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by the inquest
"Arguments on their nature are refuted by those who return to shore, wide-eyed with tales of their savagery."
All Moirans are woken to the sounds of the ship coming to a rather grating halt some time in the early morning cycle. It’s no faster or slower than any other stop, but it is unexpected as the captains didn’t mention an upcoming disembarkment. Shortly after, a message is sent to every MID:Navigation has informed us that we’re approaching bad traveling conditions: an overactive star. Instead of stopping on Liant El, we’ll be docking here on Ceta. Please exercise caution while gathering supplies and during excursions. Follow their safety guidelines. If the chance allows, we’ll also be signing new crew on the planet. Please greet them first and show them to the ship. Thank you. The Ingress has pulled you in. Your body experiences several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer from dizziness while others are perfectly fine. Once equilibrium has been reestablished, you will notice you are standing on a long platform and that the room is filled with a soft cerulean light. It's slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you, and nothing is familiar.
For those few who come through Ceta's Ingress, there will be crew of the Moira there to greet you. They tell you of the Ingress, how it is broken, even on this planet, and that the ship is headed back to the origin of this technology. This planet’s Ingress is set precariously atop a floating rock formation, the only way from one area to the next is on small air-propelled boats. Crew members will guide everyone back to the Moira and take them to the Medbay; contracts will be signed posthaste.
WELCOME TO CETA
At first glance, Ceta seems mostly inhabitable, and that's because it is. The atmosphere around the planet is surprisingly thick in most places, sometimes thin in others, and without some way to filter the air, it is mostly unbreathable; it's a giant gas planet, its core made of various molten metals and the atmosphere a mix of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrous. Ceta's gravity is also uneven, meaning that some areas will have stronger focal points than others. The terrain, when it is visible, appears rather rocky—hardly the best conditions for life and stable living. What's more unusual, however, is that despite this fact, there is, indeed, a small populace "living" among the mist and clouds, but it's clear they do not live here year-round. It's hunting season, and they are there for the bounty.
These visitors have built small platforms that are hooked together by ropes and swinging bridges, which they call "temporaries". Unstable buildings are rare, dangerous, and spread out over these temporaries to prevent damage or accidents. The temporaries float along, swaying and shifting with the planet’s atmosphere, and posted at every point of entry and all open surfaces are a particular set of rules that everyone must abide by. They are written in dark ink and large block letters so that all passing by will stop and read them:
NO FIRE. Flammables, ignition sources, matches, lighters, and anything that creates a spark is prohibited. The atmosphere has higher levels of hydrogen, and the smallest spark will create a problem.
AIR BREATHABILITY. Monitor your vitals. Wear masks or re-breathers if needed.
WATCH THE EDGE. All walkways are the only thing from you and falling. Be cautious and watch your step. These signs should be given their due attention. The edge is just that: the end of where it is safe to walk. If a wooden plank gives way beneath your feet, you will plummet through hundred of miles of atmosphere before hitting the planet’s thin surface. The captains reiterate that crew should be careful and stick to the main temporaries, gather supplies, visit at their leisure, and then go back to the ship.
☄ IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE!The organisms that have evolved on this planet are unintelligent—a fact that is told to you by the other visitors. As there is no solid materials or ways for them to interact with their environments, these giants float along within the atmosphere, though it appears that they are flying when they are merely navigating through. They travel in groups of three or more and sometimes come close to the outskirts of the temporaries. Because there is an invisible filtration dome around the temporaries, this allows the creatures to pass through without harm and return again into the mist as they please. They are difficult to see at night and are rather skittish in the presence of sudden light.
