agogelogs | THE AMAZING BASE.

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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

[ 'Sort of', because she's in his actual room, not just in his capsule. They might not share one anymore, but it was easy enough to find his — easier still to phase through the wall and see what new things he's gotten.

Already wearing his trenchcoat (which utterly dwarfs her) over her own sweater, she reaches for his visor next, turning it over in her hands. ]

The hell is this? Some weird pair of glasses?

[ She's never seen a visor before... she's from 500AD. She holds it over her own eyes, and while it doesn't even begin to fit her, she's amused enough by just looking through it.

... Funny, that almost looks like 76 standing in the doorway... ]

Yo, old man. [ No remorse whatsoever. ] Looks like you got some good stuff.

[It doesn’t surprise him in the least that Saber has found her way into his room, despite the fact that they aren’t roommates anymore. 76 has already decided that this isn’t the hill he wants to die on—though he can’t help but look a little surprised to find that she’s not only beaten him here, but is already going through the pile of his belongings on the bed.

Nice to have the visor back, at least, though the sight of the blue trench coat makes him a little uncomfortable—not that she’d know why. He leans in the door frame, trying to look nonchalant.]

That’s my tactical visor.

[He says, like everyone is going to know what a tactical visor is and what it does. 76 is a little to exhausted from Gallipoli to have the personal property fight with Saber right now. Maybe if he pretends it’s not so interesting, she’ll give it up without a fight.]

There’s a button on the side if you want to turn it on.

[It’s not a toy, but as long as she doesn’t look like she’s going to damage anything, he’s accepted her going through his stuff as a fact of life. If she does hit the button, she’ll find the interior display blinking to life, offering her environmental readouts.]

[ Mordred just blindly pokes at the side until she hits the button — not roughly, so there's no danger that she'll break it, but she clearly has the patience of a child. Once it's on, she swivels around the room, taking in the (relatively boring) sights. ]

Pretty cool. [ Definitely more tech-y than she's used to. Switching it off, she pulls it free of her head and holds it out to him. ] But I don't need something like this. If it looks dangerous, or tries to screw with me, I'll kill it. Those are my only tactics.

[ Not quite the same thing. ]

[It doesn't quite get a laugh out of him, but he manages to look slightly amused as she figures out how it works and then decides that it's mostly useless. All the better for him, really--it means she won't be trying to walk out of his room with it.

Having her hand the visor back to him feels like progress, at least.]

Hasn't done you wrong yet?

[76 sounds genuinely curious, if only to hide the fact that her methods sound a little dubious. He invites himself out of the doorway, pulling up a chair.]

Not yet. Even if it did, I wouldn't change anything.

[ Stubborn to the last. (In truth, she's not nearly as adherent to that logic as she claims to be, but the arrogance comes as easily as anything else.)

She indicates the pile of his belongings — and don't worry, she's gone through everything. Even the gun. At least she had the common sense (!) to not try and use it. ]

No toys this time. [ She... actually sounds a little disappointed ] Man... those things would've been fine if they weren't so creepy. What the hell was up with that, anyway?

[76 should probably be worried about that, but despite a lifetime of caring about everyone and everything else, he knows he is far too old to get into it anymore. She'll learn her lesson eventually, and he has to tell himself that it isn't his responsibility to mitigate any of it.

He offers something of a skeptical noise in the back of his throat, but leaves it at that, going through the rest of his things, confirming that there are not, in fact, any toys.]

Depends on your definition of toy.

[He holds up a bottle of indiscriminate brown liquid, uncaps it, takes a sniff to determine what kind of alcohol it is, and then offers it to her. Does she like to drink? He supposes he's about to find out.]

Anyway, beats me. They're probably still in the drawer.

Tch. I'm not touching those things again.

[ She absolutely is... but only when she gets bored enough. So give her like, a week. The alcohol, though — she'll take that right now, tipping the bottle back like she's drinking water. It's better than the trench rations, at any rate.

