Welcome to Gaia! ::

The Teacher: Professora Quenda. I had very little time to analyze the Professora, as my attention was vastly elsewhere...namely, Outside. She seemed maternal and kind, however.
The Class: Brief; a whirlwind, although the information on Hybrids was fascinating.
The Event: If I never go Outside again, it will be too soon. The only good thing I walked away from this situation with was having met the darling Danna.
The Homework: To make a Hybrid, you need a Minimum of two samples and a Maximum of five. If you have specific parts of your specific Samples that you wish to remain dominant, remove all extraneous parts. Order the desired Samples by importance of which Samples you'd like to have preference, and be more obvious or dominant in the finished Hybrid. Murmel's dominant sample was the Maggot. Then the dandelion, then the toadstool. Come up with a possible Hybrid design, be it Animus, Flora or Fauna. When you've finished it, show it to Quenda.

History
November

The Teacher: Professora Tamerind. -in progress-
The Class: -in progress-
The Notes: TO BE EDITED.

"In antiquity there were countries comprised of many many cities." Tamerind began without introduction and without ado. "The nations were composed all of the same race, the very ansestral race of both the Empyreans and the Outsiders. And yet, despite their collective lineage, these ancient nations were constantly at war with this group or that, this country or that tribe... Truly war has not stopped even now." Tamerind pawed the floor softly with a forehoof and glanced about the room.

"Our topic today will be these very wars, since the threat of it lies to imminent upon our fair City. Can anyone define A State of War, by the Empyrean Code?


Is a State of War not when the Laws of the City can be temporarily suspended for the sake of the survival of the City? When all Empyreans must put their efforts into keeping it alive, in any way they can, even at the cost of some of their lives?"


Tamerind nodded as Aysel spoke and gave Sombre a withering look before turning on her back hooves as if the small Melancholic had not spoken. "Correct!" Tamerind replied crisply, rolling her 'r's just a tad. "In Empyrean City we have Laws and many bylaws, as you undoubtedly remember from Professor Bardane's course." Tamerind adjusted her spectacles primly and turned back towards the student body. "Each of these Laws was made only after great consideration and debate. Each was considered crucial to the safety of the City and its Inhabitants. However," Tamerin spoke the word a little shrilly and paused to clear her throat. "Sometimes there arise times in which some Laws must be bent in order to ensure the wellbeing of the City. Now is one of those times." She nodded her head gravely, clasping her hands behind the small of her back where it fused with the centaurian body.

"But you may be asking, 'Professora Tamerind, if these laws are crucial to the survival of the inhabitants of the City, won't we be in danger should they be suspended?'" Tamerind let the question hang ominously over the class, her expression grave and steady. "The answer, unfortunately is: Yes. You will be at risk. Much will be demanded of you. Much more than what you are capable of will be expected of you. Every capable Three will have to rise to the task of fighting, and that leaves Shops unmanned, Classes untaught, supplies unmade. It is a dire time, make no mistake. In situations like this in the past, we have lost lives, sometimes many more than we like to recount... But as always the City has prevailed due to the hard work and dedication of its citizens. Now calls for nothing less."

Tamerind raised her voice high and the sound of it rang out over the auditorium. "We are living in a time of turning History, young ones! If we live through it, we will some day be able to tell our new Zeroes and Ones how we stood together and worked for the life of our neighbours and friends! We are the ones responsible for any future that may lie in the Balance!!"


Tamerind squared her heels and ruffled her wings just a little as her gaze moved over the students to find the one who had spoken. Mathiaz.

"What can we do, young Mathiaz?" Tamerind repeated his question, in case the students at the back hadn't heard. "Well, to start, supplies need to be stocked, equipment maintained, provisions prepared and properly readied. There is an endless amount of work to be done by Empyreans and by their Hybrids, Cicus pets, Golems and the like. We must all work together." She paused as Astaroth but in his two cents and nodded. "As Astaroth has aptly surmised, the best thing the Zeroes can do in this situation is attend to their studies. Not only in the book-learning sense to better understand their world, and more swiftly transcend, but also in practise and perfection of skills and crafts which can be more immediately put to you."

Tamerind raised the volume of her voice yet further and made sure the echoes of it bounded about the walls. "If any of you has discovered an aptitude, a calling, an affinity with a section of or direction in this City, my advice to you is to explore these talents. To not humble yourselves by thinking you are only Zeroes. You are Empyreans! no matter how young or how small! You have been chosen because you had promising worth! Now is the time to unravel your own hearts and find out what lies in at the centre of your being."

There was a long pause, and then slowly Tamerind paced the length of the floor and returned to her spot at centre stage. "No then. It is time to learn where your City came from, and why we fight for it, body and soul..."



Tamerind had no embellishments to her lesson as some of the other teachers did. No distracting geometries disintigrating in the air around her students, no sparkling stars and planets to awe and inspire, not even any embellished storytelling to bring the events she retold to vivid life for all five senses...

