Chojin Patriarch
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Heh. I would not have taken OL for such a thrill-seeker. Still, it's as close as we can get to actually flying, at least until they can miniaturise jet engines to provide lifting thrust, and do it safely. Which I doubt will happen in our lifetimes...4th October 2012
15:11 GMT
I stretch out my arms and legs, spreading the wings of my wingsuit and catching the air rising from the hillside.
Bleez catches up with a single wingbeat, looking over the canvas holding me in the air.
...I'm guessing he has a Kinetic Belt on standby, and his rings are presumably in a pocket. Plus a spotter in Bleez.Her mouth moves, and I can't hear a word of tree!
I swerve around it, flailing slightly before catching the air current and getting a little more lift. This is very different from using a power ring. I know I'm perfectly safe, but my heart is actually racing.
Pfft, says you. Some people don't have natural powers of flight...There's a click as Bleez activates her microphone.
"This isn't flying. This is falling." A twist of her wings and she's gliding on her back. "Without style."
Interesting. I guess this is some manner of athletic course for Thanagarians, with carefully shaped landscaping to make for interesting atmospheric conditions..."I don't have wings. I can fly by power ring, but that gives me perfect control and turns the whole thing into an exercise of the mind."
Getting a little low open the wings gain a little height and over the ridge!
That would probably be a fascinating sensation for a Thanagarian, the first few times. I wonder if they have a sort of motion sickness related to that."This engages my body. I feel this. Can you imagine not feeling the air moving through your feathers when you fly?"
"Yes? I've been in space. But I guess I sort of get it."
...I'm guessing either so tight it might as well be body paint, or lots of skin showing...A lopsided flap and she barrel roles around me, giving me an eyeful of her 'aerodynamic' flight gear.
"But is that really the best your people have?"
On the one hand, he's probably a lot heavier than she is, so can get a lot faster before hitting terminal velocity. On the other, he's not nearly so aerodynamic (despite her... buoyant... qualities.)"Anything bigger and I'd be wearing a microlight."
I angle down and retract my wings to gain speed in the descent.
Yes, kind of shocking. But we're tool users, we make do."Short of growing wings, this is about as immediate as I can make flying."
There's a sharp intake of breath through the headphones.
Of course, to the naturally flying anthropoid, that's sad...
And believe me, humans have impressive endurance in that respect. For instance: Horses may be faster on the hoof, but they can't keep that pace for long without having to eat, and they can't eat on the run... Funnily, dogs mesh quite well with our movements..."That doesn't make it less sad. How did your species used to get around?"
"Ah, well, our really distant ancestors used to wing between tree branches using disproportionately long arms. After that we just walked everywhere until we started domesticating horses and building boats."
Humans are nothing but patient, when it comes to getting somewhere... Or at least, we used to be. <glances at all those Dashcam compilations my father watches on Youtube...>I stop diving and open my wings again, causing Bleez to shoot past me as I exchange speed for lift.
"Really? Whaw. That must have been slow."
I can understand that appeal. There's still a lot of music and musical styles lost to the depths of history because people stopped performing them and forgot about them... And those depths come a lot closer to the present days than many might think."It beat having our early civilisation controlled by soul-eating demons, but I suppose that it's hard to do a pure cost/benefit analysis."
"Ooh, can you get me the number of that thanagarian who got reincarnated as humans? I'd love to hear about the sort of music we made back then!"
As if they'd leave anything to chance like that?"Yes, no problem. I'm sure that Missus Cantrell will be happy to hear from you."
I'm not sure what sort of geographical upheaval caused this sort of landscape, a 'hill' that covers an area the size of central Europe with all manner of interesting features. Rivers have carved out valleys, water wearing away soft soil and leaving hard rock promontories and spines. Larger mesas produce interesting air currents and possible landing or taking off zones-.
Ha, I was right, it is an exercise park for fliers.This is all artificial, isn't it?
"How long did it take too put this place together?"
