Group Log : Q&A Session 001

[inurhead]

Characters: Any/all
Location: The Meeting Hall
Date/Time: Sunday afternoon
Summary: Q&A with a Ranger. All Rangers and staff welcome to answer Q&A. All cadets are invited to the session, but attendance is not mandatory.
Additional Notes: Start your own threads, jack some of mine, go nuts. This is just another mingle post but it's also meant to be informative ICly. Other staff and Rangers showing up for interactions with the cadets is wholeheartedly encouraged.


The meeting hall, like every other area of the Shatterdome, has the feel of an industrial environment. The walls are lined with bleachers on three sides, while the forth side has a platform and podium. In the middle are rows of chairs, desks, and tables. It's clear that a large audience can be accommodated by the room when there's need, though the group that gathers there today isn't nearly enough to fill it.

Cadets will be directed to sit at some of the tables closer to the podium when they arrive, and given scratch paper to take notes on. Staff will be directed to the large table on the podium, which has a row of conference microphones, lamps, and water pitchers already set up. Everything is neat, cool, and professional. The fluorescent lighting and stern expressions of the support staff encourage a sombre attitude, but if anyone is looking up toward the podium they might catch at least one of the Rangers smiling as he peeks out from behind the curtains during the initial set up. He's wearing something like a wetsuit at the moment, though it won't be fully visible until he emerges for the demonstration.

Sharpen your pencils and have a seat, guys. You might even learn something.

Comments

Mix and Mingle at the Buffet

[inurhead]

There's a special brunch buffet set up in the far corner, which everyone will be dismissed to after the information sessions wrap up. The food there is better than the general cafeteria fare. Cadets will find that there are things like bagels with cream cheese, butter or jam, fresh fruits, juices, and many colorful local pastries. No wonder so many staff members volunteered, the food alone is worth sacrificing a few hours of precious free time!

Re: Mix and Mingle at the Buffet

[protagerrant]

"Catering?" It was obviously blurted out unintentionally, twice as obvious when Yuri guiltily checked his six to make sure no-one had heard that embarrassing outburst. And then realizing how much worse he was making matters, he just grimaced a little at himself and made a straight line for whatever portion of pastries looked like they had the most frosting and sugar involved. If the other cadets didn't recognize a windfall when they saw one, well, they'd be weeping over their folly after a week more of cafeteria food.

Grabbing a couple pastries, he only moved the bare minimum of polite distance away before taking a bite, sighing gratefully after he swallowed. "This almost makes me miss cooking," he said, apparently talking to the left over half of his pastry.

[boomerangarrow]

Kate picks up a pastry and some fruit. The cafeteria food is at least passable. But it's nowhere near the standards that Kate was used to back home. At least there was this.

"You cooked?" She didn't do much of that, she can do the basics but most of her food was take out. Mostly pizza if she was being honest.

[protagerrant]

Hastily, he shoved the rest of the pastry into his mouth and swallowed, glancing over to see who had spoken. Not someone he'd really seen around before... After a quick, evaluative look, he shrugged. "All the time, since I was a kid."

[karearea]

Ngaio heard him, noticed the check, and was trying not to laugh, which translated into grinning at her plate of pastries. It'd be hypocritical; she'd had basically the same thought.

"Makes me miss the chef's", she replied, her smile turning nostalgic. "My parents own a motel - back in the day, summer breakfast could look like this."

[reengineered]

Lucy hasn't seen anything this relatively luxurious in years. She wanders a bit, looking everything over with the most indescribable look on her face. Occasionally she'll take a look around to make sure she's not in anyone's way, but then she goes back to looking at the food, indecisive, almost overwhelmed.

Eventually she picks up a plate and perches a bagel on it, then some fruit, and furtively glances around for somewhere to sit and enjoy it. All the while she looks vaguely uncomfortable, somewhat unaccustomed to the socialization and crowding. Hopefully no one will try to talk to her...

[observationalhazard]

Sorry, Lucy. That's a forlorn hope. Hanji spots the lone cadet and swoops in, cup of coffee and a bagel in hand. She offers Lucy a friendly smile as she settles into the seat next to her, "Lucy, right? How are you settling in?"

[reengineered]

Dang. Well, at least she doesn't start when Hanji walks up. Instead, she straightens a bit, nods, and settles her food back on the plate. Unsure whether or not this woman knows of her situation, she pulls the notepad from her pocket and hastily scribbles on it.

