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Thisavrou Head Mods ([personal profile] savmods) wrote in [community profile] thisavrou_log2017-08-09 10:35 pm

August Event Log: Part I

Who: Everyone
When: August 9 and onward
Where: An unexpected destination
What: The newcomers go on a trip and end up far from where they expected
Warnings: Potential violence. Please label your content!

NOTE: PLEASE READ THIS OOC POST FIRST.
When the time comes for the travelers to go on the off-world trip that will help restore Thisavrou, they are not alone. Others who have settled on the planets longer and come to call them home are also prepared to travel; through the Ingress and do their part. Yet when the newcomers step through, whether they stepped through the Ingress seconds or hours apart, they will find that they have arrived at the same time, and only newcomers are in sight.


What awaits them is not a land of plenty. The land is barren, and dark storms in the sky resemble those held at bay by the Ingress complex—but much, much closer. Those who traveled on the Moira may recognize the landscape; though they have come through at a different point from the crash, they are on the Midway Hub. And there is no portal back. They are trapped.






hitting the road

Though some have been here before, the Midway Hub is not as they remember it. The storms fill the sky, leaving it dark and ominous even when they are not sweeping across the landscape—but they have clearly done so in recent times, and often. While never a lush land, large patches of ground an acre or more wide looking nothing more than utterly dead; the thistle that naturally grows is brittle, black and unable to be consumed even with the usual preparations to make it edible, and here and there animal corpses are found twisted into unnatural poses, but seemingly uninjured. These places are particularly concentrated near the broken Ingresses litter the landscape. While Midway Hub as a whole may seem naturally arid, these dead spots leave no hope that anything can possibly live there again.

The travelers have two options: stay where they are, or move on. While it might seem that they've been tricked into coming here and been left abandoned, those with the technological ability to do so may detect a sign of hope: a familiar energy source, far in the distance. Although none of the Ingresses they pass will ever work again, the faint energy shows that one still-functioning Ingress lies far in the distance, days away.

Although technological scanning or impressive memory of the landscape indicates that they are not separated from their destination by one of the gates that divide the land, they are also far from the shelter of the facility at the center of the Hub. Any attempt to travel in a direction other than that of the energy signal will result in a strange disorientation after several hours, bringing individuals back to their original path as though they've gone in circles. Meanwhile, though travelers will feel the need to slake their hunger and thirst through any natural water sources they discover, wildlife they can hunt for food and any supplies they have on them, if they don't find sustenance, they'll find that they will never pass out or reach the point of starvation. Instead, they'll be left alive and awake but feeling utterly hollow.

storm front

At regular intervals, the energy storms above descend onto the land, bringing not rain but violent clashes of negative energy and thunder so loud that nothing can be heard above it. The passing of the storms leaves some strange effects. The ground is warped and rotted by their touch, even solid stone degrading to a spongy surface. The air is tepid and oddly charged. Prolonged contact with air or ground will not supply energy, however — it drains it from organic and synthetic life alike.

Those who remember their last trip to the Hub, or simply explore in the right direction, may come across the cave complexes with their glowing surfaces and streams. The light is dimmer now, a sickly green, but drinking from the streams will still restore the energy lost, for a time. This time, however, the lethargy that inevitably follows is much more severe, and the drinkers are left with a raw, empty feeling leeching in from the wasteland around.

Those who are exposed to the storms, either by finding themselves in very close proximity or even closely observing them for too long as they approach, may lose their sight, or hearing, even much of the ability to feel touch — whatever sense they used in observation. What lingers in its place is a numbness. A hunger. And as time passes, the time between storms decreases; what seemed like hours between the storms becomes scarcely one, and their intensity grows.

wild life

Sentient beings are not the only ones affected by the storms; these creatures, attracted to sound and able to track by scent, and these panthers, which once looked normal but have been twisted by the storms into more monstrous forms, are numerous enough that travelers must be constantly alert for their presence. Though natural predators, the threat the creatures represent is not itself natural. They are also more aggressive. Some strange instinct drives them, not a need for food. While the panthers themselves can be caught and their meat cooked, it has little taste, offering nutrition but not satisfaction.

old familiar places

Although it's difficult to track the passage of time without day-night cycles, after what seems like more than a week of the travelers' unexpected trip, the storms abruptly come rushing in at the group of travelers, as if they're herding the group to move faster toward their destination and the Ingress energy that awaits them. The true nature of that destination becomes clear when debris appears on the horizon; the energy comes from the wreckage of the Moira, the interstellar ship that crashed here months ago.

