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the outer gate
"Open up, and let them in."
The Moira is no more.
With the damage done to the ship due to the timeslip, all that remains is a burning wreckage and parts to be taken—if the crew can find anything in the pieces. Recovery and headcounts are the main objective for the first several hours of being planetside, and once things have settled just enough, Captain Ira calls for a meeting and addresses those who are able in person to explain the situation. He draws a rough map of the area and explains where he believes they are - according to the terrain - and where they must go. For anyone who’s listening, he describes things like an “Outer Gate”, an “Inner Gate” and “gate sectors”. Believing this to be the best course of action, all crew are asked to explore and gather what they think they’ll need to make the long journey towards the central point of the Hub. Because the MIDs are no longer working due to the lack of a network, the Captains distribute a newer tech called the TAB. It serves the same functions as the MID but is lighter, slimmer, and has the ability to stick to any surface.
WELCOME TO THE MIDWAY HUB
Now that the smoke from the crash has cleared, and injured crew have been tended to, the Captains get everyone ready for departure by explaining what they know of the Hub. Almost stone-like, the creators built a domed workspace in the largest solid space on the planet they could find. Gates are the only way inside, and anyone who catches a glimpse of the compound will see that parts of the dome are cracked. Yet, everything still appears to be relatively intact. The Midway Hub’s terrain is very rocky and difficult to walk on at times. Below the surface is a honeycomb of intermittently dense and brittle stone that makes travel difficult due to the unpredictable nature of what lies beneath the crew’s feet. Those who can develop the tech from what’s left of the debris might be able to create something to determine which route is the safest. Ships and small crafts can be used to fly, but landing is a problem—rocks jut up in sharp peaks and the clearer spots can't handle their weight. Vegetation is sparse, consisting of twisted dark gray thistles that have sprung up from cracks in the rock and burn when in direct contact with skin, and what could be considered small animals here can be seen scurrying away the closer crew get to them.
☄ WEEK ONE
Crew are asked to hook cryo beds together and to use any appropriate vehicles that can be made or fashioned to fit the terrain to carry injured crew on the journey to the center of the Hub. Supplies are gathered, and the Captains, as well as any crew who want to, give the Moira a proper sendoff, heads bowed as they say goodbye to what’s been their home. Traveling starts out slowly, a line of a hundred-plus crew members making their way slowly forward. Stops are frequent, but camping for rest only occurs at night. Crew are assigned watch shifts, fires are built, injured tended to, and those who are able are asked to explore nearby caves and hunt for food.
Something akin to deer, though striped and only to be found in pairs, can be stumbled across at night. Throngs of dark purple mammels begin to follow the Moirans on their trip as well. They are friendly, curious, and eat the thistle. Meet the intelligent, watchful predators that aren’t easily scared away and follow the crew from a distance as if waiting to pounce. The thistle can be eaten, but only if cooked first, and those who sample the chewy plant raw will experience a burning sensation in their throat that doesn’t go away until the cooked version is consumed. During the first week, water can’t be found.
Anyone who does hunt, gather, or explore should make sure to that their TABS are on and it’s suggested that nobody goes alone.
Nearing the end of the first week, an Ingress can be spotted close by that crew can explore. If anyone dares to go inside, they will find the texture of the ground and surrounding walls to be rather soft. If inspected closely, crew will discover that what they originally thought to be rock is actually a living organism that’s fed off the energy of the Ingress it’s attached itself to. It’s not harmful and squishy to the touch. If pressed hard enough, it secretes a turquoise liquid with the consistency of water that might make a good substitute for that very thing. ☄ WEEK TWO
When crew finally pass through the sector gates, a strange sensation encompasses them, and a depowering of sorts goes into effect. The creators put in security measures meant to put all visitors on equal footing as well as to protect themselves from harm. All crew will essentially have the strength and abilities of the average human. An unforeseen issue, this causes Captain Thán to slip into a coma as he is no longer able to continue to recover at a steady pace, and with the loss of the former Captain’s abilities, crew can no longer be brought back if they die. For the first time, all Moirans are subject to permanent death.
