Current mood:	relaxed
Current music:	Girl Problem - by Her Space Holiday [woah, apt]
Entry tags:	creativity sunday

Creativity Some Days - Everybody Knows
I know it's not Sunday, but I just collected together everything I'd written for my book in one file for the first time in ages - normally I write in Gmail as a draft email for the convenient ability to do it anywhere - and found that I've got just shy of 100 pages of arial size 10 font written, so I decided I wanted to take a break tonight. I fancied doing something completely different, and given that I've been peeking in at the frenzied outpouring of creativity going on over at artslam I wanted to try fleshing out a world a little more than just the throwaway references I normally do. It's still a scene rather than a big piece of background information; it just has more of a fully developed concept behind it than normal for my bits of fiction that aren't just playing around in someone else's universe (or with actual historical figures, come to think of it).

"Any fool would tell you that combat in space is, by definition, completely silent. But in your case, any fool would be wrong. Very early on in the history of human space combat it was realised that pilots depended on the auditory signals of battle to orient themselves - the sound of near misses flying past, or other ships exploding in proximity - and that the lack of such inputs resulted in a greatly decreased awareness of their current situation, resulting in worse performance overall. The solution was soon hit upon to position a small set of speakers about the cockpit and play the appropriate auditory cue for every event detected by the ship sensors, and this quickly became the standard to the degree that almost no human space combat has ever occurred without such a system in place."

The Both Tutor had obviously memorised this speech perfectly to make it easier for the students to understand, but the resulting monotone made it much easier for Kate to zone out than their normal, jittering pronunciation. She'd begun to doodle idly on the edge of her pad, continuing her earlier work on a picture of a Both grappling with a wild cow. A joke occurred to her and she quickly wiped part of the drawing away, drawing a speech bubble around the nearest section of text to have the alien interrupt combat and start spouting random facts in the way that they did to show its mental superiority. The cow, not understanding this, was simply butting the Both in the face.

Kate slowly became aware of a growing silence together with sniggering glances from the other cadets. She looked up to find the Tutor's impassive face staring down at her.
"Ah ha, I am pleasantly surprised to see the recognition begin to dawn on Cadet Hume. I believe you cannot answer my question, correct?"
Sighing deeply, Kate replied "No Tutor, I didn't hear the question."
"I can therefore gladly say that you have indeed answered the question, as you have just shown the impact having no recognition of the sounds around them can make on a person's effectiveness." The Both remembered after the space of a moment to grin to indicate the joke, but had never managed to make that a friendly gesture rather than simply showing a lot of teeth.
Kate bristled at the rebuke. "And what about the Both?" she asked; deliberately using the slang term and being rewarded with a brief startled click from the Tutor. The full name for their species was much longer, of course, but "both" (pronounced to rhyme with "moth") was the first syllable of it that most humans could easily pronounce. Its coincidental similarity to the word "both" - taken in reference to their notably fluid gender - ensured the term's popularity; even if officially the aliens found it somewhat distasteful that all humans did not show them enough respect to learn the correct term as they had.
The Tutor, however, had learned to accept such lapses in courtesy, and ignored the issue. "As we had no tradition of fighter craft combat before we encountered other races in space, it is equally as distracting for us to be surrounded by noise as it is for you to be without it."
"The thought of your kind being confounded by sounds is shocking to me sir", Kate answered quickly.
The class went silent. Kate was playing with sarcasm.
The Tutor cocked its head to the side. "I believe that statement could be taken multiple ways, correct?"
Kate continued staring straight ahead and speaking in a blank tone of voice. "Could it sir? That's news to me."
The Both regarded Kate wordlessly for a few moments longer, before making a movement with its arms that the cadets had learned to interpret as a casual shrug and turning its attention back to the notes for the lesson.
Almost as one, the cadets exhaled. In turn, Kate simply grinned quietly to herself as the Both of her picture quickly took on the colouration of The Tutor. She was certainly learning how to do something in this class, at least.


That was entertaining (for me, that is), even if likely more long winded than I was hoping for. Even despite that I wound up with so much extra background stuff thought up I have to resist making up a badge saying "Ask Me About The Both!"