agogelogs | THE AMAZING BASE.

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Welcome home, nerds.
WHEN? Outside time and space, in the aether between dimensions.
ANYTHING ELSE? There is also a fish. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

MYSTERY FISH;

question the mystery fish

DEPARTING GALLIPOLI

The order comes the day after the Marie Antoinette sets sail:

PACK UP AND GET READY TO MOVE OUT. WE'VE DONE ALL WE CAN HERE.

DEPLOYMENT: BASE.

WE NEED TO RESTOCK. BE PREPARED FOR MORE TRANSFERS ON ARRIVAL.

STAY SAFE. TIME-STEP EXPECTED TO BEGIN WITHIN THE HOUR.

FOR THOSE OF YOU NEW TO COST: FIND A SECLUDED SPOT AND TRY NOT TO EAT ANYTHING BEFORE THE JUMP.

The Time-Step

The transfer begins like a vibrating heat on the collar bone, just a hum of sensation.

But the vibration spreads. Veteran COST soldiers often refer to this phenomenon as "the buzz". The feeling builds, not unlike standing near a great engine or the wind-rattled branches of a massive tree. There is a long moment of motion sickness and you can't be sure if the world is shaking you from the inside out or the outside in. It may be better to close your eyes against the growing nausea, as the world blurs out of focus.

A star shines in the distance. You may hear the faint rustling of leaves. Some swear they hear voices in this moment, indistinct words echoing off nothingness. Others say they feel a touch of the divine, that the eyes of the eternal look down upon you. Ancient bones rattle just out of earshot, cold and brittle and nothing more than the suggestion of sound. Or maybe it's only an illusion, brought on by the powerful technology grafted into your skin.

One thing is for sure: One moment you are here and the next you are not.

The shift takes you from whatever solitude you could find aboard the Marie Antoinette to the temperature-regulated hallway of what looks like a very poorly put together space station. Droids rush up and down the long hallway, fixing broken bits of machinery or just chattering with each other. A few crows sit on high ledges, looking down and watching. Someone mutters something about a centaur around the corner.

And you might just notice, provided you were in Gallipoli long enough to acquire stowaways, that the parasites lurking on your skin are mercifully gone.

For new arrivals who didn't experience Gallipoli: You, too, will appear in this long hallway, filled with droids and crows and humans (still filthy and clad in ANZAC uniforms, carrying battered equipment from the first World War). And you'll be wearing the minimal COST-issued athletic underwear and holding whatever one item you were allowed to bring. Surprise!

READ THE BASE INFOPAGE.

home away from home

Those who have been to BASE before may find a strangeness to it all: BASE seems...still. The windows show a verdant world instead of the usual aether (though with the typical paranoia), and the halls are bereft of all but a few crows. A man stands at the end of the long hallway you arrived in, waiting for you to get your bearings before he speaks.

Except, you know, he's not a man. He's a centaur.

"It's been barely a week since you left, by my reckoning. But for you, I'm sure, it's been much longer. Still, much has changed. You may have noticed we are...becalmed. This is due, it seems, to an error in our ways. We kept something that does not belong to us, several wild creatures that are meant to be free. They seem to have psychically called out to their home, and their home responded; we are now somewhat stranded.

"But let me explain—the Aether is the nexus between worlds and times, but it is not a dead thing. Creatures live in it. We have crashed onto the back of one such creature, a mighty beast, as large as a small country and entirely undiscovered. We have found why the creature has intercepted us: we have accidentally taken captive some of its children. Shapers, the wild creatures I mentioned, it seems they form a symbiotic bond with the creature, and live happily within its stomach."

He frowns, considering this.

"Shapers, I should mention, are creatures that briefly infested our fair BASE. The issue was dealt with, though we kept some for experimentation. The coelacanth took issue with this, it seems. It can speak, of course; we are stranded very near its head, and if you wish to ask it a question, I implore you to do so. The creature is older than creation—older than me—and only speaks once to any creature it encounters. It's said its wisdom brings kings to their knees."

His eyes crinkle in humor.

"My name is Chiron and I am the caretaker of this place, for those of you whom I have not had the pleasure of meeting. More importantly, I am a trainer and a teacher of some experience; if you wish training or schooling of any sort, do summon me. I will be happy to assist."

