Session 6 5

The internals…you've seen one transfer tube you apparently have seen them all. Standard machining here. Would do ConFed proud. Then again, if this is Crest, it is literally the same techniques as have been used to make much ConFed equipment.
However, there is no material traffic at this time. Just a lot of power and data, flowing along the cables along the conduit's edge.
Zinda Tegram starts rooting through her toolbox for a data tap.
Abraham: "Spyboy, are you picking up anything on neutrino com?"
Zinda Tegram: "Spyboy, I'm gonna tap this line for ya. Let's see what they're doing in there…"
Spyboy Pearson gets a light smile on his face as he fondly remembers the LAN parties they used to have back at the Perry Naval Yards…
Spyboy Pearson: "Well, sir, it's point-to-point, so I really wouldn't get anything unless it was directed at me. I'll try and cause that, though."
Zinda Tegram clamps the tap onto the line and flicks the switch labelled "collect"
Zinda Tegram blinks, then shakes her head before going back to strip the line and a small knife.
Zinda Tegram: "$Stupid…$"
Zinda Tegram replaces the tap.
Spyboy Pearson picks a few likely-seeming spots and tries both the Nephilim and Mu Cephei handshake protocols.
No neutrino comms present.
[OOC] Ingenue: None at all? Or no unknown comms?
[OOC] WC GM: None that you can detect, at least within the mining complex. Other than the ones you're providing, of course.
Spyboy Pearson pauses for a moment to remember Zinda's password, then logs into the data tap.
[OOC] WC GM: The password isn't "swordfish", I assume?
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Actually…
Zinda Tegram sets the password to Spyboy, inadvertently dumping him.
Zinda Tegram: "Password's yer callsign. Capitalized."
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: "Huh. Zinda changed her password for once."
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Bwahahaha.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: "First time that's ever happened."
[OOC] PickYerPoison: did you try her mother's maiden name
Spyboy, before he is dumped off, manages to recognize data streams similar to quite a few commercially available games.
[OOC] Abraham: Wait, it's not password?
Spyboy Pearson logs back in and…is that Civilization X?
One of the streams is that, yes. Private server, obviously. They have a full 32 player match going on, with no computer players…in a sense. Also quite a few observers kibitzing in the chat.
[OOC] Abraham: Oooh ooh, are they playing the Warhammer mod?
[OOC] WC GM: Alpha Centauri mod, actually.
[OOC] WC GM: So barbarians = fungus.
Spyboy Pearson sighs regretfully, then starts looking for robot feeds. Civilization wasn't as much fun once they took out the Unit Designer.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: ….Who's playing Gaian?
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: And are they IoD spamming?
[OOC] WC GM: They just started a new game, and you don't know the players.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: I knoooooow but worm rush is insanely good
The robot feeds are…actually, it takes a bit of digging among the high volume of game and presumably-recreation data…
…quite a bit of digging…aha, there it - wait, no, that's just a design simulator and virtual robot war…over there, that must - wait, no, that's a roleplaying server…
…is…is there even any actual hardware being controlled in all of this?
Finally, Spyboy manages to find the robot feeds, after many minutes of filtering out streams.
Zinda Tegram anchors on some rock and watches the 'roids go by. God they need some asteroid guns this is horrible…
Spyboy Pearson records the data required to find the stream again, just in case someone decides to change the password.
Most of that is just routine maintenance, the stuff that often goes unmonitored by humans/Kilrathi/whoever the robots are working for. There are a few actual commands, but mainly production orders and a bit of patrolling in the asteroids near the group's initial entrance.
Spyboy Pearson then starts pulling in camera views…
[OOC] WC GM: Looking for anything in particular?
Abraham takes the time to try and deduce the robot's routes.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Just an overview of the asteroid. Gonna construct a layout if I can.
Zinda Tegram: "God, I feel kind of bad sitting over their habitations like this."
Zinda Tegram: "If they were at least aware of this we could negotiate, but…"
The asteroid looks much the same as the entrance one, aside from the hangar being another mining facility and connected by tube instead of open to the outside.
The robots' routing is…competent, but not inspired. Abraham has seen better search patterns by recruits going through Basic Training. Still, it would eventually find the party, if they were actually in the location being searched.
