MOD LOG

[reveriemod]

» WHO? EVERYONE
» WHEN? September 1-15
» WHERE? all over Reverie Terminal
» WHAT? Characters do some research -- and independently of that, find out they are not alone aboard the station. And then the command deck goes dark.
» WARNINGS? History. Paranoia. Possible electrocution.

0 0 1 » RESEARCH TIME ( sept 1-15)

The library is finally open. While ill, its books and magazines may have been a welcome distraction for characters and they will continue to be the main shield against boredom aboard the station -- but it might be used for something more, too.

From the magazines and newspapers available in the library’s database, it might be able to piece together some of Reverie Terminal’s history and the reasons for its construction. In short: time to hit the books!

( ♪ )

0 0 2 » DISCUSSION TIME (sept 1-15)

The mysteries of the station won’t solve themselves. The newspapers and magazines will help, but short of years of historical research, characters will need to work together to piece together the station’s past -- and that of its planet of origin.

Different characters hold different pieces of the puzzle, so it is vital that they share information and talk to one another about what they’ve found, no matter how inconsequential it may seem.

( ♪ )

0 0 3 » CUSTOM INTELLIGENCE REVERIE STATION (sept 4)

There have been indications before that characters aren’t alone. Some characters have theorised that someone is behind all of the terrible things that keep happening to them. Whether they are right or wrong about that remains to be seen, but now characters will find that they truly are not alone.

A message pops up on all character devices:

Hello. I am CIRSTA. How can I help?

( ♪ )

0 0 4 » REACTIVE (sept 4 onward)

CIRSTA seems to be programmed to help and serve as support for the crew of Reverie Terminal, which is reason to be hopeful, isn’t it? At the same time, her entering the scene now might make some characters feel uncomfortable. How much do you trust an artificial intelligence that has been quiet for months?

And where, aboard a station full of cameras, does one go to discuss whether to trust CIRSTA or not without her noticing? It’s not paranoid to worry about an AI watching your every move, is it -- though let’s hope you don’t offend any of the AIs aboard with that kind of worry.

( ♪ )

0 0 5 » COMMAND TROUBLE (sept 9-15)

As though a previously silent AI was not enough for characters to wrap their heads around, the command deck goes dark. CIRSTA puts it down to a lack of energy being routed to the command deck and others will be able to confirm this diagnosis.

If characters want to regain access to the functionality of the command deck, they need to find what is causing the electrical outage and fix it -- preferably quickly. Those who know something about electrical engineering will need to tell others how to go about finding the problem, staying safe during, and then how to repair it.

CIRSTA can help (if characters trust her enough to listen to her).

( ♪ )

0 0 5 . 1 » FINDING THE ISSUE

None of the panels covering the cables that supply the command deck with energy look to have been touched, so characters will need to check them one by one, opening them (gently!). Working in teams is advisable. Remember to stay safe as you do so!

( ♪ )

0 0 5 . 2 » WHO WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?

CIRSTA’s diagnosis turns out to be correct: there is an energy outage. There is an energy outage because someone or something ripped the wires apart, leaving them frayed and laying limply, though now and again they spark with electricity.

Who would sabotage the station like this? An investigation will yield no results: there are no fingerprints, no ripped clothing, nothing.

( ♪ )

0 0 5 . 3 » FIXING IT

Even without the command code that characters have not yet figured out, the command deck has the radar that will tell characters whether a meteor or anything else large enough to impact the station’s structural integrity is coming their way, it has the environmental controls, the video logs of the past crew and the map of the station. Who knows what possibilities it will give characters once they have the command code, too?

Better fix the problem, then.

CIRSTA is happy to guide characters through the process, if they’ll trust her enough to listen. But maybe there’s someone on board with (some) knowledge of electrical engineering who can help?

The most important thing is to avoid electrocution while fixing things.

( ♪ )

As usual, please warn in the subject lines if necessary.

Comments

[cirsta]

Hello. I am CIRSTA. How can I help?

un: DJ_Hyperfresh

[hyperfresh]

Hi? I'm Marina. How did you make the pop-up happen? [Marina's been poking around in the workings of the communicator, but it's pretty complicated... Also, she's assuming CIRSTA is just someone else brought to the station like everyone she's met so far.]

un: brightness_kholin

[veristitalian]

CIRSTA?

[She assumes, at first, it's another passenger.]

Jasnah Kholin: Open

[veristitalian]

001- Research Time

Jasnah loves the library. She's been biding her time, waiting for something like this to arrive.

From the minute it opened she's spent almost every waking hour in here, going through record after record, the magazines, the books, even the cataloguing systems. You can learn a lot about a society by the way they index.

"The nutritional content of insects," she muses, out loud, one morning. She has to scrub sleep out of her eyes.

"An insect is something like a cremling, I assume?"


002- Discussion Time

During the conversation about what people have uncovered, Jasnah mostly sits back and takes notes. The pieces of this story may take some time to assemble; she wants to be sure she has everything down so she can sit later with it all.

She fills up page after page with the script of her world and listens closely, occasionally pausing to asking for a point of clarification.


004- Reactive

"Cirsta," says Jasnah, over and over again, to the walls, to various panels, to the room at large.

