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WHO: Jean-Luc Picard
WHERE: 7i (forest shrine)
WHEN: Sept. 27th
OPEN TO: Samantha Moon
WARNINGS: None atm; will update as necessary

For all that there's no denying that the foxes that seem to be all over the secondary settlement - which he's almost certain is going to need a better name at some point - have gone from minor inconvenience to genuine nuisance, there's still quite a bit of the area to be explored. Not that he's really expecting to find anything, but he figures that it can't hurt to try. And not just because there's at least one person he's promised to share any relevant findings with.

Admittedly, he wouldn't normally be interested in the forest itself - he'd much rather be exploring caves if he had the option - but since forests are what there are, forests it is. And if nothing else, he supposes he might happen across some interesting plant life to mention to Beverly later. Coming across not just a building tucked away but something that would appear to be something like a shrine, on the other hand, is more than a a little intriguing. Especially given that if he's not wrong, it happens to be drawing from some of Earth's cultures. Which doesn't mean that they are still on Earth, but is certainly intriguing all the same.

Not that he can say that he's terribly familiar with the cultures this particular shrine seems to be drawing from, but he recognizes it all the same.

Still, once his curiosity has been piqued, he can't simply leave it, when it's likely going to be more interesting than trying to take stock of the variety of trees in the forest and he makes for what would appear to be the front door without so much as a second thought. And if he's being carefully to not disturb anything too much, he figures that's a reasonable precaution, given that he's had his fair share of unexpected accidents happening as a result of something similar. And given that there's already foxes very nearly everyone in the secondary village itself, the last thing he wants to do is accidentally make things worse.

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Sam continued to scan the page. She'd only ever seen practical schematics for genetic splicing once.

Her own.

This was, of course, wildly different. But all the same, it was hard not to think about the Great Experiment, just a little bit. She kind of hoped Baldy was wrong. She kind of hoped their foxy friends didn't have some kind of sentience. Because, if they did, they might be facing down an ontological crisis eerily similar to some of the shit she was dealing with.

And would continue to deal with for the rest of her life.

"Uh...maybe," she said. "I mean, if the specs were in here, this was probably dedicated to them, somehow..."

Short of it turning out that the foxes can communicate in some manner or another, there's likely not going to be any way to actually confirm the theory any time soon. And never mind the fact that he's not entirely sure that he approves of genetic modification on that scale.

Assuming of course that is actually the case. But there are more important things at hand, enough so to keep him from wanting to follow that thought all the way down the rabbit hole.

"I know one way to find out. It's not entirely without its risks though."

But given Sam's early comments he suspects that she won't entirely mind taking that risk, and the sparkle in his eyes is back too.

"Unless you'd rather play it safe a while longer?"

It was hard for her to pull her eyes away from the information in front of her, but Sam managed to look up. It was pretty safe to say that she and Baldy were from different planets--metaphorically speaking, she assumed. But she got him.

And she nodded.

"No one ever got anywhere playing it safe," she said.

Tesla. Madam Curie. And Avery Anderson, her stupidass brother. None of them played with safety nets.

Very much metaphorically speaking, in this case. Not that there haven't been significant changes to life on Earth in the centuries that stand between the two of them, but it's still Earth at the end of the day. And if he does know people who were born on other planets, that's neither here nor there at the moment. (As is the fact that some of those individuals aren't even human.)

"Very true."

And to be honest, he can't deny that curiosity has very nearly been eating him alive besides, and so it is that he nods before making his way back to the lever and pulling it with one swift motion.

...Only for it to apparently have no effect whatsoever. Or at least, no effect that he can see. He isn't about to rule out the fact that it's done something somewhere else, but it certainly does seem to have done anything to the pod itself, which is likely both a blessing and a curse.

"A little more anticlimactic than I was expecting."

Sam frowned, her lower lip threatening a pout, although she managed to hold it back "Yeah," she said. Of course, she didn't know what she'd been hoping for. Fireworks? Fanfare? A big, blinking neon sign that said 'Exit?'

She would have settled for a mysterious ticking sound but...

Nothing.

Scowling, she looked down at the file in her hands, flipping through the pages. Schematics. Sequences. What looked a little like CAT scan images. And then, suddenly, plain text. Sam squinted, a line forming between her eyes. "Uh...this is interesting. Looks like...notes."

A way out would certainly have been more interesting than what they seem to have managed. Not that he really trusts that any exit revealed by something as simply as pulling a lever would be safe, much less the exit it promised to me. But he can't deny that even the glimpse of an exit would go a long way. Not just for him but for the others in the settlement.

Or so he imagines, anyway. And if not everyone should happen to be thrilled at the idea, he knows that he's hardly the only person who's looking for a way out.

The comment about there being notes, on the other hand, has him drawing close enough to be able to take a look at the page in question. While he's not surprised that there are notes, there's still the potential for them to be less than comforting.

"Project Inari? Either that's a very conveniently chosen name or this shrine was put here for a reason."

The implications were a little big staggering, to tell the truth. "Option one," she muttered, "they named the project after the Japanese god. Option two, they are the Japanese god. Option three, they're some composite or Jungian archetype that encompass the domain of Inari and possibly hundreds of other deities, and they chose this incarnation specifically because it would have meaning to the earthlings involved in the study."

She was leaning toward the third option, which was decidedly the least straightforward.

"Well, whatever they are, their Hawthorne Effect is good and well-founded." Good. She was totally on board with messing up with their plans, whatever they were. "We know they're out there and they know we know they're out there."

"They could also be a non-human species looking for something that would resonate with the people involved in their study."

