( september intro log )

[hownkai]

Who: Everyone
When: September 1st and on
Where: The ship and on planet
What: Getting acclimated to ship life and exploring
Warnings: Please label any warnings you have on your threads

SHIP LIFE

"It is not the ship so much as skillful sailing that assures a prosperous voyage."

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 various machines line the walls on either side, though they are not accessible from where you stand. Shortly after, you are led out and toward the medbay.

Inside this room, you are given a physical scan and sign a contract that states you are now part of the crew of the Moira with a specific job. This process consists of a complete work-up of medical history and current health, and afterwards, you are given your MID, a device that is integrated into your hand with only the slightest pinch. From there, you are guided out of the medbay and into the main hall with specific instructions not to leave.

☄MAIN HALL ( 09.01 to 09.03 )

After everyone is gathered together, you learn that these are your accommodations for the night. The captains explain that the Moira is not readily suited for such a large influx of people, and that this is only temporary. Placed around the room are a variety of blankets, sheets, and mats in lieu of beds, and crates of MREs have been provided along with H₂O hydration kits. Some time in the “morning hours”, all MIDs will receive a message designating rooming assignments and areas of the ship that are open to exploration.

GALLEY ● MESS HALL ● REC AREA

All remaining areas accessible to crew members are open later in the “evening hours”. Crew are also informed that the Moira is approximately two days from their current destination.

DESCENSION

"A force of nature unto itself."

From a distance, the planet’s reddish atmosphere slowly becomes more transparent the closer the Moira ventures, and mountain ranges, volcanic fields, valleys, ice caps, canyons, deserts, and impact craters are visible in stark detail. The remnants of a lone moon hangs in its outer orbit and impedes the ship’s ability to dock close to the planet’s surface. As the crew prepares to disembark, there are noticeable changes in gravity as well as some disturbances in energy output.

☄EXPLORATORY EXCURSION I ( 09.04 to 09.11 )

Due to unstable atmospheric conditions, crew members must utilize the transporters located in the Cargo Bay to descend to the surface. Each craft holds upwards of six passengers and is piloted remotely via Navigation. Once it lands, orders will be sent to MIDs detailing mission directives. These include: scouting surrounding areas for potential threats, determining if the mile-long road from the transporter to the nearest inhabited area is free of hazards, and assessing local friendliness.

Planetary Environment Details
● The air is breathable. However, there is a pleasant sweetness to it that generates an overall invigoration.
● Vegetation is sparse due to dry and windy weather patterns. It’s dusty, and the ground itself is rather gritty in texture.
● The initial temperature feels hot and causes the skin to prickle with sweat. Yet, the longer one is exposed to the elements, the less you are inclined to notice.
● There is an overall lack of civilization, and what populace there is remains centralized in one area. Crew members may stumble across the occasional explorer returning to their own ship; they are friendly and welcoming but also eager to leave.
● The sun does not seem to set. Even in the “later” hours of the day, it is still as bright as it had been at “noon”.

☄EXPLORATORY EXCURSION II ( 09.12 to 09.17 )

A thriving marketplace that was found during the initial search has been deemed an appropriate place for trade and much needed supplies. Crew members are encouraged to engage in local customs while continuing to maintain their current duties aboard the Moira, and they must assist in the delivery of goods to the transporter. They are more than welcome to explore this new area.

The Marketplace
● There is no monetary system in place; if there is an item you want, trade for it. (Locals will accept anything as payment.)
● Booths, shops, and tents line both sides of the pathways weaving throughout the area. Signs with written language are not recognizable; however, MIDs will translate any spoken languages so they are understood. Vendors are an eclectic mix of species, and not all of them are humanoid in form as they are from varying parts of the universe.
● The smells of foreign foods are everywhere. Yet, that familiar sweetness seems to occasionally overpower it. It is also loud as others bustle about their business.
● Natives are not unkind, but they are not as overly welcoming as strangers in the market are. They are quiet, reserved, and helpful to some extent. They are easily recognizable by the plain masks and hoods worn over their faces.
●Seedy areas are found in the depths of the market. Drug and sex trades are not uncommon but not openly displayed.

