One Alternate Universe - Daibhid and Bob

[daibhidc]

So, you might remember that, ages ago, I did a "10 Alternate Universes" about my own author avatar and his muse. And then compounded the nonsense level by making the "In SPACE!" AU a meta discussion about how I was trying to set it in a universe I knew almost nothing about because I liked that it had a Space Scotland.

Well, since then, a setting I am familiar with has introduced a Space Scotland, so I thought I'd give it another go.

B-0B, the bartender droid on the starcruiser Halycon, prided himself on having nearly every drink in the known galaxy stored in his memory, whether they served it or not. So when an awkward figure in a plasdenim jacket covered in holobadges came up to the bar and nervously asked if he had something called Ion Bru, he was surprised to realise he had no idea what the guy was talking about. He showed no sign of this as he blandly informed his customer that he was sorry, but it wasn’t something they stocked.

The customer seemed unsurprised, and asked, even more uncertainly, for a decaf caf with steamed bantha milk and poptree syrup. While B-0B was preparing that, he searched his long term storage for any reference to Ion Bru. It turned out the drink was only known on one planet.

“So, you’re from Aldhani, then?” he asked. “First time off-world?”

“Yeah,” the customer admitted, “Name's Dab. Never been further from the Aldhani Highlands than the Enterprise Zone before. I usually go down for the TechFest every year.”

B-0B, who’d been perusing the information about Aldhani attached to the Ion Bru entry in his database, was surprised again. “I thought the inhabitants of the Highlands were all anti-tech holdouts who refused to go into the Enterprise Zone at all?”

“Um, maybe back during the Empire, but that was ages ago. I grew up in the Highlands, but the Government Sector is a great place to visit, with the museums, and the Our Changing Galaxy cosmosarium, and all the little shops in the Republic Klick. I haven’t been to the Industrial Sector quite as often, but it’s very nice too,” he added conscientiously.

“So, what takes you off-world, then?” asked B-0B.

Dab, who’d been quite nervous and diffident even when describing what he liked about his home planet, suddenly lit up and became much more animated. “I’m going to a convention! Have you ever heard of a series of holonovels about a failed Jedi called Luck Windrinser?”

An hour later, when Dab had finished his caf, B-0B reflected that if he’d actually taken in half of what the human had been saying, he would have had to delete a lot of drinks from his memory.