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Firsthand History- Monday- 1st period

Today the class was in a Danger Shopped outdoor concert venue. No way was Kitty taking them to the real one without chaperones. But it was crowded and still kind of muddy, and there was music, so.

"Welcome to Woodstock," she greeted them. "This is Monday, August 18, 1969, the end of one of the biggest events in music history. The sixties were a pretty big decade, and hippies were a very big thing. They were very big into peace and love and pacificism, and also illegal drugs and free love which you will not be getting in class. That summer, a free concert was put on in upstate New York, not actually in Woodstock, which gave way to the attendance of four hundred thousand people. This is nothing. This is only about thirty thousand here. A state of emergency was declared for the county, people came over from the Air Force base to help keep things peaceful, and that was probably good because things weren't even finished before the festival started, and they were way underprepared for how many people they got here. Also the festival was supposed to only be three days, but rain delays meant that the very last performer didn't go on until 8 am Monday morning. And that's what you're going to see today.

"So find a spot, relax, and enjoy Jimi Hendrix. If you're from here and now, it'll make your parents and grandparents so jealous."

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Groovy.

Cosette Fauchelevent

Hyacinthe

Gratuity Tucci

Khadgar

Or look around, or talk, whatever.

Hyacinthe really was not paying attention to the lecture; he was too busy gazing around the venue in shock. He had never seen so many people in one place in his life. The City of Elua had maybe a hundred thousand people? Maybe? He'd never looked at a census. And here was a third of that at a concert.

The last time Tip had been anywhere this crowded, nearly the entire population of the US was living in Arizona. But she didn't go to a lot of sporting events or stadium concerts. "Kind of crazy, huh?"

"It seems impossible there should be so many," he murmured, staring out over the ocean of people for a moment longer before glancing over at Gratuity. "Is this normal, then? So many people all at once?"

"There are seven billion people on Earth." There was before the invasion, anyway, so she assumed that was how many non-invaded earths had. "So . . . kinda. In the cities and at events, anyway."

"Seven billion?!" Just when Hyacinthe thought he was at the limits of his ability to be surprised... "'Tis not a number I can conceive of."

Tip smiled. "Yeah, neither can anyone else. It's like trying to picture how far away Saturn is until you actually have to drive there -- that's not going to help, is it."

...Yeah, that planet wasn't going to be discovered for another few hundred years, even as fancy as the D'Angelines were. Nor did Hyacinthe have much use for the concept of driving.

"Might if I knew half of what you were speaking of," he said with a rueful grin. "Seems like no matter what conversation I am in, either I'm confusing people or being confused. You're Gratuity, no?"

They'd had several classes together and she was cute. Obviously Hyacinthe had noticed.

"That's right. And you're Hyacinthe." He had an unusual name, and Tip was not immune to the pretty, so she'd noticed him, too. "And it's alright, I'm pretty much always confusing people, too. Apparently my world is pretty weird."

Weird-named kid pride!

"As is mine," he said with a commiserating smile. "Being a thousand years ago and several dimensions over, or so I hear." He shook his head, wondering at such turns life could take. "What is so odd about your world?"

"The Earth got invaded and taken over by aliens who made us all live in 'Human Preserves' and basically were giant space assholes." Pardon her language. "And another race of aliens showed up to conquer those aliens and tried to kill all the cats. It was a whole thing."

"...Oh." Even the normally silver-tongued Hyacinthe had to take a second to take all that in. "I will grant you that does sound weird," he said, unable not to smile at least a little bit. "What did they have against cats?"

"They're allergic," Tip said, smirking. It was all thoroughly horrible in almost every way while she was living it, but in retrospect she could definitely still find the humor in it all. "That's actually why they finally ended up leaving. They just couldn't eliminate the cats."

Especially when an 11 year old girl and a Boov handyman were madly cloning them.

Hyacinthe would agree that would do it, if he had any idea what 'a Boov' and 'cloning' was.

"I've noticed cats rarely do what you wish of them and will most cheerfully be where they are most wished gone," he said. "So that, at least, seems to be a point of similarity."

Hey, Tip was actually very used to explaining things that were well known concepts in her world. Maybe some day she'd explain them to him.

"Cats as a universal. I like that." Peridot would beg to differ, but then she always did. "So a thousand years ago, huh? So is your world run by a feudal system of lords, or. . . ?"

"Feudal lords?" Hyacinthe made a mental note to look that up on the Wikipedia on his phone. As he did with so very many things. "Terre D'Ange has a ruling family, as many countries do. The de la Courcels are directly descended from Blessed Elua himself as are all of the noble families. Each of the provinces has a duc that rules in the king's stead, as well and various aristocratic families if you're looking for lords and ladies."

So . . . that'd be a yes, then. As far as Tip could tell. And a system that had the whole 'destined by god' crap that most of the Christian world had tried at one point or another, too.

Gross.

