Welcome Lecture Series: The Crescent Fragments
Badya Jones hurried down the hallway, reaching the edge of the crowd long before the doors to lecture hall 208. Waddling bodies and excited whispers warmed the air. She weaved through the crowd eyeing footholds between the students on their tiptoes for a glimpse of the professor.
A long black streak on the pock-marked plasteramic floor reminded her of chasing her brother through the Sekora Festival crowd as a child trying to not step on cracks between the stones. The flooring in the archeology building was made of re-purposed heat shielding from first-generation immy clippers. It could just as well have been the floor of a smelter, but Badya thought it added a bit of gravitas to Saebia University. SU was new, like most things on Chellok, but the charred floors and walls recalled the long struggle of all who came before her in order for any of them to be here.
Now in her sophomore year Badya hated that every conversation about her major started with some version of, "What's the point of studying archeology if everything humans have built on this moon is still standing?" She had known the answer for as long as she could read: Dr. Wen Kocha. And he was about to deliver his first lecture as a professor of archeology in Badya's department.
Wen Kocha was the first sugran SU faculty member, probably the first sugran professor at any human higher-ed institution. His welcome lecture series was on the Elara Mekketh, Crescent Fragments, the legendary knowledge repository of the entire history of the sugran people and their templates for readapting to a lunarside life and rebuilding civilization here on Chellok. Even the most hardline humanists knew about the Crescent Fragments, or at least some of the myths surrounding them. But Dr. Kocha was about to dispel all the lies and legends she read in the comic feeds growing up with primary sources.
"Jonesy! I knew you'd show up in your Apu House uniform. The most important lecture of our academic careers and every boy on campus in one room... Jonsies, you really have to start making better decisions for yourself." Dessa had been Badya's best friend since free-school. "I'm disappointed. In you. But I'm ecstatic because all these smarfos connecting to the same attendance terminal forced it to hard-reset, and now I have perfect attendance for the semester. I keep my scholarship after all and I don't have to attend a learning skills workshop on 'building traditional, healthful, Saebian habits.'
"Good for you? I guess." Sometimes Badya wondered if Dessa wanted her around just to have somebody listening to her, as if that validated her often vocalized flow of thought. Here they were about to listen to Dr. Kocha, an in-the-flesh sugran, explain the errors in most human translations of texts describing early sugran history on Chellok, and Dessa was worried that Badya's bright red work shirt would turn off any boys who happened to choose the nerdiest event currently taking place on either side of the lunar surface for hitting on girls.
A long black streak on the pock-marked plasteramic floor reminded her of chasing her brother through the Sekora Festival crowd as a child trying to not step on cracks between the stones. The flooring in the archeology building was made of re-purposed heat shielding from first-generation immy clippers. It could just as well have been the floor of a smelter, but Badya thought it added a bit of gravitas to Saebia University. SU was new, like most things on Chellok, but the charred floors and walls recalled the long struggle of all who came before her in order for any of them to be here.
Now in her sophomore year Badya hated that every conversation about her major started with some version of, "What's the point of studying archeology if everything humans have built on this moon is still standing?" She had known the answer for as long as she could read: Dr. Wen Kocha. And he was about to deliver his first lecture as a professor of archeology in Badya's department.
Wen Kocha was the first sugran SU faculty member, probably the first sugran professor at any human higher-ed institution. His welcome lecture series was on the Elara Mekketh, Crescent Fragments, the legendary knowledge repository of the entire history of the sugran people and their templates for readapting to a lunarside life and rebuilding civilization here on Chellok. Even the most hardline humanists knew about the Crescent Fragments, or at least some of the myths surrounding them. But Dr. Kocha was about to dispel all the lies and legends she read in the comic feeds growing up with primary sources.
"Jonesy! I knew you'd show up in your Apu House uniform. The most important lecture of our academic careers and every boy on campus in one room... Jonsies, you really have to start making better decisions for yourself." Dessa had been Badya's best friend since free-school. "I'm disappointed. In you. But I'm ecstatic because all these smarfos connecting to the same attendance terminal forced it to hard-reset, and now I have perfect attendance for the semester. I keep my scholarship after all and I don't have to attend a learning skills workshop on 'building traditional, healthful, Saebian habits.'
"Good for you? I guess." Sometimes Badya wondered if Dessa wanted her around just to have somebody listening to her, as if that validated her often vocalized flow of thought. Here they were about to listen to Dr. Kocha, an in-the-flesh sugran, explain the errors in most human translations of texts describing early sugran history on Chellok, and Dessa was worried that Badya's bright red work shirt would turn off any boys who happened to choose the nerdiest event currently taking place on either side of the lunar surface for hitting on girls.
Work in progress. Trying to get back in the groove of worldbuilding/lighting the forge. Feedback is most welcome!
I feel like you did a good job letting us into your world and giving us the information necessary to understand the setting without overwhelming us. There were one or two sentences that were a little difficult to parse, such as "She had known the answer for as long as she could read. And he was about to deliver his first lecture as a professor of archeology in Badya's department." It wasn't clear to me at first that the "answer" to the question about studying archaeolgy was a person (or his work, I'm presuming.) But I feel like I've already got a good sense of the characters and I'm curious about what comes next!
Wow, thank you for taking the time to provide actual useful feedback. I just took a few minutes to re-read this and made a few edits for readability. I'm getting more interested in trying to improve my writing skills, so I appreciate your comment. (By the way, I don't think the link in "Reading Circle Temple" links where you want it to...)
Glad to be of help. Thanks for the note on the signature. I must have forgotten to change the link when our podcast switched sites.
Another note: I think the change made it much more clear. There was one other sentence I found confusing: "But Dr. Kocha was about to dispel all the lies and legends she read in the comic feeds growing up with primary sources." I originally read this as Bayda growing up with primary sources rather than her reading the cosmic reeds growing up. I know people typically don't like passive voice, but I think that might work better here? (i.e. "the lies and legends she had read in the cosmic feeds growing up were about to be dispelled with primary sources.") I'd recommend playing around with the syntax a bit.