Your name is BrightReef Grover and you are finally a Science Scout!Among the youth of Swallia; public service is considered a great mark on a resume for a future career, and a great use of a young person's time. Before being mated or mature enough to engage in the workforce; it is a method to expend youthful energy towards something useful. But you wouldn't know much about that; you're more interested in the merit badges, the sash, and the cool stuff you get to do.The Scouts are a direct subsidy of InterCon; the governing body of your independent planet. Swallia and its two moons are in an autonomous zone and are free from the predations and exploitations of other powers in space. This is guaranteed by your protector-in-all-but-name state; the Jaxtian led Hegemony. But once again, you don't really know much about that. You're just a kid, you're much more excited about summer vacation on the last day of school. You even get to meet the representative from the Eugenic & Science policy department of the Swall government. Cool!
Today, you make a promise. You are told to salute. You hold up your hand and drop three fingers down; representing wealth, respect, and health; whole holding up the index and pointer fingers to represent your family and country.“Do you promise to abide by the moral standards set by InterCon?””I promise!” You say excitedly, with the others.“Do you promise to only seek advancement when the necessary steps have been met, and only be awarded badges of merit when you have mastered the skills or practices within?””I promise!”“And finally; do you promise to help the people who can't help themselves?””I promise!”“Then I advance you all to the rank of first class scouts. Congratulations.””Woo hoo!”And with that, the last day of school ends. It's summer vacation! You go outside to smell the fresh, sea-scented air of your home town. It's cleaner then it used to be; a result of InterCon's efforts to reduce your species more early industrial pollution. But to you? It smells like freedom! I mean, you did just make a promise to be a good, responsible scout... but that can wait a minute.What should you do first?>Go for a swim with your friends>Explore and go for a hike>Tinker in the laboratory>Get right on your Scoutly duties
>Swall SidequestHell yeah>Set in the independent eraHmm, curious.>Go for a swim with your friendsWhy not? Ain't like he's gonna do much once he gets slimed by Reeex
>>6308535>Go for a swim with your friends
>>6308535>>Go for a swim with your friendsswimmer
>>6308535>Go for a swim with your friendsI'm not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, I really like the idea of seeing swallia pre-jaxtification, on the other hand I really feel like the last thread ended like one update short of a proper finish which I was hoping we'd get.
>>6308546I'm assuming you are referring to not having a supreme choice previous thread, I apologize for this but the previous thread was already so long at 1700 posts I just didn't feel like I had the time to properly flesh out candidates. It was also supposed to sort of be "Halams" arc. I can promise that thread #14 is not going to be just Halam still since he's reaching the end of his natural lifespan in the current timeline. If you're referring to the other elements like the beginning of the Esaal conflict or the new cradle life machine, I wanted to leave some stuff for future prompts so I don't have to just make up everything new.
>>6308553No, I do get why you ended it, it's just that ending a thread with the Supreme a few years from death and not choosing the next candidate was a pretty big cliffhanger, so obviously I thought the next thread would solve that, rather than going to a sidequest.But again, I do like seeing about the swall, so I do like the thread itself.
>>6308535>Go for a swim with your friendsFISHE
>>6308534>I leave for the weekend>new Space MonkeDamn it.
>>6308535>Explore and go for a hikeI’m sad, since I know how this story ends.I want to explore Swallia before it gets ruined.
>>6308535>>Explore and go for a hike
>>6308535Hmm. Not sure about a side story set hundreds of years ago. Especially given how the last one went...>Get right on your Scoutly duties
>>6308535>Go for a swim with your friendsGo have some fun, kiddo.
>>6308535>>Go for a swim with your friends
>>6308535>Go for a swim with your friendsHmm. How's this going to go, I wonder. Setting this in the area before the evil Mask decided to over-rule every single player decision actually made about the Swall is certainly... a choice. I know some pre-hegemonic Swall were abducted by the Esaal, could that be a potential 'escape vector'?
