Not Temba But Pretty Close

[doubled_speed]

WHO: Tommmy Shepherd and People
WHERE: Not-Temba Agricultural Center, Quarry, Forest
WHAT: Explorations and Investigations, Maybe Even a Little Getting saved.
WHEN: First day to end of July
WARNINGS: Possible violence, Possible arguments with his brother, definite flirting with Kyle, fear of dogs and reactions caused by this.

1. Plants for the Plant Guy OTA
Tommy had been working the greenhouse in Temba since about day two or three. Every planet they went to he tried to find more food options. The few times he used the replicator, it was always to make things that would make the work easier, or allow him to manage plants out of the glass encased walls of the agricultural center in Temba. While he'd started the work because of an awareness that they needed food, he'd kept at it over a growing love for the work. So really, was it any surprise that Tommy was here?

The first day in Not-Temba he had raced off of the first train, eager to see if there was something like this, and his first day would be filled with Tommy slowly moving through the wildly overgrown greenhouse. No work yet, just Tommy moving slowly through the space, hands reaching out to touch overgrown tangles here, runners for beans there, and always pausing to marvel over the towering fruit trees that dominated this space in a way that even the Temba greenhouse might envy.

"This place is beautiful," he found himself saying as he moved through the different areas of the green house.

Starting from the second day on Tommy moved through the area with purpose. He'd brought a collection of pots and hand trowels and the like. A lot of these he left in the entrance with a sign

Tommy's gone exploring for plants. Grab a pot and join me up on level three if you're interested. Just harvesting? Check the fruit trees on five, I think they're mangos.

Any who might go seeking him out would find Tommy elbow deep in a bed of what looked like short grasses with feathery tops, trying to dig some out with his fingers. Or maybe they might find him further along in two, frowning as he tried to juggle a pot filled with dirt, a watering can, and a pungent smelling vine that seemed to actively be trying to curl around him.

"Will you please stop growing on me? I'm trying to get you to a new home!"

[OOC: Please also feel free to find Tommy anywhere else in the greenhouse, or your character somewhere for him to stumble over]


2. Quarry Queries: Line One OTA
There was a lot of the city to be seen. And, not just the agricultural center. Just north of it, back in Temba, there would be the massive hole down into the mines, something Tommy had never wanted to look at because fuck that mine was a massive hole. But here there was a serious difference. Tommy moved to the top edge of it, frowning. At last he shifted, sitting on the edge of the quarry rim, looking at the stone scooped out of this area.

"This is wrong," he said, frowning as he looked at the stone. He didn't know why it was, it just... It felt wrong. "Aren't quarries supposed to be away from where people live? Don't they get noisy or some shit?"


3. Forest Giant Closed to Ronan
There are adventures to be had here. Tommy definitely intended to have them. And, given his experience with the Agriculture database, his entire attempt to explore was really having a lot to do with plants. In this case the forest. There was something... familiar. No, not really familiar, but it still felt interesting. As he moved through the area he found himself pausing when he caught sight of a tree that was a bit pushed over.

"Shit, what did that?" Tommy found himself saying aloud, his hand settling on the tree trunk. The one with gouges worn into it.


4. Brother Where Art Thou? Closed to Billy
See, the problem with being Tommy and exploring places was that, well, trouble was BOUND to happen. sooner or later. This, apparently, was the sooner. Or was it later? Honestly, it didn't matter. What mattered in this moment was that there was absolutely a bit of a problem now, and one that Tommy hadn't been able to help.

The problem? Tommy had caught sight of the brother, and still upset he'd tried to avoid Billy.

Super speed and unstable rubble didn't go together well. Tommy tried to duck behind a wall. Too much speed, too little structural stability, or something else. Either way even he didn't have to react before an unstable wall was coming down over him, pinning Tommy down under rubble. And shit, that was not good. He immediately started to vibrate to get loose. Except... No. Tommy cried out in pain as a large piece of stone started to press down on his leg.


[OOC: More custom starters can be made if anyone wants, just PM me here for easiest talk, or hit me up on discord or plurk.]

Comments

Re: Plants~

[doubled_speed]

"Where else would I have been?" Tommy asked. FOr now he was working with the grass that he'd determined had seeds good for oil. He shifted his clump into a pot and considered Obi-Wan.

"I've been managing plants since I got to this world. You any good at transplants? I need help getting up a bubble-olive tree."

[hadthehighground]

“Bubble-olive tree?” That’s a peculiar name if he ever heard one. But despite that the Jedi walks closer and rolls up his sleeves.