Aliens, rather than gods or goddesses. Or perhaps aliens that had once been mistaken for deities of some variety. A first contact gone wrong, perhaps? Or one of Q's ilk, given that he's not yet willing to rule that possibility out either. That said, actually explaining the concept of the Q continuum is something that he'd prefer to avoid if at all possible. Mostly because of the sheer inconvenience that would be involved.

"But regardless of what the case turns out to be, I agree. They know we know about their existence, which could explain why they haven't wanted to show themselves to us."

Whether out of fear of retribution or simply a desire to see whether or not their captives can break out of the cage, he can't say. But neither is that likely to be something they find an answer to anytime soon.

If they'd been looking to resonate, they could have chosen something a little bit more well-known, given their sample. But she followed Baldy's reasoning. It lined up surprisingly well with the Predators, in their own way.

Only dialed up to an eleven.

Maybe twelve.

"But, okay, let's assume that we're in a Skinner Box. We're in an experiment. And maybe the fact that we've realized it now means the experiment is tainted." She looked sideways at him. "If you were the scientist, what would you do?"

They could have, it's true. But to be fair, it's not as if they have any real idea of what access to human culture the Observers had had when they were initially brainstorming names for their project.

There is, of course, also the possibility that the word 'inari' means something entirely different to the Observers, and it's only coincidence that it happens to mean something in one of the languages of Earth as well. But he's considering that possibility to be somewhat less likely, in the long run.

"It would depend a little on the experiment in question. But either withdraw to avoid further contamination or alter the experiment such to reflect the new parameters. To see what the subjects in question make of that particular knowledge and how it changes the course of the experiment itself."

There's also the possibility of simply ending the experiment and starting anew, but given that he doesn't much like the idea of there being another set of settlements like this one, he doesn't directly address that fact.

Science was apparently kinder and gentler in the future. It gave her a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling, if only for a few seconds. A few seconds before what she saw as reality set back in. Terminate the subjects. That's what the Predators were going to do. And what more than a few Ordo Dracul scientists had done in the course of history.

Without a doubt it had happened more than a handful of times before experiment 88 of the Great Experiment.

Sam was going to be sick.

"Well," she said. "I don't think they're withdrawing."

Mostly kinder and gentler. Even in the era Jean-Luc hails from there aren't any absolutes, and for every person - or group of people - who are willing to withdraw, there's another who isn't. Another who's willing to choose violence over anything else, and for all that he himself prefers to find diplomatic solutions he's no stranger to violence either.

"Most likely not. But even if it's not much, we're aware that they know we know. And I, for one, don't intend to go down without a fight."

Whether or not it will actually come down to that is another matter entirely. But he's seen his share of fighting, and even without the Enterprise, much less the sort of weapons he's used to having, he isn't about to make things easy. Not when there are far too many people her for him to ever be comfortable with the idea of some unknown being simply pulling the plug on the experiment as a whole.

"In the meantime, I imagine it can't hurt to at least share the contents of those notes with everyone else. If only to give people a further idea of what to potentially expect from the Observers."

Sam didn't really have anyone to tell. She was the fucking sore thumb on the community. But she certainly didn't have an objection to it. And maybe Baldy even knew the right people.

Teamwork had occasionally worked in the past. There was precedent.

She nodded. "Yeah. Okay. Let me make a copy of these in my notebook. You can take the originals."

"You're certain?"

He knows some people, yes. Whether or not they're the right people is anyone's guess, mind. Especially when he's still comparatively recently arrived at that. But he knows at least a few people, and he supposes that's a decent enough start. Perhaps not as much if they both happened to share the information, but he can't really insist that she do so either.

"You were the one to find them in the first place."

She looked at him with a calm, analytical gaze. There could be no doubt that, at times in her life, Sam had mastered the art of self-pity. But this wasn't one of those times. She was speaking purely from a place of facts:

"I have no one to tell."

Wow. It was official.

She was pathetic.

"There's no one here you'd consider a friend?"

To his credit, he sounds appropriately concerned about the fact. Enough so that it's very nearly bordering on appalled, especially if it's more to do with other people quite simply not bothering to put in the effort. Especially given that from what he can see there's no reason that people wouldn't care to be her friend - they might only have spoken once before, but he strikes her as a good person.

And if people can't overlook whatever else that might be standing in the way, that doesn't speak very highly of them.

Sam gave him a shrug, and took out her notebook to start the work of copying the notes and avoiding eye contact.

She knew what she was. An acquired taste. The frustrating thing about it was that she'd put so much work into making a place for herself back home. And just when she'd finally found that family she'd always wanted...

Well.

Fuck the Observers.

"I'm not great with people."

There's certainly nothing saying that she couldn't carve a place out here as well. But it's not something he's about to push her for either. Not when he can understand not being terribly good with people himself. And in either case, she at least has one person who's willing to consider her more than a passing acquaintance.

Even if he never quite comes out and says as much.

"If you'd like, I can let people know you played a part in all this."

It might not mean that people will decide to make friends with her. But the least he can do is offer to take all the credit himself, he figures.

He had hit her weakness pretty precisely. Her pride. After all, Sam had started out her life pretty content to be the smartest person in the room. It was a harder title to maintain in recent years. But all the same. It meant something to her. The sense that she'd done something...maybe even something a little impressive.

So she gave him a little nod and tried not too hard to smile. "Thanks," she said. "Maybe someone will find more of these. I can translate."

She could be...needed.

It's definitely a situation where it can be hard to keep track of the goalposts, that's for certain. And one that isn't one most people would expect to be dropped into besides. But being able to feel like one is making some kind of a difference definitely helps.

Not that he says as much, mind. Instead there's simply a nod in return, before he speaks.

"I'll let people know."

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