video; 001

[warfan]

[The camera is steady, though it's filming at an odd angle, as though it's been propped up against something that's not really meant for the job. Which is fine, it does what it needs to, which is to show a young woman seated at what is - given the background - is probably a desk in one of the hotel rooms used to house offworlders.]

There's something I've been wondering about.

Has anyone run into someone you're sure is from your world, but who you don't have any personal connection to? Either directly or through someone else?

Comments

[warfan]

One of the four elements - Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. And one of the four nations. Each one corresponds with an element. I am from the Earth Kingdom. A remote part of it.

[impostorsyndrome]

That's pretty interesting. Those four elements are a concept in some cultures where I come from, too. Other cultures add a couple or make some changes. But it's a widely known idea, especially historically speaking. Earth is the name of one of those elements, but it's also the name of the planet itself.

[warfan]

Do you have other planets aligned with the other elements, or is there only the one?

[That, too, would be no crazier than anything else about this entire situation.]

[impostorsyndrome]

It's just the one. Or at least, if there's a Fire Planet out there, we don't know about it yet.

[It takes some restraint to avoid getting into the weeds about this, like how Venus could kinda be considered the Fire Planet, or how Earth itself has been through most of the elements in the past, but it's not the point! Still, now he's going to be thinking about that for a while.]

So you have an Earth Kingdom, but also an Air Kingdom, a Fire Kingdom, and a Water Kingdom?

[warfan]

Not exactly. There's a nation for each of the elements, but we don't all organize ourselves the same way.

[impostorsyndrome]

So more like an Earth Kingdom, an Air Republic, a Fire Democracy . . . not exactly those, unless I'm an incredibly lucky guesser. Which I'm not. But that kind of principle?

[warfan]

[She lifts a hand to her mouth to smother a laugh at the thought of the Fire Nation as a democracy, of all things.

He definitely isn't a lucky guesser.]

That's the basic principle, yes. Is your world similar? Or do your nations all follow the same system of government?

[impostorsyndrome]

I take it I was way off on the specifics.

[But not the kind of way off that feels embarrassing, even for someone as easily embarrassed as he can be. If anything, it's nice to accidentally insert a joke once in a while. He can't help but smile a twitch.]

But no, far from it. My planet has hundreds of them—

[Or did, but like, that's a whole long complicated story that's entirely beside the point, and not something you just spring into a lighthearted conversation—]

—and even nations that share borders might not have much in common in their government or otherwise. There are 27 nations in the European Union alone, and that's a pretty small region. . . . We'd have run out of elements pretty fast.