Well, one thing at a time.

The darkened halls of the base flicker to light once more, blackness replaced instead by fluorescently lit corridors. In truth the decay is hardly as bad as it could have been, the sealing of the base having prevented animal or plant intrusion. No, the Empire built things to last and nowhere is this evidenced more than the command center itself. The dusty aeons of abandonment have done little more than coat the room in a thick shroud of dust, consoles and holo-displays flickering to life once more as you fully repower them all. In the middle of the room the tactical holomap of the system materializes and begins slowly rotating once more, picking up from where it left off 64,000 years prior. Data feeds and reports on base status turn from a trickle to a torrent as the consoles around the center complete their autoboots from the main system, slowly and incrementally filling the room with the sounds of digital life. The hum of electronics and the soft beeps of status updates. As if the intervening time had never passed.

The first thing you do is, of course, secure unlimited access for yourself alone. You’re unsure if it would stop Ivanova if she tried to bypass it but considering she already had access you consider it a moot point. After that, though, your review the database. What you find can only be classified as unnerving.

All troop numbers, access keys, deployments, orders, military technical data, and any other classified information has been purged. Predictable, and honestly fairly reasonable considering the pull-out, especially with the state of the station. No, the uneasiness comes in the form of a log created after the base was shut down. Apparently it was set to passively and automatically log standard military transmissions in the area and to the station before relaying them via FTL tightbeam to a deep space comm sat and deleting the records. As best you can tell via drone investigation outside, though, the fragile FTL transmission array was damaged during a truly massive earthquake 3 years, 28 days after the pull-out. Leading directly to an undeleted backlog of transmissions in queue.

They are all after-battle status reports. Hundreds of them.

You go through the list, slowly, reviewing the intermingled statistics and sorting them in to roughly three categories. In all your time with the Armada, though, you’ve never seen reports like these.

>Battles of nearly equal numbers of ships ranging from single digits to triple digits, roughly equal losses on both sides.
>Battles where thousands to tens of thousands of enemy ships are engaged and destroyed by single to double digit forces, many with damage and some losses.
>Battles where anywhere from single digits to hundreds of enemy ships are engaged by single digits of friendlies. Enemy destroyed with no losses. Normal for the Armada.

None of the reports have location tags or summaries, but there is something else. In some of the reports, becoming more and more frequent in later transmissions, a certain note is appended: Nullification Protocol Employed. The standard callsign for planetary sterilization.

Woohoo, voidquest!

Just as a heads up, vedibere, if you disappear, I'mma hunt you down and tie you infront of your computer so this shit keeps going. just saying.

==Map Legend==
Green Dotted Arrow: Previous Jump

Green dot: Current position. (Currently Orrin)
Yellow Square: Your awakening position
Teal dotted zone: Hundred Systems Territory (Hundred World’s Rebellion)

==Command Staff==
Lieutenant Kateryna Ivanova - Executive Officer
Second Lieutenant Dray Parson - Intelligence Officer
Second Lieutenant Robert Tynes - Steward
Chun-Fan Dai - Chief Engineer
Third Lieutenant Mardigan “Guns” Rinn - Weapons Officer
Dr. Christof Burr - Physician

>>15581353
>Battles where thousands to tens of thousands of enemy ships are engaged and destroyed by single to double digit forces, many with damage and some losses.
Oh lawd, dem Harbingers.

>>15581353
Do the reports contain timestamps?
Did the battles progress steadily from Armada-normal, to the enemy being able to damage us if they had enough ships, to them being on an equal footing?

Any orders of rallying points for the fleet, or of changes in HQ locations?

Previous Threads:

1: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15474877/
2: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15527576/
3: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15547424/
4: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15558914/

>>15581353
More thoroughly investigate the Battles where thousands to tens of thousands of enemy ships are engaged and destroyed by single to double digit forces, many with damage and some losses.

Also, create a shift schedule that allows the crew at least 2 consecutive days off per week, to recuperate.

>>15581353

so, what kind of circumstances would cause the empire to glass a world? Is that SOP for rebellious colonies, or significant other threats? Like, would a zombie plague on the world cause the Empire to order it glassed?

>>15581436
The OE glassed alien planets pretty indiscriminately. Human colonies were generally fought on the ground.

>>15581413
Not just giving the crew some time off, we also need to change up their diet.
Let's see if any military rations survived, anything besides freeze-dried bean paste.
Also we need to try to get some edible local flora and fauna; let's see if that information survived in the base's databanks.

Finally, we need to secure a perimeter so that the crew can go down and have shore leave; being on a planet should do their morale some good.

>Do the reports contain timestamps?
No, though when they were received is logged. There doesn't appear to be any particular pattern, and they become less and less frequent near the end, trailing off. Last report was received 112 years after base close.

>Did the battles progress steadily from Armada-normal, to the enemy being able to damage us if they had enough ships, to them being on an equal footing?
They are all intermingled, though the multi-thousand vs few battles become more and more infrequent and stop showing up altogether about 50 years in.

>More thoroughly investigate
How? It's a couple lines of numbers and a timestamp. That's it.

>>15581469
I agree with all of this, crew morale is important.

>>15581324

Right, I figured we were going to be hitting the performance wall.

We have to face facts, we can't keep working like madmen, as much as we may want to. We've made astounding gains anyway, and we're doing much better than we were a month ago when we first woke.

It's time to adjust the work schedule so that everyone has more recovery time. Note that I didn't say free time. Letting people brood without direction will lead to problems. Instead, we've got to give them tasks that don't tax them as much. Longer periods of lighter duty, and days where they have tasks that are designed to help them begin coming to terms with this rather ugly situation.

We should consult with the doctor about instituting policies that will help everyone cope with the enormous loss of our civilization and loved ones. Psychotherapy games, drugs to help with coping, and even adjustments to their cyber implants if the doctor thinks such things are merited and possible should all be on the table. We don't want them falling apart, and we want to be able to prevent suicides.

Now that the food situation is less dire, we can begin making arrangements for our deceased crew. We're going to have to give a speech at the ceremony, and we'll want to invite anyone who wishes to speak to do so. It should be a combined ceremony, for both our deceased and for the loved ones we've left behind (unless the doctor believes that would be a bad idea).

Right now we still need to look over the data in that base. There may be clues about what's next.

Also I'd like to ask Dai and the doctor about what is possible for getting another human or android body. And we should start using a face avatar when we have screens available. This being a disembodied voice is probably not very good for the crew.

>>15581489
Does the base's database contain a listing of indigenous flora and fauna that is edible by humans?
Also, what about base defense systems? What is available?

>None of the reports have location tags or summaries, but there is something else. In some of the reports, becoming more and more frequent in later transmissions, a certain note is appended: Nullification Protocol Employed. The standard callsign for planetary sterilization.

Well, that sounds ominous.

Planetary sterilization means they glassed it?

How long after the base was closed was the last battle report received?

>>15581452

Well, right, but in this case, it seems like something worrisome, especially as it's happening more frequently as the reports get more and more recent.

>>15581614
Seriously? What the fuck, dude?
Do you not read at all?
Says right there >>15581489
112 years.

>Does the base's database contain a listing of indigenous flora and fauna that is edible by humans?
No. It's a military base.

>Also, what about base defense systems? What is available?
It was intended to be staffed by several thousand soldiers with advanced weaponry. As for defenses that are still around, there's a light shield system, automated turrets, and a half dozen medium energy cannons mounted for surface-to-space firing. A small force of manned atmospheric fighters, hovertanks, and combat rovers is also listed, though the fighters are listed as not present.

>>15581633
I think it means the empire was in a dire situation, so they used more extreme measures.

>>15581654
As an EI, can we remotely control any of the hovertanks or combat rovers, like we do with the drones?

Are the automated turrets designed for surface-to-orbit, surface-to-air, or surface-only?

>>15581353

>Battles of nearly equal numbers of ships ranging from single digits to triple digits, roughly equal losses on both sides.

Civil war.

>Battles where thousands to tens of thousands of enemy ships are engaged and destroyed by single to double digit forces, many with damage and some losses.

Rebellions from alien subjects with help from human rebels.

>Battles where anywhere from single digits to hundreds of enemy ships are engaged by single digits of friendlies. Enemy destroyed with no losses. Normal for the Armada.

Rebellions where the aliens did not have help.

Everything fell apart a generation after the Harbinger was lost. 50 years is enough time to put in place an entire network of gates, and for trusted subject species to get the right to move their ships through gates for trade. A ten year build-up of trading vessels that could be quickly refitted into merchantmen wouldn't be unreasonable either.

Because of the gates, the aliens would have a chance to really spread ideas through non-censored channels that way (word of mouth, hand delivered messages, ect). They'd be able to organize, and OE collaborators would have a chance to interact with them. They could make big, coordinated, mass movements and put their walls of firepower to use in invasions.

The first big coordinated rebellion would be enough to force a political crisis. "How could the reigning powers have let this happen! How could they be so criminally incompetent! We can do things better!"
That crisis then led to a fracture, and finally to civil war. The fracture may have been engineered by human separatists or human sympathizers who believed in self-determination and independence for aliens.

Fucking aliens.

>>15581668

Yeah, re-reading it, that's what it looks like. I wonder what caused it? Mass uprising of client races? large scale House revolt? could be a lot of things. The battles get smaller as the reports go on, though, and whatever happened to the empire happened an eye blink after we disappeared- ~150 years, give or take.

Which means it's a LOT less likely the ophidian empire's gonna be all that well remembered. it almost sounds like a case where all combatants fought themselves into oblivion, or where the winning side was so badly weakened it eventually collapsed.

>>15581529

>It's time to adjust the work schedule so that everyone has more recovery time. Note that I didn't say free time. Letting people brood without direction will lead to problems. Instead, we've got to give them tasks that don't tax them as much. Longer periods of >lighter duty, and days where they have tasks that are designed to help them begin coming to terms with this rather ugly situation.
yes

>We should consult with the doctor about instituting policies that will help everyone cope with the enormous loss of our civilization and loved ones. Psychotherapy games, drugs to help with coping, and even adjustments to their cyber implants if the doctor thinks >such things are merited and possible should all be on the table. We don't want them falling apart, and we want to be able to prevent suicides.
Yes, but go easy on the drugs. We don't want them becoming addicted to them.

continued

>>15581529

>Now that the food situation is less dire, we can begin making arrangements for our deceased crew. We're going to have to give a speech at the ceremony, and we'll want to invite anyone who wishes to speak to do so. It should be a combined ceremony, for >both our deceased and for the loved ones we've left behind (unless the doctor believes that would be a bad idea).
We need to make a somber but hopeful speech at the funeral (or later) to raise the morale of the crew. "We may be down, but we aren't out, humanity WILL prevail" "Our loved ones may be gone, but their memories keep us strong". Try to appeal to that human-centric society they were in, but try to keep away from sounding anti-alien. We don't know who's out there and we may need to ally ourselves with them.

>Right now we still need to look over the data in that base. There may be clues about what's next.
Agreed. We should look back into those objects that were just outside the range of the orbital defenses. I suspect they are monitoring devices from some other race that has scavenged the empires technology.

>Also I'd like to ask Dai and the doctor about what is possible for getting another human or android body. And we should start using a face avatar when we have screens available. This being a disembodied voice is probably not very good for the crew.
Agreed

>>15581529
>>15581741
Agreeing with both of these. And drugs should really only be used in the more extreme cases.

Also, do we have a brig?

>>15581759
>Also, do we have a brig?
Yes. Not very large though, only five cells, but they are very secure. You weren't really expected to be taking very many prisoners.

>>15581713
>Civil war
I would think that the KGB like intelligence network of the empire would be able to quash anything like that before it started.

Can I get summaries of the various species of aliens we encountered and their cultures? After we invaded, which species surrendered and whose planets did we glass?

We should look into this GATE more methinks.

>>15581752
>We should look back into those objects that were just outside the range of the orbital defenses. I suspect they are monitoring devices from some other race that has scavenged the empires technology.
We already took those probes onboard and disassembled them. We already confirmed that they came from at least 3 different civilizations of varying levels of technology.
We already have, or are very close to, missing the check-in time for the most advanced of the probes.
The technology level is well below ours.

Let's take stock. Right now, our short-term survival is less of an issue. The ship is in stable condition, the station and base are ours, and the defense platforms give us a very powerful level of protection beyond our own abilities.

So what are our next most pressing concerns? I'd say crew moral and condition seem the worst. We need to cut back the work schedule to a more reasonable pace, try to supply a more appetizing food selection, and give them all some time to come to terms with what's happened. A lot of our current projects are going to need a few weeks to process, so let's use that time to let them all recover.

I say we ask the quartermaster to make it a priority to find some better rations for everyone. I might also suggest that we play councilor a little bit, have some one-on-one conversations with the crew where we let them vent about what's happened. And we should schedule a full command staff meeting sometime soon so we can compare notes, brainstorm, and decide what our next major move is going to be.

>>15581785
>Can I get summaries of the various species of aliens we encountered and their cultures?
Hell no, there were tens of thousands of sapient civilizations alone without even counting all the nonsapients.

>>15581769
Does the base's database contain a catalog of all of the supplies that were crated up?
Is there anything here besides more freeze-dried bean paste?

>>15581798
>We already have, or are very close to, missing the check-in time for the most advanced of the probes.
see if we can fake a transmission that reports back to wherever as "status not changed" or equivalant.

>>15581779

No intelligence network is perfect, and you need to be able to interact with and spy on the enemy for an intelligence network to do its job properly.

Conspirators from other cultures using sneaker-nets and private in-person conferences in a small cell system are notoriously hard to penetrate. It's why small cell networks have remained in use for so long by rebels in all eras. You can only catch a few people in the network at a time, and it's easy to cut compromised sections of the network out entirely, thus limiting the gains an intelligence agency can make.

>>15581806
And we should definitely use some kind of hologram to represent us when we talk to people. Or if nothing else, we should use make a tone in the room where they are before we look through the cameras in that room. Less important for public areas, but very much so for crew quarters and such.

Questions:

1. Would it be possible to strip the base's weapons and other protective systems to provide parts for the repair of our own devices, or to augment damaged systems if repair is not possible?

2. Could we take the base's mobile units, such as the hovertanks, to be used for future adventures groundside?

3. Is it possible to increase the Harbinger's cargo space, such as with jettisonable pods, and maintain FTL capability?

4. Does it look like it's going to be possible to salvage any of the starships from the graveyard or use their parts to repair or augment Harbinger systems?

>>15581846
That would require the analysis of the data cores to be complete, and that definitely will put us beyond the check-in date.
No matter what, it's too late to try to fake it.

>>15581821
Can I get summaries on a handful of the really major ones, then?

Frankly, I think our crew deserves a reward.

A PARTY.

Problem is, all we have is whatever bean paste we managed to ship up from the base, and even if we had chips to dip in it, we don't have any alcohol. And even a SPACE STILL takes time to work.

Going down to the surface to kick a ball around might work, but everybody is physically and mentally tired. What we really need is the space equivalent of a LAN party or Super Mario Brothers.

What does the ships database have in the way of computerized simulations/entertainment facilities? I don't expect us to have a holodeck, but even a warship has *something* for the occasional R&R.

>>15581857
We already decided to use a chime when we're about to talk to someone to let them know our attention is on them.

Vedibere, are you writing or do you need more concrete actions?

For the time being, we can use drones to represent us, like we did with Ivanova. Vedibere did say we have some humanoid models.

If there's nothing better in the base, let's just gussy up one or more humanoid drones to make them look... friendly, but not so human-like that it brushes the uncanny valley, assuming that's still a thing in this future. Holograms are all well and good, but it's nice to have a physical presence if someone wants a hug.

>>15581871

Not OP, but I can tell you with 85% certainty what he'll say:

>1. Would it be possible to strip the base's weapons and other protective systems to provide parts for the repair of our own devices, or to augment damaged systems if repair is not possible?

Possibly, but it'll take some work. It's a better bet then the energy cannons on the satellites, since the base probably was built around or before the Harbinger was, but it'll still take time and dedicated engineers to work out what parts can be cannibalized to pump up the energy cannons.

>2. Could we take the base's mobile units, such as the hovertanks, to be used for future adventures groundside?

Most likely yes, but we do have limited cargospace (especially since our main cargo hold was breached to SPESS) and we probably don't have proper space-to-ground dropships, though the bigger shuttles might suffice.

>3. Is it possible to increase the Harbinger's cargo space, such as with jettisonable pods, and maintain FTL capability?

