milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Since leaving Milliways the first time Diana has been traveling steadily east.

By plane. Then by train.

It has been a very interesting experience, and in certain cases very -- enlightening.

And yet she is still not at all disappointed to open the door to a local cafe and find Milliways waiting on the other side.

The chairs here, for example, are much more comfortable. And the fireplace contains fish.

It's a different sort of interesting, and one that is arguably more familiar than not. Such is the life of an Amazon and member of the Justice League.

Even one currently wearing slacks and a solid-colored blouse rather than her more iconic uniform.

[ooc: Open until it scrolls.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'd hope that if there are enough survivors for a few towns that there are likely to be other such congregations of people farther out. Still and all -- I'm sorry. Those would be difficult conditions for anyone to survive in.

Her expression is just this side of somber, at least for a few moments.

"I'm Diana, and I'm from about seventy years earlier than the nuclear strikes it sounds like they released."

"I know there's people on the West Coast. I've met one from what used to be California, and one from... well, I don't know where, exactly, but I think it's north of California." Ellen shrugs. "Met them both here, though. I haven't ever been that far, and I don't know who has."

"My name's Ellen Park, ma'am. It's good to meet you. Um... you might not be from my world. If you could tell me who the first man on the moon was, that's one way I've found of finding out."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Ellen. Probably another simple way is to ask if your world has anyone that people would refer to as superheroes."

She smiles slightly.

"At least in my case."

"Only in the comic books, ma'am," says Ellen promptly. "I've had a couple of other people ask that, but no, no superheroes. And not the kind of mutants other people talk about, either. We just get the nasty sort."

"Like the giant crabs, I see. Do you have weapons capable of defending yourself and your communities, and enough supplies to keep them running for the foreseeable future?"

It would seem to be a matter of paramount concern -- though the answer is likely yes, given that Ellen is here and speaking about her world's population centers.

"Some people do," Ellen says. "Megaton, where I'm living now, is a walled town- they built it out of airplane parts after the war, to keep themselves safe from raiders. Canterbury Commons has some pre-war robots that do a lot of the guard duty, when they don't have people on patrol themselves. Arefu's only about four or five people at this point, but they're on top of what's left of an overpass and they got the Family to help with guard duty... weapons are pretty much whatever you can scavenge, I guess. I haven't seen anybody who manufactures stuff, unless the Brotherhood of Steel does and I haven't heard about it."

Her tone indicates that she's doubtful about that.

"They seem prepared enough, considering the difficulties that must still plague them. Do you have any difficulty in scavenging weapons? I admit a preference for carrying my own, but there is a great deal of truth to 'needs must'."

Even when the devil is not the one driving.

Ellen fidgets a little. "I escaped the Vault with a pistol, and I managed to wind up pretty well armed, for a while," she says. "The Gauss rifle I found in the pre-war armory was really nice. I'd still have that and my laser pistol, and proper armor, if I hadn't gotten kidnapped by those aliens..."

It would probably sound ludicrous to anyone in the Wasteland other than Somah and Paulson. But this is Milliways. Around here that kind of thing probably happens all the time, right?

"You have no armaments left at all? And no way to obtain them? I presume Bar does not sell weaponry, but that sounds incredibly troublesome for a world such as yours."

And as for the other --

"You're not still on their ship, are you? Most alien species seem to have at least one when they decide to invade Earth."

What? It's the truth.

"Oh, no, I'm not on their ship any more," Ellen hastily assures the older woman. "I didn't even think to look for a door to Milliways up there, although maybe I should've. There were a couple of other humans awake on the ship, and we thawed out some of the ones the aliens had frozen, and between one thing and another we wound up winning our way free and blowing up another alien ship. I made sure to gather as many of their guns as I could and stuff my pockets with all the ammo I could carry before I got beamed back, because I knew I'd come down in the middle of the Wasteland and it wasn't like I even had armor any more, so I'd better have some firepower instead."

"I don't think I would have thought to look for a doorway, either. Are they likely to look for you, the aliens you freed yourself from? Or did they flee in the wake of their ships exploding?"

Depending on which planet they came from, those seem to be the two most likely options.

"Is the medicine on your world sufficient enough to aid those who were frozen?"

"I don't know," Ellen admits. "They didn't speak English, and I couldn't understand their language. I found some recordings, though, from people- they'd been collecting humans for centuries, studying their specimens." She grimaces. "The last recording was from a man who said he'd figured out that they were trying to make us into some kind of abomination, slave fighters or something. I don't think it was an invasion force- there were only the two ships there, as far as I could tell."

Then she shakes her head. "No. No, it's not. One of the people who was thawed out was a medic from before the War, back when we had stuff that worked, and even Elliott had trouble reviving people from the pods for more than a few minutes. I don't think anybody in my world has that kind of knowledge any more."

Diana's face tightens, going sharp.

"A slave army, I see. The second ship remains, then?"

That is rarely a good sign.

"Is that knowledge something that could be re-imported? Re-learned? I have seen people obtain books and more from the Lady Bar. Or is it the requisite equipment that your world lacks, now?"