( OOC: For any and all questions, go here. Check THIS to see your tag. They have already been added to the comms, but you'll have to tag them onto a post before they show up in the list. )

Comments

[makeherdance]

He'd dozed off - sort of. Quite a feat when one is standing propped up by a pair of walls, but this is about the extent of his 'living dangerously' for the moment.

Still the sound of his name is enough to have him jolting back into awareness, head jerking up as his eyes search for the source and there's a flash of naked relief in his expression when he spots her.

"Tali??" he calls back, pushing carefully away from the wall and taking a halting step towards her. "Is that you in there?"

[keelahselai]

She's grinning widely, helplessly, as she reaches him - the first familiar face she's seen since being dragged across universes. Again. Her relief is enough to make her weak, and she sags a little before him.

"Definitely me," she says, and her tone would be dry if she wasn't grinning so much. "I'm the only quarian who keeps managing to get into these messes."

She glances around - doesn't recognise anybody she can see as being from her last crew, the Neheda crew - and back to Joker, lowering her voice a little. Actually, she has no idea why she's lowering her voice. "Do you remember what happened? We were on Substrata and then..."

A shrug that clearly says she can't finish that sentence. The fact that Joker might not remember the CDC - might not be the same Joker at all? Nope, not even occurring to her.

[makeherdance]

He reaches out, his hands finding her shoulders when she sags forward in relief, his own expression stark with his own. Amazing, how finding a familiar face can make things not so terrible. Maybe he's not going crazy after all.

Except her words don't make much sense to him, though he takes a moment to try and puzzle them out anyway. "The last time I saw you, Tali, we left you off on Illium. Liara was going to arrange your transport back to the Fleet," he answers, giving her a confused look. "I've just spent six months cooling my heels on Earth while the Alliance bureaucrats ran around like a bunch of headless chickens. Then alarms went off all over the place and I got dropped here. How's that for shitty timing?"

[keelahselai]

His hands on her shoulders might feel that there's no envirosuit there - nothing but uniform and thermals. She twitches underneath his grip. It's not a flinch, just the slight surprise of somebody not used to feeling touch like that, not after half a lifetime of thick layers between her and the world.

She squints at him for a moment, mouth slightly agape as she tries to figure out what he's talking about. And then: "You came here straight from Earth." She murmurs it, only just loudly enough for the helmet's mic to pick up.

He doesn't remember the Neheda. Only she does. She lets out a huff of air - takes another deep breath - doesn't know what to say for a second because it feels like something in her brain just shorted out.

"Joker, I didn't come here from... I haven't been to Illium since my Pilgrimage." She sounds faint, a little dazed, even. "I was another ship, a ship like this one, sort of. It brought in hundreds of us, there was a contract, it--you were there."

Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe it's more accurate to say that another Joker was there - that this Joker has never been on the Neheda at all. That thought isn't a comfortable one, or one she can wrap her head around too well on any level.

[makeherdance]

He lifts his hands a few inches off her shoulders when he feels her twitch, hovering there in the air where he'd caught her. he didn't know if she was hurt or just surprised, but he wasn't taking chances, although he kept his hands nearby, just in case. Which then he realized was silly, since if either one of them was going to need assistance here, it probably wasn't going to be her.

"Another ship?" he asks, sounding as bewildered as she did, his face screwed up in a puzzled frown. "Not the Fleet, then? I don't understand."

[keelahselai]

His hands lift a little from her shoulders, and for a moment she feels strangely bad for worrying him - bad about hitting him with 'oh by the way, time travel and cross-universe travel is really messed up' when he's still just getting used to the fact that cross-universe travel exists at all.