NIEN

>4. Does it look like it's going to be possible to salvage any of the starships from the graveyard or use their parts to repair or augment Harbinger systems?

DOUBLE NIEN. The debris field covers most of the system; and contains ships of wildly varying tech origins, tech levels, and mission profiles. Also, most of them have been totally blown to shit. The best use of them would be for the harvesting/reclaiming of starship-grade unisteels, but that'd require a massive industrial salvage operation, and we just don't have that kind of shit available. Also, it'd take months.

>>15581936
We could dress it up in our old clothes, like maybe our dress overcoat.
The important details, however, would be the captain's hat, and rank insignia (magnetically attached to the drone, or maybe glued on).

>>15581886
There were no really major ones. Humanity was the major one. Period. Whenever the Empire encountered an alien civilization of any respectable size it was immediately dismantled, to the point of entire planetary populations being wiped out or relocated. This process was already underway in the Hundred Systems Alliance even before you were finished subjugating all the major worlds, even though it was more of an alliance of different races rather than a single one.

If resistance to this diaspora was large enough they were wiped out completely, all traces of existence erased, and whatever memory other races had of them twisted into vile demons with propaganda, as with the Charn.

Also, I don't think you understand how big the galaxy is.

>>15581958
You mean NEIN, right?

>>15581964
This is an AWESOME plan. We can bolt the coat on, and simply glue the hat on top. We can then float around the ship, in our new pimpin drone body

>>15581958
It's been 65,000 years. One thing we have an excess of is time.

Restoring our heavily-damaged systems is a priority. Our now-limited offensive and defensive capabilities should be more than a match for the tech we know has been deployed in this area, but if we run into someone who's a little bit better off, I'd like us to at least last long enough to jump.

>>15581982
As hilarious as it sounds I don't think this is the right time to give the crew doubts about our mental stability.

>>15581982
The comedic value should help with our morale situation.

>>15582035

If you want to use it as a throw-away joke, fine, but it shouldn't be the regular avatar we use. It should be used when we want levity and silliness and when all parties in the room are in the mood for that.

What other systems are in the area? Are there any that might aid with repairs?

>>15581964

THIS. I WAS ABOUT TO SUGGEST THIS. FUND THIS. CAPTAIN DRONE IS A GO. Also, it should have those nifty nose+mustache+glasses disguise things, to make it look goofy instead of Uncanny Valley.

Also, I have a new ORDER: NOW THIS IS DRONE-RACING. We certainly need to give our people some downtime, but the last thing we want is to give them time to brood too much. The one blessing of constant work is keeping their mind of darker thoughts.

Thus, I propose a theme party: DRONE RACING. Every contestant will be given control of a hoverdrone, which they must decorate with their own "colors." Then, (using vidscreens and manual controls,) they've got to race them around a track in the main cargo bay that we ourselves will construct and populate with appropriate hazards.

The winner gets to address the Captain by any pet name they choose for the next month.

Yes. we'll give them some personal time before this (enough for them to all collapse and sleep,) so they're rested for the party, and afterwards they'll get some personal time where they can do anything they want.

Additional ORDER: Ask the Doctor to see Parsons about some sleep aids. Perhaps even have the Doc SLIP Parsons some sleep aids on a pretense.

>>15581857
This.
Standard protocol when you want to talk to a crew member in a private area: Send a chime, 5 seconds after the chime activate microphones, then let them give their okay to you putting on the video. That way if someone decides to rub one out they don't have to worry about you being all ceiling cat about it.

>jack sfist
Yes, Captcha, he jacks his fist.

>>15582046
>If you want to use it as a throw-away joke, fine, but it shouldn't be the regular avatar we use. It should be used when we want levity and silliness and when all parties in the room are in the mood for that.

If you wish. However, we should attend the party WITH THE DRONE, if we attend at all. (It might be a good idea to let them have some fun without EL CAPTAINO looking over their shoulders.)

>>15582046
It's only for when we need a physical presence.
The first time it'll probably look silly, with the hat crooked and the coat bursting at the seams, and the rank insignia upside down.
But it can be made to look serious, and we may want a physical avatar for some functions.
Other times, a holographic avatar of us as we were when alive should suffice.

>>15582072
>That way if someone decides to rub one out they don't have to worry about you being all ceiling cat about it.

The way you phrased that really brought home the problem in an understandable way. The Captain would probably only utilize the EI component of himself for ship management and such, and go visit his senior officers in person, so this must be a rude change-up for them.

>>15582028
Seconding not freaking out the crew.

For the gate network was there one in every system or just at key systems?

>1. Would it be possible to strip the base's weapons and other protective systems to provide parts for the repair of our own devices, or to augment damaged systems if repair is not possible?
Likely, you would have to assign people and drones to the task though. Also the energy cannons are probably worse off than the ones on your ship due to being in-atmo for all this time. Oxygen gives you life but also corrodes to hell.

2. Could we take the base's mobile units, such as the hovertanks, to be used for future adventures groundside?
Sure, if you want. Your heavy shuttles should be capable of transporting them without problems.

>3. Is it possible to increase the Harbinger's cargo space, such as with jettisonable pods, and maintain FTL capability?
No. You couldn't even do it and maintain your currently working shield or even ability to move via engine thrust since they would probably shear off under the strain.

>4. Does it look like it's going to be possible to salvage any of the starships from the graveyard or use their parts to repair or augment Harbinger systems?
Probably not, but you're currently scanning anyway just in case.

'k, for more serious points

1) I agree we need to give the crew some kind of time to rest. Lightened workload, that kind of thing, where possible. Maybe groundside/topside shifts- the base, we know, has weight rooms and, presumably, other forms of entertainment (since bored grunts on garrison duty tend to get violent, fast).

2) We kid of need to think about how we want to parcel out our cargo space, since we're going to need to be A LOT more self sufficient. Like the tanks, I mean, are we really likley to need them? meanwhile, there's probably tools down there we could use- I'm sure we have a machine shop, or had, at any rate, and it may be nice to be able to get it up and running, if necessary. Similarly, we'll need room if we elect to use hydroponics. and we're going to need to pull up as much of the consumables as we can.

...that's all I got, for now. anything anybody else can think of?

>>15582100
No less a rude change-up than finding themselves 65,000 years in the future, with the Empire gone, all family gone, half the crew gone, the ship in horrible condition, the only thing to eat being bean paste, etc.

>>15582078
>>15582088

My argument for using a silly looking drone only when levity is required is that the captain needs to conduct himself with a certain amount of gravitas. He's the ultimate authority on the ship. So far we've been playing the captain straight; more Captain Picard than Captain Tylor. It wouldn't be healthy for the crew to change that.

>>15582059
>EPIC RANDOM FOR THE LULZ XD

No.

>>15582119
Vedibere, can we check the base's database for a catalog or manifest of all of the crated up supplies, and see if there's more rations, and of what type?

>>15582122
did we wake up the cargomaster, because he might be able to help with #2. and sorting through the base's stuff.

>>15582059
This would also give them all some training with piloting drones. If a situation came up that caused us to be so preoccupied that we couldn't control our drones, it would probably be a situation serious enough that they would need to be able to handle their shit.

>>15582119
Begin bringing the base's mobile units aboard. We might as well get Ivanova's opinion on how many we should carry, with our cargo space limited.

Have the base's protective systems examined for usefulness as far as repair or replacement of our own stuff goes.

>>15582157
Yes, we should check the database if we haven't done so already. There must be at least a listing of what is here and where it is.

We should also be wary of the signal those non imperial probes were sending to other places. Somebody could know we are here if they have missed a regular check in. See if we can fake a check in.

>Vedibere, can we check the base's database for a catalog or manifest of all of the crated up supplies, and see if there's more rations, and of what type?
Christ, fine, yes, it's all there.

Yes, there are food stocks. They are military rations, much like the ones you have on the ship. There is actually quite a bit there, since this was a base meant to house thousands and there's no sense in evacuating food.

Please guys, use common sense. Answering questions takes time away from what is already a painfully slow writing pace.

>>15582122
We can't adequately track our future needs without more information on the current state of the galaxy. Better to have a couple of tanks in storage than to wander off without them and wish we hadn't.

>>15582148

That leaves us with "reduced workload and time off," which certainly sounds like it'll be scintillating to write, and to read. After consulting with the officers on the FTL logs, I suppose we could repaint the bridge and watch it dry.

Is it possible to guess where the ships that could come to check up on those alien probes may jump into the system?

I'd like to set up a trap to try and catch some of them. Maybe we could place mocked-up probes that appear to just have completely malfunctioned, so that they would approach the probes and try to recover them so they could diagnose the problem later and replace the probe now.

>>15582229
Actually it would give him a lot of play for development of the other characters. And given that this is Vedibere, it'll be well written character development.

>>15582220

Granted, but keep in mind, we've got no marine contingent, so if we DO end up having to face groundside combat, it'll probably go pretty badly either way.

it's possible, at some point, we'll stumble across a troopship or something, I mean, we're probably not the first ship to get hulked out in space, AND we know where the place is- unless it's too far, we can always come back here later, should we really need to.

ALSO:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony

Similar to the mid-mission pinewood-derby race nuclear submarine crews have in "Sherwood Forest," amongst the missile tubes. They tilt the entire ship 23 degrees nose-forward to provide a slope for the home-made cars.

LOLRANDUMZ on professional warships?

Never.

>>15582324
WE CAN RAPE THEM FROM SPACE!

>>15582324
If we do get drawn into ground combat, it will be better for us to have some actual ground vehicles to supplement our extremely limited crew complement, our drones, and our shuttles/fighters.

I'm not going to count on finding a troopship later, and I'm not going to count on being able to just pop back here whenever we need to. I think we should carry a couple of rovers and tanks with us, just in case.

It's not like we can't push them out the airlock if we find that we really, really need the space. And if you're planning on jumping back to the base anyway, we can put the tanks back where they were instead.

Frankly, unless we're attempting to stuff the Harbinger's hold with other things, I don't see a downside to carrying a few ground vehicles.

>>15582374

That's kinda what I'm getting at, yeah. unless they're in an empire-made underground base, like this one, in which case, the theory of "fuck this, I'm going home" may apply.

>>15582229
>>15582364
I could always go into excruciating detail about the "You have got to be kidding. Seriously? Now?" reactions to funny mustaches and drone races. While in theory entertaining for a crew in a home port or a leisurely sail, they are less than OH MAN THIS IS SO AWESOME AND GREAT for a bunch of people who learned mere days ago they lost half of their crewmates, all of their family, their entire way of life, and possibly their entire purpose in life since they ARE soldiers who signed up to defend the Empire.

In that case, we shouldn't fret so much about providing concrete feedback.

>>15582389

true. I guess I'll kind of hold future arguments on the point till we find out how much stuff from the base we're going to need, and how much stuff that'll take up. I mean, if we have room, i guess, sure, why not?

Any word from Dai about the gates yet?
Otherwise keep on keepin' on.

In situations like there where there is very little for us ourselves to do, we should do a timeskip until something interesting happens.

>>15582490

There is stuff to do though. Attending to the crew's mental health, making our interactions with them more comfortable for them, preparing for the aliens, setting repair and salvage priorities, ect.

>>15582411
Here's some concrete things to do:
Thaw out the rest of the crew.
Begin ferrying new flavors of rations up to the ship for everyone.
Set up a new schedule with Ivanova so that everyone has 2 days of light duties and 5 days of regular duties.

Once Dai has satiated most of his curiousity about the Gate, have him go down to the base and see what its workshops are like, and if he can begin making tools to construct the tools needed to make some of the more advanced repairs on the Harbinger.

So, with less lolrandumb, ideas for improving crew moral:

Activate the rest of the sleepers. We've got plenty of food and water now, and more manpower is good.

Funerals for the dead with full honors. Encourage people to write a few words for it.

A chime before we comm in on people. I wouldn't hobble ourself so far as to not turn on video till they respond, but a little warning before we start talking to them is good.

Cut the work hours to a sustainable pace, allow for some personal time, try and get a few R&R activities going so people can try and act human.

>>15582513
>setting repair and salvage priorities
Speaking of which, what are your repair priorities. I'm trying to look through and find some but it's been a while since you stated them. Last I remember it was weapons and shields?

>>15582411
>for a bunch of people who learned mere days ago they lost half of their crewmates, all of their family, their entire way of life, and possibly their entire purpose in life since they ARE soldiers who signed up to defend the Empire.

Well, since distractions are out of the question, I guess we could put a positive spin on losing half their crewmates, everybody they ever knew or loved, their entire way of life, the entire galaxy as they knew it, the purpose they've devoted their entire lives to, and the fact that they're now alone and vulnerable in a completely unknown, likely hostile galaxy.

Shouldn't be too hard.

>>15582541
Yes, weapons and shields are highest priority.

>>15582556
y u do dis?

Go shit in a 40k thread or something.

>>15582541
Repair priority:
1. Shields: restore main shield to 50%, and attempt to restore the hull shield to 50%
2. Reactor
3. Engines
4. Weapons: concentrate on the easy stuff, like the railguns.

Look for tools in the supplies in the base, and try to get the workshops running again.

>>15582592
Don't forget the sensors.

>>15582490

Plenty to do though. We need a list from our DM of about what we can find that's useful to us, and the space it'll take to stow things. I still say we're gonna need to look at where we'd like to go next, though there's no kind of rush on that (and maybe that's something we could discuss with out command crew). It'd be nice to get our working crew some time ground side to cool off- again, it's a garrison base, there's going to be recreational facilities.

I'm against the captain drone, just because it's not the best idea for promoting that we, as captain, are all there. Perhaps later, when the crew's more adjusted to what's up, or we get some really good news, but till then, no, the chime system is solid enough.

A void burial of our deceased crew's probably a good idea, Help get some closure that way. one suggestion, though, is to wait on that till we leave the system- help form a psychological 'distancing' by allowing a physical one. Like, this is where we went to get our shit back together, and become a fighting vessel of the glorious Empire again, and after we leave, it's 100% on mission. that should help morale too.

>>15582541
>Speaking of which, what are your repair priorities. I'm trying to look through and find some but it's been a while since you stated them. Last I remember it was weapons and shields?

Can we get a status report on the current state of the ship? We've repaired the hull, reactor and engines a bit but how much overall?

Along with food, we need to bring up what ammo we can. Both for small arms and to restock whatever larger guns our ship has functional.

But yeah, repair priority is guns and shield strength.
Rail guns, missile tubes, and maybe one or two of our bigger ones.

>>15582541

If I remember correctly we only had two of our eight rail cannon working, and none of our plasma weapons (point defense lasers were working well though).

We should go ahead and make repairs to the rail guns. The orbital platforms here make it obvious we won't need the plasma cannons right now anyway, and having the extra rail gun firepower will mean we can deal with aliens on our own terms. We'll be nearly on-par with an orbital platform.

From last thread I got the impression that getting two or three more rail cannon working would be the low hanging fruit for improving combat readiness. We should grab that fruit!

How about our shields? Anything we can do to get those other three layers working?

>>15582586

Okay, I can be constructive. The reality is that there's nothing we can do to make the situation better, besides try and keep them focused on their work whilst we constantly invent new underlying purposes for our continued struggles, all of which are pretenses. The crew will desperately try to keep nightmares and despair at bay with ever-increasing amounts of 'therapeutic' drugs, which will eventually work evils of their own.

And so we will fly through the black void of space, ever circling 'round the mouth of madness.

... admit it, you'd read that.

I posted some before but I wasn't quite caught up, so I guess I'm kind of new. Namefaggin' so people can tell me not to spam in case I post too fucking much.

Vedibere, great quest thread, just read the whole thing from beginning to end. Fucking awesome, man.

>>15582541
Repair priorities did include weapons, shields, and the reactor after we got life support up and running, but I propose we:

-Get the reactor to a point of COMFORTABLE STABILITY
-Devote the lion's share of repair efforts to IMPROVING REPAIR CAPACITY ITSELF (not all our repair drones and systems are up and running, fixing them will shorten overall repair time)
-Rely on the MILITARY BASE and SAT NET DEFENSES to protect us in the meantime and devote all other repair capacity to weapons and shields.

>>15582533
>Activate the rest of the sleepers
As soon as the doctor's assistant has recovered from cryo-shock, we should do this. We no longer have ANY good reasons to keep them frozen now that we have enough food and life support capacity to keep them alive and well, and they're owed explanations.

>Funerals for the dead with full honors. Encourage people to write a few words for it.
We haven't actually made any attempts to understand if the dead are relivable or anything, so we should at least hold on to their bodies. Sixty eight thousand years is a long time for medical science to advance.

