milliways_bar | (no subject)

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captain kirk

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The time thing in this place can be pretty odd. Tali went back to the Citadel for what was (to her) a few hours to get some pieces of machinery that the technicians there were chucking out.^* When she came back she found she'd only been gone a few minutes bar time, if that: most of the people who had been sitting at various tables or the Bar itself were still where she'd left them.

Along with her haul of equipment, Tali has a note that she'd been meaning to write. She goes over to the Bar, putting her crate of loot down on the floor and taking out a folded piece of paper. "I do not know who to ask about making modifications to rooms," Tali admits to the Bar. "But you know. Could you please make sure they get this?" She puts the paper on the bartop, and it disappears.

I am interested in making some modifications to my room here, but they would involve some heavy work and a few structural changes. Because of that, it would be a good idea for me to ask permission and explain what I am going to do first.

Please come find me when you can. I wear a black environmental suit and dark blue headdress.

--Tali'Zorah nar Rayya

Satisfied, she goes off to a booth, spreads a protective cover on the table, and opens her box of goodies. She pulls out part of an air filtration system and starts dismantling it.

^* In truth, one could still get a lot of use out of such equipment, or at least cannibalize its components to build and repair other things. For the quarians, secondhand and slightly-damaged equipment is worth a great deal: it still amazes Tali that other species just throw it away!

[Tinytag: Tali'Zorah nar Rayya]

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"New project?" Jim is at another table, not wearing his jacket today, perusing a datapad.

"Oh! Hello. Yes, it is a new project. Sort of. I want to install a better decontamination system in my room. Or at the door, really. What they have here works, but it is very cumbersome and labor-intensive."

"Ah. I hadn't thought about that, actually. Though I should have.

"I am a bit surprised that the gear isn't state of the art, though, given how advanced everything else here is." He moves closer and looks over the odds and ends.

"What I'm working on is part of an air filter, this is part of an antiseptic mist sprayer, and this is the regulation unit for the weak kinetic field that removes surface contaminants," Tali says, pointing to each in turn. "What they have here is not very good. Maybe I will install more of these arrays in other rooms, if they will hire me to."

"Any chance you can install one for the main room? So that you can be freed of your gear? Or would that be too big a job?" He ponders how - in theory, at least - were she part of his crew Tali would probably not need such equipment in most Starfleet facilities.

"It would be much too big," Tali says. "I could make a single room into a sealed and controlled environment, but not the whole bar. It would have to have been built for that in the first place."

"I figured as much. Though that fact makes some sense. It's rather unusual to find non-humans here. Clearly, the Bar was not designed with them - you in mind." Which has always bothered him.

Tali shrugs: she doesn't seem too bothered by the lack of quarian-friendly design. "Even in what you'd call our natural habitat, we aren't exactly comfortable. We accept that when we leave the flotilla we must accept certain other difficulties."

"The flotilla...that's your natural habitat?" Interesting how of late Jim finds himself talking about such things more often here of late. Are the powers behind the Bar feeling a bit friendlier to non-Terrans?

"As I said, we all live on ships. Our collection of ships is called the Migrant Fleet or the flotilla. There are seventeen million of us on 50,000 vessels of various sizes. My clan owns one of the largest and oldest in the entire fleet - it dates all the way back to our exile. I suspect most of it dates to later than that, what with all the parts that have worn out and need to be replaced."

Jim involuntarily gives a low whistle. "That's impressive. The level of coordination needed to keep it together, to create a society must be very high. Never mind the level of technical sophistication."

"We have a very good system for keeping everything in order, yes. And making sure that everyone gets what they need to survive."

"How long have your peoples been in exile?"

[ooc: sorry about the huge blank space above which I didn't see till now]

"Three hundred years, since the geth drove us from our homeworld."

"Have you considered finding a new homeworld, or has this become too much the way of life to leave behind?"

"We'd like to settle somewhere, but habitable worlds are not easy to find, as I'm sure you know. We do not have the resources to explore unsurveyed systems ourselves, and suitable worlds that we know of are all in someone else's territory."

"Actually, we have found a fairly sizable number of habitable worlds in our timeline. But yes, resources are a problem. And you wouldn't be starting a colony."

"We would be starting over," Tali agrees. "If we wanted to build a colony we would have to take apart and rearrange bits of ships to do it. I am not sure how well that would work."

"And yet even with all your efforts to maintain the flotilla, a planet would ultimately be more secure, perhaps even healthier.

