I
N
T
R
O
L
O
G
|
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)! )
|
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hownkai) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisavrou_log2016-03-01 02:40 pm
no subject
[ Wash shrugs a little. It's never particularly bothered him--it seems like a fairly good idea to keep a monitor on your crew, at least of their vital signs. And that's what these things do, right? He's pretty sure they don't monitor in any other way... ]
Hm. Which doesn't necessarily sound like a great idea. But you could always talk to the people whose job it is here to work on these things? I'm almost certain there's at least one guy with the job around here.
[ Just trying to be helpful! He can't offer much more information than that, but he remembers seeing something about someone working on the MIDs on the network while scanning through it at one point. Doesn't recall a name, but it couldn't be too hard to look it up and find out, right? ]
no subject
I'll find him and see if he knows anything. [ Fushimi doesn't imagine he can get rid of it entirely, like he wants to, but... well. He'll start with low goals and work his way up.
It'd probably be polite to say "thanks" at this point, but Fushimi doesn't bother with politeness even when he should, and he isn't about to start now. ]
The job they assigned me has little to do with these, so it's ... extracurricular. [ He wonders if that wasn't for a reason, honestly. ]
no subject
[ Wash nods his approval of the idea, not particularly perturbed by the lack of any thanks. He's getting the feeling this guy is very...to the point and not so much about pleasantries. He's known people like that before, so he can deal. ]
Yeah, they don't always assign us to the jobs we might actually be more competent at. They threw me into sanitation, and I had no idea how to do a thing at first.
[ But thankfully he'd gotten some help from the previous sanitation tech, which had made things a great deal easier. ]
Where'd they stick you?
no subject
I know programming, but not anything they'd use here and not about transporters. [ He codes apps for fun, okay, this is way out of his league. Sometimes he hacks, but he has governmental clearance to do that!! ]
... Sanitation sounds terrible.
no subject
[ He shrugs. A lot of the people he knows have been given jobs they're unqualified for, and it's something that sort of annoys him about the place. Generally he tries to keep things positive, but it's hard to feel remotely at home if you're worrying about a job you have no idea how to do. ]
You might be able to find people to teach you the ropes of the job. Or, if you give it some time, job opportunities open up now and then. You could eventually switch to something better.
[ Or at least something more doable. ]
But yeah, sanitation is definitely no picnic. Thankfully there haven't been any disasters to deal with, but. It's still pretty gross sometimes.
no subject
He'll figure it out, he supposes. It's nice to know the options are there, if nothing else. ]
I understand there's quite a few people who have been here for a long time, relatively speaking, so I'm sure there must be someone with qualifications better than mine to learn from. [ which is to say: fushimi's absolutely nonexistent qualifications, aside from "I code good, usually". ]
no subject
[ Wash nods his agreement, though he's not sure what direction exactly to point Fushimi in. He...hasn't paid that much mind to who's tinkering with the MIDs these days. But, another idea does come to mind. ]
There are AIs on the ship, too. I...don't know how many right now, exactly--I kind of just woke up from a three week cryosleep--but there is at least one. I don't know that he'd be of any help, but you could always ask.
[ The guy...didn't seem all that friendly when Wash first met him, but he hadn't been outright confrontational either. However, he had been confused by the MIDs at first. Though he caught on quickly... So who really knows for sure? ]
no subject
Isn't exactly a skillset he's putting to much use, aside from consuming. ]
... is he a sentient AI? [ the more Fushimi learns, the more Fushimi questions. ]
no subject
[ Which...kind of added to this growing idea in his mind that there might be something kind of shady about the captains. But that's unimportant right now. ]
I'd say so? I mean, he seems to think and acts of his own free will. Can't talk though, just uses the text function on the MIDs. [ Question away! Wash is happy to explain what he can to any of the new arrivals. He knows how much the answers he got when he first arrived helped him out. ]
no subject
You don't remember anything about it? [ Why even have anyone on the ship if you're going to keep them in the dark about everything!! Fushimi has barely even been here and he hates it. ]