Abraham: "Okay, I figure that the robots will eventually find us in about…six years. Five if Zinda starts jumping up and down yelling 'hey, we're over here'. So, we've got time, but not infinite amounts of it."
[OOC] WC GM: Is Ingenue doing anything with the feeds?
[OOC] Ingenue: The usual: gathering, analyzing, storing. Unless the games are advanced enough now to be confused with actual events (when plugged in electronically)?
[OOC] WC GM: Some of them are. From the outside, they're obviously sims, but to the participants…well, hopefully the participants remember they're plugged in.
[OOC] WC GM: But if any wished to forget - there are indeed some running where that could be forgotten, easily.
[OOC] Ingenue: Hope they have life support set up. Or a will written out. Or both…
[OOC] Abraham: I blame Zinda…'s daughter. What did you do Ingenue?
[OOC] Ingenue: …..that data is beyond your security clearance, troubleshooter.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Hey! She did nothing wrong!
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Don't be mean to friend computer!
Tracing through, there is indeed life support set up. Quite a lot. Not nearly the volume that would be needed given the apparent number of players, but that seems to be the primary purpose of many of the asteroids here in the core.
At least, it is now. They were originally mined out, and show it from their layouts: lots of traces through what were probably mineral veins, backfilled with slag and repurposed into shielding.
Zinda Tegram: "Oh, huh."
Zinda Tegram: "Been a while since I've seen of these…."
Zinda Tegram taps a bit on the outside of one of the habitation roids.
[OOC] WC GM: Physically tapping?
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Yeah.
[OOC] WC GM: Or just looking around?
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Physically.
Zinda Tegram: "Abraham, wanna go inside?"
Zinda Tegram starts looking for any air locks.
Abraham: "Yeah, I think we should move on before the robots pick up the pace."
There is no response. But then, from the camera feeds there doesn't look to be anyone mobile in there. Just a bunch of dark cylindrical monolith-like things, consuming power.
Abraham take a look inside.
There are no air locks around. You'll have to make one.
Zinda Tegram sighs, and sets to find a metal plate she can re-weld so she doesn't kill everyone's air.
[OOC] Abraham: If that's not a cue to *ka-chink* Torchy, I don't know what is.
[OOC] WC GM: Zinda, Engineering check?
Spyboy Pearson frowns.
Spyboy Pearson looks for a schematic of the monoliths.
Finding schematics takes a bit more digging, but with the lack of data security - almost everything is open-access on this network - it is only a matter of time. Life Support Modules…
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Oh. Wrong asteroid. Nevermind.
…yeah, looking closer, these are large black jars for brains, apparently optimized for cybernetic connection.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Disregard! Right asteroid after all.
Spyboy Pearson pauses
Spyboy Pearson: "Huh. Peoplejars."
Ingenue: "People jars?"
Spyboy Pearson: "….We may not need to worry about cutting their life support after all, though cutting their data feed may well drive them insane."
Spyboy Pearson: "Works like this, Metis."
Spyboy Pearson: "The human brain is where all data processing is performed. Muscles, eyes, those all are used to manipulate and receive data - but the thing that makes a person who they are is the brain."
Spyboy Pearson: "Slice everything else off, put what's left in a life support system designed to preserve it, and add data connections so that it can receive and manipulate data through alternate channels…."
Spyboy Pearson: "People in jars, metaphorically. Peoplejars."
Ingenue: "This is… desirable?"
Zinda Tegram rolled up 4dF: 0 - + - (Base: 4 Total: 3) (engineering)
Abraham: "Rarely, but often enough it is the best of your bad choices."
Spyboy Pearson: "…Yeah, looking at it, Zinda! No need to worry about blowing the internal atmo - if there is any, they won't know or care. They get their oxy off of hardlines."
Zinda Tegram: "Got it."
Zinda Tegram slices through.
Zinda Tegram: "Geez…."
Between Spyboy's explanations and her own observation, Zinda quickly realizes there is no need for an airlock - and the reason why there is no air inside.
Spyboy Pearson: "….And the fact that Zinda didn't get blown away by the explosive decompression confirms."
Spyboy Pearson: "It looks to me like maybe one in a hundred of these jars has someone who actually pays attention to the infrastructure, and the rest just sit around and play computer games."
Spyboy Pearson pauses.
Spyboy Pearson: "Wow. I just totally forgot why we came here. Time to start looking for those control codes…."
