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[littletonoidea]

"This is the audio log of Communications Officer Doug Eiffel of the-- previously of the U.S.S Hephaestus, leave a message and I'll see if I can bear to drag myself away from whatever utterly engaging task I must be doing to not notice my comms--"

BZZZZZZZ

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Comments

[littletonoidea]

Uhhhh. Counter-proposal? The last time we left you unsupervised on Christmas you locked the Commander in deep space, broke Hera's brain, and almost gassed me out to turn into your personal lab rat. Not like I wasn't before, but this time you'd probably like, tie me down and gag me.

[tarakan]

Then supervise me. Easy enough change.

[littletonoidea]

[Eiffel does not turn off the mic before he lets out a long, quiet, tortured groan.]

Fine. Sure. Meet you there in half an hour.

[tarakan]

[ Look, it's either 'babysit the mad scientist' or 'deal with Christmas spirit', you take what you can get, Eiffel. ]

I will see you then.

[littletonoidea]

[He still doesn't particularly want to be doing this, but it honestly is still better than dealing with crappy Christmas cheer and pretending he doesn't care that no one cares it's his birthday despite the fact he's actively gone out of his way not to tell anyone.

So he's there roughly half an hour later, maybe a bit longer because really, it's Eiffel, and he's wearing a denim jacket with jeans and a hoodie because fuck it, the Hephaestus is still cold.]

Well, let's this shipwreck on the road, Poindexter. We have literally all day.

[tarakan]

[ Eiffel's bad mood is matched by a poorly hidden bad mood of Hilbert's. He hasn't yet realized that his warden is demoted, but he has a sneaky feeling that based on that attempted brainwashing nonsense, she might be.

And that is just aggressively annoying. Back to square one. Again. So, time to lose oneself in work. ]

Day spent away from forced holiday cheer. I thought you would enjoy this.

[ He gestures to the Enclosure in a way that suggests 'get on with programming the location.' )

[littletonoidea]

"Oh, yeah, sure," he drawls with unsubtle dryness as he takes the lead, opening the door for them and moving in first. "Nothing better for a birthday bash than playing Igor while you spin the wheel on which exciting new form of mad science to release on the world next."

And into the Enclosure mic: "Day four-forty-seven on the U.S.S. Hephaestus, all situations nominal."

[tarakan]

"Ask politely and I will tell you what the mad science is," Hilbert responds, matching Eiffel's unsubtle dryness with unsubtle irritation. When they enter the Hephaestus, he starts floating towards the greenhouse area, not even bothering to hide the scowl on his face.

[littletonoidea]

"Don't try anything and I won't put you in handcuffs," he shoots back easily, as he sticks behind Hilbert. There's a very strong temptation to swing by the armoury. Even if guns don't work properly in the Enclosure and they both know he won't actually do it, the illusion that he has any sort of power over Hilbert in their home environment makes him feel better.

...but he's also endlessly curious, and he knows the path to the greenhouse. "You're not actually making Specimen 34.1 are you?"

[tarakan]

"Of course not," he says, with a shake of his head. "But I am working on fertilizer formula. I suspect we will need it, after all."

And it's something he knows and can do to not think about things! So he continues to just float on down, assuming Eiffel will follow him.

[littletonoidea]

"Oh, yeah." What with Taylor being in a coma or something, that probably put a lot of the useful bugs out of commission, wouldn't it. "Probably."

And yes he's going to follow along behind Hilbert because if he had something better to do, he wouldn't be here would he?

"So you're just gonna make some super growth formula? Turn all the bugs into your own private army?" There's not actually any heat to that one; even he doesn't think Hilbert is actually that capable.

[tarakan]

"Why would I do that?" grumbles the man who isn't that capable and knows it. It would be interesting to see if he could come up with some sort of large insect control device. But interesting is different from absolutely needed.

"Bug system was not ideal to begin with. Any method of maintaining things that relies solely on one person is fundamentally flawed. If I come up with formula for better fertilizer, I will also come up with way that others on Barge could easily produce it."

[littletonoidea]

"Like the kid who made that Literally-A-Miracle-Gro spell?" he offers, only half to be a shit.

[tarakan]

"All of the wizards on ship are idiots," he huffs. "Children included. Yes you can grow plants and magically remove viruses, good job. That means nothing if you do not have systems in place to pick up slack when you are gone, when flood is happening, when you are in coma, and so on."

[littletonoidea]

"Well, can't you say the same thing about science?" he asks, hooking himself on a pipe to put a pin in their movement. "It's not like if you up and vanished after making your fancy growth serum that like, ninety percent of the people here would know how to replicate it. Science is just as stupid and inexplicable as magic half the time, you know?"

[tarakan]

"But you can learn science," he points out. As Eiffel is stopping, Hilbert grabs a bit of wall so he can turn around and continue the conversation, stopping his movement as well. "With science, you can break things down to essentials. Step by step process that others can repeat. That is how it would happen back home, that is how it could happen here. With magic, everything becomes more fluid. How do you learn magic? Born to it? Study? Something inherent to your race? It is not predictable or repeatable like science is."

There's a pause before he continues. "Experiment is worthless if others cannot repeat it. That goes with everything here."

[littletonoidea]

Eiffel had half expected Hilbert to leave him hanging and keep going; that the scientist turns around to face him makes him jump a little.

"Wow," he says eventually. "You are really butt-hurt about the magic stuff, aren't you?"

[tarakan]

"I am not 'butt-hurt,'" grumbles the man who it's obvious is saying 'butt-hurt' for the first time in his life. He has no idea what that word even means, but can at least guess the context.

"I simply do not like it when things are this inefficient."

[littletonoidea]

Eiffel needs both hands to gesture bodily at himself. "You were on a ship with this for two years! Shouldn't you be used to inefficient by now?"

[tarakan]

"Your inefficiency was choice," he points out. "Given the chance, you could be surprisingly useful in getting job done. Inefficiencies here are by design."