>A chime before we comm in on people
Yep. There was mention of rebuilding your body with augmentations and cybernetic implants and so forth in a previous thread - there's potential that the captain could be back without looking like fucking Frankenstein.

>Cut the work hours to a sustainable pace, allow for some personal time, try and get a few R&R activities going so people can try and act human.
Seconding.

>>15582556
>>15582586
>>15582697
>MORALE

Couple things people may not have considered, and Vedibere's not ruled out:

1) OUR CIVILIZATION CONTROLLED SINGULARITIES. Singularities alter space and TIME. And various people have had ample time to improve upon that technology, potentially.

There is a chance that someone has developed a way to send people through time. There is some possibility we can find out how to do this and fix things, though it may be slim or useless. Telling the crew we're willing to give it a whirl is bound to at least make them feel like we're engaged with the problem.

2) Improving morale the traditional way: There's something captains in the Napoleonic era and so forth used to do - they'd sit down with the officers and men in the hold for a bit of news and indoctrination, delivered in person.

They'd read various cornerstone documents that their civilization was concerned with (often bibles, declarations of war, etc), share personal or institutional views, and generally tell the people below them why they were in this fight, taking questions at times.

If we did the same thing with our fully assembled crew, we could head off a lot of problems.

So, to consolidate all suggestions so far:

1. Implement a lighter duty schedule, effective immediately. Order everybody to get some sleep, with chemical assistance if necessary.
2. Repair priorities are heat dispersal systems (directly related to weapon, engine and shield operation, so that's three birds with one stone,) and weapons, specifically railguns. Railguns are simple, durable, easy to fix and hard to break, which explains why we've got any on this ship at all - backup weapons. Time to exploit that.
3. Thaw remaining enlisted engineers and crew, since we desperately need the manpower and our food situation is now remedied.
4. Ship up the hovertanks and some heavier personal weapons from the Army base; we've got cargo space to spare and if we desperately need the room later we can always push it out the airlock.
5. Also ship up the food (obviously.)

Anything I'm missing?

>>15582765

Picked the first name that popped up. looks like my old zeonquest handle.

And I agree. We need to have a staff meeting at some point, maybe a week or two from now, when we're settling down to the meat of getting back to operational, talk with the crew, that kind of thing. Morale, like anything else, is an expendable resource, we need to husband what we've got left.

Repairs should be on getting our repair capacity as close to 100% as possible, then on the reactor, shields, then hull and weapons. I know we're not going to get to 100% on anything without a shipyard, but still, better that than nothing.

>>15582800
>Additional
6. Have the engineers continue to analyze the data cores of the captured probes.
7. Get a report from Parson regarding the other planets in this system.
8. Once Dai is finished with the Gate, have him and the Engineering section try to reactivate the workshops on the base, and repair the ones on the ship. This should help in repairs.

>>15582800
9. Make sure none of those probes we are dissecting miss a check in. Somebody is watching this planet and they WILL likely know something has happened when one of the probes misses a check in.
10. See if there is anything else to learn about the gate system

>>15582765

Last thread somebody suggested telling Parsons that if he survived 64k years in a cryopod, perhaps his fiancee did too. Vedibere rather >implied that wound end badly. Time travel is an even longer shot.

>They'd read various cornerstone documents that their civilization was concerned with (often bibles, declarations of war, etc), share personal or institutional views, and generally tell the people below them why they were in this fight, taking questions at times.

Except the fight - and the nation they were fighting for - are both dust.

Suggestions on this matter are either insufficient or actively unwanted, so I motion we drop it.

>>15582800
You're doin' good, Anon.

Except we might need those hovertanks to secure the R&R area we mentioned setting up planetside, so let's only get like half of them maybe?

Also, maybe we can lend the doctor some of our drones and the processing capacity to run them right out of our own databanks so we can figure out what flora and fauna are edible a bit faster.

Also, we should prioritize a FEW (like, three) likely looking, nearby derelicts to cannabilize. Perhaps larger ones, ones that don't look too damaged, et cetera. Could get something useful.

>>15582872
>time travel
There's no way to know if it's a long shot unless OP says so, and even then telling the crew you'll consider anything for the sake of fixing their future shock, regardless of expectations, should reinforce their loyalty and morale. You can either be open to any possibility, or be the guy that went with likely outcomes after surviving for 68 millenia. How likely is it that you're all still here, let alone sane?

>Except the fight - and the nation they were fighting for - are both dust.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that you're going to be pulling out the Imperial Charter and reading it off like you're oblivious. It means you'd be talking about the situation and the meaning of their continued existence in the face of the march of time, goals, mission drift, and other relevant things.

The alternative is NOT making an organized effort at bucking them up, including philosophically. If there are suicides later, I'd rather have done everything in my power to keep people sane.

Verdibere, you haven't answered whether or not we possess a "lounge" or other such room for the crew to relax in.

I grew up around sailors, and let me tell you, if we don't have one, then the men do.

It might boost morale to divert some resources into rebuilding such a room/joining the men in some relaxation. A poker night or the Ophidian equivalent.

I'm on board with most of that, except for the "time travel reset button" gambit. False hope just distracts people from their real jobs.

I'll also second staying on those probes. Getting some translations going and being able to contact whoever left them here would be a good next step, if we can manage it. Or hell, signal them in our own language if we have to, for all we know their history experts still understand it.

>>15582932
>telling the crew you'll consider anything for the sake of fixing their future shock, regardless of expectations, should reinforce their loyalty and morale
Really? Because I think it will only reinforce how desperate we've become and how we're grasping at non-existent straws.

>>15582972

Makes sense, to a degree. we know they know there's at least one world with firepower far in advance of anything they have, that they want to get at, so it'd make sense they have experts that would speak the language, or, at the very least, understand it.

>>15582932
>There's no way to know if it's a long shot unless OP says so

I believe he was bitching upthread about people asking questions with obvious answers.

>>15582947
>Verdibere, you haven't answered whether or not we possess a "lounge" or other such room for the crew to relax in.

Same goes for you. Likely we DO have a lounge, but we've no way of knowing if it's usable (trashed or depressurized) since it's hardly a priority.

But yeah, if they want to play UNO or Space Invaders I'm sure there's somewhere on the ship they can.

>>15582995
Not necessarily.
The current designs used by the locals are likely to be several generations of derivatives from the original technology. There's no guarantee that they even know what the Ophidian Empire was originally called, let alone the language.

I support performing a funeral service for our dead crew. Either we space them with pomp and circumstance, a somber but heartening speech, or we go planetside, dig a set of graves, and hold our ceremony there.

In addition, our databanks may hold films, music, or other material. Let's find a set of entertainment, or culturally significant films to holodisplay to the crew during their down time. Something to inspiring, but respectful. I'm thinking like a documentary about the empire of humanity reaching to the stars, the unextinguishable sense of manifest destiny. Something that would have inspired our crew to join up and reach for the stars in the first place.

As for music, whatever matches their taste. Ideally, something light and memetic. If it gets stuck in your head, then you have a sound track to accompany everything you do for a day. Music can tame the savage beast & all that.

>>15582765

Old empire material would be a bit of a downer though, due to it not being around anymore.

>>15583063

Actually, probe analysis revealed that the languages at least were using the Universal Common alphabet, the one used by the Ophidian Empire. Given that the Empire was the one common, universal presence through most of this part of the galaxy, our own language has probably survived in some form as a trade language.

Also Universal Translators, that shit just been handwaved.

>>15583047
He's mentioned spacetime manipulation capacities. It is no longer an obvious answer, just one with two extremely obvious implications for the entire rest of the quest depending on the answers.

If the answer is yes, the quest is about potentially saving the Empire. If the answer is no, the quest is about dealing with reality.

Either is pretty interesting.

>>15582947
>lounge?

There's likely enough cargo space to make one if there's not one, but this is a ship with long-term deployment factored into its design. It will have recreational areas, official or otherwise.

Let's CHECK that the recreational areas are UNDAMAGED AND FUNCTIONAL next action.

>>15583094

Eh, I'm really against all these "find something fun for the crew to do" plans. It's just going to come across as what it is; trying to smooth things out.

I think the funeral is a good idea, but frankly, we shouldn't be this scared of letting them have some free time to think whatever the fuck they want in. Sure, some of them will get depressed. They should, because what has happened to them is really depressing. But they'll need to grieve sometime and it might as well be now while we're in a nice auto-guarded system with plenty of food.

Have the funeral. Give them a chance to grieve. And then we (hopefully) move on.

>>15583112
>Actually, probe analysis revealed that the languages at least were using the Universal Common alphabet, the one used by the Ophidian Empire
I never said this. What I said was completely different.

>Also Universal Translators
I never ever EVER said this. No such thing except in sci-fi, that you know of.

>>15583097
1812 overture during the ceremony.

And hold on to the bodies for the moment. If we manage to get our own original body working again, we won't be able to justify spacing those of dead crew or letting them decompose on some dirtball when we could have revived them.

That's the funny thing about quest-style threads; how people will suddenly, en-masse, get hung up on some small detail like redecorating the rec lounge rather then voting and/or discussing more interesting things.

Whether or not this proves constructive or not is entirely up to the writefag, of course.

Seconding the notion of filling our crew with nationalistic pride. Old films about humanity's start does indeed seem like a great idea. We need our crew to be proud of what they did, and what they are, meanwhile filling them with purpose and the resolve to proceed. We may be the empire now, and it's up to us to see to it's glory!

>>15583154
>we won't be able to justify spacing those of dead crew or letting them decompose on some dirtball when we could have revived them.
You mean cloning the bodies? Because they're dead, and they weren't uploaded into EI's before the incident that put us in stasis.
Cloning them would just create a bunch of people with the same DNA, but they wouldn't be the crew members who died.

What are you talking about, because you're not making any sense.

>>15583162
Are you sure that won't make them more depressed, by reminding them of what they've lost?

I'm supporting this guy >>15583145
All of these team-building exercises are shallow and obvious, and insult the intelligence and professionalism of the crew.

>>15583153

Well, fuck it. There's just too much to keep track of and I won't ctrl-f the archives for everybody else who won't. I'll just assume you'll ignore already answered questions, then.

>>15583195
Positive. We can't have the crew doubting itself. They need to be reassured they made the right decision, and staying with us and living business as usual style is in their best interest. All we can do is support a positive image of both the empire, and their decision to serve it.

So some thoughts, tl;dr: contacting Sol, risk management.

On contacting Sol - this relates to the Empire and the fate of humanity.

I see five possibilities:

- Humanity could be extinct aside from us, with various portions of its former assets taken over by others.
- Humanity could be extremely diminished, unpopular, corrupted and dangerous to be near, or unrecognizable and difficult to identify with.
- Humanity could have survived and split into a number of factions of unknown ethical fiber and capacity.
- Humanity could have maintained the Empire, and the Empire could have changed sufficiently to motivate us not to rejoin it.
- Humanity could have survived with or without the Empire and undergone minor enough changes in terms of culture and society, let alone capacity, to be non-threatening to us.

Four out of five of these scenarios present possible threats.

WHY THIS MATTERS: Two-way tightbeam communication requires telling the other party your position. Sol is the likeliest place for us to check and see if humanity to have survived in any recognizable form, and we should decide ASAP if we want to contact the homeworld.

It's a significant risk, but the possible reward is great. Do we have opinions on this?

>>15583267
Contacting Sol. That's one huge leap, and frankly, we're not ready for it. We should finish looting, and see to getting the ship combat ready first. Then if and when we get around to doing it, I'd suggest making a jump somewhere else first, and playing it by ear there.

For now, Sol and whatever news it may hold simply provides too great of a threat to morale, and survivability of the ship.

>>15583267
>implying our FTL tightbeam transmitters can reach Sol

Those were probably dependent on the same kind of re-transmitting substations that the base was programmed to send local sensor log reports to.

>>15583180
I mean that the Empire had the technology to replace most of the human body including the spine, create mind-machine interfaces and cranial implants that could pick out individual thoughts at a subtle enough level to keep specific information secret, and plenty more we don't know about yet.

I also mean that a lot of the dead crew are in cryo-tubes or were preserved in hard vacuum, which isn't bad for keeping degradation at bay.

Vedibere did not rule out this possibility in relation to our body, and in fact said to consult the doctor and engineer.

We should check if we can repair the damage to their bodies and brains as well as doing so to our own. We should expend every option in terms of getting them going again before we toss them out the airlock or let them rot on some planet.

>>15583195
Loss is a great and terrible sadness. But one of the truly remarkable qualities that a human being has, is that he or she can only be sad up to a certain point. After this point, this upper capacity for emotional content, that human emotion and passion dissipates. . . That rage and frustration and bitterness; the sadness and emptiness and loneliness; the aching soul-crushing sense the you are alone in a universe that hasn't a care for you at all, that fades.

After that, pragmatism remains. Also, ennui mixed with boredom, which while is bad for initiative and proactiveness, is still useful for receiving and completing orders.

Also, I vote support for contacting the homeworld. If a hostile response is generated, we (being a very powerful warship) stand a good chance of handling it (Or jumping out). More likely though, we will get no response. But that alone is worth the try.

>>15583312
>Those were probably dependent on the same kind of re-transmitting substations that the base was programmed to send local sensor log reports to.
Wrong. Specifically stated in the last session that our FTL comms was state-of-the-art when we left drydock, and so can provide near-instantaneous communication to anywhere in the galaxy.

>>15583332
Vedibere was specifically talking about growing a new human body for us, and plugging in enough cyberware that we would control it as a meat puppet.

There is no way to bring back the dead crewmembers. They are DEAD and they are NOT COMING BACK; we have to deal with that reality.

>>15583312
>>15583305
So, what if you replace 'Sol' with 'nearest potentially civilized system?'

Because we need to tell the crew something about our goals in any upcoming address or there will simply be questions. It's not like our orders hold a lot of relevance if there's no nation or human race to make those orders worth executing for.

Aside from that, we should endeavor to get a grip on this future-shock condition. We could define it as whatever effects the crew and the EI suffer from due to the extreme shift in the timescale since last waking, and try to treat it psychologically or something.

However, it seems that what the crew will need is a reason to go on existing given any potential problem up to and including being the last of their race.

'I'm the last of my kind' can be just as debilitating as it can be cautionary.

>>15583355
>Wrong. Specifically stated in the last session that our FTL comms was state-of-the-art when we left drydock, and so can provide near-instantaneous communication to anywhere in the galaxy.

So a planetary-based military installation equipped with surface-to-orbit weaponry, a shielding system, and a reactor big enough to power the whole shebang has a less powerful commo rig then we do?

I think it's time to turn off the computer, crack open a beer and pop in that DVD I rented. "Hobo with a Shotgun." Direct, unrefined, but powerful in it's simplicity. True cinema.

>>15583378
Bad news would do a toll on crew efficiency. As it stands there's a possibility that there's still hope out there. Eventually we'll need that answer, we'll probably need it soon. But let's get things together a little bit more first.

Sol is the best place to look. If humanity decided to hold out anywhere it'd probably be there. and if there are splinter factions, that's probably where the empire held out (or it's successor).

>>15583355
Our FTL Comms are awesome, but currently broken. Previous suggestions including attempting to use the captured probes FTL comms, because even though they are weaker, they work to a degree. We may need to hook our powersupply to them for best results, and so would require time & effort from engineering.

First of all, great to see this thread again!

Second of all: Damn, how much can tg discuss for one quest? O.o

Third of all: I vote on attempting to improve morale, taking up more supplies (including, possibly, those hover tanks), and also looking into the info stored on the gate's computer core.

>>15583408
Base comm was mothballed & dismantled. Too bad, because it was likely as powerful as ours

>>15583408
If you would read through Vedibere's post again, the relay to the deep space FTL comm sat was done after the base was shutdown and working on minimal power.

>>15583444
We haven't progressed at all in 3 hours.

This gate. FTL was not an uncommon thing, maybe these were cheaper, I dunno. But what if this whole gate thing is becuase humanity went somewhere else? Like somewhere far, far off. Our priority should be understanding this gate, how it works, why it was implemented, a look at the wider network it functions in, if possible. We should devote heavy resources to this task while we still can.

>>15583378
>So, what if you replace 'Sol' with 'nearest potentially civilized system?'

And we'll communicate with them in what language? Since apparently we share no common tongue and automated translation defies the power of two trillion exoflops and cultural/linguistic databases covering thousands of subjugated or enslaved races.