During this week of travel, broken ingress machines and parts will be found scattered among the rocks, and new crew will come through. Unfortunately, these Ingresses aren’t in good shape, and anyone coming through will be in varying states of distress—some physical and some mental. New individuals will either have suffered an age slip, growing older or younger than their original body, some form of body transformation (perhaps that shiny thing they were wearing is now part of them somehow), or an extreme weakness they had never been subjected to before arriving on the Midway Hub. The new people will be offered to join their group, once found, and seasoned crew will be asked to explain to them where they are going and what they know.
The rest of the week will be a mix of greeting the new arrivals and continuing to travel to the center of the Hub. The closer they get, the less frequently they’ll see animals, and more caves will begin to pop up. ☄ WEEK THREE
Entering the third week of travel, settlements and houses begin to crop up and are prime areas for exploration and general supplies. Those who go inside may find items that have been left behind and evidence showing that those of varying species and cultures lived in the homes. Some appeared to have been scientists while others were explorers, but all living quarters are deserted. Crew who are less lucky in their search might come away with no fresh supplies, and others might walk into traps or safeguards left behind by previous tenants; these come in many forms, from mild paralysis to temporary unconsciousness. As there are more residences, there are also more caves. The entrances vary in size, and light sources will be needed to explore. Once inside, crew can find purple underwater streams, which can be consumed, and glowing surfaces. When crew drink the water, it temporarily restores powers, a few minutes tops, and then, extreme lethargy settles in for a couple of hours.
Further into the cave systems, crew will come across these lovely creatures that are attracted to sound and track through scent. They are highly dangerous and attack simply to feed. Killing them, though, is surprisingly simple as they are just as vulnerable and weak as everyone else. They are vicious in demeanor but only as strong as an average human.
The closer to the Inner Gate crew get, the less homes, wildlife, and more caves there will be. ☄ WEEK FOUR
The Captains, aware that the crew is exhausted, stop and make camp for the first few days. Someone mentions that it’s the holidays where they’re from, and the Captains do their best to throw a party. Set up at the base of a cave, tents are built and fires roar. Soft music is played in the form of guitar, thank you Ira, and Cúrre brings out some legumes that taste like cherries when roasted. There isn’t much in the way of decorations, but crew are encouraged to dig through their pac-discs and contribute to the festivities.
After a brief respite, crew learn that the entrances to Gate A and Gate B are inside one of the caves but any signs or markings have long since worn away or been destroyed. Groups are split, TABS are synced, and crew explore carefully until an entrance is found. Crew discover Gate A first, and all crew are contacted to gather there. The Captains will remain at the cave entrance until all crew are accounted for, and then, they’ll enter through the gate together.
( ooc; For questions, go here. Please comment to activity check to receive new ranks (if applicable)! )
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hohnkai) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2016-12-02 06:54 pm
no subject
No! No, that's not it at all.
[But she's going to lie anyway.]
How could I be an Ingress? It's a machine, I'm a human.
no subject
Ingress function: based on 'living power'.
Source, ID: unverified.
[So human-users? Not out of the running.]
User (ID: Elizabeth_DeWitt) observed exporting Ploiatos remains. No data left in Moira system.
[...so, y'know. He saw her. (And scanned the area to check for viral traces.) But! Rinzler's not done.]
Portal functions previously described for threat deletion in system of origin.
Reference IDs: Comstock, Booker; import of environmental variable: 'tornado'.
[This isn't the first time Elizabeth_DeWitt has glitched in front of him. It's not even the most interesting. Her memory might be throwing errors—and users are prone enough to that even without whatever had crashed her, Rinzler knows—but his isn't, and Clu hasn't wiped it yet. He remembers perfectly well the odd encounter, emerging from hiding only to find one of the admins giggling across the ground. He remembers what she'd said.
The enforcer's known her function for most of a user-year, at least to some degree. He's only recently seen it in action.
