I SWEAR IT WASNT ME I DIDNT DO IT.
OH GOD
good job volana
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You did good, McGregor. Made us proud.
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8 yrs ago
No offense intended. But there's a sweet spot on the sliding scale of realism, and most of the interest checks I usually see skew too far to the realism end for me.
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Can't describe how quickly I go from excited to sad when a mecha premise turns out to be realism wankery.
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good job volana
Sorry about the delay, had midterms this week and last. I hope that gives everyone a little more to do, I'll be working on the followup in the meantime.
GM IC:
“Well, if someone can feed me a targeting solution I can keep the Lancier trained on it. Shouldn’t do more than singe Miss Jacira, but it should knock out anything down there fine.” Artemie supplied, watching from overhead. Voyager was much lower than the more dedicated superiority types, but it simply wasn’t well suited to the sand if she could avoid it. She was just too big, she wouldn’t be able to move around as easily. And staying above kept her out of the immediate vicinity of danger in case she needed to intervene. “Eyeballing it wouldn’t be great.”
Her tone was light, but the Lunite was on the edge of her seat. With worry, yes, but with excitement mostly; they were digging up something artificial, buried on an alien world. A culmination of her own lifelong quest, right here on the first day.
Aurora’s fingers may not have been the perfect instrument but they dug easily into the soil, clearing away years with every scoop. Efficiency didn’t matter at such a scale, the streams of soil sliding back amounting to nothing worth noticing from inside its cockpit. Decades gone in a second, centuries in just a few more, and thousands of years before a minute passes. Only a few long minutes before its fingers brushed metal, wiping the loose layer just above it away with as much dexterity as the war machine could manage. Its sensors refocused, ‘eyes’ peering deep into the earth to pierce the unknown.
And the dead of eons past peered back.
It was tilted up just a little, as though it had fallen on uneven ground. It had a ‘face’ once, at least two eyes even though the left had been mangled beyond recognition. Its head was an elegant crest, tapering back where it pierced deeper into the ground. The Proximal sun struck the dusty black material and it gleamed violet wherever it touched save the surviving eye. The sun struck it directly, it couldn’t do anything else; despite its position it had fallen where it could gaze at the sun overhead. The lens glowed viridian in Volana’s HUD, bright and focused as though it had merely been waiting. The machine was smaller than most of those that had disturbed its grave; assuming it had mostly the same proportions as their own Orbitals it was little more than fourteen meters from head to toe. Her excavation had unearthed down to its collar when she paused.
“Ah, found something. Is an Orbital. Or, something like.” The Aurora resumed digging, more carefully, to reveal more of the shape below. “No unusual readings. Continuing for now.”
Odyssey’s drone was perched towards the edge of the hole, just clear of where Volana dug, and angled to capture and transmit whatever was visible at the bottom. The whole ground team, Dr. Harding included, had the next best thing to front row seats to Volana’s continued excavation. Its shoulders came next, elegant pauldrons with gilded edges. At least, an elegant pauldron. The right was visible, as evidently the machine had been propping itself up on its elbow but the left was completely gone. Wrenched away just to the side of its collar, taking part of the torso with it. Its breastplate was pierced where a living thing’s heart would have been just deeply enough to glimpse its reactor housing. Crystalline shards, perhaps formed by pressure over the eons, rested within the wound where a cockpit looked to have been. Its torso tapered to an impossibly thin waist by any human design and then stopped. Or more accurately it ended. The machine’s lower half was gone, without any sign of it in the immediate soil.
Aurora grasped it carefully now that it was mostly exposed and pulled, lifting it easily free of the soil in a cascade of sand and shrapnel. Its surviving arm hung limply with a long, tapered rifle still held in its hand.
Dr. Harding blew out a deep breath and eyed it carefully.
