Challenge #01970-E146: Crash Site Review
"How does it feel?" "Can you describe...?" "What do you think?" And other inane questions often asked of the accused, the shell shocked survivors of a tragedy or just some poor sod who happened to be there when something happened. -- Anon Guest
In retrospect, it is a mistake to make an emergency landing on Nolliwud. It was almost a resort planet, with a majority of the planet's industry dedicated to creating dreams. Live action, animation of varying kinds, even audio. If something could be imagined, this world made it real.
And when reality came to Nolliwud, out came the news media. They, too, crafted fantasies. But they did it by grinding up the truth into easily-digestible sound bites. And focussing on that which frightened the most amount of people in the least amount of time.
Thus, when the Furiosa's Journey made an 'al dente' landing on some marshy grounds reserved for filming locations, the news media swarmed as the passengers and crew made good their emergency disembarcations. Fortunately, Captain Daav'nporth was prepared for their Lowest Common Questions.
"How does it feel to crash-land on the most beautiful planet in this sector."
"I feel in dire need of some Medik attention. Did any of you call emergency services? No? No. You're despicable, I hope you know that." All this, Daav'nporth said rapid-fire, so they'd have difficulty cutting it down on the replays.
"Can you describe your landing?"
"Can you describe why you want to film rather than help? People are injured, in case you didn't notice."
"What do you think of the Nev-R-Fail's product performance record?"
"Just as deplorable as your ethics rating."
It really helped to have snappy comebacks for unthought questions, given the situation. The news media got excellent footage of lightly-injured people from the crashed ship helping those who were more severely injured. Either extracting them from the mess of Furiosa's Journey or applying some variety of care.
It took half an hour for the Emergency Response Teams to arrive, and only then because the hospitals had screens permanently tuned to the news stations.
Because everyone in Nolliwud had one reaction to an emerging disaster. Start a livestream for the financial benefit they could earn by doing so. Those who were paid to care for the hurt had adapted.
Maybe, some time in the future, the citizens of Nolliwud would learn to help others first and film it later. But the rest of society didn't hold out many hopes.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Ig0rZh]
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So pretty much like some smart cookies in real life then (heard of a case where there was a car crash, don't think it was too serious in the end but the genius witnesses around it, their reaction was "pull out phone and start recording" instead of helping, at least one of the ones interviewed had the grace to feel stupid about it afterwards).
Plus la change, plus la meme chose.
There's something about human nature that's just... indomitable.