TEST DRIVE MEME #4 - The Arboretum/Ten Forward

[ten_fwd_mods]

Option 01: Aboard the Enterprise, The Arboretum: In exploring the Enterprise, you end up on Deck 17, section 21 alpha: the arboretum. Instantly upon entering you can tell this room is different from all the others. For one thing, you're now standing on grass. It's no illusion, no simulation; it's real grass, leading up to a small pond in the center of the room. All around you grows a variety of plant life, trees and bushes and hanging plants, flowers and herbs and even what one might consider weeds. The arboretum is, for all intents and purposes, a botanic garden, used both recreationally for passengers to relax and enjoy, and scientifically for research and study. After all, the scope of alien plant life is impressive, from the Cyprion cacti down to the Earth variety roses.

The room is well lit and large, with benches to rest on and small walking paths. Children are grouped off in one corner working on botany projects, while some passengers are seen kneeling in the dirt carefully tending to their garden patches. There are even windows along one wall, allowing for a view of space while the room itself gives the illusion of daylight. It's the perfect spot to relax, read a book, or grab a spare spade and dig in the dirt. Or perhaps you've been looking for the right moment to say hello to the passenger standing off by the venus flytraps.





Option 02: Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: Or maybe not. You've just arrived, and you have no idea what just happened. One minute you were somewhere else, and now you're in what looks like a spacious, well-appointed bar. The hum of the crowd is inviting, and the drinks look invigorating. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

Try to find out why you're here, or catch a drink at the bar; there's always something happening here.

Comments

Summer Landsdown | Power Rangers RPM

[seriesyellow]

1
There was something almost familiar about the arboretum, something about standing on real grass under artificial light that pulls Summer thousands of miles -- and apparently hundreds of years -- back to Corinth. It's not the reason she first found it, that was all curiosity and a driving need for activity, but it is the reason she keeps going back. After all, she's already found the holodeck too, and while the holodeck can be a lot of things, she'll always know that it just isn't as genuine. She's become something of a regular, sitting on the grass and reading quietly, or admiring other people's work in caring for plants she may not even know the names of.

In general, she keeps her back to the windows out into space, however. That's not the case anywhere else, really. Anywhere else, and she'll stare at the stars, try to find the ones she's familiar with. But not in here. The arboretum is the one place where Summer almost feels home, and it's a delicate sort of comfort, the type any little thing will shatter.

Today is one of those days when she just needs a breath of fresh air, and there's no better place for it. So, Summer wanders the arboretum pensively, taking particular interest in the plants. She lingers on the more exotic fare, from Earth or otherwise -- because she can't tell. And it's on one particularly vivid, flowering specimen that she pauses, and wonders aloud, and in the vague direction of the closest person -- fortunately not far off.

"I wish these were labeled sometimes. Excuse me, do you know what kind of plant this is?"

2
The latest of Venjix's creations defeated leaves Summer feeling both exhilarated and a little exhausted all at the same time. On the one hand, fighting off each wave he threw at them was taking an ever increasing toll on the rangers. On the other, the increasing challenge inspired a feeling of accomplishment like nothing else in her life. Leaping from the Bear Crawler to the pavement in the center of the city, Summer demorphs with a smile on her face, only to turn and face the sudden lighting change of an interior space.

Dr. K had said there were sometimes side effects to morphing. Actually, she's said there was sometimes residual energy runoff that was necessary to clear the suit's biofield channels. Somehow, Summer doesn't think that this was a product of morphing. Or, demorphing, as that was what she had been doing just before she'd finds herself here, in a dimly lit, cozy looking restaurant with a very hyper-modern decor and...

Yes, those are nearly floor to ceiling windows displaying too many uninterrupted stars to be nothing more than a view of the night sky.

Snapping her cell shift morpher closed and pocketing it, Summer wanders further into the room. Though not precisely crowded, quite a few patrons are enjoying a meal or a drink, or just one another's company. Nevertheless, Summer is more interested in the stars, almost hypnotized by the sight of them as she approaches the windows.

"Don't think I'm in Corinth anymore," she says almost under her breath, before her eyes at last seems to adjust to the light and she turns back toward the interior of Ten Forward with an unmistakably searching look.

Door 1!

[dreams_dont_die]

It's not Andromeda's hydroponics garden that spans multiple decks, a single giant tree reaching up towards the ceiling and inspiring amazement in anyone who sees it, but the arboretum on the Enterprise is green and welcoming. It might be less spectacular than the combined efforts of Trance, Andromeda, and her previous ESOs, but it still smells like a garden and looks like a garden. It even has grass that crushes under the tread of his boots, leaving a trail of prints behind him until the bent blades slowly right themselves.

It's good for the sake of the crew -- and on the Enterprise, the guests -- of a starship that rarely makes port to have the chance to be surrounded by something vibrant and alive like this.

None of them more than this gardener's son from Tarn-Vedra.

There's a reason the crew of the Andromeda has always tended to gravitate towards the hydroponics garden. And why it was where he set up the basketball court. (Which he does think would be a good addition here, but this is Picard's court and Picard's rules.)

He's strolling past a flowering plant that wouldn't look out of place in Trance's gardens when the girl standing next to it speaks.

He gives her an apologetic smile after studying the thing for a moment. As he'd expected, it's definitely nothing he knows.

"I don't think I'm the right person to help you with that on," he says. "Sorry. If this were my ship I'd probably be able to tell you."

Maybe even if this were his universe. He'd learned a lot about the Imperial Gardens once upon a time, in the time that's now simultaneously his past and future.