universal_destiny | OPENING LOG

OPENING LOG

Who: Eli Wallace and OPEN
What: Welcome to Destiny
Where: Stargate Room
When: One lonely night...
Warnings: None yet!

It had been a long week and a half.

Eli had spent most of it on the bridge, trying various calculations, trying to get the last stasis pod working, or, even better, find a way to extend life support or increase power to last the next three years.

It isn't looking hopeful.

When the all-too-familiar feeling of the ship shuddering out of FTL happens, he can't really believe it. Why? Why now? He's been monitoring the power consumption so carefully! And then he notices the indicator. The monitor belonging to Stargate Operations. He stares at it.

"...Incoming Wormhole?"

His voice is incredulous. No... Why now? Why?! There weren't any planetary Stargates in range, so that meant someone had dialled the Nine Chevron code from a non-Destiny-style Stargate.

They can't take on any more people. This screws everything over...

He sets a Kino off to go investigate the Gate Room, snatching up a remote, before heading to the armoury.

He jogs into the Gate Room just as the Wormhole connects, the familiar "ka-woosh" of the unstable vortex, before it settles into the event horizon. Eli takes up position at the console, a rifle under an arm... Just in case.

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Following exchanging a few words with Amanda, Jackal is busying herself inspecting the systems visible in the area to which they're confined--especially the door controls and the stargate console--looking for anything familiar as a starting place for working out what's going on, and perhaps how to override them.

"You gotta any familiarity with this tech or the species that made it?" Roxy asked. She was doing some investigating herself. After all, if there's a locked door, there had to be a way to open it. Sadly she had already concluded that, judging by the markings on the gate, hacking was going to be slow going if she went on by herself.

Jackal glances up, eyeballing Roxy skeptically for a moment--then turned her attention back to the panel she was in the middle of inspecting.

"...nothing familiar about it. Besides 'it has buttons,' anyway."

She pauses briefly, glances back toward Roxy.

"Major Egret, MSFSOD. Call sign's 'Jackal.'"

Roxy could hardly fault the skeptical eye. She was wearing a some weird navy outfit with a symbol and a mask. But hey, the mask pulled the look together, and she hasn't had a chance to change anyway.

"Oooo, fancy title. Roxy Lalonde, Rogue of Void," she said, leaning closer to get a better look at the door control. "Maybe if we can get the panel off?"

Jackal eyeballs Roxy that much more skeptically. Rogue of Void sounds maybe a little too close to space pirate.

"...maybe. Rather not break it so soon. Situation's not exactly dire, yet. What the hell's a 'Rogue of Void'?"

She turns her attention back toward the panel, although she does seem to be seriously considering ripping the thing off to get at the wiring inside--possibly inspecting to gauge how best to do so with minimal risk of damaging any electronics inside.

"Not dire here," Roxy muttered. Back home? It was all sorts of dire. At least Amanda basically said the Stargate could time travel. "Ya'd hope a spaceship wouldn't break easy. Should be fine."

"My fancy title! Also a hella complicated thing. Basic terms is magical Robin Hood. And 'fore ya ask, can't magic rogue the door. Something is fucking with it," she said with a casual shrug. It was actually more worrying than that. Her abilities were supposed to make it hard to detect her so the fact they were suppressed was, well, very surprising.

Jackal glanced toward Roxy slowly once again. Someone's going to be getting a lot of Tommy Lee Jones Stares, today.

"......magical Robin Hood." What do you even say to that? "Great."

She shook her head, looking rather exasperated.

"Don't suppose you've learned anything useful about this place, yet, besides the obvious?"

"Awesome, ain't it?" Roxy will just roll with the stares and just grin back cheekily. At least magical Robin Hood is a good way to describe her clothes?

"Depends what's obvs. What might not be is at least some of us are diff universes. NOT galaxies, universes, whole of existences. Stargate can do time travel. Symbols aren't human, neither is design, so alien tech. Fully realized AIs, legit peeps. Power magic suppressor things. For some reason the peeps here weren't ready for us, so probs the Stargate has a malfunction, maybe keying into other modes of fast travel." Roxy paused at that thought. "Wonder if that means they made 'em or not..."

She looked skeptical enough at the suggestion of different universes, but just stared at the mention of magic, as well. She wasn't just saying "magical" as an abstract modifier to make something sound cooler; she seemed to be talking about literal magic. What do you say to that?