He's easy to contact, often found in the library, the training area, his capsule, or elsewhere in the station, attempting to fix what he understands and arguing with crows.

"We intended to spend this time exploring, for this is a rare opportunity to discover more of an entirely uncharted world. I hasten you to see if anything on the coelacanth can be of use, but be careful. Take only what you need, not what you may want. I intend to learn my lessons well; these creatures are not pets. Takes food, water, and any materials of use to us for our survival and perseverance, but no more. We task you with this: explore the coelacanth, and see what of it can be understood. Bring us back samples, but do try to interrupt the natural habitat as little as possible. We are guests here."

He bows and the action shows a slight limp in one of his back legs.

"I would join you, but I am far too old for such activities. Still, do pepper me with any questions you should encounter. I am always available on the network, or in person, within this hulking mass we call home."

And then he leaves you to find your capsules and rest.

CAPSULE ASSIGNMENTS

Once you've found your room and settled in—perhaps taken a shower, collected clothes, and eaten—a droid will approach you with camping equipment and give you a brief explanation of how to access and use the database. It's time to get your gear and go.

Of course, you can decline. You can stay and tend to the fort, maybe try and clean up this patchwork jumble of metal and machinery. But seeing the sights on the back of a giant fish flying through non-space? Who can say no to that?

the undiscovered country.

BASE's airlocks open into a lush valley, vibrant with color and rustling with life that has thrived on the coelacanth's back for millennia. It's a striking shift from the rot and gunfire of Gallipoli, unmarked by shrapnel, bombshells, and never-fresh air.

No, the air here is clean in a way that can leave you breathless, untouched by pollutants and stirred into a gentle breeze. It's a marked departure for anyone used to a more modern Earth or rough equivalent; letting the air sit on your tongue leaves a crisp, unsullied taste behind. And the whole forest feels alive, in a way that reminds you of how small you really are.

A white crow perches in a tree near BASE's exit, too high up to properly engage but a stark contrast to the bright leaves around her. She merely watches recruits come and go with a shrewd eye, feathers fluffed against the light chill. There are other crows scattered throughout the wilderness, some easier to find than others as they flit through the trees, sit on camping equipment, or hitch rides on the hoverbikes.

Besides those brief flashes of black feathers, however, you're left unsupervised.

Try not to fuck up anything too badly.

EXPLORE:INFOPAGE|DATABASE
talk to a fish | destruction report

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC MEMES PLURK

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Base - Where the Handouts Grow on Bushes

[The first thing she thinks is oh fuck not again, but there's no weird tv screens with faces attached to them this time, just a fuckton of crows, enough tech to make the Brotherhood of Steel have a coronary, and an outfit that's like nothing she's ever seen before. At least she's got her gun, she has a feeling it might come in handy, because even without the bullets she could at least butt a guy with one. She's just wandering what she hopes is a hallway that goes somewhere with food that she hopes is edible.]

This place have a casino?

[Oh, yeah. That too.]

Pitching a tent - In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

Is the air tryin' to kill us?

[Sure feels like it. It's almost like the air inside a Vault, stale and sharp and burning like nothing else. Makes you dizzy if you stick around too long, so she's always tried not to. But there's no real option to just stay put out here, not when there's exploring to do and trouble to get into, so she'll settle on just trying to pitch a tent without keeling over.]

Don't see why we can't just throw this tent off a cliff and use somethin' else.

[What she's gonna make it out of, she doesn't know, but after getting poked in the face by a crossbar one too many times, she's definitely considering her options. One of the crows seems to be eyeballing her with great interest, and she don't take too kindly to that.]

Keep lookin' and I'll turn you into dinner. Bird pie, comin' right up.

[It doesn't seem very impressed.]

Insect Hell - All The Cops Have Wooden Legs

[It turns out tryin' to shoot tiny stinging insects with a pistol the size of nothing useful isn't as easy as it looks, and she keeps shooting wide and more or less making a miniature light show enough to attract a cat.]

Fuckin' wasps.

