fandomhigh | Public Service - On the Edge, Monday, Period 2

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Public Service - On the Edge, Monday, Period 2

"Yo, class!" Today, Reno was making people meet in the Danger Shop, where the whole class was congregated in the desert, overlooking… well… it was probably meant to be a city. Mostly it just looked like somebody had taken the ruins of one city and then piled them up trying to make another one. "Welcome to Edge, or at least a simulation of Edge, a city that was built by pilin' up the wreckage of Midgar, that mess of ruins to the side, there."

So yeah, there was that.

"Edge is having a shitty decade, since a meteorite almost crushed those ruins at the middle and the life force of the planet ripped apart the rest of the city that was still standing, yo. Loss of life numbered in the millions, easy, and in the wake of it? Edge doesn't have much in the way of arable land, much in the way of water, orphanages, schools, hospitals or clinics, natural resources of any persuasion, unless you count ruins and friggin' sand, reliable defenses against the monsters that roam the ruins and the desert, transportation routes that are accessible to all…"

Reno cleared his throat a little and shrugged.

"Lots of shit. This class, primarily, is gonna be an offshoot of those 'day after doomsday' classes I taught before. Right here? Right here is your actual working model, your example of what it might look like after one kind of cataclysmic event, and what sort of work people need to do in order to pick up the pieces again, yo. Today we're just standing in a sim, looking at an example of the place, but over the course of the semester we're gonna be taking several trips there, contributing in one way or another to Edge's recovery. Public service, yo. And I'll be straight with you, here- it's probably gonna suck. There are still bodies in those ruins that ain't never gonna be recovered. The only proper highway they had was heading back into Midgar, and it got blown up in an attack on Edge a few years ago." By, you know, somebody. Reno wasn't saying who. "It's been over half a decade since Meteor came down, and the ground is only just getting to a point where it'll be able to grow plants in it again. You know. In the few scattered parts of it that ain't sand."

Reno gave a pointed look around. At the huge sprawling desert behind them that didn't seem to have any sort of end in sight.

"Your mission, rookies, is to brainstorm this week, and pick one thing that you as a class are going to provide for Edge by the end of the semester, yo. We'll be putting it to a vote. Then we're gonna spend the rest of the semester getting together what we need for that one thing. If it's something that needs to be built, I already arranged for a plot of land. Anything beyond that, you're gonna have to figure out fundraisers for, where you're gettin' the supplies to do the building, if we're gonna hire people in Edge to do the manual labor with us - they'll be tripping over themselves for a chance to work, even if the job is just temporary, yo."

Reno waved at the class with one hand.

"Any questions about Edge, get 'em off your chests now. That's what I'm here for. Those ruins in the middle there used to be my home. I know plenty about the topic. If you figure you've heard enough, then get to brainstorming, try and figure out what you all wanna do, bring your suggestions to the rest of the class, and then vote."

[OCD is up and this class is open for business!]

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Shut your face, Reno. She wasn’t shaken up at all. Much. Really.

“A few things,” she said, matching his thoughtful look. “This class—this isn’t going to do much, if we can only do this for an hour a week. Planning in and of itself would take more time than that, no matter what we decide on and then getting the manpower and building anything… well, I want to know if we’re going to be allowed to go there in our spare time. If we’re serious about helping, I think it’s going to be needed."

Ooof. Well, there was a question, wasn't it?

"I wouldn't be opposed to it," he noted, pursing his lips a little. "Can't even really stop you if you wanna go of your own accord. I'd prefer if anyone who wanted to go tapped me in first. There's a reason we didn't traipse off to Edge on day one, yo. Place is dangerous, there are gonna be a couple of primers on safety before we ever step through a portal. But... yeah, if you wanna do more, I wouldn't be ungrateful, yo."

“It’s not about wanting to do more,” she said, though it was partly that, “it’s about doing a good job. If we’re going to help, we’d better help, really help, instead of just doing a half-assed job at getting anything done. Fifteen hours, tops, of class isn’t enough time to do a good job.”

And Karina was… not the sort to do terrible, half-assed jobs when it came down to the important things.

A beat.

“I’m going to want to go over more often than that.”

In case he hadn’t gathered that already.

"For what it's worth, you might end up not being the only one," Reno noted, nodding. "Fifteen hours, unless the island does something frigging stupid to keep us from going, ain't nothin', you're right. If it comes down to it, I'll take as many runs back and forth as it takes to get the job done right, yo."

