It was supposed to be a discussion about science. What really happens is that Imoen acts like a toddler, as usual, and after a lot of rambling around the subject they finally manage to say a few sentences that are on topic. There'll be more specific discussions about sciences in the future though, and later this week they'll perform their own experiment with the help of Dynaheir, before Tenya begins to wage war on Aesop and all his lies.
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Imoen: SCIENCE!
Aerie: Owww… why… w-why’d you just scream that in my ear?
Imoen: I am making a satirical point, Aerrers. Which is that some people don’t really understand and are scared of SCIENCE!
Aerie: What the… ?! I… I-I‘m not scared. I am getting pretty annoyed, though…
Imoen: That’s right… little Aerrers, who’s scared of everything, ain’t afraid of science. Why? Because she reads a lot of books and takes the time to really understand it. And she fancies Jamie from Mythbusters… she’s in a mood ‘coz we read on Wikipedia that he’s married, which none of us expected. It kinda puts the brakes on my Adam and Jamie fan fic… or does it? Hmmm…
Aerie: I’m not scared of everything… a-at least, I’m not scared of you, so if you screech ‘science’ like that one more time…
Imoen: BUMS!
Aerie: I warned you!
Imoen: Didn’t say ‘science’!
Aerie: Uhhh… fine. I-if you screech anything one more time… a-and by ‘anything’, I-I don’t just literally mean the word anything. I mean any word, syllable, or high pitched noise of any kind. Got it?
Imoen: Alright, alright… sheez. Anyway, people out there, all twelve of you guys who might be reading this… growing up as I did in my world, I knew from an early age that the stars in the sky were the souls of dead gods and children’s dreams just floating around up there. But Aerie, silly dumb blonde that she is… you’ve stumbled on a different theory, aintcha?
Aerie: Y-you mean that every star up there is a sun j-just like our sun, and that most of those suns have planets going around them, a-and that there over a hundred billion in our galaxy alone, which is just one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies?
Imoen: It’s the most buffleheaded nonsense I’ve ever heard, and in a more civilized society I think you should be burnt for yer heresy.
Aerie: No… I-I don’t suppose I’d last long in the middle ages.
Imoen: Nope. I mean yer a scientist, and a pagan, and a witch, and an alien… and left handed, which was another sign of being a witch… you’re all the things people hated. While they’re all enjoying roast avariel though, I’d be having a great time. People were shorter then, right? So they’d be looking up at me, a giantess striding across the landscape at five foot four, thinking ‘wow! It must be some of goddess…’ Which I am too, by the way.
Aerie: Well… w-wasn’t red hair also a sign that you might be a witch?
Imoen: Was it?
Aerie: I-I think so…
Imoen: Oh. Well, thank the gods we’ve moved on. Science is better than silly superstition; that’s what I really think.
Aerie: Well, i-if there wasn’t science, there’d be no computers or electricity or internet, so I-I don’t think we’re really in a position to say science isn’t good.
Imoen: Some people will say that though… and they’re entitled to that opinion. If’n they wanna lodge a complaint about us saying science is good, then they should feel free to do so using telepathy or smoke signals… but not anything that they wouldn’t have if not for science, like phones, the internet, or air mail. Got it? Good.
Aerie: W-we might lose some of our dozen followers…
Imoen: Yeah, well… screw those arseholes. I don’t want dunderheads following us. This is for smart people only, okay? If you are a dunderhead, then there are other things made for you to enjoy… like, sexist old sitcoms, or homophobic jokes, or Jim Carrey… those are the kind of things you would like. But you won’t like this; this has none of those things in it.
Aerie: We’re in the middle of the second page, and… w-we haven’t really said much about science, really, have we?
Imoen: I’m just giving a warning to all the buffleheaded buffoons and mutton-mongering riff-raff out there.
Aerie: B-but, those are our fans…
Imoen: Burn… so anyway, Aerrers… what is science?
Aerie: Well, I… I-I suppose, i-it’s…
Imoen: ANSWER ME! ANSWER ME NOW!
Aerie: … ouch… w-what… what was that, now?
Imoen: Well, you’re such a perfect little angel that I decided I’m gonna have to play the villain more from now on.
Aerie: Well, thank you; I do try. But, remember, I-I did kill that man…
Imoen: Oh, yeah… forgot ‘bout that. Poor fella’ just asked where I was when 9/11 happened… I don’t think he was actually accusing me of being a terrorist.
Aerie: With hindsight, I-I suppose I overreacted a little…
Imoen: You live and learn… well, he doesn’t, but… so, science; what is it?
Aerie: I suppose it’s really just people trying to understand the natural world. I-it’s like… in ancient times, people made up stories about gods and titans and monsters to try and explain why things happened and w-why the world was what it was. But then, e-eventually, someone decides to actually go and look at the top of Mount Olympus and sees that there’s nothing there, so people needed a better way to explain things than by just making stuff up. A way that used proof and evidence, a-and ideas you could actually go and test for yourself. So, science.
Imoen: So… it’s not about creating monsters, hollowing out the inside of volcanoes or death rays on the moon? ‘Cos that stuffs pretty neat…
Aerie: No. Well… s-sometimes things, like that, can be a by-product, because as we better understand more, then engineers and other people can start to do more… but I don’t think science is really about wanting to change the world, o-or getting billions of dollars out of the UN. It’s just wanting to have a better understanding.
Imoen: But, science can be used for evil purposes, right?
Aerie: So can anything.
Imoen: What about all them mutant killer tomatoes, huh? That’s science gone wrong, isn’t it?
Aerie: Well, i-it might be, if they actually existed. You watch too many really stupid cartoons…
Imoen: But people are genetically engineering food now.
Aerie: But… t-through selection and controlled breeding, haven’t people been genetically engineering food for thousands of years? And now, they’ve just gotten better at it.
Imoen: Maybe I’m just not comfortable eating stuff that’s been messed with.
Aerie: Why? W-what are you afraid? T-that you’re somehow going to mutate from absorbing the modified genes? A-and, if so, why don’t you absorb genes from all the things you eat? O-or maybe you do… maybe you are becoming a vegetable. Either that o-or you’re deliberately being annoying…
Imoen: Okay, well… what about the atom bomb? Science did that. Maybe we can understand too much… ever think about that, geek?
Aerie: Maybe… o-or, maybe the people who did that didn’t understand enough…
Imoen: What if there are some things we’re just not supposed to know, huh?
Aerie: B-but then, how can we know what the things are that we’re not supposed to know about? I-is there a list?
Imoen: Well, no, because… then we would know about them… maybe whoevers in charge should put some kind of warning signs?
Aerie: But, if they did that, then…
Imoen: People like us would just wanna look even more?
Aerie: Exactly.
Imoen: Okay… well then, folks, that’s enough of an introduction to science for now, I reckon… I think we covered it all in those three pages. What we’ve learnt is mainly that Aerie is a sick, twisted individual who wants to grow vegetables that eat people.
Aerie: When did I? And, a-anyway… you wanted to write a porn version of Mythbusters.
Imoen: Muffbusters?
Aerie: I-I…
Imoen: Hee! I finally made Aerrers laugh, so I think that’s a good time to end. What was it? Was I aiming too high before? I can’t believe this is your actual level.
Aerie: J-just… just shut up and press the button…
Imoen: This button? Or your button?
Aerie: I-I’ll turn it off…
Imoen: It’s okay… I got it… bye for now, folks.
…
Imoen: BUMS!
Very fun! Nice one. I'm liking Aerie talking about science.
