Cactus 1 - [Text → Video]

[whoneedsbending]

SEGVL//..HEOETR ###'#

[Video feed jumps on and suddenly the scene of a blue blinking eye pulls back to show a face.]

I don't remember picking this up. Whatever. [Pretty obvious the datapad has just been tossed on the bed. Isn't the ceiling nice? Hope so, because that's the only scene you get as Sokka stomps about the room and then catches sight

Comments

[sand_wormie]

I've never heard of that. But this is Coruscant! The whole planet's a city.

[whoneedsbending]

The whole planet? Really? That's impressive, don't think I've seen something this big.

[sand_wormie]

The last census said a trillion people live here, officially, full time. There's got to be a lot more than that, I think...

It's a very old planet, so this must've taken a very long time.

[whoneedsbending]

[His mind is blown, trillion is a huge number.]

I don't even think there's a trillion people where I come from. [He knows a million, so...trillion is...three times that? Y-Yeeeeah.]

Coruscant, huh? So what do people do for fun here?

[sand_wormie]

There are a lot fewer than that on my world. The buildings here go on for kilometers - we're lucky we're on an upper level, we actually get sunlight.

That's a pretty complicated answer. People do a lot of different things. Young humans... um... [He starts ticking things off on his fingers.] Theaters, sports - no one's invented chin-bret yet, but there's still some others like football - swimming, simulators, illegal stuff, shopping...

[whoneedsbending]

Yeah, this place looks pretty amazing. It has levels? How high are we? [He tries to think of a city that has layers to the point where sunlight doesn't reach the bottom. It's hard.]

So, pretty much everything then.

[sand_wormie]

Hundreds of levels. No one's sure just how many - the lower you get the more forgotten it is. And the nastier. They say that there were humans banished there thousands of years ago, and their descendants are cthons, eyeless pale cannibal things. [Apparently this is a topic which fascinates him.] Except at the poles and the mountains, they say no real sentient has been to the ground here in ages.

[whoneedsbending]

[He really wants to see how far down this place goes, but not so much when he hears the mention of eyeless pale cannibals...That's a bit too much.]

If it wasn't for the whole...cannibal thing, I'd say let's do it.

Hey, I'm Sokka by the way.

[sand_wormie]

Yeah... me too. Anyway, whether they're real or not, there are definitely levels full of very small-time criminals, and the lifts only ever go so far down, so it would be an undertaking.

I'm Luke Skywalker.

[whoneedsbending]

Something tells me I need to explore some of this place.

[sand_wormie]

You should! There are droids around who can tell you more.

[whoneedsbending]

Droids...those are the...metal things, right? Do you just talk to them?

[sand_wormie]

Yeah! Things that look and act like metal people or animals are droids. Most of the ones you'll see around here can understand you and talk.

[whoneedsbending]

That...is the coolest thing ever!

[sand_wormie]

[Luke just laughs. He doesn't know 'cool', but it's clear enough from context.]

[sand_wormie]

Yeah, this planet's pretty amazing. It even rains sometimes! [Which is something of a miracle to a desert boy like him.]