(My revision contest submission!)
Sayyid: Hello listeners, I’m Sayyid Abd al-Namur, here with Forenian Independence Radio. I stand here today in one of the offices of the Forenian Engineering Bureau with engineer Masud Zaman, who won our recent essay contest.
Masud: Hello!
Sayyid: The topic of the contest was: What makes the Forenian Engineering Bureau better than the pirates’ engineers. Masud?
Masud: Alright! Um, the Engineering Bureau is better because of its engineers. We--
A door is heard to open.
Sayyid: Excuse me, we’re holding an interview here—
Masud: E-Evy, um--
Evy?: Ahaha, yes. I know. I’m his fiancée, and I helped him write and submit the essay. In a way, I won the contest too. Where would you be without my superior Arstotzkan paperwork skills, hmm, honey?
Masud: Evy! Ah—uh-- This is embarrassing!
Sayyid: …you know what, this should work. It’s things like this that keep me coming to work anyway. Well, Masud, why don’t you introduce your fiancée?
Masud: Ah! Well, this is Evpraksiya Fedorova. She’s another engineer here!
Evpraksiya: Right, well, let’s continue the interview, yes?
Sayyid: Why we’re better.
Masud: Ah, right, sorry. We’ve got all kinds of people here, with different nationalities, different parties, different lives. I was artillery crew in the war--
Evpraksiya: --and I was an old war engineer, then one of the 1935 rebels. I’m proud PAROI and a rocketeer.
Masud: This means we have a lot of different viewpoints. Every single idea we have is challenged and improved across several lines.
Sayyid: Can you give us any examples in your careers?
Evpraksiya: Oh, plenty. We could go on all day. To start off, the Lightning Streak and Thunderbird. It was Arstotzkan air expertise that went into much of the planes, but…
Masud: Moskurg engines helped make them this blisteringly fast. Some of the Juraki guys told us about fighting the old Cannalan planes, too. The Cataphract, well, we had like six cruiser designs…
Evpraksiya: …and in the end, we argued it out, and we put out a beautiful vessel that can beat e-ve-ry single non-capital vessel in the sea.
Masud: And then there’s the project that got us together!
Evpraksiya: Ahaha, yes. The Sarukh, it was. His artillery experience was going into the portability and chassis--
Masud: Look, I know what designs suck to pull around--
Evpraksiya: And my rocket experience was some of what was going into the weapon itself. What started out as an argument about the moorings’ stress capacities turned into something else entirely. And the Sarukh has kicked the Cannalans around everywhere it’s been, ahahahaha.
Masud: Look… I remember the bad old days.
Evpraksiya: …I think we all do.
Masud: In the closing days of that war, both the old countries only had themselves to work with. And… we lost our minds, didn’t we?
Another silence.
Evpraksiya: But we fought for a United Forenia, and it’s different now.
Masud: Yes… we work better now. We check each other, temper each other, bring up things that we never would have thought of on our own, we talk, we argue and that’s why we don’t spend so much time on things like the Twinblade. It’s this diversity of views that makes Forenia better.
Evpraksiya: And it’s made Masud and I very happy, too.
Masud: But the Cannalans… one dominant people, one political path, and fewer ways of life. That doesn’t sound like a breeding ground for thought to me, it sounds miserable. And that’s why they’re going mad, like we once did. That’s why we’re better.
Sayyid: I think that caps it off. Thank you, Masud, Evpraksiya. And thank you, listeners.