fandomhigh | Discovering Earth, Friday, Period 2

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Discovering Earth, Friday, Period 2

Class had been ~~handwavily~~ contacted ahead of time to be informed that their usual meeting place would be Portalocity, and that for today they should bring warm-weather clothes, and swimsuits if they were so inclined.

"Hello," Hannibal greeted them all with a smile. "Welcome to class, which this semester is Discovering Earth. If you think perhaps it sounds rather like an excuse to show off my planet to those of you not from it, you would be absolutely right."

And that included his co-teacher.

"And that includes me," Kanan noted, not privy enough to the narrative to keep from being repetitive. He was a dick that way. "This class is going to be a little bit of Hannibal showing off, and a little bit of me indulging my curiosity. And I have it on good authority that I have a healthy curiosity."

Or, at least, he used to.

"See, the thing about this planet is, I don't know kark-all about it. So what's going to happen this semester, and is probably going to happen a lot, is that I'm going to go, 'hey, you said Earth had something like this,' and the good Doctor here is going to prove it, lest I start to doubt that Earth can have, say, a sunny beach even while we're on our millionth consecutive week of cold and rain. Apparently to do that, Dr. Lecter here is taking us to the other side of the planet."

Hannibal waved them through the portal.

"Welcome to Townsville, Australia."

They came out in a small park, water glinting in the distance in the bright afternoon sun.

"Australia is the name of both this continent and this country," Hannibal explained. "This state is in the eastern portion, and is called Queensland, and Townsville is the city. It is roughly one-third the size of Baltimore. The local language here is, for the most part, English. Or whatever it is you speak that sounds like it," he added with a wry grin at Kanan.

"Basic," Kanan supplied, taking it upon himself to hand out brochures to students as Hannibal spoke. "I guess the real fun is going to start when we head somewhere that speaks a language we don't even have where I'm from."

"One of the main draws here is the Great Barrier Reef," Hannibal said, "the largest living coral reef in the world. It's actually visible from space," he added to Kanan.

"See, you say things like that, and I'm going to go barvy trying to find fuel for my ship," Kanan replied, smirking a little. "Sounds like one hell of a view."

"One of the best ways to experience it, until you can find that fuel, and unless you can SCUBA dive," Hannibal said, "is via a glass-bottom boat, and we have such a tour arranged. However, there are a number of other things to do here as well, if you would rather, or if you want to investigate them afterward. There are a water park, an aquarium, a casino, a wildlife park, and two different botanical gardens. There is an assortment of shopping and dining options on Flinders Street."

He checked his watch. "For those of you who were only planning on an hour's stay, there will be a portal back here in one hour. However, for the rest of you, there will be a portal here around ten p.m. which will also return you to the school one hour after you left."

"Before we get to that, though, we're going to keep you for a minute," Kanan noted. "You know, for the traditional pain-in-the-neck introductions. Don't worry, it's the last time most of you are going to have to do it this semester. I'll start. I'm Kanan Jarrus, from the Core Worlds region of my home Galaxy." That narrowed it down a lot, but still left it fairly open-ended. Just because he wasn't hiding the whole Jedi thing all that much these days didn't mean he was going to just out and say 'Coruscant.' "And I'm looking forward to seeing this whole 'single planet with multiple biomes' thing in action."

"And I'm Doctor Hannibal Lecter, from Earth," Hannibal added, with a grin at his own redundancy, since that was probably patently obvious by now. "So. Tell us who you are, where you are from, and if there's anything in particular you'd like to learn or see of Earth."

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Discovery!

Ada Miller

Mara Jade

Kaylin Neya

Cosette Fauchelevent

In which two guys talk a lot and we go to Australia.

They started talking about scuba and boats and water parks and aquariums, and Ada started turning more and more pale.

She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding when they got to casino. Hopefully this wasn't a sign of what she could expect for the whole semester.

Name, where you're from, and what you hope to experience on Earth!

"Ada Miller, from nowhere in particular," she said. "Mostly th' American Southwest through th' deep south."

"I ain't never been outta th' States before, so that's what I'm interested in.'

Hannibal nodded to her. "Welcome, Ada. We'll likely spend at least one of our visits in the States, but there is certainly a lot more to the world," despite what some Americans seemed to think, "so I hope you enjoy it."

'Nowhere in particular' sounded an awful lot like where Kanan was from, these days. He could appreciate that.

"The deep south, huh? What's that like?"

Asked Kanan, who knew nothing about America in general, really.

"I'm Mara Jade," Mara said with her ~~British~~ Imperial accent, "from Imperial Center, in the same galaxy as Master Jarrus. I just like learning--I'm fascinating by the number of different climates here, but only a limited number of intelligent species."

It was probably fortunate that Kanan wasn't eating or anything when Mara introduced herself, because there either would have been a spit-take or a choking incident at that 'Master.'

Dammit, Mara.

"Earth is definitely something unique," he managed, after just a moment taken to stand gape-mouthed like a mynock caught in a starship fusion chamber. "Apparently they have different climates even across single continents. Which I'll believe when I actually see it for myself."

