Mingle - Emergency Potluck

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WELCOME POTLUCK

Greetings, residents! Those more observant sorts among you may have noticed a large influx of very crowded ferries. In order to welcome our new residents en masse, Town Hall is holding a potluck in Town Square. Please bring a dish if you are able and make a new friend!

All of our newest arrivals need only bring themselves. We look forward to welcoming you all into our community, and may your lanterns always be lit.

This event is open to all! In light of our new influx of prospective players following the Great Sail Migration, we've decided to offer a small public event to tide everyone over until the TDM this weekend.

Comments

[tehilim127_1]

"Ah," the older woman says, in what sounds like understanding. "My people do, but only within a very complicated set of restrictions that I can't easily follow here. I'm still working out what to do, and for now it might be easier to go without." And indeed there's nothing on her plate that seems to be of animal origin, if one were to take a look.

"I'm Zivia," she adds -- the opening consonant is almost _tz_, like the middle sound of pizza. "Zivia Birnbaum. I've only just arrived here."

[astrogator]

Tayrey can appreciate that pragmatic caution over the food, and gives her an approving nod.

'Lieutenant Arilanna Tayrey,' she offers in return. 'Peace and prosperity to you.' There's no offered handshake, but only because Zivia's hands are full, and it's hardly polite to inconvenience her.

'How are you finding it?' she asks, as delicately as she's able. Tayrey has come to understand that all of them who arrive here do so from the verge of death. For her, it was an escape from horrific imprisonment, but the older woman wasn't aboard that nightmare ship. She might feel differently.

[tehilim127_1]

"Peace and prosperity," she echoes, and smiles, with a bob of the head in place of a handshake. "That's a lovely greeting. We sometimes say peace as a greeting or farewell, too. Shalom, that would be."

She takes a sip of her drink as she considers Tayrey's question. "It's ... a good deal to get used to. I don't think I've got my bearings well enough to know how I'm finding it yet. Everyone I've met so far has been very welcoming, and that's good at least."

[astrogator]

'I guess it's such an unprecedented situation,' she agrees. 'But you're right, the new people I've met here seem friendly. It helps. The rest will take time.'

Tayrey can't help her curiosity, and she circles back to that greeting. 'Shalom, you said. Do I have that right? What language is it?'

[tehilim127_1]

"Yes, that's right, well done." She smiles. "It's Hebrew. It's our ancestral language -- wasn't my first because they speak English where I grew up, but I've learned a lot of it."

[astrogator]

Hebrew. It's the second time she's heard the word today. Zivia's ancestors might have been those people who found their way out of the desert, then. It feels serendipitous.

'I speak my second language more often than my first - my ship has people from all over, so we speak a common trade language when we're working.' Most of the time, anyway, she thinks. (She hasn't noticed that she's speaking about the Tradelines in the present tense again.)

'It's a little disconcerting to have learned this Emeran language all of a sudden, but I guess they must have some efficient subliminal method. Still, I think people's own languages matter.' Tayrey grins suddenly. 'So how would I say peace and prosperity in Hebrew?'

[tehilim127_1]

Zivia's smile widens, looking pleased and a touch surprised. "Oh, that's an interesting question ... is it meant in the sense of, like, societal prosperity? Or individual? Come to think, some say shalom u'vracha, which is more like 'peace and blessing', I don't know if that carries quite the same meaning ..."

[astrogator]

'That's a good question! I don't know that we make the distinction, linguistically.' She's thinking about it now, though, because it's the sort of analytical question that ought to matter.

'I think that blessing might not be... financial enough, in connotation. Peace and prosperity, in Sector Standard, is the greeting of the Tradelines, and it carries our core mission. We're a military and trade organisation. Peace is obvious, yes? It's our duty to maintain it. Prosperity - it is individual, that a person can do business unhindered, that contracts are upheld, that nobody stands in the way of opportunity to make a fair profit. But the more individual success there is, the more prosperous the colony as a whole, in infrastructure. Or reputation. And that matters too.'

[tehilim127_1]

She listens to the explanation, nodding. "That makes sense. If I were translating I might go with parnassah, in that case -- that's 'livelihood', more or less. Personal financial success and stability. Possibly parnassah tovah, that would be a good livelihood."

A pause. "I'm curious -- where are the Tradelines? It doesn't sound at all familiar to me, but I've gotten the idea that there are people here from many different worlds and times."

[astrogator]

That sounds just about right to Tayrey. She nods eagerly. 'So - shalom parnassah tovah? No grammatical modifications?' She says this as a speaker of four languages, knowing that only the trading ones tend to simplify over time.