It's big. The Shatterdome. The whole thing. Bigger, somehow, than she'd thought it would be.

[inurhead]

"Excuse me, Cadet." Says one of the Rangers from the demonstration, now out of his drive suit and back in his uniform. He smiles and reaches past Lucy to grab one of the breakfast sandwiches while they're still there for the grabbing. "Bacon is like gold around here."

[reengineered]

Oh. Oh well. It's weird being in the presence of a hero, let's be honest. She just stares for a moment before sliding a bit sideways out of his way. He's everything she wants to be, right? Everything and more. And she's a little bit starstruck for a fraction of a second. Then she hastily grabs a sandwich as well, noting his words and deciding that if it's a precious asset, she'll go ahead and try some.

With her hands full, she can't write, and she's pretty confident he doesn't know sign language, so she kind of just... stares. And looks impressed. And awkward.

open

[inurhead]

Oh, sweet coffee. They got it catered in today. Yancy groans low in his throat when he takes his first tentative sip. It's not unpalatable sludge today. It's actual coffee.

Sweet mother Maria, it's good. If anyone else wants a go at the coffee urn you might have to remind this guy to step away from it, because he's in his happy place right now.

Coffee, sweet coffee. It's been too long since he's had a decent cup of coffee.

[righthemisphere]

"You're gonna need a snorkel if you try to get your face in there any further.." Raleigh notes as he approaches, lopsided grin tugging at his mouth.

Oh Yancy, always with the coffee. It does smell good, though. Like home. Like real coffee and easy mornings and pack lunches with notes on the inside. Snow days and warm beds and endless hours of amusing themselves with flashlights and lighters and super hero costumes.

Funny how one single smell can trigger a whole waterfall of memory.

Maybe that's why Yancy likes it so much. That or he's actually a complete addict with an absurd tolerance. Probably a bit of both.

[inurhead]

There's a distinct possibility it's both, yeah. The coffee cup that's standing where Yancy once was seems to agree, if the grunt it gives Raleigh in response is any indication.

Yancy reaches into a pocket in his jacket and comes out with a bag of Raleigh's candy. "Watch where you're putting these, will ya? Think I chipped a tooth."

He's not too sore about it, though, judging by the quick grin he throws at his brother. He's scanning the crowd even now, deceptive lazy smile and partially relaxed posture not keeping the sparkle out of his eyes. "Look at these kids."

open

[expect]

Really, there's no need at all for Rory to have come to this. He's not a cadet, and he's also not part of staff — well, not the relevant part of staff, in this case; Rory is a medical officer. Which, privately, he thinks is a sort of fancy word for 'school nurse.' (Not that he minds. It definitely has a nicer ring to it.)

In any case, provided no one had fallen off the stage during the demonstration, there hadn't been much of an obvious reason for Rory's presence at the lecture, but there he'd been anyway, sitting quietly in a corner. He is interested, don't get him wrong on that count — but to say he has an ulterior motive is, well, pretty obvious once the dismissal comes. Yes, he did only come for the food.

/sidles up

[righthemisphere]

Can't blame him, really. Raleigh is only here for the food, too.

Well, that and it's an excuse to wiggle out of his daily duties. So taking it easy and as many bacon sandwiches as he wants in return for parading around in his circuitry suit and signing some autographs? Done. Deal.

The attention on him seems to have eased for the moment, though, and that's when he takes the opportunity to retreat a little, steal another sandwich, and sidle up to Rory with a nod before claiming a chair not too close by and looking out over the hoard of new cadets still playing school with his brother.

"I swear the recruits get younger every year." Almost makes him feel like an old man at the ripe old age of twenty-two.

[expect]

Raleigh isn't wrong. Part of him wants to protest somewhere, make it a rule that if you can't drive a car you shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a gigantic robot training program; the rest of him feels old just feeling that in the first place. He starts to smile wryly in response, his face a look of amused commiseration, you're telling me into the lip of his cup — and then he glances aside and sees who is complaining, and his eyebrows slowly rise up to his hairline. "No," he says firmly. "You're about twenty, you're not allowed to complain about kids these days."

coordinated Becket attack

[inurhead]

Yancy's there for the food too, and sure, alright, because some part of him loves to see the spark in the Cadets eyes when they really get on board with the cause. Or one of the other causes, sure, but he's fond of one in particular.

