---Homebrew---

Victor leans forward, hand on his [swordcane] and dressed in clothes that were in fashion in his country [8] or [9 centuries] ago. He strokes a thumb and forefinger over the side of the [moustache] he’s been growing, since we left Fennoscandia, and says “My good man… I do believe that what you’ve just said is an anachronism… I don’t believe we Englishmen are going to gain a reputation as bad cooks for another 4 decades or so and I don’t believe it will become a ubiquitous notion until around 7 decades from now!” in an accent that he describes as [Victorian gentlemen].

Mr Byrne, dressed as a [cowboy], pushes up the brim of his hat with the barrel of his [revolver] and answers “I reckon ye’r breakin’ character! How’re ye fixin’ ta know things that ain’t gonna happen fer more’an half a century!? Could Ah gitta rulin’ frum the DMs?”

Both men turn to the two women at the end of the table.

Through narrowed eyes, Jennie says “I’m going to allow Victor to break character to explain why an 1870s Stateser making a joke about English cuisine being disgusting is an anachronism… but this has got to be the last tangent! We already had to stop for 10 minutes to explain to Qorak how the phrase ‘good show, old bean!’ is not synonymous with the phrase ‘beneficial exhibition, aged legume!’(!)”

Dropping the accent he had as his character, ‘Sir Edward Smythe-Foxe III’, Victor says “OK, so, the Statesers showin’ up late to both World Wars meant that the two times, in history, when there was the greatest number of Statesers in Britain were times when we’d already been at war for years on end! One of the things it’s difficult to ’preciate for us now (those who ain’t old enough to remember the War, at least) is the fact that rationin’ makes food taste terrible! So, all the hundreds of thousands of Stateser soldiers, whose one and only experience with our cuisine was durin’ that time, went home not realisin’ that the rationed stuff they’d had weren’t representative of what English cookin’ were actually like and just thinkin’ that our food was repulsive, bland or repulsively bland!… The ironic thing is that Statesers love our cookin’… just so long as they don’t realise that the fried breakfasts and roast dinners they’re enjoyin’ are ‘English food’!”

“You’re ignoring the existence of jellied eels and blood pudding…” says the spy “…pretty sure those existed before we saved your asses in the Big One!”

Victor shakes his head “And Scotland has haggis… and Italy has casu martzu… and Sweden has surströmming!… Every culture has foods that are disgustin’ in concept to 99% of people, includin’ most of the people in that culture! Would you write off all of French cookin’ ’causa the existence of escargot… or frog legs!? Have you ever actually tried any o’ them? If not, how d’ya know you don’t like ’em?!… Also, this is a bit rich comin’ from the man whose culture’s greatest contribution to Terran cookin’ is the invention of spray-on cheese(!)”

The man straightens up in his chair and answers “America gave the world the hamburger! The greatest contribution ever made, by any nation, to world cuisine!”

“False.” smirks Mr Byrne’s professional partner, Ms Pereira, sat beside his romantic one, Enas, on the spectators’ couch “Hamburgers come from Hamburg! You knew that, Leon! You have to have known that! I refuse to believe you never put that together!”

Grinning, Victor teases “That’s a city about five and a half thousand kilometres east of the States, if that helps…(?)”

“You’ll need to put that distance in bald eagle wingspans or he won’t be able to understand you(!)” giggles Pereira, teeth bared gleefully.

Sighing, Byrne says “I see how it is(!)… Greatest nation in history… It’s understandable that you’d all feel insecure(!)” he turns to Jennie and Twila and asks “Could I get a ruling from the DMs about whether my character can make jokes about English food being gross?”

Jennie thinks for a moment before answering “You can make the jokes but, because no one in the time period has any context for them, all the NPCs that hear you making them will give you a raised eyebrow and be mildly confused. Agreed, Twila?”

Twila gives a nod, a nonvocal oral click, and a [thumbs up], synchronised from every holographic projection of hers in the room, seeming to convey something like ‘sure thing, I’ll make it happen’. It’s quite unnerving and uncanny to see dozens of Humans all acting in perfect unison, without evidence of prior coordination… even if I know there’s actually only one intelligence directing all of them!

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“Alright then, let’s get back to the game…” suggests Jennie.

Qorak and I are perched beside the spectators’ couch, Twila having kindly agreed to [babysit] Tcakak, in our quarters, to give us the night off, to watch the [TTRPG].

This game was apparently born from an offhanded observation made by Mr Túpuson, one of the two new Terran additions to my ship’s contingent of deathworlders.

