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lessons-from-the-professor 12/27/21
Hadaza — 12/27/2021
After what she is sure is only her first session with Tesara, Hadaza finds herself in the mess. Ravenous from her exertions and heedless of her appearance, her hands and face are soon sticky with the juices of Nuna Legs and Meiloorun Fruit. She only just has time to clear away the residue of her feasting when she sees Professor Kenobi enter the room.
Being the only one in the room, he can't help but notice her hastily trying to make herself presentable. "Good day to you, Professor Kenobi", she says, putting her napkin down beside her extirpated plate. "Won't you please join me?" Her voice is light, but her face reveals deeper thoughts behind her eyes.
@Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/27/2021
Professor Kenobi was currently working through a rigorous yoga pose. Body did not shake, though the angle seemed somewhat improbable. At her prompting, there was a verbal acknowledgement with smooth Baritone. "Hello there, Hadaza." He paused his main room activities to follow into the Kitchen. The man gave her a polite patient smile, busying himself with tea preparation. "As soon as my tea is ready. Would you like a cup?" @Hadaza
Hadaza — 12/27/2021
Hadaza is taken aback by the sweet sound of the Professor's voice. It is not what she has heard from him in the past. She flushes slightly as she find this much more to her liking.
"Yes, thank you Professor Kenobi. I was hoping that I would run into you. I have ... I'd like to ..." She swallows. Based on what he has already spoken in her presence, this man has knowledge that may save the world, all the worlds. Whatever possessed her to think that she could provide him with anything else that he doesn't already know or will figure out on his own?
As he approaches the table, she says, tentatively, "Professor Kenobi, you appear to be a learned man, specifically with regards to the Swarm. Have you ever interacted with them directly, other than on the derelict? I mean to say, what do you know of them personally?" @Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/27/2021
considered the question as his body went through the motions of his task. There was a piquant sweetness to Hadaza. Ben did not quite not what to think of her, as she had been essentially whisked away from danger in a mad ignorant dash towards fight. Her question was one weighed. "My hatred of them is quite personal. Though the swarm is now your Reality, for much my life it was a Phantom Menace."
turned with two steaming cups and placed one in front of her on the nearest flat surface, taking a seat in a comfortable chair in the dining area while he pondered. "My experience began with an Archeological expedition. A fresh man of science with dirt and funding. What I found in my exploration into the simple question of. 'Space Creole, for what reason is it so widespread?' turned into. 'Systemic Generation Genocide with Population Replacement.' turned into laughter from my colleagues. You see, I am mocked at the Courascant University. The swarm my dear @Hadaza simply does not exist." there was a wist of a vindictive smile that framed his contenance.
Hadaza — 12/27/2021
"We know different, do we not?", Hadaza replies darkly, matching his smile, as though the two now have a shared secret.
"You say that you discovered them while trying to discover more about the origins and spread of a language? How are the two connected, since the Swarm don't communicate verbally?", she blurts. Her eyes rove over his face, though she is not him she is seeing, but the shimmering shape inside the cocoon that called to her once upon a time. @Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/27/2021
gestured vaguely in the air as he hoisted his cup for a sippy. "They consume low percentage species of force users and replant with a higher degree of force sensitivity. They have done this simulatanously upon every point in time for them, yet for us it happens over generations. The idea is they are attempting to Tri angulate, though hardly the correct term for inter dimensional travel, our reality so they may properly invade. They are simply lacking food and power, and we are the most expedient path. Space Creole is merely the shared language of the planted species that develops on each world purged." He spread his hand's fingertips out,
admiring her thoughtful expression. "That is when I started to figure out that the swarm did exist, a simple language blip and some symbols and ruins." He pulled out his current copy of the Encyclopedia Swarmotica, which was his datapad stuffed with information about the Swarm and flipped it around so she could puruse. "The problem with fighting an enemy that is attacking in all times at once is that this shot we have now is the best to learn and be prepared. At worst blooding their nose was a great success, but more then that. We have found weapons that harm them. That seemingly has only happened one other time in our history."
@Hadaza
Hadaza — 12/27/2021
Hadaza rouses from her experience and takes the datapad from him. Skimming the document while she listens to him, she hears him say that "they are simply lacking food and power, and we are the most expedient path". He's not wrong, she thinks, as she hands the pad back to him.
Where once there was a distance in her expression, now she is laser focused. Her eyes piercing into his own with a knowing that he can't fathom, she says, "Professor, their hunger is all consuming. Can we use it against them somehow? Poison their food supply, as it were. Would that buy us the time we need to defeat them?" @Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/28/2021
folds his fingers and considers her question. His countenance was untroubled though the shadows of artificial light darkened his features. "Yes we could @Hadaza . Quite easily. We could inoculate people with a genetic enzyme that would be such a poison. However there are two pitfalls to that plan. One, they eat sentient beings. Any testing we did would be a crapshoot until we figure out their version of Borax. Two. That entire strategy would revolve around a loss leadership mindset. We are not yet at the stage where we must. Truth be told, geneticist workings tend to lean towards genocide. One marker twist and suddenly as a galaxy we are merely dead walking."
adds. "That is a lovely expression you have. Focus and determination suits you."
