Holonet Belazuran Beauty - A Holonet Zlog

[Zenitha Chuma]

While browsing your local HoloTube Shorts feed...

"Hey guys, gals, and non-binary pals!"

A young girl waves to the camera, her wavy blond hair tucked behind her ears for all the good it does in the breeze. She's dressed plainly, like a traveler might, set against the washed-out background of dusk. Tall, thin grasses grow on the mounds behind her, but they look barely alive.

"You may not know me, but I'm Zenitha Chuma and I know Belazura."

"You might remember Belazura from your last vacation. Or your work had a conference here. Maybe you just saw the gorgeous posters or holo-brochures trying to get you to visit. Well, I grew up here, and I have to tell you, this place has gone to ship."

Zenitha lets out a single giggle, clearly still uncomfortable with the near-slip of almost swearing. She tosses her head as a lock of hair flies in front of it, disturbances in the air swirling as the whining sound of engines fly past overhead. She leans into the camera and raises her voice to be heard over the crescendo of machinery.

"That's not the official line, by the way. The official line is that our mainstay tourism industry is doing just fine alongside the current 'mineral extraction project'," the girl forms quotes in the air alongside those words, "going on, last year they posted record numbers of tourists, business is booming, blah blah blah blah."

Zenitha's head bobs to the meter of her pattering rhyme. She beckons to the camera, or its operator, starting to walk away from the mounds.

"Well, let's look at one of those tourist spots everyone's visiting these days. Stay with me here, we're not exactly supposed to be here and the anti-holo tech might shut us down..."

The camera turns to where Zenitha is pointing, and at once the holo-image begins to blur and shift. It somehow stays in focus, with a few artifacts keeping the image from crystal clarity. Zenitha enters the camera frame again, making a show of looking at the new landscape before turning back to the camera.

"Oh look, it's a processing plant for the Zersium extraction! Gee, Manfloon, pretty convenient to classify all your workers as tourists. I guess they technically qualify as transient, but not many of them are still moving when they leave the planet."

Zenitha turns to look at the camera, her face serious and her eyes determined. This is her rousing moment, so listen up.

"Look, Diviak Manfloon may have taken over as governor, but he doesn't know the first thing about Belazura. Belazura is for the living, Manfloon, not for the rocks or metals or jewels you're pulling out of the ground!"

She points at herself, using a finger to stab at her chest.

"Those are our rocks. Our metals. Our jewels. If we wanted them to stay buried, that's exactly where they should be. Beings come to Belazura for beauty, not for rocks."

"Well, talk about your Belazuran Beauty now!"

The camera pans off beyond Zenitha, to the barren landscape around her and the processing plant. What once was a lush world of beauty is now filled with a dullness, smog and grime pollute the ground as much as the air around the plant. No tourists would ever want to venture here, leaving only rocks and metals and jewels as the only attractions.

OOC: Respond to the current state of Belazura under Diviak Manfloon's control with
your own HoloTube Short/Space TikTok Duet or whatever.​

 

[Debello]

Debello settled into the cockpit of his ship. Old scars felt fresh as the day’s labors settled deep into his bones. An ache that burned deep. Something that would not go away with a simple bacta bath. These wounds were older, they cut further than any blade would be able to. A rough hand reached up and began to massage the tender muscles in his shoulder. The kick from his scattergun had run in raw in the last weeks. He was running low on ammunition, and the nearest friendly worlds were lightyears away.

How many marauders could he fend off with an electrobaton before they overwhelmed him, came the creeping anxiety. It worked it’s way from his head and made home over every last inch of his nerves. Burrowing in and latching on. It was easy to tumble down this pit. The horrors that he faced everyday to etch out some measly good in this forsaken corner of the galaxy.

As a form of escape, he flicked open his portable terminal, and brought open a holofeed stream. Video after video burned into his eyes. Glazing over the orange orbs. The darkness of the Neutralizer fitted about the ever changing glow of the screen, casting him in odd shades of blue light.

