Dinner and Politics

[forcegalactic]

[As promised, at 5pm on Wednesday, the dining hall is prepared for a group dinner. Along the side of a wall is a long set of tables filled with food prepared by Mordecai, Sukuyo, and all their volunteers. One end has drinks (and a bag of blood on a fancy plate for Dio), which transitions into meals and then onto desserts. Two rows of tables are arranged with twenty-five sets of plates and silverware, all on neighboring seats.

Enjoy yourselves, chat with your neighbors, and remember: we don't need McDonalds to have a happy meal!]

Comments

[ninehundredlives]

There's certainly better things we could ask for.

[All the same, she's been staying out of it. Too much bother.]

I'm surprised you know what it is. Does that place still exist where you're from?

[forcegalactic]

Naw, not anymore. But anyone who reads a bit of history knows about how it practically dominated the Earth food history for hundreds of years. I don't miss it, anyhow.

[Nods at the hamburger.] How did that turn out?

[ninehundredlives]

It's good! Better than any burger I've had in a long time. Not that I eat at McDonald's...

[America, sending all its crap over]

[forcegalactic]

[Nearly all the settlers on Mars came from America...]

Good. 'Cause if anyone wants burgers from here on out, they just have to talk to me, and I'll grind up all the beef we got and store it for the future. You don't make it on Mars if you don't know how to take care of yourself, and this place is just as wild as the frontier, in some ways.

[ninehundredlives]

[That explains many things.]

You live on the Martian frontier?

[forcegalactic]

All of Mars is a frontier. You can't live in town without runnin' into the same troubles the farmers do.

[ninehundredlives]

And what kind of troubles are those?

[forcegalactic]

[Susan, do you really want to know? Are you seriously asking?]

All kinds of trouble! First you got your everyday mutant bandits and your robot outlaws, rustlin' cattle and robbin' banks, and then you have the ornery workers that are always itchin' for a brawl in my saloon, no matter how many times I ask 'em not to do so! Once you go far from town, you got the crazy folk that love shootin' everythin' that ain't them. Then you have the mad scientists that are tryin' to make animals talk or switch minds between bodies, and the Science and Techonlogy Bein's that turned Mars into a giant death weapon.

I only heard some of the Marshal's adventures, but Mars has got some dangerous spiders out west, which ain't too bad if you stay away from them, but sometimes--sometimes you have alien wildlife attack town, like the time a blob infestation took my piano player away from me. And that lead to my buyin' a self-playing piano which fell in love with my saloon and forced everyone on Mars start singin' spontaneously, which I do forgive him a bit since he did it out of love, which ain't a malfunction for an AI, but then the Marshal shot it, breakin' the heart of my saloon and causin' her to shapeshift legs and walk away.

And like I mentioned before, highwaymen that like to stab folks.

[ninehundredlives]

[...well, she wanted maybe a third of that detail. A quarter, even.]

At least none of that will happen here. Except maybe the stabbings...

[forcegalactic]

[Asking the Barkeep to provide less detail is asking for the impossible, Susan.]

Yeah, that's what I figured, but with more stabbin' and breakin' heads to make up for the typical trouble I'm used to.

[ninehundredlives]

I doubt any of us were really prepared for this.

[Some have more relevant experience - herself and the Inspector, for example - but nobody's ever really prepared for something like this.]