Despite the trauma of impact, large sections of the ship remain surprisingly intact, though few of them are properly vertically oriented. If travelers are able to make their way inside the damaged sections of the ship, they'll find familiar territory, if they are one of those who traveled on the Moira, as well as shelter—something that's increasingly necessary as the storms seem to center over the ship, leaving little hope for survival outside. Useful items may be scavenged from the ship if they are willing to explore, but no personal items of any kind remain.

Strangely, the deeper travelers go into the crashed ship, the less familiar their surroundings will seem, regardless of their orientation. The inward-leading paths into the ship become generic metal, and as with the travel on the surface of the planet, they may find themselves back where they started. And no matter how far they go or how hard they try, they will find themselves unable to make it to the Ingress chamber itself...for now.

warandpeace: (I wαɴт тo вe тнe oɴe тo wαlĸ ιɴ тнe ѕυɴ)

[personal profile] warandpeace 2017-08-12 01:27 am (UTC)(link)
"No. It's not strange." He assures her. It's very normal, very natural. "I miss it, too. Not some things, but I do miss others."

He doesn't miss the way people acted towards one another when they were driven stir crazy. He doesn't miss the ineptitude from inexperience (including him as it was his first adventure in space), and he doesn't miss the constant sense of failure and uncertainty.

But he misses things about it.

"The ship was a little bit of a bad omen, and it carried a lot of ghosts with it." That missing original crew. "But I miss it, too." He wonders if she misses it for similar reasons to Rinzler. That it was a system, and it was a home in that way. But he doesn't ask about that yet. Instead, he nods towards the equipment.

"Is all of it completely depowered?"



OOC: I thank you DW for saving our replies when a new reply window is opened but also rue you.
yorisearching: (solemn)

[personal profile] yorisearching 2017-08-12 04:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Given the vectors of the double viral assault that weakened the Moira so much, the ghosts she carried were quite literal. Yori let out a half-amused noise. "Thanks for saying so."

She waves at the dark displays. "Any independent power supplies still working after the crash came with us when we salvaged things." Like the food, urgent necessity for some of the crew. "There's no power flow from the engine. I can't tell how badly damaged any of the circuits are."

Would it work if she plugged in a battery? Is finding out worth risking what little is left of her stored power after the long trek? Hard to say.

Something seems different about the ship, but she has trouble making an accurate comparison when it's so twisted and empty.
warandpeace: (For мoɴey тo вυrɴ wιтн yoυ)

[personal profile] warandpeace 2017-08-12 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
"Too bad neither one of us have a way to make a wind turbine or something similar to make use of the storm out there." They do need something.

He finds the ship oddly sterile. Strange like those corpses. And he's very convinced that it's not at all real. "A lot of important things that should have been left behind are gone. I don't know if it was that the wreckage was raided, or if it's just us."

Reality is slipping. Maybe it is 'real', in the tangible sense, but this isn't how things should be. "It would be nice to check and see if you could recognize anything in there."
yorisearching: (skeptical)

[personal profile] yorisearching 2017-08-13 03:51 am (UTC)(link)
It's a good idea in theory. But. "Considering what happens to people who only look at the storms, I'm not sure I want to know what collecting their energy would do." Yori still can't tell if she's comfortably charged or desperately low on power, because all that's left of her energy sense is a empty knot. She hasn't glanced at the stormfronts since, which is probably why she can still see anything.