☄ @ THE MUSEUM Every evening when work is done, artificial light sources illuminate the streets of the temporaries. There is one bar, if you can actually call it that, but the main attraction is a museum. The support structure appears to be made out of the skeletal system of the giants that "swim" and live on Ceta, and though the outside seems rather unassuming, the inside is not for the faint of heart. As it's considered informative, there are displays of the internal structures and functions of the very creatures that seem harmless and as unintelligent as the visitors claim. There are sections of the museum dedicated to their anatomy and what makes them so valuable: inside their air sacs, which is what gives the illusion to flying through the atmosphere, is a mineral that, when harvested, attunes and sharpens the senses so that brain capacity and function excel over one-hundred percent efficiency. Likewise, aside from these informative areas, there is also a history of how and when the visitors began to hunt them for this valuable, unnamed resource.
☄ HARVEST SEASON Are you looking for work? Or perhaps you're bored with your duties aboard the Moira and prefer to see just what it is these visitors do during the day? Hunters will often pay for menial labor to help with the killing and retrieval of the giants of Ceta. It is by day, not by hour, and once aboard one of the many ships, you will be put to work handling equipment or being on the lookout for "signs" of the creatures. Once they've been spotted, the real work isn't in capturing them or even trying to subdue them—though they give a good fight. It's in the harvest, done below deck once they have been safely brought into the ship's cargo areas by the tethers, that can get quite gruesome. As a defense mechanism, cutting into the skin creates a rather noxious emission that can cause disorientation, hallucinations, or unconsciousness. Worst case scenarios can often result in death.
☄ WORD LIMITS As things are beginning to wind up (or down), something seems to have gotten into the MID systems and caused a malfunction. On the morning of 03.13, it suddenly becomes clear that communicating with others who are not from the same universe or similar timelines seems very difficult. Understanding each other becomes rather hopeless as the day continues, and these repercussions can be felt across the entire ship. The Captains send out another MID message that appears as a jumble of unusual letters and symbols. However, there is one word that can be read by everyone and (hopefully) understood: RATCHET. Figuring out this problem shouldn't take long if everyone can leap the language barriers and work together.
( ooc; All New Arrivals: you have the choice of coming through the Moira's Ingress OR Ceta's Ingress. For questions, go here. Please comment to activity check to receive new ranks (if applicable)! )
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thisavrou_log2016-03-01 02:40 pm
arrival
Which makes it all the more surprising when he registers a distant ping.
Once. Twice. Whatever's creating it is forcing the signal through broadcast on its own; transmission encoded but too insistent to ignore. It's mostly curiosity that has Rinzler triangulating the source—though with no other way to turn it off, the decision's also practical. He's not planning to shut down his scans just because some malfunction's caught itself in a loop.
The source is mobile, and it takes a while to pin down. By the time Rinzler manages, the ticking rumble that accompanies him has picked up a new note of irritation. He ascends the ladder to the observation deck, flipping up over the last rung—
—only to stall as visuals and scans both make the match. Cyan hair. Red triangle. A signature much more mechanical than the last time he'd read it, but still identifiable at the core. Noise catches with a skip, surprise overwritten slowly by annoyed resignation. Of course the malware would be the one to make it here.
no subject
The Ingress reverted their bodies back to their original state... Except it had clearly returned Rinzler to optimum - or near optimum, considering that glitch was still in full effect - but it had gone and taken back something he'd only just gotten back. And so life continues to pull pranks on him. What a riot.
"Fancy running into you here, Rinzler." The grin he was wearing a second ago fades to a more irritated expression after that. "It's a shame you're not the person I'm looking for."
Truly, their annoyance at each other was mutual. Now that they were both back to their fully programmable selves, it seems that their brief truce has already been thrown out the window. Or maybe Prometheus is just irritated that Rinzler got full functionality back and was here instead of his sister.
... It's probably the latter. Without Yori or Pandora, it's not like that ceasefire meant anything.
no subject
The black mask angles in assessment, noise whirring out evenly. No talking in circles around the real point? The malware really must be off-balance. Rinzler reaches for the MID at his wrist, and a holographic display lights up, orange text facing outward towards Prometheus.
Not here.
Pandora isn't. (Yori isn't, either.) From what Rinzler can tell, he was the only one to be imported from Inugami. One of two, now.
