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xp_logs(Backdated) Meggan interviews Namor on his experience in the Chimera reality.
Meggan had realized that when going into other realities, there was always the chance of really different customs, or phrasings or actions that were really just not done there, but that seemed innocent for them. Or vice versa. She wanted to catalog the people, and their more unique customs, and make an index of everything, that they could access easily.
If an ethnographic study could actually help all of them in the long run, that would be fantastic. She had gained the first glimmerings of the idea when she had been interviewing the locals about Chimera and the influencers in general. She had been worried about getting off on the wrong foot with the people, but it had mostly gone okay once they realized she was sympathetic to their plight.
At any rate, nobody among them had reprimanded her for any baffling faux pas caused by being foreign to the reality. Now that the virus was no longer causing mayhem, while everything was still fresh in their minds, Meggan thought she should probably go and question teammates in no particular order. While she had a clipboard and pen for now, it could easily be typed up, and checked over, before she then uploaded the results of her very first survey to that great filing cabinet in the cloud.
Meggan knocked and hoped Namor was up for this at all.
The knock was, if anything, a courtesy.
Namor stood, mid-kata, amidst the space he had cleared within one of the first floor meeting rooms. Most notably there was a hefty table balanced casually upon a set of bookshelves off to one side. Just enough room to move with his weapon.... a mop. His mop.
Poised mid-stance, she was greeted with a delicately taper eyebrow. "You may speak," he allowed.
Meggan briefly glanced from him, to the positioning of the table, and hoped he would just put it back where he found it later. Shaking off the thought of what might happen to it in general if it toppled as she’d seen much weirder things, she moved her brain back to the topic of why she was there. “I probably won’t be keeping you away from your kata mopping for too long. I wanted to do what’s basically an ethnographic study. A dimensional survey of customs!”
It sounded weird when she just put it like that. Then again, she didn’t know how many studies Namor had ever done, or if he’d turn her away from boredom. She tilted her head and came up with a better way of explaining it.
“Collecting everybody’s experiences, so that when the next dimension comes, we’ll have hang-ups noted down, so the next person that goes in through the portal, if the spot isn’t blocked off, well--nobody gets insulted by something that’s benign for us,” Meggan went on to explain. “If one person’s already done something and experienced something, reading it in the cloud might just keep the next one from putting the wrong foot or eyebrow forward.”
He stood there, mop still poised, eyes narrowed in consideration. Slowly the mp came down to rest. His muscles relaxed a hair. "You seem to want a record for academic, diplomatic, and strategic purposes. Owing to the spirit of teamwork, We have only the time and inclination to share our experience on one of those. Choose."
Meggan had half expected that he wouldn’t want to participate at all, and was, therefore, pleased even if he was only willing to go for just one small aspect. “Diplomatic and strategic could always sort of go hand-in-hand in the end, though, couldn't they?” She could get it all rounded out from everyone, if one portion wasn't as much with just one aspect, right? "Let's go with the diplomatic side of it, then."
"There is strategy in diplomacy," Namor conceded, "But I was envisioning more militaristic ambitions."
He set the mop down in a corner before casually flying up to lift the conference table, single-handed, back into place. Conversations demanded proper seating.
"I hadn't thought of that, but any bit could help with the bigger picture," Meggan admitted. She had originally conceived it of being of a more personal aspect. Still, him talking about those kind of ambitions could be useful in some way. Once the conference table was back where it ought to have been, she spotted the chairs that were piled in the corner. She quickly brought over two of them.
Soon they were seated like proper conversationalists. "Diplomacy and respecting tradition can be valuable tools for gaining advantage in trade. Tell me," and Namor tilted his head as if studying Meggan and not the topic at hand, "How you see that insight being valuable from one portal to the next."
“It would prevent major inter-dimensional goof-ups for everybody for one thing, if we have a good understanding of their kind of diplomatic traditions,” Meggan surmised. As for the trade bit, she could sort of see what he was getting at. Or at least, she thought she did.
