What's new
Star Army

Star ArmyⓇ is a landmark of forum roleplaying. Opened in 2002, Star Army is like an internet clubhouse for people who love roleplaying, art, and worldbuilding. Anyone 18 or older may join for free. New members are welcome! Use the "Register" button below.

Note: This is a play-by-post RPG site. If you're looking for the tabletop miniatures wargame "5150: Star Army" instead, see Two Hour Wargames.

  • If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 December 2024 is YE 46.9 in the RP.

RP: 188604 Osman University Chapter 2: mechs, math, and school life.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jack Pine
  • Start date Start date
Jay walked up to the front of the class, steeling himself for what was to come - if there was any more to be done.

"Hello, students. I am Commander Nagato of Section 6, and I will be teaching you the applications of software engineering in both military and civilian applications. Each of you should have a datapad at your station. These are loaded with your assignments and submission schedules. Your first assignment begins now, after which I will provide feedback to any outstanding students individually and then the class as a whole."

He then sat down and surveyed the class as they began to realize that the instructions were encrypted.
 
Office
"So what?!" Adria grouchily said. "Are you trying to criticize my pranks or something?"

Room 2
Chlorate stared at her datapad, confused. She didn't realize that she was supposed to decrypt the instructions first, so it just looked like a bunch of gibberish to the robot.
 
Kyle reached over and grabbed the tablet from the desk and remained underneath it while he turned it on. After it booted up he would begin to start working on the assignment. It only taking him a minute to complete before he curled back up into a ball, still terrified of Neera sitting in the desk in front of him. Whispering to himself, "N-not a p-pervert... I-I-I'm not th-that brave..."
 
Ceilia quickly scooped up the bad and looked at the code. "Oooh, puzzles, what fun," she said before synching to the pad.

She rewrote the code, replacing with a copy of her own encryption from her higher processing center, then began to run each assignment simultaneously. One by one Windows closed. After only a couple minutes, she set the pad back down. She then raised her hand for the teacher.

OFFICE
Mark chuckled, "no I'm pointing out that your not as slick as you think. And that your bullying must stop."
 
Office
"And why?" Adria asked, not very pleased by his comment that she wasn't so slick.
 
Approaching Kyle and Ceilia, he addressed them both.

"Impressive, both of you - keep up that focus and you should do well in this class. Just remember that this class isn't static like the other classes you'll be taking. Programming is dynamic, and so are your assignments. Don't rest on your laurels, and you might just land yourselves a recommendation to S6 intelligence. All you have to do is hold my attention."

Leaning in to Kyle, he continued quietly. "And don't worry about Neera. She answers to me inside and outside the school."
 
Kyle peeked his head out and sat back in his chair looking at Jay’s chest, not making eye contact. He nodded and said, “Y-yes Sir...” As he put the pad on the desk in front of him showing his work and that he completed the assignment.

Kyle softly and quietly followed up with, “I-I-I’m not very g-good sir... I-I-I’m just a t-tool... A machine to b-be put t-to w-work...” He stated as if it were fact and that he was told it over and over again. Seemed to be somewhat depressed.
 
"Sir I know all about dynamic programming.", Ceilia said before sending a Geist message, [I'm already S6 intelligence, but don't say anything.]
 
"Don't worry kid, rank doesn't matter here. You can just call me Mr. Nagato."

As he walked away, he nodded acknowledgement to Ceilia.
 
Kyle turns to Ceilia as he leaves and slumps over onto his desk in sigh of relief. "Ugh..." He said when he hit the desk. Looking up to Ceilia with a tired look on his face. He seemed out of it. Forcing a smile of his face he gets up still looking at her then turning back to face the desk loosing it. It was painfully obvious that he was forcing the smile, and that he didn't look great.
 
Ceilia placed a hand on Kyle's arm, gently giving it squeeze as she gave him a smile.
"I'm here if you need me."
 