"You're serious."

She stared a moment longer, incredulously, then let out a breath, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"...whatever. You're right at least that it sounds more and more like this wasn't planned. Or if it was, it wasn't planned very well."

The funny thing about Roxy for all that she comes off as cavalier and laidback, she's serious about ninety percent of the time. Acting serious is just not something she really does much, it's really not needed from her more often than not. Magic, of course, earned seriousness almost all of the time because magic was the bomb.

"Ooooh, been a while since accused of serious. Not sure 'bout that, but I AM right. Even if a bunch is hard to prove, ugh, that's annoyin'," she said, tapping the console thoughtfully.

"Could be a bad plan, but they got like nothing to greet us. Not a threat, not a tutorial, nothin'. Only thing that says premediatated is the power limiter, but who knows, that could be standard issue tech. Been too long, seems more like they're trying to regroup then just lettin' us sweat it out."

"May be on a skeleton crew. Even unexpected, we should have started getting a security response, by now. Someone to state demands, some sign of a chain of command. Besides the spaced out DBBU."

She glances toward the observation deck.

"But there's nothing. Suggests they don't have the manpower to spare to hand someone a gun and tell them to go shout at us. We give them a few minutes more. If they don't know what to do with us now, that won't improve when they feel we're no longer contained. Last thing we need's to be stuck on an unfamiliar ship in the middle of nowhere with its grossly understaffed crew in a panic."

"Not sure what a DBBU is. Huh, that's a first," Roxy commented. "But yeah. Someone should be growly or diplomatic by now, huh. It's a big ship, wonder how small a crew is absolutely needed to run?" She said, looking around. "Can't be using robots, could send a robot s'long as you can fix it."

"Panic is the worse. At least Amanda says they're either extremely human like, or do nuff with humans to need one. Dun think her attitude implies her ship's been stolen, anyway."

Roxy pushed herself straight, humming to herself. "Well, at least if that's the case..." She stood in front of the door, holding up her hands as if she was holding a rifle. "Hmmmm, yeah, p sure I could disarm 'em if they come in with twitchy trigger fingers."

Jackal shakes her head, going back to examining that panel.

"DBBU, that's Detached Battle Backup Unit, category of advanced artificial intelligence. Manages systems, handles processing for scanning and targeting systems, serves as an analyst and copilot as needed. But no, if the ship's stolen, it was probably found abandoned, from what we've seen so far."

She pauses, glancing toward Roxy again. Then nods curtly.

"...disarm them. Good. We'll probably need them to keep the ship running, anyway, at least until we learn the systems."

"Ooooh, okay. I think she's just straight up human like AI. She's got emotions and all that," Roxy said. "That is also likely. Humans are excellent scavengers, and it'd explain the alien design. At least nothing suggests humans would design a ship with this kinda look."

Roxy looked startled at that. "Whoa! Whoa whoa whoa, we're not takin' over the ship if we dun have to. I can disarm 'em, but that's just to make sure no one dies. Hell, could remove the guns completely depending on whether or not they developed sylladexes and dun know a way to force things out of 'em. But peace is the objective."

Jackal raised an eyebrow slightly at that reaction--then let out a breath

"You sound like you watch too many action movies."

Roxy gets a slightly weary but otherwise deadpan stare, as though constantly judging. She could probably get a prize for a Tommy Lee Jones impression.

"I never said we were. Assuming a skeleton crew, they're likely to be systems specialists before soldiers, especially if their discipline's poor enough to demonstrate 'twitchy trigger fingers,' as you put it. That makes keeping them alive and willing to cooperate a priority. Nonlethal treat neutralization's going to be important in case things get off on the wrong foot. Now, are we on the same page?"

Roxy shrugged. "Action movies are my only exp with military. Everything else has been...idek how to describe it. People just doing shit and havin' cray cray powers to do it."

So yes, too many action movies, but to be fair, movies are kind of the only real way she has to know anything about people in general. She's still kind of reeling at the fact there's HUMANS, but if there's one thing Roxy knows how to do, it's hiding her serious discomforts.

At least she is a very good judge for that Tommy Lee Jones impressions.