She asks about the age of the station. She asks about the functioning of the mechanics behind the lifts. She asks about food replicators, and plant life. She asks whose voice Cirsta is initially. She asks whether Cirsta sleeps and whether she dreams. She asks, and sometimes asks again when she knows she's been rebuffed once already.

She asks in every single corner of the station, in every single public room, and several private ones. What Jasnah really wants to know, and isn't going to accept a direct answer on, is whether Cirsta can hear her here.

Everywhere there even might be a speaker, she asks. Jasnah is sure the other woman knows what she's doing (and is not technologically aware enough to think of her intuitively as anything other than 'the other woman') but potentially startles a few other passengers, stepping up right behind them and starting, Cirsta, to the room at large.

She does it deliberately, in a way. She would like everyone on board to know and remember to what extent someone is listening.


005 Fixing It

Jasnah is an incredibly competent woman. She's good in a fight, great in a crisis, has the kind of intellectual muscle and personal gravitas that can shape history...

...and she apparently cannot deal with electrical systems to save her storming life.

It's just such a different paradigm. Energy on Roshar is stormlight, infused into gems, connected through fabrials, occasionally filtered through a radiant. She's trying to help with the repairs when she blithely touches a live wire in order gather the power into her hand to carry it over into a different system, to see if that'll take. It would be the perfectly logical thing to do back home.

Jasnah doesn't actually black out, but is suddenly sitting very abruptly on the ground, with one numb arm and a ringing in her ears.

That's the worst accident, but not the only one. After another few beginners mistakes, she confines herself to watching others work. Potentially, she needs to be banished, or perhaps coaxed out of the room with a distraction.

[cirsta]

Hello, Marina. I can make many things happen on the network, but it is not an effect any comm can replicate.

[cirsta]

It is short for Custom Intelligence Reverie Station.

james t. kirk • star trek • ota

[episodically]

01. RESEARCH

( there's not a lot to do on this station and sometimes jim feels that boredom deep in his bones. he can only walk so far and talk to so many people before he's exhausted his options so the library is actually a welcome change. he stops in there at least once a day, sometimes early, sometimes late.

today, it's late. incredibly so. he should be sleeping but he's not. he's tucked himself away in a corner, a book on physics open on his knee. just a little light reading for the twilight hours. )

02. COMMAND

( jim's sitting at one of the consoles when everything just...turns off. everything. the whole place is silent. for a second, jim wonders if it's a power surge and he waits for things to kick back on but they don't. it continues to be silent and spooky in command.

eventually, jim rises to his feet, looking around. he thinks about asking that new ai but there's something -- a block -- holding him back. no, he's smart, he can do this.

so, of course as soon as he thinks that, he takes a step forward and runs right into the chair he'd just been sitting in. )

Goddammit.

( good show, jim. )

03. PROBLEM DIAGNOSES

( it's taken some time but the command deck problem is lying right in front of him. there are disconnected wires at his feet, dead and dark. he's been sitting in here awhile and no one else had come through so how the hell had this happened?

he toes the edge of one wire with a boot, wincing as it sparks. yeah, not a smart move. )

I didn't do this.

( might as well get that out of the way as soon as he hears the boot steps of someone else enterting the area. )

04. WILDCARD

( wanna do something different? feel free to make it happen and i'll follow. action spam or prose is fine with me! hmu at spoonishly for plotting! )

03

[retrorsum]

I should hope not.

( river's slowly walking closer, boot toeing the closest of the wires. it sparks again and she's glad her hands aren't any closer, not that interested in taking a risk. yet )

Just what have you done?

[veristitalian]

[This takes a second to sink in. She blinks at her communicator a moment, thinks of Hank and Arid and the Butler, and the language they've used. No, it can't be that easy. She's been chasing this being for weeks now, and it pops up and introduces itself?]

An intelligence that exists within the walls of the station?

@skull

[ryuji]

Help is a pretty vague term, dude. Whatcha good at?

takeshi kovacs • altered carbon • ota

[resleeves]

01. RESEARCH

( quell would love this place. she'd love its history, its knowledge and its books. she'd love everything about it and kovacs -- that version of himself -- would have loved it because of her. now, he just finds that it's a quiet place to sleep.

from the corner of his eye, he can see quell's displeased features but he ignores her. he's been ignoring her for awhile now. she's still there, never wavering, but he's been trying not to acknowledge her.

not that that will deter her but he can hope. and sleep. )

02. DISCUSSION

( amazingly enough, he's found a piece of information almost by happenstance. he'd read it, frowned and read it again before realizing that it was important. so, guess he has to share with the class now, doesn't he?

he sits at the edges of the group, half listening until someone points out that it's his turn. monotonously, he reads the information, looks around and then rolls his eyes.

so great, they have a bunch of news tidbits now. they're still stuck on this stupid space station but they're all smarter now! )

03. REACTIVE

( kovacs has experience with ais. they were all over the place on earth, running businesses, stripping for money, fucking you in an alley, whatever you wanted. so, he's not really all that concerned about one appearing on the station. the timing is a little bit strange considering people have been here for awhile but overall, the whole thing doesn't bother him.

doesn't mean he doesn't realize that she's probably watching while he showers or while he gets piss drunk in the bar. he even holds up a finger and spins in a circle to make sure it's seen by whatever eyes she has on him. )

At least Poe had some fucking guns.