“Good,” Karina said, nodding firmly. “Now, I know that whatever we wind up doing for the city is going to be a class project, but I had an idea that would help the people outside the city. Which, eventually, would help those in the city.”

She tilted her head slightly. “Have you ever heard of the Great Green Wall?”

Well, it alliterated nicely, but Reno shook his head all the same.

"Afraid not, yo. If it's an earth thing, I've been outta touch, never really had a chance to catch up on all of it. You got my attention, though. Wow me."

"There are two, technically, but only one uses the name Great Green Wall now," she said, not sure if this would wow him but willing to give it a shot. "Anyway, the one I'm talking about is known fully as the Great Green Wall of the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative, and it's an anti-desertification project."

Which, well, they had a lot of desert surrounding Edge. She was just saying.

"The very, very basic idea of it is that, on the edges of the desert, people start reclaiming the land by planting trees and encouraging things to grow. This helps force the spread of plant-life into the desert, halts the advance of it, and gives people jobs and better livelihoods because, well, where there's trees, there'll be more food and water. It's not a fast thing though, and it's outside of the scope of the class, and I don't know if there's the manpower here to enact something similar…"

But she'd wanted to bring it up anyway.

Reno pursed his lips as he heard Karina out, nodding thoughtfully once she was finished speaking.

"It would be... tricky, gettin' trees to grow closer in to Midgar. But this sounds like somethin' we'd be startin' out around Kalm, workin' our way in. A long-term plan, yeah? Coax the life back into the place, bit by bit."

"Yeah," she said, shrugging just a little. "I mean, that's why I didn't mention it in class--we're working within the city, and this isn't something that's going to provide real, tangible help any time soon. But if we started it on the outside, near… Kalm, you said, and worked around then in, it would help even the city eventually."

And another shrug. "It was just an idea."

It wasn't like she cared or anything. Really. She totally brought it up because she didn't care at all.

At least, that was what Karina was telling herself.

Yeah, people had ideas to help places they didn't actually care about all the time.

"I like it," Reno decided. "It would give people in Edge a reason and a way to get out, if they need one. It'd be a long-term project, too. Somethin' that would help the place heal, even if they don't see any real progress until generations down the road."

Shhh. Shhh.

"You like it?" she said brightly. What? Karina loved having her ideas validated. "I just thought it'd be a good idea. And people are always better off with a bit of green around them."

"I like it," Reno agreed. "It's a good long-term goal that ain't likely to just break down on people, yo. Hell, it's something they can take over maintenance of, once the students involved in settin' it up need to move on. Trees ain't rocket science, really."

Well, maybe out in that desert, they kind of were.

"I do think that the water filtration is more important for the city," Karina admitted. "But I'm willing to help with the setup of the tree project too, since both would accomplish more than just doing one or the other."

And, well, Edge kinda needed both as far as she was concerned.

Yeah, Reno couldn't deny that doing both would be his preference. He pursed his lips in thought for a moment, looked out toward the simulation of Edge, and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"It's somethin' that would need to be brought up with the WRO and with the folks in Kalm," he noted. "Edge wouldn't even see it for a while, the desert's so big. But it's worthwhile. I think people would be on-board for this, yo."

"It's something they could do for themselves," she offered. "With just a little help to get started. It's probably best if we use trees and plant-life native to this world, rather than import everything, but we can help with the costs and set up. If the governing bodies are okay with it, I think it'd help a lot, even if the improvements at first are only visible in increased morale."

Karina just couldn't imagine morale being high in a world like this.

"Yeah, imports have really only been helpful so far as technology goes," Reno noted. "And some agriculture, maybe. But what we need to do is figure out what plant life used to be natural to the area, and go from there."

It hadn't been that long since ShinRa killed everything. There were probably Kalm locals who could help with that.

"That shouldn't be too hard," she observed. "There ought to be people who remember and, if not, there should be books with that sort of information. Records are usually kept in some way, I'm pretty sure."

She glanced at him. "I mean, it'll be a lot of work, but logically speaking, the information should be available if we look for it."

"Might have to dig deep, but if nothing else, yeah, the trees themselves should be within living memory of at least a few people, yo. Not from Edge, but Kalm, sure."

Reno nodded his approval.

"Gonna have to look into it more, but from what you're sayin' now, it seems pretty solid."

"I'm not an expert on it," she admitted. "But the theory of it is sound on Earth."

His home... world... might work differently.

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Public Service - On the Edge, Monday, Period 2

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