Employment AMA; text: Graced

[miss_brilliant]

EMPLOYMENT AMA
Preferred Alias: Amanda Perry

Worst Job(s) Held: Every bit of consulting work I did before I was discovered by the military for businesses and projects I had absolutely no interest in. They all sort of blurred together.
Best Job(s) Held: Consulting software engineer for a project designing a new generation of FTL drives.
Fantasy Job(s): I guess probably still an astronaut.

Current Job(s): Nothing here yet, the last job I had was a consultant and show designer at a planetarium.

Ask Me Anything!

Comments

daemon: anned

[lacquers]

And where in the universe would you most like to go, if you were an astronaut? What would you most like to see? I'd happily accept a list, no need to limit it to one thing.

[miss_brilliant]

Oh god. Well, it's probably a little cliche, and kind of quaint in my line of work, but I do still fantasize about being part of the first manned expedition to Mars. Partially because it's something civilians actually know about, but mostly because it would just be incredible.

[lacquers]

I wouldn't call it cliche or quaint! Being one of the first humans to visit a new planet? That seems admirable, not to mention exciting. Is it something that's on the horizon where you're from?

[miss_brilliant]

Well, I guess my perspectives a bit skewed since we've actually been much farther out where I'm from, it's just not public knowledge yet. The joys of being involved in secret military work. And I'm not sure if I put quotations around joys or not, honestly.

It's still being worked on though, yes. We have military bases on other planets, but no real settlements as of yet, for a variety of reasons.

[lacquers]

Oh, I see! Well now, that's fascinating, isn't it? I'm from a version of Earth where we've not achieved quite that much. The history you're alluding to sounds pretty interesting. I wonder how different our homes are.

[miss_brilliant]

It is. Even several years on, I still have to remind myself I didn't dream it all up sometimes. I'm fairly certain from talking to others that my version of Earth is rather unique, which is...I'm not really sure how to feel about it, really.

The short story is we discovered technology another race left behind that lets us open temporary wormholes between certain places. I'd like to say we have using them down to a perfect science, but that would be a lie. Which is one of the many reasons it's secret. Which is cool, when you're in on it, until you can't tell your family about it so you're just another boring computer geek to most people.

[lacquers]

I see! A kind of scientific superhero. Or, pardon me, super-heroine? As far as the world's concerned, you do work that's mundane, but they don't know you have a secret identity?

Or something like that. It makes for intriguing reading.

So, you're keeping it a secret until you can use it accurately and consistently to do what, exactly? You mentioned bases. [ This is both an interesting and worrisome prospect. ]

text; un: moonshined (lmk if anything of this is too presumptuous)

[pillz]

1. if u r going 2 blast mjusic around the house can u play somethin wit more fuckin and gun sounds. or dubstep
2. do u ever think ur consulting work & shit ever ended up w someone gettin killed

xoxo orommate

[miss_brilliant]

1. Dubstep is doable. If you want guns and sex, though, you might have to settle for the scores from a few select musicals. Well, and a few alternative female singers from '90s.

2. I'm quite sure it did, indirectly at least, considering what I was helping with. Now, we could go around in circles as to if those deaths were serving the greater good or not, and my feelings on that could change on any given day.

cw homophobic language

[pillz]

1. sounds hot or at least ont totally gay or just gay enough. lets do it

2. does it make u cry when u think abot it

[miss_brilliant]

All right, no one can say you weren't well warned when you get sucked into listening to me rant for hours about how no how single production of Chess has managed to not horribly mangle Florence's narrative. Or recognize that Freddie is gay. Or at least loves chess, not women.

Sometimes. Not as much as it used to. Partially because I realized it's never been my finger on the trigger and I can't control how my tools are used. I'm not happy about it, but if I hadn't learned to try to accept the things I can't control a long time ago I wouldn't have done anything with my life.

[pillz]

1. i'll drink. well owrk it out. it kind of cute when u all passionate & old woman yellin at cloud

2. but when ur stuff gets used 2 do good, do u feel good? do u feel more good / get off more when ur shit works out and helps people than u feel bad when ur shit hurts people? is that fair ;(

do u care if it fair

[miss_brilliant]

Now see, if you'd just left it at that ranting old timer comment you might have gotten off easy. But 'cute' is begging me to find out if I still know all the words of the Quartet.

