FORCED HONESTY MEME

[devoutish]

1) Post your characters, one per comment
2) Go around with your characters and have them ask other characters questions - anything goes!
3) Forced honesty time! Lying is impossible because of reasons
4) IC DISCUSSION AND CONFRONTATION, GO

Comments

[devoutish]

Still - a bit disheartening, innit.

[rubikscomplex]

Not really. We've seen massive medical advances since your time, improved treatments. You don't get from Earth to Mars in one step.

[There's a pause.]

That sounds way too optimistic. Consider this me just being rational about the human species and our collective ability to waste time.

[devoutish]

We go to Mars? Why? What's on Mars?

[rubikscomplex]

We haven't gotten there, yet. Not with humans. It's the next big mission after the moon. What's on Mars is a history of a planet that might have been like Earth once. Resources we could extract, the next planet we could inhabit. You really have no imagination outside your little tribe, do you?

[devoutish]

We've got a planet already, mate. It suits us fine.

[rubikscomplex]

You realize our planet's going to get swallowed by the sun eventually?

[devoutish]

What are you talking about?

[So that's a no.]

[rubikscomplex]

The sun is a star--a yellow dwarf star, if you wanna get technical. Stars have a limited lifespan. Ours is about 10 billion years. It's used up about 4.3 billion of those years already. After that, it'll start collapsing and expand into a red giant. That's the point when it takes out Earth and a few of the other planets while it's at it.

Long way off, but most people figure we should get started early. Better not let it catch us by surprise.

[devoutish]

If you're really worried about that, you should go further than Mars.

[rubikscomplex]

[House sighs.]

Stepping stones, Solomons. You might've lived to see us get to the moon. Then it's Mars, then the next planet, and so on. We haven't developed warp drive, yet. We can't just cruise around the galaxy at hyper speed. It's beyond our technological capabilities to make it to the outer planets with a manned mission at this point. Even if we could get there, we don't have a way to make some of those planets habitable.

So we work on getting to Mars, perfecting a way to make the surface of an inhospitable planet hospitable, and developing transportation that can actually make the trip in a reasonable amount of time.

[devoutish]

You should write a science fiction book, House.

[rubikscomplex]

It's science fact and where we're headed, moron.

[devoutish]

Warp drives and all?

[rubikscomplex]

It might be called something else, take a different form, but the basic concept of faster-than-light speed'll be there. Won't happen in my lifetime. Maybe the next generation, but more likely ones five or six times removed.

[devoutish]

You think about this sort of thing a lot?

[rubikscomplex]

Not here. It doesn't matter.

[devoutish]

Only at home, then - where you are nearly as unhappy, but for very different reasons.

[rubikscomplex]

I had to think about something when the pain was taking over. The sweet release of death got old after awhile.