fandomhigh | Archaeology for Fun and Profit! [Tues, 1st Period]

Finding out about the Danger Shop had been a delightful surprise given the average level of tech about this place, but even Aphra needed time to familarise herself with entirely new hardware and software. So reluctantly she'd settled for one of the 'normal' classrooms today.

Which didn't even have holoprojecters. Honestly.

Once it looked like she had roughly the right number of students, Aphra turned the chair at the front desk around and flopped down into it backward, forearms dangling over the backrest.

"I'm Doctor Aphra and given some of the things I've been hearing I should probably assure you that I'm actually qualified to teach this subject," she began. "Which is archaeology in case some of you just dropped in because you're bored.

"But what is archaeology?" She drummed her fingers against the chair. "Well, essentially it's grave-robbing with fancier paperwork. In both cases you go somewhere people used to live, dig up the place, and take their stuff. Sometimes their corpses too. Only difference is that paperwork."

"Buuuuuuuuuuuuut..." Aphra drew out the word. "That paperwork makes all the difference. See you get the same loot, and the same dead bodies if you're into that, but archaeologists take notes and verify their finds, which means their old, dead stuff is worth a lot more." Academically and monetarily. "They become artefacts, and you can learn from those, including where to find more artefacts.

"Still, much as I love the sound of my own voice, apparently I'm supposed to do introductions this week, so we'll do that then an exercise so you can understand what being an archaeologist is all about."

Aphra pointed to a random student. "You with the face. You're first. Who are you? Why are you here? What's in your pockets?"

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Once introductions were through, Aphra stood up again.

"So archaeology isn't just amazing discoveries and death defying escapes," she said. "That's just field work, which hey, we're going to focus on because it's what I do best, but there's also the academic side of things which involves analysing those amazing discoveries and arguing over who's got the best interpretation about them."

She snapped her fingers and gestured around the room. "You all just died. In fact the entire island died. It was very tragic. However in a few centuries, when no one even knows there was ever anyone living here, some brilliant, daring archaeologist is going to find this place and your relatively well preserved remains including what you've all got on you." Hence the pocket question. "You're going to use that information to try come up with then prove your pet theories about what was going on here before whatever killed you all killed you, as well as explain why everyone else's theories are wrong. Feel free to gang up on each other if anyone comes up with an especially good theory, you're all fighting over funding here."

Edited 2017-05-09 15:11 (UTC)

"Or I could just destroy everyone else's funding applications with a computer virus, making mine the only possible choice."

YOU CAME TO THE WRONG PERSON ABOUT BUREAUCRACY.

"Good idea, but you still need to write that app to begin with." Aphra sounded less disapproving than she probably should have.

"Okay, I can bullshit my way through a finance report without getting to any specific point. My best friend was in that department back at Hyperion."

He could have suggested blackmail. So. He was being ethical...ish.

This was literally the one thing he could do.

"Ooooh, good one," Peebee said approvingly.

No, Peebee.

"It was that or blackmailing members of the board that awards the funding," Rhys replied cheerfully.

And that was how he got as far as he did at Hyperion.

"I bet someone is bound to have some skeletons in their closet."

"Oh, definitely," Peebee agreed. "Who knows what kind of potentially juicy gossip you could dig up? Maybe even literally. Useful stuff, if you know what to do with it."

Someone had taken all her early lessons in the asari art of diplomacy and applied them in a completely different direction.

"Good way to get ahead."

Oh, this class was just going to end up using history to screw people over, wasn't it?

It looked like it could be heading in that direction! Though Peebee would argue that she'd only do that to people who deserved it.

"Gotta keep all your options open, right?" She winked at him.

"Exactly!" Finally someone got it. "I'm Rhys."

You were talking to someone who was eventually going to casually lure a couple of her squadmates into an escape pod and then surprise-launch it into an active volcano just because she was in a hurry to get planetside and it was faster than telling the pilot there wasn't going to be a safe place to land the ship, Rhys. So.

"Peebee," she said with a grin. "We just might get along, I think."

Archaeology for Fun and Profit! [Tues, 1st Period]

Class Exercise - ArchFun [01]

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