milliways_bar | (no subject)

Entry tags:

captain kirk,
teja

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Jim is drinking a coffee, as usual, when he spots a discarded newspaper. And sees an obituary for a man whose singular achievement led to the world Jim knows. Even though from Jim's vantage point, Neil Armstrong has been dead centuries, it still stings just a bit to see that obituary.

Jim naturally picks up the paper and begins to read a story that has inspired him from childhood. And remembers his first visit to Armstrong City, Luna, and to the landing site.

[ooc: open till whenever]

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"Is that bad news?" Teja asks, approaching.

He hasn't seen this space captain for a while, but remembers him as a very honourable man.

"Hello, Teja." Jim is pretty good remembering names when he wants to be. "It was sad news in 2012. The first man to set foot on the Moon passed away on the day before this was published. Long before my time, but seeing a newspaper from that day makes it feel more...immediate."

"Oh, indeed," Teja says. "What befell him?"

"The rigors of old age. He in fact never left Earth again after he walked on the moon. But most of the astronauts of that era tended to die of more mundane causes." Those few who died in the line of duty are of course remembered, but they only serve to show how rare such things were.

"How old was he?" Teja asks.

"82. A long life by his era's standards. By any era's." While people live longer in Kirk's day, there seem to be limits on what science can do in the end.

"All men must die in the end," Teja says. "But of course, a great man's death will ever be a reminder to remember his life's works and achievements, and drive on that which he stood for, in his honour."

"Yes, precisely. That's how it seems just by reading his obituary. Though in my time, we remember his deeds far more than his memorial.

"Unless you count the cities and ships named for him." Which Jim does.

"A great man, who did deeds for all mankind, remembered for centuries, died in ripe old age," Teja sums it up. "It seems that not all is wrong with the world."

"No, sometimes things work out well. Not that he could know that in his day. But that was part of why he went to the moon."

"To make a difference for all mankind?" Teja says. "Then, he achieved that, if he is remembered for it, after many hundred years."

"Well, there is that. But at the time, there was a cold war between the two leading nations on Earth, and to many it didn't seem like they wouldn't go to full war and ruin the world.

"A trip to the moon, for all mankind, was a vote against war and fear and for hope." Jim will forget for the moment that the race to the moon was also part of the Cold War.

"That is the part of the future when they had those nuclear weapons?" Teja asks.

He has read there were some touch-and-go moments.

"That era, yes. And probably the time when the two sides came closest to using them." Including one time when Jim either stopped a nuclear war or nearly started one, depending on how you look at it.

"So going to the moon instead would have been a good thing for all mankind, but also a life-saving thing, for else those resources might have been put into weaponry?"

Good question.

"Perhaps. Certainly there were new technologies that emerged from the Apollo program that had applications in other fields besides war." Though that could even be said of some weapons programs.

"But surely, what was spent on the spaceship to the moon, could not be spent on more bombs?" Teja says.

"That's true. But governments of that era invented something called deficit spending. Don't ask me to explain it." The economics of the past are as complex to Kirk as the economics of his day are to those from the past.

"The mere name makes me shudder," Teja says. "Luckily, I never had much wealth to administer for my people."

"The 20th century was a strange time, as seen from all angles, I would suggest.

"But at least it had men like Neil Armstrong. Wish I had gotten to meet him." And as far as Jim knows, not a single astronaut or cosmonaut has ever been here.

"Do you do time-travel then, as well?" Teja asks, as that would be the only explanation for the remark.

"I meant in the Bar, since that era is well represented.

"Though I do time travel." And was in the right era twice.

"That is odd indeed," Teja says. "Many that come here are important people in their worlds, heroes or rulers."

Pause.

"Or those that fight crime, or vampires."

"A bit odd, perhaps. But whoever or whatever runs this place probably has his or her or its reasons." A psych experiment? Jim used to think that. Now he's not at all sure.

"Reasons that we, apparently, never may fathom," Teja shrugs. "I know not why so many crime-fighter, either. And so few criminals."

"You mean the costumed crimefighters here? It is a bit strange.

"But so are they, between you and me."

"Yes, costumed heroes at the one hand, which is strange enough," Teja says, "and regular police people on the other. I'm sure their percentage here is much higher than it would be in a general population."

Pause.

"But then, so is that of kings and princes and leaders of men."

The latter encompassing Kirk.

"I haven't met many cops, actually.

"Though this place could be a regular diplomatic conference. If everyone were from the same time."

"Indeed so," Teja says. "Or from the same world, even. I doubt that my world even holds the place that Sameth, for example, is from."

The name is only vaguely familiar to Jim. Maybe they met the once.

"I've never met any more recent leaders, though. No one from the democracies of the last five hundred years. And none of the dictators of note, either." Which is a good thing.

"Why she thinks kings are more special than presidents, I know not," Teja shrugs. "There were some quite impressive ones, in the lands of earth that had them. And among my people, kings were elected be the fighting men at first, also. So the difference is not as great as bar might think."

"If we knew why the Bar is like it is, we might be privy to one of the great secrets of all time." Or not. "I've almost given up on learning that."

"Indeed," Teja says, with almost a little laughter in his voice, "and those are secrets no mere patron may know. Also, once we think we have puzzled them out: - they will cease being true, and instantly replace themselves with something much more complex."

Jim laughs at that. "You really make it sound like we're rats in a maze."

"I am not wholly sure that we are not," Teja says.

"I hope not." And as much as he shook the feeling that was all a test, that feeling is never quite gone.

"We cannot ever tell," Teja says, "which would be part of the point of it all: - thus, it becomes even more disquieting."

As always, Teja is just a bit disturbing.

"Best not to think about it, right?"

"It would not make much of a difference, if we knew," Teja says.

Jim tries to say otherwise, but jsut has to nod his head in agreement.

[ooc: fade?]

[[OOC Yes -- better than more philosophical paranoia. Sorry, Teja can be a bit dire at times.-]]

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