Bluff? Called. Enjoy that bluntness.]
no subject
[She had forgotten. The FastPenta-- she'd encountered Bel and Miles, later Ivan, but she'd forgotten Rinzler and maybe because it would have stopped her heart if she had remembered what she'd said to him. But he knows about the tornado, the rest she can piece together.]
...so why didn't you tell anyone? Somebody tells you they could drive a tornado through any space they like and you don't think that it's worth a network-wide notice that Ploiatos isn't the only monster on the ship? That there's a worse one lurking in the library, wearing the skin of some innocent, wronged woman and pretending she isn't anything but what's on the surface? That she could be the key to sending all of these people home, but she chooses to deny them because she's heartless and unnatural and lacks remorse?
[She hadn't intended to go that far, but she's been without an outlet, without Miles or Ivan, for many weeks. Elizabeth knows herself, knows that in the end, her emotions will always get the better of her.]
...why didn't you tell anyone?
no subject
The rant is more interesting. Overblown and beside the point, but it certainly draws attention. The program stares back, noise ticking out with an odd little catch as he waits for her to finish. If she knew Rinzler better, it might almost sound amused.]
Powers: standard user trait.
[At least in his experience. Certainly in Rinzler's home. Users make them and unmake them, issue orders from on high, redefine the very structure of their worlds with a few inputs and sheer force of will. When everyone Rinzler passes in the hall holds that degree of power over his kind, a few transport functions? Really aren't much to raise a fuss about.]
Hypocrisy: standard user behavior.
Your functions.
[He didn't know why she'd kept them secret. He didn't know if they could have served a use. Certainly it wouldn't be surprising—but she was the admin here, not him, and she could make her own decisions. His local function is the ships, his directive to serve Clu, but Rinzler was only ever coded for one thing, at his core. Combat.
He fought for the system. She does... whatever she chooses. He may not understand, but it's not his decision to make.]
no subject
You just love calling me a hypocrite, don't you? Can't get enough of telling me how ridiculous and backwards my reasoning is. [Oh she's not done ranting, not by a longshot, and maybe it's because she absolutely loathes that word when it's applied to her. Just because it was true, it is true, and always will be true-- she sent a little girl to be imprisoned and exploited to get what she thought she needed, and she knew it would happen and did it anyway. How long was she going to be tortured for it? How many times would she have to die to prove she didn't just care about herself anymore?]
Well let me ask you this-- if you do something, and you get extremely negative feedback, do you try it again? Or do you figure 'Maybe I shouldn't do the same thing twice hoping for a different result'?
I was locked up and tortured because people were afraid of what I could do. That's 'standard user behavior' too, isn't it? To converge on and stamp out anything that scares the hell out of them? 'No, Elizabeth,' Miles said, 'The crew is different, they'll understand, they won't hurt you.'
...Just like they didn't try to kill you, am I right? [She lets that hang for a moment. Dealing with that situation had left more of a mark on her than he possibly realized.] Hypocrisy. Standard User Behavior.
no subject
Elizabeth has no way of knowing how much it's cost. How many times he's tried, how much he'd risked, and how badly all of it has ended. But here and now, by the wreckage of the system he'd attempted to choose, poised to return to the mindless, endless loop he's always lived in?
Rinzler doesn't need the reminder. He knows how stupid trying always was.
Still, her taunts offer much more to loathe than just his own mistakes, and noise rattles up in a snarl at that pointed, drawn out pause. Rinzler had been hunted by this crew. He'd been trapped. Locked up in conditions hot enough to fry him, shattered by new tormentors while still inside their cage. He'd had his mind forced open for rewrite, and the most, the only thing this system admin did was show up outside the cell to gloat.
She hadn't dealt with it. She certainly hadn't done anything to stop the users whose methods she now speaks so viciously against. But it's different, isn't it? When a user's on the line.]
Your functions.
[The text comes out tonelessly as before, but Rinzler's hunch is jagged with tension, helmet low and lights dim. He'd said already. They were her functions. Her choice. Someone needed to have those.
