nexus_crossings | A reminder to not count your Earths before they've hatched.

A reminder to not count your Earths before they've hatched.

It is not unusual to find Adia in the Plaza. She is there frequently enough, sitting in front of a Nexus terminal or fixing herself a cup of coffee. It is not even unusual to find her accompanied by pokémon. This time it's only one, a large bird that stands nearly as tall as she does. It stays close to her seat, keeping a watchful eye for suspicious characters.

What is unusual is the expression on her face.

Adia has come to the Nexus upset before, but this is different. All her nervous energy is gone, replaced with a washed-out, nearly lethargic appearance. She's holding a children's drawing in her hands, staring at it for long seconds before folding it along well-worn creases. She picks at a corner, staring into the distance, then unfolds it and starts the process all over again.

This goes on for several minutes until Bucky, wise bird that he is, gently nudges her with his beak. Coming back to herself, she blinks and looks around, remembering where she is.

"Something... something bad happened back home. A lot of people are... really upset. And losing hope. How do you come back from that?" She looks down at the picture and whispers, "How do you learn to hope again?"

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The enormous avian creature catches Faris' attention first, an unfamiliar species with a measure of intelligence in its eyes. He intends to simply observe it and move on, but then he spots the human, one that he recognizes. And while he's not an expert in human body language, it can't be missed that she's profoundly upset.

He pads forward on all four paws, slow enough that hopefully the guardian creature will not see him as a threat. "Hope may be a difficult companion to keep at your side. It must be fed often, or attract a new hope to take its place." He can't make the type of sympathetic facial expressions she's probably used to, so he tries to make it come across vocally instead. "Adia Costas, what has happened?"

Despite glaring at anyone else who so much as gives Adia a second look, Bucky is not bothered by Faris' approach, assuming the creature is some kind of dragon pokémon. Although he doesn't look like any dragon pokémon he's ever met...

"I think this hope has been starved out," she laments quietly before bringing her gaze up to the friendly alien she spoke with not too long ago. "We found Earth, but it's a dead planet. They had a nuclear war two thousand years ago that destroyed everything...."

She feels like she ought to say more, but what else is there to say? He'll understand, perhaps more than anyone else she has met in the Nexus.

He may not know why the winged creature is so easily accepting of his presence, but Faris doesn't question it, nor ask for an introduction. Now is clearly not the time. Instead he merely approaches close enough to easily hear her, and vice versa, and sits down on his haunches, tail curled around his forepaws like a cat.

Her admission is staggering indeed. He can easily understand the level of hope that her people would have to find their lost colony intact and equipped to aid the refugee fleet, only to find that such optimism is unknowingly, severely misplaced. An entire colony, dead, many generations ago, a harsh blow to a people who have already been reduced to so few in number. "Grievous news," he says in sympathy and understanding, his ears laying back in sadness for her and her people. "My sympathies for your people... there are no words to ease the pain this must bring."

"Thank you," she says softly. She looks once more at the drawing in her hands before folding it up and putting it away. "As you can imagine, our Fleet is devastated... this had been our one hope, y'know? And now..."

Now more than ever, those who are capable must protect others from giving into their despair. "It's a mess," she says finally, the pause saying more than the words she finally chose. "Our president is... well, she's not being much of a leader right now. But she's ill, too. The, um, the Cylons are in the middle of a civil war, and the rebels have joined our Fleet, but that just gives the enemy Cylons more reason to hunt all of us down. We need a new plan, and soon."

Remembering their previous conversation, she frowns pensively. "I think I have to tell someone about the Nexus. I hate to give up on our own universe, but..." But what else is there? There are no more humans, only hateful Cylons who will never let them settle down, even if they found a suitable planet.

"When you told your people about this place, how did they react? Did they accept the news easily?"

The news of the Cylon civil war immediately gets his attention. What could split their enemy so strongly that one faction would join the humans? He can easily imagine the distrust between the fleet and their former enemy, as well - should a group of Valahgua ever approach the K'da and Shontine to ally with them, Faris doesn't imagine such an alliance would ever actually happen. Or contain any amount of real trust. It is difficult, and foolish, to unquestioningly place one's life in the hands of a proven enemy, regardless of what is said. On the other paw, it might be tactically and ethically sound to convert a former enemy to the path of peace. A troubling dilemma.

His own questions must wait, for the time being. His greater duty is to aid her, not satisfy his own curiosity, particularly on such a troubling subject. "The news was greeted with doubt," he admits, tail twitching thoughtfully as he recalls those initial few days. "There was joy at my safe return, confusion that I had survived, and concern that whatever I had done to survive had caused madness. I was made to endure several medical scans before I was allowed to demonstrate the function of the PINpoint device," he says, flicking the ear that his headset model is attached to. "I brought Chanath to one of the crossroads here and had her speak as my witness when we returned to the fleet."

