Magic and technology [ OPEN ]

[prorenataa]

Who: Ingress nerds, coffee gods and OMG please help [ OPEN! ]
When: ICly this lasts across multiple days in the beginning of November
Where: The Ingress Room and Section U but also where ever your mingle takes you.
What: Trying to unwrap the puzzle of the Ingress and Ploitoas
Warnings: Language probably. If a thread requires a warning please place it on the comment line!

NOTES: This is a multi-part log for This Ingress Journal Plot. Since most folks were up for threading interactions! You DO NOT need to have signed up to participate in the first part of the log. Anything from noodling on the journals to blowing spitballs at the nerds.

For reference here is the IC announcement about this plot. Again you DO NOT have to have responded to them to come around and investigate what's going on.



OOC: This log is going to be split into three sections with a fourth spot for results to be posted as the characters work things through.

If at any time you have questions please do not hesitate to hit the OOC Post, PM prorenataa and nudge me on plurk at
Laekhund. My plurk is set up to accept p!Plurks from any users.

Some details:

1) ICly this log will cover just the beginning of November.
2) The mods have a plot kicking off on the 15th of November. Elements of this player plot lead into that plot.
3) These are the key IC events that lead up to this.

• This event introduced the Ingress Journals
  
• This IC call for help set off searches for one of the missing journal, leading to the discovery of the second.
  
• This is what one journal looks like and This is the other.

Go for it guys!

Comments

ota

[arcreact]

[ Tony can be found in the Ingress room for pretty much the entire duration of the decoding process. Food and sleep never factor in unless excessively bullied, but this never seems to slow him down, either - almost like he's accustomed to work stints just like this.

He'll be spotted doing several things.

i. Sometimes he's sprawled cross-legged on the floor surrounded by laptops and notes, which he won't hesitate to pass along if someone asks. Sometimes he's dictating things to one of the computers, which, for people unfamiliar with JARVIS, might make him sound like a crazy person talking to himself. Other times he's actually hand writing on the mess of papers he's been working off of. If someone wanders by who happens to be clever and useful, he'll make a sharp "have a seat" gesture at them. Join the nerd circle.

ii. After several uninterrupted hours of that, he'll peel himself off the floor and stick his nose into whatever other groups of people are doing, asking questions or interjecting (unrequested, but you're welcome) insights. Remarkably, despite his reputation, he makes no attempts to micromanage. Letting everyone go HAM on the materials they have seems like the best way to actually make some progress here.

iii. And then, of course, there's the semi-hourly: ]

Who's got the coffee?

[ The most important question of all. ]

iii

[a_shadow]

[ Somehow Tex has gotten roped into helping with the translation effort, which seems to interest her less than some of the others who have gotten involved. But with Ryuuzaki spending so much time on this, she begins to realize there's no getting around the fact that things aren't getting back to normal until this problem has been solved. With her AI abilities, she's able to pick out patterns faster than the humans who are working on this. She pores over the images of the journal pages, making notes on one of the education department's data pads, and gets up periodically to restart the coffee machine. She doesn't really know why no one else seems to be able to run the damn thing. It's not that hard. But people are sucking down coffee like it's life-giving water, so someone needs to pay attention to keeping it full.

When Tony pipes up with that question, again, Tex lets out a little snort. ]

Who broke your legs? You know I've been the one who's refilled the machine the last three times it's been run?

[arcreact]

[ He could go do it himself, it's true. But other people are closer to it, so in his opinion, they've accepted coffee responsibility based solely on proximity to the machine. Sort of like agreeing to operate the emergency exit on a plane just by sitting there. ]

If I break my concentration, I might never recover.

[ Which is a lie, because he clearly has enough time to give Tex a quippy response. ]

[a_shadow]

There are other things you can never recover from.

[ Yeah, it's vaguely a threat. ]

Besides, don't you have to pee yet? Get up and walk around and refill the thing and go pee. I bet you think better after you take care of all that.

[arcreact]

I'm good for another, like, six hours. At least. And I should warn you, my vaguely competent bodyguard is here.

[ Except Hawke is probably napping in a corner or something, so this isn't even vaguely a threat. ]

Besides, you probably want me in one piece, since I've got something for you.

[otiosity]

[Something cold hits the back of his neck. Whatever could it be? Hawke is sitting behind him innocently sniffling and deeply examining some kind of circuit board that she probably is completely clueless about.

She's working!

Also this keeps happening.]

[arcreact]

[ It takes until, like, the fifth random ice chip collides with his neck before he straightens up sharply, eyes narrowed.

He wheels around to glare at her, using the exact same intonations he uses on the bots back home when they're being particularly gleeful in their AI defects. ]

I will murder you in cold blood and shoot your body out the airlock, don't think I won't.