<<There’s no doubt about it, it’s of the same design philosophy as the handful in Siberia. And ornate. Maybe it was a part of some sort of Praetorian guard?>> She stopped, realizing she was thinking out loud. The field team lead looked at her tablet again and took another deep breath. <<Every one of these signatures could be another machine. Actually, there could be more than that. We’re only picking up signatures from anything with an active Oberth reactor. Left alone the things will run pretty much indefinitely, but if they’re damaged they’ll stop. Which means there’s no way of knowing exactly how many are underneath us.>>
Some of the scientists looked a little uncomfortable even through their suits as the realization sank in that they were standing on a graveyard. A graveyard of God, if His dominion extended so far, only knew how many souls.
Though not all of them.
How long is an age to the earth? People like their hundred years, more if they’re fortunate, and they die. A single rotation of the system is more than enough to mark their time, one more tick towards their end. But the earth doesn’t care. If you give it enough time it may. So many years that the sun goes out, taking the planets with it. Such a passing would be noteworthy. But the years in between are meaningless, the shifting surface as the years march on utterly devoid of anything but the expected. How long for the passing of time to even register on such a scale?
The excitement died down long ago, even so. It had ended in one, incredible explosion of power. Everything went dark. And when they rose again everything was still, and that was good. Their apparati never changed their tune, as common and consistent as the wind. In time they would wind down like the rest. The flickers of celestial bodies striking the surface never even registered, so infinitesimal they were. Until the new ones.
They were discontented. The quiet had gone on for so long, they could not have hidden. Their existence was too fragile. But how, then?
They rumbled and stirred, shedding the planet that had grown around them. The answer would be known.
Kilometers away the disturbance registered, too far for the landbound Orbitals to see. But within easy reconnaissance range of those in the sky.
<<Look alive,>> Harding started again, head snapping in the direction of the rumble she felt in her own feet. <<Science team, back on the bird. Right now. Pilots I need to know if that was natural or something’s moving out there!>>
“Well, if someone can feed me a targeting solution I can keep the Lancier trained on it. Shouldn’t do more than singe Miss Jacira, but it should knock out anything down there fine.” Artemie supplied, watching from overhead. Voyager was much lower than the more dedicated superiority types, but it simply wasn’t well suited to the sand if she could avoid it. She was just too big, she wouldn’t be able to move around as easily. And staying above kept her out of the immediate vicinity of danger in case she needed to intervene. “Eyeballing it wouldn’t be great.”
Her tone was light, but the Lunite was on the edge of her seat. With worry, yes, but with excitement mostly; they were digging up something artificial, buried on an alien world. A culmination of her own lifelong quest, right here on the first day.
Aurora’s fingers may not have been the perfect instrument but they dug easily into the soil, clearing away years with every scoop. Efficiency didn’t matter at such a scale, the streams of soil sliding back amounting to nothing worth noticing from inside its cockpit. Decades gone in a second, centuries in just a few more, and thousands of years before a minute passes. Only a few long minutes before its fingers brushed metal, wiping the loose layer just above it away with as much dexterity as the war machine could manage. Its sensors refocused, ‘eyes’ peering deep into the earth to pierce the unknown.
And the dead of eons past peered back.
It was tilted up just a little, as though it had fallen on uneven ground. It had a ‘face’ once, at least two eyes even though the left had been mangled beyond recognition. Its head was an elegant crest, tapering back where it pierced deeper into the ground. The Proximal sun struck the dusty black material and it gleamed violet wherever it touched save the surviving eye. The sun struck it directly, it couldn’t do anything else; despite its position it had fallen where it could gaze at the sun overhead. The lens glowed viridian in Volana’s HUD, bright and focused as though it had merely been waiting. The machine was smaller than most of those that had disturbed its grave; assuming it had mostly the same proportions as their own Orbitals it was little more than fourteen meters from head to toe. Her excavation had unearthed down to its collar when she paused.
“Ah, found something. Is an Orbital. Or, something like.” The Aurora resumed digging, more carefully, to reveal more of the shape below. “No unusual readings. Continuing for now.”