I'm all for discussion, I love it, but anything more precise then the general state of the entire galaxy defies even vague theorizing because our current amount of info equals jack shit, given the way the Army and Navy wiped their computers before leaving this system. Furthermore, our long-range scanners are properly fucked at the moment. That's the reality, in-story. Metastory, writefag doesn't want us to know shit, so we don't know shit. We're going to be jumping blind.

Deal with it.

So maybe we should plan our next move?

Sorias: Territorial world, claimed by Phllias Mining Conglomerate. Nitrogen-Sulfur atmosphere, Significant deposits of Gallium, Nickel, Tungsten, Platinum, and various silicates. Nonintelligent, nondangerous bioforms present.

Kuril: Subject world; Ophidian traffic only. Home to the Avarai, late 4rd degree civilization. Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere. Significant deposits of Iron, Nickel, Tungsten, various silicates. Intelligent, subject bioforms present, humans present. Subjugated OY 19227.

Palalion IV: Subject world; Sealed. Home to the Palaxi, early 5rd degree civilization. Sulfur-rich atmosphere. Small deposts of most terran elements. No bioforms present. Subjugated OY 19229. **Warning: Hazardous molten terrascape; planetary bombardment circa 19229.**

Kraxus: Subject world; Sealed. Colony of the Palaxi, early 5th degree civilization. Sulfur-rich atmosphere. Large deposits of most terran elements. Intelligent, subject bioforms present. Population <100,000. Subjugated OY 19229.

>>15583463
THREE HOURS? You've got to be kidding. Vedibere, my priorities stand as THUS:
1st) Morale
2nd) Supplies and Equipment
3rd) Gate Datacore

>>15583408
>and pop in that DVD I rented. "Hobo with a Shotgun." Direct, unrefined, but powerful in it's simplicity. True cinema.

Just finished watching that. It's got a very Funny Games vibe, but that might just be the two villainous kids in it. Sage for off-topic.

>>15583482
I like the idea of Sorias first. A) huge industrial complex should have materials for fabrication and repair. Workshops maybe. B) it's got "Non dangerous Bioforms" - - That spells "Food" in my language. Maybe even capture and farm the critters? Domesticate them? C) I am reluctant to head to any worlds which held non-human life at the moment.

>>15583459

So our own reactor, which is at a fraction of its total output, shouldn't be able to fully power our own FTL array either, then....

>Oh look Void Quest!
>?????????????????
>No Profit thus far....

>>15583482
Actually, I think we should recheck our astronavigation databanks, and see what new planets are now in range of our FTL jump.
Those planets were only those in range at our last position.

>>15583518
I think our Reactor is at 100%. It was tough enough to handle a FTL jump. . . so a transmission should be powerable, if we had a transmitter that worked.

>>15583482

Thanks for the copypasta, I was looking for it. Yes, the mining world is our best bet - no subject races camping out, more amenable atmo, high probability of finding capital-scale equipment we could salvage or gut.

Naturally there might be somebody else mining those rich resources, but fuck it.

>>15583536

The engineer was pretty clear that we shouldn't strain it too much, and give it as much time as possible between jumps.

>>15583488
More or less seconding.

For Vedibere:

Repair priorities as discussed in:
>>15582592
>>15582698
>>15582800
>>15582838

If the dead are definitely unrevivable, proceed with traditional naval burial. Otherwise, keep them in cryo-tubes.

Morale-raising and a less punishing task schedule should be implemented, as discussed above. Two days off a week is fine by me.

Wait until the medical assistant has recovered, then thaw the rest of the crew, wait until they're more or less together, and have a staff meeting for morale-boosters and indoctrination. We should speak to command staff about goals and so forth in the meantime, and get a grip on the situation as best we can.

If time travel is out for meta reasons, obviously we don't have any reason to talk about it, but we'll let the crew know we're committed to them and their concerns as captain, lay out our goals, and break any news we can on the basis of not keeping them in the dark unless command staff encourage us to keep it from them ahead of time due to morale-breaking consequences. Distrust breeds distrust in situations like these.

>>15583547
>more amenable atmo
What? How is a Nitrogen-Sulfur atmosphere more amenable?

>>15583533
Seconding.
>>15583536
Nowhere near 100%, IIRC, but stable and capable of jumps. Not capable of long-range sensor sweeps, not exactly risk-free for jumping to random places.

>>15583568

It tastes delicious? Yeah, it's got that rich hearty burn going down, so you know it's fresh!

>>15583595
We should precalculate a jump to Sorias, and store it in memory. Then, if an emergency strikes, we can jump as soon as the Jump Drive charges and spins up. Yes, we shouldn't jump more than once a month, but it doesn't hurt to do the work early.

>>15583675
Seconding if it's feasible.

I think Vedibere may actually beat WD with this break. Or were we just up and abandoned?

Incidentally, whatever happened to Dragon Quest? Anyone from the IRC have some insider information of that one?

You sift through the list of supplies remaining on the base and find plenty to be thankful for. Military rations of varying types to replenish dwindling food stocks; repair parts for computer systems and basic machinery to keep your systems and machine shops running; and even a small stock of raw production-level unisteel in the base machine shops along with several less exotic alloys. Not much, but enough to help with repairs on your heavy rail cannons.

Next, you move some of the repair drones to the hangars for the hovertanks and rovers. The ravages of time have worked on the sixty-foot behemoths, their once mirror-like sheen now looking dull and age-worn. Corrosion lightly touches the more delicate and vulnerable parts on some of the worse-off craft, but even after such an enormous span you know they should be serviceable. The Empire built things to last. You cautiously pilot hoverdrones into the cockpits of several hovertanks and rovers and, with much awkwardness, manage to clumsily manipulate the controls designed for human hands and reach. Lights flicker on the consoles and whines, almost like that of jet turbines spinning up, begin to fill the room as the hovertanks mini-reactors come online. Suddenly dust billows up around one, followed an instant later by two more and then another six as they lift into the air once more. Slumbering giants rising to the call of ancient masters after sixty-four thousand years of dormancy.

A quick systems check later and you are moving an armored, shielded convoy of advanced battle systems from their hangars and into the main atrium, past a shocked Tynes, and onto the surface even as the three heavy shuttles begin reentry to ferry them back.

Likewise, you find that the shield system is about half intact -- the half on the inside of the base, not the projectors outside. Still, as it’s useless without the projectors functioning you decide to assign some engineers to breaking it down for parts. After all, you have five shield generators of your own, and only one of them even functioning.

That taken care of, you set yourself to a much more important matter. The crew has been working themselves threadbare over the past month and it can’t continue. You quickly draw up a new schedule, allowing for days of light duty and free time. While you know that repairs will slow in theory, the reality is that unless they are allowed recovery time then morale and even ability to work at all will deteriorate even further. A short term sacrifice for a longer term gain. You leave the revised schedule as a note on Ivanova’s log with orders to implement it as soon as reasonably possible, conscious of the fact that while you could deliver the order personally it would likely be both rude and unsettling to employ the cameras and speakers in your XO’s -- or in truth any of your officer’s -- room without good reason.

A few quick notes to Dai (the man’s been linked to that computer core for going on 6 hours now...) and the engineers to assess the machinery groundside and lay out repair priorities and you switch to medbay just in time to see Dr. Burr pulling the curtain around his defrosted assistant’s bed to allow her to rest and recover. You fish through your databanks before speaking and find what you are looking for, the soft chime that announced a ranking officer coming aboard the ship. Good enough.

>>15583792
Oh, ye of little faith.

When it sounds Dr. Burr looks up, perplexed, “Hello, doctor. How is your assistant?”

He nods absently, rolling his chair over to a work counter away from the bed and leaning back before speaking softly, “Well enough. She took the news as well as can be expected I guess, and is sleeping now. Did you need something captain?”

“Yes, actually. I’d like to give the go-ahead for reanimating the rest of the crew, no point in keeping them in stasis now that we have enough food to last us for at least a year. But my main concern was with another aspect of the crew, mainly their mental health.”

The white-haired man sighs, “Yes, I was wondering when you would be asking about that. I have standard antidepressants and things of that nature for treating combat stresses, but I’m not sure if it would be wise to use them or not. Every chemical or drug has its uses and there’s no way to tell when or if we will be able to get more.”

He shifts a bit and continues, “I also have military issue psych indoctros, but I would advise against using them sir. They’ll get rid of the crew’s emotions for a few weeks but you know the effects from long term use as well as I do. If we’re the last humans -- and I’m not saying we are -- I’d rather not have them all gnawing off their own fingers.”

You give an audible sigh. Completely voluntary of course, but it conveys your emotions as well as any words. “Indeed. And how are you holding up, doctor? You don’t seem as put off by this as the rest of the crew, even the other officers.”

He gives a small smile, “My ‘lissa and kids were dead and gone two hundred years ago. Grandbabes were spread across the galaxy and out of contact, and I barely knew their kids or their kids kids.” He shrugs, “I joined the Armada for one more adventure a hundred years ago, and it hasn’t disappointed. I just see this all as the last, biggest step on the journey. Wherever it takes me.”

“I see, I’m sorry to hear about your family.”

He waves it off, “Hundreds of years ago, captain. Well, before I signed on for the Harbinger at least, I guess thousands now. I came to terms with it long ago. I’m more concerned with the crew coming to terms with their lost shipmates.”

“As am I,” you reply, “I would like you to prepare them for burial in the void as best you can. A ceremony should help give closure I think. At least, I hope so.”

“Yes, captain. I’ll also keep some viable DNA samples just in case.” He nods.

“Oh, and one more thing doctor. My... body. I believe your specialties were trauma and cyber-surgery? Both apply here, I think. Do you think it’s recoverable?”

Dr. Burr reaches up and scratches at his newly-grown beard, as white as his hair. “I talked with doctor Dai about this around the time we recovered you and were transporting it, but it had slipped my mind. Sorry about that captain, I’ve been rather busy lately and--”

“It’s no problem,” you interrupt, “I don’t mind at all. it was hardly reasonable to try to revive it at the time anyway, even if it could be done. But now that we are more stable I think it would be prudent to know everything I can about the situation.”

He nods, “Right. Sorry. Well... from what Dai said about the cybs, it might be possible. Supposedly the EI-subsumation process replaced your brain, spine, and major nerves with cyberware. That’s good, because I wouldn’t be able to replace any of those... not with what I have, and maybe not even with unlimited resources depending on the damage. The cold and fact we were in deep space should have preserved most of the rest too. Still, the eyes would need to be replaced; explosive decompression. Stomach and liver probably eaten away with acid and flooded with toxins from death, respectively. Lungs might or might not be in working condition. Your heart is already cybernetic anyway from a wound in battle if I recall, though?”

There’s a silence, broken by you ‘clearing your throat’, “Yes. And?”

“Oh! Right. I could replace the eyes and liver with what we have here. Stomach is iffy. If the lungs are shot, though, I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do. Afraid I can’t do the standard skin grafts for the eyes though... they’ll be exposed until we find some sort of advanced med facility. If we do. I’m afraid I don’t know what kind of damage your cyberware will have sustained, EI-ware is way beyond my level. Dai should know, though, from the way he is talking.”

“Thank you doctor. As a curiosity, could I transplant my nervous system to another body.?”

He frowns, “Impossible, you would need an entire medical staff of the best cyber-surgeons in the Empire, just like when they were installed in you. Anything else, captain?”

>>15583792
WD has irregular posting times, butt DQ is still going.

I have no idea what happened to Vedibere. Considering how he abandoned Omnipotence Quest, it's possible that he's fed up with the nature of /tg/ posters.

>>15583792
Sorry, perfect storm of you guys taking a while to decide, me answering lots of questions and it slowing writing down, lots of things that needed to be addressed, and a biiiig update. Also had to check for internal consistency on some things, and that took up more time than I thought it would.

>>15583808
Anyone else get a chuckle about spoken Tynes with My Tank Is Fight?

>>15583854
>speculate on the whereabouts of Vedibere
>imply he's abandoned us
>multi-post update the minute I hit submit
>feel like an asshole

>>15583840
"Actually, doctor, there is one more matter.
"Besides the viable DNA samples, perhaps we should also remove any and all cybernetics that the deceased had. There's no telling if we'll be able to get more cybernetic technology of our level, and it might be prudent to have...spares."

Also, if need be, I suppose we could use them as trade items.

>>15583860
Spooking, not spoken.

Action -> Check in on Dr. Dai. A man should only link to a computer core for so long without a marriage license. . .

>>15583873
Nah, it's cool. Not even gonna lie, I took way too long on that one.

>>15583907
In addition to this, let's check in on Dai. Politely ping him, and ask what he has been able to discern about the Gate Network.

>>15583941
Glad to see you're still around. Seems like /tg/ got hit with a wave a /b/ their for a minute, wouldn't have blamed ya for jumping ship.

Dai is the man we need to talk to. That gate is probably the most interesting thing we've yet to come across, and he may or may not be able to enlighten us on the whole having a body situation. Also, I'm sure he's turned up something interesting by now.

>>15583929
>>15583943
I would laugh if he was busy working on rewriting the gate control kernel or something like that.

"Yeah, I know how it works, but I can do it better! These people must have had their heads in their hindquarters. . . "

>>15583855
It happens, man. We're still here in the end, though.

>>15583840
>>15583941
I second checking on Dai as mentioned here: >>15583943
>>15583929
And asking him about the Gate Network, though we might want to ask his engineers to alert him to your presence first - he's kind of tinkering with a fucking black hole.

>>15583907
Seconding taking the cyberware out of the dead, assuming it isn't tailor-made. There's a chance that it's only going to be good for the person it's made for, though not a huge one.

Aside from that:

-Decide if we want a bit of planetside 'shore leave' for the crew during free time.
-Secure the area in question with military vehicles in the base if you decide to let them have said shore leave.
-Load any free military vehicles in storage, after getting food stocks, medical supplies, unisteel, etc aboard. Tell Tynes to coordinate with senior staff on what's useful after making the base's cargo manifest available to them, they'll sort things out.
-Engineering team needs to start assessing what to strip in-system, including the base and so forth.
-Check if you have any data from scans of the other worlds in-system (Parsons was tasked to scan them, and the base should have info on other installations), as well as any debris that look PARTICULARLY likely to be worth stripping.
-Prepare for the staff meeting, coordinating with senior officers about what's to be said and done and setting goals.


And, finally:

-MOVE THE SHIP INTO THE COVER OF THE DEFENSE STATELINESS, assuming it's still out on the other side of the system.

Did the captain have any family or close friends left behind before they disappeared?

>FOR FUTURE REFERENCE
If I take a long time to post one of three things has happened:
1. I am being slow and/or writing a lot.
2. My internet has died.
3. I have died or been incapacitated.

These are the only reasons I would just split without saying something.

...You know, it strikes me that one of the reasons to potentially have a human body is to allay any thoughts of EI/AI 'rebellion' or treason that may be lingering in the minds of, well, anyone.

>>15584004
>MOVE THE SHIP INTO THE COVER OF THE DEFENSE STATELINESS, assuming it's still out on the other side of the system.
This was already done last session.

>>15583829

We don't know what kind of medical technology we'll have access to beyond what is on the ship. We should ask about the viability of saving gametes from the deceased crew as well. After all, in vitro is much simpler than cloning.

If we're all that's left, we'll need all the help we can get in keeping the gene pool viable.

>>15583840

From the way he's talking, it sounds like he intends to use cyber replacements for the eyes and liver. That's fine, but for the parts he doesn't have cyberware equivalents for, would organ transplants be possible? We've got deceased here who were better preserved than our corpse, and some of them may be viable tissue matches. Although that could mean burning through the supply of drugs that are useful for anti-rejection...

>>15584027
Based on this knowledge, I posit that some additional unfortunate events may have occurred, such as
4. Being slow and/or writing a lot, while the internet has died.
5. Internet has died, and you have died, or been incapacitated.
6. You have died, the internet died, and that makes you slow.

Don't do anything particularly unlucky.

>>15584027

Don't die!

>>15584026
Yes, you had friends. Several quite close ones, in fact. Admiral Aurora Shael, for one. Others too, but I mean they were /your/ friends right...?

As for family, no. As a general rule people who become EIs don't have any because the military prefers it that way.

>>15584004
Now that we have access to ground combat vehicles, we should secure a perimeter around the military base and give our crew shore leave of a few days.
Being back on a planet, with non-processed air, should do them some good.

Parsons will give us his report when he's done; he's barely had a day yet to do the scans.