I have no doubt some of those harder runs include paths through canyons and/or caves. I bet there's always some idiots who push their limits too hard and crash badly."Like, two hundred years? It was pretty great for flying when the planet was first settled, then generations of thanagarians kept working on it until we got this. This is the beginner swoop-slope. I haven't been here since I was… Seven, I think? There are harder runs in other places."
I angle towards a valley, not trying to test my reflexes but just looking at the natural beauty of Havania as shape by the hands of its residents.
Gah, Navi flashbacks. I never even played Ocarina of Time and I heard the sound."Hey, listen."
Bleez flies directly in front of my, blocking my view and effortlessly matching my pace.
And I'm sure Jade would like to hear about you trying to nudge him into doing work on his holiday."You didn't really say anything when I told you want I wanted to do with Havania after Mother dies?"
"I'm on holiday."
I doubt she'd have gotten in your way if there was any risk to you..."Yeah, but you have an opinion, right? Whether it'll work or not?"
"I don't know the ins and out of the Thanagarian Empire's government to know whether it's plausible or not. Looking into that aspect would very definitely be 'work'. Could you-? I can't see where I'm going at the-"
Yeah, big dreams sound nice, but there's a lot of hard work to be done to make them reality.She flaps and rises above my flight path. No, nothing in the way but artfully dressed landscape.
"-moment-. Thank you. What you described sounds plausible, but I don't know the people involved. I also don't know how your fellow Havanian thanagarians think of this. You might inherit the position, but every leader needs some way to get other people to go along with them and I doubt that you've got a particularly large home guard."
Are they really cool with it, or just saying so to keep you happy? How well do you trust them, and how deserved is that trust?"They're cool with it. Father did a lot of the things I want to bring back while Thanagar was busy getting Equalised. Industrialisation stalled after Thanagar was Unequalised and the military started leaning on us to 'know our place', but powerful people like becoming more powerful."
"Completely true, but are they going to want to have a whole lot of aliens come and live here?"
It's a fine line to walk... Or fly, in this case."More people to lord it over. Literally, because we can fly and the owners of the industrial areas will be lords. But it still won't be as bad as Downside."
"To start with."
It might not be a conscious choice, you know. People are people, no matter what species they are...Bleez gives me a look of irritation.
"I'm not going to turn it into Downside later! That goes against everything I'm trying to make happen!"
...And there's always the saw of 'Sounds to good to be true.'
Yeah, the assholes will keep being assholes, no matter the setting."Downside's probably less of a mess since the manhawks got cleared out, but it's still rife with violence and crime gangs. If you bring people like that here en masse, they're going to keep down what they know in a nicer setting. I don't need to do special research for that."
"But we'd treat them better."
Then you risk resentment over 'cultural misunderstandings', 'heavy-handed police states' or 'oppressive racial profiling'..."Overcoming old habits isn't quite that simple. It would help, certainly, and if you were working exclusively with… Children or something, it might be enough, but with top thugs who manage to bring their whole gangs along with them?"
"What about if we do law enforcement better?"
Hopefully it goes better than the evolution of policing London... There were a lot of ups and downs before they got that far."That would just mark out your police as different dressed Wingmen. Ideally, police should come from the community they're protecting-. Remind me to give you a copy of A Short History of the British Police before I leave. Essentially, you're going to want to vet people heavily at the Thanagar end and make sure that you've got the civic and social infrastructure in place to support a migrant population, and then… Make sure that it works in practice on a small scale before expanding it. This sort of thing is the work of a lifetime, and I really respect that you want to get started with it."
...That sounds an awful lot like work, Bleez...Bleez thinks for a moment.
"Do you..? Know anywhere that's done something similar that I could look at?"
I wonder if her employers would be fine with her taking a trip off-world with OL. I mean, she could probably spin it as 'information-gathering'. It would probably be very educational for her, certainly, especially if she visits Earth. Would also let her meet the Hawks face to face. Though it's going to be very tricky to let her see the best of human law enforcement without landing headlong in 'Oh no, that supervillain just kidnapped my alien princess!' territory...
I expect that should be 'swing', unless some of our ancestors were flying squirrels.