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Spike's Traveller- Frozen Elegy [IC]

Started by Spike, October 11, 2017, 07:09:28 PM

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Ras Algethi

Cooper makes his way to the ship's launch to see what information can be found on the computer there.

Spike

You find that the expected computer jack is not present in the launch, forcing you to interface with the primitive and awkward manual interface. The computer is comparatively weak, but intact. The on board data has randomly collected sensor logs from various systems in which it has been used in the past, an impressive if unsorted collection, as The Jenny, as the small boat identifies itself as to you, appears to be used in, quite possibly, every single system the Frozen Elegy has been to.  Unfortunately there is little Astrographic data, as The Jenny has no Jump Drive.  

If you are willing to spend several days sorting the data by hand you might build a reasonably useful database of previously visited systems, which could then be compared to a standard starmap... which you currently lack... to retrace the steps of the Elegy since the introduction of The Jenny to the ship.

In more heartening news you find that The Jenny reports that it has not been launched in just short of two centuries, and that several of its last several launches involved weapon's fire. Upon reviewing the relevant data-logs, again through the agonizingly slow and awkward process of viewing it on a screen, it appears that some sort of war was raging, across several systems, as similar designs of ships appear in many of the battles... though all identifiable ships appear, mostly, to have been on one side.

As for what they were fighting, the sensor logs can provide no answers, only profound and unsettling questions.  Every form of sensor returned only error data, and the visual/optical scans show headache inducing images that simply are not possible in three-dimensional space. The closest image-metaphor you can conjure up were amusing data-sets designed to create three dimensional models of fifth or sixth dimensional objects. Only these aren't data-models, these are real, and the portions not rendered in the models is fully, impossibly rendered on the screen.
For you the day you found a minor error in a Post by Spike and forced him to admit it, it was the greatest day of your internet life.  For me it was... Tuesday.

For the curious: Apparently, in person, I sound exactly like the Youtube Character The Nostalgia Critic.   I have no words.

[URL=https:

Headless

"Ball go help Cooper."

Go's to the trunk.  Gets 2 of the last 8 orange fruit in all of creation, and a handtooled leather briefcase.  Goes looking for Robertson.  

"I've thought about how I would cope with being lost and alone on a ship for decades.  You've done far better than I would have.  Do ypu play backgammon?  

...

I like to have a little something riding on a game.  Shall we say my orange fruit against your story?

Spike

She looks at you like you are a crazy person before shrugging as if accepting that she has nothing better to do.  

"Never heard of it, acazi."
For you the day you found a minor error in a Post by Spike and forced him to admit it, it was the greatest day of your internet life.  For me it was... Tuesday.

For the curious: Apparently, in person, I sound exactly like the Youtube Character The Nostalgia Critic.   I have no words.

[URL=https:

Headless

#79
Teach her to play backgammon.  After the first game propose the wadger.  If I win she tells me her story.  If she wins I give her an orange fruit.  

We could play for different stakes but she doesn't look like an Aslan so wouldn't be intetested in a packet of spice, and the frozen horse embryos are in the other trunk.

Ras Algethi

Seems like time is what we have. Cooper begins the arduous process of shifting and sorting data.

Spike

As you play it seems obvious that she has figured out your intent, as before the first game she stops, her hand hovering over the dice.

"I ain't stupid, Acazi.  You wanna play games? Then tell me what the game is,I don't sit with liars."

After you tell her that you are after her story she sits back, dice in one hand, fiddling with the wooden stick thrust through the knot at then end of her braid with the other. After a period of silence she points to the fruit and thumps her side of the table meaningfully, then again after you pass over a fruit, until she has all of them on her side.


"Not much to tell. Born and raised on a shithole, escaped by joining the Merc. Lizardi's Lunatics out of Solchis. Had a rough patch after a job went bad the worst way possible, three of us survived out of a battalion, an' me in not so good shape, but I... got over it and wound up with the Gyrfalks. Good folks, but the brass was a bit crazy. Good time to make the move, I guess, as the war was heating up all over.  Or a bad time, seeing as everyone was losing bad.   Fought all over the place, can't even remember the names of most of 'em... hit planet, shoot the other side for a few days and bounce, cusha?

Then... then things get weird. Like... I... I don't really know when exactly but memories just stop, or fade or something... like they are there, but hiding. I wake up in the cargo bay, half buried under a squid-bot. Bad times, acazi, bad times for I don't know how long.  Never felt anything, any confusion like... no, thats not true.  I felt like that in the hospital, recovering, cusha?   I used to dream that damn squid-bot was trying to kill me, but... you know... if bad dreams are a problem you don't join the merc."


