Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 24 25 [26] 27 28 ... 33

Author Topic: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System  (Read 37298 times)

King Zultan

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #375 on: March 17, 2023, 03:42:27 am »

It's all good, even I don't know what I'm saying some times.
Logged
The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

ZBridges

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #376 on: March 19, 2023, 08:28:32 pm »

Anyway, we still need to give a suggestion for what everyone should do. Here's one option:

Myra: Continue exploring with us and lead us to where the communications room should be.
TY: Start clearing debris and decay from the rooms that have already been explored.
Sonam: Let her work on the Auto-Doc.

« Last Edit: March 19, 2023, 11:31:31 pm by ZBridges »
Logged

King Zultan

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #377 on: March 20, 2023, 02:38:34 am »

Anyway, we still need to give a suggestion for what everyone should do. Here's one option:

Myra: Continue exploring with us and lead us to where the communications room should be.
TY: Start clearing debris and decay from the rooms that have already been explored.
Sonam: Let her work on the Auto-Doc.


+1 That all sounds good.
Logged
The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

S1lentWanderer

  • Bay Watcher
  • S1lently Wandering
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #378 on: March 20, 2023, 11:30:55 am »

Anyway, we still need to give a suggestion for what everyone should do. Here's one option:

Myra: Continue exploring with us and lead us to where the communications room should be.
TY: Start clearing debris and decay from the rooms that have already been explored.
Sonam: Let her work on the Auto-Doc.



+1
Logged

19_EgarAlnis

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #379 on: March 22, 2023, 05:40:49 pm »

After Sloan prepares a hearty meal of mystery meat and dehydrated potato mash, the  crew bed down for the night within the bunkrooms of The Saber. Basil meditates in his ‘observation deck’, the hole ripped in the flank of the vessel, opening a storeroom up to the cold, concrete hangar. The lights click off, plunging the room into darkness. On a timer, or a motion tracker.

Basil’s willpower coils out, giving him sight as it abuts against the harsh walls of molded concrete, tugging at the atoms within. His false eyes, molded of false flesh, shut against the darkness.

Human eyes can lie, but this cannot.

Against the harsh silicate compounds something slips out of a grate. Followed by another emerging from the hallway. Basil can sense the flexible combinations of carbon and oxygen, the phosphates holding it all together -- a small group of quadrupeds. The lights, sensing motion, flicker on with a steady buzz. Basil opens his eyes to the whiskered creatures from before.

They sit on their rears, forelegs in front of them, long, furry tails coiled around their bodies. Pink noses flare as they stare at--

[|]
--No, they examine the ship. The eyes move. One drops down, bringing its stomach to the ground as it crawls its way to the vessel. Until it spots Basil. It freezes, pupils narrowing into slits. The other animals, watching their kin, do the same. Only the sniffing noses move. He stands, and they bolt, deeper into the corridor.

Basil sits. The night cycle passes quickly, artificially enforced by Life Support Intelligences dedicated to maintaining ancient circadian rhythms, and when dawn comes, one of these animals returns with the corpse of another, smaller animal in its mouth. Its amber eyes lock on to Basil’s when it drops the worm-tailed animal to the corroded metal below. It backs away, not breaking eye contact, until it fades from view.



At the breakfast table, eating a yellow, fluffy paste over small grain kernels -- “Omurice.” Sloan explains, putting a container of tomato paste on the table. “Yellow stuff is egg,”

She hesitates. “Well, egg-flavored product. It's made from...something.”

The crew dig in, smearing the product with the paste. Basil, after a significant glance from Sloan, begins to eat. The artificial proteins provide a savory balance to the nutty sweetness of the rice. When he applies the paste, it provides yet another layer of flavor.

“Thank you Aintin.”

“‘Ou Welcome.” Sloan returns, through a mouthful of food.

The rest of the table offers their thanks, in their own way. Ty nodding towards Basil. Sonam smiling and giving a thumbs up through huge gulps of the food.

“It would be better with real eggs.” Myra mumbles, her fork lifting and falling gently. “I hate egg product.”

Sloan rolls her eyes.

Basil, after everyone is finished with their meals, relays his orders.

"I'll come with you two." Sloan announces, "Got some headsets I'll distribute."



Basil, with his boot, nudges the small mammal’s corpse aside as he, Myra and Sloan pass into the corridor.
 
“You are not bad, for pirates.” Myra offers, sliding her mask on as the gloom consumes them. Mold particles stain the filters with her first breath.

Sloan ignores Myra completely, focused on her steady progress in front of the group.

“Mmh.” Basil returns, making an attempt at being polite. “What was that small animal we passed?”

“Rat.” Sloan offers, answering Basil. “Nasty things. Where’s humans or was, there’s rats.”

“Rat. Thank you.”

Myra looks at Basil with a furrowed brow, but doesn’t comment.