“Whatever everybody learns to keep the peace in one can hopefully follow through on to the next, and build from there, starting small and building a bit at a time.”
"We see value in that," Namor added in concession. "We," and there was a distinct lack of the royal here that could be heard in the opposite way of what a capital letter sounds like, "must visit many worlds for that to be effective. The winding canals of Bensaylum were not forged overnight."
He steepled his fingers in thought, as if in final consideration her original inquiry. "The people of that world were rude and self-absorbed."
“I can see that. A good chunk, the influencing sorts, yeah. They really were,” Meggan agreed as she quickly made what notations she needed to for the survey’s correct section. He was mostly right, but there was still other stuff, which she had noted down about the ones she had encountered in the section she’d done first, for herself.
She had seen the streaming, after all, and knew what was being broadcast at the time over there, while she was speaking with the downtrodden. She had seen the state of them; she wouldn’t contradict Namor’s experiences in the least, just mention hers. Granted, her field report at the time had given the gist of it all. “There was still that tiny minority that just wanted to make it out of hiding in one piece, so it wasn’t 100% arrogance for all. Just the torrents of it from the ones you’d get to see above.”
"It wasn't my mission to see that minority," he added a touch forlornly, "It was my responsibility to investigate the skies. I trust that you and the others had a better view of what life was like for those not wealthy enough to fly." Namor tilted his head slightly, eyes drifting out of focus as he remembered their last mission, "There is, however, wisdom to be gained in learning the faults of the elite. Makes it easier to twist and mold them to one's own plans."
Meggan nodded, recalling that that was true; she’d seen enough, and so had several others of what those poor tormented people were enduring. There had been the footage she had collected, which had given the barest of summations of it. She had even written up a lot of the specifics of what she had gleaned, once everything had settled down a little, since that had felt like it would be necessary.
She raised her eyebrow at his comment. While she couldn’t think of how anyone would want to mold them further for plans, she could see how he might feel that way. Or if not specifically the influencers, then someone of the same mindset, who wasn’t getting the true scope of matters. “I’d imagine so,” she carefully noted after taking that last part into greater consideration. “Or if you couldn’t, you could always just make them trip themselves over their own plans in the short term, and fall flat on their face before it goes too far.”
She didn’t think she could ever feel comfortable with full blown manipulation and molding and using like he meant, that sort of elite or not. “Their cracks aren’t that hard to see once you know where to look.”
This was met with a very flat stare, "That is all of humanity."
Meggan gave a fleeting wince. Yeah, that would be the assumption, she realized with a wry nod. So much for that analogy! “Sometimes? We can amend the cracks to evil plotting, diabolical cracks in foes, then, and not just run of the mill cracks. That might narrow things down!”
This got her a scoff as Namor settled back into his chair, considering. "The art of diplomacy, politics, is learning to see others and take advantage toward one's own ends. It isn't too far from being able to see how a battle is unfolding. Where the next strike will fall. For your purposes, however, I will merely say that those granted power in that reality did not earn them. They only felt power derived from the fear they instilled in others."
Meggan couldn’t disagree with some of that, but honestly felt like diplomacy was about meeting the other party halfway, and not just being greedy and hoarding all the good stuff for yourself, leaving the opposing side lacking in any acceptable thing. Their opinions would just have to be different ones at this point in time.
“I always thought of diplomacy as more like a very delicate style of dance that was always changing, but yeah, I can see it with the parrys and the thrusts to get things done,” she realized. She also remembered to jot down a few details of his viewpoint towards the reality and the behaviors he had witnessed. At least it wouldn’t be just checking boxes. There would be details that they could learn from. She nodded at his last comment, since there was no arguing with the footage.
Namor watched her write patiently. As soon as she paused, however, he wasted no time continuing. "We have graced you with our time and insight, but this has turned into a lesson on politics instead. You may ask two more questions for this ethnographic survey."
There was a moment as they just stared at each other. Meggan's pencil rolled softly across the table, forgotten.