Either way, the reploid can stop pinging.
no subject
At any rate, he feels spiteful and petty enough to send off an extra ping just to irritate the program in front of him.
"I see you're as helpful as you always were, Rinzler. Enjoying working at 95% capacity again? I mean," he taps one of his ear pieces, meaning to indicate the other's helmet, "That background error is still ringing loud and clear."
"You really should get something to see to that. I'd hate to hear that the only friendly face I know on this ship crashed under the weight of his ongoing glitches."
Whether Rinzler has run into the other Reploid on the ship or not, the fact that there is no indication of any sort of combat capacity is obvious. But it is strange, isn't it? Prometheus himself is a little irritated by the sight of the other's armour. He shouldn't be though, Model W was nothing but trouble and he doesn't trust the Ingress enough to think that it had removed that timer out of the goodness of whatever heart, soul or DNA core it possessed. He doesn't trust Albert at all to think that the man hadn't somehow added the timer function directly to the Biometal he had forced onto the siblings.
Either way, without Pandora here, this crossroads was one that Prometheus is not at all comfortable at.
... Too bad you'd never be able to tell, with that ever present smug look on his face. Should he really look that confident when he's unarmed like this? He seems pretty confident despite being completely unarmed like this and no Yori aboard the ship to stop Rinzler.
no subject
Upgrades or no, it could almost be a mirror to their first encounter. Annoyance fueling to anger, all an easy trajectory to a fight they both want at the end. Without Yori or Pandora here to stop it, it seems almost inevitable. Still, Rinzler's response doesn't entirely fit the old parameters. Irritation, yes. But instead of the much-repeated denials—he's not glitching, the sound is normal, there's nothing wrong with his code...
Still better than you.
On which count, you might ask? All. Well, at least some of Rinzler's self-esteem survived intact.
no subject
He grins and takes a couple of steps away from Rinzler this time. It would be interesting, fighting Rinzler while he was like this... But while he'd like to see what the program can do, he's not keen on biting it until he's made certain that Pandora's not here. They were planetside, weren't they? Maybe she had gone out...
In the meantime;
"But maybe I'm congratulating you too soon. Better? I suppose that depends on the good will of the Ingress, doesn't it?"
He paces back and forwards a little bit. Restlessness? He doesn't intrude on Rinzler's personal space right away though.
"But it seems like you've gotten yourself pretty well situated here. I wonder why that is."
no subject
Prometheus' nonverbals offer at least a little satisfaction in return. Grinning, yes, but still retreating, skirting distance carefully as it paces. No overt acknowledgment, but avoidance is probably the best he could hope for from this glitch. It's enough to let the edge bleed out of Rinzler's stance a little, and the tilt of the mask that answers the probing is closer to smug than bothered. Background errors or not, the Ingress restored his functions perfectly. And the reploid wouldn't back away like that if it weren't aware that it would lose.
Import date: -2 user months.
He's had a while to settle in.
no subject
"What? No pointers this time around? And after all the help I gave you when you first got to the school... I'm hurt, Rinzler, I thought we were friends."
Of course he doesn't look hurt. Why would he? That would imply that he cared about something and we all know that if the item in question wasn't Pandora then Prometheus literally could not care less for it. He just liked watching Rinzler be irritated by those empty terms of affection. Sure, he could always go for bigger quarry, but why give up on a perfectly good target? (He thought to himself once that maybe Rinzler might have been Chosen by a Biometal if that error of his wasn't so prominent...)
"... 2 Months?" He sounds... Not genuinely surprised, but surprised nonetheless. Prometheus was no stranger to losing time in stasis after all. But he notices the slightly smug head tilt and can't decide if he wanted to be petty about it or to let it slide. He could always pursue it later. If it was even worth pursuing.
Prometheus himself was still undecided on whether he actually wanted Model W back or not.