Hadaza — 12/28/2021
Haj considered his words. What a kop he has, she thinks, though her face takes a dark cast at her own naiveté and foolishness. "I apologize. I should have known that you had already considered, and dismissed that option. It's brute force thought where your own mind is quite subtle."
The crease in her brow deepens as she remembers the intense drive that she experienced from the alien creatures. "Professor Kenobi, I need to tell you something, something that you likely already know through your research but may not have had the opportunity to have it told to you first hand." She pauses to take a deliberate sip of her tea, a flash of vulnerability clear in her countenance before she looks at him with steely resolve . "I have experienced some sort of ... connection ... with those creatures. I know their hunger. I've felt it; felt it overtake me. I don't know what it means, this connection between Force Sensitives and that they, we," she says with a wry smile, "that we can feel their hunger. I also don't know if it was just me. Perhaps Durro and Astra could tell you if they felt it too during the last attack."
She tentatively reaches out as if to take his hand, before pulling back to wrap her fingers around her teacup. Embarrassed, eyes gazing deeply into her cup as though she could disappear into its depths, she says quietly, "I don't know if it will further your research or improve your credibility with the other learned minds", those two words drip with distain, "at Courascant University." She looks earnestly into his face as she utters her last line, a feeling in her heart one that she, herself, didn't know that she wanted to give voice to,. "But I want to help, if I can." @Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/28/2021
pauses as though he has heard something rather peculiar. He clucks his tongue slightly while head tilted inquisitively. "Well well well. Frequencies. What if the Force Sensitive are not just brighter, but on the right wavelength?" The professor then glanced up at Hadaza, having quite missed the reach out but looking at her embarrasement. "The best help you can provide right now, is to explain your connection. The Force Sensitive at large can only feel them through the force, but do not feel the husks. Hummmmm! And the dead one? Still working parts...Hijacked with a mind. Your connection....You are not fully matured as a husk. Neither is Tesara. Only near enough on the vibration wavelength to detect in vagueries and specifics." He looked excited, clapping his hands. "Yes! We can use their hunger, and what's more we may have a tool we aught not to have. You could have Bugdar!" He stood up suddenly and whooped! "Imagine! We go exploring and avoid ambushes if we train your connection. It is not a direct link to the All Father Bug yes? What specifically is your connection?" He paused to give himself breath, and sat back down. Reaching over he would scoop her fingertips from her cup and hold them in a warm hand. "I tend to get excited with possibilities. If you have felt their hunger that means you likely can FEEL their hunger when they are near. Which means you're partly trained to recognize them subconciously, and may be able to do it conciously within a radii." @Hadaza
Hadaza — 12/28/2021
His excitement is, to her, as miasmic as Tesara's positivity, as though their feelings fill some part of her just as the Bug's hunger does. Is this the Force at work, this feeling connected to all things? She doesn't know. But it lends credence to his theory that she can consciously learn to recognize it.
"Professor, a query - You said, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the Swarm consumes low percentage species of force users and replant with a higher degree of force sensitivity. Why would they knowingly provide us with a means to their destruction? If they are lead by some greater hivemind, would not that superior intellect have presumed our ability to discern the pattern and use it against them? It seems like a self-fulfilling prophesy, even if it couldn't know that we would evolve enough to put our differences aside to share the information and defeat a common enemy."
Hadaza releases his hand and rises from the table, starting to pace, nervous energy needing to be burned off as quickly as her thoughts can create it. In the cup still on the table, her tea starts to swirl.
"You wanted to know my connection? You saw part of it on the recording. Whatever was inside that cocoon called to me, was irresistible. I was compelled to reach out to it." She stops stravaiging and stares into her memory of that moment. "Then there was only hunger, voracity, unceasing. I felt it again before you and Durro were rescued; stronger this time. I barely held on. I saved Tesara, but I couldn't save Astra."
Her words taper off. Her eyes glazing over, trance-like; her posture a paradox of predator and prey. The teacup starts to rattle, though she is no where near it.
Hollowly, she says, "I will know them when they come again." She turns that gaze on the Professor. "I would have asked Tesara or the Jedi to stop me from feeling this again. If you say it can help, I will ask them to help me make is stronger."
@Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/29/2021
let out a small laugh. "No @Hadaza , They eat energy it seems. Force users on the larger husks just fuels them. Same for Energy based weapons. In truth, the reflex to USE the force directly is a bad idea. However, as Astra demonstrated in this video, you can crush them using physical objects. Such as slamming this bug..." shows the video where the 'dead' Swarm was crushed between two plates. "Is squashed. My theory is that the natural reflex to push or attack using natural claws is what they prey upon."
clicks his tongue and considers. "The hive mind is not omnipotent, merely educated and focused."
then adds slowly as he noticed the Tea Cup shaking, then back to her. Her fingertips had slipped from his grasp. "You must make this choice for your own well being. Trust that I will become involved however, as it seems the greatest lacking of our current Team is the lack of military tactics and capabilities of partnering and working in unison. I suppose during the next meeting I must make a few revalations myself. After all, I am a professor. However, it is time soon I must become a Warlord."
Hadaza — 12/29/2021
Her shoulders slump slightly at his words. This strange, excitable scholar would become a general ... or was he already? Somehow the idea of blood on those soft hands seems wrong. She runs her fingertips over her cheeks, an act of self-soothing, trying to both return to her body and to escape it in a moment of tenderness before battle.
She rolls her shoulders back onto her spine, straightening, pulling her self to her full height. With her back still to him, she says, "@Professor Kenobi, let me be your pupil before I am your soldier. She turns to him, her eyes bright with that same determination and focus that he had said suited her. "As it seems I have already unlearned bad habits, help me build new ones, ones that will save us all from what is to come."
The teacup is tranquil on the table.
Professor Kenobi — 12/29/2021
points to the tea cup. "You want to be a scholar? Excellent. Know this then. I am both a warrior and a scholar. Until you can master lifting that cup there without spilling the liquid however, what use beyond aggressive desire do you have?" It was a cruel delivery designed to watch her closely. He wanted to see what emotional turmoil truely bubbled underneath, as until he knew her limits he could do nothing to teach her. @Hadaza
Hadaza — 12/29/2021
She flinches at his words, but she knows he's right. They have all been right. She is all emotion and no logic. A voice whispers in the harsh silence. She's not sure if its hers, that of her dreams, or that damnable nurse that haunts them "De som gir etter for lidenskap vil ikke klare å dominere".
She just came from a lesson with Tesara, who was teaching her how to calm herself so she could focus. Even if she isn't good at it yet, she can practice what she was taught. She would show him that she was not only intelligent, but a quick study.
She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, rhythmically. She reaches out like Tesara instructed. Opening her eyes and turning her head towards the table, she centers her whole being on that teacup.
(OOC: roll 11 is for Move Object)
It rattles in its saucer, lifting mere centimeters from the table. But it is wobbly and the liquid sloshes droplets over the edge. Frustration at her failure to do as he asked flashes through her and the cup drops with a crash.
She stares away; can't look at him. She has failed again, just like she did with Tesara. Just like she did with Astra. Like she did with her team. An angry tear trickles down her cheek where once her fingertips had brushed. In that moment, she determined that she would do what it takes to never fail again.
@Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/29/2021
watches her with an impassive steady gaze. The implactable professor watches it fall, and then breaks open into a smile. "Well done! Such progress in a short amount of time." He steps in close to her and, using his thumb, brushes away the tear. "You move the world with your mind, but it seems you beat yourself up for percieved failings. Embrace failure. Imagine this if you will. A man possessed failing to find definitive proof of a species he knows exists for 40 years. Forty solid years of snatches and whispers and minor artifacts. My validation took a lifetime, where as you as a fledgling have begun to sprout."
@Hadaza
Hadaza — 12/29/2021
She looks up at him, dazed by his candor and his tenderness. Her own anger melts away as his words sink in - there is no failure in continuing to search, to learn, even when there is no success. To give up, that is the failure.
Her cheeks burn with his touch, the ghost of her emotions, and a fire that has ignited inside herself. Comprehension dawns as he speaks - she has no past to be ashamed of or to hold her back. She has only a future that she can create. She has no failures, save only the few days that she remembers. Will she let those define her? They didn't define the man before her, at least not in his eyes. They drove him, as her own failures will drive her, to be more than others think ... and judge. He has the tenacity to show her a way to grow beyond these moments, to not let them limit her.
Taking kismit in both hands, she says, "Was it well done enough for you to teach me? I am also learning with Tesara. Between you, I should be well on my way to becoming a whole person once more. But I need both of you."
"And," she continues with a small smile, "it seems that I just may have something to teach both of you as well."
@Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/29/2021
nods his acquiescence. "Aye lass, it was what I needed to see. From here we begin our adventure. Welcome to my school of thought."
Hadaza — 12/29/2021
Her smile brightens at this news, illuminating her whole face. Inwardly, she repeats her promise that she would do what it takes, only this time, she amends it slightly. I will fail, but I will fail gracefully and I will keep trying until I succeed
Putting her hand on his arm, she says to him, "If we are to work together, @Professor Kenobi, please call me Haj."
Hadaza — 12/29/2021
(OOC - end?)
@Professor Kenobi
Professor Kenobi — 12/29/2021
(End Scene )
Hadaza — 12/30/2021
/end
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