He took in a sum none of the content.

It was noise to fill the void, nothing more.

Then he paused.

A human female spoke to the camera, and gave a bright bubbly greeting in Basic. It grated on Debello’s ears. Something that soft, that gently spoke, had been divorced from his world. It was nonexistent, here in the damned and lost corner of the galaxy. She began to speak, the world of Belazura was being shown through background shots and cutaways. The world was unknown to Debello. He mouthed each syllable like a foreign language. It didn’t fit right. His lips tumbled over the consonants and it came out harsh and dismissive.

As the video rolled past, and the Green Politics message was made clear to see, Debello was unsure of what to make of the recording. He was even more aware of his old whip-marks as the camera panned off to show the scene of mechanical desecration.

People the galaxy over are worried about environmentalism, people are debating on mining policy.

He turned the terminal off and stared out the window of the cockpit. In the distance, the shattered remnants of a fleet, picked clean by the victors.

In this forgotten land, daily life was a struggle beyond imagining. The rule of might dominated all, and even the hope for this corner of the galaxy was just an autocratic state with slightly less oppressive policies than it’s predecessor. A despotate fighting a war against darkside fueled barbarians, who would render civilization asunder and desecrate all good.

He sighed, and smiled for a moment.

There was a bliss in the normalcy outside of the northern rim. There was an odd comfort that video had brought him. Complicated emotions bubbled to the surface, his stomach tossed, but above it all, there was a gentle serenity. The galaxy was afforded to worry about things like Green Politics because of the sacrifices of those willing.

The Galaxy will continue, people will live, and their concerns will never be grander than their homes and their passions. That was what he hoped. That those people on the otherside of that screen would be spared the nightmares of the north.

He would die in the dark, so others could live in the light.

 

[Zenitha Chuma]

Back in your local HoloTube Shorts feed...

"Hey guys, gals, and non-binary pals!"

Young Zenitha is back in front of the camera, her upbeat face a contrast to ramshackle surroundings. No whine of machinery interrupts this holo-vid, just a silence but for the words and actions of the girl in frame.

"Would you believe that this used to be a waterfall?" She points to the duracrete dam wall behind her, where silence reigns over the now-cordoned waterway. Dead algae and sediment on the duracrete barriers mark previous levels of the water, now bone dry and fading in the sunlight.

"This whole place was a getaway, a bed-and-breakfast by the waterfall. There's still holos of it if you search, they're very pretty." Zenitha walks along the duracrete embankment as she's talking, approaching the entrance to the dilapidated building. "Staying here must have been just magical...once. Now it's dead, and the bank kicked out the owner a couple years ago."

She pauses at the open doorway. It hasn't taken long for a lack of business or the edicts of nature to run roughshod over the place. The flexiglass doors are shattered ruins, offering a window into what might once have been a cozy lobby for a humble, country inn. Inside, a withered Sephi woman sits at a table and chairs recently dusted off, looking up at Zenitha's approach.

"This is Deyrdr, she used to run this place when it was the Little Cascades Inn. Deyrdr, you told me you used to have thousands of visitors every year, what happened?"

"Oh, maybe not so many. Hundreds, but lots of repeat visitors. This is —was— a favorite getaway for a lot of folks." Deyrdr's eyes shine at the retelling, the engagement bringing the hunched-over woman out of her shell. "Business types, a lot of them, maybe some celebrities here and there. I didn't pry much, beings came to get away from it all and at Little Cascades we were all just another soul, come to be refreshed by the waterfall."

Zenitha sits down next to Deyrdr, smiling with the woman's story. Then she asks, more solemn now, "Was that before the dam?"

"For a time, yes. Manfloon's mining guild built the dam when they took over, they needed power for the mines up in those mountains." Deyrdr gestures to someplace upstream from the dam, then returns her hands to the steaming mug in front of her.