The Reploid stops pacing and turns to face Rinzler again. "So are you going to show me around or are you just going to gloat? 2 months after all, a go-getter like you should have a pretty good idea of what's where."
no subject
Willing to reciprocate.
Exactly, in fact. By Rinzler's memory files, the malware harassed him, picked a fight, and conspired with its sibling to steal what weapons he'd produced. If Prometheus is asking for him to help in kind... well. He might need to delay long enough for the reploid to re-arm itself, but Rinzler's certainly willing to return favor for favor.
Still, for all the threats being levied, Rinzler makes no move to close the distance. He almost seems to be enjoying himself. But good luck getting that gloating to go away.
Haven't searched the whole ship?
The pings have certainly been coming from enough directions.
no subject
He pauses, then, with a laugh; "We should go complain to the Ingress for the delay!"
It's hard not to notice how Rinzler was enjoying flaunting his restored functions over Prometheus' head, but there's just mixed feelings from Prometheus himself. After all, he could find no timer in his system, no threat of permanent shut down and no corrupted or erased data files. That last was a horrifying prospect and he'd been the one to lock those away for the time being. But he missed Pandora and the lack of power in this place that was filled with people with their skills intact left the Maverick uneasy. The last time he'd been in this position...
"Aww... So cold, Rinzler. It's almost like we're strangers." He shakes his head. "If you don't want to show me around, just a simple 'no' would suffice. Why, it seems like you're picking up on my own bad habits. Whatever will we do then?"
no subject
Not listening.
To them, or to its makers. Rinzler's more than a little curious what that system might be like on the inside. Unfortunately, he doubts he'll ever get to find out.
And, of course, the program he is stuck out here with has to be this glitch. There's a skip of static.
Specific queries?
no subject
What's this? Was Rinzler actually offering help?
Must be something in the water.
"... " he grins, "Yeah, one. What job did they even try to assign a stingy guy like you? Considering your record back at Inugami..."
And Prometheus trails off, sounding uncertain but definitely not looking the part. Whatever that heart-to-heart did, it seems that the absence of the girls has resulted in the two boys acting like the delinquent children they always were. Terrible.
Someone get an adultno subject
The query that comes isn't what Rinzler expected, but it's nothing he minds answering. Insinuations or not. He doesn't feel any need to acknowledge that record—or to admit he's been in and out of the hold twice already for local fights. (And had plenty more that weren't interfered with.)
Transporter Technician.
Hear the smoother ticking of that purr? Rinzler's smug is right back where it started.
In charge of local flightcraft.
In charge might be overstating it a little—the ship policy is to allow anyone capable to make use of the transporters. But Rinzler's the senior operator. And better yet, he has his own batons back. Anything's better than idling, but the captains seem to have worked a minor miracle: finding a local function for Rinzler that the program actually enjoys.
The helmet tilts a little to the side, unspoken return query. What's the malware supposed to be doing?
no subject
(That's a joke, he knows exactly what he did to deserve destruction but all of this was just convoluted and pointless)
One cyan eyebrow is raised when he reads Rinzler's job title. What's this now?
"What a lucky boy," scathing. Prometheus grins- bares his teeth more like, eyes narrowed and looking humourless in spite of his expression and tone. "Did the Ingress take to you when it pulled you through? Unbelievable."
"They put me as an Advanced Weapons Technician," he raises both hands in a shrugging motion, sounding put out and looking unimpressed. "Something about making weapons to defend this ship with? I don't see why considering we're our own worst enemy but there you have it."
no subject
Prototyping included in your functions?
Rinzler doesn't add any overt emphasis, but Prometheus can probably infer some italics on that 'your'. Certainly weapons creation had come up in Inugami... but the reploid's sister had been the one who'd claimed the skill.
no subject
"Why wouldn't it?"