Kyle completely gave up and leaned against her shoulder. He was tired and his skin was ice cold. He hasn't eaten properly in a while either from the looks of him upon closer inspection either. "Thank you..." Was the only thing he whispered as he leaned against her shoulder and closed his eyes. He passed out on the spot.
 
Astro-Navigation

"What do you want to do, Eve?"

She didn't respond right away, and instead she tapped her finger against her lap. Her fingers had softly touched across the screen in front of her, the one that controlled the course and the information that was supposed to give her information regarding messages and the calculations. It was flat, nothing stood out aside from the soft clicking that her inadvertent changes caused. She didn't bother exploring to find where the noises came from on the pad, as she didn't want to mess with it too much and input bad values, but a small alert noise played, and she heard her companion lean over to look at her screen.

"It's the uh... Teacher, Rose. She wants to see you after class." The voice was worried, and she understood what she would be worried about. Chastised for her lack of attention or something along the same lines, but her decision had almost been made regardless. She had made a poor choice, and she would apologize for wasting Roses time.

"I'll handle it, don't worry." She responded as she stood up as class came to an end, extending her cane as she began to traverse down the aisle. Her companion accompanied her, but she did little to assist her going down as she had going up, the cane deftly tapping the ground in front of her, making sure nothing like any bags or obstacles were in her way. She knew where Rose taught from, at the front of the room, but she still stopped a good foot or so away, her cane making sure she didn't walk into a desk or anything. "You wanted to see me?"
 
Kyle would be unconscious in Ceilia's arms, upon closer look. He looks a lot more physically fatigued than he should have. Must be due to the lack of a proper diet, if any, and the lower body temperature that he had.
 
"It takes great courage, and confidence, to take astronavigation when you can't see." Rose sat down on her desk, relaxing after the exertion of walking around with the current state of her abdomen. "To be fair, your course was better than some of the others. So with that said, let's work on that. According to your academic record, you're a talented xenolinguist, so you should have no trouble with the math. So all we really need to do is figure out how to get you reading the map."

Thoughts were already churning in her mind, from a glove that would allow her to feel the stars in an audio map to an audio cue of the local stars to help her find her way by ear. Rose smiled gently towards Eve and her companion. "It's certainly a unique situation we find ourselves in. But you signed up, for whatever reason. Let's get you to succeed."
 
Geography

Dylan proceeded to the next slides, showing a variety of civilized structure.

" Now, let's proceed to part 2: civilized geography. At the beginning, I asked what the relationship was between men and nature. Does anyone have some ideas?" A few students raised their hands, and the first one commented on the use of natural resources. Another one said that civilization used geography to claim new territories and be the basis for warfare. Dylan smiled and nodded on both.

" You are indeed both correct. First of, nature is the source of not only agriculture, as I showed before, but also for architecture, infrastructure, and goods production. Geography classifies features often in ways that support civilized interaction. It is often the job of geographers to precede cultivation efforts. Forests are of course the source of wood, which is used in a variety of products from paper to ember. Fresh water is important for agriculture, and rivers are often the first feature that identifies an ecosystem. Civilization has also sought to use geography to help in navigation: topography, which is the study of the from of the landscape, is important in exploration."

" Then, secondly, geography, in the sense of cartography, is used to lend credibility to a nation's borders. Rivers and mountains are a form of natural boundaries, and are the main source of border delimitation. Despite that, borders may be assigned at random, trough straight lines. Foremost, borders serve as a official delimitation between governmental jurisdiction, but may also serve as a way to determine different cultural groups. In fact, this second use was the basis of early border-making. The construction of centralised communities moving into villages, and expanding into cities, is a development that has closely followed cultural and scientific advancement. In general, with the advent of medical science, the availability of social security, and the advances made in construction technology has led to a mass urbanisation."