It is thoughtful of him to answer her questions before asking his own, although considering that the Cylon civil war is the only bit of not horrible news that she's shared, she's likely be amenable to discussing it further.

All in good time, though. She listens closely, interested in his reply for its own sake as well as how it might apply to her own situation. "I don't think I'll have to worry about any medical scans. Although if I tried to describe this place without any proof, my friends would probably think I'd caught a bad case of cabin fever..."

Sounds like bringing someone here as a demonstration is the way to go. "I know someone high up in the military. I could bring him here as proof... but you said that your people are still deciding whether to use the Nexus to find a new home? Is it simply a matter of weighing all the options, or is there disagreement over it? I don't want to bring up the option if it's going to cause even more discord."

Faris pauses as he weighs his response. "It is... mostly a question of logistics," he says, hoping that's the right word. "It is agreed that doing this would remove us from the Valahgua's reach, and that it is the safest option. However, it may be more difficult than we are capable of doing. We would need to relocate nearly a thousand ships and find enough food and shelter to support nineteen million individuals, and we are not currently all together. Scouts have been sent to far reaches of space to seek potential worlds for us to claim, and we cannot abandon them."

He hopes it isn't insensitive to remind her of her own people's much smaller number, even obliquely. It's not his intention to claw into sensitive wounds, particularly now that she's learned they are fewer than she believed.

If the reminder of his people's population stings at all, she does not show it. Indeed, this is the one instance where her Fleet's smaller numbers are a benefit. "We would have the same problems as you, but on a much smaller scale. And no scouts, so far as I know."

No, what hurts is the fact that his people all seem to be on the same page. "I don't know how the Fleet would respond to relocating to another universe," she admits. "Especially now, with the rebel Cylons joining us."

"It is a drastic decision," he agrees. "One that requires much thought and debate."

Her mention of her new... allies... does prompt a question of his own, now that it feels appropriate to do so. "These rebel Cylons... what is the cause of their war? Do you trust them?"

"I wish it didn't rest on my shoulders," she admits. "Telling someone about the Nexus, I mean." If anything went wrong, she'd blame herself, despite how many variables would be out of her control.

It takes her a moment to reply, but not out of a reluctance to talk about the Cylons. Rather, she's trying to remember what she's already told him on the subject. "The Cylons come in two types: an older, mechanical model called Centurions, and a newer, biological version. Originally, both the humans and the Cylons assumed that there were only seven biological models, but it turns out that there are five more... the Final Five, the Cylons called them. One of the models -- a One -- tampered with the memories of the other Cylons so they wouldn't remember the Final Five or wonder about how they came to be. He also tried to take away the free will of the Centurions who weren't cooperating with him. This led to the Cylon rebellion. The Twos, Sixes, and Eights fled in a basestar with a small contingency of Centurions and came across our scouting ship that was looking for Earth."

There's a pause as she glances over at her messenger bag, something like disappointment or regret on her face, before continuing to explain. "In exchange for help finding the Final Five, the rebel Cylons destroyed their resurrection hub. This made the Cylons -- all Cylons -- as mortal as us. That's a pretty huge sacrifice, so..." She sighs. "Yeah, I trust them."

He doesn't understand a few of the words she uses, but the context helps. A basestar must be some sort of ship, and while he doesn't know what 'resurrection' means, if this hub's destruction created a state of mortality for the Cylons, that's enough for him to get the gist. "It is an act of proof that does not make sense if it were meant to trick you into lowering your claws. One that also weakens those who remain your enemy."

She'd elaborate, if she knew. As it is, she's glad that she doesn't need to explain the concept of a sentient robot. The Cylons naturally obfuscate things by referring to themselves by their model number. "Yeah, exactly. But it's still not enough for some people. The Ones and the... the Fives were the most brutal, when we were under Occupation, but the Twos, Sixes, and Eights all have blood on their hands. I think for the people who suffered most, it's not whether the Cylons can be trusted, but if they deserve it."

"That is quite understandable," Faris agrees, though he doesn't know where exactly he would fall on the spectrum of forgiveness here, were he in her place. "Willingness to start again is the right thing to do, but your people have been in battle for some time. These rebels' decision to turn against their own people does not undo what they have done in the past."

"They were willing to exterminate us," she says, although there is no heat in her words. Cylons attacking humans was merely another turn in the vicious cycle of violence that seems to plague her people. "But some of that might have been motivated by the Ones and their memory tampering. Otherwise, they wouldn't have tried to kill the Final Five."