>>6308713Technically speaking all the people killed by Wrix were revived by the machine. But I'm pretty sure this kid lived a long time before that, no?
>>6308715Also, even if this was near the genocide and the kid does get murdered and then revived, it's been like 100 years since the genocide anyways.
>>6308716That's what I'm thinking, so...>>6308535>Get right on your Scoutly dutiesA dutiful fish will adjust best to being a Hegemonian.
>Swall in the time of the autonomous zone.Yoohoo! Let's go!We get to revisit a time and place we hardly explored and I get to revisit my guilt for choosing and abstaining in just the right way to make it all die!>Go tinker in the laboratory.
Going for a swim on the first day of summer vacation? That's almost a Swall tradition! Being able to go into the deep blue waters and just enjoy it, the refreshing liquid oxygen pushing against your gills, your body's swimming muscles getting a totally different workout then your spine and walking muscles. It's a nice change of pace! In today's advanced world, with radios and televisions and electricity which doesn't work well in water; Swall are spending more and more time out of their ancestral environment; water!The kids are playing a game; a combination of physical skill and intelligence. You're supposed to throw rocks into a pattern to get a match; surrounding the opponents pieces to flip them over to your side. They sign to each other. You've never much liked this game as much as swimming. You feel like people get way too competitive about it. Though, being competitive, smart, and ahead of everyone else is a virtue in your culture. You just think sometimes people take it a little too far. This game always ends badly.How do you feel about overly competitive people?>You should try to be more like them>Avoid them>Don't really know...
>>6308927>You should try to be more like themGOTTA BE THE BEST
>>6308927>>You should try to be more like themLife is competition Grover. Competition for resources, for mates, for even water. A real scout remembers this, Grover. Are you a real scout?
>>6308927>You should try to be more like them
>>6308927>Don't really know...
>>6308927>>You should try to be more like themDespite not liking it, it's the game of the modern world
>>6308927>Avoid themComfort in nor being #1 will be handy, soon...
>>6308927>>Don't really know...
>>6308927>Don't really know...Don't want to be one ourself, but let's not blow them off either.
Competition. The lifeblood of capitalism and Swall's advancement thru technology and the ages. You're split. You see the kids before you, one day to become adults like yourself, and you see these power dynamics and hierarchies forming here to one day become very real ones. You think you should be more like them, on the one hand, but on the other hand, you're not really sure...After the initial excitement of Summer Vacation has worn off, you find yourself back at your Scout meeting place. It's a specific room in the Roughscales garage; a local sponser who very kindly donates part of his business for your troop's usage. Here, you collect some of the medicinal things and materials used for your community service. It's a useful meeting place about equal to every member of your Scouting group. You check over what you have.Some norken snails to be milked from their mild paraylsis venom, some rare corals, donated blankets, water-insulation useful in older wet homes, simple humidifers to be handed out in dry homes... Most people could afford these things themselves, or don't need them, but the people you promised to help can't. For many? It's medicine. Not even a hundred years ago; this type of medicinal help was all that there was before the advent of advanced medical technology. That knowledge wasn't lost, just became a secondary type of pursuit. That's why it's left to the Scouts.In Swall society, self-reliance and independence is seen as very important. Along with being competitive; being reliant on others is seen as a moral and personal failure. It makes sense, after all, everyone started with the same oppertunities, and burdening others with your disability or poor life choices is socially taboo. Every Swall wants to be independent, a provider, a leader or inventor, and socially respected. In this way, those who serve others, especially those who can't provide for themselves, are considered to have a very low position of low skill and low importance. Social workers and nurses are always lesser and less desirable then a administrator or doctor, for example. Adults willing to work such roles are always in short supply, which is once again, why it's left to the Scouts.
