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Reno of the Turks ([personal profile] raspberryturk) wrote in [community profile] fandomhigh2014-08-25 09:34 am
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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!]

Re: Sign In!

[identity profile] notacokeperson.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Karina Lyle

Re: Lecture!

[identity profile] notacokeperson.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 12:56 pm (UTC)(link)
...

...

... Yeah, so, what little of the lecture Karina heard was entirely on auto-pilot because... well... the view was rather short-circuiting her listen-to-the-teacher skills.

The view had her attention. Entirely. And there weren't really words for the depths of how shaken and horrified this left her.

Re: Questions!

[identity profile] notacokeperson.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 01:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"How does anyone live there?" Karina blurted. "How are they not all dead?"

Karina's brain-to-mouth filter was never the best and, well, even though it was horrifically insensitive to ask... she thought it was a legit question.

Re: Questions!

[identity profile] notacokeperson.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 01:35 pm (UTC)(link)
There was an uneasy silence on her part, as she tried to digest the very thought. Karina knew she was lucky, compared to a lot of other people, but she'd never been confronted with such a stark example of just how lucky she really was.

She clenched her hands and wrenched her gaze away from Edge to look at him. "What are the numbers?" Karina asked abruptly. "Of survivors. Do you know? Who governs this city? Is there a working government?"

Re: Questions!

[identity profile] notacokeperson.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 02:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, no.

Those numbers were not helping with her brain-breakage here.

"Would it be really terrible to ask why anyone stays here, then?" Karina asked, glancing back out at the city, like she couldn't help herself. It was... hard to ignore. "I mean, I don't think I love anything enough to stay in that for it."

Re: Sign In!

[identity profile] beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 02:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Minako Aino

Re: Questions!

[identity profile] beautifulsenshi.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 02:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Minako looked out at all that sand. "Where do they get water?" she blurted out, before she could think about raising her hand. "Does that need to be shipped in, too, or are there wells or something that aren't all radiation-y?"
Edited 2014-08-25 14:37 (UTC)
wildandbrave: (Cautious (The Robbery))

Re: Sign In!

[personal profile] wildandbrave 2014-08-25 02:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Cosette Fauchelevent

Re: Questions!

[identity profile] notacokeperson.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 02:48 pm (UTC)(link)
It made zero sense to her, but Karina thought that that was okay. It didn't have to make sense to her so long as she wasn't being a jerk to their faces about staying.

"Would some of them leave for work?" she asked slowly. "I'm not saying that jobs exist now that could get them to leave, but if they did...?"

Re: Questions!

[identity profile] notacokeperson.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
She nodded faintly.

"I don't think my first thought will help much now," Karina admitted, after a few moments of silence. "I think that the people themselves need help first, but I don't know what to do there."

Re: Questions!

[identity profile] notacokeperson.livejournal.com 2014-08-25 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah," she said, but in a tone of voice that suggested she wasn't really listening to him. "Yeah, okay."

With that, Karina wandered away, lost in thought, staring out over the ruins of a city no one should have to live in.
not_every_mage: ([spec] hi there!)

Re: Sign In!

[personal profile] not_every_mage 2014-08-25 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Anders

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