(TEXT, Post Moon Warp)

[bigplace]

Hey, this is Kaidan. I'm trying to start up a community kitchen because I'm tired of eating pancakes every day. [ Laughter behind the screen as he types this. ] And we could all use better meals. Don't get me wrong, the cafeteria does a good job, but... [ Get to the point, Alenko. ]

Point is, if you have meat or vegetables or—God help us—spices, bring them over and I'll cook them for you. I have the equipment and I have water. Made bread and stew as a trial run last night, turned up pretty good.

But it could be better with more ingredients.

Thanks for reading.

Comments

[text]

[serialmurderbot]

Isn't that already what the kitchen is?

[Not contributing anything here, really - but then again it's not like SecUnit visits the kitchen, so it doesn't know how things operate there. Aside from hearing complaints about the food, but that is, in its experience, a universal human trait.]

[bigplace]

Only if you're the type of person who can eat the same dish every day for the rest of their lives.

[serialmurderbot]

[So about that - ]

I meant, you can make whatever you want there.

... If you can find it, I guess.

[Probably. It really hasn't checked.]

[bigplace]

[ For the sake of his patience he's going to pretend this is someone asking in good faith, not to be a contrarian. They have people from all kinds of planets and species here, it's perfectly plausible there's an alien at the other end of the screen. ] No, we can't. We lack the ingredients and the infrastructure to cook for that many people. It's a logistic problem, which is why I've asked for help.

[serialmurderbot]

[Maybe a little bit contrarian. Maybe a little bit paranoid.]

It makes logistical sense to center the community kitchen in the communal space. Unless the equipment really is that shit, or you're creating an alternate space for dietary restrictions. Otherwise you just end up with a stockpile.

[bigplace]

[ Great. Kaidan yearns for the days where he and Shepard 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir' everything Rear Admiral Mikhailovich ordered, then turned around and did whatever the hell they wanted because Spectre trumps Rear Admiral.

But he has to play nice—has to—massages his temples—and writes something diplomatic. ] We want a stockpile. We want redundancy. An army marches on its stomach. If the vehicle that houses the kitchen gets destroyed, or becomes inaccessible somehow, we're screwed. That kitchen lacks the space for cooking and storage. And only pancakes does not make a nutritionally sound diet. [ It's not even real maple syrup. ]

[serialmurderbot]

The same thing could happen to you and your vehicle. In case you haven't noticed, we're getting regularly attacked by hostile fauna, and now by antagonistic groups.

Limiting food access is a method of control.

[It - Okay, it's pretty sure that Kaidan wasn't trying that. He's offering shares of his own in exchange for whatever other Convoy members bring around, but - It remembers mining installations where the miners had to buy their food back with their own wages. And it hates that.

Fuck, it should just leave humans to argue about food for themselves. Clearly none of the other responses see a red flag here, so SecUnit is just being paranoid. Good work overreacting, Murderbot.]

[bigplace]

[ Trading passive aggressiveness for sarcasm. ] I hadn't, actually. Me and the monsters, raiders and other hostiles are best of friends. It's been a blast, no pun intended, to acquaint them to the joys of electromagnetism.

[ That second sentence, however, pisses him off. ] No offense, but 1) that's a nasty accusation to level at someone you haven't even met face to face and 2) doing something like that stands against everything I stand for. Not that it matters here, but back home, that could earn me a court-martial as well.

By all means if you have suggestions or—even better—solutions, I'm all ears. But if all you're going to do here is cast aspersions, please keep them to yourself.

Thanks.

[serialmurderbot]

[Yeah, 'kindly fuck off' read loud and clear, SecUnit knows a dismissal when it reads one. It's used more abrupt ones itself. But there's a point of order it needs to clarify which totally isn't the same thing as getting in the last word:]

It's not an accusation, it's a statement of fact. If I was accusing you I'd have called you a food-hoarding asshole. I can say it to your face if you want.

[bigplace]

[ Yeah, he knows this game pretty well, given so many people in the Alliance love to play it. Snark sessions with Joker. ] Reply to this if you want to get the last word in.

[serialmurderbot]

[Of course there won't be a reply, but familiar as Kaidan is with this kind of banter, he has to know the double middle-fingers that would be turned in his direction at this point. Those are just a given.]