As for the staff meeting:
1. New Mission: Find any remnant of Humanity or the Ophidian Empire.
2. Rebuild the Empire once we find a remnant.

Immediate Goals: Restore primary shields, the railguns and a quarter of the Heavy and Medium Energy Cannons. Stabilize the reactor and Jump drive further.
Prepare for imminent contact with alien civilization.

>>15584142
>As a general rule people who become EIs don't have any because the military prefers it that way

Well, /that/ sounds ominous.

>>15584204
It's not like they kill them off or anything, they just don't pick the ones that do have it. I'm sure you've noticed by now that there are concerns about loyalty when one person has complete and total autonomy and ability to fly around a FTL warship that can glass planets.

>>15584159
I'd suggest that goals should include finding out exactly what happened to the Empire, and not repeating its failings.

If a civil war erupted because second-class citizens and aliens objected to their rights being trampled on and kicked the shit out of their oppressors, well, that's not something we'd want to repeat.

>>15584204

They put EIs in warships. The very best warship, in our case. You don't want a person who may be convinced by blood ties to abandon his allegiance to the Empire in direct and intractable control of your best weapons. You want a guy with no relatives to make pleas to him, one who is conservative and "wedded" to the idea of the Empire's military serving the Empire above all else.

You want a patriotic nerd.

If we do get our body cleaned up and reanimated, we should keep our eyes covered by a visor or something. Having a constant, unblinking stare is unnerving. Not to mention that normally they would dry out without lids.

>>15584142
I'm actually interested in our relationship with the previous captain. I assume she was the role model that inspired us to captaincy, at least, that's what I gathered from the memory/hacking session.

Vedibere, you have enough from us to work on? Or should we hammer out some more concrete actions?

>>15584300
Have we done anything with the 8 monitor satellites that were monitoring the planet that sent regular reports back to somewhere? It might be a bad idea for them to miss a report and have someone know something has happened here.


>>15584286
We were the first captain of this vessel.

You thank the doctor and leave him to his ever-increasing pile of assigned tasks, flicking over to the station instead. The sight that greets you is, well, unchanged. Dai and three of his engineers have formed a cybernetic neural net, the three plugged into access ports on the mechanical man’s body while the Chief accesses the lone port for the core. There are several more left, so you decide to join them.

###################

“--nd that’s why you never, ever invert the main deflector dish.” Dai finishes, his virtual avatar a short, asian man with glasses; all around the man hundreds of access links tie to various parts of the system and stream a constant flow of data into his virtual self. A remnant of his past you suppose, without special training one keeps the mental image of themselves they had prior to being cyberized. The strangest thing, though, is the broad grin the man wears... you don’t ever think you’ve seen him so happy in the real world.

The three engineers float around him, data streams flowing through them in far lesser numbers, drift off to other parts of the core in order to allow the two of you to talk in privacy. “Is there something you need, captain?

“Well, I’d like to know what you have found so far.” you reply, simultaneously reviewing the data your Chief Engineer is accessing. Unsurprisingly, technical readouts, functional statistics, and programming for the gate system.

He nods, lifting his hand and requesting an access link, which you grant, and then begins streaming a large flow of filtered information to you. It’s... well, amazingly well organized. Still, you shift to the summary and process that rather than sort through the details.

>Gate system analysis results: Main points;
>Point-to-Point jump network
>Power for the jumps provided by the gate, no need for a jump drive or any power to be provided by the ship
>Links to a set number of other gates within 5000 LY
>Can only transmit to and from online gates

“I have the principles down, the solution to the linking problem was actually quite elegant when I looked at it. Vaguely like something I was working on in my spare time. Designer was probably that idiot Ketro. Man had no vision. Cheaper to build this way, sure, but with a few alterations I could have extended the range by near--”

“Thank you, Chief,” You gently break in, "but I was wondering what the status of this gate itself is too.”

He shrugs, “Should work still. Take about a week to restore all the critical links that are cut if you want to use it, though.”

>>15584503
>Should work still. Take about a week to restore all the critical links that are cut if you want to use it, though.
Well, looks like we've got plans for the next week.

>>15584498
>>15584503

Oh man, this gate sure does sound like a great way to get around the problem with straining our core on jumps, doesn't it?

I bet there's nothing scary at all inside them either, and we'll probably still need our eyes to see in there.

What could possibly go wrong?

If we repair the gate we should put some failsafe's in that will disable it, if there aren't any currently. It could be disastrous if some other entity got a hold of this technology.

Do we know exactly how this gate technology is different from our standard FTL drives?

>>15584538
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Besides, what are our other options?

A) Don't go anywhere, use all rations and supplies, die slowly
B) Keep using our jump drive until we explode

>>15584286
She was the first captain you served under after your graduation from the academy and a sort of role model. The Hydra was the flagship of the Armada's fleet for a long time and she was one of the most decorated officers, so it was only natural. She took a liking to you for some reason and taught you quite a bit about strategy, tactics, politics, and life in general.

She was eventually promoted to Admiral and then High Admiral, becoming one of the few EIs to leave their ships. Leading member of the Imperial council and one of your staunchest supporters, while you think you would have gotten command of the Harbinger based on your merits and skills (both political and warfare-related) alone, her vocal support championing your candidacy /certainly/ didn't hurt.

There were rumors that the two of you had a brief relationship at one time, but nothing was ever proven.

>>15584555
>Do we know exactly how this gate technology is different from our standard FTL drives?
Yes.

>>15584605
How is it different?

>>15584615
It's strictly point to point and uses less energy because of that. Also it acts on other objects that pass through it rather than itself, like a normal drive would.

Does the gate have its own FTL communications link? It would be extremely helpful if we could use it to "see" the area around other gates, but that might have been seen as an unnecessary redundancy back in the days of the Empire.

>>15584627
Problem is we'll have to make sure another gate operational for us to arrive at.

So the real question is: Do the other alien civilizations have any of these gates operational, and will they be able to come through ours once it's online?

I noticed that an online gate can only transfer to another online gate, emphasis on the "online" part.

If we get this thing online, will be know if there is another gate online somewhere? I guess what I'm asking is, is it a possibility that we're going to enter this thing, targeting a gate that's no longer online, and end up just in between the two gates in some hellish area between spaces?

If we're going to use the gate, we should obviously send a probe or two through before we take the ship in.

>>15584570
>There were rumors that the two of you had a brief relationship at one time, but nothing was ever proven.

Well, did we? I feel like we'd remember that.

>>15584706
If both the departure and receiver gates are not online, the link can't be established in the first place.

Sooooo, wat do?

Also,
>>15584730
is right. It would take a pretty shoddy engineer to not know about basic safety protocols.

Y'know, since the gate doesn't require that the craft using it have a jump drive, we might be able to tow things through it. That might be helpful if we happen to locate a system with both a shipyard and a gate.

I'm assuming that the Empire operated both mobile shipyards and tugs to deal with vessels that lost jump capability. So there's that, too.

Is there a way to rig this thing up so that only we can travel through it? Maybe only make it turn on when we tell it to with a tightbeam comm signal? Because that would be the best course of action, from my point of view. Don't want the aliens to be able to sneak into our haven while we're away.

>>15584768
I suggest we timeskip until the gate is back online, if there are any other gates in range that are also online. If not, we won't be able to use it anyway, unless we jump to a connecting gate ourselves and reactivate it.

If there are no other gates online, keep skipping.

>>15584790

Could just train one of those autoguns on it with a good angle. Like put it right on the circle itself, so it could hit anything unauthorized immediately and couldn't be destroyed without threatening the gate itself.

>>15584808
We should do that anyway, but it's not a good idea to have that be our only defensive measure. If a vessel comparable to ours came knocking, I would rather have the gate close than let it come through so the satellites could plink at it.

It's not out of the question that a rebel ship survived the demise of the Empire just like we did.

I would like to ask if Dai can tell from here whether any of the other gates in range of here are online. Also, would we even be able to get data from any probe on the other end?

>>15584808
We should do both. Better safe than sorry.

>>15584826
From what I understand, the gate just acts like a stationary jump drive. Without an FTL link, we'd have to instruct the probe to gather information on the other side and then return.

I would like to point out the inconsistency of ordering your men to get more rest and then piling on even more things to do.

Where, exactly, in your priority list are these things going to be?

>>15584903
Clearly it's time to break out the whip.
>Get some rest boys! Work on that gate!
>We can't do both sir!
>Bullshit! You're just not resting hard enough ya slackers!

Rest up, time skip, let the cog boys who are into this sort of thing have at it in the mean time. If the couple who would tinker anyway even if we gave them time off don't manage it after a week, throw the people we need at it until it's done.

Go ahead, tell me Dai would just sit on his hands the whole time instead. And I'm sure he's got an under engineer or two who feel the same way.

>>15584903
Take it as adding more shit to the list, not insisting everything be done yesterday. We'll stick with the less-strenuous schedule.

Gate priority is moderate. The ship itself is the important bit.

>>15584903
Just asking questions, myself. My vote for goes to time off/ morale boost as prime priority; figuring out gate system second.

>>15584903
Considering the gist of:
>>15584807
>>15584808
>>15584825
>>15584847
>>15584861
>>15584921
>>15584941
>>15584942
and so forth, I do believe we're willing to timeskip about a week and see where we are on the gate while thawing the rest of the crew, going forward with the funeral and burial, having a staff meeting, and doing all this at a sane pace that features a decent amount of rest periods and free time for said crew. We ARE activating more personnel, that should cut some tasks down time-wise.

The other priorities, especially repair capacity, remain important. We shouldn't devote any less than half our total labor output to increasing repair capacity until all readily available methods of doing so are exhausted.

Surveying all planets and planetoids and a few likely derelicts to scavenge from will also take time.

If a week doesn't do it for the gate, supply transfer, rest and recovery planetside, et cetera, we can go another week and so on.

Keep working on sensors, as well. Let us know if anything strange comes knocking on our door.

Those are my thoughts, Anons. What are yours?

>>15584941

The gate is interesting, but it's not useful until we know if the other sides are online or not.

I'm betting "not" but is there a way to tell?

>>15585109

I'm in no rush. We should go along at the pace of plot here. I really like getting to know the other characters, and defining ourselves based on our interactions with them

>>15585109
Agree with. Timeskip until this shit is mostly done, or until whoever those satellites belonged to comes knocking.

>>15585109
I am fine with the timeskip, yes to this in general. As I said, more freetime and improving morale is crucial, priority number one.

Safety first. When we turn the gate on, anyone else with a working gate will be able to jump to us. Make sure we have guns pointed at it before we do. Just a note for the future.

My suggested priority list:

1. Tend to the crew. Relaxed work hours, help them cope with the situation, conduct the funerals.

2. Thaw the rest of our crew out. More hands and faces will help with Priority 1 as well.

3. Give the staff time to work through the many tasks we've set before them. Of those the ones I think are most important are: continue the ship repairs, loot the surface base, restore the gate, study the alien probes, get results from scanning the rest of the system. All of which are best done over the next week or two at a more relaxed pace.

At this point I believe our priorities are:

1. Talk with command staff regarding our potential new mission: re-establish contact with remnants of humanity, perhaps re-establish empire (the second one is very tentative)
2. Reanimate more crew, making sure it's not too much for our single doctor to deal with them.
3. Hold some sort of ceremony/burial/speech-thing regarding our lost crew, friends, family, and likely many other things. At this point, or shortly thereafter, brief crew regarding new mission decided on in Point1.
4. Adjust work schedules, make sure crew doesn't explode.
5. Using adjusted work schedules, continue repairs, using supplies from the Army base if needed.
6. Once we're as functional as we can be, proceed on mission. To go where no man has gone before, etc etc.

>>15585284
I think we want to hold the funerals AFTER we reanimate the rest of the crew.

The next two weeks pass smoothly, or as smoothly as they can under the circumstances. The remaining crew are woken and briefed, the new work schedule implemented, and priority repairs assigned.

Repairs go well, quickly consuming the stores within the base:

>Repair Drones:
Units: 5439/6000
Autonomous: 223/300
Repairable: 0 (Parts Required)
>Reactor:
Integrity: 45%
Output: 25%
>Shields:
Form-Shield Integrity: 50%
Form-Shield Dissipation: 25%
>Weapons:
Point Defense Lasers: 44% coverage online
Missile Launchers: 9/10 Batteries -- 809/1000 Tubes
Heavy Railguns: 6/8 (2 cannibalized)
Medium Energy: 11/64 Turrets -- 23/192 guns
Heavy Energy: 3/32 Turrets -- 4/64 guns
>Engines:
Speed: 60%
Efficiency: 50%
>Sensors:
Local: 77%
Interstellar: 9% (Not in repair queue)

Allowing the crew free time on the surface of the planet seems to be a great hit, as does reducing the frenzied pace of the work. Relaxation, games, cards, and even hunting are common past-times though you do have to treat three engineers and a comms operator for poisoning after they attempted to cook and eat one of their kills. Still, though no longer an atmosphere of bleak ruin, morale remains low and that you find some of the crew and Parson have all taken to spending all of their allotted free time in their rooms.

The addition of a “movie night” once per week has gone over well too, and the films you show (Flight of the Gorgon and especially Kallion II: The True Story) pulling at the patriotic feelings drilled into your crew since birth. As you watch the final scenes of Kallion II, where the last survivors of Iridan Base fight to fend off the hordes of Ravani only to be rescued by the timely arrival of the fleet, you feel it’s time.

The credits roll and the lights brighten, your men beginning to stand. Until Ivanova steps to the front of the gathered shipmen, raising her hand. There is a murmer, and she waits for it to die down before speaking, “I am glad to see all of you here, and hope you have enjoyed the tales of of the great heroes of the Empire. Our tales. Before you leave, however, the Captain has a few words for you.”

With that she steps back and pulls the portable holo-projector from her belt, setting it down on the floor in front of her before stepping to the side. The device whirrs and clicks, powering up, before going silent and forming a shimmering image in the air, quickly solidifying. You, as you were before your accident, in formal dress uniform and hands clasped behind your back.

>wat say?

>>15585380
"Well gents, we'll make it."
Maybe go for some sort of rebuilding/utopian vibe.

Have we discussed our mission plans with anyone else? While "re-establish contact with humanity" is pretty much a non-issue, "re-establish the Empire" might not go over very well.

>>15585425
No.

Also:
>Implying the enlisted men need to be told anything specific
laughingofficers.jpg

>>15585380
"Friends, crew mates, as you well know times are indeed harsh. for the last few months we have been here, in the far future far removed from the Empire we know and love. Our loved ones are dead, our calls gone unanswered. From what fragments exist some crisis consumed our glorious nation roughly 50 years after our departure. Now i know you all face immense difficulty: you all had friends, family, loved ones there. frankly, we will probably never see them again. but like the heroes of Iridan we must persevere, and continue onwards. We may be the last of our species, it is our obligation and duty, no honor, to continue to carry it's standard. we are the last bastion of human greatness, and we must not fail to live up to that. That is all. Dismissed."

>>15585446
Have we woke all the crew up by now?

>>15585449
might want to talk about the brother hood of the service, appeal to camaraderie.

>>15585380
a few suggestions on talking points / motivational phrases

"We may be down, but we aren't out. Humanity WILL prevail, like we have ALWAYS prevailed"


"Our loved ones may be gone, but their memories keep us strong"

"Ladies and gentlemen, crew of the OIS Harbinger. The last few weeks have been trying for all of us. We are stranded in a time that is not our own, in a galaxy that may well have forgotten who we are. But, when you signed up for service in the fleet, you have made it your duty to serve the Empire--and humanity. While we are alive, we still have purpose. While we are still here, we can carve out a path for ourselves. Forgotten by time we continue onward, defiant of all odds. Once repairs are complete, we will depart from this system and search for our brethren among the stars. The empire may be gone, but we still serve humanity. And we will prevail. Dismissed."

>>15585449
>We may be the last of our species
>we are the last bastion of human greatness

How about we instead emphasize our plans to make contact with the rest of mankind, and our sincere belief that we are far from the last of our species. That we survived to reawaken after tens of thousands of years of drifting is miraculous. That there is nothing left of mankind but us is preposterous. We will make every attempt to seek out our fellows and aid them in whatever way we can. Our ultimate destination is Sol, our ancestral home. We WILL find them, and, if the Empire's greatness has been lost to the cosmos, we WILL rebuild it, as is our duty.