"Not, of course, that I can really relate. But even after all my years in space, I prefer being planetside." Just not necessarily on Earth.

"I don't know any other way to live. Not that I haven't been on a few planets. It feels very strange to me. I am used to enclosed spaces and crowds and noise," Tali says. "It actually took me a while to get used to the absence of those things when I went on my Pilgrimage."

"Pilgrimage?" He can hear the upper case P.

"It is our rite of passage into adulthood," Tali explains. "When we come of age, we leave the ships of our parents and go out to find something of value for the Migrant Fleet. When we return we give what we have found as a gift to the captain of a ship we wish to join. It can be a ship, resources, technology, or knowledge. By going on our Pilgrimages, we demonstrate that we will be a benefit to the crew we join, rather than a drain on scarce resources. Also, it maintains genetic diversity by making us move off the ship we were born on and to a different one."

"Many cultures have such rites of passage, but I don't think I've heard of one that's so...practical." Not that his approval matters, of course. "Can I ask where you went and what you found?"

"I had to bring back something really special for my Pilgrimage," Tali says. "I had heard that the geth were out beyond the Perseus Veil - that was where our homeworld and colonies were, before the exile. I managed to disable one and get some data from its memory core. I found out they were working with a Spectre...did the Commander tell you about the Spectres?"

"Yes. It's a kind of special agent for the galactic authorities. She's one."

Tali nods. "A Spectre named Saren had allied himself with the geth. He was working for an older species of sentient machines called the Reapers. The geth revered the Reapers as gods - I discovered that much from the data core, along with the evidence of Saren's betrayal.

"I knew this was valuable information, so I got a job as a mechanic on a ship headed to the Citadel. There I hoped to trade my information to an agent of the Shadow Broker - a sort of dealer in secrets. Unfortunately the man who promised to help me with the deal was actually working for Saren."

"Oh," Jim says with a tone that suggests he can guess how badly this must have gone down. "So you were in a trap? Or is this something I shouldn't ask about?"

"As you say, it was a trap. Fortunately Shepard found out about it and arrived just in time to help me. That's how I met her."

"So in a roundabout way, you found your place in the stars through the Pilgrimage. Though not with your own people?" As he's noted, Shepard and Tali seem to be a perfect team.

"I will go back to my people someday. Probably when my clansmen's ship leaves the Citadel - although I am not going to join the crew. I do not like their captain very much.

"The gift I found was better than I could have hoped for. Shepard was told by Alliance Command to investigate geth activity in the Armstrong Cluster. Those geth turned out to be scouts for an independent invasion force. I helped Shepard destroy their main base of operations, where we found a number of files on how the geth have evolved in the last three hundred years. She gave me a copy to bring home."

"Will your people throw their strength behind her efforts to stop the Geth?" He can't imagine otherwise.

"Ha. We have been waiting for someone to help us do that," Tali says wryly. "Saren's geth have been defeated: the ones in the Armstrong Cluster as well. They have retreated back behind the Perseus Veil. The Council may decide to move against them now, since the geth are not just a quarian problem any more."

"And yet Commander Shepard can't get her own people to see that. Which seems foolish. Shortsighted...perhaps even suicidal." He sounds just a bit grim.

"It was not just the humans who gravely underestimated the threat. But when it happened, she was able to call the human fleet in to save the Citadel." Beat. "Many humans lost their lives that day. The galaxy owes them a great debt."

And yet...

Jim knows about doing your duty even when no one else sees it.

"And apparently also owes Commander Shepard as well."

"She does not feel that the galaxy owes her anything. Except maybe a vacation." Tali shrugs. "She is the first human Spectre: that is a great honor. She will also be one of the first humans awarded a Council Legion of Merit medal, and will be remembered in her people's history books as the one who got humans on the Citadel Council. The Council can hardly refuse to take on a human representative now. But I think she is embarrassed by all the attention."

Jim smiles. "I sort of know the feeling. Not exactly the same way she does, but I've seen my own share of undue hero worship, and while I haven't turned down any of my medals, I probably should have.

"Though at least they did give me a vacation."

"Hopefully she will have a little time after the Citadel is in better condition, but I doubt it. With the Council and Alliance in disarray following the battle, there may be an upsurge in criminal activity in the Verge and the Traverse - which means the Spectres will have their work cut out for them."

"Ever heard the old saying, 'no rest for the weary'? Though who knows? Maybe that's why she's Bound? To get some rest." He's wondered if that were true for him all those months ago.

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