A: Why everyone is releasing stress hormones?
B: oh, it's just turbulence -- Anon Guest
Humans are unfathomable. Sil had been seated near this one since Faranaway Station, a process involving a lot of stops and hazards, and at least two journeys through Hyperspace. Now that they were on their destination planet, the Human Qin was exhibiting high levels of stress.
Sil checked. They still had the same destination area in their itinerary. "What is the matter? Why are you exuding stress hormones now?"
"I hate flying," said Human Qin. "I feel so unsafe up there." This of course was a typical display of Human illogic that Sil had previously believed to be a hypothetical example of such.
Sil had to ask. "You were much further from safe ground and in a more dangerous means of transit mere hours ago. Why is this method feeling more dangerous for you?"
"It just feels more risky," insisted Human Qin. "The interplanetary transits have gravy drives and hungry caterpillars and all that technomagic to keep passengers safe. Heck, even the seating automatically unfolds into a lifepod in a catastrophic emergency. You don't get that in aeroplanes. You've got the wings, and the seat as an emergency floatation device, and a limited amount of oxygen in the event of depressurisation and that's it. It's terrifying."
"That is because interplanetary transits are much larger. There is an economy of scale with aeroplanes. The more technology they have, the more fuel they have to use for transportation. Not to mention that the smallest possible gravy drive is still much larger than the largest possible aeroplane."
"They could still use COL-landers[1] to bus us around in safety. There's a reason why that stuff is FOTP[2] tech."
"It is such because it is prohibitively expensive and requires advanced education to use. Operating such for domestic travel would render such prohibitively expensive." Sil just realised another point. "Then there is the failure factor to consider. It is possible to survive an airplane crash with minimal technology. There is no such technology to survive a gravy drive malfunction."
"True," allowed Human Qin. "But at least I wouldn't be aware when it happened."
[1] Control Operated Levitation. A Gravity Unit is paired with specific units that it then exerts specific gravity controls on. As one might understand, such technology is difficult to use, maintain, and create.
[2] The Fellowship of Terran Planets. All that's required to be a member is to be a colony world originating from Earth. This is how Greater Deregulations have even a partial say in Galactic Alliance politics.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / oneo2]
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