traitorous: (YOU.)
MAINE. ([personal profile] traitorous) wrote in [community profile] forbarrayar 2017-01-06 07:12 pm (UTC)

Disappointing, maybe, but not entirely unhelpful. Miles' answer tells Maine that he definitely doesn't know where in space they are. Could be three-hundred light years from Earth, or a thousand, or not in the Milky Way at all, or it's possible that these people don't have any concept of space beyond their own planetary system.

I CAME FROM THE MILKY WAY
MY HOME IS A DESERT PLANET IN KEPLER-62

Here, next to message, he draws a rough diagram of the Milky Way: a messy scribble for the galactic core and four winding semi-circles for its arms. He marks one of the arms with an x and a question mark and looks up at Miles when he's finished. After a second, he looks down uncertainly and quickly writes FAMILIAR? beneath his diagram.

It's frustrating, not knowing whether he's being clear or making sense. He'll need to figure out a more effective way to communicate in the future so he's not writing out complete paragraphs in the fucking dirt.

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