Odyssey’s drone was perched towards the edge of the hole, just clear of where Volana dug, and angled to capture and transmit whatever was visible at the bottom. The whole ground team, Dr. Harding included, had the next best thing to front row seats to Volana’s continued excavation. Its shoulders came next, elegant pauldrons with gilded edges. At least, an elegant pauldron. The right was visible, as evidently the machine had been propping itself up on its elbow but the left was completely gone. Wrenched away just to the side of its collar, taking part of the torso with it. Its breastplate was pierced where a living thing’s heart would have been just deeply enough to glimpse its reactor housing. Crystalline shards, perhaps formed by pressure over the eons, rested within the wound where a cockpit looked to have been. Its torso tapered to an impossibly thin waist by any human design and then stopped. Or more accurately it ended. The machine’s lower half was gone, without any sign of it in the immediate soil.
Aurora grasped it carefully now that it was mostly exposed and pulled, lifting it easily free of the soil in a cascade of sand and shrapnel. Its surviving arm hung limply with a long, tapered rifle still held in its hand.
Dr. Harding blew out a deep breath and eyed it carefully.
<<There’s no doubt about it, it’s of the same design philosophy as the handful in Siberia. And ornate. Maybe it was a part of some sort of Praetorian guard?>> She stopped, realizing she was thinking out loud. The field team lead looked at her tablet again and took another deep breath. <<Every one of these signatures could be another machine. Actually, there could be more than that. We’re only picking up signatures from anything with an active Oberth reactor. Left alone the things will run pretty much indefinitely, but if they’re damaged they’ll stop. Which means there’s no way of knowing exactly how many are underneath us.>>
Some of the scientists looked a little uncomfortable even through their suits as the realization sank in that they were standing on a graveyard. A graveyard of God, if His dominion extended so far, only knew how many souls.
Though not all of them.
How long is an age to the earth? People like their hundred years, more if they’re fortunate, and they die. A single rotation of the system is more than enough to mark their time, one more tick towards their end. But the earth doesn’t care. If you give it enough time it may. So many years that the sun goes out, taking the planets with it. Such a passing would be noteworthy. But the years in between are meaningless, the shifting surface as the years march on utterly devoid of anything but the expected. How long for the passing of time to even register on such a scale?
The excitement died down long ago, even so. It had ended in one, incredible explosion of power. Everything went dark. And when they rose again everything was still, and that was good. Their apparati never changed their tune, as common and consistent as the wind. In time they would wind down like the rest. The flickers of celestial bodies striking the surface never even registered, so infinitesimal they were. Until the new ones.
They were discontented. The quiet had gone on for so long, they could not have hidden. Their existence was too fragile. But how, then?
They rumbled and stirred, shedding the planet that had grown around them. The answer would be known.
Kilometers away the disturbance registered, too far for the landbound Orbitals to see. But within easy reconnaissance range of those in the sky.
<<Look alive,>> Harding started again, head snapping in the direction of the rumble she felt in her own feet. <<Science team, back on the bird. Right now. Pilots I need to know if that was natural or something’s moving out there!>>
Right, finally posted. Sorry about that, it really took me a while to get off my ass and actually sit down to write. I left a prompt in my post for those who weren't securing the perimeter-- hope that wasn't overstepping my bounds as a player.
Nope, you're good.
Wait, did the Science team's shuttle land directly over the anomaly or just next to it?
The shuttle landed in the area of interest, which is peppered with a whole lot of anomalies now that anyone is close enough to take a good look. The one being dug up is a little ways away.
The use of a spike, a grim parody of Nicomede's own preference for water magic, was insult too many.
The range was a little long. But the window couldn't be missed, and in defending Jarde Fleuri had provided the tool that might bring the vampire down. When the flask burst, as he advanced rapidly, Nicomede snagged the water that would have splattered uselessly to the ground with his magic. Its movement arrested, tracing languidly the path of his off dagger, he knew exactly what he needed to do.
The vampire was assured, perfectly confident that he could handle. That he would still prevail, despite his current discomfort. That water, however, might be the only thing they had that could pose a serious problem for his regeneration. He just had to get it to the right place. He flicked his wrist, the little globule of controlled now by his spada like his other attacks had been. It spiraled faster and faster, forming the same conical pattern at the tip, and as soon as the range was low enough...
"Lancia."
He flicked his wrist and the holy water lanced towards, and hopefully through, the vampire's eye into his brain on the same course that his blade would momentarily follow.