He observed that, as French piracy in the Gulf of Mexico continued until the 1830s by the Terran calendar, the age of the [samurai] continued until the late 1860s and the [Victorian] and ‘Frontier West’ ages lasted until the 1900s, it isn’t impossible that a [cowboy], a [Victorian], a [samurai] and an aged French pirate might have shared a table, at some point, despite apparently feeling, to Terrans, like intuitively separate historical phenomena!

The enormous, ursine uplift is sat on the floor, having declined the opportunity to [DM].

He’s much more soft spoken than I would have thought, having seen him play the villain, in the performance at the feast, or the warrior, in the subsequent reenactment.

Twila, co[DM]ing with Jennie, has the walls displaying a facsimile of plausible interior décor for a [saloon] in 1870s San Francisco, projecting an animated display of a period exterior through the window (which would otherwise show deep space) and is populating the room with holographic projections of Humans dressed in the garb of the time.

Emiko is dressed in the robes of a [samurai], with a [katana] hung at her hip, playing a character called ‘Nobu Yasura’, who fled Japan after the fall of the [shogunate] and has since become a hired blade.

Dr Mink and Msia are dressed in the (apparently traditional) garb of pirates, sat together at the table. Mink is dressed in fine clothes and introduced herself as ‘Captain Marie LeClerc’, here with her first-mate, Yusufi Rafiq (played by Msia). The two of them described hanging up their hats and [cutlasses], a lifetime ago, but, feeling their age creeping up on them, decided that they wished for one final [raid], before the fight is gone from them for good.

Tuun is sat beside Victor, dressed as a [Victorian] woman called ‘Nancy Waters’ who, according to the backstory she and Victor contrived, was a maid at the Smythe-Foxe estate until she and Victor’s characters eloped, in a scandalous act of hypergyny, which necessitated the pair to flee to the ‘New World’ where they’ve, since, supported themselves with a life of crime(!)

Then, of course, there’s Mr Byrne’s character ‘Frank "the Kid" Jacobs’ who, despite how it seems from his name, is not a university graduate (apparently, epithets were used for other reasons, in Terran history!) He tells of being one of the last two survivors of a gang of [desperados], seeking to find the other and revenge himself and the rest of his gang for the betrayal.

And, last but not least, Dr Hatathli, who was brought in to the ‘Colliding Worlds’ [homebrew] after he pointed out that his forebears were equally proximate to the story’s setting to Byrne’s and much closer than anyone else’s. [Quiver] at his back and [bow] in his hand, he is in the guise of a Navajo [brave], mononymously known as ‘Tahoma’, who has been banished from his tribe, for crimes he ‘may or may not have committed’. He now travels in search of something that might ‘restore his honour’, that he may return to his people. Though, with each passing year of his exile, he only seems to fall further and further from redemption.

One of Twila’s holographs approaches the table, wearing the face of a grizzled, weatherbeaten Human man, in a wide brimmed hat.

“Howdy…” growls Twila’s male form, in a gruff, gravelly voice that matches his appearance “…glad y’all came. If’n ye’ll be followin’ me ta somewhere a little more private… we can discuss why Ah asked fer y’all!”

Twila dispels the holographs populating the bar, seeming to indicate a move to a private room.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” announces Twila’s cowboy character, pulling a large, rolled paper from his clothing and unfurling it on the table “…Ah give ye the route of the Pearson Co. Stage! Now, Ah know y’all’ve got skills and Ah git that those skills ain’t gonna come cheap, so y’all can rest assured that, if we pull this off, we can all retire, filthy, stinkin’ ri…”

At this point the cowboy holograph stops talking and both he and his puppetmistress have looks of slowly dawning concern spreading across their faces.

The sound of warp ceases as we exit hyperspace.

Banishing her alter with a cascade of light motes, Twila stands and says “I’m sorry everyone, I think we need to stop the game.”

Everyone makes confused noises and faces but she looks to me and says “Captain… I’ve just intercepted a distress beacon from the AI of a destroyed ship…”

It takes me [1.5 seconds] to mentally shift into 'Captain mode' but, when I have, I say “Are you able to establish a communication with them?”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Captain…” she says, gravely.

“How can you be so sure?” she only received this beacon moments ago, she surely can’t have already given up on them answering the call!

“You see, the beacon… it’s lightspeed…”

I strain to process what I’ve just been told for some [seconds]!

Nobody uses lightspeed communication!

At a distance of just [15 lightseconds] the delay on a lightspeed channel already makes having a conversation an intolerable experience! Everyone knows that!

Over the distances involved in interstellar travel, lightspeed communications are only mildly superior to rolling down a window and shouting, in terms of their likelihood to actually be answered(!)

I think the last time there was a species known to use nonFTL coms for anything would have been…

Realisation hits me as I say “Twila, relay every bit of information that was contained in that beacon signal!”