Prometheus knows immediately what - who - Rinzler is alluding to. How could he not? Were they back in Inugami, keeping the strain out of his voice, stopping himself from flinching at the thought, would have been difficult. Being human meant that he had no control over involuntary movements, small tells that he used to read others could be used on himself and Pandora had always been his weakness (they were designed that way; a familial bond a more effective chain than anything else Albert could have created).
Aboard the Moira, back in his Reploid body, there were no such tells, emotion circuits momentarily turned off until he could sort through the data he'd gathered properly. So he stands there with that insufferable smile on his face and replies smoothly, as if Rinzler were commenting on the weather on the planet and not the abilities of his missing sister.
"Pandora's just got more patience for it than I do."
Not the full truth but not a lie either. They didn't need to find weapons back under Model W's control and Pandora's Item Finder radar was far more robust than Prometheus'... But he never did like having to sit still.
no subject
Though yes, Prometheus' temperament doesn't seem like much help either.
Either way, the program only shrugs. If the reploid is equipped to carry out its task, all the better. If it isn't... well. That's not really Rinzler's problem. Neither is the strange detachment in that smile, or the ease with which it mentions its lost sister's name, even if both are a little unsettling. When Pandora had been damaged, Prometheus had all but glitched himself trying to call out for help.
Not his concern. Better, really, if it can afford not to care. And it's certainly nothing Rinzler plans to ask about directly. Not when Yori's status is just as much unknown. But the ship-functions are a much less dangerous topic... and the enforcer's curious enough for at least one followup.
Going to do it?
I keep losing the tag for this reply... B|;;
Prometheus notices the very small cue from Rinzler; the program was uncertain, thrown off by this sudden change in attitude he had towards his sister. That's fine. Reassuring, even, that someone who knew him from that high school could not tell that he was bluffing about this supposed calm in the face of being completely separated from her for the first time ever. Thinking about it sent his circuits on edge.
So when Rinzler does his usual thing of running away from upsetting topics, Prometheus doesn't bother calling him out on it. After all, he wanted a distraction, not another overt reference to his missing half.
"Who knows? Develop something for the ship's defence? Ha! What do we need protection against? Honestly, you'd think they'd give me a bit more information....
But, well... It doesn't feel like this ship, it's captains and I are going to be getting along any time soon."
Happens. 8| Unfortunately easily.
Certainly, he's familiar with the value of denial.
The black helmet inclines; point acknowledged and accepted. The administrators here might not care enough to actively harm the imports under their control, but the lack of actual direction seemed bizarre. And worse, inefficient. Either they had no idea what they were doing, no interest in doing it well... or their plans for the imports were something very different after all. Every system has a function, and if Rinzler's comfortable enough with his own place here, he still wants to know what it's all for.
Somehow he suspects the malware's intent extends a little more hostile than observation, though. Rinzler's noise skips, a huff of static that might have been a sigh when they were human.
Limit damage.
Don't take the system down, Prometheus. Rinzler's running here. Along with plenty of other people who might feel the need to interfere. The instruction's not nearly as hostile as it could be, though, and there's another implication layered in the casual acknowledgement. So long as the malware doesn't break anything Rinzler values?
Good luck.
no subject
Prometheus laughs at Rinzler's response. As nice a distraction as a fight might be, the Maverick isn't so naive as to think they're well matched at all right now. So he'll just have to be a little surprised that Rinzler's letting him walk away without so much as attempting to throw a (well-deserved) punch at him. Could this be considered good fortune when the only reason they haven't devolved into a schoolyard fight was because of Prometheus' own misfortune?
... Then again, this is about what he should have expected, considering his history.
"Limit- Haha! Really, if things here follow the same vein as that stupid school, then I won't even have to do anything for this place to potentially self-destruct."
Still, he recognizes that unspoken acknowledgement. Scoffs a little at it too. All he was ever made to do was break things, either directly or indirectly. The conversation they had in that dorm room had hinted as much though without context, it was impossible to figure out how it all tied together. Still...
"Be seeing you around."
They're going to run into each other again regardless of whether they wanted to or not. It was just a matter of time.