Sonja Late-March Catch-All

[confirmationbias]

Characters: Sonja, Gene, Valdis & OPEN
Date: March 24-30
Location: The Midnight Hotel, The Welcome Center, and around the various sectors of Keeliai
Situation: People meeting with Sonja. She doesn't bite... with her teeth
Warnings/Rating: none


A: Harmless Plotting - The Midnight Hotel (Closed to Gene)

Sonja had left a message with Anton to request Gene join her in her room on the third floor when he saw him. While Sonja occasionally went down to the commons, especially to eat, it was generally tiring and she was often glad to retreat back to her room. 

So while she waited for Gene, she was holed up in her room, listening to the radio on her phone and scribbling out some math on printing costs. 


B: TableTop - The Welcome Center (Valdis & OPEN)

Sonja came to the hotel center late in the month with a stuffed satchel. She dropped it onto a table near the center of the main room and started pulling things out - wooden boxes, parchment rolls, a few sacks, and some loose-leaf paper. 

She rearranged some space on the bookcase and started to neatly stack the various materials. When she was done, she took one of the loose leaf papers, scribbled a few characters on it (some of them using some reference) and then hung it from the shelf, becoming a sign that said, in several languages including Japanese, Chinese, and Kedan - "Games."

During lulls at the center when Sonja wasn't tooling around on the consoles and crashing people's Network posts, she would take a game off the shelf and start trying to write up rules in different languages, or just for kicks, play herself. 


C: Making Rounds - Around Keeliai (OPEN)

Sonja is still making her way through the sectors, following Wan's plan of trying different combinations to solve the console message. She was getting pretty bored of that whole thing, and the only thing keeping her going was that she'd committed to it. 

It's not like she didn't like walking around Keeliai anyway. It was good exercise, and it was a good opportunity to meet people, get recognized, see new things, new people. Walking through town was her 'on' mode, and she looked a lot less likely to say 'bug off' if you approached her than normal. 

Sonja was a prodigious documentarian, and could be seen frequently taking pictures, or scribbling notes, or making person memos into her phone as she wandered around. She was also loose with her money, frequently stopping in shops and throwing a juulan or two around. 

Comments

[confirmationbias]

"I'm sure it's a good story," Sonja said. It was kind of hard to guess what words were supposed to be funny sounding when everything was in a foreign language?

"Up for a game?"

[wintershepherd]

Jack grinned widely. "Thought you'd never ask. What's 'Green Earth', by the way? Sounds like a band that Mother Nature would start up."

[confirmationbias]

That was a weird thing to say. Cultural thing? Then Sonja remembered that he was apparently a 'winter spirit' so maybe Mother Nature was similarly an anthropomorphic idea where Jack came from?

"Green Earth is one of the neighboring empires from my world. We've been enemies in the past, but in recent years, foreign invaders have necessitated blurring the lines between nations."

She started to gather pieces up.

"I think we'll have to make do with some approximation of the rules. Think you can make your 'parcheesi' work with these?" She pulled down a couple bags of tokens and counters.

[wintershepherd]

"Green earth is a terrible name for an empire," Jack laughed. "That can't seriously have been the most creative thing they could come up with."

He settled down cross-legged across from Sonja and looked at the pieces. "Hm, I think so. Might have to simplify the rules a little, but that's not a problem."

[confirmationbias]

"Hmm." Yellow Comet had a rather similar naming scheme, and so a strike against Green Earth was just short of a strike against her own nation. "What are the nations called where you are from?"

[wintershepherd]

"Well, countries are just... their names, I guess. But for an example, the continents are called: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia."

[confirmationbias]

"That sounds chaotic. Why don't they have unified names for easier reference? The landmasses in Wars World are much more orderly categorized as existing in Macro Land, Cosmo Land and Omega Land, with territories divided up between the four existing empires."

[wintershepherd]

"What's an example of a unified name?" Jack asked reasonably, because it sounded all right, but then, naming things wasn't really his gig.

[confirmationbias]

"Well the four nations in Wars World are Yellow Comet, Orange Star, Blue Moon and Green Earth." She opted to leave out Black Hole as they were not a legitimate nation.

[wintershepherd]

"Oh," Jack replied, trying rather valiantly not to smile. "Well, those are... nice. Very... prismatic," he tried. "How do those kind of names get picked? The ones I'm used to are usually based on old civilizations, or names, that sort of thing."

[confirmationbias]

"Picked?" Sonja asked, confused. "Nobody picks the name of-"

Sonja stopped short and frowned. She hadn't thought of this before. It was just one of those things you took for granted.

"They're very old, you see," Sonja said.

[wintershepherd]

"Lots of people say I'm very old," Jack laughed, and that was his way of agreeing with her. "So are your empires known for certain things?"

He knew they were supposed to be playing a game, but honestly, this was almost more interesting. Worlds that were vastly different from Earth were fascinating to him.

[confirmationbias]

"Blue Moon is known for unapologetic land grabs. Orange Star is also known for unapologetic land grabs, but they masquerade as 'liberators' and claim a moral high ground. Green Earth is even more isolationist than Yellow Comet is. We're known, of course, for being the best at everything."

She was only half kidding about that last part.