"Take your time. I will wait."
Meggan had realized that when going into other realities, there was always the chance of really different customs, or phrasings or actions that were really just not done there, but that seemed innocent for them. Or vice versa. She wanted to catalog the people, and their more unique customs, and make an index of everything, that they could access easily.
If an ethnographic study could actually help all of them in the long run, that would be fantastic. She had gained the first glimmerings of the idea when she had been interviewing the locals about Chimera and the influencers in general. She had been worried about getting off on the wrong foot with the people, but it had mostly gone okay once they realized she was sympathetic to their plight.
At any rate, nobody among them had reprimanded her for any baffling faux pas caused by being foreign to the reality. Now that the virus was no longer causing mayhem, while everything was still fresh in their minds, Meggan thought she should probably go and question teammates in no particular order. While she had a clipboard and pen for now, it could easily be typed up, and checked over, before she then uploaded the results of her very first survey to that great filing cabinet in the cloud.
Meggan knocked and hoped Namor was up for this at all.
The knock was, if anything, a courtesy.
Namor stood, mid-kata, amidst the space he had cleared within one of the first floor meeting rooms. Most notably there was a hefty table balanced casually upon a set of bookshelves off to one side. Just enough room to move with his weapon.... a mop. His mop.
Poised mid-stance, she was greeted with a delicately taper eyebrow. "You may speak," he allowed.
Meggan briefly glanced from him, to the positioning of the table, and hoped he would just put it back where he found it later. Shaking off the thought of what might happen to it in general if it toppled as she’d seen much weirder things, she moved her brain back to the topic of why she was there. “I probably won’t be keeping you away from your kata mopping for too long. I wanted to do what’s basically an ethnographic study. A dimensional survey of customs!”
It sounded weird when she just put it like that. Then again, she didn’t know how many studies Namor had ever done, or if he’d turn her away from boredom. She tilted her head and came up with a better way of explaining it.
“Collecting everybody’s experiences, so that when the next dimension comes, we’ll have hang-ups noted down, so the next person that goes in through the portal, if the spot isn’t blocked off, well--nobody gets insulted by something that’s benign for us,” Meggan went on to explain. “If one person’s already done something and experienced something, reading it in the cloud might just keep the next one from putting the wrong foot or eyebrow forward.”
He stood there, mop still poised, eyes narrowed in consideration. Slowly the mp came down to rest. His muscles relaxed a hair. "You seem to want a record for academic, diplomatic, and strategic purposes. Owing to the spirit of teamwork, We have only the time and inclination to share our experience on one of those. Choose."
Meggan had half expected that he wouldn’t want to participate at all, and was, therefore, pleased even if he was only willing to go for just one small aspect. “Diplomatic and strategic could always sort of go hand-in-hand in the end, though, couldn't they?” She could get it all rounded out from everyone, if one portion wasn't as much with just one aspect, right? "Let's go with the diplomatic side of it, then."
"There is strategy in diplomacy," Namor conceded, "But I was envisioning more militaristic ambitions."
He set the mop down in a corner before casually flying up to lift the conference table, single-handed, back into place. Conversations demanded proper seating.
"I hadn't thought of that, but any bit could help with the bigger picture," Meggan admitted. She had originally conceived it of being of a more personal aspect. Still, him talking about those kind of ambitions could be useful in some way. Once the conference table was back where it ought to have been, she spotted the chairs that were piled in the corner. She quickly brought over two of them.
Soon they were seated like proper conversationalists. "Diplomacy and respecting tradition can be valuable tools for gaining advantage in trade. Tell me," and Namor tilted his head as if studying Meggan and not the topic at hand, "How you see that insight being valuable from one portal to the next."
“It would prevent major inter-dimensional goof-ups for everybody for one thing, if we have a good understanding of their kind of diplomatic traditions,” Meggan surmised. As for the trade bit, she could sort of see what he was getting at. Or at least, she thought she did.