If she wants to mock him for his efforts, she can do so to the air. The display vanishes, and the enforcer turns, making to leave.]
no subject
[Right now, she's just trying to tell him something-- and like always, it seems like they can't even speak the same language. Elizabeth stares him down when he rattles and snarls, almost daring him to come at her because she's beyond calm and rational right now. But he just gives her two words which she reads and seethes over. Elizabeth holds it in long enough for Rinzler to turn around, but something about seeing him walk away finally pulls her over the edge.]
I've tried so hard to talk to you and understand, but I just can't! I can't do it! I just opened my goddamn veins in front of you and you wouldn't try to understand-- you just tell me to shove off, so why bother, huh?!
[She'd tried because it had seemed like a misunderstanding, like a clash between modes of communication. Judgments had been made from one side, and she could only see the same thing unfolding with her at the center. Dangerous Elizabeth with her uncontrollable power, Infinite Elizabeth with the power she's withholding, stick a needle in her back and make her kneel down and behave.]
[She'd just wanted to make it right, that was all. She'd wanted to understand and make it all clear, but she just can't cut through and he's not meeting her halfway.]
no subject
He didn't tell anyone. He didn't judge her for her secrets. He told her what he knew, told her he didn't care, and she sneered at him and took the option to lash out. He's sick of being made an easy target. Sick of listening to taunts without a voice to answer back.
But it's his fault, like always, because the user tried.
Maybe it is. He can't manage more than a half turn, a twitch, black helmet angling in mute, tired inquiry. The system's gone. Soon all of them will be too. He doesn't see the point of any of this, now.
What does she want?]
no subject
[Elizabeth spreads her hands, at a loss.] I don't know how I keep insulting you when all I think I'm doing is trying to figure you out. I can't figure it out, for the life of me.
Maybe I'm drawing parallels where there are none, and maybe I'm trying to make a connection when we're just... a square peg and a round hole shouting loud and slow at each other trying to be clear.
[She sits down with her back resting against one of the cave openings, setting the bottle down too and staring up at the sky. What happened to him wasn't right, what happened to her wasn't right. But that it, isn't it? That's where it starts and ends.]
Sorry for taking so long!
This doesn't feel much different. He stands and listens as the user's speech loops back on itself, frustration cycling without an end. She talks herself into her own conclusions with no help at all, and Rinzler can't see any reason to disturb them. Of course she doesn't understand. They don't match now, and they never have. But that's not what she's after, that's not what she's asking, and he's sick of hearing her waste words.
The dark mask lowers. Hands curl, just the slightest fraction at his sides. He doesn't have the energy to bristle or get angry. He can't bring himself to care if she misreads again. But the demand is there, coded into the enforcer's pause, looping in the static scrape that fills each voiceless, empty beat.
Give him an input. Ask him a question. Tell him what you want, just say it. Or go ahead and let him leave.]
It's okay!
[But what choice does she have when he won't talk to her? Won't offer anything at all aside from silence or mechanical sounds she can't interpret? Handfuls of words she has to string together into something she can figure out?]
[She waits for a while, looking at his mask, wanting some kind of correction or indication of what he's thinking, what page he's on. But when it doesn't happen, Elizabeth isn't left with much aside from the assumption that she's right: they can't understand each other.]
[She stands up, brushes off the seat of her pants, picks up her bottle and starts walking past him to go back to the party.]
Stay safe out here.
[She says it only to take the high ground, and not walk away without saying a word. No reason to stop doing all the talking, after all.]
no subject
It's how it's always worked before.
He bows his head to the instruction. He stays in place, dim lights in the darkness, as the user's steps recede away. The outburst had caught him off-guard, and the limits of her functions still remain unclear. But he thinks he understands her well enough. Why she'd hidden. Why she'd lied. Why she screamed out her frustration for a betrayal he'd never committed, and what she was really after the whole time.
He can't give it to her. Rinzler has never been allowed the use of words, and he won't waste what scraps he's stolen lying for her validation. But that's fine too, because she doesn't need him for it, not at all. She'll talk herself into her own superiority. Glut her ego on how much higher her way is.
...
He's not scared of her, not in the least. The enforcer's helmet turns back toward the fire, and he watches the users gather by their lights until he's called away.]