"It's..." She swallows back a surge of emotion as it rises as a lump in her throat. Of all the things, she hadn't expected this. "It's a really long story. I was on Haestrom out in geth space, I signed another contract and there I was in another universe. And I came here from that ship."

She even manages a grin, even if it's a very dry one, almost verging on the sardonic. "Maybe I should be flattered."

[makeherdance]

"Haestrom?!" he echoes, surprised. "But that was..."

Before the worst of it. Before Legion, before the Reaper IFF and the attack by Collectors, before the not-so-suicidal run through the Omega 4 Relay. Before the Batarians and everything that came after.

He blinks at her, trying to figure out what to say to that. Because she'd been there for that. He had all his memories of her intact, and she'd never said anything so did that mean this wasn't his Tali or that something else had happened or...?

???

"My head hurts."

That pretty much sums it up, yeah.

[keelahselai]

"So does mine, a little." She folds her arms, finds herself rocking a little up and down on her toes without really realising she's doing it. She's had a lot longer than Joker to think about this and she's never going to get it. Not totally.

"I think it's just that there's this infinite number of universes out there and we could be from any one of them. So there could be..." She gestures vaguely with one hand. "...billions of Jokers out there and most of them are the same except maybe in one, your hair is different or...you're not a pilot or... I don't know, you've got a terrible sense of humour."

It's a valiant, if feeble, attempt to lighten the mood a little, but: "That might be universal, actually."

[makeherdance]

"Ouch, Tali." Although the words have a smile tugging at the corner of his lips instead of the frustrated confusion of a moment before. "That's harsh. Also a really terrifying concept. Mordin would eat that theory up." Except she.... "You don't know Mordin yet, do you?"

Wow. This was going to get complicated fast, wasn't it?

[keelahselai]

"He was..." Wait, she does know this. "The salarian doctor, right? This is going to sound really weird, but I met him. Once. He talked a lot. A lot." (And when Tali can say that, you know it's true.)

...And then she gives a huff of laughter. "It probably doesn't sound any weirder than anything else I've just said."

Weirdly, Joker not knowing a thing about the Neheda makes her not want to talk about it. He didn't go through it - in a weird sort of way, he's escaped it more thoroughly than she has, and she doesn't want to drag him back.

"I don't know anything about this, either," she says presently. "I don't even know what this Ingress is, or how it brought us here." She folds her arms, staring around the room. "Or why they can't find a crew in this universe."

[makeherdance]

"Yeah, Mordin's not exactly the quiet sort," Joker quipped, but there's a fondness in his tone all the same. "So he was there too? On this other ship you got conscripted to? Was anyone else there?"

Her comments about their current situation have him huffing out a frustrated breath of his own. "Yeah, tell me about it. Like we don't have enough problems looming back home to deal with. They supposedly want me up in Navigation once they figure out their heads for their asses. Maybe I can figure out more from there."

[keelahselai]

"Hopefully. We could at least find out if we're in our own galaxy." Probably not, but they can dream. "They've got me in engineering. There's not much I can find out there except if I recognise the tech they're using."

Which could be worth something. Somehow, though, she didn't think either of them were going to like what they saw - if it was their galaxy, as they remembered it, mass relays would get the ship where it was going in about two or three days, surely.

"But ah, on the Neheda? Us two, Garrus and Shepard were there for a long time," she said, to his question. "Mordin was there, but he must have been transferred to another crew. He wasn't the only one, either - a lot of people from the Normandy seemed to come and then got transferred to other crews. Mostly people who knew me, but I didn't recognise them."

(And in one case - that of a certain Prothean - didn't even realise was a crew member.)

"I feel kind of guilty about it, you know? It doesn't mean much to me, but to them, I suppose it's like they lost a friend."

The affection in Joker's voice talking about Mordin had been both nice to hear and a little wrenching - for someone she'd only met once, and may never see again. Could she have felt that way about Mordin? About Kasumi, or Grunt? And they were just the ones she'd met before. It was hard not to feel a sense of loss for all those friendships she may never have now.