Zinda Tegram: "And the guy who shot at us."
Abraham: "Would you? That would be so nice."
Zinda Tegram climbs in and starts wandering around.
Spyboy Pearson: "Good luck with that, Zinda. Keep in mind all these pods are basically identical."
[OOC] Abraham: /me didn't forget. Honest. It's not like last session was last year or anything…
[OOC] WC GM: Nope. Just last month.
Spyboy Pearson: "And if you want to know WHY - well, remember that these people were basically raised on video games. They're not used to real-life consequences, either planning for them or dealing with them…or coping with the possibility of them."
Spyboy Pearson: "I've got logs dating back almost to when they shut down all traffic to the system."
Heggy: "Oh, when they popped the T-bomb?"
Abraham pauses as he takes a moment to parse Heggy dropping that classified bomb. Abraham didn't learn about the T-bomb until he got to Captain… But during the mission is not the time to ask her how exactly she got that piece of tippy top secret intel.
Ingenue: "[T-bomb? Processing….]"
Abraham: "Metis, everything about the T-Bomb is hereby both restricted and classified."
Ingenue: "Everything…?"
Zinda Tegram wolf whistles. "Lotta people in here…"
Abraham: "For now, yes everything. Later on we can get more granular if we need to, but for now, yes."
Zinda Tegram: "Hey, Spyboy, y'think we could uh…talk to 'em?"
Zinda Tegram: "You had that guy you were messaging earlier right?"
Spyboy Pearson hmms.
Spyboy Pearson: "I think so. I know how to talk to them, at any rate. I don't know if I can get to anybody who knows anything."
Zinda Tegram: "Well, they're gaming right?"
Spyboy Pearson: "Yeah…"
Zinda Tegram: "Let's just, uh…get into a lobby."
Spyboy Pearson: "Like I said, I know how to talk to them - they're all wired into chats of some kind. The hard part would be finding someone worth talking to."
Spyboy Pearson looks at datastreams and starts filtering out games en masse.
Zinda Tegram: "If they're that wired up, I don't think it'll be hard to get the reference."
Spyboy Pearson: "Reference?"
Now that Spyboy knows what to look for, it's not that hard to narrow down to just the individuals actually taking care of the physical infrastructure. The number is distressingly small - maybe a hundred.
[OOC] Abraham: Out of how many pepjars?
[OOC] Abraham: Approximately.
Spyboy Pearson starts tracing to the physical infrastructure in question. How much looks like robotic fleets?
[OOC] WC GM: A few million.
[OOC] Abraham: Thanks.
The infrastructure looks more like civilian drone fleets than truly independent robotic fleets, but on a scale Spyboy has not seen before. He has heard of proposals to try it, here and there, being repeatedly shot down by the government.
But when Crest essentially took over Aldrin, they shooed away most government regulators.
Spyboy Pearson traces that back to the brainpods controlling it and opens a chat.
Spyboy Pearson: "Hi."
Controller: "hi"
Spyboy Pearson: "whats up?"
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Oh god I love these
Controller: "i think our visitors split. not seeing them."
Spyboy Pearson: "did we get them?"
Controller: "we'd have bodies. no, they left."
Spyboy Pearson: "ne idea why they came here?"
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: wat if they here? :o
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: /b/ is not your personal navy
Controller: "hoping they don't want to shut us down. that's why we're still looking."
Spyboy Pearson pauses.
Spyboy Pearson: "Huh. I wonder how we can figure out if they're working with Crest without giving away that we don't know…"
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: "think crest noes?"
Abraham: "Just tell them that you'd been offline for hours and you're asking to get caught up. It's not even a lie."
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: How much data traffic is there between the asteroids and the Crest stations nearby?
[OOC] WC GM: What Crest stations nearby?
[OOC] WC GM: Other than that one research station, which - none, at least since the Nephilim takeover.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Huh. I'd been assuming there were more than just that….
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Presumably then the megastructure is Crest headquarters? But that seems unlikely, if only a hundred out of millions of brainpods care about the physical world.
[OOC] WC GM: You have part of the truth, but only part.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Oh my gosh, Crest is a gestalt consciousness =O
[OOC] WC GM: …still not quite correct.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: =p
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: …another one?