"The second ship's still there, but it's commanded by humans," Ellen says. "I'm pretty sure Elliott and the others will wind up having to do something about that eventually, but right now they're living up there and making sure the aliens are all swept out."

She glances over at the bar. "It's everything," she says. "The knowledge, the resources, the time to do stuff that isn't just surviving... we've got weapons, and we've got walled places like Megaton, but feeding ourselves is hard work. A shotgun's worth less than the equivalent weight of clean water. Food's what people can hunt, or what they can scavenge that was manufactured before the War and hasn't had its seals broken yet. People spend so long just surviving and protecting themselves from everything out there that they don't even have a school in Megaton, let alone someone who could spend the time learning that kind of medicine."

Had they but worlds enough, and time.

"I wish them luck, Elliott and the others. Have they supplies enough to remain? Or will they need to find escape pods or have the ship enter Earth's atmosphere?"

And as for the rest --

"Perhaps there are facilities on the ship that could be used, at least in one location or the other. How recently is it, do you know, that people have begun to repopulate and expand? You said it has been two hundred years since the initial attack, but the fallout and subsequent radiation must have taken a great deal of time to fade enough to allow for human habitation of the surface."

"I think they'll be all right for a good while," Ellen says. "Before I left, we found part of the ship where the aliens had been growing their own food supplies. It's not the kind of stuff humans are used to eating, but it's edible, and they have plenty of water. There's a teleporter on the ship they can use to get back to Earth if they have to- that's how I got down here. As long as somebody can make the samurai understand what's going on, they should be okay."

She thinks for a while, then shakes her head. "I don't know. Megaton's been there for ages, but they don't have a written history. The oldest woman in town said it was... I think her grandfather's time, or her great-grandfather's... when they built the place. It was mostly people trying to get into Vault 101 who couldn't breach the entrance, and didn't have anywhere else to go. " After a moment she adds, "Weasel- he's the person I met from California- Weasel's from maybe eighty years before me. He says there's towns in California back in his time, so I guess it faded soon enough for that..."

"And there were no major upheavals since his time? I would have hoped -- "

She breaks off, shaking her head ever-so-slightly.

"Are people in your time more organized? Even if they are still existing at subsistence level, scavenging -- has anyone tried to grow crops or found untouched seeds that might be cultivated? I can see that there could be grave difficulties with mutations and poor soil quality, not to mention the difficulty with obtaining water."

"I haven't seen any signs of people growing stuff in the Wasteland," Ellen says. "In Rivet City, which is a settlement in an old aircraft carrier, they've got some vegetable growing going on. We had hydroponic farms in the Vault, but the Overseer said I'd be shot on sight if I came anywhere near the door ever again. They didn't seem to be growing anything in Arefu or Canterbury Commons- mostly just kept two-headed cows who could live on the- well, I guess it's grass... but no farm plants that I saw."

"And what about trading? Do the cities with farming capabilities -- or the Vaults with hydroponics equipment -- do they trade with the cities that raise animals, two-headed or not? Or does it remain every community for themselves?"

Though with a name like the Wasteland --

"Well, most of the people in Megaton that I've met look pretty healthy," Ellen says. "Better than the people in Arefu, anyway. And they're all right in Canterbury Commons, too, they don't look much like they've got scurvy-" She pauses, then adds, "My dad was a doctor. He taught me to read using his medical texts and an old family Bible. That's how I'd know what scurvy looks like- anyway, Canterbury Commons has caravans stop there all the time, so I guess they probably trade with Rivet City. Nobody's been able to tell me where any other Vaults are, though, so they can't be trading much if they're even out there."

"Are they afraid or insular, these Vaults? Or is it that they're merely self-sufficient enough not to require outside assistance?"

And on another note --

"Your father sounds like an interesting man. Did your Vault have the appropriate medical equipment for him to use, or did he rely on older techniques and simpler equipment?"

Hoo boy. Ellen steeples her fingers.

"It might be different in California," she finally says, "but... the Vault I grew up in? Until I was nineteen years old, I was told every day of my life that 'we're born in the Vault; we die in the Vault'. Until my father escaped I didn't even know the surface was survivable. They had a scouting expedition before I was born, and then they covered the whole thing up somehow- nobody my age knew the Vault door had ever even been open. If the other Vaults are like 101 at all, insular doesn't even cover it."

She then smiles wryly. "Dad had plenty of equipment, but after two hundred years, even with your own pharmacy lab, your supplies start running really low. He worked with what he could."

Diana nods at that last. "Keeping the living alive is definitely of greater immediate import than providing for future generations."

But it does explain why the problems seem to be getting worse instead of better. Not that anyone involved needs reminding.

"Do they fear the surface, then? Is it because the scouting mission did not go well?"

Did no one make it back alive?

"I don't think so," Ellen says. "I saw the notes they gave the Overseer on my way out- they'd found Megaton, they'd survived a giant ant attack, they even left two people in Megaton as ambassadors. I don't know why Overseer Almodovar would lock the door and cover it all up after something like that."

"Hmm," Diana says, thinking that over. "It does sound odd, particularly if ambassadors were stationed in the town. Unless -- "

Hmm.

"Does the Overseer fear to lose his position of authority if people are permitted to leave the Vault?"