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 Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:50 am
Allure sat in silence it took him a minute to begin writing this knew information, and he was appalled to note the way his hand trembled.
What a terrible thing...
"Then their idiocy is killing everyone, not just them." His voice was quiet and musically steady, though his grip on his pen had turned white knuckled, and his eyes remained focused on his paper.
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Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:08 am
Arwen continued her notes, one of the only Empyreans that seemed unphased by the lesson. It was awful, to be sure, but the lithe girl was not one to dwell on what was. The information was absorbed, the lesson learned, and that was that. No remorse, no fear, no pity...if indeed she had the capacity to display the feelings at all. The girl was without empathy, especially to those who had manufactured their own demise and downfall. How insipid.
We are not seperate, she wrote diligently, we - those upon two legs, and those upon four, and more - are all one. The Humans forgot this. We will not. No encouragement, just simple facts. Arwen glanced up to the Professora, wondering if the lesson would explain this 'Plastique' and why it was relevant now.
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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:46 pm
From his seat, Abacus kept one hand on his camera and the other busy taking notes. Despite his eyes locked onto the professora, Abacus couldn’t help but to only half-hear the lesson. "If any of you has discovered an aptitude, a calling..." His hand tightened on his camera at the memory of those words. He had his ability, but... Abacus shook his head and loosened his grip. This wasn’t a time to be questioning the worth of his memory!
But this... Plastiques. Abacus made a note to do further research in the library. He felt it would be too far of a stretch to ask the professora if she had a sample, and considering how she had described it... He felt that by holding his silence, he wouldn’t accidentally offend her. Added to the fact that these ‘plastiques’ were responsible for poisoning, it seemed that seeking out a sample to photograph would offend others as well.
There was something nagging at him, though. He glanced aside, contemplating the idea before shrugging it off. Hopefully this would add some light to the subject, and wouldn’t rouse any ire. If it did, well, at least he’ll have his answer. His hand left his camera to signal the professor’s attention. "Are these... ‘plastiques’ still being used, despite the discoveries of its poisons?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 11:44 pm
Tamerind now turned her stoic gaze on Abacus and without inclination or shake of her head replied, "Yes and No." She swept a wing towards the classroom around them all. "Here within the City, we use only the purest of materials. Everything is built of stone, wood, glass, crystal, metal, ore, and of course ether. However, out there, the Outsiders continue to use Plastique, to fashion their electrical wires and sometimes entire segments of their Grafts which they implant into their diseased bodies, or staple onto their rotted flesh to keep it running long after it ought to have stopped. Their technology far surpasses ours. But we willingly sacrificed such technological advances in exchange for our longevity, our health and our peace of spirit. We went back to older ways of practise. And, bolstered as we were with the help of Essence, we made improvements on these older methods without needing to resort to such dangerous materials. It was a choice decided upon shortly after they made the attack that caused the Crator beyond the Black Gates. Some advances of science are simply not worth their cost." She swept her gaze back around the classroom.
"And so, the fighting grew worse. The Foreigners came here united and en masse to silence the citizens of the West. At first the ancestors of the Empyreans - the Kanadins - and the ancestors of the Outsdiers - the Merikans - fought together, side by side. More and more of the Merikan states were destroyed, desolated by warfare and fallout. Unihabitable, barren and unworthy of even the sturdiest crops, the Merikans had no choice but to abandon them. They pressed further and further north, demanding more and more space from their Kanadin neighbours. At first the Kanadin people opened their arms to shelter and assist their comrades of the West. But as the numbers of Merikan soldiers and refugees continued, it became evident that the situation could not be sustained. It was around this time that the Kanadins reached the Ether. In their digging for supplies or perhaps the side effects of their reactors, they made a breach in the planet's veins. They touched on the Font of Ether flowing from the earth. And the very first of the Kanadins became Empyrean. Or, something near to. The unstable way they had fused with the Ether made them more akin to the Cicus animals than what we recognize as Empyrean now. Some say, that some spark or fragment of those first four still exist within the Metatrons of today."
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Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:50 pm
Upon hearing his answer, Abacus shuddered. The outsiders embraced an artificial way of life...? He suddenly had a flashback of some of the rooms he went through on Halloween, dropping his writing utensil to rub his arms in a distracted fashion. What were those things again, zombies? Were there such things as half-Plastique and half-once human zombies? He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and picked up his quill and hurriedly began scribbling to catch up.
In the second part of the lecture, Abacus tilted his head to one side and listened. So the Foreigners came, and put a strain on the resources which lead to the creation of plastiques. Fighting errupted between the foreigners, the Outsiders, and our ancestors. The Outsiders were hit hard, who put a strain on our ancestors’ resources, which then lead to the... ah, "discovery" of Essence. He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head in an attempt to keep the facts straight. He quickly scribbled out this condensed version of events and snapped a picture of it before continuing on, waiting for the next part.
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:27 pm
 So ... even knowing what the Plastiques did to the environment, they had just kept on going? Kept on and on trying to use them in new ways, and only screwed things up more... Shaking head, Mat wrote, People were really stupid back then. Yambati's question interested him though... but before he had a chance to ask a question that came to his own mind, Tamerind was moving on again. Damn... well, maybe he could ask later. He was curious... where Echos came from, how they were formed. Like, were they another type of deformed Outsider that sort of split when they became Empyreans...?  Glancing up again as Tamerind started to describe the fight between the Kanadins and Merikans, Morrow smiled slightly. This whole thing was starting to sound pretty dumb to him. Sure, it was important... but it was in the past now. And obviously they were better. Leaning over his notebook, he started to doodle a little comic featuring a little group of Empyreans fighting a bunch of Outsiders - the Empyreans firing off things like beams of pure light in order to shatter shields made of inferior Plastique ... and so on. Having been quietly taking notes, Emrys glanced up for a moment, looking over toward Arron... trying to catch his eye. All of this sounded... really bad, scary even. And he sort of wondered what the redhead thought of it...
