trans_9 | expanding your horizons. [open]

As soon as he'd gotten the tour guide spiel about this planet caters fully to machines blah blah blah yada yada yada, Axl had found himself getting ideas. After all, on a planet that was both technologically far enough ahead to be used to all this space and dimensional travel stuff, and where robots were apparently considered equal to anybody else rather than just being second-class citizens, it seemed only logical that they might've bothered to figure out things that his own world hadn't gotten around to yet. Things like allowing mechanical beings to have the full range of experiences that organics took for granted.

Things like robot booze.

The night clubs were okay, but he figured that a new experience of this magnitude deserved more attention than he was ever going to give it when there was a perfectly good dance floor right there, so he scouted out a straight-up bar, and after a quick conversation with the bartender involving the words "non-organic," "alcohol," and "freaking awesome thank you," he found a table off to the side and was ready to give it a go.

To anybody not in the know, it looked like some fourteen-year-old kid's parents really needed to learn to keep a better eye on him.

In Axl's mind, however, he was about to take a bold step forward for the progress of his race! Alcohol! That actually did something! One small step for a reploid, one great leap for reploidkind! What has science done? ...what hasn't science done?

(OOC - I don't think I saw a regular bar floating around in the logs yet, at least. USE AWAY if anybody else wanted one!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Someone else is drinking alone, and comfortably so. He's always wearing his sunglasses at night, but it's not like it makes much of a difference in the dimness of a bar.

Char is enjoying something that tastes almost like a rum-based drink from back home, albeit with completely un-coconut-like flavoring to it, and thanking whatever was in charge of this insane universe that he had managed to find a place to drink that wasn't full of kids and dance music.

Don't be too thankful about that lack of kids just yet, Char. You've just been spotted.

Axl hesitates for half a moment before approaching Char -- sometimes alone means "don't bother" -- but on the other hand, he recognizes the guy, he's got to actually meet everyone else in the squadron sometime, and it's not like he doesn't know how to take a hint and buzz off if things go south.

"Hey, you were at the Rogue Squadron briefing, right?"

Char nods, not quite giving the younger guy the cold shoulder yet. Drinking alone is relaxing, but kind of depressing at the same time. "You were one of the X-Wing pilots, right?"

"Right. Or will be, at least." He's not worried about whether he can learn to fly one okay. He can and he will. Period.

"You fly one of the mobile suits?"

"Got it in one." Char nods again, taking a sip of his drink. "I've been piloting mobile suits since I was about your age. Since about when they were invented in my universe, actually."

"Since they were invented?" Okay, that's pretty awesome. "Have they come a long way in the last --" How old is Char, anyway? He's not quite sure, and he doesn't make to make an ass out of himself by guessing wrong. "-- however-many years?"

"About fifteen, since they started being applied to warfare," Char clarifies.

He sits back, and thinks on it. "Quite a bit, actually. Sazabi and Amuro's Nu Gundam are completely state of the art, and can do the work of entire platoons of One Year War-era suits, thanks to our funnels - that is, remote weapons. Piloting them is almost like an extension of your body, not the clunky tanks I had to learn in." Taking another drink, Char goes into full reminiscing mode. "Although...I'm still not sure they're as advanced as some of the other mobile suits in the hangar."

Piloting's not Axl's area of expertise (yet), but things that go boom are always relevant to his interests, so he listens intently. "Sounds a lot better than the stuff in my world. Ride Armors pack a decent punch, but they're...really clunky even now. I dunno if they were just that much worse before my time or if they're just not putting much effort into making them better."

Though the latter would make plenty of sense, when he thinks about it. The mechs aren't really used often enough back home for the government to consider them worth the effort.

Char listens to this with apparent interest...only to continue looking carefully at Axl after he finishes. "I just realized...is there not a minimum drinking age on this planet?"

"Uh...might be one for humans? I dunno." The bartender hadn't really asked questions after Axl explained what he was looking for, since apparent age didn't mean much to mechanicals. (Which was nice, since it saved Axl from having to admit the fact that actually, he was younger than he looked.)

"I'm starting to wonder if Amuro and I are the only humans on the ship. Fairies, vampires...I suppose you're a space elf or something?" Char asks, more jokingly than annoyed.

"Android," Axl says cheerfully. "Maybe I should be a little jealous of the space elves, though. They probably get to stop looking like jailbait someday."

"You look pretty realistic, at least," Char says. "I couldn't even tell talking to you. If you're really a robot your world must have been pretty advanced."

"Our tech's kind of..." Axl stops and takes a sip of his drink, thinking about how to put it. "It's uneven, I guess? Robotics is ridiculously good, but we're kind of inconsistent with other stuff. Like space development."

"Everyone still stuck on the home planet where you come from?" Char asks. He can sympathize.

"Pretty much. There was one orbital colony back before my time, but then it got dropped on the planet during the wars, so I don't think anybody's too eager to try that again. There was a project to start colonizing the moon in the last few years, but it got hijacked. I still don't know if they're going to give that another try."

Char sighs. "Amuro will call me a hypocrite later, but I really wish people would stop doing that to inhabited colonies."

Char had, after all, used a military base and a tapped-out mining colony for reasons other than their impressive size.

"I guess the convenience factor as improvised weapons is too great to resist for the amoral."

"It was Sigma. The more people he killed, the more he probably liked it," Axl says contemptuously.

But that first statement has him curious. "...should I even ask about the hypocrite part?"

"Politics. Don't worry about it," Char says, draining the last of his drink rather irritably.

Axl doesn't have much love for politics either -- in fact, he makes a point of staying as far away from them as possible -- so he shrugs it off and takes a sip of his own drink.

...hey, he can really feel something there! Technology is grand.

Char orders another for himself.

"So how's that drink supposed to work, exactly? Toxify your coolant? Corrode your motherboard a little?"

"I have no idea." Axl grins. "My world never figured this stuff out. Might be the only chance I ever get to try it, so...bottoms up, right?"

"You do only live once," Char agrees, making a small toasting gesture.

expanding your horizons. [open]

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