No, Tamerind did not think that such a grave subject as History ought to be misconstrued in any way. So instead she spoke, simply and clearly. Her booming Choleric voice carried across the room with only her natural inflection to instill fear or awe or boredom in the hearts and minds of her students.

"In the distant past, unknown years ago, the world was whole. It was not a peaceful place, from what we've gathered of the lost resources. There were constantly wars, skirmishes, genicides and atrocities happening around the planet. But in this part of the world, in what was called The West in olden times, there was peace. There was structure and law, mighty nations and friendly neighbours. Injustice was punished fairly no matter your origin. Clearly in a land so carefully and justly ruled, they prospered. The land was tamed, and then excavated. The economies boomed, the people flourished, and then the balance tipped to the side of excess. The wealthy became more wealthy, and the struggling fell into poverty. Skirmishes broke out between different factions of humanity. In order to feed the inordinate number of mouths, and to support the growing weight of the Foreigners who flocked to these lands to try and gain some part in the wealth and prosperity of the place, and finally to try and sustain their extravagent and avaricious lifestyles...The inevitable occured: the planet was raped. Too much was taken, too fast. To replace the swiftly dwindling resources of wood and metal, a new creation was introduced to the society in order to make life more convenient: the Plastique."

Tamerind let a heavy note fall on this dooming word. Her eyes flicked over the young faces both attentive and bored and she pressed on, not wanting to lose the importance of the moment. "Like the ancients before them with their poisonous lead, the humans used their poisonous Plastique for everything. They made tools, clothes, foods, storage vessels, equipment and more from this substance. How could they have known that this so-believed Miraculous substance would bring about their ruin?"


"But if they had stopped to think, about what the Plastique was made from, and not just what it could be used for, they might have used more caution, or questioned it along the way..." Tamerind shook her head sadly. "But no, they ignored it's dark roots and pressed forward with their innovations, and revolutionized the world. But the Blood of the Planet should have stayed in the rock, in the oil, in the once-white ices of the north. Instead it slowly became a part of their clothing, their medicines, and eventually their very food. And their bodies, uncomprehending to this thing that did not behave the way the rest of the world behaved were baffled and began to grow ill from it. You have to understand," Tamerind swept her piercing gaze over them all in turn. "Everything in this world goes in cycle. It is born, it grows, it lives, it descends and ends. That is the way of the planet. But this Plastique did not decay. It merely changed form, releasing toxins into the water they drank, the air they breathed, into their every cell. And then the cancers began to sweep through the nation, far too efficient for medicine to fully heal those afflicted. And they became obese and stupid, displaying imbalances that once-pure diets had prevented. Even the simplest tasks - like balancing one's own blood sugar - became impossible for them. And then the World War Four began." Tamerind exhaled deelpy and removed her spectacles in a moment of silence, and swiftly cleaned the glass in them, left then right, precise and efficient.


Tamerind locked glances with Yambati as the student spoke up. "Its production has subsided. The Blood of the Planet was sucked dry. However, there are still places where the items made from the Plastique are piled kilometres high. The Outsiders to this day use their technology to melt down this nearly-indesctructable poison and form it into new items - Grafts, tools, mechanical and electrical parts." Tamerind took a deep breath. "The Plastique could not be so easily tossed away. It did not decay, and it began to pile up. When it was discarded, when it ceased to properly preform its function... When it was replaced by newer, stronger, more toxic forms of Plastique, well...

"At first, the peoples of the West tried to ignore it, but as the landfills were filled, and as the oceans were polluted, they had to find new ways to deal with it. They tried to use it as land, compacting it, and sinking it deep into the oceans to try to find more places to build on, now that so much land had been destroyed or littered with the Plastique of bygone days." Tamerind kept her gaze on Yambati as she answered, as if only to him. "It was when they began trying to recycle it, releasing poison into the very air we breathe that it became a part of all of us. Your Husk had one of the most common defects caused by the poisoning of the Plastique, Yambati. Although, the fusing of Essence can repair and cure a great deal. It healed your blindness - not to perfect vision, of course, but well enough that you can see with your own eyes, however aided by glass, like me. But it cannot do much more than that... Husks that have grown without limbs, or with their organs on the outside of their bodies, those whose deformaties have gone so far as to fuse two body parts into one... These things the Essence cannot repair, and so those Husks will never be chosen, and will never be saved." Tamerind paused at that. She let the echo of her powerful voice dissipate and she pulled her winglets up tight to her back. She flicked her tail and pondered how many of these students would come face to face with these very truths when they too became Threes.


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."

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."
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..."

Science
Tutoring with Abrid

The Teacher: Professor Abird.
The Class:
The Notes:

The Teacher: Professor Lelaus
The Class:
The Notes:

The Teacher: Professora Nehna
The Class: -in progress-
The Notes: -in progress-