shiningboxofjustice | PSL Post - Athrun Zala and Yukari Takeba

Well, that can't hurt, at least. We'd have to really be on the look out when we're in towns though, but I guess it should be relatively easy to notice someone who... doesn't fit, I guess.

[Silence for a few more minutes. Then...]

You ever go camping like this?

... No.

Still... first time for everything, and all that.

[ Thankfully nothing involving shadows had actually needed them to camp out anywhere before, but she had to admit it did feel a little weird to be doing this now. ]

Yeah. I've only done it once before, and that was in an emergency. I'd been stranded on an uninhabited island and had to set up camp in a small cave for the night before my unit found me.

[ Yukari's not really all that sure what to say to that, but... she had to say something. ]

That must've been pretty rough. How long did it take them to find you?

I think it was about fifteen hours. I spent the night, and first thing in the morning my unit found me. I activated the distress signal within my mobile suit and they were eventually able to track it.

... For some reason I was almost expecting you to say that you had been stuck out there for days. Though I'm glad you didn't have to go through the hell that would've been.

It could very well have. It would have been a different story if the radio waves were clear...but ZAFT is to blame for that itself.

... What happened with the radios?

The Neutron Jammers that ZAFT dropped on Earth created too much interference for reliable radio use. Generally, they could only be used across short distances.

Neutron Jammers?

[ There's only one thing she can even remotely think that it could relate to, but that couldn't be right, could it? ]

Devices that inhibit nuclear fission reactions. ZAFT dropped them en masse on Earth during the early stages of the war in order to prevent the Earth Alliance from using its nuclear arsenal against them. They were also set up around the PLANTs to prevent nuclear weapons from being used against them again.

Oh.

[ That was... yeah, she could see why they would want to do that. Not that she knew how the hell that could POSSIBLY work, but he was from the time with giant robots so who knew what else they could do. ]

I'm... surprised that things actually got to the point where either side would actually use nuclear weapons though.

...

[Athrun hesitates. Was it all right to tell her? They had only known each other for a couple of days. But they had spent every waking hour together, and they were in a strange situation. So it couldn't hurt.]

What if I told you...that my world possessed the technology to alter human DNA?

[ Yukari blinked, frowning a bit as she thought it over for a moment. ]

... That I'm confused about why that really matters with what we're talking about, honestly.

It was the entire crux of the war. My society was able to use the procedure to create humans who possessed far superior potential, both physically and mentally, to the average human who underwent a natural birth. People who received the surgery -- or were the offspring of two parents who both received it, such as myself -- are known as Coordinators, and those who didn't are called Naturals.

The procedure was first made available to the public nearly fifty years ago. Since then, Coordinators have led the way in virtually every scientific field. Unfortunately...this came at the cost of polarizing humanity.

[ Wow. And she thought that the giant robots were something out of some stupid sci-fi anime. ]

Oh. That's... yeah. That'd definitely make things... get pretty decisive. From what I've heard about genetic engineering in my world, there's a pretty big debate about what should be allowed about it.

[ But there was one thing that she didn't get. ]

... But how exactly did get to the point of open warfare like that in the first place? Shouldn't there be both... Naturals and Coordinators on Earth and in the PLANTs?

No. When the discrimination got especially bad, most Coordinators left for space. Even today, most Coordinators live either on the moon or in PLANT. There are some, such as myself, who live in Orb, but that's it. Naturals populate most of the rest of the Earth.

So with such clear lines drawn, it made things easy.

[ Yukari didn't say anything for several moments, because, well, what could she really say to that. Athrun was right, what he said really had made it too easy for things to get that way.

Still, she had to say something eventually, so... ]

I'm kinda surprised that ZAFT bothered with using the Neutron Jammers on Earth though. In that situation I would've figured that they'd just... use them around them to prevent nuclear weapons from being used on them and just fire their own at Earth.

They would have had unacceptable environmental consequences. ZAFT wanted to retaliate against the Earth Alliance, but they didn't want to contaminate the Earth.

That, plus they wanted to show off some moral superiority.

[ Yukari didn't say anything for a few moments, but eventually she nodded. ]

Yeah. That makes sense. With both things. [ After all, it wasn't like the PLANTs could really survive without Earth's resources. Also, who would want to really be the ones responsible for destroying a planet. ]

Anyway...I'm sorry that the subject keeps coming back to my past. I don't actually mean to talk about it every chance I get.

It's alright... I mean, I am the one who keeps asking you about stuff that links back to it, after all.

I suppose there's no harm if you don't mind hearing about it.

Though, if you don't mind changing tack...do you have any thoughts on what we'll find when we reach Pewter City?

More people who's every thought revolves around Pokemon?

[ Small pause, but then... ]

... Also, I think Pewter City has one of those gyms that we heard about back in Viridian. Maybe this one will actually be open.

PSL Post - Athrun Zala and Yukari Takeba

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