Latest revision as of 08:53, 1 April 2018

Participants

• Flora
• Narwen
• Randel
• Uvi

Date

13/1/2018

Log

"Build... Build from there..."

Randel sighs and sits back up when Uvi covers the note taking job and gives a quiet "thanks". He shrugs off the slight embarrassment and moves his eyes back up to the meeting at hand, and maybe wandering a bit over a few nice figures. He adds in, "Some of what Zephyr has could help with getting people familiar with certain subject matters, but it doesn't have anywhere near the capacity that is required for a school, let alone for a sizable college... Plus the costs aren't that great." He thinks for a moment and gets an idea, "I've been doing pretty well teaching from the books that were salvaged and digitized. Been learning a bit of various things while helping with the current push on education. Though, my worry is student focus. With those... impulses, it can make teaching troubleshoot. I don't suppose we have a way to handle that, right?"

Uvi listens carefully to other people, occasionally writing some words on paper or playing with her hair. When it's her turn to speak, she scratches back of her head and mumbles, "Uuhm, I don't know? I'm not really sure how the system had been working before nanites hit, so.. Maybe we should focus on things which would help restore the world, or build a new one? Like, teaching people how to build machines, repair electronics.. or how nanites work.. Hmm..." She puts a finger on her chin and looks up, getting lost in her thoughts. After a while, she loudly exclaims, looking ant Randel, "Focus~! Right! Uhm, I.. I don't know if it's the right place to say this, but... How about we ask Prommies? They had some succes with teaching people how to.. control themselves." She blushes a little as she says this, and shifts her coils, embarrassed.

Narwen listens. He taps a claw absently against the floor until his ears begin twitching at the noise, then chuffs and stops abruptly. "Yeah, points well taken. Randel, Uvi, I think you're absolutely right about the practical issues -- there're gonna be plenty of those! -- and we'll come back to those in a sec. But I want to maybe follow up on something that Uvi touched on there. There's the whole range of subjects from before P-Day -- physics, math, chemistry, engineering, life sciences, not to mention social sciences, arts, medicine, and on and on. We'll have to be focused; no way we can do everything. But there're a bunch of new areas that've come up since. Should we be teaching, I dunno, nanite interfacing? Xenobiology? And if so, how do we decide what to teach, and who's competent to teach it?"

"I mean... If you wanted to teach classes on working with the nanites for crafting-purposes, you could see about booking someone from, say, the crafter's guild, maybe? Start with workshops, and if they prove popular... Make it a full course? Same with other 'new' courses... Try things out, see how many people are interested? Physics and chemistry used to be parts of other studies in the past, too."

"As for keeping, uhm... Instincts in check. You could install a nanomagic server... There's the one nanomagic that keeps the instincts down, I believe."

Randel stifles a knowing smerk when Uvi reacts to her own recommendation, then blinks and reigns in his composure again. He nods in agreement to Flora, and says, "Yeah, a server like that would help a lot for people that have yet learned to control themselves. Just wondering if that was covered, since it is pretty expensive." He thinks for a moment and suggestions, "Well, we already have some pretty capable students, and the purpose of education is to get them a standard of knowledge and experience to operate in the real world. Might be able to have some of them that are passionate in certain fields to be teacher in those fields. I mean, some of them were pretty fast learners. As for the nanite and mutant studies, I guess I could help with that and try to train more teachers in the field."

Uvi grabs herself a coffee while others speak. She stares for a while at the surface of the black liquid, as if considering if she should really drink it. Anyway, she soon takes a sip, but before she can express what she thinks about the drink, it's her turn to speak again. She says, "I have a workshop where someone could teach about crafting, so.. I actually even live there, but uhm, I dunno if you could install a server there... But I think xenobiology or even xenopsychology are good subects to teach, right!" She starts nodding quickly and proceeds to take some notes.