Although she no longer seems quite so despondent, her shoulders are still slumped in an obvious display of defeat. "There's a saying in our Sacred Scrolls. 'All this has happened before and will happen again.' It's supposed to be uplifting, of how life moves in cycles, but lately I keep applying it to our situation and wondering if we're doomed to keep making the same mistakes. Earth was supposed to be a utopia of science and technology, and they did the same damn thing we did." She frowns. "Maybe it even happened on Kobol, and that's why the thirteen tribes fled. And now the Cylons are at war with one another... it makes peace seem that much more unattainable."

Faris tilts his head to the side as he considers what she's said. "Yet some of these Cylons have joined you. Surely that is a cause for hope? Defeating an enemy in battle is not the only way to reach peace."

"It is," she agrees reluctantly. "But not to everyone. And if we can't learn how to integrate the Cylons into the Fleet, then we won't be strong enough to fight off the enemy Cylons." She frowns worriedly. "Something tells me that the Ones are the vengeful type."

Faris knows that he doesn't know enough about the details of her situation to be entirely critical, but there is one thing he does know. "That is no reason not to try. You do not need to walk the same paths as before if you learn from what came before. If you allow despair to make your path, you have already surrendered."

She stares at him a moment, taking in his advice. It was such a heartbreak to know that Earth was a destroyed planet, its people long dead, but almost worse was the knowledge that they died the same way, in a war with sentient robots.

But... already things were different for her people. They had allied with Cylons. And maybe it wasn't perfect, but it put them one step ahead of any of the previous Cylon Wars.

"You're right. Even if we can't avoid some of the same mistakes, we can at least not walk the same path."

It may be a hard thing for her to accept. Faris has seen many instances where a Shontin or K'da became consumed by doubt and fear, to the point where they gave up all hope of ever finding a peaceful place to live. Not all of those stories ended happily.

But it is right to offer a tail when someone is drowning. It is up to them to grasp it, if they wish to save themselves.

He dips his head a little, when she acknowledges that. He wishes he had more answers for her, but if all he can do is encourage her own flame to light, then that is what he will do. "It can be difficult not to follow those that came before, especially if it is all you have known. But as all living things must grow from cub to adult, or from seed to tree, so does a people as a whole. Even when that growth causes pain, on the other side is the fullness of life."

It is difficult to ignore the doubt that comes with forging a new path. The thirteenth tribe was supposed to be enlightened, and yet they could not escape their annihilation. If she has to hope for something, it's that her people can rise above their differences with one another and the rebel Cylons.

"You've given me a lot to think about, Faris. Thank you." Despite coming to the Nexus for advice, she doesn't expect anyone else to fight her battles. What encouragement he has given her is more than enough. "It's too bad we aren't from the same universe. My people would greatly benefit from the wisdom of yours."

He drops his lower jaw in a K'da smile, the closest he can approximate to the human version. "You are most welcome." And then, to her second statement, "Perhaps if our peoples do use this place to find a new home, we may find a greater understanding together. I am sure that my peoples would benefit from knowing yours as well."

Her bird companion tilts his head a little in confusion over that strange smile, but Adia has seen it before, and recognizes it for what it is. She smiles back -- small, but genuine. She knows that Faris is not actually a dragon, but it's hard to resist the impression that she's receiving wisdom from one.

Hoisting the strap of her messenger bag over her shoulder, she prepares to leave. Her time in the Nexus is always too short. "It'd be another thing we'd have in common," she agrees, although she doubts that her people have much knowledge to offer his. Perhaps they'd make a good example of what not to do when your artificial creations gain sentience.

No matter how small her smile, Faris takes heart that he has been able to help her somewhat, even if only in words. A tiny seed of hope may one day grow into a towering tree, if it is nurtured. "Indeed," he agrees.

He can tell from her body language that she has places to be, and as it happens, so does he, so he won't keep her. He bows his head towards her. "Warrior's luck to you, Adia Costas."

She is no warrior, but perhaps that is the kind of luck she needs, anyway. "You, too," she replies. His situation is more similar to hers than anyone else she's met in the Nexus, but she hopes those similarities don't include what has happened to her most recently.

Bucky balks a little when she stands up, but she reassures him with a gentle scratching of his feathers. "Just going back to my ship," she tells him. "I'll see you later."

She uses her PINpoint to teleport away. Bucky lets out a worried warble, then looks over at the dragon-like alien. He bobs his head once before spreading his wings and flying away. He has a high bar for who in the Nexus he trusts to be around Adia, but Faris has managed to pass it.

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A reminder to not count your Earths before they've hatched.

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