some of your classmates might not and it's not silly to them. Tony Stark," he said, gesturing to Tony ~~if he was there~~, "is from this time period and will be my TA for this class, so if you have any questions you don't feel comfortable asking me, that's what he's here for."

"So, we'll start with the introductions. I'd like your name, where you're from, and a brief description of the technology in your time period. We'll start with...you," he said, picking a student at random.

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As you do.

Atton Rand

Susan Sto Helit

Ace McShane

Anna Korlov

Thomasina Coverly

Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar

Ulrik of Denmark

Tony Stark

Take notes, check out that cute boy two rows over, etc.

Atton would not be checking out the cute boy two rows over, thanks. He'd be sitting here, wondering if he could get away napping through his classes from now on in.

Though there was some entertainment to be found in the endless parade of archaic technology around here.

Right, so this class wasn't being taught by a short, singing furry puppy creature, just a really good-looking American bloke, but...

But let's face it, he had Ace at "Frozen in 1945."

"Boy, would they love him on Iceworld," she murmured, not quite under her breath. "Talk about a spokesmodel for that high-end deep freeze chamber..."

You know the drill, right?

"My name is Susan Sto Helit, and I'm from the Discworld," she said. "You're probably more technologically advanced, and even our cameras are powered- if that's the right word- by imps."

"So more of a magic base?" Steve guessed. "Would you agree with that?"

"My name is Anna Korlov, and I'm from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. I'm...from now? But I've been pretty isolated, so I'm not used to a lot of the technology here. We had a radio and a wood-burning stove," she volunteered, which was true. It was just true of 1958. Carefully choosing her words was key.

"My name is Ulrik, of Denmark, where it is the year 1636. The technology question is somewhat complicated, as about five years ago, an American town from the year 2000 appeared in the middle of the Germanies," he explained. "So we are starting to see some of their technologies begin to spread as they figure out how to construct them with available resources. For example, my father has a radio setup. It cannot transmit very far, or in certain kinds of weather, but it allows news to travel to Denmark much faster."

Edited 2012-05-08 23:36 (UTC)

"My name's Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar," Sholeh said, looking around the room eagerly. This class seemed both very useful and much less likely to embarrass her than the one previous. "I'm from a landscape far from here." She still hadn't figured out which one to claim yet, mostly because she kept getting distracted. "Our level of technology is much lower, though it didn't always used to be this way, I think. Our histories talk of lights that could burn forever and many other wondrous devices that I've found here so far."

Steve zeroed in on the common word being used in a way he wasn't familiar with, as that was something he definitely needed to clarify. "Now, when you say 'landscape,' are you using that to mean...world, dimension, country, region," just to name a few of the options, "or am I in the wrong neighborhood entirely?" he asked. "Because we have the word 'landscape,' but I think it's a different usage, and that's something you might want to look out for unless you're fine with confusing people."

Edited 2012-05-08 23:03 (UTC)

"Uhhh," Sholeh floundered there for a moment. "I think you're in the wrong neighborhood," she said, trying to match the few words she knew--like dimension, thanks Simon!--to the concept of landscape.

"It's hard to explain, if you don't know about Ephemera and the Eater of Worlds," she said slowly. "To protect the world from the Eater, Ephemera shattered and each of those pieces became landscapes. They can be as small as a village or as large and what I think you mean when you say country. Or maybe even bigger! But the size doesn't matter, only the resonances."

She looked up at Professor Rogers, hoping that had made sense. "When you say landscape, what do you mean?"

Edited 2012-05-08 23:13 (UTC)

"Okay, we don't use the word 'landscape' like that at all, no," Steve told her. "To the best of my knowledge this universe isn't shattered in any way. Here," and weren't you lucky you'd gotten an artist who could go into detail on this, Sholeh?, "a landscape is the visual features of an area of land. So you can see, say, the landscape of the forest out your dorm room window, assuming, of course," he said with a wry smile, "you're not facing the ocean side. Or it can refer to a piece of art that depicts those visual features of the land. What you're referring to...hm. 'Dimension,' might come closest, or be most recognizable to other people, but it doesn't have the same meaning as far as broken pieces of one previous whole goes. We refer to the multiverse sometimes, but that's multiple universes that are complete unto themselves."

Sholeh had roughly a million questions to go with that explanation, but at the prodding of her sisters, she bit them back. "We also have that definition of landscape," she said. "But it's not used very much. I'll try to remember that, though, and find a better word for my, uhh, home?"

And then she was physically biting her lip to stop talking.

"I'm Ace," said she, when her turn came round. "I'm from London in 1987, so I s'pose I'm not so far off? Not like most of this lot, anyway." She shrugged. "Our mobile phones are the size of a brick and we don't have pop tarts yet."

No, that would just be England that didn't have pop tarts yet, hon.

"I spent the last few months in space, though." That was...stretching things, to say the least. On another planet, yes, but she'd skipped the space bit, to her endless disappointment. "So I've seen some alien technology." Mostly nowhere near as closely as she'd wanted to. Unless it involved milkshakes or automatic doors.

Edited 2012-05-09 00:01 (UTC)

Steve clicked a button on the remote control in his hand, and the activity stations appeared around the perimeter of the 'classroom.' "By the way," he added, "this room is a holographic hard light generator, so none of this is real. And it's not magic, it's science. For a more thorough explanation, I again refer you to Tony Stark."

Steve didn't know if everyone had discovered lightswitches yet, so he'd set up a niche where they could make a lightbulb turn on and off via one, along with an ~~handwavey~~ explanatory handout on how electricity worked.

This activity was set up along similar lines to the first niche--hot and cold faucets one could experiment with, and a handout explaining how they worked and the health benefits of washing one's hands with soap and bathing regularly.

The third niche was larger, to accommodate a kitchen setup like one would find in the dorm common rooms. Steve was here to give a quick ~~handwavey~~ explanation of how the stove and refrigerator worked, and then the students could experiment with them on their own. He would probably step in if it looked like they were about to set themselves on fire, although in the Danger Shop the threat, of course, wasn't really real.

Edited 2012-05-08 19:20 (UTC)

"The twenty-first century has different standards regarding the cleanliness of clothing than most previous time periods," Steve explained as students arrived at the fourth and final niche, set up like a laundry room. "This is because of the mechanization of washing clothes, via the washing machine and dryer." He proceeded to explain how these worked on a basic level before moving on to explain which fabrics could not be washed in them and would still require hand washing or a trip to a dry cleaner, "which is another story for another class. Modern clothing will have care tags inside, and you can just follow the instructions on them to wash your clothes, but for clothing without care tags, the best rule is to keep dark colors together and light colors together, and wash whites separately. There are baskets of laundry for you to sort through and try out with the machines, and remember, it's all fake, so you're not really digging through dirty laundry."

Once he pings in.

Tony was there and without too much tech to confuse people. Just, you know, his phone that can get a signal on the moon.

~~With Steve~~.

If you have any questions about anything, or just want to talk to him.

Sorry this is a bit late, I spent over an hour trying to coax a cat out of a tree. She made a break for the great outdoors and once she was out there met the neighbors' dog.

So at least that'll probably teach her to stay inside from now on.

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21st Century 101, Tuesday Second Period

Sign In

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During the Lecture

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Introductions

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Activities

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Talk to the TA

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Talk to Steve

OOC