"I like the workshop idea, especially for the practical stuff," Narwen says. "We might take advantage of yours, Uvi, at least to start with. At some point we should get proper facilities, but -- one thing at a time. The more foundational stuff should maybe get rolled into a class? Thanks Randel." He chuffs to himself at Flora's nanomagic suggestion. "That'd work, but, geez, I can see the complaints rolling in already if we mess with students' heat cycles. Maybe if it were optional, like just for certain classes... dunno. Plus, those things cost a bomb. Uvi, you mentioned the Prometheans; d'you know of anyone there who'd be able to teach a class on, uh, how to not get distracted during class?"

"Yeah. That. That's what I meant," the small feline offers with a smile on her lips, a flick of the tail. "I could ask around New Dawn... I don't visit often, though with the roads starting to look like -something- again, I should be able to make the commute more readily," Flora offers with a smile. "I'm... Probably not the best person to teach -that- particular course," the felime mumbles softly as she looks down at the table for a moment.

Randel,out of habit, slightly raises a hand to note he has something and says, "I've had to deal with horny students, and was quickly apparent something was needed. I'd try to requisition some kind of lust suppressor, with the spin that it would help with Zephyr's bottom line in the future, or ask a favor from someone that has the right nanomagic and sit in the class while teaching. I really should get that nanomagic myself, but I lean more towards Prommie thinking, and would rather not have people use it as a very expensive crutch. Having such a room marked would be good, so people don't freak out, but I'm sure many would like appreciate the fact that they can think clearly, for once. Odds are it would be used for sexual etiquette training and... ugh, as much as I hate to use the word, for helping 'more feral' students that have a harder time controlling themselves." He pauses and thinks for a moment before adding, "Hmm, I can teach both the nanite and mutant studies stuff, and the sexual self restraint lessons, but I'm just one person. Might be able to do both for awhile until there are too many students. All the more reason to find more people for the latter."

Uvi takes another sip of coffee and murmurs to herself, "Jeez, so good.." She also adresses Narwen's question, "Aahm, I'm.. I'm okay with that, I think.. Uhm.. I'm on rather good terms with Prommies, I.. I could talk with some people.. right." Once again, she starts to quickly nod as she finishes speaking.

Narwen grins at Flora. "Don't worry; I suspect keeping the teachers from getting distracted is gonna be just as hard. In fact, hm, maybe that class should be mandatory for the faculty," he muses. "Especially the ones who think they don't need it." He reaches for the coffee pot after Uvi finishes with it but utterly fails to get a grip. It wobbles alarmingly but, thankfully, doesn't quite tip over. He gives it a look then pulls his paw back. "But please do ask, both of you, and let us know what you find. Any more thoughts on that? Seems like it's going to be an ongoing issue. Randel, since you've got experience teaching under those conditions, d'you wanna say a bit more about what worked and what didn't?"

Randel nods softly in agreement to the suggestion of mandatory classes on managing lust. When asked about the field he specializes in, nanite induced behavior, he brightness up noticably, and goes right into rattling off what he has in mind. "Oh wow, where do I start?..." he says honestly, but picks a topic right away, "It is pretty situational, depending on their current form and personal habits. Some people just assume that, for example, that all huskies are sluts, and don't realize that they can be level headed as well, even while in heat. I wait a bit before starting class, just to see who is having issues with focusing. Too me, it seems pretty obvious, but many in class don't pick up on it, at least not on a conscious. Sub-consciously, they clearly know what is going on, which can cause others to be distracted. Depending on the class size, and how comfortable..." He trails off and looks at the others in the group and says a bit sheepishly, "You know what, I'll just write a manual about it. We've got other topics to go over as well. Keeping nanite impulses in check is just one complication in this day in age."

Flora chuckles and shakes her head lightly. "You've got all kinds of ferals," she agrees after a little while, looking a little wistfully off into the distance, her tails swaying lightly behind her.

"You have to admit that most huskies -are- generally pretty eager, though... Might be good to have some stuff for specific mutations that'll help ninety percent of people, too," the feline offers, before smiling and movingfor the coffee-pot, pouring some out for Narwen.

"I mean, that's just what I tend to see when I've got to deal with ferals. I realize not everyone's the same."

