“That’s right! You name it I can build it!” Mya got an excited look about her forgetting herself and the fear that she had of the reactions that her admitting her hobby would bring her from the rest of society as she knew it. However advanced some of the gadgets that were in use around Debris most of the inhabitants seemed to think of most of it as magic and those that dealt with more mundane seeming of tools that existed in their world kept to the shadows. It was rare for any species to have inventors and engineers in them, but in the culture of the J`nk it was extremely odd for female Sil`phane to take to it. There wasn’t anything in it for them at them. If the males did it, which was rare for them, they had the reason of status and opportunity to have access to better mates, but if the females did it there was no point. Not only did most just not value inventing and engineering in general to be of much worth, but with how society had evolved on Debris it was considered troublesome for anyone to do it within the borders of society, let alone a female Sil`phane who also faced a general societal pressure not to take up such things and those that did were thought of as black sheep within their society.
What Mya didn’t know was that Jason and Humans in general had no such stigma, the stereotype of what an inventor was like notwithstanding.That didn’t stop the rest of the group that came with them from carrying the prejudice, but this band of people had, in their election to become part of it, instantly became a unique existence on the world of Debris. None of the aliens knew what type of society that these Humans would create, but many of them were coming because they were adventurous and curious, willing to experience something that was not the same as what they had lived up until then. Even if none of them were, they would still be in the minority. The Thisin had never been able to establish their own culture and hadn’t ever been indoctrinated to the societies which they were forced to serve within. They along with the Humans made up the largest group and not just any Humans. These Humans were among the most intelligent and skilled that Humanity had to offer and they were wise enough to have escaped to the surface of debris before the dregs had slaughtered each other or been dealt with when they became nuisances on the surface. They were the wasted Human capital of Earth and its societies that had slowly moved away from valuing intellect and merit. Instead favoring appearances, automation, and favoring strange ideological tribal ties. This all meant that this group of outcasts had very high raw potential for creating a society that far surpassed any that were known of on Debris presently.
“If that’s the case, can you make a truck?” Jason asked sarcastically. Even if she could in theory, in practice he knew it was impossible without the material resources to make it happen.
“Truck?” Mya questioned as her eyes went to a distant place. She was accessing Debris’ planet wide database of all knowledge that was known to Debris. Then she scowled. “Forbidden technology?!” Mya had come across this before in her research, but only when it dealt with ancient J`nk technology that was deemed off limits to the common people. She could freely access all the technologies of all the other species that she had ever looked into. She suspected that the reason for this was that they only reached a stage in development that resembled the world as it was now to her, but she couldn’t be certain. For all she knew the information was locked down because the ones in charge were more than willing to give away the technological advances of other species, but not their own. Now that she had encountered this problem with Human technology it removed that possibility. After she had made the claim that she could make anything she was now in the position of having to meekly ask for more information. “Ummm well, you see… could you describe more what a truck is?”
Jason noticed that when Mya said truck she said it rather than it being translated. This struck him as odd. The J`nk should have had some equivalent to a truck in their language, even if forgotten eons ago the translation matrix should still have had the most recognizable approximation of it. “Could it be that when a technology forbidden it was removed from the language’s translation lexicon?” he thought. In the end it really wasn’t important, because he knew that what they needed was a motor or an animal to pull the wagons and neither could be conjured easily. One needed materials that he didn’t believe were on hand and the other required them to capture and tame some animals which would take at least as long as it would take to get to their destination. “Forget about it… What we need is something to pull the wagon when they’re done, do you know where we can get some” he spoke to Mittana, ignoring Mya, but not for long.
“Tell me what a truck is!” Mya interrupted before Mittana could reply.
“I said, forget it. You can’t build it even if I told you anyways.”
Mya stomped her feet and huffed. She glared at Jason, “jiiiiiiiii~”
“So do you know?” he went back to asking Mittana.
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“I-I’ll have to ask around. Th-there might be a farm around that could l-lend us some,” Mittana responded, inching away from Mya, as she tried to maintain her composure. She wasn’t sure what Mya was thinking, but she didn’t want to be nearby if she attempted to use one of her inventions.