[OOC] WC GM: ^ I am trying to give you a variety of things here. So, no, this is not straight-up another Elles. :P
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Actually, I was thinking that the driving 'personality' of Crest would be the aggregate of the thoughts of all the peoplejars. Noise, rather than an Integrated-type collective consciousness. But…
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: But what if 'Crest' is a more…'primitive' AI?
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: The trickiest parts of AI aren't flexibility or self-modification.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: The trickiest parts are getting the AI to understand the world.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: What if 'Crest' is really the 'Crest Corporation Policies and Procedures Guide,' implemented unfailingly by the members of the corporation?
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Ant-style hive mind, rather than telepathic.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Anyway.
Spyboy Pearson: "ne1 been looking for codes for ships???"
Spyboy Pearson also throws a few wordcount searches into the wild. 'Oldziey' would be one. 'Crest' would be another. How often are they mentioning those names?
Controller: "nope. gonna be harvesting again in a couple weeks."
Spyboy Pearson: "Now that…that would be a very, very ominous term."
Heggy: "Wait a second."
Heggy: "There are millions of these pods, right?"
In recent communications - surprisingly little. 'Crest' is not mentioned at all since the party's arrival, and 'Oldziey' only a little bit - all cases apparently in reference to Zinda or the Sterne Lanze.
Heggy: "Where'd they all come from? It's not like they're possibly a planetary population."
Heggy: "They can't breed. They're missing the fun parts."
Spyboy Pearson blinks
Spyboy Pearson blushes and focuses on the text chat.
Abraham facepalms.
Spyboy Pearson: "old-z merc. mayb crest sent?"
Abraham adds that to the list of classified things to ask Heggy not to reveal in public.
Zinda Tegram: "Crest sent? My recent employment history isn't exactly a secret…"
Spyboy Pearson: "Sure, but this guy might not have been paying attention to it."
Spyboy Pearson: "It's not impossible that the brainpods that pay attention are also the Crest board of directors. But it feels unlikely."
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Maybe a bit of intuition, maybe a bit of metagaming…
Controller: "nah, we traced them from the roland. confed. fortunately it's the new guy's ship; they might not be in bed with the regulators yet."
Spyboy Pearson tosses out another set of wordcount filters… 'Dakka,' 'Kali,' and 'Wenser.'
Dakka and Kali come up a bit, mostly talk about making sure they stay occupied with their own interests. Wenser…Spyboy finds several threads of conversation speculating about what he is up to.
[OOC] Abraham: What? No mention of the shipping fanfics?! Spyboy, you are being conned. This is not a real chat conversation.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: "….Um. Is that…a Wenser/Abraham slash fic?" * Heggy downloads
[OOC] Abraham: Oh, there are selfcest fics. Okay, I take it back.
[OOC] Ingenue: Metis: "What does the slash mean?"
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Honey, it's uh…it has to do with sexuality. I'll explain when you're older.
There are in fact some threads detailing and speculating on Abraham's interactions with each of the other Admirals.
Some of them, Spyboy's senses of duty and survival urge him not to share with the real thing.
Spyboy Pearson: "Hmm. So the ones who pay attention do, in fact, pay attention - but aren't aware of if…. If…"
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Oh my god it's Reddit
Heggy downloads a few samples and encrypts them.
[OOC] Ingenue: Only with people who genuinely have nothing better to do.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Oh man. "I'm a confed Admiral. AMA."
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Do it bwahhahaha.
Spyboy Pearson: "Admiral, what regulations would cover brains in jars?"
Abraham: "Do you mean military regulations? Unless you're getting some kind of evidence that they are some military, probably none. Just whatever civilians laws are relevant."
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: I'd kinda like in on the conversation. I wanna mouth off a bit.
Spyboy Pearson: "Well, they're worried about the 'regulators,' and thought you might be involved with them…"
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Say the word…
[OOC] WC GM: The spoken one or the text? You're there so you can speak - and it's your data tap, so you're already able to monitor and reply to the text.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Ah, fair. Derp.
[OOC] Abraham: "The only regulators that matter are William H. Bonty and Chavez y Chavez. All the other ones don't matter in the least and most of them even die before the end of the first movie."
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: In all fairness, Zinda is classically terrible at computers. But all she needs to do is ask.
Zinda Tegram gets bored of the pods, and proceeds to haul a keyboard out of her toolbox.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Who said anything about asking?