Zenitha looks, but there's nothing to see. She leans her head toward the woman, curious. "What are the Guild mining up there?"

"I don't know. Lommite? Norax? Something you could find on any planet, really." The woman snorts into her drink.

"Is it worth so much? Didn't the Guild give any indication why this particular ore was so important?" Incredulty is written all over Zenitha's face, as if each of the answers was a physical slap in the face.

"Not one word." Deyrdr mentions wearily, shaking her head. "They didn't ask permission to build their dam, either, just came and did it. The owners were already starting to think of selling the place before then, and I was trying to save up to buy it off them, but after that no one wanted Little Cascades."

Zenitha wears a disdainful expression, nodding softly for a moment. Then she asked something quietly, so much that Deyrdr had to have repeated. "Would you still have wanted it?"

Now Deyrdr's eyes reclaim their shine, "Oh sure! I came here as a tourist once, back when I was still young enough to roam the galaxy. Fell in love with the falls, like most folks, and when I was ready for a quiet life I came to offer work. I would have happily retired here, just me, anyone staying here, and rainbows off the falls."

Zenitha's faith seems restored in the woman, something approaching a smile on her face from the serene story. She glances out toward the broken windows facing the duracrete installation outside. "They don't exactly fall anymore, do they?"

The Sephi shakes her wrinkled head, her eyes drifting longingly toward the windows. "Not for a long time now. The whole stream is dried up, all the way up to the mountain springs. It's just an industrial lake up there now, they stripped the mountain to its core and dumped all their waste in the water."

"That's disgusting!" Zenitha's nose wrinkles at the thought.

"It doesn't stay there, either." Deyrdr holds up her mug, swirling the dark liquid inside. "The mining dust gets everywhere, even into the caf. Can't afford to import anything clean anymore, so we just drink it. The nearest towns are more dust than anything now, too."

The girl is more dour now, her ire growing from the tragedy in the story. "And all for a few rocks."

"A lot of rocks. Beings used to come here for the scenery, but nobody comes to look at dust."

Now Zenitha is just plain angry, and she doesn't hide it. She echoes the phrase from her last holo-vid. "Belazura is for the living, not for the rocks."

"It should be. It's not so much anymore."

Zenitha almost scoffs, and looks firmly at the woman, her whole face shining with her emphatic voice, "Well, I still say it. Belazura is for the living!"

The Sephi woman smiles for the first time in the whole recording, a soundless gesture in a sea of silence around them.

 

[Darth Metus]

A RESTROOM, SOMEWHERE

Whilst scrolling on the most popular social media app, Darth Metus happens across the Belazuran series. As it was a stark contrast to the dances, memes, and sithposts he typically expected, the Sith gave both videos a watch.

"Damn. That's rough buddy."

Showing solidarity, he double tapped his screen to leave a LIKE.​

 

[Zenitha Chuma]

"Hey guys, gals, and non-binary pals!"

The morning's rays diffuse through a thick fog, bathing the Belazuran girl in its soupy mess. Zenitha leaves ghostly trails through as she walks, her hands swooping down alongside her to graze the tips of long grass around her.

"When I was a little girl, I thought Belazura was the best place to grow up. Everything was beautiful, I could swim in a pool anytime I wanted, and my dad would take me to this amusement park every other week.

"I don't know how many times I rode the Inter-Stellar Spiral, but it was a lot. A few times, I would get so dizzy that I'd throw up, but I never let my dad stop me from going on it again next time we were here.

"You might have heard of it, this coaster was on a bunch of holo-brochures to get younglings to beg their parents to go." Zenitha chuckles, looking a bit bashful. "It definitely worked on mine. Nothing made me happier to grow up on Belazura besides being able to ride the 'corkscrew coaster' 'til I puked!"

