"I'm not sure 'efficiency' is quite the comparison to make. It's possible ours go farther on less total energy. But there's no call to belabor the point, I suppose."

"Is there anything else... Did I remember to give you my name? I'm Captain Isabella T'Mir of the Prometheus."

"Ancien Vatti, but nobody will know me if you call me that: most Capsuleers go by call signs. Mine is Wergeldt. Yes, I know it's terrible: I was a wannabe pirate and now I'm stuck with it, along with a mildly bad sec rating. Crime doesn't pay if you're one of the little fish."

"You can't change your call sign?"

"It's legally exceedingly difficult. CONCORD keeps close tabs on Capsuleers, since we're already operating many more bodies and much more power than the average person: they take a dim view of ones who try to change their alias. If you misspelled your original call sign, you might have a chance - otherwise, forget it. Nobody wants to have you in their databases under five names and operating six bodies: that's how unauthorized forks happen."

"Forks? ...Loading yourself into two bodies at once and waking both up?"

"Yes. Your call sign is your unique identity as a Capsuleer: if you changed it, and a single cloning station that you had a clone with didn't get the memo, they could end up waking a 'you' under your old identity and a 'you' under your new identity. They might not even be recognizable as the same person: we can do extensive cosmetic resculpting, extending even to bone structure. So long as you stay the same sex and ethnicity, you can have basically whatever human body you want."

"Why is it restricted by sex and ethnicity?"

"Different bloodlines have measurably different brain structure - subtly so, but enough that it's necessary to maintain the same general genetics across clones if you want to preserve memory fully during transfer. And of course the presence or absence of a Y chromosome also has a significant impact. Beyond that, though, you can more or less build your body to order."

"...We have reasonably effective sex reassignment procedures, although they don't operate at the genetic level. You don't?"

"Theoretically possible, but I've never heard of anyone offering it as part of a cosmetic resculpting service. I think CONCORD might regard it as an identity issue, much like call sign: I seem to recall it being mentioned at a CSM hearing recently. I think it might have had something to do with neural remapping?"

"People who desire the reassignment tend to already have the neurology to accommodate it."

"Okay? I mean, it's not like I'm an expert in genetics and neurology, I just absorb what my doctors tell me on occasion. These sorts of social issues aren't something I generally take an active interest in."

Something in her hold goes 'CLANG.'

"I don't see why it should be making any loud noises. You did stow it properly, right?"

"It needs special stowing?"

"No, it just needs to be treated like something with a... warp core in it, right, your warp is not my warp. Our warp drives have interesting properties, inertially. They don't resist acceleration: they resist having velocity."

"...I may not be able to travel any useful distance with it in my cargo hold."

"If you take the warp core out of the drone, you should be able to ship the rest safely."

"Okay. How do I do that?"

"Er... I have no idea. Warp cores are generally built into things pretty thoroughly - they're not modular like most ship equipment, they come with the hull."

"Okay, what does the ansible part look like? I have some tools around and may be able to figure it out although I'm not a properly trained engineer?"