“I think I can manage. The AgriCorps taught me a few things while I was there.” Even if it had been brief and he had been less than enthusiastic.

[doubled_speed]

"Yep, Kyle named it," Tommy answered and started to dust the dirt from his hands before tilting his head toward a distant grouping of trees.

"It won't be easy. I've got to bag the roots with soil and carry it to the train station. Figure no one will mind if we have a source of gum, for all those people who wanna chew when they get anxious."

[hadthehighground]

“Wait… gum? You mean to tell me these trees grow chewing gum?”

Obi-Wan looks appropriately perplexed. He knows what bubblegum is thanks to the false memories Billy gave him but why would a tree grow that? And is it really all that useful?

[doubled_speed]

"It's like chewing gum, but it isn't," Tommy answered leaning down to get more soil from the hole he had made to put in the pot. "Like, I know that if I chew it long enough it is just like chewing food, and I'll get nutrients from it. Ag datapoint is weird like that. But yeah, effectively gum. I'm surprised you know what that is."

Who knew why the tree grew that. Tommy didn't care. He just liked that it was a thing. And he knew people sometimes had oral fixations and it would help.

[hadthehighground]

“I only know because I now have memories of an entire life lived on earth.” The Jedi giving Tommy a pointed look suggesting that he was surprised that he forgot such a thing had happened. After all it was his brother that had essentially caused it all.

He walks towards the trees and puts a hand on his chin as he inspects them. Quietly considering how useful they might be. “Well, if they actually have nutritional value then I suppose they are worth the effort.” Not so much if they had only been a novelty.

[doubled_speed]

Well that's fair. Tommy winced at the reminder. Of course Tommy hadn't forgotten. He had just not assumed the man would come back with such a little stupid detail.

"Well, I'm moving them with or without someone saying 'that sounds like a good idea,'" Tommy answered as he finished his work and moved to Obi-Wan's side. "It's actually about three paths back from here, in a more bubble like area. Come on, I can show you."

[hadthehighground]

Obi-Wan doesn’t blame Billy. But the memories have disturbed his life quite a bit and he’s just starting to come to grips with it all. It’s not something he can just forget unfortunately.

But… ah. Not these trees then. “All right. Lead the way.” The Jedi following after Tommy to wherever these bubble trees actually were.

[doubled_speed]

Tommy nodded and gestured for Obi to follow him. He moved carefully through the underbrush as a short cut.

"If you see vines, avoid them. They're... friendly."

[hadthehighground]

"... Noted," Obi-Wan says as he pushed through the brush as well.

"I admit I'm rather impressed with how much the plant and animal life is flourishing here. The Force is strong in this place. I don't suppose you have any insights into why that is?"

It was certainly much more lively here than in Temba. Was it the climate? The variety of species? Something else?

[doubled_speed]

"Nope. I can say that this was absolutely what the other greenhouse was like when I first arrived. Overgrown, unruly, sometimes maddening, but undeniably alive."

Even though the water system wasn't really working well. So Tommy was forced to wonder just why that was. Hell, he had the Agriculture datapoint and he knew that the plants weren't necessarily drought tolerant or like cacti.

"Something is really wrong here. I just don't know what. Like, yesterday I was exploring and I swear I saw something familiar in this greenhouse. Which doesn't make sense."

[hadthehighground]

“Wrong as in nature on steroids when it shouldn’t be?”

That was a bit of a Ben moment right there as Obi-Wan wouldn’t normally say it quite like that. Though the Jedi didn’t bat an eye as he ducked under some overgrowth. Using his lightsaber to cut through the mess would be so much easier yet it probably wasn’t a good idea to damage potentially useful plants.

“And what do you mean by familiar?”

[doubled_speed]

"No, wrong as in that," Tommy says, pointing up to the sprinklers overhead. "They haven't come on once since I came here. I don't come in to dew or anything from them going on. Same was true in Temba. I watered things by hand after Katara left. So I don't get it."

He never had. But he wasn't prone to gift horse mouths and all of that. So he just kept moving, kept ducking between things and under stuff. Good thing Obi-Wan didn't take the lightsaber out, though. Tommy would definitely have a problem with that.

"There's food that tastes sort of familiar? Not that the food tastes like something back home or something. Just... like I should remember it."

