Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

_

0 (0%)

_

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: April 07, 2013, 10:34:35 am

[Sean Mirrsen]

((Which? The Altered? No, those are...not really fitting definitions of life. They're more like synthflesh crossed with John Carpenter's thing.))

((I suspect your description is closer to the truth than you think. Doesn't synthflesh exhibit strange properties as it increases in quantity? If it was a development based on Altered physiology, or perhaps if Altered were a byproduct of that research, or otherwise related, the Altered's abilities would be far from unexpected. Far from surprising, even.))

[Toaster]

Lars clasps his hands together.  "We will serve you, my Lord."


Drag team toward ground floor contact.

[Parisbre56]

((Which? The Altered? No, those are...not really fitting definitions of life. They're more like synthflesh crossed with John Carpenter's thing.))

Haebi:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Fascinating," Faith muttered in wonder. It'd be so interesting to meet them, maybe exchange ideas...

She was suddenly sad that she belonged to a superadvanced race of murderous psychopaths still reeling from nearly unleashing a plague of genetic abominations upon the galaxy.

Speaking of which...

Check for aliens we've encountered under large-scale or otherwise significant hostile circumstances. Also check details on those fungus-folk, since I'm guessing they definitely qualify, but also check for a different match.

You pull up files on the Haebi and some other species called, officially, H.X.L.(Hostile xenobiological lifeform)-002393, but unofficially dubbed "Hitchers".

The Haebi are a difficult race to describe, seeing as they are so unlike humanity that most attempts at parsing the data into categories fails somewhat. Their apperance is highly mutable in just about every way, to the point that it's difficult to discern what's a tool and what is a purposefully bred subspecies. Their only defining trait is their generally fungus like appearance and highly specialized natures. Soldiers, for instance, have no other purpose then to fight and every part of their body is molded toward that end with little to no extraneous bits. The same can be said of diggers, constructors, pilots, masons, and every other possible aspect of their society. Where humans would have a job, the Haebi have a subspecies.

When it comes to culture and leadership, we are also at a loss. Judging from the actions of the species as a whole, it's clear that they either have some sort of central intelligence, or , if they don't, that they were created or evolved in such a way that they would follow certain logical paths and actions via instinct. The flight paths of their spore worlds,  for instance, are not random; they follow well reasoned paths, using gravity wells to speed up and slow down, as well as targeting more star rich areas of the galaxy, rather then drifting through vast empty spaces.

Attempts to demonstrate or disprove intelligence within any individual of the species have failed, but many believe this is simply because the individual has been taken outside their bounds of usefulness, and that standard tests of intelligence fail to illustrate their true capacities.

The origins of the Haebi, both their home planet or even their home system, as well as their purpose, if any, are unknown.

Hitchers are a much more simple species that are  considered hostile merely by the nature of their method of travel and sustenance. Hitchers are one of the rare species that live in space without the assistance of external machines or tools, capable and in fact evolved so that they can live their whole lives in space. As such, nearly every aspect of their anatomy is vastly different from standard terrestrial life.

Hitchers are carbon based, but lack the heavy use of water within their bodies that is found in terrestrial life. They do not breathe in a standard sense, instead taking in any needed gaseous elements via breaking them down out of solids, much like a fish getting oxygen from water. However, hitchers do this all via ingestion, rather then respiration of any kind. As such, the spend almost their entire, multi-thousand year long lives feeding their glacially slow organic processes.

Their size varies greatly, mostly because of their ability to discard sections of their body in order to conserve energy and chemicals. As such, a Hitcher with an ample supply of food will grow to a great size, mostly via the addition of extra or longer limbs, greater movement organs or even an expanded brain. Those Hitchers which humanity has had contact with were those rare few who were so gorged upon minerals that they had the capacity to grow and use brains capable of communication.

From these few interviews, it's clear that their perception of time and conception of reality vary greatly from humanity's, with things such as the rise and fall of stars being something a single 3 generation family might witness. Oddly, these perceptions seem universal, even among those who have only recently grown their "first brain", as though such thoughts are instinctual.

Hitchers make their homes in asteroid fields, clinging to the stones and slowly devouring them over the course of hundreds of years. During this time they will store any minerals they can not metabolize in special movement organs located all over their body. Once their source of food as been expended, they will use these minerals like directional jets, shooting them out in order to maneuver to a new asteroid. The difficulty and hostile labels come into play when hitchers either accidentally or intentionally land on human ships and proceed to start eating them. Occasionally this can happen in swarms and pose a real danger to smaller ships, but a single hitcher is usually simply scrapped off and dumped back into it's environment like barnacles on sailing ships.

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Which? The Altered? No, those are...not really fitting definitions of life. They're more like synthflesh crossed with John Carpenter's thing.))

((I suspect your description is closer to the truth than you think. Doesn't synthflesh exhibit strange properties as it increases in quantity? If it was a development based on Altered physiology, or perhaps if Altered were a byproduct of that research, or otherwise related, the Altered's abilities would be far from unexpected. Far from surprising, even.))