...

I'd like to say a job well done is its own reward, but that's a lie. Of course I was ecsatic when I kept Nick's ship flying, and that high was more intense than the knowing in abstract that some of what I've helped design has indirectly contributed to death. And no, that's not fair. But if any universe were fair, drunk men wouldn't be able to get behind the wheel to hit vehicles carrying nine year olds who aren't wearing seatbelts.

[she knows, logically, he didn't intend to hit that very specific nerve. But there's a point when even she can't be wholly logical]

If I'd just had a mundane IT job, I might not have contributed to anyone's death, but I also wouldn't have saved the lives of eighty people or seen things that made me believe it was possible that anyone could just give me my legs back in an instant. And if I wallowed in every horrible thing that's touched me, I wouldn't have even gone to college. That's not saying it's easy to do, or that I always pull it off. But the responsibilty for what my work has been used for rests far more heavily on people far further up the chain of command, and I can't take the blame for their decisions anymore than my parents should have taken the blame for the man in that other car.

I guess saying I care but I can't afford to care too much is something of a cop out, but it's also true.

daemon: sophiad

[helical]

What kind of work did you do for the military?

[miss_brilliant]

Primarily, I was helping to program a new generation of FTL drive--hyperdrive. And when a colleageue's ship had one on the fritz, I helped repair it so their crew wouldn't be left adrift.

It's actually pretty...not boring, but not really glamarous in the day to day work. Mostly a lot of very long, sometimes heated discussions over email with other programmers for months on end.

[helical]

[ well, that's not exactly what he was looking for, but he's still curious, and is a pretty firm believer that everyone's skills can be useful around here. ]

Is the technology your worked with anything like the technology here?

[miss_brilliant]

Some of it is. Most of the computers are similar enough, and the terminal in the temple is a bit like some things we've found. The daemons aren't, at least not in being...physically here.

[helical]

Yeah, the systems aren't entirely unfamiliar to me, but the daemons are new.

Does this mean you could program or fix some of these systems if need be?

[miss_brilliant]

Possibly? The technology isn't completely identical, so there would be a lot of educated guessing going on at first. But I've been studying things for that exact reason, so hopefully if it becomes critical I could be more certain I could help without destroying something.

daemon: emeraldd

[astralera]

Hello, Mistress Perry.

What is an astronaut?

[miss_brilliant]

It you're going to use a title or honorific, it's Dr, actually.

Someone who works in outer space--ah, out among the...stars in some fashion. I've helped work on the equipment those people use, but it's still not what I really do.

[astralera]

My apologies, Dr. I am unfamiliar with this title. It is shorthand for something?

There are people who travel to the stars where you hail from?

[miss_brilliant]

It's fine. Mistress just has some very different connotations where I'm from. It's short for Doctor. It...means you have advanced education and training in or more fields. For me it's computer engineering.

Yes, there are. There have been for...well, at least from my race, for about four decades.

[astralera]

Thank you for the explanation, Doctor Perry. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, and did not mean any disrespect.

The only doctors I have heard of in my world are the plague doctors of old - healers. How do those doctors of academic specialties avoid being confused with those of healing arts?

That is amazing. The advanced societies long past had focused on travel to other realms. I believe the closest to outer space travel my world achieved was when ancient Allag bound a terrible creatures and sent it to circle the planet as a moon for eras. In current times we merely study the stars from the ground.

[miss_brilliant]

It's perfectly fine. I've worked a bit with people from other worlds before, so I sort of figured it was something like that.

Well, usually if you're actually working in your field it's more or less understood. But if for example you're writing a letter or something, someone with my non-medical training would sign with PhD after their name, instead of putting Dr. before. I'm not sure who exactly worked out that designation in the first place.

That's sort of funny, a similar thing happened on my world. Another race that sort of helped us along centuries ago travel led all through the galaxy, but buried the technology they used for it and it took us quite awhile to uncover and learn how to use it, so we only just got off planet ourselves a little while ago comparatively.