>>15585530
sorry forgot my pic

"Their memories keep us strong, and they live on in our memories and our actions. So remember that you are still soldiers in the service to the Empire. As such, our duty is clear. We still serve for the protection and glory of the human race. So our next task is to discover what else remains of our people. We cannot be the last humans alive. We will find those who remain, we will destroy anything that remains of what brought down the Empire, and we will reestablish humanity to their rightful eminence among the stars."

>>15585467
Also add to that list

"In unity lies strength."

Vedibere, do you want us all to kind of agree on one speech? Or is this enough?

>>15585592
That would be asking too much of me, this is fine.

The past few weeks have been hard on everyone. Millennia gone by, an empire and a people destroyed.
At this point does it even matter what happened to bring it all about? If it wasnt for a misjump we might have ended up dead like all the rest.

The point is that we're here. Now. That's what matters. We may very well be the last of humanity, but we're the best humanity had to offer at the height of the Empire's power. That's saying something. If there's anyone who can sift through the ashes and put our species back on the map it's this ship, this crew.

We have a duty not just to ourselves or to the uniform but as human beings. That might count for much coming form someone stuck in a ship's memory bank, but if there's one thing I've seen since since we came back it's that our people did not go quietly. And neither will we.

>>15585380
>you find some of the crew and Parson have all taken to spending all of their allotted free time in their rooms
>Parsons

WHAT COULD HE BE PLOTTING IN THERE?!

order the immediate execution of parsons, declare ourselves president for life, dump them on a planet roaming the galaxy for new victims to build our glorious empire. THAT is what we should do.

>>15585640
Pic may be related.

>>15585640
>>15585667
I find it humorous that the expressions on these two images are identical.

>>15585380
>wat say?

"Personnel may stand at ease. Good to see you all, and I hope you enjoyed the entertainment. However, it's time we turned our thoughts to the larger situation at hand."

"While you have all been briefed as completely as time and circumstance allowed as well as being able to understand much of how things are through direct experience, I feel we should take stock of broader factors at the moment. With that, let me say this."

"Yes, the nation we were part of may be gone from the face of existence, and yes, we have all paid dearly for having commitments and loyalties - more dearly than was likely envisioned. For that, I want to commend each of you for holding up as well as you have. You are a credit to this ship and to your superior officers, to make no mention of everything that bore you and every hour of training. I will seek to make myself and this vessel be a credit to you in turn."

"Our general condition is also less than satisfactory - 'bleak' is not a sufficient word, because words fail - the whole lot of it beggars belief. But we have - through only the work of our hands and our minds - improved our prospects and begun to alter this reality to our benefit. We can still do that - we can still improve our lives and those of anyone we choose to serve and protect by the combined power of our individual will. Not the march of time and not anything else we know of, save our end, can take that from us now."

Cont's.

>>15585733
Cont'd.

"I will make a commitment to you, in the face of these circumstances. I pledge to you as solemnly as I ever did to any leader, council, or government, that I will not rest until I've done all I can to better this situation and right some degree of the wrong done to us, despite the fact that it seems wholly insurmountable. It would be wrong to do otherwise, and so my capacities are hereby declared for you, and whoever we choose to work with in this strange galaxy. I may take pains to persuade in carrying out this pledge, and I may cleave to the military structures built for a different existence, but nevertheless it will be for your sake - because as of this moment, each of you is undertaking the heroic task of living for a nation whose very existence is anything but certain."

"We will need answers. We do not know, at the moment, how many of our kind live, or what their fortunes are, or the fate of our homeworld. We do not even know if they would consider us brothers in arms or a threat, let alone what role they played in the events that left this system desolate and silent. But we have learned much - the engineers working with Doctor Dai are making great inroads into understanding the Gate network, the technicians who took apart those apparently xeno-built probes discovered commonalities with our technologies, and many of us have felt the air on our faces when we visited the world below. There are still open harbors in this existence, and there are opportunities to go and find the answers we seek - they could be around the very next turn."

Cont's.

>>15585740
Cont'd.

"I propose that we do what we can now, for each other and this ship that has served us so well for all its history, and work to find those answers and to better our world. Certainly, our losses will not be erased with any degree of ease; certainly, we cannot bring back the world as it was before the storm that brought us here. But we can make every effort to live up to its rigors and bear them with the help of those that stand shoulder to shoulder with us - because they were right, in training and on the shakedown cruise."

"They were right when they said that when the trouble starts, each other's all we'd have. But each other's taken us this far, and that's earned quite a lot of faith from me. I know from our battles together you've felt the same to one extent or another, and I urge you to hold fast to that faith."

"You are granted the right to speak freely and frankly to all superior officers, myself included, at this time. Any issue may be brought to bear for the moment, any concern raised in public or private while we have the luxury of relative quiet in our wake. Use this time wisely, and gather your strength - I have a feeling we'll need it."

"Crew is hereby dismissed to duties. Enjoy the rest of your time off."

>>15585745
>You are granted the right to speak freely and frankly to all superior officers, myself included, at this time.
This, right here, is probably the one thing that'll really have an effect out of this entire speech.
Incidentally, could we also have all auditory devices throughout the ships set to record whenever there is a crew member in the room during this time of free speech? It would be useful to have something to browse for comparison should things get heated or just plain awkward.

I mean, allowing an enlisted man the freedom to say whatever the hell he wants without negative consequences, to whoever he wants? *shudder*

Besides, it could help us get a general idea of what the crew is hoping/fearing the most.

>>15585733
>>15585740
>>15585745
wait hang on that wasn't Vedibere? gogdamnit.

I would like to discuss with the other participants if we should consider powering up the gate.

If we were to do that, we would only be able to travel to systems with open gates, meaning either systems that are occupied, or systems that have been improperly abandoned.

It might be not worthwhile to jump to a system and suddenly be faced with a glassed planet and a field of debris from a civil war. Not exactly inspiring.

>>15585835
That's why we send probes first.

>>15585835
>Not Vedibere
FFFFFFFFFFFF
>>15585823 here
I feel like I just got 10/10 trolled.

>>15585835
Nope, I'm not OP. Just threw something together that combined a lot of previously raised sentiments and communicated the truth of the situation to the audience without any possibility of telling them things they'd have reasons to disbelieve.

And glassed planets with civil war debris is a problem, sure, but a working shipyard in the area is one hell of an antidote. Besides that, if we get our long-range sensors functioning we'll be able to have a good idea of where we're going.

>>15585881
Nah man, by 10/10 I mean you did a DAMN fine job with that speech.
Didn't even realize it wasn't vedibere until another poster pointed it out...
You're not him, right?

>>15585895
I'm not him. Thanks for the praise, let me know if things need to be changed to reflect an aggregate view and I'll be glad to fold them into the speech.

Sorry to unintentionally troll ><

“Gentlemen, first let me thank you for your fine service. The circumstances we find ourselves in are extreme, but I could not ask for any better crew to face them with. As you know, it has been a very long time since we found ourselves facing our suicidal foe from so long ago, unable to defeat us and forced to resort to such cowardly tricks.” There is a murmur of agreement at this, but it quickly fades away. “While we have no idea what has happened in the meantime, I do know what will happen now. We will press on. We will move forward. We will not be stopped. It is our obligation, duty, and honor to carry the standard of Humanity no matter the circumstances. Will we, the best of them, the Bloody Sword of the Empire, live up to that?” Silence. “Spacers, I said will you live up to that!?”

“Yes sir!” come the responses, and you shake your head.

“I asked you a question! Are you the best!?”

“YES SIR!”

“Do you protect Humanity!?”

“YES SIR!”

“Will you do your duty!?”

“YES SIR!”

You nod sharply. “Good. Then we will not rest until we know the fate of our brothers, and no matter what we will keep Humanity and the Empire strong as is our duty. We are the lords of the stars, and we /will/ prevail. Dismissed.”

Your holo fades as the men cheer, your XO stepping forward to collect the projector. As they file out she speaks, “Rousing speech, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Now, I have another task for you. Gather all the command staff in the upper meeting room at 18:00, we need to discuss our course of action.

“Sir.” With that she nods and departs. You spend some time reviewing schematics and reorganizing repair bots, but just as you are watching a few cargo loaders remove crates of electronic parts from a shuttle Lead Engineer Wright contacts you through a terminal in one of the rear launch bays. You quickly flick over to see what he wants, but the answer is immediately obvious.

The display panel linked to the largest probe’s internals is lit up like a christmas tree, signals flashing across it. “Report!” you curtly demand, worried at what this might mean.

“Sir, pretty sure it’s an incoming transmission. I’d guess it’s orders telling it to report back or executing diagnostics. Its FTL comms are unlinked so it won’t be transmitting anything back unless we want it to, though.”

“Good, for now keep it that way for now.” you say, but even as you speak Ivanova contacts you from the bridge, “Sir, Parson isn’t at his station. I got up here and comms are reading a transmission of some sort. Orders?”

>>15585963
Intercept transmission, use all available means to locate Parsons, ensure his well-being if possible. He could be a suicide risk for all we know.

>>15585745
>>15585740
>>15585733
Um, wow, that's long as hell and got posted after I started writing. Much longer than mine. I guess if there's call for it I could retcon to stick it in there, I was pulling at some other threads on the ship at the time, as you can see.

>>15585963
Parson. It's time. Shut off the comm, prepare for a jump. I want that bastard. Hunt him down like the rat he is. Alive, if you can.

>>15585986

I guarantee he's blasting a message indiscriminately in every direction hoping to make contact with Empire remnants.

I WARNED YOU ABOUT PARSONS

I TOLD YOU DOG

>>15585988
Parsons has not displayed any degree of disloyalty, and has lost a fiancee and his entire family. He's also the most junior member of command staff.
>hunt him down like a rabid animal

o.0

There's a lot of hating on the crew and jumping to conclusions. We were inches away from keelhauling Ivanova when she was just trying to help us. for fuck's sake.

>>15586008
It'd be an extremely simple matter to just, y'know...check the message.

>>15586009
Parson has been lighting up my paranoia array for awhile now. This is the last straw. We can't risk everything, even if he is off the deep end and not plotting something nefarious.

At any rate, that's what the interrogation will confirm. But first we need to secure him, and make sure he is armed preferably unconscious, and maybe have the doctor make sure he can't OD on something before we have a little chit chat.

>>15585987
Eh, no big deal. My fault for being distracted. It'd be cool if it was in, or we can save it for the funeral or some future briefing or something.

Can you tell us the nature of the message and Parson's location aboard ship, please?

Incoming or outgoing message?

>>15585987

Nah, yours is fine. Brevity is the soul of wit.

>Sir, Parson isn’t at his station

We are the EI of the good ship Harbinger. If our cameras can't find him, there is a pretty big goddamn problem.

>>15585987
The one difference between Editor's speech and the one you posted is the "you're allowed to speak freely bit."

I, for one, am for that, but I would like Ivanova's opinion (others probably too). I think that would be a breach of military protocol, but it might help out with morale. We're not on a MILITARY mission anymore... Still, I don't know if the benefits are enough to outweigh the risks.

At this point we have bigger problems.

Find Parson immediately. Was he seen going into his room? If he's in there, summon him, we're getting a transmission and need his expertise.

Find out where the transmission is coming from. Keep the sensors it has in a faraday cage.

>>15586033
Un armed.

Derp.

>>15586033
>officer not at his station
>let's disarm and interrogate him
You're right, he IS setting off your paranoia array.

Let's check the message, which is like. Right. There.

inb4 Parsons does not survive interrogation, message was later mentioned to be incoming from planetside military base, automated signal.

What the fuck, why is everyone so jumpy?

Maybe parson is taking a leak or something? Find him first before we decide what to do with him.

First, find Parsons. If I parse it right it's not that he sent a transmission, but that he's away from his duty station. We may have to break out some of those meds we didn't want to widely prescribe, if he's abandoning his post.

Second, transmission. Trace the source, try to decode any information out of it we can. Anyone smart enough to put this probe here is someone we want to talk to.

We're going to have to make a choice between using the Gate to explore the area, or taking the ship directly to where this probe is from. Or perhaps they'll turn out to have a gate online already, or perhaps there will be no other gates online until we go turn them on. So I guess what we really need to do is turn the Gate on, ping the network, and then decide.

>>15586072
>Maybe parson is taking a leak or something?
While I don't agree that we need to be jumping down his throat, this IS still a military ship, and you don't just go "take a leak" with nobody knowing where you are.

Let's just ask the simple question; is he on the ship? We are the ship, so that should be pretty simple.

>>15585986
Seconding the not crazy course of action. Parsons is bound to be around here somewhere. Find him.

“I just shut off the transmission, trace it. Do you have any idea where Parson is?” you say, activating every camera on the ship and scanning them all while shutting down all comm arrays. Nothing.

“No sir, he was supposed to be monitoring comms and logging the materiels shipments from the surface.” she replies, “Also, transmission was... aimed at the planet. Wait.”

You see it a nanosecond before Ivanova, your external eyes not needing to be filtered through a console. “Sir! Heat bloom from inside the base topside, reactor core output is rising!”

“Uh, sir?” Wright says, for the third time.

“Yes, Mr. Wright? What is it?” You intone, your attention split in a frankly unhealthy number of directions.

“Sir, the transmission stopped a second ago. The sat isn’t doing anything, it’s just reading the message as gibberish. Ordered gibberish, though. Also uh... I think the message came from the direction of... us?” The man sounds puzzled, but you don’t have time to explain.

“Thank you, Officer Wright. Standby for further orders.” you quickly snap, reviewing footage from the drone shuttles.

Yes. There. A supply shuttle down to the planet while you were giving your speech. There’s Parson.

seriously u guaiz

I've been expecting the probes to either try and transmit on-schedule, or receive a check-up communication for some time now. But we've got the goddamn things cracked open and wired to our computers, with the best 'techs in the Empire on standby.

ORDER: Ask our Engineers to wipe the probe's recent sensor logs (the ones indicating our arrival) and copy the data from two weeks before we arrived over those memory sectors, perhaps with a few alterations so it doesn't look like a carbon copy. They'll either be fooled, or put it down to probe malfunction if they know it's hinky.

>Parsons

Well, we gotta find Parsons. Likely he's having a nice quiet breakdown somewhere, perhaps something to do with his little speech.

We need to find him. We need to tell him that we died for him once, and we'd do it again. We need to tell him that we're alone in a vast, scary universe, and the only comfort or reason to live we have is our crew, including him.

We need him.

Poor Parson. Day people are okay with him.
Night people want his blood. . .
Regardless, he can't have activated the probe's transmission, the engineers had the probes. In addition, he couldn't have blasted transmissions everywhere, as A) our transmitters need heavy repairs, and B) He'd need a target to send to. We are Far Far away from most points of interest.

Dude's probably in his room, mourning.

Or, picture this. Maybe, maybe, some freshly defrosted recruit attacked him, from an old grudge and figures, "Hey, it's the end of the world, now's a good time to club an officer!" Won't you feel so bad then, eh? Hatemongering on a victimized hero of our crew?

In all seriousness though, Parson's probably a cool dude. Does what he wants and doesn't afraid of nothin'.

>Heat bloom from inside the base topside, reactor core output is rising!
>Parsons planetside
GOGDAMNIT PARSONS

Is anyone besides parsons planetside?

He's wired the core to blow, probably. Wants to die, and wants to take the rest of us too, or at least a lot of supplies. Jegus parsons, if you wanted to die that badly we could have stuffed you in a space coffin.

>>15586193
Well . . .I'm going to posit that, in spite of or in light of all recent evidence, that Parson is doing a noble heroic thing. Likely, he was monitoring Comms, noticed the transmission immediately, and went planetside to stop the overloaded reactor. . .That he has no skill in. . .

Yeah. . . . *mumbles* yay. . . confidence. . . *Sadface.jpg*

>>15586177
Crazy, that's what they called me. Crazy!

We may want to be targeting those orbital guns, I don't think he has access to anything else we stripped everything planet side. If nto we may still want the guns hot.

>>15586177
>You see it a nanosecond before Ivanova, your external eyes not needing to be filtered through a console. “Sir! Heat bloom from inside the base topside, reactor core output is rising!”

Best guess, he's going to an hero with the base reactor.

Time to warm up our uplink to the base controls and see if we can shut it down (obviously,) and start moving our planetside drones, see if we can't zergrush'n'clobber his ass. Since he was on comms, and he's not stupid, there's a good chance he preemptively buggered both options by messing up our radio uplinks.

If we can track his movements in the base, and determine his objective, I say we selectively seal him off from said destination with the precise application of a railgun slug, half-power.

>>15586177
Get looking through the drones down on the surface and get that reactor under control. Evac anyone down there ASAP and grab Parsons while we're at it.