They make their way down the concrete stairs, into the lower levels of the base. Four floors down, mold and plants have made their homes in the concrete, pitting and cracking it. Pale fronds of slimy molds. Ivy crawls up the wall and mushrooms sprout from the sludge coating the floor. Another rat skitters into the darkness away from the approaching light, its wormy tail vanishing into its home in the wall.

Five floors down the stairs disappear into murky water. The pair’s flashlights scan the surface, but there is nothing to be seen through the particulates that cloud its depths.

“Engineering, Communication, Reactors and more are located below.”  Myra informs.

"That'd explain the mess." Sloan eyes the water. "Engineering bots are stuck in the bay. Or ruined."



Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Objectives (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Powers (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Bonds (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Concepts (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Holdings (click to show/hide)


« Last Edit: March 29, 2023, 02:42:55 pm by 19_EgarAlnis »
Logged

King Zultan

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #380 on: March 23, 2023, 02:15:24 am »

We need to find out if there's pump system we can use to clear the water from the lower levels, as much as I'd like that equipment to be usable I doubt its is okay after being underwater all this time.
Logged
The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

S1lentWanderer

  • Bay Watcher
  • S1lently Wandering
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #381 on: March 23, 2023, 08:23:39 am »

If no pump system exists, we can surely make one. Pumps are pretty straightforward things, compared to interstellar-grade ship sized fusion engines. A full size fusion engine almost certainly contains at least one pump that we can use as a reference to scale up.  Definitely should check and see if there's a built-in pump system first though.
Logged

ZBridges

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #382 on: March 23, 2023, 04:34:16 pm »

+1 to building a pump system if one doesn't exist.
Logged

King Zultan

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #383 on: March 24, 2023, 01:05:28 am »

+1 to building a pump system if one doesn't exist.
+1
Logged
The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

19_EgarAlnis

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #384 on: March 29, 2023, 02:40:45 pm »

“We, and by that, I mean me, will search for a pump.” Basil explains, processing winding down from the micro-seconds of analyzation he took to come to the obvious conclusion. He crouches near the water. “Sloan, would be so kind as to grab me a breathing mask from the ship?”

Sloan tips her head in a nod and vanishes up the stairs, leaving the others in the dark silence.

Myra doesn’t say anything, sitting herself down on the stairs and eying the back of Basil’s head.

“You failed.” A voice murmurs, gentle in the darkness.

“What did you say?” Basil turns on Myra with cold anger. She flinches back, staring at his expressionless face.

“What?” Myra frowns, brow creasing. “I did not say anything.”

“I heard you.” Basil’s voice is flat.

Myra stares.

“One breathing mask, fresh—” Sloan announces, the light illuminating the water, “Basil? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” His hand outstretches for the mask as he remarks, stiffly, “Thank you, Aintin.”

“Not a problem.“ Sloan glances at the staring Myra, who returns the glance.

Basil walks into the water.



It would be more human of me to swim, he realizes, walking into the depths, feet sinking into squelching mud and silt. His eyes adjust to the murky darkness and he begins to search every open corridor. For hours, he trudges, d He turns down a hallway—and spots it. A door labelled [DEWATERING PUMP SYSTEM CONTROL] in multiple languages. He rips the door open, revealing the flooded room beyond.

A terminal stands in front of a great mass of piping and pumps. Waterproofed, perhaps against this very problem. For Basil, it is a simple matter to access the computer, and using the radio code in the bracer, re-activate the system. As the pumps hum and thunk to life, as they vent great heaves of sediment and unclog themselves, he begins to examine the command history.

There isn’t much, but sixty years ago, an officer with the ID of SPK03199 shut the pumps down. Basil, as the silty mud is reduced to a layer of dirt and grime, strides back through the broken door and back into the corridor, meeting Sloan and Myra on the way down.

Myra, at a nod from Sloan, and in sullen silence, leads them to the door labelled [COMMUNICATIONS, INTRA-GALACTIC].

Basil flashes his pad by the door.

The shiny, clean door, marked with mud, doesn’t budge, until Basil rips it open with a coiling of his artificial muscles. Stale and dusty air rushes out from the room beyond. The lights flicker on without a sound, revealing the vast terminals and technology within. Inside of a vast, domed room, free of the mud that marks the rest of the level, is a vast array of gleaming, shining technology, untouched by time and the wear that the rest of the base has suffered.

Corpses lay mummified within. Leaning over terminals or slumping in chairs. Dressed within bland and dusty coveralls of gray that have been reduced to dry ribbons in the cold, dry air conditioning. Stains radiate out from them, where flesh has rotted from bones and dried into stain. The nearest catches Basil’s eye, a body laid away from the door, an empty holster around its hollow waist. The face of the skull is a ruin of fragments, which lay nearby. The bone has bits of gray and black around it.