Then she turns to the bigger question. 'Different universes, so far as I can tell,' she says carefully. 'I was born on a Company-owned colony world called Cardalek. There are over a hundred inhabited planets in our sector - but many have very small populations, by Earth standards. Comparable to your smaller countries? Often the founding colonists only terraform a portion of the planet. Anyway, each of them having their own space fleet just isn't economically viable. The Tradelines are an interstellar organisation. We protect all our insured colonies, and keep the lines of trade between them clear and safe for civilian starships.'

[tehilim127_1]

"Shalom u-pharnassah tovah," Zivia corrects, emphasizing the long u and softening the p-sound into ph. "Sorry, yes, there are grammatical modifications -- I know them well enough to translate most of the time, but unfortunately not really well enough to teach them."

And she listens to the explanation about the Tradelines with growing interest. "That's fascinating. We don't have anything like that where I come from, as far as I know, even on a smaller scale ... An independent organization? Not run by any one of the colonies, or the -- whatever central civilization they came from?"

[astrogator]

Tayrey gives Zivia a good-natured smile, and tries again. 'Shalom u-pharnassah tovah. I like the sound of that. Don't worry, it's always difficult to explain a language you know very well.'

She's only too happy to talk more about the Tradelines. 'That's right, not run by any of the colonies, and very decentralised. There's a central finance office on one of the central worlds, but other than that? Tradeline captains are the ultimate authority shipside. There's just... a Tradeline code, and standard procedures for everyone to follow, so it's - something like a franchise? We're trusted, because of that consistency. You don't have anything remotely similar?'

[tehilim127_1]

"Not that I know of. We don't have any space travel to speak of, so all our trade is within and between continents on the one planet. And I think our trade and travel has generally been under the auspices of one government or another ... I'm not an expert on the subject, though, especially historically."

[astrogator]

She nods. 'My people gained our independence from a very overbearing and tyrannical government, long ago, so most colonial Charters limit government functions. But history isn't my field either; I mainly know Tradeline history because learning it is part of our officer training. Remembering those who came before us, yes? My homeworld is Company-owned, so it's run by shareholder vote, but other colonies have different systems. What sort of government does yours have?'

She's genuinely curious, in part because she wants to check it's not tyranny. Tayrey uses the term loosely; the Breakaway war was sparked by a government attempt to seize intellectual property, but grievances ranged from intrusive surveillance and harsh suppression of dissent to the very concept of taxation.

[tehilim127_1]

"Well," and her voice goes a touch rueful and sardonic, "the country I live in also gained its independence from an overbearing and tyrannical government, so goes the story, and it set itself up as a representative democracy about two hundred some years ago. And mostly it's managed to keep from being too tyrannical over most of its own citizens, ever since then. People who weren't citizens, though, or people who some other people thought shouldn't count as citizens, that's been a different story. A lot of good and valuable ideas in its founding; mixed results on living up to them."

[astrogator]

'I wish I could say that I didn't know exactly what you meant about people playing political games over who should get citizens' rights, but-' Tayrey shrugs. 'Those who benefit from trying to take others' freedoms are always going to look for loopholes. We've had robust enough opposition to stop them from getting anywhere, but it's always a danger.'

Then she adds, more optimistically: 'At least societies founded on resisting tyranny will recognise the intrinsic value of liberty.' Something Tayrey had believed self-evident, until she'd met people content to live in a cage because they feared what might be outside it. 'That counts for a lot.'

[tehilim127_1]

"Yes, exactly. It does make a difference that the ideals are good ones, even if they've never been fully achieved."

She glances around. "Do you know, I haven't worked out yet what kind of government they have here? I wonder if they'd be willing to do some sort of ... quick and dirty civics lessons, for all of us just getting here. It all feels familiar enough that I've been vaguely assuming the laws are more or less the same as at home, and I've got no idea if that's true."

[astrogator]

She shakes her head. 'I'd guess it's not true at all, but then everyone I've met from other universes has had radically different ideas about politics.' Tayrey hasn't been terribly worried, because a Tradeliner follows Tradeline code no matter where she is, regardless of local law, and there's no overt evidence of tyranny or oppression in this place.

'I guess it would be good to stay informed. Ordinarily I'd suggest attending the next citizens' assembly, but that would be assuming they have one.'

[tehilim127_1]

"There might be one, or something like it. A lot here feels familiar, and that's making me wonder what I'm missing. Eh ..." She tips her head side to side, in a gesture that seems to stand in for a shrug. "We'll see."