In
Persona: Shadow of Virtuality (Persona RP except with futuristic cyberpunk VR and hackers; prior knowledge not required)
→
4 yrs ago
Forum: Advanced Roleplay
I have to take a closer read before I decide, but I'm tentatively interested.
Sorry about the delay. I split up the plot progression post a little so I could get it out tonight, next one to follow as soon as a few posts have come through.
GM IC:
<<Nnnno,>> one of the scientists, Dr. Harding, began over the comms. The scientists were all tied into their own network, of course; setting aside the problems with having so many people on the same frequency, the whole lot were so excited that the chatter would never cease. It hadn’t, in fact, since the moment the shuttle touched down. Twelve men and women, the foremost experts in their field, speaking a mile a minute about what they were seeing, hearing, reading, guessing, thinking. It was enough to make their supervisor (the aforementioned, infinitely patient Dr. Harding) wish for military comm discipline. <<No, I don’t think it’s geothermal.>>
Naturally they all had the capability to tap into the pilots’ frequency, as well, though under protocol only she was supposed to do so on a transmit and receive basis. The others were free to listen, not that they were listening to anyone. Dr. Harding felt the ground give under her boot, and despite the danger she wished she could take her helmet off to see and hear the world without a filter. Their suits had been designed for this moment; self contained life support, temperature control, biomedical sensors, GPS positioning relayed through Pandora above. Unlike the usual space suit, and much more like the suits some of their watchful protectors were wearing, their gear had been built for resistance too. A non-Newtonian layer for resisting impacts, a top layer of tough enough weave to stop a small caliber bullet… The mission’s architects had no way of knowing what they would encounter, so they had prepared for everything.
<<I suppose it could be. Our scans of the area are pretty incomplete, but we haven’t seen any sign of substantial geothermal activity in the area. And why would they be distinct but overlapping signatures like this?>> She took her hand away from her visor, after a few moments outside it had polarized against the sun’s glare. <<I’m not sure what they are, yet, but->>
<<Doctor?>>
<<Yes?>> She asked, turning her attention again to the scientists under her watchful eye. <<What is it?>>
<<Well, ma’am, it’s just…>> The scientist speaking shifted on his feet, the slightly nervous tic carrying through despite the suit he wore. <<We got the relays in the ground like you wanted. Three of them, north, southwest, southeast evenly spaced for three points of reference. Soil readings, of course, but also our ultrasonics.>>
<<To map what’s below the surface, yes, I know the plan.>>
<<But you don’t know what we’re getting.>>
Harding frowned at the change in tone from eager to apprehensive, and brought the data up on her HUD; it was preliminary, the devices hadn’t even gotten through a quarter of their cycle. But the approximations…. Hard, geometric edges. Some not far below the surface, irregular masses that were hard to make out. But further down, fifty, seventy, a hundred feet down. A solid plane of a metallic nature. Just the edge, whatever it was extended further north past their LZ. And there was a lot of debris. But…
<<Orbitals,>> She began again. <<Be advised that we’ve got some pretty unnatural looking stuff under the ground. Nothing to worry about yet but it could be in your wheelhouse, so I’m patching the sensor take through to you guys.>>
One of Odyssues’ drones moved further away from the scientists, and the transport, to the strongest heat source. Their depth, now that the additional sensor data was being correlated, varied as much as their spacing. Some were as deep as forty meters down, others as shallow as ten. No other readings, really, but the heat signature was strong and consistent… And familiar.
