EVE Fiction

As Sam and Adreena wandered inside, I couldn't help but have my thoughts drift off to contemplate this 'Slide Drive'...what manner of ship could one safely fit it to? Could you safely fit it in the current design's iteration at all? Was it more efficient to activate than a standard Jump Drive? If not, could it be made to be more efficient? Perhaps I should take the opportunity to have some of these questions answered...

"Physician." my synth-voice crackled into the Science Deck, "Please escort Doctor Arataka to the conference room."

Naturally, she complied and I watched them as they traversed my crystalline carbonide innards. They entered the conference room, greeted by a holograpic projection of myself, "Physician, leave us."

Naturally, she complied...such a good crew member, I'll have to keep her on.

"Have a seat, Doctor. Let us have a chat...can I get you anything?"

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Meanwhile...as Sam and Adreena reached the derelict control room that reeked of decay, it occurred to me...

"Do either of you know how to read Gallentean?"

(So evidently my attempt at colorful language has led you all astray again. The ambient smells in the room are that of loam and dirt, compost, soil. not death and rotting flesh.)

Sam went to inspect the improvised device attached to the bulkhead. [Roll(s) against Perception (and Hacking) to determine what it is and what it does?]

"Adreena, what do you think? Follow this power cable marked 'Main System Control Room'? We might be able to restore power to the ship, and eventually navigate it to the gate deployment spot."

"Of course, once we have power, the next step might be to check out the cable leading to Drone Programming. It might give us some clues as to what drones are still around. And whether they could be useful, or just dangerous like the last ones we met."

On his way to inspecting the improvised device, Sam looks around the room for unused wires or cables that could be used to extend the communications line to Pardus's ship. It seemed that just some low tech wire-splicing would work, if they could just find the wire. "A ship this size on a construction mission must have plenty of wire supplies around somewhere," he thought.

Sam and Adreena:

The power cable running back the way you came, towards what you now know is the 'Main System Control Room' has been detached from the hub. It would be a rather simple procedure, for either of you, to re-connect the line.

Looking around quickly for supplies, you find a cabinet/closet with a recessed door. When you open the door some moths fly out and flit about the room in an erratic pattern finally landing on the walls near a light fixture. The closet has what you expected, cables tools and replacement parts. There is also an old notepad with mildew covered pages. There is clearly writing on the top page but the mildew keeps you from easily reading the words and simply wiping the mildew off does not work this time.

Inspecting the device you come to a few conclusions. For one, it does not appear to be of drone origin. It is wielded to the bulkhead, and seems to be sending some kind of current or energy into the wall. Inspecting the wave form of the signal you discover that this device is, at least in part, responsible for the inability of your radio waves to move through the ship.

A couple of Reasoning rolls (Sam 3 + 0, -1, 0, -1, = 1) (Adreena 3 + 1, 1, -1, 0 +1 (being a nerd) = 5) tells you that the device is probably not strong enough to dampen the whole ship. It you deactivate it only the area around this power distributer would be cleared. You are not sure of how much of the ship that would be.

Do you want to disconnect the device?

Astra:

The Doctor is happy to talk to you about the slide drive. It seems that the power requirements to activate a slide increase exponentially as you increase the volume of the ship being slid. One of the reasons he decided on a Venture was its ratio of volume to power. Using the figures he mentions it’s clear you would need the power grid of a battleship to move the volume of a frigate.

He does begin to talk to you about the gate and the status of the boarding crew.

What information do you share with him?

Adreena massaged her forehead, eyes closed : "It's been made quickly... improvised. So, if our hypothesis that drones took over this ship, it was made against them. We are in a control room. So it was made to protect the control room, or to... anyway."

She opened her eyes, and walked in circles inside the room, hands moving as if she was trying to grasp thoughts and ideas from thin air : "Er... Astra ? You seem to be the most drone-savvy around here, and I wonder : when people talk about drone hive-mind, does it mean that each drone has its own, er, consciousness, and that thought process is shared with every other drone... Or that, like in a hive, coherent and intelligent patterns emerge from the convergent actions of, well, mindless drones ?"

Looking at Sam, she continued : "Because, see, if they're mindless, disrupting their ability to communicate with one another is a very effective way to attack them. Or, er, well, protect yourself from them. Come to think of it, If the drones on this ship went wild, they were construction drones, not the sharpest tool ever, right ? Oh, nononono, wrong line of thoughts, drones communicate via FTL, not radio waves -stupid."

She stopped, massaged her forehead again :"Spirits, I don't know, but... Right now, we shouldn't disconnect the device this guy built. Because there's a good chance it's protecting us, see ? Oh, and let me see the job you've made !"

Edit: Never mind this one. I had an OOC comment here, but moved it over to the "RPG Play by Post" thread.

Without and within, certainly that was most strange. The key to it, would be timing. If the exterior impacts came first, then probaby they had included some sort of drone boarding crew that could have done the damages from the inside as they fought to control the ship. If the order was opposite... well, then some much darker thing was on the move, as it would seem like whatever had caused the inner damages that had breached the hull could have called the ships on the outside.

So, it was imperative that I get some more information. But my ship couldn't move, not if here could be other drones to be called. So I just sent some more camera drones to bring me some close up details on what it was. Hopefully, my combat exprience could bring me a clue.

OOC: I roll to investigate the scene, I guess that Perception, and if it is appropriate, I'd like to use Sepherim's combat experience (ex-commander of the Imperial navy trait) to get a bonus.