[OOC] Abraham: "A keyboard. How quaint."
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Well, or tell, given Zinda. =p
Zinda Tegram: "hay you shot at the invaders first rite?"
Controller: "they were on our turf"
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Now they're in yore base steelin your shipz
Zinda Tegram: "were sorta secret tho. How dey know it a turf at all?"
Zinda Tegram: "Mite of jsut spooked them."
Controller: "possible."
[OOC] Ingenue: Woah, hold on, that was spelled properly. They might be getting suspicious. lolcat bomb them.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Wanna spill the beans or keep messing with him?
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: ….Seriously? This is basically the Zinda-Spyboy conflict in a nutshell. Spyboy ALWAYS keeps messing with them. There are things they know that he doesn't, and he wants to get that knowledge without them knowing.
Spyboy Pearson: "huh. wat if they r regulators?"
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Yeah but here it might be easier to just let them know "Yeah we could start blowing your shells out."
Zinda Tegram: "den zey be comin bak."
Controller: "possible. what would they do? if they try to enforce a warrant, we can stymie them up, try to claim they have to work through system government. need to frustrate them, make them go away, before they think we're like those border world rebels so they've got excuse to just shoot through it."
Zinda Tegram twitches.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Taking a compel on 'instilled with a knight's pride'
Zinda Tegram: "Border world rebels?"
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: In case you missed it in #aeons you know he's not talking about Oldziey.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Oh. I did miss it.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Yeah, it's a Wing Commander…4? Reference.
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: Got it.
Zinda Tegram: "I danno, can we rly rely on law here? Martal law over cluster n shit."
Controller: "yeah, if they pull that then we'll have to shoot. or scoot, but we're not that mobile here. they might also try to say we're not people anymore."
[OOC] WC GM: Compel granted. Oldziey definitely sympathizes with the Border Worlds, *especially* after what was pulled against them to try to justify war.
Zinda Tegram: "Border not rly rebels btw."
Controller: "orly?"
[OOC] Ingenue: cue flame war
Zinda Tegram: "Yah. And maybe this Oldziey merc yer in a chat with could start torching tubes if you don't wise the fuck up."
[OOC] WC GM: http://www.erfworld.com/wiki/images/4/4a/Orly_owl.jpg came attached to that reply.
Zinda Tegram: "Get some asteroid guns dipshit."
Controller: "wat"
Zinda Tegram turns her webcam on and fingers the controller.
Zinda Tegram: "You thought we left?"
Spyboy Pearson: "hax!"
Zinda Tegram: "Fuckin trigger happy idiot."
Zinda Tegram: "Get good."
Spyboy Pearson: "Oh, hey, Admiral, Zinda just told them where we are. Be prepared for inbound."
…the robots immediately shift course from the periphery toward the core. It will take a while for them to arrive.
Abraham: "Really? It took her that long to do that? I laud her restraint."
Spyboy Pearson: "I know, unusual for her."
Zinda Tegram: "You realize those are way too far off to catch us right?"
Controller: "huh. so what're you doing here anyway?"
Zinda Tegram: "Call 'em off or I'll start bombing."
Zinda Tegram: "I've got plenty of time."
Spyboy Pearson sniffs his way through the controller's data defenses while he's distracted.
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Data attack. Comms?
Abraham slowly looks for a decent defensible position. He's only got six hours now to find one. Also, he blames Zinda.
Zinda Tegram: "What the fuck are we doing here? What the fuck are you doing here."
[OOC] WC GM: What precisely are you attacking? The robot control?
[OOC] Abraham: Nothing ATM. Just getting a good spot to shoot at robots when they show up.
[OOC] WC GM: I meant Spyboy.
[OOC] Abraham: Ah.
Outside the asteroid is…actually possibly highly defensible, despite being wide open and exposed, assuming as before that the robots simply are not equipped for EVA. Seal up the breach and they would not be able to get at the party, assuming they do not re-open it.
Controller: "living, what's it look like?"
Zinda Tegram: "Cool. I'm not kidding about the bombing."
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Want to grab the control codes for the fleet. I figure he's got them, so I'm trying to break in to his datastores.
[OOC] WC GM: The robot fleet?
Controller: "on whose authority? law can't just bomb us."
Zinda Tegram: "Authority? You think I give a shit about that?"