"And here it is now." Zenitha leaves aside all grand gestures this time, pointing with a finger as her lips draw a line across her face. The grim expression poses on her face for a moment, as if she's remembering or thinking hard. "You know, this really puts all of Manfloon's talk about a great economy in perspective. Last year, he said, was the best year for Belazura's tourism since the Gulag Plague. Well, it's hard to buy that line when the poster-child attraction has been trashed and abandoned this long."

Zenitha gestures to the camera so that it turns, panning around her until the coaster frames the girl in the background. Her face adopts a neutral look, the nostalgic joy in her eyes fading as a serious tone issues forth from her long lips.

"This Zlog isn't supposed to be just another sob story. There are wars at the edge of the galaxy, refugees fleeing real horrors. Those beings deserve help and support, but it's hard to help when the problems are so far from home.

"Belazura, though, is right on the edge of the Core Worlds. We're supposed to be a garden of delights, well the new groundskeeper doesn't know the first thing about tending gardens. Diviak Manfloon becoming Governor of Belazura was the worst thing to happen to my homeworld since the Gulag Plague, not the best. Our garden might look bad, but we're still here. There's a lot that's gone to rot, some that's just dead, but there's a few flowers that just need a little help to bloom." Zenitha holds up her fingers, pinched between her index and thumb. Then she points to the camera. "They need your help.

"If you have credits burning a hole in your pockets, then donate them to my organization: we are ZINO and that stands for Zcenery Is Not Obscene. Its our mission to see all of Belazura restored just the way you and I remember it.

"Or, if you have the time to actually visit, please come to Belazura! It may not be what you remember, or look much like the holos anymore, but the people here need to see that the galaxy hasn't abandoned them. Tourism credits built Belazura and kept its beauty pristine, and hospitality is our bread and butter. There's still good beings here who will welcome you into their inn or store and treat you well.

"And if you only have time to watch another holo-vid, do me a favor instead. Make one of your own, and share Belazuran Beauty with your feed. Let's get this thing to go galactic, and put Diviak Manfloon to shame for how much damage he's done. The only way he'll get removed is if he's too much of an embarrassment, so let's embarrass him all over the HoloNet."

"I'm Zenitha Chuma, let's shine a light on Belazura."

 

[Lance of Dreams]

Lance of Dreams contemplated the purpose of vegetable matter placed over one's eyes, or for that matter, underwater vegetation on one's extremities.

"I have configured my implants to impart the highest tactile feedback possible; please apply your ministrations to their maximum effect."

"Uh... what?" The masseur was new.

"He wants you to press hard." The masseuse from the other day interjected from across the room.

"I believe I just elucidated that, did my vocal modulation fault when speaking to you?"

A strange face overcame the human before he muttered a quiet, "No?"

"Very well, proceed." The masseur began tentatively, as the cyborg began to spend the time scouring the holonet for his next "mandatory vacation" visit. The lawsuit matter on Denon not yet fully resolved...

Hundreds of hours of holo's, ads, programs, and textual data streamed across the lens of his mind's eye. One of the many instances of browsing history happened across the unusually named "Zlog" of one Zenitha Chuma, displaying an intriguing disparity between the pre-cataloged information of Belazura versus the targetted images she produced. There was a localized political agenda as well, of course, but the disparity of information piqued the cybernetic man's interest. He ran a calculation on the likelihood of his vacation approval for the location despite its relative proximity to Denon, and found them to be positive, but with a few unsolicited tweaks to their documentation procedures, he figured it could be guaranteed if he desired it.

The girl did implore him to show support in coming to Belazura, honestly, it would be rude not to explore the possibility.

If not in person, then perhaps through someone else's memories. Acquisition of those might be difficult right now in the present condition of his employment, so he weighed the odds and decided it would be best to press down on the scale.

"Ow-" Lance of Dreams intoned abruptly, stopping the hands of the masseur only a few seconds after he had begun. "That was a joke, you may commence laughter."

