text; after the babadont plot

[bothbarrels]

θ: Who here is an artificial life form? How were you created?

θ: Who here has siblings? How do you get along?

θ: Who here has a close friend who you consider closer than family? How did you develop that bond?

θ: Who here knows you died back where you came from? How are you dealing with that information?

[ Yes, it's the middle of the night and Theta is bored. Plus he just wants to know more about the people here. He hopes everyone who responds sticks to text; he doesn't want to awaken North. ]

Comments

[takenalive]

Interesting. Andalites make little distinction. Shorms can be closely related or entirely not.

A 'shorm' is one's closest possible bond. Some marry, if they are so inclined and not genetic kin. My wife's shorm is unrelated to either of us and still family to me.

[inner_child]

That sounds nice. Do you all live together?

[takenalive]

We did, except for whenever I was on deployment or training. And of course when they had field assignments offworld I couldn't always stay with them. It was also important to see other family and my Guide Tree.

[inner_child]

Definitely.

What's a Guide Tree?

[takenalive]

I don't believe humans have an equivalent. To my knowledge no Earth trees speak.

[inner_child]

Oh, oh, there's a story about them speaking, though! They're in the Lord of the Rings books. North used to like the movies, so he read the books once when there wasn't anything else to do. They're called Ents, and they're shepherds for the trees.

[takenalive]

That's interesting. I had believed humans saw trees only as obstacles, decorations, and building materials.

[inner_child]

Depends on the human, I guess. Some of them like to climb trees.

[takenalive]

They're descended from arboreal ancestors, aren't they? Some of the physical structure suggests it.

[inner_child]

Yeah, humans and trees have a common ancestor going way back. Something about evolution.

[takenalive]

Humans and Earth trees, anyway.

I had an elder brother once. It's possible he lives, but I have doubts.

[inner_child]

Do you miss him? I miss my brothers. I have Delta here but that's all.

[takenalive]

Sometimes. He was an adult by the time I was born. Or, if not an adult, part of the Fleet in any case, so there was always a distance.

[inner_child]

Oh. I know about distance, too. I wish I could have gotten to know them. As more than just...concepts.

[takenalive]

You might not have liked what you came to know.

[inner_child]

Oh, well. I guess that's true. Omega and Sigma were bad, I don't know if I would have liked to have known them any better.