Roxy looked at Jackal and she nodded. "But good to know. Far as I can tell, you and me will be the only ones with combat practice on this side of the door. Well, except maybe that guy, I can't get a solid read with him." She gestured over to Orlin. "But I get the feelin' he won't want to start physical violence without prompting. And ballet boy is, well, ballet boy."

She paused. "I'm not gonna go for auto disarm. I'll know if they're 'bout to shoot, a sniper girl myself, know what to look for way 'fore it even involves triggers. Words first."

Well, the Tommy Lee Jones impressions were top-notch, at least, that's something. She glanced toward Orlin when Roxy nodded, then looked back to the panel.

"Haven't had words with him, yet, but noted."

She didn't interject anything else during that pause, but did give Roxy a brief, appraising glance when she speaks up again, before turning her attention back to the panel once more.

"Sniper. Good to know, that's my second MOS. Where'd you get your training?"

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thevoidsdarkhorse - 2014-12-30 14:34 (UTC) - Expand

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major_egret_msfsod - 2015-01-07 02:24 (UTC) - Expand

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thevoidsdarkhorse - 2015-01-07 09:39 (UTC) - Expand

While she's inspecting the systems, Jean-Paul comes over. Computers are well beyond him, but if someone is inspecting them, perhaps they know better in this respect. Between that and the boyish haircut, he just assumes that this person is a male.

"Are you able to make any sense of that, Monsieur?"

Jackal glances up with a somewhat peeved look.

"...Major. Major Egret, MSFSOD. Call sign's 'Jackal.'"

She turns her attention back to the panel.

"I'll answer to rank, surname, or call sign. And no. Totally unfamiliar. Whoever made this ship, it's nobody I've heard about. Which I guess is fair, for all the sense anything else I've heard here makes."

"Major?"

He shook his head and took his flask out of his suit jacket, spun the cap off and took a draft. A military woman with boyishly short hair who didn't seem like she was medical. That seemed just as wrong as Ms. Lalonde's way of speaking.

This place was going to take a lot of getting used to. Maybe he wouldn't be here too long.

He really does want to point out that maybe a man ought to be looking at the machines, not her... but given that he knows less about them than she does, he doesn't bother.

"What else have you heard, ah, Major."

"A lot of chat about 'Stargates,' which I gather means that energy field. Couldn't get a straight answer about what exactly that is. That the civilian out on the... observation deck hasn't heard of the MSF or Metatron technology, but unless there's some elaborate hoax at work, we're in interstellar space, none of which jives together."

She glances up again, scrutinizing him from head to toe with the look of someone used to appraising people with a glance--and probably used to passing judgement on them, as well, going by how roundly unimpressed she looks. Of course, he hasn't seen her look impressed at anyone else, so it may just be her natural state of being.

"And you look like you just stepped out of, what, a 20th century costume party?"

Another pause.

"Didn't catch your name. What's your story, then?"

Interstellar space. He takes another drink from the flask before capping it and returning it. Is there much alcohol in space, if that's... where he is?

"And here I thought From the Earth to the Moon was fiction."

Space. Oh what in God's name has he managed to get into.

"I'm Jean-Paul Doret, ballet choreographer for the Opera National de Paris. From 1911."

"...1911."

She stared at him a moment, as though contemplating whether she believes a word he's saying. After a few seconds, she lets out a heavy breath, shaking her head. Not exactly the time she'd have picked a team from, to say the least.

"All right. Different times. Don't get how that works, exactly, but this is all pretty well off the deep end, anyway. Year's 2202, for me."

She looks back to the panel as she continues in the same stern tone.

"My civilian studies were in history and political science, so I've got some idea how strange this must be for you, Mr. Doret. You have difficulty adapting, you let me know, and I'll see if I can help."

Despite the nature of the offer, she doesn't smile or look exactly sympathetic or make any other sort of obviously comforting gesture.

Edited 2014-12-12 08:54 (UTC)

"I would suspect it works the same way that I could be in Paris one minute and here the next." He shrugged. He would not call himself anywhere near educated in these matters, but both tricks seemed as difficult to him as the other.

"Ah, thank you for the offer." His acceptance of her offer was a bit stiff. The offer of help should be his to make and hers to need.

She paused briefly, and smirked at that observation.

"Fair enough. And don't worry about it. My duties don't cease to exist when I'm away from home."

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