>>15586193

NIGHT PEOPLE WERE RIGHT

Is this the singularity core we're talking about here? Because if so, let's make sure no one's outside the ship (aside from Parsons), then punch it.

Actually, >>15586236
is a good try, but prepare to punch it just in case. As short a jump as is safe.

>>15586236
>Time to warm up our uplink to the base controls and see if we can shut it down (obviously,)

This.

>>15586177

Parsons is a jerk, he's making us pick between the base and him. We have drones on the base, so get them and any people down there to a safe distance away if that reactor goes.

Get a single drone to the reactor and bring it back under control if possible.

Send Parsons a message. Tell him to explain himself.

He may have gone completely rogue on us. He probably used an old Parsons-family code they kept squirreled away for emergencies in gear they had a hand in building. Although why he wants to overload the reactor there is beyond me. It could be old programming he had too. Or he could have just snapped.

>>15586256
No, base reactor is some form of fusion. Makes heat, not black holes. Will wreck all of the base, but not the planet.

We didn't take all the tanks up to the ship? Maybe activate a few battletanks in the base?

>>15586256
It's not a singularity core. It's a form of highly powerful and advanced reactor that can put out a lot of power, but there's simply no need for a singularity core on an army base. The only things for which it would even need a reactor as big as the one it has would be comms, guns, and shields.

>>15586281

We only got the tanks working under our command by putting a drone in them. If we didn't have drones in the tanks they would not respond to us.

>>15586281
Maybe everyone one our senior staff have neural jacks that have been conspiracy theoried into treasonous compulsion. Anyone have the copypasta of our crew's augments?

And of course we're never screwed until something horrible happens to Dr. Dai.

>>15586286

So it's not going to blow up the ship?

Awesome. Let's save the base and then stick needles under Parsons' fingernails.

>>15586281
>We didn't take all the tanks up to the ship? Maybe activate a few battletanks in the base?

They don't come equipped with remote uplinks by default. We had to pilot the old ones manually with drones in the cockpits.

Besides, a 60-foot tall hovertank isn't the best tool for arresting one man. But even maintenance drones are decently strong, and in numbers they could 'zerg him, even if he's got a gun.

To perform an arrest, of course. We'll arrest the SHIT out of him.

>>15586280

He's not going to blow the base up, he's going to try sending a message from it. He probably did bugger up our drone links, but we won't know till we try.

He gets a chance to explain himself, but while he's talking we're going to train a gun on him. If he won't see reason, we'll have to blast him out of the sky. We're not ready to make contact, and he's gone rogue.

>>15586286
I read this as the reactor is powering up to allow the surface to space weapons to fire? Expect incoming damage. ACTION --> Shields up, and begin maneuvering. Tell 3rd Lt. Rinn to get to a weapon station and hold for further orders.

At this point I'm thinking Parson rigged the base to blow using a combination of communications wizardry (via the probes), and his rich ass.

Not. Cool.

I mean, that's what it looks like, right? The base is going to blow?

>>15586327
I thought the base comms had been broken about 30 years after the base was abandoned. Earthquake squished the transmitter.

Weapons fire more likely then.

>>15586349
So, weapons fire or self-destruct?

Vedibere, can we tell which is more plausible?

>>15586349

You're right, the FTL array went down only 3 years after the base was abandoned.

Would Parsons know that though? We didn't tell anyone. He could be trying to send a message and not realize that the array is too fucked up to work.

We need to talk to him.

>>15586349
>Weapons fire

PFFFHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

We outgunned that base when it was brand NEW, much less now. And WE gutted the base's shield generators, and probably some of the energy gun components. Literally, all his base are belong to us.

We have shields, he doesn't, and most of our operable weapons just loooove unshielded targets.

And why the FUCK would Parsons try to kill his colleges and friends? Worst case scenario, he'd be seeking an hero status, but I'd say he's still in Stage 1 - denial. He might be looking to access base records directly to verify the date, deluded himself into thinking us all being dumbwrong, and the reactor is trying to power any remaining shield gennies to fuck with our EI uplinks so he'll have enough privacy to punch in his old Parsons family code or whatever.

Seriously, there's a ton of possibilities, but "fire on his own fucking comrades" is barely among them.

Fuck, I doubt the base has a single operable energy gun left, after the engineers had their way with them.

Best case: hook into the base shut down whatever he's doing with our system overrides. Bag him with the drones, politely ask him what in the fuck he thinks he's doing.

Not-so-best case: forcibly detain him with the drones, shut down whatever he's trying to do as messily as required, discuss things less politely in the brig.

Worst case: kill Parson, deactivate whatever he was trying to do, try and piece together his mental breakdown from his personal journals.

Also, after this fucking disaster is over, mandatory rollcalls.

We can't just have people sneaking around like this. One would think they we would have been made aware of a shuttle launch when we supposedly had everyone in one area. This is something else we'll need to implement.

Wait. Did we not implement new master codes right after that business with the Lt.?

Do we not in other words have the direct ability to shut him the fuck down?

>>15586327

This guy's got it. He's not going to blow up the station, he's going to take the encoded message he beamed down and blast it out with the FTL comm system in the one place where we can't just say "lolno."

Is it possible to precision strike the communications array?

We'll need to get drones in there anyway.

>>15586433
>Do we not in other words have the direct ability to shut him the fuck down?

Yes! Assuming he didn't use his time with the Comms console to take our drone/base uplinks and rape them with a chainsaw. Sure, we can get it sorted out... but he only needs so long to accomplish his objective, and he is a trained, competent officer.

Yeah, you Air Force boys? You faggots who spew shit like "the last fighter pilot has already been born?"

Pull up a rock. Siddown. I want you to watch this. It's called "ECM accidentally all your uplinks."

>>15586453
>This guy's got it. He's not going to blow up the station, he's going to take the encoded message he beamed down and blast it out with the FTL comm system in the one place where we can't just say "lolno."

... veeery good point. Yes, let's think of the timing on this one: base reactor output is spiking NOW, and he landed the shuttle while we were wrapping up our gung-ho speech.

So reactor output spike is not linked to the commo transmission - it's Parsons himself at a console.

If we didn't talk about the FTL transmissions backlog yet, he probably doesn't know the base array is fuxxed. If or when he DOES, however, we might want to consider his reaction to that.

It might not be pretty.

If we cotton to him trying to warm up the FTL array, we might want to do whatever we can to convince him it's beaming out at full power, or at least delay his realization that it's busted for as long as possible.

Glassin' worlds is what we do best. I say give the bits that may or may not let him send his message out needs a little localized glassin'

Damn. You raise shields. Even if the reactor did overload and blow it wouldn’t harm you, and you long ago disassembled the base surface-to-space weaponry to aid in repairs of your own guns. Still. With unknown variables it is best to play it safe. The shields hum to life, sheathing your metal frame in caresses of protective energy.

That handled, you attempt to access your drones in the base, but predictably you find that you... can? Odd. No interference at all. You had assumed Parson was smarter than that.

Regardless, it is no time to sit around waiting and puzzling such things out. You have fifty drones cease work loading metal crates and instead split them into two groups: twenty-five to each of the command center and the reactor. The pace is agonizingly slow, but eventually your squad reaches the command center. After a brief pause you swarm them in through the door, only to be met with an empty room and a wet, coughing sound.

The central holo-display bathes the room in a greenish-blue tint as you have the drones clomp around the edges. Searching. Searching... and finding. Second Lieutenant Dray Parson, your Intelligence Officer, sits with his back against the base of the command console and facing the wall. His knees are drawn up to his chest, his face buried within, sobbing. Hands on his head, he is gripping and pulling at his hair, tufts of it already lying on the floor around him and trickles of blood running from his torn scalp. A brief link to the command center and you see that he was attempting to log in, but without the tricks of Ivanova or the new password you set the effort was clearly futile.

A few seconds later your drone squadron arrives at the reactor, rushing in to the console. Power was building to 100% capacity and being diverted to the topside comm arrays... arrays clearly visible on the ship sensors, and whose destruction you were planning on informing the crew about at the meeting later today.

1. Obvious first step - try to linkup with planetside drones and base control. Kekeke dronerush is a given, if we can, but assuming we can't:

2. Flip on local sensors and scan the base, see if we can pick up his personal locator implant, suit sensors, or personal cyberware. That's our best bet of fixing his location through the ground and walls. Tough, but we ARE using scanners meant for star systems at point-blank range.

3. Once his locale is fixed, try to use low-powered railgun shots to cave in the hall in front and behind him. A polite 'WTF mate' while preparing for that would be just dandy.

4. If by some miracle we still have uplink to base computers and he's going for the FTL array, simulate a successful broadcast while sneaking drones up on him or some other shit. If we don't, bitch and moan like he really did broadcast successfully; see if he buys it.

Things will get interesting then, though, because sure as shit he'll want to camp the base for a reply, and if we want him we'll have to play hide-and-seek with tasers through the entire facility.

Fucking hell, well that's one crisis averted.

"Hello, Parson. Why don't you have a seat over there?"

>>15586503

Right, he's lost it. Let's cool that reactor back down to normal and grab Parsons. Time to bring him back up with the drones and shuttle, and have the doctor have a nice long chat with him.

Inform Ivanova. "He's having a breakdown. He had no way of knowing, since I was going to bring this up with everyone later today, but the FTL array on that base was trashed in an earthquake. I'm retrieving him now. Get ready to receive him in the brig. I'll have Dr. Burr evaluate him there."

>>15586503
NOTHING BUT SORROW.

I guess he was just trying to phone home, and not blow us all to kingdom come.

Can we detain him? Can we talk through the drones?

In this case, we may want to pull out that line from last thread:
>"Parsons? Stop fucking with the stellar drift calculations long enough to realize that if you survived sixty-four millenia in a cryo-tube, others might have well. Slim hope, but it's a hell of a lot better then none - and it's a big galaxy out there."

>>15586503

Okay, is it possible to just turn the reactor off safely? I'm an intelligent battleship, not an engineer.

I want Parsons alive for the lashing he's going to get, so we need to fix this if we can.

>>15586503
Inform the others that we've found Ivanova. Notify Doctor Burr that Parson has sustained injury, both mental and physical.

To Parson, say that we were all worried about him, and that we're glad he's safe. Ask him if he feels like he could talk to us, privately, for a moment.

>>15586548
>Fucking hell, well that's one crisis averted.
Averted before it even happened, actually, by good planning and security protocols on your end. Good job guys.

Of course, one of your officers to had a catastrophic nervous breakdown too, so that actually might be a wash...

>>15586560
>Okay, is it possible to just turn the reactor off safely?
Uh, you could just leave it like it is if you want it safe. It was only operating at a small percentage of output because you didn't really need that much power down there, but 100% output is entirely safe. And from what you can tell it's not locked or anything, you could just set it back to where it was before.

>>15586570
Yeah, we had plenty of signs it was coming. Probably could have spared a moment or two to talk with the guy. But, that's how it is.

Questions time! How do we know that all he wanted to do was phone home?

>>15586503
>Searching. Searching... and finding. Second Lieutenant Dray Parson, your Intelligence Officer, sits with his back against the base of the command console and facing the wall. His knees are drawn up to his chest, his face buried within, sobbing. Hands on his head, he is gripping and pulling at his hair, tufts of it already lying on the floor around him and trickles of blood running from his torn scalp.

omigod omigod omigod

"I don't have any family. Never did, you know? Big reason I made Captain, in fact. And now I don't even have my body. My family is my crew. You're mine, Parsons. You're all I've got. I died for you once, and I'd do it again, so... come back with me, son. Come home."

>>15586570
Could have been worse. They could all have broken down at the same time. Ivanova could have turned out to be a rebel sleeper agent and gutted our core. Dai's augmetics could have achieved sentience and exploded.

Parson is smalltime.

>>15586560

It's not overloading, he just increased the power output to charge up the FTL array to send his message. Of course, the array was physically broken and he didn't have the codes to the computers that control it anyway, and all he could really do was put a message in the buffer and order the generator to go up to full output in preparation of sending his message.

We should probably read that message in the buffer, even though it's probably just a message in a bottle to his beloved.

Parsons' wasn't doing well, we knew that. The last week of downtime backfired with him. Instead of using it to cope, he used it to plan this crazy course of action.

>>15586627
Read the message in the buffer!
Preferably before we actually say anything to parson. Could help us NOT say something we'll regret.

>>15586554
Getting a big seconded right here.

>>15586603
Yeah, i like that speech better than >>15586557

Worst case scenario, we stuff him back into cryo.

Probably want to give him some of those delicious delicious emotion-erasing drugs, though.

>>15586603

That's good if he's able to be reasoned with at this point, but he could be so far gone that we're going to have no choice but to manhandle him.

It'll probably take drugs and a lot of time and counseling to get him right again.

>>15586644
Stuffing him back into cryo this early would probably kill him. Erasing his emotions with drugs is hardly the best thing we could do, since it doesn't actually solve the problem, it just treats the symptoms. And there's the whole biting off your own fingers thing.

>>15586679

Surely they have less powerful drugs for treating, not suppressing, mental conditions.

>>15586679
Wrong drugs. We don't need to psych-wipe him, just give him a little morphine to counter his current craziness, or LSD if we want to exacerbate it.

>>15586687
And surely we should use those before the ones that turn you into a psychopath.

>Parson's breakdown
>adrift in an alien universe where all our loved ones are dead
>we are dead

We were dead to our world six months after those suns went nova. And now they are dead to us. For all practical purposes, we WERE dead, floating in a derelict coffin.

To awaken after sixty-four thousand years... to stride the stars once again, is equivalent to being raised from the dead; cast out of the Afterlife and back into the mortal coil by whatever deity you hold dear. We should think of our awakening more as a resurrection; draw a line between our old lives and new. In our past life, we laughed, we fought, we served and we loved, and we had a damn good run.

But now we've been reincarnated, given a second chance at life. That's not a curse, it's a gift, one nobody else has ever received. And though the galaxy as we knew it is forever changed, some things are inevitably the same.

War. War never changes. Somewhere among the stars there is Humanity, and guaranteed there is strife and death and terror. Somewhere, innocents are butchered and monsters reign triumphant. This has always been so, and will always be.

And we just so happen to have the means to do something about it.

We needn't fear a lack of purpose - as honorable soldiers, honorable PEOPLE, we know what is right and what is wrong. And now there is no Empire, no council or senate or politics or bureaucracy to muddle affairs and muddy the waters of truth. Even if all traces of our precious Empire have been scrubbed from the stars, there still is the eternal truths it was founded upon, that impossibly long time ago.

We are the Phoenix, risen from the ashes. All we had is lost, therefore we have nothing to lose. We are blessed to live once more, free to devote all our energies to leaving this galaxy better then when we came into it.

As servants of the Empire we were the Harbinger of death and terror. Now we are the Harbingers of whatever we chose.

I chose hope.

>>15586691
>Lieutenant has mental breakdown
adviceGLaDOS.jpg
>Give him LSD

"Hello there Lt. Parson. We have prepared a party for you. Please assume the party escort position. Make no further attempts to cause yourself harm. Please discontinue sobbing uncontrollably, as that is not part of party regulation requirements."

As one of the people who suggested changing the passcodes, I feel wise and special.

Poor Parson.

ACTION --> Solemnly pledge to make the strongest effort to find or repair a working comms. Let him know that if/when one is available, he'll have first crack at it. Until then, give him a choice, to continue working and helping the ship and crew, or we can let him return to cryo until we make contact with something or find a working comms. For him, it'll be just like going to sleep.

(We have backup comm officers, but it might be bad for morale to re-sleep him. Nothing like the end of the world to drive up shipboard superstitions. Except for of course, missing officers and sobbing broken men being sent to a sleep of indefinite time. )

>>15586627
>Parsons' wasn't doing well, we knew that. The last week of downtime backfired with him. Instead of using it to cope, he used it to plan this crazy course of action.

WHO CALLED IT?

I CALLED IT.

>>15586603

Parsons is no family of mine. I knew he was going to crack from the moment I read his bio, the whiny bitch.

That said, let's do read his message. Perhaps it'll tug on our heartstrings enough that we won't vote to have him executed as a warning to the others.

Great people skills, guys. Ship him to the Doc and jam him full of tranqs.

Sooner or later, we need to give this man the only tonic there is: a reminder that he is not alone. He may have lost the love of his life, but he is NOT ALONE. The bond between warriors who've braved death together is stronger even then blood, and he will always, always have that.

No silver bullets, no magic cures - but it's something. Coming to terms will have to be up to him.