Uvi idly plays with her tail and sometimes sways her snaky jello-tail. She even started drawing doodles in the notes. When she realizes that now she probably should say something, she lifts her gaze and waves her hand, saying, "Uhm, whatever, I just don't want to have jizz stains on my bed after classes." She continues drawing, childishly sticking ot her tongue to help her focus. "As I said, I'm sure Prommies will be happy to help. We'll just have to be careful in case they brainwash people with their religious mumbo-jumbo too much, but I think it will be fine."

"Man, I miss Edel being a husky. People learned fast not to make assumptions back then," Narwen says, then shakes his head. "Sorry, tangent. Ah, bless you," he adds to Flora, sliding the bowl of coffee carefully across to his spot and taking a snuffle. This turns into a snort at Uvi's last remark. "Uh, let's not go there. Independent of that particular point, there'd be no religion in class, period -- that's one of the rules from the old days that I think we'll want to keep." He pauses a moment. "Well, no proselytising. Can't avoid mentioning Coyote, for instance. Geez, that's a scary thought. But, okay, let's not give ourselves extra problems. What about practicalities? Does anyone know what the textbook situation's like, for starters?"

"If I may... Most prommies are relatively... Laid back with the more... Religious aspects. Sure, there are those who preach it as gospel, but for most part, the people I know there treat it more as a sort of moral guideline. 'Thou shalt not steal' and things like that," Flora offers, before shrugging. "I don't see the issue with teaching religious studies, if we do it in as much of an unbiased fashion as we could... Oh! I should ask Hope if she wants to teach some history-classes" she offers, before looking away. "I mean, she doesn't have any degrees or anything. Kinda hard given that she was born after P-day, but she -has- spent a lot of time studying in the Fairhaven and Eureka libraries," Flora offers.

"Textbooks... Eureka might have some. Narwen, Randel... You two work for Z, right? I figure the internal network probably has a couple of drafts, if not full papers and textbooks..."

Randel raises his hand again a little and says, "I'll look up Zephyr's code of conduct and the equivalent of what the Prommies have and try to write up a more to the point set of guidelines with as little spin and propaganda as possible. Hmm, I should look up what RSX has, but I really don't have any contacts there." Remembering how human-centric RSX is, he smiles in amusement when noting that he is talking to a mean looking skunk beast, a mix mutation Lamia, and a small and cute twin tailed cat as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He's tempted to shift forms, but doesn't know what to change into; plus it would defeat the purpose of being in a non-distracting form. After the tangential thought, he admits, "You know what, I never did check out what the digital library of recovered books had. I've been too busy reading up on a subject matter and trying to think of how best to translate it to students to go about seeing what was actually there."

Uvi finishes her coffee and slams the cup on the table. "Right Randel, there was a project to digitize most books we have, but, well, digitized versions are pretty hard to access.. You know, not everyone has a comm unit like we do, and I don't know what places would have enough working computers people could use.." She takes a moment to look inside her cup, just to make sure she really drank everything. Then, she adds, "However, I'd rather not allow people to take textbooks home or anything like that. They are just.. too valuable right now."

"Agreed. So yeah, let's check on what's been digitised after this meeting, Randel. I'm not just thinking of the students here; frankly I'd need a textbook before teaching most stuff. It's been a while. Hope, huh?" Narwen says, glancing over to check that Uvi's noted the name. "If she's competent to teach it, I don't have a problem. I mean, I'm fairly sure that my high school teacher was born after the Revolutionary War. Fairly sure. But that does bring up a point -- how do we check for competence? I mean, when it comes to history I'm not competent to check for competence, if you see what I mean." This is followed by a noisy slurp of coffee.

"Comm-unit wouldn't help much," Flora offers, as she pulls out a cellphone and puts it on the table. "This is my comm-unit. Well, was. I've got a NICE now," she offers as she moves her hair out of the way to reveal a port in the back of her neck. "Can't exactly print a paper on that old thing. Though, with paper being easily infused with protective agents... It shouldn't be -too- hard to print textbooks for small classes."

"Hope. I think she'd be a great teacher. She's taught all of her siblings at least -something- about history. Then again, that might be motherly pride talking," the feline offers before shrugging lightly. "Beats me, honestly. Best I can come up with is testing them with a book in hand, but that'd be a long, tedious process."

