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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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hownkai) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2016-03-01 02:40 pm
Arrival
I don't think you're that lucky.
[Sorry, Seth, you're already awake, and this isn't a dream.]
no subject
You mean this isn't the result of perhaps some sort of seasonal sickness?
[...Wait a moment.]
We're still not back to normal.
no subject
Do colds normally drop you in the middle of the sort of thing I've only seen in old Lunarian structures? [Seriously, there's nothing remotely on this level where they were before.]
[He marks that beat with a very intentional puff of smoke.] It looks like whatever brought us here wasn't able to undo the Fog God's changes.
no subject
I've had fever dreams I was back on Mars, sometimes. This does go beyond what we managed to build however.
[She groans and runs a hand over her face.] Talk about unpleasant. I'm willing to bet we're going to stick out here a lot more than back at ryslig.
no subject
Well, if it's pulling from other worlds, then there will probably be at least a few others who aren't human. I know I met some in Ryslig who weren't thrilled with being changed to blend in. [Or who weren't adapting well at all, but she's probably heard the story of That Time He Got To Teach A Robot How To Eat.] I almost wish Theodore were here; he might be able to make sense of some of this.
no subject
I can't speak for all worlds but at least mine AI and androids tend to have a slightly more human look than we currently do. [Especially the automaton. Those were so lifelike in appearance they were good for tricking people.] I suppose we have to simply test the waters and see how it goes over.
no subject
[And he'd had to teach a couple people how to walk and eat in human bodies back in Ryslig, which was a good sign how different some of the people brought there would've been.]
no subject
[She's going to need a "I'm getting too old for this" drink.]
I'm assuming he's already had his moment of realizing he can't tail the airships etc....
Seriously though. If this 'crew' is thrown together of people from random worlds, then we're probably not the first obvious nonhumans, and won't be the last. [He motions at the room around them.] There's no special security, nobody throwing out peace-offering bribes like what Vandare would do, and the airship crews didn't give me more than a passing glance.
like a smrt dragon
It's much less about the none human part that bothers me and more of the "we stick out like sore thumbs" part. [Bright side is that she is used to the non-human part.] That and the very short hope of returning to normal if we weren't stuck there. Too bad that hope had to be dashed before it even got anywhere.
no subject
[The Blue Planet doesn't really have any history of prohibition, but he KNOWS on smaller scales that it'd be an exercise in futility to say, tell the Red Wings they're not allowed to have alcohol on board the ships...]
[He doesn't have more than a shrug and a noncommittal noise for sticking out, unfortunately...] Eh, I know the Lunarians had some technology that might work for that; maybe there's a way to reverse it with what's on the ship. [He's leaving out that the King and Queen of Eblan, who are how he knows some of the stuff in the Tower of Babel could be used for transformations, kind of ended up dying horribly and never being restored to humanity, because he's been Pointedly Avoiding Thinking About Them Too Hard for the sake of his own sanity.] Hell, maybe we're far enough away from the Fog God's influence for it to fade out on its own eventually. It's not like she can keep supplying power to support it.
[...It is starting to be disconcerting to him being the optimistic one, for a given value of optimistic.]
no subject
[Eternal empress did come with more than the benefit of being a arguable living deity among her own subjects. That's just ego stroking at this point.]
Hm...[The good news is that she's trying to take into considerations that they finally have access to real technology. The downside is that she still knows jack all about how curses and magic work. Her tails flick as she's trying to figure out magic and science even work together.] I suppose there's a few ways that it could be possible to reserve it. That would depend on what it's done to us. I guess I will end up with a fair amount of time to study this.
no subject
[on the other...] ...Is that really a capital offense?
[Kain and thinking long and hard about what he's saying.]
[Anyway the other thing is more important after that pause.] If we're lucky there'll be someone on ship who knows more than I do about the mechanics of curses like that.