[otiosity]

[Wow, she's giving him such an innocent look. Clearly, she's quite certain she's safe from murder being shoved into the airlock.]

Why does do I deserve such threats? I'm just an innocent mage getting over a bad cold. Just sitting here. Trying not to sneeze and get yelled at for that.

[arcreact]

I've never met anyone so bad at something as simple as "sitting here innocently".

[ Well. Besides himself, probably. ]

iii

[seeingscarlet]

[Wanda is not a coffee fiend, but since she can restart the machine without moving, she'll do it if she notices the pot's been emptied. She'll even levitate it over for Tony to help himself, mostly because it should keep him quiet. She can only just tolerate him when he's not complaining.

Of course, he could have just stood up to get it himself, so when Tony's back is turned she takes the liberty of just slightly rearranging his things.

She is the helpingest of helpers, clearly.]

[arcreact]

[ Okay, so the levitating coffee thing is a little unsettling, but it's also really goddamn convenient. For a long moment, those two impulses war with each other something terrible before he reaches out to take it, deciding that hand-delivered caffeine will always be fine, no matter what form it takes.

It's also abundantly clear who's responsible, which is why he shoots Wanda a sideways glance as he takes a (life-restoring) sip from the mug. ]

You win the day's medal of honor.

[ Except, when he turns back to his scattered notes, he pulls up short. And stares, vexed. Where the fuck did he put his pen? ]

[seeingscarlet]

You're welcome.

[Although she grins once he looks back to his notes, trying very hard not to burst out laughing. But now that Tony has turned away from another set of notes, Wanda wiggles her fingers to fan them out neatly.

She should probably not be finding this so entertaining.]

[arcreact]

[ He finally locates his pen, seemingly thinking nothing of it. He even manages to go five minutes before pulling to another abrupt halt, squinting around for one paper in particular. Which is now fanned out neatly, along with its brethren.

Which is exactly how Wanda gives herself away, because he's never done anything neatly in his whole damn life.

He jerks his head up and points an accusing finger in her direction. ]

I'm onto you, Houdini. You thought it was the perfect crime, but it's not.

iii

[deconstruct]

[ andyr's come to recognize the pattern of coffee hailing shouts from tony, and started setting up the machine to be finished by the next and the next. he may not like the man much, but he seems to be making good headway on this whole thing, and it's a mutual goal to have it done. so long as tony's serving a goal andyr's working towards, sure, he'll reload his mug when it runs dry.

so by now, about the fifth one andyr's heard, when tony calls for more coffee, andyr's already standing behind a shoulder, and arches an arm over to place a new mug in front of him, nice and hot and fresh, depositing it wordlessly and heading back over to the book he'd been searching through.

there you go. be content and do your shit, please. ]

[arcreact]

[ To make matters worse, he just keeps talking in the process. ]

At the rate we're going, we might wanna consider just setting up a tap that comes straight out of the wall—oh.

[ He blinks in dull surprise when a hand appears from nowhere, bearing coffee. For a moment he wonders if this is what heaven would be like, some mythical land where you say the word "coffee" and powers from on high descend with it, instantly. Then he turns to identify the source of this caffeine boon and...

Wow, mixed feelings. Ah, well, whatever. He raises the mug in a mock 'cheers' gesture. ]

Your swift efficiency will not be forgotten.

[deconstruct]

[ he’d been trying to shuffle away fast enough that tony didn’t notice it was him, but to no avail. A suspicious squint is given for the cheers motion, because andyr is a prickly thing and he’s still mad about that wrench thrown at the vent shaft, okay?

But, tony’s making more progress than most, and for that, he’ll deal with him. ]

Just get this shit figured out.

[ please apply your memory to that instead, sir, rather than his coffee fetching excellence. ]

i

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[Darin had peeled himself away from copying the journals to stand up and move around the Ingress room. His eyes were tired and bloodshot, but hell, that was part of the challenge, wasn't it? He was assigned to the Ingress and if learning this language helped him be a better engineer, then he damn well was going to memorize it.]

[Watching Tony work though, was definitely something. He's been watching for a good ten to fifteen minutes. Tony can probably feel a set of eyes on him.]

[Finally, Darin makes his way over and sits just outside of Tony's ring of tech, pulls out one of his notebooks, and starts to sketch. He doesn't interrupt. Instead, he's making notes on what Tony's doing, the commands he's issuing to JARVIS. Finally, Darin can't seem to help himself.]

Do you mind if I ask what you're doing? It looks like you're going through records looking for data that matches anything in these journals.