[Yeah, she ain't too eloquent right now, but if it'll stop her from getting stung another dozen times, she'll keep shooting at more or less nothing. Might wanna help her out, though, before she attracts something bigger with all her fussing.]

Edited 2018-03-18 12:22 (UTC)

[Midnighter is using his own considerable strength to throw his own tent up a tree-- they're a pain to pitch alone, but he has a somewhat easier time of it than most. He looks over at the swearing girl.]

You know those things are alive, right? They can talk.

[More importantly--] and if you got a better option than these tents, I wanna hear it.

Sleepin' in the dirt works just fine. [Heh. Inside joke, there. But more importantly...]

What kinda things they chirp about?

Prefer hard concrete myself. [Two can play this game...] Park bench in a pinch.

[He turns to stare at the bird, staring back down.] I dunno. Not really keen on talking to fucking birds. But I heard it's people smart. Posted on the network and everything. I wonder if it did it with its beak or its, uh, claws? Talons? Whatever. Its feet.

What's a park? [Somethin' to do with cars? Sounds familiar, anyhow.]

Don't look at me, I ain't no bird scientist. [Or any kind, for that matter.] So we're probably not supposed to cook 'em, that's the idea?

"It's where cars go," Midnighter says, not missing a beat. What is he, ambassador to Earth? He sure as fuck hopes not.

"You want something to cook, I'll help you find it," Midnighter says with a grin. "Not so good at cooking, but I'm a helluva killer."

"Let's get hunting. Can't be too hard to scrounge up something edible." Granted, when you're a certain kind of hungry and a certain kind of picky, everything is, but spending a night on the john because the radroaches went south isn't really her idea of a good time.

[ It's been a long while since Genji has had to share a room with anyone, but he can appreciate that BASE isn't exactly full of room. He doesn't take up much space himself, so he doubts that it will be a problem, unless his roommate is some kind of terror. Even then, he hopes that he would have the patience to deal with such a thing.

Either way, he's curious to meet this person, and when he opens up the capsule assigned to him, he's quick to stride inside and take a look around. "Capsule" is a fairly accurate term for it; the room is designed to conserve as much space as possible.

He spots a woman who also looks as if she's just arrived. He's a little surprised that they're allowing for co-ed rooming situations, but chances are that COST isn't picky about that kind of thing. ]

Ah, hello. [ Genji lifts his hand in a quick wave and steps closer to the woman. ] It looks like we'll be roommates.

[Oh shit, she's rooming with a robot. One of them hi-tech ones. Keep it cool, Surely, and don't stare too much, it ain't polite.]

'Sup? [She'll reach out to shake his hand -- quick but firm, if he goes for it.] Ain't much of room to speak of. [She's slept in coffins bigger than this.]

[ Genji does reach out to shake her hand, making sure to keep his grip light in comparison. It's true that they're going to be rather cramped in here, but that's the case for everyone. They'll just have to deal with it. ]

No... hopefully we can coexist peacefully, all the same. What is your name?

Is that a real question?

[76 debates not answering at all, but he's the only other person in the hallway (he takes a second to check), and this is a new arrival, which means he's not sure whether or not she's being facetious. He can't offer an actual casino, but in the interest of being helpful instead of snide, he can at least provide a suggestion.]

You might be able to dig up a deck of cards.

[Uh oh, here comes trouble. Looks like one of those NCR lifers to her, the kind of soldier who's been around the block so many times he's forgotten where the corners are.]

Uh... yeah? [Surely's too stubborn to get awkward about all this.] There a reason we don't have a casino?

[The cards seem promising, though.]

Can't be too hard to get digging. You know how to play Caravan?

I'm not sure it's a priority for the higher-ups.

[Considering how much of a point they keep making about how strapped COST is--how they're low on resources and supplies and most of their equipment is varying degrees of broken-down or stolen. 76 isn't really one to complain about spartan conditions, and suffice to say that the thought of having a casino never really occurred to him.

Cards, though. Cards are okay. He's sure he could find something in the rec room, but there's no guarantee it wouldn't be alien in nature. The game she mentions is also unfamiliar to him.]

Can't say I do.

THE AMAZING BASE.

The Courier/Surely McGuire

big rock candy mountain.

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roomies!!

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base

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