A few soothing words for Parson would be good, if he'll listen. I don't think he's in a state to listen to logical appeals to handle the situation calmly and dispassionately. Best we can do is try to keep him together long enough to hand him over to the doctor for care.

However, something very important happened that we shouldn't overlook. The alien probe reacted to a general transmission on our own frequencies. I would be very interested to know if it was trying to resent that transmission back to its home station. If so, we must entertain the option of using it deliberately send a message to the probe's owners. Something along the lines of, "Attention whoever is listening to this transmission. If you can understand this, please respond in a similar manner."

>>15586777

Almost raged, but... you play the "Hardass McFucker" thing too well to hate.

>>15586791
>Something along the lines of, "Attention whoever is listening to this transmission. If you can understand this, please respond in a similar manner."

Hell, we could just put them back together, let them fire off their senor logs on-time, and twiddle our thumbs till the welcome wagon shows up, right?

>>15586782
i'm all for talking to him.

but maybe he's not going to listen, or talking won't be enough.

>>15586782

He is ripping his hair out and his scalp is bloody from it. He is beyond a few words from us, he needs actual professional medical attention. Whatever Burr thinks it will take to help Parsons, he gets, but beyond handing Parsons over to Burr and saying "Fix him" we don't have any other acceptable options.

Parsons is ill, he's not in his right mind. He needs medical attention, not platitudes.

>>15586809
>welcome wagon
I think that, judging by the debris left over the millenia, the welcome wagon will be destroyed as soon as it comes too close.

>>15586826
Well, we've got to get him to the good doctor first, we might as well talk to him in the meantime.

>>15586817
>but maybe he's not going to listen, or talking won't be enough.

Sure, sure, quite likely we won't get a word in edgewise. Any heart-to-hearts can wait till it's obviously possible; if he's totally brainfucked we can wait till he's slept off the tranqs for 48 hours.

Dear Vedibere; filter all suggestions for common sense; i.e. honor the intent, you needn't ape the exact actions/timing/etc.

Okay /tg/, this is what we're doing with Parsons.

Right now, we're going to tell him "you dun goofed" or the captainly equivalent, and then he's going in the brig. Not forever, but for a while. I don't want to hear any bitching about this, he fucked up big time and deserves worse.

After he's chilled out in there for a while, we go in and have a sit down with him. This is when we can talk about his feelings, although still in the mindset of "you fucked up Parsons." We hear him out and see if this can be fixed.

Once we see how he responds to that, we can proceed with further plans, which may include a longer stay or a return to duty.

Savvy?

>>15586826

Fully agreed on the timing and all; but

>He needs medical attention, not platitudes.
>"I died for you. Now you are the only reason for my continued existence."
>platitudes

Am I really this shitty a writer?

You sigh and access the bridge again, while keeping a mechanical eye on Parson. "Lieutenant, he's having a breakdown. He had no way of knowing, since I was going to bring this up with everyone later today, but the FTL array on that base was trashed in an earthquake. I'm retrieving him now. Get ready to receive him in the brig. I'll have Dr. Burr evaluate him there. Have him bring a medical kit."

As your second nods and departs, you focus on Parson. You retrieve the message he sent and read it, hoping to find something there:

>This is Second Lieutenant Dray Parson, of house Parson, contacting Sol. Our captain has gone insane, and now believes that we are in the future or the last remnants of humanity. Please come help. We are at the recently abandoned colony of Orrin, the ship is heavily damaged, please assist. Tell my parents I love them and they were right about this being a stupid, foolish idea. Also please tell my betrothed, Jeane, that I love her and will be back soon, and that I’m looking forward to seeing our son. =Message Ends=

You try to sigh, but fail. Such a pity. Soothing words, cajoling ones, orders or demands. It makes no difference, as if he can’t even hear you. His sobbing continues, and every so often a new tuft of hair will fall to the ground, dropped from his shaking, bloodied hands.

In the end you’re left with no choice but to physically pick him up and carry him back to the surface and the shuttle. Even being carried, though, he does nothing but hang as dead weight, sobbing.

##############

The door to the shuttle hisses open, Ivanova waiting at the bottom of the ramp even before it finishes lowering; her sharp features a professional, unreadable mask. “Sir, I took the liberty of clearing the corridors. I didn’t think it proper for the men to see this, especially not now. Dr. Burr is waiting in the brig.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Please lead the way.”

You stride through the halls in the body of twin cargo droids, Parson hanging between them -- still sobbing -- and Ivanova striding through the corridors before you and ensuring the halls are empty, motioning you forward. Unneeded considering your virtual omniscience, but how well you know that old habits die hard. A few minutes later you arrive, gently placing the man in a cell before Dr. Burr looks him over.

Eventually he exits, shaking his head and closing the airtight door behind him before turning to address ‘you’ and your XO. “He’s bad. Totally unresponsive and insensate. What do you want me to do?”

>>15586856
>brig

Yeah, just in case he shakes off enough tranquilizers to paralyze a horse and manages to get up and go walking around without us instantly knowing about it with our shipwide internal sensor network.

At most, cuff him to the damn bed. Outside of that there is absolutely no security reason to toss him in a cell.

>>15586881
Being cuffed to a bed is worse than being in a brig.
Cuffing prevents you from scratching itches, causes chafing, muscles sprains that can't go away because you can't stretch.
Brigs aren't comfortable by any means, but better than cuffing.

>>15586881
Sorry, but this is military protocol on a military ship.
If being nice worked, it would've been made policy.

>>15586866

Sedate him. He won't mind. Once he's slept it off, we'll see if he's more sensible.

Actually, let's have our dear Lt. Spook see if he can be sensible. Might just spark off the paranoia again if we talk to him. Although of course we can listen.

>>15586881
He's a fucking threat. I'd have him simply put down, but since there are other people here to check me on that, we at the very least need him locked away somewhere so he can't spread his crazy.

>>15586866
Knock him out, he'll just bleed to death if he keeps at it like that. Maybe in a day or so he'll be more lucid. Right now, he needs some rest.

Also, check his room. And give an eye over the logs of any consoles he's had significant access to.

>>15586866
>“He’s bad. Totally unresponsive and insensate. What do you want me to do?”

"Give him what he needs."

Ask the doc if there's any non-intrusive and/or temporary way to give Parsons a neural uplink to the computer core, bring him into our virtual cyberworld.

It might give us some interesting options.

>>15586899
>>15586914

I want to believe I'm being trolled, but in actual survival situations there are always a few chucklefucks just like you two. The kind of man who would use his last shot-charge to shoot a fleeing Guardsman in the back instead of the Orks bearing down on him.

But I'm sure executing a man who's suffering a total mental breakdown will inspire the loyalty and confidence of our other officers, many of whom are under the exact same stressors.

>>15586866

"Before I answer that, let me read you the message he left in the buffer. The one he was trying to send out. Maybe it'll give you something to work with for how to deal with him."

"Now, what I'd like you to do is to help him put his mind back in working order. I want him to be healthy and reasonable again. If that's not possible, given the realities and limitations of our situation, I'd like him to be made comfortable."

Also, I think I explained something badly. Those emotion-drugs Dr. Burr has don't wipe emotions away permanently. Just for a duration. Nor do they make you go bugfuck and/or psychopathic with one dose, just extended usage.

>>15586881

Even if he weren't a fairly serious threat, I'd still throw him in there just to emphasize to him that he fucked up. That's what I want him to come away from this knowing, that this is a dire situation and that he fucked up big time.

But like I said, let's have someone else talk to him when he sobers up. Someone with a friendly face and preferably a set of ovaries to talk some sense into him. As loath as I am to admit it, he will need some babying before he can man a console again. Assuming we ever let him.

>>15586919

I can't believe you're suggesting linking this mess of crazy up to our brain.

>>15586941
>use his last shot-charge to shoot a fleeing Guardsman in the back instead of the Orks bearing down on him.

Damned right, I would.


But, that's neither here nor there. We have too much at stake to let something like this run amok on our ship. We may very well be the last of humanity, we can't afford him unnerving, or outright killing the rest of the crew.

But, as I said there are other people to check me on the killing him thing, so it's best we just keep him locked away.

>>15586914

While killing him is not the appropriate course of action, you are correct that he is a security threat.

We need to change all the codes he could have had access to for now. If he's ever given a clean bill of health by the doctor we can put him back to work, but for now he's going to cool his heels. He should remain in the brig at least until the security changes are implemented.

>>15586968
>Even if he weren't a fairly serious threat, I'd still throw him in there just to emphasize to him that he fucked up. That's what I want him to come away from this knowing, that this is a dire situation and that he fucked up big time.

So you'd treat a psychotic break with punitive corrective action. You are literally fucking retarded. He's DELUSIONAL, not disobedient.

>I can't believe you're suggesting linking this mess of crazy up to our brain.

OBVIOUSLY THAT WILL AUTOMAGICALLY GIVE HIM ROOT ACCESS, INSTEAD OF HIM BEING LIMITED TO SOLITAIRE AND THE SYSTEM CLOCK PER A USER PROFILE WE SET, RIGHT?

Fucking hell. Is this thread really happening.

>>15586985

So handcuff him to the fucking bed.

Or stick him in a bio-isolation cell; those come equipped with external locks for quarantining infected crewmembers anyway.

Both of these options keep him in medbay, near professionals with all of their equipment.

>>15586954
we'd likely want to use those at the moment, that or sedatives, tell the good doctor what the Lt. was sending out.

Also, quickly check the date in the army base, and the date on the station. I assume we've already checked this, but I also once assumed our D&D party looked at the ceiling from time to time
>nope, SPIDERS ARE UPON YOU, ROLL INITIATIVE

While we're on the topic of saying things explicitly, from here on out we should monitor the location of every crew member, every shuttle departure. We should never have to search for someone in order to tell us their general location (i.e. private quarters, planetside, station)

Also I would like to point out that, according to the info given in the first thread, Parson is not even 40 years old. When the chief engineer is over 500, that makes Parson one of the youngest people on board. He's probably never had to deal with loss before.

>>15586986

For what it's worth, you've just got the two lawful stupid boners going on about keeping him in the brig indefinitely. Everyone else is arguing for medical treatment alone, or for keeping in the brig only until the security protocols are updated to exclude him.

>>15587011

True, true. By /tg/ standards this thread is better then most. Guess it's just been a shitty day for me, my tolerance levels are low.

>>15586996
>So handcuff him to the fucking bed.

CUFFBUCKLE IS AGAINST SERVER RULES BAN HE

>>15587011
Action --> set a Captain's Permission to use the Airlocks and shuttle bay. Only opens with our say-so, or as a safety backup, without our permission after it sends a message to us with a 10 minute wait timer as a secondary.

>>15586996
>So handcuff him to the fucking bed.

There's no reason to do that in the fucking future. The brig's probably far more suicide-proof and comfortable than any other option. It's so obvious that Ved just went and did it without asking. What the fuck are you imagining, spikes on the floor? It's a brig, not a torture chamber.

>>15586986

Yeah, a delusional break, so obviously it's a good idea to NOT lock him up.

And yes, punitive action, because he needs to come away from this knowing that it was the wrong thing to do, no matter how bad he was feeling at the time. If he'd been even stupider and rigged the base to blow, it'd be just as exploded no matter what his motivations were.

>>15586998
>While we're on the topic of saying things explicitly, from here on out we should monitor the location of every crew member, every shuttle departure. We should never have to search for someone in order to tell us their general location (i.e. private quarters, planetside, station)

Agree completely. First Ivanova, now Parson... I don't even want to think about what Dai could do if he went nuts.

Vedibere, I think we have a general consensus:

>Inform Dr. and XO about the message, then allow freedom of treatment.

>Suggest securing Parson in either brig or containment, query XO and Dr. on better option.

>>15587043
I know it's foolish, but I like to think of Dai as our one true ally in this. Like if the rest of the crew rebelled it would just be the cap'n and him keeping the ship together and floating out in the void.

Though Burr seems to fit that role in actuality better.

>>15587011
>you've just got the two lawful stupid boners going on about keeping him in the brig indefinitely.

I SAID A LONG FUCKING TIME AGO THAT EVEN I DON'T PLAN ON KEEPING HIM IN THERE FOREVER, JUST UNTIL HE GETS HIS SHIT TOGETHER. PUNISHMENT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.

And for the record, I doubt he'll need much help feeling bad about this, but the brig was the obvious and totally justified destination for him, and that's where he should stay until he can show that he's not fucking nuts. Again, after he's woken up from sedation and had some of the other officers talk to him.

>But permissions!

But nothing, I don't want him bugging the rest of the crew with his bullshit.

Jesus people, stop feeling sorry for him for two seconds and think like a captain.

>>15587042
>There's no reason to do that in the fucking future. The brig's probably far more suicide-proof and comfortable than any other option.

Prison cell > medical facility. This logic is fucked.

>Yeah, a delusional break, so obviously it's a good idea to NOT lock him up.

Just in case enough tranqs to down a horse, the handcuff on the bedrail, and our own omniscient knowledge of every mouse fart on the entire fucking ship aren't enough. No, your cock won't be sufficiently stroked until you can bellow PUT THAT MAN IN THE BRIG and feel like a boss on the internet.

You are That Guy, and I guaran-fucking-tee your stun batons are always set to off, and intent to HARM.

>>15587039

That's crazy dangerous. If we were disabled somehow and the crew had to escape right then, we'd be dooming them.

>bio containment

... given that we only had a crew of 51 to start with, the entire crew are "professionals." There's no batch of enlisted men drawing shit pay and swabbing decks. Even the lowest man on the totem pole is drawn from a rather higher stock them most.

Given that, I wonder if we even HAVE a brig. On the rare occasion it's needed, they probably just chuck them into a room without any knickknack shelves (where murderers always find blunt objects) and lock the door. Wheel his gurney into an empty closet in Medbay and prop a damn chair against the door, if you want.

>>15587068
No, no. YOU are That Guy, think logically for one minute. This is a military vessel, there is protocol to follow. Letting him spread his crazy would crush morale, and who knows what he might yet try to do. Keep him in the brig. Keep him their till he's lucid again, keep him their till we can have a chit chat, keep him their until long after we're sure he can do no farther harm. You don't just let people like that run about, you just don't.

>>15587088
We do have a brig, with five cells. Ved said so himself.

“For now, at least, give the man what he needs. Put him to sleep for now, painkillers, see to the wounds. Eventually someone will need to talk to him, and I don’t think I’m the right one to do so considering his message. Perhaps a more... feminine touch?” you say, ending questioningly.

The doctor scratches his bald pate and nods, “Yes, trauma victims often react better to women, the more sympathetic presence aids in communication.”

He looks over to Ivanova, and she responds with nothing more than a single raised eyebrow, features set and cold.

“Ah, well, maybe my assistant Kara would be willing to speak to him?” Burr suggests, looking away.

“Perhaps. Now, please go see to him doctor. I would rather not have him suddenly becoming responsive again and deciding to break out of the cell by smashing his head into the walls.”

The man nods and returns to his patient, cell door hissing closed behind him, before you turn to Ivanova. “Well? I would like your opinion on this matter.”

The woman crosses her arms and frowns, her brow crinkling in thought. “I do not know, sir. Had I worked with him in... my past, there he would have simply been shot for such a dangerous action. Normal procedure in the Armada would be to keep him in the brig until we return, then court-marshal him. But now?” She shakes her head, “I do not know. I would say to keep him locked away safely until I did know, but,” she hesitates, “that is no long-term solution, I think. Perhaps temporary psych-stims so he will listen to you and evaluate the situation logically?”

>>15587067
>But nothing, I don't want him bugging the rest of the crew with his bullshit.

The idea is to drag his ass into a virtual holodeck. The therapy options are literally endless with that kind of ability.

... or we could give him access to nothing but solitare... or tetris. I give him three days, tops. before he comes to hate that fucking virtual world more then stark reality.

>>15587068
>>15587094
Maybe both of you should cool off and stop filling the thread with your argument.

>>15587068

I don't have to bellow it, he's already in there, because that's the sane thing to do. And the tranqs won't last forever, they're not supposed to.

>to down a horse

Twaddle.

He needs to be kept alone until he can sort out his bullshit and return to the crew as a well-adjusted soldier. Until then, he should definitely stay.

Although I can see you've gotten really attached to my image as a villain, so if you want you can imagine me laughing maniacally and stroking myself to this totally reasonable course of action for a soldier that broke ranks and had a nervous breakdown in potentially hostile territory, you just go on ahead.