[arcreact]

[ Tony finishes a note he'd been jotting down and glances up, giving Darin a thoroughly considering look. Whether the look of surprise is from the astute observation or because he hadn't realized Darin was there until he spoke up - or both - it's not really clear. ]

That's exactly what I'm doing.

[ He turns one of the laptops around, revealing Nihlus's freshly compiled data. ]

With a side-helping of cross referencing this data set with my data set with the science department's data set, because apparently we all like being thoroughly redundant, if nothing else.

[ He rubs his chin for a long moment, eyes locked on the spread of notes, before looking up sliding two hand-written papers forward. ]

First one is every bit of content that's consistent among all three data sets as well as the journals. Second one is an in-progress index of the remaining data discrepancies.

[forgeabettertomorrow]

[Darin leans over and picks up the first sheet, looking it over thoughtfully.]

Three sets of data and these are the common symbols. If these are consistent, it could mean any number of things. It could mean that all of the systems are running the way they're supposed to and these are just...you know...the default result.

... ... ...

What about timing? Is there anything in all of that data that has like...the exact time these symbols were put out and if they match across the board? Maybe the symbols that don't match have irregular timing.

1

[diamondhack]

[Isha is, at least, no stranger to talking to things without human bodies. Q is a fine example.

But here she is, sitting down at his beckoning, with Q primly following suit. She picks up a few sheets, twisting her lips thoughtfully. Tired as she might seem, her eyes are hidden behind her dark sunglasses and her hair is, as usual, impeccable in a fish tail braid.]

You've been busy.

[arcreact]

Busy is my specialty, dear.

[ Tony slides her an entire stack, which, if nothing else, is a pretty astounding show of faith, particularly for him. They've worked together enough by now that he's well aware of how competent she is. ]

And yours, I expect.

[diamondhack]

[She stares at the paperwork. What a lovely flashback to INTERPOL.]

More than you can imagine.

[Quickly, she rifles through the paperwork, mostly to get a sense of what to expect in the stack. Unsurprisingly, nothing makes sense.]

Why are we doing this, anyway? What good will it do us?

[Not cynical, just genuinely curious. The Ingress is a mystery, sure, one she'd like to dismantle, but would it get them back home? Would it stop the constant state of wreck the ship seems to be in?

Would it point them to the end destination?]

I'd almost venture to say this is ancient technology just for the thrill of it. What a fantastic plot twist.

[She continues anyway, neatly splitting apart the stack into smaller, more manageable stacks.]

We need to scan these and run a pattern search. Or... something.

[In the mass of papers she's spreading, it's almost like she could see or understand something in there. Right at the edge, right on the tip of her tongue, dancing just out of her periphery. Maybe she's just delirious.

She reaches over for a pencil and starts to underline and scribble on the sheets.]

i. nerd circle is a go

[caelus]

[ While Jim is still a bit uncertain about just what he's going to do when the time comes to go home, it doesn't mean that he isn't going to refuse in helping everyone else. He's not sure what he can do, this late in the game, but he isn't going to pass up the opportunity.

He's damn good in a pinch, and while he may not be Uhura, he's a pretty good linguist when he wants to be. If he's not working on that, he's taking whatever papers Tony is pushing in his direction (or plucking from his fingers unless Jim decides to take a swipe at his hand for that) to look at, and getting them more coffee. He's also probably leaning over the other man's shoulder to get a better look at what he's inputting into one of the laptops, and commenting on it.

He's sifting through a handful of papers, and then looking down at the ones in his lap. No, not there either. He looks over, makes a huff of a noise, and sits up to lean over and liberate a paper from one of Tony's stacks. ]

I told you I needed this one too. [ Another look around. ] Where'd you put my coffee cup?

[arcreact]

[ Tony alternates between being helpful and being obnoxious, which isn't unexpected. Half the time he's shoving papers Jim's way or else willfully yielding them when requested, but other times he's too absorbed in whatever he's doing to even notice the request.

Sort of like right now.

He looks up and quirks an eyebrow when Jim plucks the paper off of pile #125545, then shrugs. ]

It's my coffee cup now.

[ He takes a long sip from it, to prove his point. What you gonna do about it. ]

[caelus]

[ Oh, trust him, Jim has noticed, but it's kind of adorable, even when the other guy is showing his ass. He keeps up with him for the most part, taking papers as they are thrust at him, checking over things, offering another solution or scribbling something on it, and then pushing it back in Tony's direction.

He lowers the paper he's reading to his lap, mouth pursing into a frown of challenge when Tony says that the coffee cup is his now. Uh huh. Sure. ]

You think you drinking out of it makes it yours? You wish.

[ He reaches out to grab at the bottom to pull it away. Relinquish the mug or wear its contents, Stark. ]