thelegion | Team Bonding, AMA

[ Tadashi is reclining in a bed in medical, wearing the beatific smile of the enlightened and the well and truly stoned. ]

I love biology. Well, no, I'm enthusiastic about biology, I don't love it. I love programming and engineering and my family and helping people. Not in that order. Maybe in that order in regards to science. Except programming and engineering are the tools I use to help people, but I do love them too.

[ He stares off into space for a moment, then shakes himself and focuses back on the camera again. ]

But, you know, the thing about biology that's so cool is that we don't understand it all the way. Sometimes biological interactions happen unexpectedly. Like, these painkillers. I don't have an example of them to show you; they're already in my system and the medical staff won't give me more of them because they make me really loopy. Which is cool, because it's not an allergic reaction or a result of a miscalculated dose, it's just a reaction that happens sometimes to some people. Which is cool! Even almost a thousand years in the future of an alternate universe -- which has seriously weird rules, oh my god you guys I wish I loved biology and philosophy and physics more so I could study how weird this place is, I could write so many papers -- people still don't really know how our bodies work and why they react to certain things the way they do. Reality is amazing and I am so happy it exists!

[ He beams at the camera, but his smile eventually fades into confusion. Then he gasps in apparent surprise. ]

Oh yeah! Anyway, I'm super bored right now and I can't concentrate enough to read anything longer than a few sentences. And I've kind of been focused on dealing with my own stuff and not lighting things on fire when I shouldn't to get to know people, so I was thinking I should get off my ass and do that. Metaphorically, not literally, because the medical staff has confined to this bed until I metabolize the painkillers.

I was thinking we could do a...thingy. That thing people sometimes-- AMA! Ask Me Anything, that thing! We could do that, but just for Legionnaires. Not that I don't love the staffers here, I do, but I was thinking it could be a team bonding thing and some people here are more private than others. But I'd need one of the scary computer ladies to lock it down for me, because I can't figure out how to do that right now.

[ His eyes widen suddenly. ]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean that like "scary computers who are women", that would be rude, I meant it like "scary women who are good with computers". Computer programming has a long history of ignoring the contributions of the women who are it's backbone, and we have a lot of women here who area really good at what they do and they deserve to be afforded all the respect due to them as people and as badasses. The patriarchy sucks like the vacuum abhorred by nature.

...I think this got away from me. What was I talking about?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, you really do want to make sure they're fully dead first.

...Good thing this is locked.

We hadn't slept in six days. It was one of those exercises.

[ It seemed like a good idea at the time. The sad part is it was. ]

Yeah.

[ He accepts this world's aversion to meat because he's a good houseguest, but it's still weird to him. ]

My finest moment on a sleep-dep exercise was walking straight into a tree. In broad daylight.

[ The Chief makes a tiny almost-laugh noise. He's been there. ]

So. Weirdest place you've had to crash?

[ "Worst" gets depressing. "Weirdest" is fun. ]

[Hmmmmmmmmmm. Shepard mentally sorts through the possibilities before settling on one.]

This one's gonna take some explaining. Weirdest wasn't really where, but how. Long-distance FTL travel where I'm from involves mass relays, these giant machines out on the edges of solar systems. You fly up, send a signal, and they toss you across the galaxy. They link to this giant space station, the Citadel, which serves as the seat of galactic government. We didn't built any of it, mind you. We just tripped over it and started using it. When the first species got to the Citadel a couple thousand years ago, they found what they thought was a sculpture of a mass relay, so they set it up on a pedestal as a public art installation right in front of the Council Chambers and wrote academic papers about it for centuries.

Turns out all the papers were completely wrong and it's actually a working experimental mass relay. My crew and I found the other end of it while exploring a planet that had been lost for 50,000 years. We needed to get back to the Citadel in a hurry...so I drove an IFV in one side and we came flying out the other and crashed a 20-ton tank onto a chunk of the most exclusive real estate in the galaxy.

[And no one but the chirpy tourist VI saw them, dammit.]

We take shortcuts through a subdimension where physics doesn't work the same way. Still takes long enough that nonessential personnel spend long voyages in cryonic suspension.

[ All this T-gates and mass relays stuff is enough to make a guy jealous. ]

My weirdest crash was tripping over a giant space installation.

Cortana and I were on a ship retreating from a battle with the Covenant. Protocol was to scrub nav data when engaging the enemy to keep them from finding Earth. If you had to run, it was blind.

[ Those are some horrible implications to drop so casually, but there they are. ]

We came out of the jump next to an alien installation orbiting a gas giant. Not Covenant. Circular. Ten-thousand kilometers across. The ship was already limping, and the Covenant had found this place before we did and weren't happy about it. The Captain had nowhere else to put her down but the ring.

It was a bad week.

[ The Chief is so, so good at details. ]

[This is chatty for the Chief, which Shepard takes as a good sign. Even if she didn't like him as a person, you always want team rapport.

She gets appropriately solemn at the realization of what the Cole Protocol means about how badly Earth is outclassed in the Chief's universe. She knows the Alliance's military projections have the turians winning a real war, but not quickly and certainly not cheaply.

The Reapers, on the other hand...well, dwelling on it won't help.]

"A bad week," he says.

[Which is roughly how she'd describe the final assault on the Collectors, so she really has no room to be teasing on this one, not that it's slowing her down at all.]

[ The Spartan's only reply is a nod. His account at the word bank is officially overdrawn. ]

So you're saying I should ask Cortana.

[He's not saying anything, Shep. Not all protags are as chatty as you are.

For some mysterious reason, Cortana hasn't been summoned by the mention of her name. Must be busy.]

You could.

[ If she wants, he supposes?

He's not petulant, or unkind. The Chief is just genuinely unsure what's left to say. It's not a report, he just told the relevant part of that story. That's how you do it, right? ]

[She's used to Joker, okay. But she recognizes the bottom of a conversation tree when she hits it.]

Not trying to push.

[It's cool, Chief.]

Anyway, I should go.

[She's so smooth.

Shepard gives it a moment to see if he has anything to say, then disconnects.]

Your new friend is nosy.

[Pot calling the kettle black.]

What about?

[ He has three guesses who she's talking about and all of them are Shepard. ]

UNSC doctrine, Covenant military capabilities, the progress of the war, guns, cap ships, Mjolnir, whether our Navy coffee is any good, your favorite food.

[Someone's trying to unlock codices.

Cortana's not annoyed so Shepard can't have been too pushy about it.]

[ It's enough to make him very grateful Cortana was the one to field all of those. Just hearing the list makes him tired.

The last, though, draws a curious tip of his head. Really? ]

Tangential to the live frog thing, I think.

["Making conversation?" Sounds fake.]

Ah.

...It's not frog.

[ Thank you, John. ]

Pretty sure she figured that one out all by herself, Chief.

Team Bonding, AMA

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