"If it's not, I feel we should make note of it. How did the councilor react?" He wasn't sure if he wanted to deal with this girl on a normal basis, if swimming in an anti-gravity fountain was restrained behavior.
Rory nodded, not commenting on the odd choice of wording. "I hope that Doctor Henderson can manage more than I was able. They offered the potential to meet with one of their doctors later, but it seemed strange that they were trying to sell us on this tech and our guide was a councilor. Not a doctor, not someone who dealt with the tech, but a councilor. A politician. Also interesting was that we were allowed to see some tech in operation through glass, they didn't let us near the inoperative tech. It made it feel more like a show or a trip to a museum. I understand another group actually went to a show of some sort. What are they doing, playing politics are preparing to propose?"
There was a tiny frown and he shook his head, looking at the data pad. "At the moment, I'll be happy if we manage to make a trip through the souvenir shop and yield something useful from that. I somehow doubt we will." He scowled, hands twitching against the table. He hated this, hated the situation they'd found themselves placed in. He was a nurse, not a warrior, this situation, this application of tech, made his skin crawl. He wanted a weapon, or at least something that would allow him to react. "The nanites are interesting, and not just because I want to remove them from their current application. If we could find a way to redirect their orders, who knows what they could be used for?"
He stared at her, shocked and aghast for a moment before his face hardened, hands clinching against the table. War was a dirty monster, a creature that consumed and consumed and left both sides with too many graves to fill, too many tears shed. They were at war, as often as it became easy to forget sometimes. As silly and impractical as the ship often was, they were at war. They were warriors. His voice was flat when he spoke again, lips pressed into a thin line. "Bodies, of course. To run a war, you need disposable soldiers. Soldiers you can program, can make in a lab and send off to war and not worry about morality or disobeying orders. If that's what they want, I think we should seriously reconsider all our alliances."
no subject
Rory nodded, not commenting on the odd choice of wording. "I hope that Doctor Henderson can manage more than I was able. They offered the potential to meet with one of their doctors later, but it seemed strange that they were trying to sell us on this tech and our guide was a councilor. Not a doctor, not someone who dealt with the tech, but a councilor. A politician. Also interesting was that we were allowed to see some tech in operation through glass, they didn't let us near the inoperative tech. It made it feel more like a show or a trip to a museum. I understand another group actually went to a show of some sort. What are they doing, playing politics are preparing to propose?"
There was a tiny frown and he shook his head, looking at the data pad. "At the moment, I'll be happy if we manage to make a trip through the souvenir shop and yield something useful from that. I somehow doubt we will." He scowled, hands twitching against the table. He hated this, hated the situation they'd found themselves placed in. He was a nurse, not a warrior, this situation, this application of tech, made his skin crawl. He wanted a weapon, or at least something that would allow him to react. "The nanites are interesting, and not just because I want to remove them from their current application. If we could find a way to redirect their orders, who knows what they could be used for?"
He stared at her, shocked and aghast for a moment before his face hardened, hands clinching against the table. War was a dirty monster, a creature that consumed and consumed and left both sides with too many graves to fill, too many tears shed. They were at war, as often as it became easy to forget sometimes. As silly and impractical as the ship often was, they were at war. They were warriors. His voice was flat when he spoke again, lips pressed into a thin line. "Bodies, of course. To run a war, you need disposable soldiers. Soldiers you can program, can make in a lab and send off to war and not worry about morality or disobeying orders. If that's what they want, I think we should seriously reconsider all our alliances."