How To Be Civilized, Friday, Period 3

[1000yearstoolate]

"Welcome back," Seivarden said, standing in front of the class. "Today we're going to watch an entertainment, which is what is called a movie on Earth. This one is quite popular, a historical drama, and I'm showing it to you to give you an idea of civilized behaviour."

 

It had taken her a while to choose. Some students would likely be too excited about something romantic, while others would be too happy with anything with lots of space battles. Since Radchaai politics bothered a lot of people here she had avoided historical dramas involving a lot of that.

 

She had settled on one where a spaceship goes mad when its beloved Captain dies, even if it had some space battles.

 

"This one is set before the Lord of the Radch came to power, so I just want to point out that spaceships aren't this unreliable these days."

 

She pressed play.

 

The plot went like this:

A brave Captain from a prestigious family left her beloved to go to battle on her ship named Ineluctable Ascendancy of Mind Unfolding (the whole name was repeated every time the ship name was mentioned). The Captain and her crew of Lieutenants were introduced in the first scenes, and a few ancillaries, human bodies connected to the ship's AI, could be seen in the background. Then there was an impressive battle scene with a lot of ships and a lot of explosions, and the ship was damaged and later boarded. The Captain was shot and the ship, mad with grief at the death of her beloved captain, sent the enemies out the airlock and had her own crew locked up "to protect them". The rest of the entertainment showed another brave Captain chasing the mad ship through the galaxy, eventually catching up with it, saving the crew and blowing up the ship.

 

And in all of this there was a lot of drinking tea, some polite conversation and some polite but insulting conversation, and. Everyone used female pronouns and should anyone care, it was difficult to tell the biological sex of a lot of the characters.

 

"There's tea, of course," Seivarden said, gesturing at the tea set.

 

[Wait for OCD OCD is up]