She shrugs, peeling a fruit with ruthless precision.


"Anyway. Took so long to sort myself out, to find 'normal' that I'd lost track of time. Found myself busywork keeping up the maintenance... that started during the crazy-time, cusha?... and just kept going. One day at a time, Liz would tell me, an' so that's what I did.  Never really done ship work before, guess I had a knack for it."


She pops the peeled fruit in her mouth, savoring it, then stands and sweeps the rest off the table into her hands.


"Thanks for the change of pace, acazi."
For you the day you found a minor error in a Post by Spike and forced him to admit it, it was the greatest day of your internet life.  For me it was... Tuesday.

For the curious: Apparently, in person, I sound exactly like the Youtube Character The Nostalgia Critic.   I have no words.

[URL=https:

Headless

There's a squid bot on the ship?  Where is it?

Opaopajr

Fimion sits, rifle relaxed in hand, and stares off into space with a slight smile playing on his face. He won't respond to much conversation beyond inflected tonal grunts, meaning things like "yes," "no," "huh?" and "ok." Anyone who has been in the military, or competitive sports, recognizes getting one's battle face on.
Just make your fuckin\' guy and roll the dice, you pricks. Focus on what\'s interesting, not what gives you the biggest randomly generated virtual penis.  -- J Arcane
 
You know, people keep comparing non-TSR D&D to deck-building in Magic: the Gathering. But maybe it\'s more like Katamari Damacy. You keep sticking shit on your characters until they are big enough to be a star.
-- talysman

Spike

Right on schedule the warning sounds, lights all over the ship flashing to indicate Jump-End.  There is a moment of indescribable normalness settling over you as the laws of the physical universe once again assert their primacy.

Your poorly calculated jump has done what you expected, and deposited your ship, now again dangerously low on fuel, in the outer regions of a star system, motionless in relation to the ancient dance of the stars once more.

Once the moment of sensor blindness passes as waves of high energy hydrogen plasma-ejecta from the collapsing Jump Envelope passes, you can 'see' the star system laid out before you. A main sequence star, four rocky inner worlds, four gas giants and a scattering of asteroids and other stellar debris, but no 'belt'.  The comms roar to life with radio signal, staticky and broken by distance and background noise... it sounds like a working star-port chatter, at least at first.   The longer you listen the stranger it sounds, an entirely one sided conversation full of non-sequitors and garbled, random jargon.  

It doesn't take long to triangulate, and determine that the likely source is the fourth planet in the system, several days travel in system, especially with your M-Drives heavily damaged as they are.  It seems probable that your fuel will give out before you arrive. You are much closer to one of the gas giants in system, and with The Jenny fully operational you should be able to refuel safely with a day or two of work.
For you the day you found a minor error in a Post by Spike and forced him to admit it, it was the greatest day of your internet life.  For me it was... Tuesday.

For the curious: Apparently, in person, I sound exactly like the Youtube Character The Nostalgia Critic.   I have no words.

[URL=https:

Headless


ffilz

Quote from: Headless;1004667"I vote fuel before trouble."

Definitely, though as long as one has SOME fuel, anything in system is reachable, it just might take a long time (unless we aren't doing traditional Traveller maneuver drives).

Opaopajr

Quote from: Headless;1004667"I vote fuel before trouble."

"I agree with the sane option. Fuel to get the fuck away, just in case, makes sense." Goes back to relaxed staring, "But I leave it up to you techs beyond that..." :)
Just make your fuckin\' guy and roll the dice, you pricks. Focus on what\'s interesting, not what gives you the biggest randomly generated virtual penis.  -- J Arcane
 
You know, people keep comparing non-TSR D&D to deck-building in Magic: the Gathering. But maybe it\'s more like Katamari Damacy. You keep sticking shit on your characters until they are big enough to be a star.
-- talysman

Headless

Quote from: Opaopajr;1004739"I agree with the sane option. Fuel to get the fuck away, just in case, makes sense." Goes back to relaxed staring, "But I leave it up to you techs beyond that..." :)

We're going to need you to go EVA and collect an exhust sample.
-Hands over a clear bag.

Headless

Alright crew.  We're fueled up.  The way I see it we have 3 options.   We can jump to the source of all that chatter and see what the angler fish has to say.  

We can jump to a different giant and go probabilisticly searching for a silent abandoned fueling station.  Or we can jump away and see what the next spooky system has to offer.

I'm leaning towards finding an abandoned fueling station, but not very strongly.