[hadthehighground]

Looking up, Obi-Wan now sees what Tommy is talking about. His eyes widening slightly with dawning realization. "So they're not getting water. At least not from any source that we can see." That is most certainly odd. It could stand to reason that perhaps there's a watering system beneath them, but then why would they have the sprinklers if they had that?

As for the food that tastes familiar. "Do you suppose that has anything to do with your data point?"

[doubled_speed]

"Exactly," Tommy answered. "It's been a mystery since literally day one. One of the first things that we did in the city was getting the water and power running enough to get it working in the greenhouse in Temba. Vision and Katara and I figured out where the water lines that were the biggest issue were broken and Vision fixed them. Katara helped me with watering stuff in the mean time. Then some engineers figured out power to keep the system running. That was before the whole city was on and running."

And yet the plants had mostly been alive then. SUre, some had been wilting and suffering from not enough water, and some from too little. But that didn't change the fact all of it was surprisingly surviving for the fact that no one had been there fo a while.

"I don't think it's the datapoint. There's a difference between a general idea that 'this tastes like that' and 'I can taste this and REMEMBER it'."

[hadthehighground]

"I didn't realize," he said thoughtfully. This was all news to him. He hadn't been there in the beginning after all. It made him appreciate the work that they had done to get the city going. Things that those newer took for granted.

"This might be a far fetched idea, but do you think its possible the plants could be drawing moisture from the air? We have machines that can do this in our galaxy. It might not be unreasonable to think that plants could develop such an ability as well." It might be totally wrong, but at least it was an idea.

He's not sure what to think about Tommy's supposed memory of tasting things though. Perhaps it was a repressed memory? It was hard to say.

[doubled_speed]

Sometimes to Tommy it felt like newer people give the few older people grief for not having answers to everything so far, like they were complacent. They hadn't known that in the beginning it had actually been a battle for every day of survival. Tommy? He might be happier if he was an engineer. As it was he did what he could so that other people didn't have to spend their energy to feed someone like him.

"I guess it's possible. I don't know. The air in the greenhouses, there and here, is very humid. But how does new water get into the system if there haven't been people opening and closing the doors here? Something's going on and I don't know what."

And that, more than anything, bothered Tommy. Not knowing, even after all this time.

[hadthehighground]

Obi-Wan was not one of those people. As a Jedi he took everything in stride and knew everyone was doing the best they could. People couldn't be expected to have all the answers, no matter how long they have been here. Not even he had all the answers regarding his own galaxy and the Jedi order.

"Well, if its been completely contained all this time, it would make sense. Perhaps its created its own ecosystem. Water never truly leaves, its constantly recycled as plants drink and then transpire. If you make a miniature terrarium and spray a little water in there, its the same effect. Just as it is with a planet's atmosphere. So long as the water can't escape, it will remain."

[doubled_speed]

Wait, what? Own ecosystem?

"Like one of those fad ornaments people put up that have little plants in them?"

Seems unlikely.

[hadthehighground]

“A bit more intricate than that, and on a much larger scale, but… yes.”

Obi-Wan can’t think of another explanation, and if Tommy has a better idea he’s welcome to share it.

[doubled_speed]

Well yeah on the larger scale. But Tommy's still uncomfortable about it. But he's also through the last of the thick cover leading to the bubble olive trees. He's left a larger pot there, ready to get one of the smaller trees set up. He'll have to figure out how to get it on the train because the thing is still tall. It's a mess, but he'll do his best.

"Here we go. The magenta colored olives, that's the fruit."

[hadthehighground]

Stepping out of the brush and towards the trees. Obi-Wan takes a moment to appraise them, judging their size and the strange brightly colored fruit on their branches.

"It'll be a challenge to get these on the train, but I think its manageable. Will probably have to lie some of them on their sides."

Reaching out, he then plucks one of the olives from a branch, looking it over with some skepticism. But then they have quite the variety of foods in his galaxy. He's not so squeamish as to not give it a try. So he carefully puts it in his mouth, being mindful of any seed that might be in it.

[doubled_speed]

"I'll figure it out," Tommy answered, stubborn. No one will deny him his gum, so it's good that Obi's already problem solving here.

Still, Tommy reaches up and grabs another bubble-olive and puts it in his pocket for later.

[hadthehighground]

“It’s not bad,” Obi-Wan concedes as he chews on the strange fruit. Taking the time to move around a tree and then look at the pot.

“I don’t suppose you have a shovel handy?”

[doubled_speed]

"Of course," Tommy answered. "I'll go back and fetch it. Stay here, and don't touch anything that looks like vines."

Because vines can be rude here.