The ones most criticized though? The Elderly.You even think it yourself, you've internalized it, even if you don't fully understand why yet. But old people who are disabled, or living alone without children or their life partner, or poor and unable to care for themselves... how do you mess up that badly? You had your whole life. Swall society looks upon them very poorly, and the responsibility is put on the individual. If you outlive your life-mate, then you chose one poorly, should have chosen one closer to you in age or with a similar level of health. If you have no children or no children willing to take care of you in your advanced age; it's your fault for not raising them better. This is especially true of females, who are considered more responsible for not putting enough effort into enriching their eggs. If you are a burden upon your community or government, then you didn't work hard enough or save for retirerment. Most seem ashamed of needing help, and rarely ask for it, or express or show any kind of weakness. This is yet another responsibility of the Scouts.To help the people who can't help themselves...With this set of donations, you should be able to help your community on things you can't gather yourself. As for herbal and aquatic medicines, you'll need to do a bit of gathering. The adults put this entirely on you; after all, it helps show your initiative and young-leadership role. As a member of your Scout patrol, you'd like to assume some amount of leadership! But how are you going to get this stuff out to the people who need it? Individual treatments and resources change all the time, and hasn't exactly been well documented. What's the best way to go about this?>Take a survey of the local community on foot and see who needs what>Check request forms & previous donations sent out and go from there>Divvy up responsibilities among the Scout troop to make it easier>Give out everything as quickly and easily as you can
>>6309352>Divvy up responsibilities among the Scout troop to make it easierLEADERSHIP
>>6309352>Check request forms & previous donations sent out and go from thereAshamed old people won't honestly answer a survey if their answers will make hem look pathetic and weak, but anonymous requests might be more revealing.
>>6309352>>Check request forms & previous donations sent out and go from there
>>6309352>Divvy up responsibilities among the Scout troop to make it easier
>>6309352>>Take a survey of the local community on foot and see who needs whatMost dont ask for help right? I bet there is more to the world than exists on requisition forms and bureaucratic papers
>>6309352>>Divvy up responsibilities among the Scout troop to make it easier>>6309353got a point
>>6309352>Check request forms & previous donations sent out and go from there
Rolled 1 (1d2)
You decide it's probably be best to divvy up the responsibilities of doing your community work to your whole scout troop. There's a lot to do, so having each boy and girl in your troop having a separate task would be the best way to tackle it. Because of summer vacation, you have plenty of time, but you shouldn't procrastinate! You look over the supplies in the garage and start writing down what's short. Just then, someone enters."Oh, hello Mr.Roughscales."He's the owner of the garage. He's nice. As both your senior, and someone donating a part of their business for use by the scouts, he's someone to be respected. Swall culture has mostly done away with bowing or great signs of submission in the modern era; that's feudal thinking. But you do turn your head to the side respectfully; a gesture from the days when you were all fish and a fish looking at you straight-on meant it was likely planning to eat you."Hey Kiddo! How goes the Scouting?""Oh... alright. We won't impede on your business any more then we have to, Sir. Thank you for letting us use this place as storage.""Of course, anything to help. I wasn't a Scout when I was your age; they didn't set it up yet. I kinda wish I could have though..."You think Mr.Roughscales is trying to get closer to you since he never had a son. It doesn't really creep you out or anything, he seems harmless enough, you just don't want to come off as rude; especially given he's a successful business man or whatever. If anything, if you want to be more competitive and all, maybe you should ask him for some practical business pointers? But then again, he did say he respected Scouts for not being so money focused and thinks its good for the community. You'd hate to come off as only caring about this for a career to your troop's sponsor...>Ask him if he thinks the Scouts are a waste of time for you>Question why he supports the Scouts>Thank him again for the compliments and get back to work
>>6310009>Question why he supports the ScoutsThis seems like a fair question
>>6310009>Question why he supports the Scouts
>>6310009>>Question why he supports the ScoutsSomething about business, society, misfits.
>>6310009>>Question why he supports the Scouts
>>6310009>Question why he supports the ScoutsI assume he's just more altruistic or collectivist than normal, but even getting that perspective could set our boy here up for success in the Hegemonic future to come.
Hes gonna molest us lol