Zinda Tegram: "I've held Kali at torchpoint kid. You're a fuckin joke compared to her."
[OOC] Ingenue: You have now been annexed by Zinda. Have a nice day.
Zinda Tegram: "Or do you really wanna go toe to toe with a native Oldzieyan on shit imitation oldziey habs with 6 hours to backup and a few million lives at stake?"
Zinda Tegram: "And your best forces are remote?"
Zinda Tegram: "You can't catch me and I can kill a lot of you."
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Yeah, the robot fleet.
Controller: "…alright, let's talk. drones'll hold in place."
[OOC] Abraham: Okay, I got up this morning and I was absolutely fine, but somewhere along the day, some virus has decided to walk up to my system and say 'howdy!'. So I'm fading and I'm going to ask for an early logend. Sorry.
Zinda Tegram: "Good call."
Zinda Tegram: "First question."
Just as Spyboy is searching for how to take control, the controller releases control after ordering them to stop. Spyboy has complete uncontested control if he wishes it.
Zinda Tegram turns the camera to the closest tube.
Zinda Tegram: "Who's that?"
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: Err. Not the robot fleet he was sending after us, sorry. I was looking for the drone fleet.
[OOC] WC GM: What drone fleet other than those robots?
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: …we came to the asteroid field looking for a fleet of robot warships?
Controller: "Anna Bransworth."
Zinda Tegram: "Cool. Now, if you don't tell me what's going on here, Anna will go a little crazy."
[OOC] Spyboy Pearson: …'they turned the asteroid field into a factor. Looks like amostly-complete war fleet. Life support seems to be lacking…'
Zinda Tegram: "Where the hell'd your brain farm come from."
Spyboy searches, looking for weapons and armed ships…
…Heggy recognizes it moments before Spyboy. This is not a war fleet. This is a wave of mining ships, fuel scavengers, and everything Elles would have needed to "keep digging" , except not under Elles's control.
[OOC] Ingenue: Does Elles use subcontractors?
[OOC] WC GM: Only the Integrated.
Primarily they have been harvesting the local asteroid field, but also dragging in matter from elsewhere in the system. There even seem to be a few Temblor bombs under construction; data feeds suggest their targets are the other, minor and uninhabited, planets in the system.
Controller: "retirees, officially. pulled a fast one on Crest."
Zinda Tegram: "Oh, yeah? Trust me I've got time. What's the whole story?"
Spyboy Pearson closes his eyes. He draws a deep breath and lets it out slowly through his nose.
Spyboy Pearson: "Admiral? There's no war fleet here."
Controller: "we built them a bomb. they thought they backstabbed us, then went away. we won."
Heggy: "It looks like a mining fleet. They abscond with asteroids."
Zinda Tegram: "More detail."
Heggy: "They say there were technicians on the Tremblor who know more than they were allowed to."
[OOC] Zinda Tegram: I gotta go in a bit.
Heggy: "They say that Crest was under security review at the time, and whatever would have happened to them when the clearances came up, it would be bad."
Heggy: "So they had a meeting on this planet with only those without security clearances….while they tested the bomb, on the same planet."
Spyboy Pearson: "Of course, that did involve some assumptions. Like, the people you desperately need to build world-crackers don't read other peoples' emails."
Spyboy Pearson: "Not that I read yours, Admiral."
Controller: "we made ourselves into this. survived the blast. cobbled together a place to live afterward. officially we're all dead. truth is we ain't stopped partying."
Zinda Tegram: "Fair enough."
Abraham: "Don't worry, it's getting to the point that I'm not reading them all either."
Zinda Tegram: "Why're you building more bombs?"
Controller: "you probably still call this place Aldrin. we call it Heaven."
Spyboy Pearson: "Huh. Do you need me to start, in case something important comes up?"
Zinda Tegram: "Funny how vulnerable heaven is."
Controller: "ever hear of dyson spheres?"
Spyboy Pearson grimaces.
Zinda Tegram: "What, you just wanna blast the local planets apart and use them to make one?"
Spyboy Pearson: "So, they need the mining fleet in order to grab resources to ensure their continued survival…"
Controller: "yep."
Spyboy Pearson: "….but I can't help but hear that word whispering in my ears. 'Opportunity.'"
Spyboy Pearson: "….Though with no guns it doesn't really seem worth the effort."

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License