Video

[heart_wrenching]

[ Even after the video starts, the image is mostly obscured, the figure still way too close and fiddling with her device. ]


Is this really broadcasting now? Amaaaaazing. I can't even see the microphone or camera! It's almost unbelievable.


[ When she finally sits back the area around her is a mess. The tables are strewn with tools and machine parts, knobs, springs, coils, piping. If one looks carefully, one may be able to spot a number of control panels suggesting she has possibly dismantled every major appliance in the home. Like ya do. ]


Well, hello! I'm a new imPort, my name's Winry. Winry Rockbell. And . . . does anyone out there know how to build a "microwave"? Well, rebuild, technically. The locks and turntables are pretty straightforward, but then there's all these wires . . . who knew electricity was going to be such a big deal, anyway?

Comments

[dendarii]

[ Oh. Miles leans in, immediately fascinated. ]

Is that a prosthesis? And she built that herself?

[fullmetalbrat]

It's automail. Ordinary prosthetics don't have this kind of motor skill.

[He wiggles his fingers to demonstrate.]

[dendarii]

Yes ... yes, I can see that. How are you controlling it? Is it hooked into your nerves?

[fullmetalbrat]

[He gestures vaguely at his shoulder.]

There's a port that connects in . . . somehow . . . I just use it, I don't care how it works.

[dendarii]

Right, right, you're not the engineer ... That's terribly advanced even for us.

[fullmetalbrat]

Really? Aren't you guys hundreds of years in our future?

[dendarii]

Just so. Which is why it's so impressive.

[fullmetalbrat]

What kind of shoddy replacements have you got if automail is advanced?

[dendarii]

Depends on the injury. Limbs are more traditional prosthetics ... Organs are regrown, though. And there is cryorevival of course.

[fullmetalbrat]

—You can grow organs?

[dendarii]

Oh, yes. Whole people as well. I myself was made that way.

[fullmetalbrat]

[Suddenly Ed is about a thousand percent less excited.]

So . . . you're a created human . . . ?

[dendarii]

I suppose you could call me that. But you would have to say the same of my mother, and probably 90% of the galactic population at this point. Uterine replicators are universal nowadays.

[fullmetalbrat]

Uterine what.

[dendarii]

Replicator. Exactly what it sounds like.

[fullmetalbrat]

Why would— Why?

[dendarii]

...Because a body birth is invasive, dangerous, and outdated at this point? I certainly wouldn't have survived without the tech available.

[fullmetalbrat]

You got a real way of making anyone who disagrees with you out to be an asshole.

[Some of us were only born in 1899 and your future is weird and alarming!!]

[dendarii]

Sorry, sorry. That wasn't my intent. It's simply a given fact of life at this point - and there are plenty of other things to be unhappy about in terms of technological abuse.

[fullmetalbrat]

Haah . . . I'm just—still . . . catching up. There's a lot to catch up on.

[dendarii]

Well, I'd be happy to assist, if you like. My planet ran on horses and wagons as the most advanced form of tech available until less than a hundred years ago.

[fullmetalbrat]

How did you go from horses to space so fast?!

[dendarii]

[ Dryly: ]'

We were invaded. Violently.

[fullmetalbrat]

Ah . . . I'm sorry.

[dendarii]

So were we. Ah, well. We'd have managed it anyway eventually, once the wormhole was open again.