Remains of the Warship Cultivar
Chapter 4: Journals - pg 58/60
...also includes several short stories, many of which relate to the 55619 digital photos of her florets (see Index A).
MISC
The following notes contain speculation about life aboard the Cultivar based on references that are consistent between multiple journals. Note that Hrulian viruses corrupted much of the ship's datasystems, meaning that some or all of the implications noted here may be inaccurate, and since only 43 of them were recovered, the perceived importance of any individual idea or person may be misinterpreted as a result of working with such a small sample size.
The residents of the Cultivar developed several unique variants on popular quinoth sports, incorporating an alternative scoring system. Across 12 recovered journals, we have deciphered the full rules of three of these variants, which can be found in their entirety in Index D.
7 journals reference an individual named Lonely (ze/hir, terran, no listed owner). Details are vague, but an outernet search suggests that a recording of this person was the subject of one entry in the video series “Rambunctious Rodent Reacts,” in which a rinan floret gives candid responses to video content. Transcript below:
“Hey Jeremy, I have another video for you!”
“Is it a funny one today?”
“We’ll see.”
[Playback begins: Jeremy is positioned in the corner of the screen, while in the original video a terran in a wheelchair navigates onto the stage of a small auditorium. A caption in the original video reads out Lonely’s name and pronouns.]
“Who’s that?”
“Patience, flower.”
[“I have been asked by my friend Perennial to record a short series of video lectures. For those not in the know, this is part of an elaborate prank she and her family have been playing these past few decades, fooling me into believing that my thoughts could matter to the affini. Perry, I’m happy to keep playing along, but just know you’re running out of time to tell me the punchline.” From the audience comes a smattering of polite chuckles.]
“I don’t get it.”
[“Now, if you’ll forgive an old terran for restating the obvious, there’s one lesson that civilizations across a dozen galaxies have learned: the affini always win.”]
“That’s not true, I beat you at that board game last night!”
“Yes you did, my darling.”
[“-as been to the undoubtable benefit of hundreds of species, my own included. But what does it mean to win?”]
“Get the most points!”
[“There’s an idea that we learn from mistakes. Now, that’s not always true- humans had a habit of making the same mistakes over and over, the most horrible of which were when we systematically exploited individuals, cultures, and species for personal profit.”]
“This is boring.”
“Just watch a little longer, love.”
[“-id this not out of ignorance, but a belief that there would be no consequence for such cruelty. So long as it enriched the powerful and sustained those who served them, we could be persuaded to construct the greatest nightmares.”]
“I don't like this!”
“It’s okay, I’m here, I’m here.”
[“I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the school of thought known as nihilism, but the popular interpretation among humans was that the absence of evidence for a cosmic judge meant that powerful individuals were the only valid arbiters of the social order, that the ability to take what you want was in itself the right to possess it.”]
“Huh.”
[“Obviously a sentiment that appeals to those who want to take as much as they can, but I believe that it also manifested in less monstrous ways, not the least of which was the conceit that these superior individuals had an ethical imperative to care for those without their gifts. But our feeble human intellect and abilities meant that such attempts at compassion were often misguided, incomplete, or dismantled by the greedy.”]
“Are we done yet?”
“Not quite.”
[“-at the flaw in our reasoning was not just misguided application of the principle, but that the premise was itself faulty. We believed ourselves to understand the fundamental nature of the universe and built our social structu-”]
“Do you wanna go to the park later?”
“We will.”
[“-aving now been freed from totalitarianism, all but the saddest and cruelest humans have embraced the affini, an-”]
“Hugs?”
“Of course.”
[Jeremy’s owner partially enters the frame. Once they have settled into an embrace, they continue the video with Jeremy now adorably nestled in their owner’s lap.]
[“-rsonally, I suspect the initial flaw in our reasoning was assuming that it is possible for a finite being to comprehend an infinite universe, and thus we robbed ourselves of the capacity to make decisions. To one who knows the precise nature of everything, there are no choices, only calculations about how exactly they will achieve their goals. And when a fallible being such as a human believes themselves only capable of calculation, they lose interest in correcting errors of judgment, and thus they diminish themselves and those around them, rejecting the autonomy of others and their own capacity to change. But the opposite of nihilism is not tenderness, it is curiosity, the thrill in sticking one's head into dark places. And-”]
[At this point, Jeremy has fallen asleep. The original playback ends, and the focus changes to a still image of the snuggly little face, and a series of captions appear on the screen, rating the original video a 2 out of 5 for ‘Focusosity,’ a 1 out of 5 on ‘Wowitude,’ and a 6 out of 5 for ‘Snoozability.’]
Of the 17 survivors of the Cultivar, none seem to have met or remember Lonely, and the original videos are no longer accessible. Bummer.
10 of the recovered journals describe a dinner party that the captain held to celebrate the betrothal of five pinnates, and the timeline of the event has been reconstructed as follows:
- First guests arrive. Eustace, Third Floret Pinnate, greets them.
- Guests continue to arrive, and the captain and an engineering officer begin a conversation about cheese and its utility as a way to get their florets to consume medication.
- James and Gregory, Second and Fifth Florets Pinnate, are shocked by the reveal that there was medicine in the cheese, and begin to argue with the captain.
(timeline continues on next page)
