"They're the first stage of a new Gem colony!" Animated now, Nacre grabs a napkin to be a demonstration planetary crust. "We land a machine on the surface full of seed crystals for the first colonists, you see. Mainly Quartzes, they're... robust... enough not to need much oversight." The robust doesn't sound like a compliment. Look, Nacre wouldn't say a word against those fine warriors of the Authority, but any construction you can trust to an automated Kindergarten is going to be crude! That's just how it is and not at all a matter of artistic or Homeworld snobbiness. "It digs out the Kindergarten, then implants those cores to grow into real Gems, drawing on local resources."
Katters watches the demonstration with interest. “Like a parasite,” she cuts in. “Like a planetary parasite.”
Kastor gives Katters a disturbed glance. "It sounds more like farming to me. You have kind of an upsetting imagination."
"...is it possible for any of the normal wildlife to survive on the surface, while this is happening?" Riaa asked suspiciously. "Or after it's done, I suppose."
Nacre is not familiar enough with the concept of parasitism to be offended. Nor, for that matter, is she familiar with: "Wild life?" She shrugs. "Again, I'm not a Peridot or anything. I don't need to know the finer points of how it all works- I only know this much because I was designing a Pearl for a particularly successful and favored Quartz soldier who really would not shut up about colony life, no matter how many times I tried to change the subject..."
"Huh, zo hyu guyz iz a species ov self-rep-lee-kay-tink constructs. Bot now hy relly vant to know how you mediks vork. How ken hyu get hurt et all ven hyu iz light?"
"Oh, but the light isn't me, this is." Earnestly, Nacre indicates the iridescent cabochon on her forehead. "It's possible for someone's gem to be cracked, and that's very bad. Sometimes a healer can repair it, but sometimes they just have to be harvested." Yeah, that's not a thing anyone likes to talk about in detail, MOVING RIGHT ALONG: "And of course there's retrieving poofed Gems before that can happen to them."
"What it's called when you go into your gem to regenerate a damaged body," she explains, with a touch of the "talking to children, idiots, and foreigners" tone.
"Yes, but how does your body get damaged if it's made of light? Are you, ah, actually tangible?" Berit lifts her hand towards Nacre, then thinks better of it.
"That certainly answers my question!" Berit smiles as she rubs at her arm. "I confess you're not what I expect from light, but I suppose you're not that different from the more physical sort of spirits... If your physical form is shaped by your, ah," she waves her hands vaguely. "Force of will?"
“Sure,” Katters says, “farming’s a bit like planetary parasitism, too. Although I’d be less inclined to say that, given that, in general, the plants belong here. I could see an activist saying it about, say, the farming going on in the rain forest, although… in general, that’s cow farms, not plant farms. I guess they also plant food for the cows? And it’s probably possible to spin it so the cows are being parasitic, too, but if you go that far then everything’s being parasitic, and this is probably one of the reasons we don’t usually classify the planet as a living organism.” She’s annoyed by the judgement, but it shows only in the slight downwards angle of her ears.
Kastor is gaping in disbelief. "How far up your own ass do you have to be to think farming is something you can make a moral judgement about? Like, do people where you come from eat sunshine? Are you flower people?" But he catches himself and shakes his head sharply. "Sorry, I'm being an asshole. I'm talking to some folks in my past more than to you. I come from like... nomadic herders, except a lot of people aren't really all that nomadic or in touch with their herds, and they buy a lot of rice and fruit and sugar from down south, and then they talk shit about how soft the farmers are, and I just. Where do you think your goddamn silk undies came from. Argh." He hunches apologetically. "And now we all know why Kastor stays by the door. Yeesh." (social graces are for people who were raised indoors, i'm afraid)
“Pretty sure the only one making moral judgements here is you,” Katters says, and her ears dip a little further. “I never said parasitism was a bad thing — parasites just do how they do, they’d die if they didn’t. If you’re going to make a moral judgement about that, you may as well make moral judgements about animals having to kill things — plants or other animals — in order to survive, and I don’t think either of us are in a position to do that.” She huffs when Kastor excuses himself, but relaxes some. “Those people sound like assholes,” she says. “You’re alright, we’re cool.”
Berit blinks several times, visibly clears her expression, smiles slightly, and says, indicating Nacre, "Mind, I wouldn't be surprised if she ate sunshine."
"I suppose one could say that, though you only really need to will your body when you're generating a new-" Nacre's explanation trails off at the minor explosion that just happened. (And here is where I really wish we knew from where Gems derived their energy.) "Ah. That reminds me- while we're exchanging physiological information, how is it that you make other meat things into energy?"
"Well, in certain kinds of plants and animals there's a kind of fuel, and our organs are able to break it down into components and then turn those components into energy. Then I think it transfers from the organs to the blood, which carries it to muscles and such?" Riaa said vaguely. "Eh, I don't really know. We can also store that energy long term in our own flesh and save it for when there's no food around. And I don't know if this is just my sort of elves or not, but we can manage for a bit without food if we have enough other magical beings around. Energy sort of pools around, that's why the Vals that are centuries old don't look completely decrepit too."
Katters grins. “Proteins are more used to repair the body than fuel it, but what doesn’t get used for repairs does get converted into glucose. We burn the glucose for energy.”