If that was…
<<One of you on the ground, I need you to do something.>> She pinged the heat signature closest to the surface, estimated at about nine meters down. <<We can’t reach the stuff all the way down, not until we get more gear down here. But before we do any of that we need to dig this one up. Carefully.>>
<<I don’t know about any of you, but accounting for diffusion through the soil that looks a lot like an Oberth Reactor in standby to me.>>
<<Nnnno,>> one of the scientists, Dr. Harding, began over the comms. The scientists were all tied into their own network, of course; setting aside the problems with having so many people on the same frequency, the whole lot were so excited that the chatter would never cease. It hadn’t, in fact, since the moment the shuttle touched down. Twelve men and women, the foremost experts in their field, speaking a mile a minute about what they were seeing, hearing, reading, guessing, thinking. It was enough to make their supervisor (the aforementioned, infinitely patient Dr. Harding) wish for military comm discipline. <<No, I don’t think it’s geothermal.>>
Naturally they all had the capability to tap into the pilots’ frequency, as well, though under protocol only she was supposed to do so on a transmit and receive basis. The others were free to listen, not that they were listening to anyone. Dr. Harding felt the ground give under her boot, and despite the danger she wished she could take her helmet off to see and hear the world without a filter. Their suits had been designed for this moment; self contained life support, temperature control, biomedical sensors, GPS positioning relayed through Pandora above. Unlike the usual space suit, and much more like the suits some of their watchful protectors were wearing, their gear had been built for resistance too. A non-Newtonian layer for resisting impacts, a top layer of tough enough weave to stop a small caliber bullet… The mission’s architects had no way of knowing what they would encounter, so they had prepared for everything.
<<I suppose it could be. Our scans of the area are pretty incomplete, but we haven’t seen any sign of substantial geothermal activity in the area. And why would they be distinct but overlapping signatures like this?>> She took her hand away from her visor, after a few moments outside it had polarized against the sun’s glare. <<I’m not sure what they are, yet, but->>
<<Doctor?>>
<<Yes?>> She asked, turning her attention again to the scientists under her watchful eye. <<What is it?>>
<<Well, ma’am, it’s just…>> The scientist speaking shifted on his feet, the slightly nervous tic carrying through despite the suit he wore. <<We got the relays in the ground like you wanted. Three of them, north, southwest, southeast evenly spaced for three points of reference. Soil readings, of course, but also our ultrasonics.>>
<<To map what’s below the surface, yes, I know the plan.>>
<<But you don’t know what we’re getting.>>
Harding frowned at the change in tone from eager to apprehensive, and brought the data up on her HUD; it was preliminary, the devices hadn’t even gotten through a quarter of their cycle. But the approximations…. Hard, geometric edges. Some not far below the surface, irregular masses that were hard to make out. But further down, fifty, seventy, a hundred feet down. A solid plane of a metallic nature. Just the edge, whatever it was extended further north past their LZ. And there was a lot of debris. But…
<<Orbitals,>> She began again. <<Be advised that we’ve got some pretty unnatural looking stuff under the ground. Nothing to worry about yet but it could be in your wheelhouse, so I’m patching the sensor take through to you guys.>>
One of Odyssues’ drones moved further away from the scientists, and the transport, to the strongest heat source. Their depth, now that the additional sensor data was being correlated, varied as much as their spacing. Some were as deep as forty meters down, others as shallow as ten. No other readings, really, but the heat signature was strong and consistent… And familiar.
If that was…
<<One of you on the ground, I need you to do something.>> She pinged the heat signature closest to the surface, estimated at about nine meters down. <<We can’t reach the stuff all the way down, not until we get more gear down here. But before we do any of that we need to dig this one up. Carefully.>>
<<I don’t know about any of you, but accounting for diffusion through the soil that looks a lot like an Oberth Reactor in standby to me.>>
So I was wondering... with each character coming from different backgrounds (some are from the military, some are mercenaries, some are unaffiliated)... I wanted to ask if there's a galactic standard for identification over comms? I've mostly been using callsigns when referring to myself (Castle, in this case), and family names for everyone else, but should I be using Orbital Designations? Model numbers? A mix?
Here's where we run into personal preference, mostly. It's the flip side of making it broad enough that people can make up whatever background they want.
The simplest answer is that any of the above are fine, depending on how you think Holden would handle it. When we start getting real combat I'll introduce a very loose guideline in-character for it, but even that is really going to come down to how you all want to handle it.
I'm not planning to rush anyone, but this is a general heads up that I'll spend some time working up the next progression post tomorrow. Won't necessarily go up tomorrow, but my schedule means I need to fit in the writing where I can.
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