After a moment of everyone quietly waiting for her to do something Mya abruptly turned and ran away from them. It was so quick that they hadn’t seen the grin suddenly cros her face and it had been so unexpected that they hadn’t noticed that the direction she ran in was towards the group of Humans that were being treated by Rina, but they also didn’t want to pay her much mind as it was. Jason had more important things on his mind so he was happy that she had not made herself more of nuisance to himself and now that she was gone he simply went on with what he had needed to do.
While Mittan went about making enquiries about the availability of some draft animals Jason had gathered up a bunch of the aliens that had been waiting for matters to be resolved so that they could continue. Among them were Tok`phane, Eaug`rn, Nith`phane, and Xev. He tried to explain the situation, that it would be best for them to make some wagons so that they could help the sick and feeble to travel faster. They could build the wagons, but if they couldn’t find a draft animal the whole plan would fail. However, there was one solution that could work if all else failed. There were many that were strong enough to pull the wagons without a problem or they could work as a team to accomplish the task.
Meanwhile, Mya had gone to look for information from the other Humans. She didn’t consider much of it, but this was the first interaction between many of them and any alien on such a personal level and she was anything but subtle. Some would have considered her to be harassing them. She didn’t mean to, but it was just her natural personality to go all in once she found something that interested her. Given the events that lead to their current circumstances, her personality, and their general lack of good mental and physical health, most of the Humans had no desire to speak with her, but they weren't hostile. They just shooed her away and left it at that. There were, however, a few that were open minded enough to listen to her enough to find out what she wanted and of those there were engineers and mechanics that loved to talk about cars, but hadn’t thought once about them in months who couldn’t help but engage with her. Of course there were also those who simply were fascinated by the fact that she was a cat girl, something that they had been dreamed of many times in the past.
With the help of these two groups Mya learned about trucks and more broadly, automobiles which lead to the discussion of motors, fuel, and self-propelled vehicles. She couldn’t help but fall in love with the concept and couldn’t imagine why it would be forbidden technology other than for some arbitrary cut off of the level of technology that was available. Once she learned all the ins and outs of what Jason had asked about and wants she understood why he had said she couldn’t do it. Her anger faded, replaced with a gleam in her eye filled with ideas. She gathered up her new buddies, the T`kata that Jason was talking to earlier, and made her way back to where Jason was was pleading with the others to help. They were having none of it, most believing that Jason was trying to trick them into becoming slaves as revenge, although some just refused out of laziness.
Mya jumped into the center of the meeting and cleared her throat, “I have the solution. You can all thank me!” she started out, causing looks of confusion to come over the faces of those Jason was talking to.
“This is no time to be joking around Mya…” he began to say.
She ignored him and continued with her announcement, speaking mostly to those who had come her and Jason, but addressing it to the one Jason was talking to,”Y-your services will not be needed. A-animals aren’t needed either. We can make make trucks no problem.” She paused and thought for a moment, “Mmmm well we can make something like a truck. The important part is we can make a self-propelled vehicle. We have all we need.” None of the onlookers could believe what they were hearing, whether it was because they had never heard of the concept and thought it was possible, which was the majority, or thought she was making promises that she probably couldn’t come through on.
“What are you talking about? We don’t have the resources for any part of making such a vehicle,” Jason interjected.
“C-Correction! Y-you can’t make what you’re thinking of, but you don’t know about out technology a-and my genius!” Being someone that liked to tinker with the high tech devices that were available to them, she always had some on hand stored in her ARMS device. A small machine appeared in her hand. It appeared to be a compact fan spinning just fast enough to create a light breeze. “A-all we need to do is create a few mods and this’ll work!”
Having spent time using ARMS Jason knew that the fan was only outputting a very minor fraction of what it could put out, but one of the Humans said, “That’s not strong enough to drive a wagon forward, but maybe…” He didn’t get a chance to finish when suddenly a blast of wind stronger than any of them had ever felt slammed into their bodies, blowing them off their feet and several lengths back before Mya realize what she had done and turned it back down. The group suffered minor injuries, but the point had been made and all were happy to have found a solution. Before Jason could say a word the T`kata, Humans, and Mya had formed a huddle and began drawing up plans, each group inputting their own bit of knowledge to help the first truly cooperative project between these groups.