(no subject)

[5ame_heart]

When Fives comes into the bar, he's carrying one of the three-fingered grasping devices that the battle droids use for hands. He had looked around for some details on prosthetics, but he doesn't have the right access. His brother Kix has given him some notes, though: those are on a datapad Fives has in the same hand.

He glances around the bar on entrance: if he fails to find the recepient for these components in here, he'll head outside towards the forge, see if he's there.

But he'll stop for conversation at any point - catch him on the way.

Comments

[undead_radish_seller]

There is a very pale young man with a frayed straw hat at the bar, trying to eat meringues with chopsticks as neatly as possible.

He gives a very interested stare at the device in Fives' hand, and then breathes, "Is that a demonic hand??"

[5ame_heart]

"What, this?" Fives holds up the hand, poking at the fingers with his free hand to flex them, and then holds it out to show the kid.

"Nah, just a droid hand. Nothing demonic or Sith or anything about it at all."

[undead_radish_seller]

"How is it used?" the young man says, still intrigued.

[5ame_heart]

Dropping the datapad on the bar to free his hand, Fives wraps his right hand around the droid's wrist and his own, so his left hand closes over the finger joints and he can show the mechanism by flexing.

"Same way we use our hands. I mean, you have to imagine the rest of the battle droid attached to it."

[undead_radish_seller]

"What's a battle droid?“

[5ame_heart]

Fives leans back a second to give the kid an appraising look, before deciding where to start on his explanation.

"A droid is a machine designed to look a bit like a humanoid to fulfill a specific function." he says. "Battle droids are fighters - usually infantry."

[undead_radish_seller]

"They're like constructs you can make fight for you?" Wen Ning guesses. "What do you use to make them go?"

[5ame_heart]

"As in power or intelligence?" Fives asks.

"They've usually got their own power pack that provides electricity, look..."

He grabs a seat and sits down, turning the arm so they can see the severed end - melted and charred from a blast that destroyed the rest of the droid. But Fives has a small knife in his armor - always a useful thing to have - and uses the end to indicate where the arm was originally hollow, with a narrow canal running down the middle. "Cables running down here carry the power and the commands, like our blood and nerves."

[undead_radish_seller]

"So they're like fierce corpses, the normal ones that are mere puppets?" Wen Ning muses.

Yes, his world has 'normal' zombies.

[5ame_heart]

"Maybe?" Fives is open minded, but he's wary of making true analogies unless he knows what he's working with. "Depends what a fierce corpse is."

As this is going to be an involved conversation he orders himself a Corellian ale and makes himself comfortable.

"These have never been alive, though. They're constructed."

So maybe closer to paper men.

[makesthings]

Sameth's at a table finishing off a snack and working on some sketches when he looks up and sees Fives and raises his hand so Fives will spot him.

[5ame_heart]

Fives waves back, with the hand that's holding the hand, which flexes and waves like some sort of creepy puppet show, making him grin as he heads over.

"You're lucky my brother Echo knows about this place and can cover for me," he says. "Otherwise they'd have me in psych for taking souvineers from a battlefield."

[makesthings]

Sameth jumps when the hand waves back as that's unnerving, "I wouldn't want to get you in trouble."

[5ame_heart]

"No worries, I'm covered," Fives says cheerfully. He hands the - well, the hand - over, its fingers flopping down with the movement.

"I'm pretty sure this counts as valid research. But I had to tell our medic some stuff to get you some notes."

That's the datapad, which he also hands over. "Are you okay with this kindd of tech?"

[makesthings]

Sameth takes the hand, setting it down on the table before taking the datapad,

"I've used it here, but it doesn't actually work in my world."

[5ame_heart]

"Guess you'll have to read it here then," Fives says with a grin. He sits, orders a drink from a waitrat andd looks to Sameth, to see whether he wants something as well.

[makesthings]

"I could do with a refill," He says as he gestures to his drink to the waitrat and starts examining the hand, "I wonder why it has so few fingers."

[5ame_heart]

"Economy?" Fives hazards. "It just needs to hold guns and pull triggers, may operate some machinery. And these things are more disposable than clones - the quicker and cheaper you can get them off the assembly line the better, I imagine."

[makesthings]

Sameth adjusts the hand, seeing how much movement it has and finds that the wrist can turn all the way around, "Are their bodies any more complex?"

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Bastion hasn't gone anywhere since the last time Fives ran into them, since they've been Bound the whole time. They wave first, then angle their head and point at the jointed metal thing he's carrying.

"Is that a hand? Why do you have it?" says the translator in their backpack, converting a vweeirp? sound.

[5ame_heart]

Well. Fives' droid friend has just spotted Fives carrying a disembodied hand he stole of a droid corpse. This is awkward.

He offers a sheepish grin and hands it to them in case they want a closer look.

"Do you know Sameth? He's working on a prosthetic and I said I'm get him something he could look at for the mechanism."

Never mind he stole it from a battlefield.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Bastion is handed the hand. They take it, and give it a gentle shake to see the joints move.

They make an unimpressed-sounding hum. The translator renders it into "Is this the best you could get?"

[5ame_heart]

"Hey," says Fives, "I wasn't going to steal parts of Republic droids. This is mass produced trash sent into battle by the Separatists. Not great, but yeah - the best I could do."

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Those three sentences carried an awful lot of implications in with them. Bastion and Fives didn't really get around to the topic of who or what he was fighting for in their previous conversation, but apparently both sides have robots on them, and the opposing side churns them out as cannon fodder.

Bastion takes a longer look at the frugally-constructed severed robot hand. It's a left hand, like theirs, but with only three digits and two joints per digit, all but the base of the thumb simple hinges and the fingers conjoined at the first knuckle. They have more fine motor ability in any two of their own fingers than this droid had in its entire hand. The omnic makes another humming-whistling noise, but a longer, descending tone. It sounds sadder.

They make a noise like a radio dial slowly tuning in. The translator emits a burst of static and switches from the previous feminine voice to a sullen tenor as it begins to speak, which gets Bastion's attention enough to stop staring at the hand and glance at their backpack. "At least my manufacturer gave us quality hands."

"What are you fighting the Separatists about?" they ask, the translator rendering the phonetic sentence from two high beeps and a low one.

[5ame_heart]

Well, Fives' side churns out organics as canon fodder: like Fives, for instance.

"Protecting the Republic," he says. He shifts from how he's standing, one hand cupping the opposite elbow, watching Bastion interact with the hand.

"Since the Separatists broke away they've been very keen on getting as many worlds as possible on their side, and usually that's through forceful means."