“They took a laser to the face.” Advises Sloan, looking over Basil’s shoulder as he examines the skull.

“Matches the back of the head of this one.” Myra announces.

"From my guess? A group walked in, blasted the guard in the face and then started executing people.

Basil drops the skull and approaches one of the terminals, accessing the communication network. This one after an unknown upload from SPK03199, was turned off. The transmitting data within is corrupted, massive amounts of outgoing messages -- all random strings of text reaching into gigabytes -- piling into overflow data storage and dragging the behemoth of an operating system to a near standstill. Pathways don’t connect to actual servers or physical locations creating a cascade of errors. The Intelligence in charge of the Transmission Relay is Shattered, its system actively fighting against itself and unable to repair the damage that burns through resources and power.

Basil backs out of the transmission system with a frown curling his pale lips, putting that repair job off for later. His attention comes to the ‘Received Messages’. He finds a single message that is marked URGENT, the rest old and outdated information about ship movements, fleet requests for resupply, etc.

Quote from: ALL SYSTEMS BULLETIN FROM (43470/03/9)
UNKNOWN FLEETS ENGAGED @ MULTIPLE GATE CHECKPOINTS.
MASSIVE CASUALTIES. MASSIVE SUBVERSION OF RESOURCES.
UNKNOWN AGRESSOR. SUPERIOR FIREPOWER.
ALL EMPYREAL ASCENDED, NAVAL VESSELS, GARRISONS, AUXILLA, GENDARMES AND FIGHTING FORCES REGROUP/RETURN TO CORE TO REINFORCE.
BY WILL OF THE MOST HIGH EMPYROR/ESS, HIS/HER EMISSARIES THE NOBILITY AND EMPYREAL NAVAL ADMIRALTY.


Spoiler: Status (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Objectives (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Powers (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Inventory (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Bonds (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Concepts (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Holdings (click to show/hide)


« Last Edit: April 19, 2023, 09:50:58 pm by 19_EgarAlnis »
Logged

King Zultan

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #385 on: March 30, 2023, 02:18:46 am »

Oh crap does that mean we're to late?

Also we should probably fix the coms equipment now rather than later.
Logged
The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?

S1lentWanderer

  • Bay Watcher
  • S1lently Wandering
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #386 on: March 30, 2023, 09:42:41 am »

Oh crap does that mean we're to late?

I just spent twenty minutes trying to figure out far a spaceship operating at .45c at max capacity got when it was burning against the inertia of something going .85-90c

We were too late the moment we left Momma BlightGlass, and that's not considering the fact that we had to rebuild our engine mid-flight. Frankly, I'm surprised we aren't decades too late. It looks like we're only a month late instead.

We made that decision when we left.  If we'd stayed, all we would have discovered is what it felt like to be eaten by our elder siblings. Instead, we are forced to watch from a distance as we watch Momma Glass's plan unfold in it's terrible glory.

Doom and gloom aside, I'm going to -1 on fixing comms right now. Based on what we know Momma Glass's plans were, it is almost certain that fixing comms would have a significantly negative impact on morale. We should take care of more critical things, like ensuring we have sufficient resources to survive, and figuring out why we were getting shot at on the way in. We should Go outside and try and discover the source of those shots. Maybe there are locals, and maybe those locals are preparing an assault. Best to be informed, and if possible, to achieve a diplomatic solution that minimizes loss of life.
Logged

ZBridges

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #387 on: March 30, 2023, 09:42:15 pm »

I have no objection to doing a bit of scouting around our base,  but we may want to visit engineering later in order to see if we can get those bots online.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2023, 10:01:13 pm by ZBridges »
Logged

Fluffe9911

  • Bay Watcher
  • Such ‼Socks‼ Much Fun
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #388 on: March 30, 2023, 10:13:32 pm »

Frankly if they are already practically at the core sector it seems the only real option we could have done to beat them to the punch was to take a gamble on the engine overload which even a halfway failure would of ended in literally everyone but us dying.

(At least we aint 1000+ years in the future where almost everyone is already dead or worse the core sector aint fallin yet so we can still save the empire if we wanted to... or atleast humanity honestly the empire are probably a buncha dicks just a hunch.)
Logged

King Zultan

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: The Halcyon Crown - Chapter Two: ProtoKen System
« Reply #389 on: March 31, 2023, 04:00:52 am »

That all makes since, can't believe I forgot some of that stuff.


As for course of action I think someone needs to go and figure out what's going on in engineering and get that stuff back on line so we can fix the base, while we go have a walk about.
Logged
The Lawyer opens a briefcase. It's full of lemons, the justice fruit only lawyers may touch.
Make sure not to step on any errant blood stains before we find our LIFE EXTINGUSHER.
but anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to commit sebbaku.
Quote from: Leodanny
Can I have the sword when you’re done?
Pages: 1 ... 24 25 [26] 27 28 ... 33