After drinking like a third of it, she coughs a little, but it's fine. Probably. ]

This is for me, right? [ Holding up the bottle. ]

[76's eyebrows creep upward as she downs a solid third of the bottle, though he's honestly too impressed to be angry. In hindsight, this really shouldn't be surprising to him, and he supposes he deserves it for offering her the whole thing outright.]

All yours.

[She's earned it, at this point.]

Better than the rum, right?

[Not that those rations were very difficult to surpass.]

[ She makes a gagging noise. ] Don't remind me. And the food was just as bad!

[ It almost didn't taste so bad after a while, being the only option — but in retrospect, she knows how foul it really was. Never again. ]

But the Regency crap was even worse. It's like they wanted us to starve. [ There was plenty enough to keep them alive... Mordred's just greedy. ] Once I get outside, I'm gonna eat the first thing that looks good.

[76 takes a seat, finding that he doesn't entirely object to having a real conversation with Mordred, even if she's still being, well. Mordred. The recruits taken by the Regency have understandably been a little tight-lipped about it, so he'll take what information he can get. Helps him piece together what they're up against.]

I didn't peg them as good hosts.

[He thinks back to his conversation with Grothia--how she admitted that this was not the first time the Regency has kidnapped COST recruits, and how the general protocol for a situation like that is to leave the captured behind.

76 understands, having been there himself. Having made those calls. Doesn't mean he likes it.]

How'd you end up getting out?

[ It's a good question, because while she's not willing to talk much about what she went through, she's definitely willing to talk about her escape. Adjusting the oversized trenchcoat around her shoulders, she grins. ]

I blew it up. [ Pause. ] Well, me and that blonde lady did. The one who says she's a Queen or something.

[ Meaning Dany... she knows her name, she's just rude. ]

They knew who I was. Who all of us were. So I figured I'd use that against them. [ Like they used it against her. ] It makes sense, right? A traitor like me wouldn't care about anyone but myself. Those idiots fell for it completely.

[76 supposes there is something to be said for brute force, and he files what she says away for later. He understands that Mordred means Dany, and finds the team-up to be intriguing, at least. Whatever they managed to do, it was certainly effective.]

Nice work.

[It’s about as close to a complement as he gets, nowadays, but suffice to say he’s impressed. That does not, however, overshadow the fact that somehow, the Regency knew everything about them. When the consequence of that might be erasure from existence, 76 can’t help but feel like COST should be doing a better job with their identities. He certainly hasn’t told anyone who he really is, after all. He’s done nothing but use his alias since arriving.]

You’d think if they know who we are, they might as well just go back in time and kill us.

[Isn’t that how it works?]

It's weird, right? I mean, I hadn't really talked about who I was before then, but they knew all about me. ... Well, I guess they'd only need my real name for that.

[ But she'd only ever mentioned that in person, to a select few people. (Of course, Mordred lets far more slip than she thinks she does, but the point is still valid.) ]

There must be something stopping them. Maybe if they do that, things change for them, too. Like screwing with us messes with too many things in the future. [ But then, isn't changing things the Regency's goal in the first place? She sighs. ] Whatever the reason is, they obviously can't do it. Or won't. So we can screw with them as much as we want.

[ From reasonable logic to stupidity in one sentence. ]

[What he doesn’t say is how that doesn’t bode well at all, but hey, Kebechet had been able to access their network. Who knows what else they were able to dig up? He finds it very hard to believe that speaking to them all was the first thing he did. There most certainly had to have been time to gather the necessary intel.

How he went about it is yet to be seen. 76 hasn’t exactly discounted the possibility that there might be moles in their cell.]

Might be.

[Though of course he doesn’t think that screwing around with the Regency is a good idea.]

I might check in with the Commander about it.

Think you'll get an answer?

[ It's almost a rhetorical question. Whether he does or not changes little; the Regency know who they are, and they have to deal with what that potentially means. ]

Even if they erased the "me" in the past, I'd continue to exist in this form. That's how Servants work. [ She hm's a little. ] Of course, I have no intention of letting them do that. The rest of you aren't my responsibility, but if we beat them, you won't have to worry.

