video | un: degurechaff

[verrostet]

[ A young girl sits at a table in an otherwise nondescript room, her hands folded in front of her in a picture of perfect professionalism. Her white button-down shirt is similarly perfect, not a wrinkle in sight, and tailored to her thin frame. Her gaze into her omni is expressionless — some might call it cold — and her high, childish voice is tempered with the assured enunciation of an adult. ]

Good evening. My name is Tanya von Degurechaff. I'm new here, so I have a couple questions for anyone willing to answer.

First, what kind of job do you currently have? If you don't have one, then I'm also interested in hearing what you did before you arrived here.

Second, are there any jobs or businesses you'd like to see here? I recognize that this is a broad question, but since we come from a broad range of backgrounds, any feedback is welcome.

[ A pause, a stray thought seeming to flicker through her head before she continues. ]

As for myself, I have experience with personnel management, various air-based operations, tactical field research, and administrative work. More broadly, I'm an aerial mage. The business I'd like to see is a coffee shop.

Comments

un: agentmothman

[zib]

[Normally, Zib tends to hide his face on the network when responding to posts like this, but upon seeing that Tanya appears to be close to his own age, he thinks it should be fine to respond to this without too much fear of being judged.]

I was a paranormal investigator, but also more importantly considered to be "the defender of Earth" because of aliens that were invading my planet and trying to take it over for themselves. It wasn't really my job because I wasn't getting paid for it, I guess, but I ended up learning how to build various inventions and weapons to use for fighting back against them.

[verrostet]

[ Oh god. A child.

It is true that she's technically a child herself, but she chooses to interact with her age group as little as possible. It was hopeless trying to speak with her fellow orphans in any intellectual manner. In fact, some of her fellow orphans were barbarians of the highest order. Kids will be kids, but she wishes they would at least consider that humans should be humans.

This one seems well-spoken, at least... even if he's the one who sounds alien at the moment. Before she washed up as a squid baby (twice) on these shores, she wouldn't have spared a moment of belief on him. ]

Defender of the earth? On whose authority?

[ And he wasn't getting paid for it?? There's a lot not lining up in this story. (But she's one to talk.) ]

[zib]

[To be fair... other kids didn't take him seriously either back home. Nor did the aliens that looked like kids but weren't.]

Well, um, mine at first, because no one believed that they were even real. Even when one of them showed up in the worst disguise imaginable that just involved a wig and contacts.

But Zim--that was the alien's name--got angry when he realized I could see through him so we ended up fighting a lot until one day, I managed to finally defeat him. Only then could I get the government to actually start funding for a project I came up with to deal with the rest of the Armada that Zim was part of.

[verrostet]

The aliens were trying to infiltrate...? That was bold of them.

[ This story is a headache. But in a way, she can understand bureaucratic skepticism — especially when the one with the unlikely story is a child — and the nigh impossibility of trying to convince a government to listen without the proper backing. She sometimes has trouble trying to convince her superiors about logical strategic decisions, let alone off-the-wall concepts like alien conspiracies.

Fine. She'll keep an open mind and hear him out. Also, she has a genuine question, a question that surely every human has wondered. ]

So... what are aliens like? Somewhat like us, I presume, if one was able to fit in with only a wig and contacts?

[zib]

Not really, to be honest. I mean, Zim in particular still had green skin, and made no attempts to hide the fact that he thought humans were disgusting and the like. But... well, I was surrounded by idiots who bought his lie that he merely had a skin condition going on that made him that way.

[Tanya would absolutely be aghast at the sheer stupidity of planet Earth if she had ended up in Zib's reality to witness it with her own eyes.]

[verrostet]

Hiding in the blind spot of courtesy? That's pretty devilish.

[ She has to admire it. The walls of politeness can really be impenetrable. Who in their right mind would drag a sickly person aside and accuse them of being an alien? Put that way, the boy speaking to her sounds infinitely more unhinged. ]

So what became of this alien? You said "defeated," but I imagine the government would have taken extreme interest in studying him.

[zib]

... I said he was defeated, but... I guess it would be more accurate to say that he died.

[He actually sounds a little sad about that for a moment, but then it disappears from his tone quickly. Regret doesn't do any good anymore here.]

At first people thought that his corpse was a fake because of how inhuman it was, but eventually they were forced to conclude that he was in fact alien rather than something that could be so easily faked with what Earth had to offer. And then concern shifted to whether or not more of them would appear and being prepared for a possible war against a threat to the human race rather than the scientific curiosity of studying a new species.