"Oh for the love of- You've been making that joke all month! Get some new material!" The other masseuse roared at him. His face facsimiled a frown, and he noted that he would have to assimilate a comedian at his next opportunity. He thought that joke had been appreciated by her the first time he used it, clearly, he would need to retroactively update his memory perception of that event...

Perhaps Belazura would be more hospitable to his exploratory endeavors in expressions of enjoyment.

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra sat across from a friend at a table, the local cafe a perfect back drop for her travel blog.

"Quick, before my foam loses its oomph," she instructed, shielding her cafe mocha something or other from a bit of sharp wind.

"Alright, alriiiiiight... live!"

On cue, Kyra split into a smile, her pinky out as she picked up her fancy drink and raised it to-... She stopped short and balked at the new, black specks that coating the foam. "What the--"

The friend leaned forward, and so did the camera. "Is that--"

Kyra poked at it. "...Dirt???"

"Coal dust?"

"Ew! Turn that off, turn that off-"

​

 

[Anakin Stormrunner]

Perhaps a year ago, he could have called Belazura beautiful, if only on the surface. Now, Manfloon’s effects on the planet can be seen from space. Deep, ugly gouges marred the surface of the once thriving world. Even now as he made his way through the Belazura spaceport, the memory played across his mind. More haunting was the images from Zenie's videos. It was those images that drew him to the planet. It was her words that moved him to help.

Anakin wasn’t a rich man, far from it in fact. He hardly had two credits to rub together, with most of his illegal earnings going towards the Amavikka. What he did have, was connections. When it was all said and done, it wasn’t difficult to get seeds and sprouts of selino’la. The deep abyss plants were unseen anywhere else, but they were plentiful below and hardy enough to survive a short trip through space.

As his ship settled into dock, Anakin cast his eyes over the smugglers compartments which held his precious cargo. He doubted they’d be seized in customs, with how Manfloon was running the show, but he couldn’t be sure. Forcing himself out of his chair, Anakin hobbled over to the exit. His atrophied limbs protested the movement and he knew that he’d be back in his hover chair before the end of the day. Until then, he would make the most of his limited mobility.

Voices assaulted his ears as he disembarked his ship. Children laughed and people talked and yelled while the smooth, feminine voice of the spaceport’s automated pa system cut through with barely recognizable times and gates for disembarking and boarding ships.

Suns and sand, he hated commercial spaceports. Loud, hectic, and with too much security. He couldn’t wait to get out of here.

From the throng of people, someone called his name. Not long after, a young Miralukkan shoved his way through the crowds. “I’m Maylon, Zenie’s friend.” His voice was calm, easily lost in the constant hubbub.

Spice blue eyes flicked across the man. He was small, with short brown hair and a wrinkled but clean shirt and shorts. There was nothing notable about him and even his lack of eyes was hidden with a hood and simple pair of shades. A perfect spy, with little to hold himself within a person’s mind.

“Well met, I’m Anakin.” He smiled. It was small, like all of his smiles had been since his release.

“I heard you brought something that we could use?” Maylon’s eyeless gaze bored into him, full of desperate hope.

“Yeah, I’ve got a few things.” Anakin led the miralukkan on board, closing the door behind them.

“It’s not much, I don’t exactly have a lot to offer.”

“I’m sure that whatever it is, will be helpful.” They rounded the corner into a hallway, where Anakin knelt and began removing the floor plating.

Before long, the cover was thrown to the side, to reveal boxes of seeds and specialized fertilizer along with the sprouts of some small bulbious plant.

“Are these-” A confused, almost disappointed look crossed Maylon's face.

“Senilo’las. They’re a native to Denon.” Anakin held up one of the sprouts. “They feed on the toxins in water, and secrete a sweet, mostly purified juice. You can harvest it all year long, as long as it has a constant source of toxic water, and the juice is safe to drink.” Spice blue eyes flicked towards the young man. “They won’t fix your rivers, but they can help with dehydration and water poisoning.”