((My point exactly. So, I was exactly as close to the truth as I thought.))

[piecewise]

"Ha-hah! I am Mother Goose!"

Get the rest of my damage fixed in the infirmary. Then head for the ground floor!

You head to the infirmary and they root around in your insides and replace some self lubricating ball joints and generally unbreak you.

Once they get done repairing you, you head back down  the elevator to the ground floor. And I assume wait there for people.

Dynamix AUX bonus: +/-2

Before I need to do anything with the plates, take my arms out of the controls and remove my wristpad.  Set it down somewhere accessible.  Then, if Marcius cuts off the plate, replace it and hold it in place with one arm. 

If Marcius doesn't cut off the plate, or I have time to mess around after I replace the plate, use my dynamic bonus to familiarize myself with the wristpad.  I.E. learn what it's capable of, what's installed on it, and how easily I can hack it.  This is mostly just in-character research, but I'm also hoping I can get a permanent bonus to messing with the wristpad.

Hmm well, the wrist pad can be used to send messages, use simple programs, play music, and such like that. Hacking...well that depends on what you want to do with it. You can add programs to it without hacking it. And no, you won't get a permanent bonus with it. I usually only do that with things where it would be overly dangerous and annoying to make you have to roll everytime, like flying a ship or driving a car.


And yeah, I'm not even gonna bother rolling. With a +2 dynamic bonus you'd pretty much get it on everything but a 1, and mostly get it on a 1 anyways. Consider that the last plate too.

Hastur in Fallout.

Depends on exactly where on the map you are.

((Time to reactivate the reactor.))
Find the reactor and find out why it's offline

I wouldn't recommend it. Not only is is buried somewhere deep in the ship beyond locked doors, it's also leaking frankly massive amounts of radiation. I mean, the guy who is already down there fixing it is getting a near fatal dose as we speak and he's in a massive, heavily shielded exosuit.

Of course, he doesn't know about that near fatal dose, so Shhh, don't tell him.

cut ze plate!

((Yes. That setting gets all of it. As long as it's grounded in reality, I don't really like the "magic" property of it. Sorta like ER. Fantasy elements don't interest me as much as sci-fi realism.))

[2]
TRY AGAIN
[5]
BETTER!

You cut the plate and the arms carry it away. Wait...was there a welding torch welded to that plate?

LAST PLATE

LAST PLATE!

Go outside. Look around. Is anyone visible?

At this point...Probably no. Everyone is off in the debris field or underground or in the building. Though you might be able to see the skycranes lifting off if you watch.

"crap crap crap crap!"
leave radiation death zone post-haste

[aux:5]
You stand up and clank back up the stairs and out the first airlock.
[end:2]
You're reaching toward the manual controls to close the door when your vision starts to blur and your limbs start to shake. Your fingers shiver on the controls and the arms move about slightly.

Lars clasps his hands together.  "We will serve you, my Lord."


Drag team toward ground floor contact.

Down the elevator shaft or you wanna use the stairs?

[Toaster]

Shaft!

[Harry Baldman]

Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight. Don't go anywhere or actually do anything besides dance in place, though. Although...

Dear Steve,

Since I presently have little to do, I have figured that I may as well pester you with a question. Do you think revealing the truth about what the technology (or deeper space magic) behind space magic actually is might cause public unrest? You called it 'white-hot knowledge' and said 'we're not ready' or something. I had the thought that to reveal this information along with other interesting facts I'm sure you've accumulated about, say, the Altered Wars would be pretty good for discrediting the UWM if you really don't like them. After all, secrets are power, and if you know the UWM's secrets, why not reveal them to weaken the UWM's hold on everything?

That's just my logic during a short break in this frenetic rescuing action, obviously. Any input aside from 'that's silly' or 'you have no idea what's at stake here', or 'I really don't feel like it'?

Love,
Stacy Buttle

Send message to Steve if possible. If not, save it for later.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Shaft!

((Hey, Xantalos, care to share some of your extradimensional popcorn stash?))

[Xantalos]

((Here, have a temporary portal.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((*munches popcorn*
*records coordinates*
It's infinite, right?))

[Xantalos]

((Yep.))

[GreatWyrmGold]

((Good.
*opens portals between popcorn dimension and starving villages around the world*))

[Xantalos]

((Aand lockdown for you. Popcorn like that's unhealthy for mortals.
*lockdown*))

[BFEL]

((Good.
*opens portals between popcorn dimension and starving villages around the world*))

((A little Ethiopian boy looks to the sky, wondering why his tummy is always hurting, when suddenly the heavens above open up and begin to fall! A large streaming mass of yellow-white that crushes his family to death and sets his village to running and screaming!))

[WhitiusOpus]

(( Wait... don't we still need to attach the new plate? SHIT))

"HEY!" Marcius yells, "Can you bring back the welder? i made a bit of a mistake!"

When I get the welder back, put on the new plate. If I don't, just give up and climb down.