"We've got some countries that still have kings and things," Tip said. "But in most places in my world they're just ceremonial now." Actually, in several places in her world, they'd been dethroned by Boov and never replaced, but that was neither here nor there.

Ha! Trying bringing up the concept of serfs and see how hard Hyacinthe laughed. Ditto the concept of Christianity. Hyacinthe's world was...special.

"Ceremonial?" Hyacinthe looked shocked. "Who rules instead? Is it a collection of warlords, like Skaldia? Or more like the ruling families of Caedicca Unitas? Wait--no, I heard of a Senate here. So more like Tiberium?"

And then he paused, sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I really need to memorize all the names of the countries that this world knows."

"Or just stop expecting people to know what you're referring to," Tip suggested. Because, yeah, she couldn't even guess about any of those. "We kinda . . . have rule by committee," she explained. "We ask for volunteers and then we -- meaning all the citizens of the country who are old enough -- vote on which of the volunteers we want to do the job. Then we do it all over again every couple of years to make sure that the people doing the ruling have to actually listen to us, and can't just get into office and do their own thing." She shrugged. "That's the theory, anyway. It's not a perfect system, but letting people chose their own governing bodies makes more sense to us than just assuming someone'll be good at being in charge because they were born to the right people."

"I forget," Hyacinthe said, a touch sheepishly. "'Tis just what the countries have been called for my whole life and 'tis hard to remember that 'tis not the same everywhere."

Even on an island of wonders, the idea that he was in a different dimension entirely was hard to wrap his head around. "Where are they trained to lead?" Hyacinthe asked. "Those born to rule at least have the benefit of being raised to it, learning statecraft at their parents' knee."

"College," Tip said. "A lot of the people who run for office are lawyers, so they've had to go to a lot of extra schooling. Plus they can get started at the local level, on city counsels and things, or by running for a position at their school when they're growing up. You can have people from all sorts of backgrounds and learning experiences working together, so you don't just have one theory of how it 'should' be done. I mean, in theory. Again, not perfect. But I'm not sure a 'perfect' system exists."

Hyacinthe had no idea what they taught at university. He'd never thought he'd go to school once his lessons at the local temple of Shemhazai had ended.

"The ancient Hellenes are said to have come closest," Hyacinthe said, with a shrug to convey that he had no idea what their cultural equivalent for this world was. "Though even the shining city of Athens refused to allow women or slaves a say. Any system that has slavery and excludes others cannot be called perfect."

"Hey, we have an Athens, too," Tip said, smiling. "And yeah, the ancient Greeks -- also known as the Hellenic Republic, I think -- were one of the bases of the whole democratic system. But yeah." She grimaced. "Someone who looked like me wouldn't have been allowed to vote in my country for the first, like, hundred and fifty years. And even now a lot of areas do their damnedest to keep my people from voting, anyway." One might have hoped that the Boov invasion would make a dent in systemic racism, but if anything, it just made the assholes dig in harder. "Still, it's nice having a government that at least pretends its open to changing with new ideas. Culture in my world moves really fast. If we didn't reelect our leaders every so often, they'd never be able to keep up."

"Errr..." Hyacinthe was leery of asking the question, but she had brought it up. "What is wrong with the way you look? I think you look quite lovely," he added quickly.

"And you're right," Tip said, pleased. "But according to the people who founded my country, I'm too dark by at least half." Since she was biracial. "They liked to keep black people as slaves and pretend they weren't really people. Because humans are terrible."

Hyacinthe held his own arm out and compared it to Gratuity's. She was far darker than he, but his own swarthy skin made his stand out against pure-blooded D'Angelines and gave away much of his heritage immediately.

"Where then might I rate?" he asked. "For I am lighter than you, though darker than, say, Cosette. I ask because your skin is a rich, warm brown, like the heart of an ancient oak tree. I would hardly call it black, though admittedly, skim is a shameful reason to enslave someone anyway." Shrugging, he added, "Not that I can think of a good one, in truth."

The Danger Shop won't let you do anything you shouldn't be doing in a class environment, but seriously. Jimi Hendrix.

By the time the shock of so many people had worn off, Hyacinthe was all too ready to sit and enjoy the music. Which didn't sound like any music he had ever heard, but by this point was barely relevant. The male on the guitar was gifted, even Hyacinthe could see that, and after some quick bartering and a bit of flirting, Hya had managed to find a seat with a decent vantage point and some pretty company.

Tip had heard Jimi Hendrix before. She'd heard this performance before. She knew this was a recording, but the holographic environment did a really spectacular job of replicating the feel of a live performance. She wasn't even usually into rock and roll, but this was Jimi goddamn Hendrix, pardon her language. She was entranced.

Khadgar had never in his life heard anything like this. It was completely amazing and he was just going to stand here and stare and hope to not get lost in the sea of people.

Whose mom would be jealous if Kitty ever told her anything of what she does ever.

I had all these plans to do research and spend the morning writing class because I'm not at work, and then my morning blew up so you get this.

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Firsthand History- Monday- 1st period

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OOC