THE AMAZING BASE.

[agogemod]

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

Comments

IV

[deem]

9S may not know this guy, but it doesn't stop him from wondering what he's doing. The day is winding down, and he's gathered quite a lot of data, met and confused a fair few people... Suffice to say, it's been a productive enough day that he's willing to consider hunkering down for the night and looking after whichever humans are in his immediate vicinity, whether they need it or not.

But this would be the first time he's seen anyone simply drawing, and it draws his natural curiosity immediately. Hopefully Henry does not mind a short android peering over his shoulder, because that's precisely what 9S does, wondering what has the man so occupied.

it begins

[handsomefoil]

9S has a very quiet presence, and surrounded by wilderness that's both pleasant and loud all at once does wonders in masking their footsteps. That being said, he doesn't startle when he hears someone approaching. It seems curious and interested, rather than stealth for violent purposes.

So he continues to draw, his subject a rather pretty plant.

"Hello."

After a good minute or so. Still sketching.

[deem]

The flowers are ones 9S recognizes, and the accuracy of Henry's rendering is impressive. He hasn't observed anyone drawing simply because they could before, as androids have no use for the activity, but watching lines resolve into familiar shapes like this is fascinating stuff.

Enough so that he becomes absorbed in simple observation, and jumps when he's addressed with a yelp. "Ah- h-hello-" It's the first time so far that a human has noticed him before he's addressed them.

Then again, he is basically hovering over the man's shoulder.

[handsomefoil]

Whoops, he didn't mean to startle the kid, but he just figured he would've expected him to address his presence some time or another. He doesn't mind though, and continues sketching as he talks.

"And who might you be?"

He moves onto another another flower in the bunch. Even if he's not exactly a great artist, he still tries his best.

[deem]

This is the sort of time that 2B might call him out on his tendency to get distracted, as she had in the past. Of course, it's just him here, the only unit somehow repaired and brought into this organization. It's a fleeting thought, but one that makes his response come with a small, noticeable delay.

"YoRHa unit 9S, Sir," his reply, at least, is a little more dignified than his reaction to his presence being acknowledged. He'd salute were the man looking, but in this case, he imagines the only thing it'd do is come close to swatting the back of his head.

And that isn't exactly an acceptable action.

[handsomefoil]

Henry would've been content to simply converse with the kid like this, where he'd just draw or mind his own business while the kid talked, but the 'sir' added at the end has him looking over with an arched eyebrow. He's not used to the title, but he can't say he hates it either. He'd be glad to know that he didn't look over before he'd called him sir, though. Being saluted would've been Just as strange.

Also he has weird name. Like a robot or something.

"I'm Henry," he says, biting back the 'just Henry' that lingers on his tongue. "That's your name?"

He looks at him now, taking in the strange details of this... YorHa unit.

[deem]

"Sir Henry then?" 9S asks, because due formalities ought to be observed unless he's told to dispense with them. It's good to know the man's name if he needs to identify him, but a unit such as himself certainly isn't on equal footing with the race that created his own.

Natural order, and all that.

"But that's my name," he carries right along, seeing nothing too strange about it himself. By now, though, he's aware he's the only android unit here. "Number 9, Type S. So 9S. But my friends call...called me Nines."

[handsomefoil]

As the kid looks too human for him to even consider him a full-blown android, Henry continues to be skeptical. The idea that he could be an android does cross his mind (sci-fi nerd) but he's never one to assume.

"Just Henry is fine," he says, and wonders if he might be coming off as too curt. "It's a pleasure, 9S." As they're not friends right now, he sticks to the original name he'd been given. Then he just sort of gestures down at the ground where the while flowers grew.

"Know anything about these flowers?"

[deem]

9S peers around him at the flowers with a soft hum, assessing only for a brief moment. And really, that's all that he requires. "Based on those... I could tell you the ideal conditions for growing them, and the average number of flowers per plant." With a number of them here to serve as examples, it's easy to determine this much.

"I'd need to gather more data to tell you anything chemical, like whether they could be used medicinally or not." He certainly does think he could find out that sort of thing, as Scanners are meant to suss out information about their surroundings, with designed curiosity to fuel as much.

[handsomefoil]

That's way more information than he had intended to pry from him, even if he did his own scan. He sort of watches him as he explains, not sure if any of those categories would be of any use to him as he has no intentions of regrowing his own.

"I see," is all he offers at first, tapping his chin thoughtfully with his pencil. "What sort of data would you need for medicinal usage? Does the BCE scan not provide enough?"

[deem]

"For this sort of thing, I'd need to do some testing. I've been reluctant to rely on the BCE alone," 9S admits, because the strange mixture of magic and technology strikes him as questionable at best. The technology COST employs without it seems inferior to his own era, even his own design, and it leaves him unsure what to make of it.

Assuming Henry has been here longer, perhaps he'd have better perspective. "Do you consider it reliable?"

[handsomefoil]

"Reliable enough, I suppose."

He had no real reason to fully doubt the thing, and he hadn't even considered the idea that it would glitch or give faulty information (even if purely by accident).

"What kind of testing would you do that's better than the BCE? Got something interesting in your inventory?"

[deem]

"Used to, but everything I carried didn't make it with me, apparently. Not even my pod, which would've been the most helpful." 9S can't overstate the value of Pod 153's assistance, between its autonomy, capacity for monitoring and repairing his systems, and all of its various programs. He could even find buried objects with one of those programs.

All he can do is shrug, now. "Enough time to inspect and I could probably determine whether the BCE scans are accurate or not. It's just foreign enough that I...you know."

Have a hard time relying on it over his own faculties.

[handsomefoil]

"I see what you mean. It's hard depending on something that's a little more...primitive than what one's used to, I gather. How long do you think? Just out of curiosity."

The sketch finished, he makes cursory notes gathered from the BCE onto the page before closing it.

[deem]

"It usually doesn't take me very long to figure anything out, but magic's a little..." He grimaces, unable to help it, because magic wasn't something he was ever meant to contend with. It's technology of a kind, sure enough, but once magic gets involved, if it is involved in the scanners themselves, it's more difficult to be approximate.

But 9S smooths the expression away easily enough. "With a handful of test subjects to compare with, I should get a pretty good idea."

[handsomefoil]

Henry reaches down with a gloved hand, weaving between the stems of the flowers and plucking them out of the dark soil. He's interested in how 9S would go about testing them alongside the BCE, and if he'd get any other random tidbits of information that the scanner didn't pick up. Always good to know what resources you can utilize for a second opinion.

"This good, or do you need anymore?"

[deem]

"One of them should be fine. Pretty sure it's the same as any of the others, at a glance." And at a glance, 9S can tell quite a bit about these flowers as it stands. He'd already mentioned the environmental conditions they grow in, but he knows weight and general structure simply by looking at it. Even the minute difference of resistance to pressure applied to pick that flower gives him something to work with.

Scanners were intended to take stock of their environment in many ways, as efficiently as possible. Of course, at times this was incredibly distracting, which 2B had called him out on falling prey to more than once.

It's his unit type, and he can't entirely help it.