Randel nods and says, "Yeah, printing stuff on good paper word important. Hard to believe how good we had it, paper-wise back before P-day. As for the test on if someone knows thier stuff, especially history, that'd be hard to do without good books and an expert." There is a discouraged sigh, remembering just how much talent was lost, before perking up some and smirk, "Though, if /I/ were checking to see if they were competent, I'd more be looking at how they behaved while being questioned, leveraging the Dunning?Kruger effect." He looks around a second, then ironically realizes something and quickly adds, "Uh, basically, people that don't know much in the field, but know enough to 'be dangerous' would be unusually confident in thier limited knowledge. While those that are more proficient know that they don't know everything. While people that are every knowledge would easily fall into the bad assume that others know more about the subject matter than they actually do. In short, you ignore the self proclaimed expects, and get the ones that figuratively drips with terms and info about the field they are an expert in."

Uvi squirms, trying to get into a more comfortable position. "How to check for competence... I am not sure if we really have many options here. I agree with Randel though." She takes a moment to discreetly wink at him. "I suppose, for now we could just wait and see who shows up and wants to teach. I bet we will find some respectable people who we could trust. And maybe, uhm, after some time, uhm, create a body which could determine who's competent... You know, like a Ministry of Education? Something like that? Fuck. I'm sorry if it sounds silly, I'm just.. brainstorming. Right." She rubs her face with both hands, and starts writing.

"No, don't worry, I think you're right -- that's about the best we can do, to muddle through to start with, and try to think ahead. I mean, it's going to happen sooner or later -- heck, there's probably some mutation out there that makes people think they're experts in stuff. Although that'd be a nice visual clue," the skunk adds with a grin. "Anyways. What've we talked about, what's missing? Textbooks, courses, distracted students... well, I guess there's the question of the students themselves. Do we know who we'd be teaching? They're going to be way different from pre-P-day students, that's for sure. D'you have any feeling for how that plays out in practice? We already talked about the, uh, horniness thing, but are there other sociological or cultural things that have an impact? Or just plain physical?"

A smile, a nod, a tailflick. "It depends a lot. I've tried to raise my kids properly, though to be fair, I had little experience in child-rearing. When you're dealing with someone who was born feral, it's going to be a whole different experience," Flora offers, as she looks over the table for a short moment. "One point of attention, though. During future meetings, I want tea," the she-cat offers with a playful smile. "And you know you can get some proper coffee from the lounge, right?" she adds, tail twitching lightly behind her.

Randel looks away and thinks for a moment, but catching Uvi's wink, and makes him smile in return. He looks over Uvi longer than intended and gets his train of thought back on to the question of what is missing. "Well..." he says slowly, "While there are other concerns, most of what is left over, like possible cultural issues, would be speculative since the population is so fragmented into their own little groups, as well as making up things as they go as well. There of course hasn't been a census done on what beleifs people have. I can think of some other things to help with the horniness issue, but I think we can afford to deal with that as things go. My worry is on people of different, sometimes changeable, species falling into a new form of racism; and of course where are we going to do all this at, especially if and when the student population grows as more are willing to learn, and learn more stuff."

Uvi smiles back at Randel innocently and says, "I'm only worried about students of really big size, or really small ones. We don't have infastructure that would fit them so.. I guess it's one of those things we can't change. They will have to adapt somehow." Uvi shrugs and goes silent, only sometimes looking at Randel, or taking notes.

Narwen chuffs. "Yeah, finding a lecture hall's gonna be interesting. But if I'm guessing that, at least to start, we'll have smaller classes -- although, woah, good point about Kaiju students. Might have to have some outdoor classes, or at least ones where they can listen in through a window. Not to mention the odd one with accessibility issues," he adds, dipping his head. "But it'll all be improvised to start with; we'll do what we can. So, I'm going to put some feelers out, see if we can get a place. We've got a bit of time, though -- I'm guessing that content-wise, classes won't be ready for months. And that's lucky because Zephyr has said, uh, that we _can_ use their rooms, but they'll charge us market rate. They did give us a small budget, because this is, quote, an investment in the future, but when I say small I mean five thousand freecred. And now we have three thousand eight hundred because of today's meeting, and I kind of wish I'd made it a bring-your-own-beverage one, but we live and learn."