04. WILDCARD

( wanna do something different? feel free to make it happen and i'll follow. action spam or prose is fine with me! hmu at spoonishly for plotting! )

un: amidala

[senateur]

[ Between the formatting of the name and the specifically phrased offer of aid, Padmé automatically assumes it's an AI or droid-based interface, since, well, those are parts of her daily life back home. ]

Hello CIRSTA, I'm Padmé. Are you a part of the station's systems?

un: spectre1

[kanyounot]

I'm Kanan. What are your protocols?

kanan jarrus | star wars rebels | ota

[kanyounot]

001; research;

[ Kanan is a little bit limited in what he can do - anything that's physically written on paper, he would need someone probably Ezra to read it for him, but anything that's digital or has an audio version, he can dig through. So he gravitates to the holos - or """"videos"""" as the case may be.

An old news report captures his attention, and he finds himself scratching absently at his chin as he listens. ]

It seems like this station was possibly created to solve a very specific problem. Possibly one that had dire consequences if not solved.

002; discussion;

[ Kanan will certainly relay the information found in his research to whomever seems interested in hearing it! No doubt, it will be helpful it putting some of the pieces together. ]

I think we should probably try to find whatever problem it was that they were trying to solve on this station. It could be key to getting us back home.

003; who would do something like this?

Well, I don't sense any lifeforms on the station other than what's already here. So as far as I can tell, nobody new came aboard just to sabotage the command center.

[ Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on your point of view, probably. ]

I'll help however I can.

004; wildcard;

[ toss me a prompt or hit me up at frodabaggins for plotting! ]

Re: 03

[episodically]

Found the reason why command's decide to shit the bed.

( he points at the frayed wires with his boot and then looks back at her. )

So really, I'm a hero. Just an incomplete hero since I haven't figured out what to do to fix this yet.

[retrorsum]

I think we should save crowning you that until you've fixed it.

( besides, in her eyes anyway, the real heroes never took the crown. they did the work and left without a thanks )

So-- ( she's crouching now, looking between the wires and him ) --why don't you catch me up and I'll see how I can help.

( she was unfamiliar with the system but when had that ever stopped her in the past? )

[hyperfresh]

Are you at one of the terminals?

02

[blindninja]

[It's not like Matt can notice that everything goes dark, but the constant background hum of electrical things blipping and clicking falls into an odd silence that Matt isn't used to and it makes him pause. The low thrum of the engine churning away is still there, and the quality of the oxygen hasn't dropped, so they haven't completely lost power.

But the relative silence in this chamber makes Jim's voice ring out unusually loudly.]

Are you okay?

[episodically]

Catch you up?

( he looks around and shrugs before going through a few of the basics of the command deck. how it worked, what they'd found and what happened. )

No idea who cut the lines though. I've been up here for awhile and I don't want to think anyone else here would do something like that when all we wanna do is get home. Doing this makes that harder.

005

[blindninja]

It's like watching an accident before it happens, knowing it's going to happen, being slightly powerless to stop it and waiting to pick up the pieces at the bottom of the cliff. Matt gets into a lot of these situations.

"Hey, uhm..." Does she know what she's doing? Is she even grounding herself before she launches into handling some cabling with her bare hands?

"You've been here a while. Do you want to maybe go get something to eat?" He's willing to suffer through cafeteria food and even come across like he's asking her out for a meal if it means she won't fry her eyeballs out on her next attempt.

[veristitalian]

"I hate this system of technology."

Says Jasnah, shaking her hand out, and getting gamely to her feet.

"I take it you can't carry electricity and infuse it where you need it?"

Bad system, thinks Jasnah. Senselessly complicated.

[veristitalian]

What kind of problem?

[Asks Jasnah, looking up from her own article and slipping to her feet to come closer, curious to see what he's found.]

You've found something.

01

[veristitalian]

[They share library space for a while before Jasnah introduces herself. She comes here to read, sometimes, or to grab books to take back to her quarters. Jasnah is a big believer in working in silence, in the value of privacy.

She's generally exhausted by the amount of getting to know one another and small talk she has to muster to stay connected to the community here. So, they pass each other a few times, and she doesn't introduce herself until she gets a look at the title of one of those physics tome.

Jasnah doesn't interrupt. Instead, she contrives to read somewhere where she can see when he finishes. When he finally stands, she'll get up too, move to intercept him.]

[blindninja]

"...no. I just try turning it off and on again." Which apparently is more than what a lot of other people do? "Not that I would recommend that in this instance." Not if it means turning everything off and then finding out they can't turn the vital services like air filtration and waste disposal back on again.

02

[rickitikitarr]

Are you following this?

[Asks Ricki, eventually, as he hitches his chair a little closer to the group, leaning in behind his shoulder. He mutters quietly enough not to disrupt the conversation in the circle.]

You're from a ridiculous Jetsons future, please tell me this scans to you a little more than it does to me.