Fic: MoS - "Merry + Bright"
Dec. 24th, 2007 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalJust a little something for the holidays, based on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ksleet and electroweak's A Miracle of Science
Note: “A Miracle of Science” and related characters and situations is copyright Jon Kilgannon and Mark Sachs and used here without permission.
Maybe he was just grasping at straws, Benjamin thought, but if there was any indication that Martians were still fundamentally human in their minds, it was the fact that they could still produce crappy art and be proud of it. Not that he was about to say as much to Caprice's mother at the moment, who was standing in front of the two meter high, conical frame work made of titanium, brass and precious metals with a beaming smile.
“What do think, Benjamin?” she asked. Behind her, he could see Caprice and her little sister flitting around the corners of their home's central living room, hanging lengths of tinsel rope to support Chinese lanterns.
He cleared his throat. “It's very, um... Well, I'm an engineer, not an artist, really. What's it supposed to represent?”
“It's a Christmas tree, silly.”
“Oh! I get it now. All the little branches with the hooks on the ends I guess are to support the decorations.” Which was better than his first supposition, which was that they were meant impale small animals that wandered unwarily in the thing's path.
“Exactly!” She grabbed cup of cider from the sideboard table and sipped it. “I always try to come up with a new design every year. This one is based a typical Earth conifer.”
“It's... very creative.” He scratched his head, trying to change the subject before he risked expressing more honest opinions about the thing. “You know, it still wierds me out that Martians celebrate Christmas. As rational and scientific as all of you are, I wouldn't think that you'd be into celebrating a Christianized version of a pagan fertility ceremony.”
She smiled slightly, unoffended. “We're human beings, Benjamin. That means we like getting together and celebrating happy times. And what's happier than Christmas?”
Damned near anything, he thought, remembering some supposedly 'happy times' from his past. “Well, yes, but you're still celebrating the birth of a guy who was supposedly the Son of God. You must know that ultimately Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, is pretty much a crock.”
She looked at him more closely. “You're not a religious person, I take it?”
He shrugged. “I'm a Mad Scientist. SRMD victims are the ultimate egotists, believing solely in their own competence and nothing else. There's no room for God in that. Besides, haven't you all figured how the universe was created yet?”
“As Mars itself has pointed out to you, it isn't omnipotent, just very powerful. We don't know everything, Benjamin. We can dissect the universe down its basic building blocks, but that still doesn't answer the very basic question of how it all came into being.”
He took a cup of cider for himself and sipped. “Maybe so. I'm just glad you haven't developed time travel to go along with your faster than light Breaker Gates. Could you imagine what one person with a vid recorder could do to all the world's major religions if he wanted?”
“That won't ever happen,” she said. “Transporting a person backwards down the timestream would require levels of energy that are prohibitive even to Mars.”
He paused a moment before replying. “There's another shoe that I'm waiting to hear drop.”
Her face took on a more serious expression. “Benjamin, the only reason I'm going to tell you what I'm about to say next is because Mars trusts you. I hope you understand that means we would rather it not be spread around.”
“I think I do. You mean you can move objects back in time?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not objects. At best we can open the equivalent of a pinhole, only enough to observe light images, not wide enough to send anyone or anything through. More frustrating is the fact that we can't hear sound and that trying to hold focus on one particular spot is extremely difficult.”
“But you can do it! That's incredible! What have you found? Wait, you haven't actually tried too...”
“If you're asking if we actually observed the birth of Christ, all I can tell you right now is that we don't know.”
“You don't know? How could you not know!”
“Families being too poor to afford a room at an inn aren't as uncommon as the Bible might make you think, especially during that particular time period. But there was an extraordinarily bright star in the sky during that particular time period from a supernova in the vicinity of GCN-492.”
“Oh,” He sat down on the couch carefully, not trusting his legs at the moment. “So, do you believe in God?”
She sat down beside him. “I believe we don't have all the answers. Not yet, perhaps not ever. I would like to believe that the universe is ultimate a benevolent place, and that humans and Martians belong here, whether that be from natural evolution and chance or from higher intervention. But the whole point of faith is that you acknowledge that you'll never truly know, which goes against Martian philosophy.”
“Martians are still human though, fundamentally,” he pointed out.