"That is... Basically no budget at all. Might as well not've. I'll ask around with the prommies... To be honest, if that's the kind of value Z puts on an initiative like this... I'm not sure we'd really want them to be able to brand this as 'their' initiative, if that makes sense?" Flora offers, shrugging lightly. "If anything, there's a couple of places around the city that should work decently well, and with most of the ferals no longer traveling the streets, they should be safe enough... Besides, especially with physics, it'd be nice to put things into context. Physics of daily life, if you will?" Flora offers, smiling, tail flicking behind her. It almost looks like there's literal gears turning in her head.

Randel looks off onto the distance as he sorts things out in his head, before trying to glance over at what Uvi wrote down. He nods and says, "Yeah, sizes do need to be taken into account. People generally aren't that different in size, but there are some notable exceptions, with many of them not having a choice in the matter.... Hmm, been thinking of how to physically maintain the place, and the only way I can see it, without having Zephyr be always involved with selling stuff, is to collect builder nanites as kind of a donation thing. You know, so maintenance can be done on... well, everything! I have a good amount stored in my own account at Zephyr, mostly because I kind of eat the stuff myself due to the change nanites have caused after being heavily exposed for so long. Having not been out and about as much as I used to be, let alone having to defend myself, has slowed down my appetite for them. Still, it shouldn't be too hard for me to get more." There is a pause as he thinks a bit, shifting in his seat some as well, before saying, "But yeah, we got a good start, I'll write up those manuals and... I guess see where things go."

It seems that jello lamia mumbles something about 'Zephyr and their investments in the future' under her nose, but she makes sure it's not exactly audible to everyone. "I'm not gonna charge for classes at my place for sure, but I have a thought.. How about we ask skunk girls at the Library? I know they are pretty hermetic, but maybe they will find it beneficial to help us. There are some educated girls among them too, mostly doctors." She pauses for a moment and continues with a cute voice, "Narwen, you look pretty skunky to me. Could you maybe, you know, talk with them? Right?" She wiggles the pencil in her hand, waiting for Narwen's response.

Narwen does actually spray coffee across the table at this point. Once he can breathe again, he shakes his head. "That's, uh, an idea but I think that maybe someone who's not me should ask them, because they keep their weapons loaded. Some of the classes could be in there, but, uh, nothing I'd be involved with. I'm kind of not allowed in there. Or within about fifty feet. Also there's some trademark issues but I'm not allowed to say any more for legal reasons." He pauses and tilts his head. "I think that's it? But otherwise, sure. And _thank you_ for the workshop space. Um, let's all poke around for more places, see what we can come up with. I'm sure we'll find something in the short term, and can figure out the longer term once we have a better idea about the students. So, any other business? Or shall we go get a drink that's drinkable?"

Randel starts to laugh at something that was suggested, before getting sprayed by a skunk beast... but with coffee, rather than the other 'stuff' and jumps and falls over in his chair before busting out laughing shortly after from the event. "Haha, I'm-Ok-I'm-Ok" and raises a thumbs up and listens to Narwen for a bit before getting up. He causally brushes off as most of the liquid before saying, "I can head over and check out what they can offer." and starts shifting into a skunk girl. Once done, he... now she, as best as anyone can tell with her clothes on, adds with a softer voice, "I am a part of thier crafting circle," then frowns a bit while looking down, ears flicking cutely, "But it has been awhile... hope they recognize me." Her transformation does feel more 'complete' than that of most Nanite Adepts, even taking on the posture of of a typical skunk girl.

Uvi shrugs and pouts at Narwen. Scratching the back of her head, she says, "What? Did I say something wrong? Huh? Something drinkable? Thanks, I already had this coffee, mmmmm" As she's about to leave, she gives Narwen her notes. She says quietly, blushing, "H-here.. you a-are.. D-don't mind.. d-doodles... Thanks." Then, she gives Randel a brief hip-bump and swiftly slithers away.