" Unfortunately, geography has been used in the way of waging war. Intelligence of enemy surroundings is often crucial in battlefield success. Rivers can be used as natural obstacles to thwart enemy movement, and the availability of reliable maps an geographers who advice tactical decisions based on landscape features is an important part of military strategy."

Dylan moved to his last slide: " Now, let's get some glossary involved with the research of cultural geography. A culture has several properties that distinguish one another. The most important of these are values and norms. Values are what a culture considers to be the importance of social ideas and ethics. Norms are a culture's in-alienate ideas of what 'ought-to' within individuals. It is generally what society thinks of an individuals normal beliefs, thoughts, and actions. There exist abstract values: liberty, equality, and freedom are values that almost all societies share. More direct values, like social security, democracy, and morals lead almost directly to political decisions. Norms are more practical, being a society's commands, permissions, and prohibition. Norms include justice, honesty, and privacy. Norms determine a culture's obligations, rights, and lead to national symbols and conventions. Some norms are unwritten, which are called behavioural norms. These are designed to protect societal groups that are perceived as privileged. These include pregnant women, ethical minorities, elderly, and the physically and mentally impaired."

Dylan then ended his slide-show, as he saw he had only 10 minutes before next term. " All right. That's all for today. For your study, I want you to examine the following ecosystems and their properties. These involve the Uesureyan Fields, and an extreme one: the volcanoes of the Rokin Islands. These are treated in your books, chapter 2 to 4. Chapter 1 is an introduction to basic geographic terms and methods of research, which you can read at your own discretion. For your assignment, I will direct you to the questions of chapter 2 and 3. Questions of chapter 4, which deals with landforms and soil, I shall hand out in the next class. Those wanting to do them beforehand may do so at their own estimation." With that, he closed the slide-show, and concluded:

" That is all for today. I will expect you on the next lesson, the day after tomorrow. Have a good day! Don't forget your assignment!" With that, the bell ringed, and the students stood up. Dylan walked to the door, saying 'see you soon' to them.

After that, he walked to his desk, and led out a soft sigh. " Well, that could have gone worse." With that, he closed his laptop, walked to the door, and pulled of the light. His next course was in the fourth period, in which he would teach a class of mostly off-worlders. This was slightly harder for him, as he knew little of the curriculum on other planets and institutions. He walked to the teacher's room, where he'd talk to Mark about his first class.

Teacher's Room
Dylan entered the common room, and saw a few of his colleagues there, including Mrs. Ironhart. He waved to her, and said: " Good morning, Rose. I'm new here, but I've seen your work before coming here. Your work on astronavigation is important for sure. I'm glad that my geography class may offer some help to your course." He listened to Rose's answer, and smiled. Then, he looked over to where Mark was sitting. He noticed that he was not there, and therefore walked to Mark's office.

He saw some students walking in the halls and greeting him, smiling and greeting them back. He then stood before Mark's office. He knocked on it, waiting for Mark to let him in.

(OOC: @Jack Pine I think this warrants a short JP?)
 
Astro-Navigation

From what little Eve knew of Rose, she seemed strict in her teachings, and considering the importance of the course in the lives of many people who would take it, she could understand why. Pilots needed to know what they were doing, and they needed to take every bit of it seriously, and a stern teacher did assist in that mindset. Eve herself was very well aware of the necessity of taking the course seriously, and up until now she had stared at a crossroads of what she would do. It all ultimately relied on how Rose would react, and how they would plan to move forward.

If Rose had approached her as a poor student, unwilling to find a route, she would had left and gotten herself signed out of the course. She had already been through the game of being told she wasn't trying hard enough when she simply could not do what others could through her parents, and she was thankful that their solution was to send her to someone who knew how to raise her. She made no mistake in thinking that her parents were good people with the betterment of the world in their minds, but she would have loathed herself and them if she had been raised by them.