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Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 5:14 pm
His eyesight? He'd known that his Husk had been blind, but... it had been the Plastique? He had been lucky, then - his body had been ravaged by the poison, but he hadn't ended up so terribly deformed he was unsalvageable.
He had been amazingly lucky... and his mind turned to a sort of divine providence, wondering about fate and probability and the interference of the Gods.
--
Biwa was staring at Tamerind in rapt attention, mouth slightly agape, eyes pained. She squirmed in her seat. Her heart went out to all those who had been damaged by the Plastique, went out to those whose minds were so twisted that they could not see the error of their ways. She wished, desperately, that she could help them, all of them. But she also knew it was impossible, especially since she was only a girl who could sing, a girl who could paint. What use was that?
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:26 pm
Allure drew his lower lip between his teeth and began to worry it, while working to regurgitate Tamerind's words on the paper in front of him, with a note just outside the margin to say (See Diagram Next Page) Then flipping the paper over he started a quick sketch with bubbles and lines, that could only resemble a family tree.
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Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:44 pm
Fenna scribbled notes furiously. She left a question mark in her margins near where she'd noted the Plastique before she continued on to summarize more on the conflict. Perhaps after class she could look up what this mysterious material actually was? Something so dangerous and with so much historical significance was surely covered in some book or other.
She cringed internally a little as the stress of the refugees and conflict came up. Surely there was something else? "Why couldn't the Kanadins tell them no? If our ancestors couldn't sustain the population, didn't they tell the Merikans?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:38 pm
((Just leaving a note that I'm still here (as talked about in the main thread), but Arwen has nothing to add. XD; ))
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Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:27 pm
(( Ditto to Chrys. xD;; ))
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Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:26 pm
At Fenna's question Tamerind offered a slow, sad smile and sighed softly. "Our ancestors tried. At first they tried to help, but the Merikans required more than the Kanadins could give. By the time the Kanadin leaders found the courage to tell the Merikans they could afford to give no more, the Merikans' numbers were so great that they attacked their hosts." Tamerind's lips drew into a taught, controlled line as she spoke the next few words. "The Merikans refused to take no for their answer and turned their latest and greatest experimental weapon against the Kanadin capitol."
Tamerind took a deep breath, eyes flashing bright. "It was the strike of this weapon that seared the Scorched Souls of the Melancholia District into the ground. It was this weapon that rendered us impotent, reduced to gathing our decendants rather than bearing our own flesh. In that moment, the true sides of Outsider and Empyrean arose."
Tamerind pawed a hoof at the floor and raised her chin. "That is how we became who we are today, and why we find ourselves in the situation we are in. The Outsiders never gave up their attacks on us for supplies, for dominence, for supremacy. And as we continued to prevail and grow stronger with arts they did not have, they grew to fear us, and mistrust us, and see us as a threat. We find ourselves yet at war."
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Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:55 pm
Lior had been sitting in silence, mouth agape as he listened to the tale of their history, only vaguely registering that he was sitting in the midst of his peers and that he had stopped taking notes some time ago. When he finally came to his senses again and looked down at his page, he nearly groaned aloud, squirming in his chair as he grimaced and tried to figure out what he was going to do about this. Then he looked back at Ubel, giving him a hopeful look and a grin. Ubel looked up to meet Lior's gaze, feeling that he was being looked at, before sighing softly and nodding a little. He knew exactly what that look meant and knew that he would have to give up his notes for a short while so Lior could copy them. At least Lior was paying attention this time... "Do you think the war will last eternally, Professora Tamerind?" he asked then, blinking slowly. "Or do you think there will ever be a day when us and the Outsiders will be... if not cooperative with each other, then at least tolerant?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:12 pm
Even as distracted as he was by his thoughts, Yambati's hand moved of its own accord to continue taking notes. His frown stayed fixed. So lucky... and in such a dangerous world.
--
Biwa whimpered a little at the mention of the reasons for the continued wars. There was nothing that could appease the Outsiders, then, save for the defeat of the City? No amount of food or assistance... not if they wanted to be better.
She hated this talk of fighting, of hatred, of defense. Why couldn't people just be content with the highs and lows of life...? "Why do they have to make themselves suffer more for pride...?" she murmured, softly, sinking into her chair a bit.
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Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:21 am
Tamerind swept her stoney glance from Ubel to Biwa and turned about once on her steady hooves. "It has been hypothesized that the Outsiders need the war to unite them. Even now there are a seldom few Outsiders who are losing faith in their General, losing heart at the state of their lives. The Metatrons only know what will become of us both.
Perhaps the long silent Foreigners will return, perhaps the Outsiders will unite with the Faust army of Belial and we will be consumed. Who can say..." Tamerind flexed her wings out and brushed the fingertips of one hand back along her Equestrian spine. "But that's enough of a lesson for now. If any of you wish to pursue a future in the Atrchives, come see me in the Teacher's Lounge. But for now, it's time you hurry along to your next class. We wouldn't want to keep Professor Lelaus and his companions waiting..."
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