“Whatever everybody learns to keep the peace in one can hopefully follow through on to the next, and build from there, starting small and building a bit at a time.”
"We see value in that," Namor added in concession. "We," and there was a distinct lack of the royal here that could be heard in the opposite way of what a capital letter sounds like, "must visit many worlds for that to be effective. The winding canals of Bensaylum were not forged overnight."
He steepled his fingers in thought, as if in final consideration her original inquiry. "The people of that world were rude and self-absorbed."
“I can see that. A good chunk, the influencing sorts, yeah. They really were,” Meggan agreed as she quickly made what notations she needed to for the survey’s correct section. He was mostly right, but there was still other stuff, which she had noted down about the ones she had encountered in the section she’d done first, for herself.
She had seen the streaming, after all, and knew what was being broadcast at the time over there, while she was speaking with the downtrodden. She had seen the state of them; she wouldn’t contradict Namor’s experiences in the least, just mention hers. Granted, her field report at the time had given the gist of it all. “There was still that tiny minority that just wanted to make it out of hiding in one piece, so it wasn’t 100% arrogance for all. Just the torrents of it from the ones you’d get to see above.”
"It wasn't my mission to see that minority," he added a touch forlornly, "It was my responsibility to investigate the skies. I trust that you and the others had a better view of what life was like for those not wealthy enough to fly." Namor tilted his head slightly, eyes drifting out of focus as he remembered their last mission, "There is, however, wisdom to be gained in learning the faults of the elite. Makes it easier to twist and mold them to one's own plans."
Meggan nodded, recalling that that was true; she’d seen enough, and so had several others of what those poor tormented people were enduring. There had been the footage she had collected, which had given the barest of summations of it. She had even written up a lot of the specifics of what she had gleaned, once everything had settled down a little, since that had felt like it would be necessary.
She raised her eyebrow at his comment. While she couldn’t think of how anyone would want to mold them further for plans, she could see how he might feel that way. Or if not specifically the influencers, then someone of the same mindset, who wasn’t getting the true scope of matters. “I’d imagine so,” she carefully noted after taking that last part into greater consideration. “Or if you couldn’t, you could always just make them trip themselves over their own plans in the short term, and fall flat on their face before it goes too far.”
She didn’t think she could ever feel comfortable with full blown manipulation and molding and using like he meant, that sort of elite or not. “Their cracks aren’t that hard to see once you know where to look.”
This was met with a very flat stare, "That is all of humanity."
Meggan gave a fleeting wince. Yeah, that would be the assumption, she realized with a wry nod. So much for that analogy! “Sometimes? We can amend the cracks to evil plotting, diabolical cracks in foes, then, and not just run of the mill cracks. That might narrow things down!”
This got her a scoff as Namor settled back into his chair, considering. "The art of diplomacy, politics, is learning to see others and take advantage toward one's own ends. It isn't too far from being able to see how a battle is unfolding. Where the next strike will fall. For your purposes, however, I will merely say that those granted power in that reality did not earn them. They only felt power derived from the fear they instilled in others."
Meggan couldn’t disagree with some of that, but honestly felt like diplomacy was about meeting the other party halfway, and not just being greedy and hoarding all the good stuff for yourself, leaving the opposing side lacking in any acceptable thing. Their opinions would just have to be different ones at this point in time.
“I always thought of diplomacy as more like a very delicate style of dance that was always changing, but yeah, I can see it with the parrys and the thrusts to get things done,” she realized. She also remembered to jot down a few details of his viewpoint towards the reality and the behaviors he had witnessed. At least it wouldn’t be just checking boxes. There would be details that they could learn from. She nodded at his last comment, since there was no arguing with the footage.
Namor watched her write patiently. As soon as she paused, however, he wasted no time continuing. "We have graced you with our time and insight, but this has turned into a lesson on politics instead. You may ask two more questions for this ethnographic survey."
There was a moment as they just stared at each other. Meggan's pencil rolled softly across the table, forgotten.
"Take your time. I will wait."