But Rose was different, she was more like the man she was raised by. Proper in their teachings to the point of clear routine, but at the same time open to the faults that some had. Had she suffered some fate to give her the perspective, or was she something worse than either, the kind of person who looked upon Eve and saw someone incapable of taking care of themselves. Her resume at least spoke of her linguistic skills, and there was no hint of being talked down to, so that option was unlikely.

"Naturally I expected a lot of... Visual input, that the course would require. Perhaps I was a little too hopeful of something else, but it's not an insurmountable barrier." Eve spoke in response, both hands resting on the cane in front of her. "It may be too costly and in such a case I'll make a decision then, but perhaps it's possible to transfer the information in a similar manner to Braille, though perhaps a bit more fluid than the alphabet." The idea was a little far fetched, after all she didn't even know what the original image was supposed to be, much less how to translate it.

Then again, Braille was simply an alphabet, yet she had been given strange looks and told how difficult it must be to read it. Was it comparable, could the map be seen as a language that could be learned, appearing to be a steep slope, hiding the crevice of access somewhere in its bends? Possible, but first it had to be found.

Her brow furrowed, and her dull eyes lacked focus as she looked at nothing through vague direction of Rose. "I do hope that assisting me will not take away from anything else."
 
Eve was right. The way astronavigation was taught required a lot of visual input. Maps had huge amounts of data condensed into that three dimensional space. The challenge would be convey all the information without a visual cue. That would be a challenge that Rose would delight in. "That's one way to do it, I suppose. All that would take is a personal projector with a tactile aspect to the volumetric display. I'll have your desk changed out for one more friendly to you by the end of today, and I'll have the beginnings of a better map by the end of the week."

Rose considered for a moment, before a gentle thrumming began to play, near inaudible in the hall. "How's your hearing? There's no cost to me for helping you. In fact, your blindness may force us to develop a new method of reading starmaps, useful when the normal method simply isn't viable. Just like how we've used Braille for the last... I don't think anybody knows how long. So don't doubt your importance just because your eyes don't seem to work."
 
Last edited:
Astro-Navigation

Eve would be lying if she said that she expected this much out of Rose. She was surprisingly accommodating, even for a role that was meant to help teach those who were present. She had almost always had good experiences with teachers, but time and time again they surpassed her expectations, and in turn it made her strive to exceed theirs. After all, if so many teachers went out of their way to help her, how she could live with the idea that she could possibly disappoint them? She recalled her time with various xenolinguists as she picked up on language after language, and how they viewed her each and every time.

She recalled them all fairly well, and each time she learned a new language she found that she spent a great deal of time with the teachers and tutors, especially when compared to other students that they may have been teaching. She was quite strict on herself in the practicing of the languages and making sure she knew how they worked, many would claim she held a natural gift for xenolinguistics, and that very well may be true, she couldn't say that she knew what it was like to lack that natural skill, but all of the natural ability in the world would have gone to waste if she did not put forth the concentrated and consistent effort that she did.

Would she have to put forth the same effort here? The same countless hours with teachers and tutors and practicing what others simply glance over for many restless nights into tiring dawns in which she acted like she did the same amount of work as everyone else? Maybe, it was entirely possible, not only was she trying to learn something that required a specialized class, but she'd have to learn it in a new way. She would not take shallow steps into it regardless, she would dive headfirst if she always did. If her inclinations were correct it would give her a boost that may allow her to reach the other side of the pool before she sunk, and if she was wrong and hit her head against the cruel marble of the bottom, well, that was just life.

"Tactile aspects could certainly replace a handful of visual cues but I'm uncertain if it could cover all of them." Eve admitted, ready to go on, but paused as she heard the inconsistent thrumming that Rose had initiated. It was quiet, to say the least, and she had a bit of a hard time placing its location, but it most certainly was there. It sounded synthetic, but not as if it had been composed. It was an odd way to describe it, a faux rhythm with numerous things feigning as instruments that weren't instruments at all. "-I'm sorry, what is that? I can't place what it is at all."
 
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top