75 Godiva, Friday

[vdistinctive]

So. Hardison and Parker were officially going to be moving in. The first rush of "yes, please, be where I can keep an eye on you and make sure you're not turning into creepy zombie versions (or alien bug versions, or any other kind of creepy versions) of yourselves" had worn off, and Eliot was starting to realize what that actually meant, logistically. The house couldn't just be his place, anymore. He had to make sure that they had the space to make it their own, too. It wasn't as if Eliot's house was small, but, well. He'd been living there for coming up on three years now. It had stuff in it.

So today, Eliot was cleaning house. He'd cleared out the dining room (never used, they always ate in the kitchen, so that'd be great as, like, an office or study or something) and was now tackling the basement.

Which would be how a box full of bear traps ended up on his front stoop.

He had no idea what he was going to do with those.

[open!]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

Eliot was pretty sure he would have noticed. Of course, Eliot was also a) a native of Earth and b) naturally paranoid enough that it took three weeks and a series of bear traps for his best friends to notice he'd gone nuts.

"The internet ain't entirely proliferated yet," he explained. "Some places can't afford it. Some are culturally just not that into it. And some places have it restricted or even banned by the government." Eliot smirked faintly. "My point bein', the Earth's still a little too big and diverse for findin' me to only take someone fifteen minutes."

[uncertain_dume]

"Someday this planet is going to start making sense to me," Kanan said, after a moment's pause. "Someday. And when that day comes, I'll know for a fact I've been here too long."

As if he didn't already think that. Honestly.

"Most of the technologies I'm used to, we've had for thousands of years. I've never really seen much in the way of an entire world working on figuring out what to do with its own equivalents. It's as fascinating as it is confusing."

[vdistinctive]

"Y'all haven't advanced technologically for millenia?" Well, at least some of the culture shock went both ways. "Good lord."

[uncertain_dume]

"There have been improvements on what we've got," Kanan replied, shrugging. "But there isn't much around nowadays that wasn't around in some fashion back in the days of the Old Republic. I guess we have bacta now. That's a step up from kolto?"

Sure, that meant a whole lot on Earth, Kanan.

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah, there're kids back home who don't even recognize the state of the art stuff from my childhood. Can't imagine still usin' the tech from a thousand years ago."

[uncertain_dume]

"I guess there isn't really anywhere to go after mastering interplanetary travel and a galaxy wide shared information Network," Kanan mused. "At least you guys have figured out artificial intelligence, right? That's a start."

... He was assuming, because Hal.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot was pretty sure they'd just gotten complacent aftermaking those things.

"You mean like the one that tried to myrder us all? Yeah. We got that real well in hand."

[uncertain_dume]

"So it's a work in progress," Kanan mused. "That's what restraining bolts are for. Or the safety protocols in the Danger Shop, anyway."

It... kind of sounded like he was trying to make Eliot feel better about how his class had almost gotten everyone killed.

Because he was. It wasn't your fault Earth's AI was glitchy in homicidal ways. Really.

[vdistinctive]

Honestly, Eliot had still been messed up enough from the hellish Fandom trip that he hadn't even gotten around to blaming himself for Hal, yet.

Yet.

"The hell is a restraining bolt supposed to do to a formless computer program?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Typically, they restrict a droid from doing anything its master didn't explicitly tell it to do," Kanan explained. "Which would probably extend to control over the holo-capablities in the Danger Shop. But I always found them in bad taste, honestly. For something like Hal, something that's openly homicidal, I might make an exception, but they are sentient. Wouldn't feel right making anybody into a puppet like that."

A beat.

"Which I suppose is what we were doing in the first place. Why the hell do we have a sentient training room program, anyway?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot shook his head. "As far as I knew we didn't. Apparently that thing was some kind of -- artifact or somethin'. Just kinda sittin' off in its own part of the hard drive until I accidentally woke it up."

Eliot barely understood his world's basic computer programs. He had no idea what to think about an AI.

[uncertain_dume]

"So we weren't using Hal, we were just using the system that Hal was being housed on," Kanan surmised, frowning faintly. "And that other one. Alright, that's... better."

He was pretty sure it was better, anyway. He'd never really encountered much in the way of AI systems that weren't housed inside their own droid bodies.

"It brings me right back to 'this place is weird,' though."

[vdistinctive]

"Yeah, there ain't anybody here who'll argue with that," Eliot said. "Tell ya what, though, ain't no way I'm using that shop again any time soon."

Hardison assured him that the AIs were both perfectly well locked away and that even Eliot's stumbling around in the programs wouldn't let them back out. Eliot was still perfectly happy to be teaching something next semester he could house in a normal classroom.

Even if it did mean learning how to knit.

[uncertain_dume]

"And that would make two of us," Kanan agreed, giving his head a shake. "Not that I used the Danger Shop much in the first place, but I'll definitely be thinking twice before throwing my students at a rancor any time soon."

Kanan. Kanan. It was a rancor. THINK TWICE ANYWAY.

[vdistinctive]

"Man, I don't even know what a rancor is and I can tell throwin' your students at one is a bad idea." Really now. "What're you teachin' this time around?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Paperwork says I'm co-teaching a class with Dr. Lecter about getting to know Earth better," Kanan replied, smiling wryly. "Some kind of field trip thing. Pretty sure I'm going to let him take the controls for this one while I co-pilot and pick up what I can along the way."

It was timely, at least.

"I still figure the odds are half decent that the school will realize that I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about and they'll kick me out of the classroom. Or, they would be in any school that made even the slightest bit of sense."

So, not Fandom High.

[vdistinctive]

"Man, they had me teachin' an Earth field trip class with a talking pink pony," Eliot said. "Earth ain't never seen anything like her. I'm pretty sure most of the locals thought she was either a demon or some kind of animatronic cereal mascot. You're basically normal compared to that."

[uncertain_dume]

"Seeing as I'm still not completely certain what a pony is or isn't meant to be like in the first place, I'm going to just settle on 'thank you.'" Kanan only sounded a little bemused, at least. He was getting slightly better at Earth. Finally. "Either way, I figure I'll just go with it. If nothing else, I'll get to see more of Earth than just restaurants. If I'm going to be stuck here a while... yeah. Not a bad idea."

This was his way of admitting that he should have done something like that months ago.

[vdistinctive]

"Well, I mean. It is Hannibal. You might still mostly end up at restaurants."

[uncertain_dume]

"True," Kanan allowed. "But they'll be really good restaurants."

His first meal on the island had been Mooby's. Earth had redeemed its food to him a great deal since, but a little help here and there couldn't hurt anyway.