She smiled. “That we are, Benjamin. That we are.”
The End
ksleet and electroweak's A Miracle of ScienceNote: “A Miracle of Science” and related characters and situations is copyright Jon Kilgannon and Mark Sachs and used here without permission.
Maybe he was just grasping at straws, Benjamin thought, but if there was any indication that Martians were still fundamentally human in their minds, it was the fact that they could still produce crappy art and be proud of it. Not that he was about to say as much to Caprice's mother at the moment, who was standing in front of the two meter high, conical frame work made of titanium, brass and precious metals with a beaming smile.
“What do think, Benjamin?” she asked. Behind her, he could see Caprice and her little sister flitting around the corners of their home's central living room, hanging lengths of tinsel rope to support Chinese lanterns.
He cleared his throat. “It's very, um... Well, I'm an engineer, not an artist, really. What's it supposed to represent?”
“It's a Christmas tree, silly.”
“Oh! I get it now. All the little branches with the hooks on the ends I guess are to support the decorations.” Which was better than his first supposition, which was that they were meant impale small animals that wandered unwarily in the thing's path.
“Exactly!” She grabbed cup of cider from the sideboard table and sipped it. “I always try to come up with a new design every year. This one is based a typical Earth conifer.”
“It's... very creative.” He scratched his head, trying to change the subject before he risked expressing more honest opinions about the thing. “You know, it still wierds me out that Martians celebrate Christmas. As rational and scientific as all of you are, I wouldn't think that you'd be into celebrating a Christianized version of a pagan fertility ceremony.”
She smiled slightly, unoffended. “We're human beings, Benjamin. That means we like getting together and celebrating happy times. And what's happier than Christmas?”
Damned near anything, he thought, remembering some supposedly 'happy times' from his past. “Well, yes, but you're still celebrating the birth of a guy who was supposedly the Son of God. You must know that ultimately Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, is pretty much a crock.”
She looked at him more closely. “You're not a religious person, I take it?”
He shrugged. “I'm a Mad Scientist. SRMD victims are the ultimate egotists, believing solely in their own competence and nothing else. There's no room for God in that. Besides, haven't you all figured how the universe was created yet?”
“As Mars itself has pointed out to you, it isn't omnipotent, just very powerful. We don't know everything, Benjamin. We can dissect the universe down its basic building blocks, but that still doesn't answer the very basic question of how it all came into being.”
He took a cup of cider for himself and sipped. “Maybe so. I'm just glad you haven't developed time travel to go along with your faster than light Breaker Gates. Could you imagine what one person with a vid recorder could do to all the world's major religions if he wanted?”
“That won't ever happen,” she said. “Transporting a person backwards down the timestream would require levels of energy that are prohibitive even to Mars.”
He paused a moment before replying. “There's another shoe that I'm waiting to hear drop.”
Her face took on a more serious expression. “Benjamin, the only reason I'm going to tell you what I'm about to say next is because Mars trusts you. I hope you understand that means we would rather it not be spread around.”
“I think I do. You mean you can move objects back in time?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not objects. At best we can open the equivalent of a pinhole, only enough to observe light images, not wide enough to send anyone or anything through. More frustrating is the fact that we can't hear sound and that trying to hold focus on one particular spot is extremely difficult.”
“But you can do it! That's incredible! What have you found? Wait, you haven't actually tried too...”
“If you're asking if we actually observed the birth of Christ, all I can tell you right now is that we don't know.”
“You don't know? How could you not know!”
“Families being too poor to afford a room at an inn aren't as uncommon as the Bible might make you think, especially during that particular time period. But there was an extraordinarily bright star in the sky during that particular time period from a supernova in the vicinity of GCN-492.”
“Oh,” He sat down on the couch carefully, not trusting his legs at the moment. “So, do you believe in God?”
She sat down beside him. “I believe we don't have all the answers. Not yet, perhaps not ever. I would like to believe that the universe is ultimate a benevolent place, and that humans and Martians belong here, whether that be from natural evolution and chance or from higher intervention. But the whole point of faith is that you acknowledge that you'll never truly know, which goes against Martian philosophy.”
“Martians are still human though, fundamentally,” he pointed out.
She smiled. “That we are, Benjamin. That we are.”
The End