[ Tsun, etc. ]

I think I'll get a lot of 'we're trying our best'.

[That said, Grothia has been pretty straight with him about most things, though all of the answers seem to boil down to the fact that COST is more or less the underdog here. Poorly-funded and desperate. 76 is certain that their lack of discretion when it comes to recruiting people is going to bite them in the ass more than anything else.

It is interesting, however, to hear a little bit about Mordred--or about what Mordred is. There's still a lot about this that doesn't make sense to him.]

Nice to have an escape route.

An escape route... yeah. You could call it that.

[ He's not wrong. The Throne exists outside time and space; if the Regency (or anyone) could mess with something like that, she can't even imagine the consequences. ]

But it's not about me. The Regency... maybe they were lying, but they said Britain doesn't exist in their future. I can't let that happen. It's one thing for me to destroy that country, but nobody else can. That's more than enough reason for me to fight.

[He studies her for a moment, as if making sure he didn’t accidentally say something offensive—76 is still trying to wrap his mind around nonhumans and magical creatures, and supernatural beings, but thankfully Mordred seems to take the comment in stride.]

I mean, the Regency has no reason to tell us the truth.

[Of course, the same could be said for COST, but Kebechet had approached them with the clear intent to manipulate and sow dissent. He’s not about to take anyone’s word at face value, not in the middle of a war.]

So you remember signing up?

[ He's right, she knows that. She'll quiz Young about it later; but, deep down, she has a feeling they were telling the truth (at least partially) about the future of Earth. And her instincts are rarely wrong. ]

No way. I was in the middle of something, too! [ To put it lightly. ] I don't care about humans, but if they'd told me about Britain... I wouldn't have a choice. I'd have to stop anyone from screwing with it. So they could be telling the truth about me forgetting, even if it's seriously annoying.

[ Being a Heroic Spirit means timeline fuckery comes with the territory. ]

I mean, Britain is full of humans.

[So perhaps that means she cares via the transitive property? Or perhaps she's really that enamored with the concept of Britain, and nothing more. Either way, he seems to be prodding her a little bit.]

I don't really disagree with COST, but I don't think I would have left what I was doing, either.

Hmph. That's not why I care.

[ She grumbles quietly, but it's weak. He's right, because the people who live there fall under her protection as well. ]

Something big happening in your retirement home, huh? [ How does she know what that even is... ] With all this weird time crap, we'll probably go right back to where we were. Don't worry about it too much.

Something like that.

[He manages an exasperated laugh, knowing full well that he is not quite old enough for a retirement home, nor does he think he could ever content with retirement. It's not who he is--76 will keep fighting until there are no more wars to fight, and then he's not sure what will happen after that.]

Think they can keep us from getting older in the meantime?

[Maybe she doesn't have to worry about that, but he's perhaps a little concerned with spending years here, then getting dumped back exactly where he left--his world unchanged, but not him.]

[ She grins a little, too. It's always good when he plays along, however reluctantly. ]

Beats me. That sort of thing doesn't affect me, either.

[ Which... she's grateful for, considering she didn't have long left when she died. From the start, she was only created to live a dozen or so years; her mother never needed her beyond that. ]

If you're worried about grey hairs, it's a little late for that. Try wearing a hat.

Must be nice.

[Not that 76 cares too much about getting old. He can still do what he needs to do, and probably has the enhancement program to thank for that. Maybe he's slowing down--he breaks a sweat easier, nowadays--but 76 will do his very best not to think about it and continue to push himself as he always has.

Still, maybe it would be a load off to stop worry about it. 76 tries to laugh again, but this time it's a little more half-hearted. He runs a hand through his hair reflexively.]

I'm just trying to keep what I have left.

It's fine, it's fine. It makes you look wise, or something like that.

[ Nobody hires Mordred for her motivational speeches. She shrugs her shoulders a little, still amused, but seemingly appraising him at the same time. Even if she was joking about the wise thing... she actually does pay attention to what he says. She just won't ever, ever tell him that. ]

Want your coat back? [ At least she's offering. ]

THE AMAZING BASE.

ii, sort of

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