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[asaqueenshould]

As I believe we should all be more capable of thinking clearly now, I'd like to pose a couple of questions that have been on my mind for a while.

First is the matter of language barriers - or rather, the complete lack of them. Quite aside from meeting an American who admitted to no knowledge of Japanese (and my English certainly isn't good enough to fill in the gaps), I've had perfectly comprehensible conversations with people who aren't from Earth at all. Is it more likely that something about this world is translating for us on an individual basis, or somehow taught us all a common language without us noticing? Either way, can the translation effect be chalked up to Chroma, or is something else at play?

My second question circles back to Chroma itself, building off its local importance as both currency and energy source. We've been told that the locals see Chroma as the solution to their clean-energy woes (if only breaking oil dependency were this simple...). Our hosts believe that higher rates of Chroma generation will permit faster development of their technological capabilities, possibly including a means to return us to our worlds of origin.

How, exactly, do they intend to sustain that technological capability if all of us return to our homes?

I'll grant that that's a rather large assumption; there's a very real chance that this world is preferable to where some of us came from. However, a substantial majority of us refusing to stay here, once the means is in place, could still decimate Chroma production to the point where little to nothing that we help them make can be powered. That could potentially impact the ability to return everyone who wants to leave. If nothing else, it's something those of us who intend to get hands-on with the local technology should keep in mind.

Comments

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[takingchances]

I would imagine that creating technology to generate Chroma would predate creating technology to return us home. That's probably why, besides our heightened Chroma production itself, they were so eager to study all of us when we first got here.

So pretty much you're looking at it being a while before we go home unless we just spontaneously leave the way we arrived. R&D cycles take a while.

[asaqueenshould]

I had already expected it to take some time before this was even a remote possibility.

Given the prerequisite of physical contact, I do have to wonder to what extent they could artificially generate Chroma, or whether attempts to do so would simply produce the less effective version they already have. But I suppose that would be a component of the research, one way or another.

[takingchances]

There seem to be a lot of 'what ifs' at the moment. I get the feeling they've never really run into people like us who can produce large amounts of Chroma so they're still feeling out how exactly it works and the potentials of it.

If they can't artificially generate it then they can at least collect and store it. Not that that makes it any easier for them to let an inexhaustible sort - the Moonblessed - go for a limited supply either.

[asaqueenshould]

The amount of protocol they're still putting in place is a strong indicator they didn't bring us here deliberately, as I see it. [Whether Hifumi should otherwise be assuming so much goodwill... well, that's a question she's not going to debate here and now.

Right now, there's really only one person she trusts to give her an honest answer anyway.]

They'd either need a success with artificial generation, or enough of us willing to stay to sustain things, or yet another alternate power source. It's going to be a long process no matter what.

[takingchances]

There's a whole lot of needs to happens and whatnot that can only really be solved by time. Here's to hoping if enough of us join the Lunar Scientia and help with the research, we can be out of here quicker. Or at least those of us that want to get out of here.

[asaqueenshould]

Indeed.