This staff member is unfamiliar, but hey, a lot of them still are. Yancy glances down for a name tag, but doesn't see one. Maybe the dude is dressed down. It's free time, technically. They're all volunteers and Cadets here.

"You gonna eat that, or...?"

The last of the lemon cremes being 'that.' He's usually not big on sweets, but those ones...they taste like childhood, ya know? So if Rory isn't going to call dibs, Yancy sure is.

Re: open

[observationalhazard]

"Exciting, isn't it?" Hanji opens her conversation with Rory rather brightly and without much fanfare. She simply bellies up to the buffet next to him, eying a particular fruit platter. They're both staff, so perhaps she doesn't feel the need to be formal. Then again, that seems to be her attitude with most of the people she talks to.

"A brand new academy, new cadets - it's going to be an interesting three months."

She shoots Rory a grin and then juggles her plate and mug until she can offer a hand, "Hanji Zoe, K-Science."

Re: open

[overeducated]

Despite being completely relevant for the panel, the speed at which he appeared near the food table should've been frightening.

Moreover, his absolute light-up upon spotting the other man should've been frightening. Probably was frightening. Would've been frightening if it came with a quick approach, half-hop and half-trot, except oh, wait, it did. Beaming, smile stretched high, a sprinkling of amazement and---

"Cory!"

-- There you had it. If the man didn't move quick enough, he'd be getting a clap on the shoulder, other hand stuck out for a shake, "Oh, hullo, Cory! It's been ages, hasn't it? How've you been? What brings you here?" Positively delighted.

[suicidemission]

Chuck's...sort of mingling. He's not the most social of people and most of his attention is on the other Rangers, but at the moment he finds himself alone (ish, there's a lot of people in here, hard to be alone), picking at the veggie tray and loading his plate up with his food of choice.

You know you wanna bother the surly Aussie asshole.

[secondtry]

Fruit. Fresh fruit, baked goods -- ever since food got a little scarce, Vegas hadn't exactly been the same, and now, with this kind of buffet in front of him, Mike thought he'd hit the jackpot. Better than home cooking, even.

His plate had a bagel with cream cheese and jam, some grapes, some oranges, a couple pastries, maybe surprisingly little meat, but he was in the middle of grabbing a carrot when he saw another hand going for it and he paused and laughed. "Sorry, man, I didn't even--"

He glanced up and - aha. "Sorry, Ranger Hansen."

The guy was younger than him, but rank was rank, and he wasn't stupid enough not to correct himself.

[chosethewar]

The spread was better than Tom was expecting, honestly. Maybe he'd come in with misapprehensions of what a para-military lifestyle would be thanks to one too many action and war movies over the years but the food honestly impressed. A cynical part of him wondered if it was all for show to do just that, impress the new Cadets who showed up expecting to meet modern day rockstars.

Were Rangers' egos as huge as they appeared to be on the tv? Surely the saviors of mankind deserved a little all-star treatment so maybe this rich spread was more for their benefit than the cadets. These musing thoughts occupied the young man as he filled up his plate. He snagged the last everything bagel and grabbed some cream cheese before its steadily dwindling supply was extinguished.

"Sorry," Was all he said to the person he accidentally reached around for said cream cheese. Offering a rueful smile he grabbing some fruit as well and backed out of the press of bodies. Wandering down the buffet he finally spotted some orange juice and topped the whole slightly off-balance breakfast with a blueberry muffin.

"This is some spread, huh? Wonder if we'll eat this good the whole time."

hello and welcome

[inurhead]

"Only when the brass is in town. Pro tip, volunteer attendance means show up and reap the rewards." Yancy replies, wiping the smear of cream cheese off of his arm -that was a decent jostle kid- with a napkin, which he then balls up and tosses in an easy arch to the nearest waste bin.

He picks up one of the strawberries off the tray and bites into it with an appreciative grunt. Man, those are good. You can't eat strawberries in February in Anchorage. He can practically taste the sunlight in it.

[karearea]

"I wish," Ngaio offered around a mouthful of pastry. "This is the best we've had since I got in."

She paused, distracted by his bagels.

"What is in those?" she asked, fascinated. She'd filled her plate with pastries and fruit before even reaching the bagels, and as far as she's concerned, bagels only come in one flavor if at all.

[secondtry]

Mike had a plate mostly full of fresh fruits and veggies and only a little bread, and he was consuming it slowly. He wanted to make this bounty last. But he was also smiling, kicked back and relaxing, and looked maybe overall too at home where he was sitting.