She did love giving him heart failure.

She snorted. "That sounds ~~hard to keep track of in cartoons and movies~~ needlessly complicated."

"That's what I keep saying," Kanan replied, shrugging. "It's like this system went, 'well, we can only handle one sentient species at a time, might as well overcompensate with the planet itself.'"

That was not really how that went, Kanan, no.

"And the sentient species can barely get themselves into space," Mara scoffed.

Snob.

"Yeah," Kanan agreed. "The humans here have barely managed that much."

Not that he was stressing that the local sentient species was human for the Imp girl or anything, honest.

Much.

"Well, the fish here are hardly going to beat them to advancement, either," Mara said with a little grin. "We should visit them in 50,000 years and see if they've gotten better."

"Welcome, Mara." Hannibal nodded to her. "I couldn't say why Earth has so few sentient species, but I would have thought that most planets had multiple climates. I was fascinated to hear that's not always the case in your galaxy."

Because that's not how planets worked.

"Well, we've had many more planets and systems to learn from than you have so far," Mara said, smiling sweetly. "I can learn about your planet, and maybe you can learn about some of ours."

"We are rather isolated, aren't we?" Hannibal answered blithely. "As I understand it, your galaxy has thousands of planets, cultures, and forms of resources; it's odd to me that your technology has advanced so little in the last few thousand years. I would have thought that in the time it takes one planet to bring itself from stone age to space age, an entire galaxy would have managed to develop at least a sense of perspective."

Mara's lips pursed. "We have plenty of perspective," she said shortly, spinning off to explore Townsville.

"Kaylin Neya," she said. "I'm from Elantra and I guess I'd just like to see other places."

"As good a reason to be in a class about seeing other places as any," Kanan decided, grinning faintly. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Elantra isn't much like Earth, either?"

"Not a whole lot, no," Kaylin said. "But it might be a lot more like Earth a really long time ago. Except with magic. And lots of sentient beings Earth doesn't have."

"Huh. Another world with non-human sentient life. Earth is really going to have to step it up at this rate," Kanan mused, shooting a little smirk in Hannibal's direction. "Hopefully there'll be something here that you can find interesting."

"I'm sure there will be," Kaylin said with a smile.

"Careful, or I'll take you to Jono's Earth," Hannibal warned, smirking.

"Been there, helped haul the little hairy guy out of your wedding cake," Kanan replied, smirking right back. "That one was a little too interesting."

"And you haven't seen most of the sentient variety there," Hannibal said. "Although apparently most of them are still considered human."

Hannibal could argue against that from a scientific standpoint, but he preferred his bed to the couch.

"Oh, I don't know. I'd be willing to make an argument that the idiots who crashed your wedding were barely even sentient," Kanan pointed out.

Considering how many of them had wound up messy de-boned blobs on the floor, that argument held true more now than it probably had before the wedding.

"I won't argue," Hannibal said. "But they weren't born into their various parts - only their stupidity."

Kanan shrugged his shoulders at that.

"Hey, cyborg parts don't have anything to do with sentience," he replied. "I was talking purely about how stupid they are."

Hannibal nodded. "In that case, I heartily agree."

"Hello again, Kaylin." Hannibal gave her a smile. "I hope you enjoy our trips this semester."

"I liked the last class where we went places," Kaylin admitted.

Of course that was pretty food oriented, but still.

"So did I," Hannibal answered, smiling. "There may be less food this semester, but I hope it will still prove interesting."

"It probably will," Kaylin said. "You know a lot of cool stuff."

High praise from Kaylin.

And Hannibal was delighted to have risen so far in her esteem. He gave her a smile and a bow. "I do my best."

"Hello -- again," Cosette added with a slight nod to Hannibal, and a smile for . . . everyone, really. "I'm Cosette, I'm from Paris, and I haven't got any particular preference for what to see, I'm only sorry I can't see everything in the course of one term."

"We'll get as close to a sampling of a little bit of everything as we can," Kanan replied, nodding a welcome to Cosette. "But if there's as much to take in as I'm led to believe, we might have to continue teaching this one in workshop format another time, too."

Maybe. Perhaps.

"Well, we'll do our best to experience as much as possible, anyway," Hannibal assured her with a smile.

There are two - one first thing, so folks leaving after an hour can do that. Another after sunset, using UV lights so you can see all the polyps waking up.

Do what you want! Ping if you have questions.

When they tag in!

Kanan was going for that glass-bottomed boat tour. Both times. Mostly out of curiosity, but partly because he was well aware that it would be a terrible idea for him to go to a casino during class hours.

Hannibal was also taking both boat tours. And in between...well, there were a lot of different cuisines here. And he'd heard something about skydiving.

But he'd also be around for questions. And for mercilessly teasing Kanan about single-biome planets.

Beep Boop

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Discovering Earth, Friday, Period 2

Sign In

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Lecture

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Introduce Yourself

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Glass-bottom Boat Tour

Shopping, Dining, Hiking, etc.

Talk to the Teachers

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OOC