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Dorm Roof, Tuesday Midday

She'd been here for 11 days, and this was officially a new record for the longest period of time Tali had ever spent planetside. It was still a lot to get used to, particularly how there was no constant hum of engines and life support systems, and even the Normandy seemed noisy by comparison.

And this was an interesting place. It wasn't like Illium, all sophisticated technology and densely-populated affluence, or any of the colony worlds they had ever visited while on the hunt for Saren, with just their few prefabricated units scattered here and there across otherwise uninhabited and undeveloped terrain. This was something in between: people living in close quarters but not too close, in a place that felt . . . lived in, if she had to find a way to describe it.

To be fair, she hadn't gone past the causeway, which seemed like it might be more trouble than it was worth, so all she really knew about what Earth was like outside this island was what she'd heard from the Normandy crew. Still, she couldn't help wondering if life on Rannoch might have been anything like this -- without the need for envirosuits, granted.

It was something to contemplate as she sat on the roof ledge, near the garden, just looking out over the island and enjoying the view; it was a nice, peaceful moment, but one that made her more determined that whatever she found to bring back to the Fleet would help them retake the homeworld in her lifetime.

[OOC: Open post, whee.]

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Jalian would be the first to admit she wasn't always the friendliest person; she was far too blunt most of the time, though she had been learning. But what she lacked in tact, she more than made up for in curiosity. And between her being out and her roommate being out, she had barely seen her yet!

So, when she caught the tail end of Tali heading out toward the roof, she gave her a bit of time and then followed.

After living with Wrex and Garrus for a while, bluntness and lack of tact didn't bother her that much any more. It took Tali a moment to notice she had company, but when she did she nodded.

"Oh, hi," she said with a wave of one hand.

"Hello." Jalian came up to sit nearby. "Do you prefer it outside?"

"I'm not used to being outside, honestly," Tali admitted. ". . . and that makes it sound like I've never been outside at all. I've visited different planets, but I've spent most of my life on board a ship. I'm not used to staying in one place this long."

"Ah, you're a traveler!" Jalian cocked her head. "Are all not-humans travelers?"

Tali tilted her head slightly. "I wouldn't say all of them. Not even most, but there's a lot." Because humans showed up late to the space travel game, and didn't even bring Starbucks. "But my people . . . we don't have a world of our own right now. So we don't really have much of a choice about traveling."

"You sound like the Corvichi," Jalian noted curiously. "Did you have a world once?"

"The Corvichi?" Tali echoed. "And . . . we did. Generations ago, about three hundred years, before we were driven off it."

"That sounds bad," Jalian noted seriously. "The Corvichi travel space and timelines, never settling for long. They came to Earth when I was young, needing parts for their ship. But they don't remember if they ever had a world; they've always been traveling."

"It isn't ideal, but it's all I've really known," Tali conceded, nodding. "Quarians will stop by some planet or another from time to time when we need resources, but not for long."

Mostly because people tended not to want them there.

"Though we don't travel timelines. Only space. How do the Corvichi manage that?"

Jalian nodded back, pleased. "Yes, that was why they travel, too. They traded us teaching for resources and biomass they could modify to their amino acid requirements, and spent time while they adjusted their ship to account for our timeline's physics."

She thought about it for a moment. "The larger ship I think has its own method, but they taught us to build Doorways through which you can access other timelines. You adjust the tuning of them for the one you want, or you can program them to search for one meeting your specifications." She made a disgusted noise. "I've been trying to build one, but the parts are impossible to come by here."

[OOC: I STG, I looked it up and it specifically says in canon they needed biomass to genegineer for their amino acid requirements. It was too good not to include!]

"I didn't think about physics working differently in different places," Tali admitted. "Maybe it's a good thing we stick to our timeline. Having to make those adjustments for fifty thousand ships? Keelah. We're good, but that would be a nightmare."

She considered for a moment.

"I'm still interested in how those Doorways work, though -- and what's that about modifying biomass?"

Now that could be something useful.

[OOC: HAAAAAAAAA perfect. :D]

Jalian grinned; it was so good to meet someone who knew about these things! "It's difficult," she agreed. "Since they connect through many different timelines with different physical laws, quantum molecular circuitry is no good - it must all be hard-wired. So many tiny vacuum tubes!" She demonstrated with her fingers held almost touching.

"I never worked much on the biomass machines." Despite jin'Ish's best attempts. "ghess'Rith explained to me the Corvichi require different amino acids than persons - humans," she corrected herself. "So, they take biological material from Earth - mostly plant waste - and genetically alter it to produce what they need. It takes a lot to make a little change, because of the energy, but once started, the change perpetuates itself."

Part of what Tali had said finally registered. "Fifty thousand? Tchai, how many of you are there?"

"Nineteen million of us." Tali took half a moment to think about that much hard-wiring and groaned. "There's no way the flotilla could spare the kind of resources it would take to outfit all our ships for traveling across timelines. Not under those circumstances." She was convinced there wasn't a question of them being capable of pulling off the feat, but it would be the furthest thing from cost-effective. "One ship, I can see that, but their engineers must stay busy all the time."

She picked up a small pebble and turned it over in her fingers.

"Your Corvichi don't sound too different from my people in some ways, especially if they're dextro-based like we are."

That was oddly comforting in a way, if a little bit surreal.

Jalian laughed. "Well, they are purple fuzzy cubes with tentacles, so not too close. It took years to adjust their machines, though, yes." The Quarians would definitely be able to replicate them; Jalian had.

She eyed Tali curiously. "I don't know if they were based the same as you, but I could diagram what I remember of the machines, if it would help."

. . . so, closer to the hanar than anything.

"Purple's a good color. As for the machines, I'd like that," Tali said quickly. "I don't know if we'd be able to use the same process, depending on how much energy it would take, but if there's a chance we can adapt it somehow it could help. Everything has to be rationed carefully in the flotilla, so anything that might make life easier would help. It's why I'm here in the first place."

"The flotilla - that's all your ships together?" Jalian asked. "How does being here help?"

Tali nodded in confirmation, then leaned back on her hands, looking up into the sky.

"I'm on Pilgrimage," she began. "It's something that's expected of every young quarian. It's our chance to see the rest of the galaxy, and what life is like outside of the Migrant Fleet, but our real purpose is to find something to bring back that benefits us in some way. New knowledge, or technology . . . something to prove our worth as contributing members of society. We're not considered adults until then."

Jalian snorted. "I only had to - ghess'Rith called it insulting my elders into granting me citizenship. To argue that I was prepared for adult responsibilities. Yours sounds harder, but also more useful."

Tali laughed. "Yours sounds like it could be interesting, at least. And the Pilgrimage has been worth it so far. I've learned a lot, and met some really fascinating people. Did you really have to insult people?"

"Not directly," Jalian answered. "My mother felt insulted I would think myself ready at so young an age. But the Elder Huntresses agreed with me."

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Dorm Roof, Tuesday Midday

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