[verrostet]

[ It might be stranger if a boy his age felt nothing over a death he had a part in, even if that death happened to be of a hostile alien lifeform. That's the privilege of the young and peaceful. The flash of sadness in his voice lends greater credence to his story than any of its details. ]

That's a reasonable concern. As they say, prepare for the worst and hope for the best. What I'm more surprised about is that they were willing to involve you in further planning.

[zib]

I was the one who fought him, so... I suppose they thought my knowledge and experience would be needed going forward in continuing to fight against the rest of the Irken Armada.

[There's a pause, before he smiles in a slightly self-deprecating manner.]

Plus, my Dad was one of the most famous scientists in the world, so they must have thought they could get something out of agreeing to let his son continue being involved in this whole thing.

[verrostet]

Child labor laws really don't mean anything anymore, do they?

[ It's one thing being her in 1922. Something about the way he speaks makes her reasonably sure that he lives in a more modern era. In any case, she can easily imagine the kind of arrangement they have with him. They aren't paying him, so he isn't officially working for them, so no laws are being broken. The government really can be shameless. ]

In any case, that kind of expertise could be extremely helpful here. Some of the beasts here may as well be aliens.

[zib]

So I've noticed. As such, I've been looking into the types of weapons common here in comparison to home, and what can be built with what's available. There's also some worth in looking into integrating blood magic for that purpose as well--for example, using vileblood to coat the tip of a blade and using it to add a poisonous or paralytic effect during combat, depending on what a particular person's blood is capable of.

[verrostet]

Oh...? Implement that concept as a projectile and you'll have my interest. As someone who's been forced to test overly ambitious experimental arms, let me make a suggestion: you should assume the people who use your weaponry will be talentless hacks. It takes a person with strength and training to use a sword, but even people like you and I can toss a grenade.

[zib]

Oh believe me, I'm aware of that. Some of the individuals I used to make weapons for back home were... not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, but still had to be supplied with them as part of our job regardless.

[verrostet]

[ She's glad to hear that mankind was defending itself by furnishing idiots with cutting-edge weapon tech. ]

What kinds of weapons did you make, exactly? I'm curious to know what might be more effective on an alien than a tried-and-true conventional firearm.

[zib]

[Well, it wasn't just mankind he ended up making weapons for eventually, but... he probably shouldn't mention that.]

Guns, mostly. Typically they used high grade lasers that would tear a hole through just about any material they were fired at. Others might send out an electric charge that would disable most technological equipment that was in the nearby vicinity.

I did have a couple of clients that wanted more old fashioned things that resembled swords and axes, but those weren't nearly as common as the request for guns and bombs.

[verrostet]

From laser guns to axes? That's quite the range...

[ If it's true, then he must be quite the prodigy. She's quiet for a moment, clearly thinking about something, before speaking up again. ]

I don't believe I caught your name, by the way.

[zib]

Oh, you're right! I'm sorry, that's my bad for not having given it sooner.

[He clears his throat, adopts a more proper stance than the lax one he had been in before.]

My name is Dib Membrane. It's nice to meet you, Miss Degurechaff.

[verrostet]

Ah, you can just call me Tanya.

[ It feels a little weird being addressed so formally by someone so young... even though she's one to talk. She was raised with a crowd of other children and was often one of the runts in the room, so kids being kids would never deign to speak to her in anything but the most casual manner. ]

Thanks for answering so many of my questions, Dib. I may have gotten carried away... I hope I haven't been too intrusive.

[zib]

Not at all. It's natural to ask questions when it comes to this kind of subject.

[Which, makes Tanya refreshing to talk to in comparison to the humans back home who never questioned any of the strange alien nonsense that went on around them...]

[verrostet]

We humans have probably been daydreaming about aliens since we hammered out the concept of a planet. It's fun to speculate about them, but it's common sense that any aliens that would bother flying to Earth in reality would want to exploit us. I'm sure it wasn't fun for you being the sole member of the warning line, but it was good that you did your duty. Well done.

[ She can hope that he's already gotten an official thank you from his government, but some people don't like to admit that a kid was able to do what adults couldn't. Besides, a little redundancy doesn't hurt and words cost nothing. ]

[zib]

[They didn't thank him, unfortunately, for anything he tried to do on behalf of Earth. But having someone actually praise him now certainly makes him feel better.]

Thank you. I really appreciate hearing that.

[verrostet]

Recognition is only right.

[ The heroics of individuals making up for the shortcomings of the people in charge is a sadly common tale. All the worse if the heroics aren't being properly acknowledged. ]

In any case, I'll leave you to the rest of your day. Until next time, Dib.