She nods at his summary of the Moira. "We did try to bring everything, but I know there should be more...more artwork, the cabin designs. I wanted to salvage these computer cores in any case, so if we manage any power I can certainly test them."

Navigation looks correct, as much as it can on its side and missing what should have been the constant backdrop of starlight. Any change in the nav data, beyond missing pieces from crash damage, would be unsettling.
warandpeace: (For мoɴey тo вυrɴ wιтн yoυ)

[personal profile] warandpeace 2017-08-14 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
"Maybe. I know we ended up leaving some unimportant things. Smaller items in living spaces, etc. But it feels almost like this is a model of the Moira rather than the Moira herself.

"Probably seems strange to phrase it like that. At least we know for certain reality seems to be affected."

If not their minds or their perception of it, with how they keep finding themselves back at a starting point. Even those of them that shouldn't be capable of that sort of error. "Could I offer you help with anything?"
yorisearching: (wry)

[personal profile] yorisearching 2017-08-14 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
"It's also possible that the Ingress has twisted the actual Moira somehow in the time she's been unattended," Yori points out. Ingress energy is unpredictable. And if this were someone's replica, shouldn't it be as much like the real thing as possible, not so many dead ends frustrating searchers?

She takes a moment to consider the question. Nothing is going to be simple here. "Has anyone figured out power generation, or a better supply than old batteries?"

If she can't keep a little energy to herself, she's not going to be any help. Using what's left in her batteries on the dark computers is a last resort.
warandpeace: (Noвody тold мe тнere'd вe dαyѕ lιĸe тнeѕ)

[personal profile] warandpeace 2017-08-15 01:51 am (UTC)(link)
"I've not heard anyone mention it, no. If I could find the right chemicals I know how to make a very basic battery, but it probably wouldn't be enough to run all of this." His research and development score is a C rank for a reason; he can build a bomb in seven days in a cave but he can't build a super suit.

"We used the MIDs aboard the ship, but we have TABs now, too. Will that affect accumulating and analyzing the data?" Would they even be compatible?
yorisearching: (afraid)

[personal profile] yorisearching 2017-08-15 10:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Yori shakes her head. "The network is down, but it doesn't matter much. If I can convince the data to display at all, the best analysis I can do is checking against my memory."

Neither the MID still tucked away in her pacdisc nor her TAB held as much relevant nav data as her own studies had left stored on her identity disk. Fortunately, analysis is exactly what she's designed for.

Unfortunately it still means she needs a power source for the computer and one display, probably for longer than the time copying to MID would take.

"The MID might be a better display to use, though, if all of these are shattered," she adds, considering the option.
warandpeace: (Aɴd ιғ ιт eхpιreѕ prαy нelp ғroм αвove)

[personal profile] warandpeace 2017-08-16 07:24 am (UTC)(link)
"It would also probably require less power than these monitors do." At least, he assumes.

"How accurate is your memory? I'm guessing it's considerably more thorough than any human's." Or a users, as Rinzler tends to call them.

Somehow what Rinzler's shadow said still hurts, lingering in his thoughts. Miller hates that it does, that he put so much stock into a dry assessment that Rinzler never cared. It seems possible now, even likely.

He jerks his mind out of the chain of thought, and luckily the downward cast of his eyes that happened was mostly hidden by his perpetually pleasant sunglasses. "Someone had to bring something with them with a substantial battery. There are people with power suits."
yorisearching: (disappear)

[personal profile] yorisearching 2017-08-27 05:05 am (UTC)(link)
Yori kneels to examine one of the data storage towers. Dark, a city asleep. Or dead.

"I haven't tested that," she says, "but I do remember more details than most." She'd rather not make herself sound too different. In fact, Yori is far from certain whether her own disk can hold all the data that she actually needs it to keep, out here in this unbounded complex universe of innumerable contradictory systems.

Even so, she's done her best to prioritize. The nav data was important, along with the Ingress data she could gather.

Power suits won't be much use without power any more than she will. "This shouldn't take too much, but I wouldn't want to drain their supply either."