>>31226812
>>Go for a stroll. After all those report, some exercise would be good for you.

Random events would be nice.

>>31226812
>>Call your contacts in British intelligence. They might have news for you.

Important matter.

Rolled 2

Rolling for tiebreaker.

1: Stroll
2: MI5

>>31226812
>>Head straight to R&D. You don't have anything better to do.

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>>31226812
It's been a while since you've heard from your friends over at MI5. You were busy with the Typhoon, but it's been about a month since the Yokohama Hive was taken. The vultures must have started circling over the corpse by now. You decide to check in with the spooks in case they have news for you.

You drop off your reports and get in line for one of the phones. Fortunately, there aren't that many people around. After 15 minutes, you pick up the phone and go through the prerequisite cloak and dagger and connect to M.

"Flying officer Reber," she says. "A pleasure, as always. How may we be of service?"

"Actually, I was going to ask you the same question," you say. "Now that the Yokohama Hive has been dealt with, I thought you would need my services."

"We are busy," M says, "but we have no need of your services at the moment. Our current assets in America and the UN are more than sufficient, and our opponent is distracted with their 'predecessor.' We have more breathing room than we did a few months ago. However, since you went through the trouble of contacting me, my offer still stands."

From what you can tell, you're one of MI5's prized assets right now, so you might be able to ask for a free favour. Or you might not.

>"Thank you, but no."
>"Flying officer Knight has been performing admirably, and we do need another officer..."
>"Flying officer Robinson has some... family issues that you might be able to deal with."
>"Flight lieutenant Wright's could always use more support from the EU..."
>"Some recognition for my services would be nice..."

>>31227269
>>"Flight lieutenant Wright's could always use more support from the EU..."

I normally only read the quest in archive, so I have a hard time keeping Wright and Knight straight. I'm assuming Wright is the tech-head.

>>31227269
>>"Flight lieutenant Wright's could always use more support from the EU..."

>>31227269
> "Flying officer Knight has been performing admirably, and we do need another officer..."
From what I remember, Camelot has a lack of senior officers, so helping Knight would be a good thing.

>>31227345
She is.

>>31227269
Promotions are going to come at you on their own so long as you stay alive, and Elaine's family problems can wait. Right now, your top priority is Project Round Table's research.

"Flight lieutenant Wright's could always use more support from the EU..."

>(roll 1d20)

Rolled 4

>>31227503

Rolled 11

>>31227503
Rolling.

Rolled 19

rolling

>>31227533
>>31227533
and I forgot to link

>>31227503
"Locally, we are doing everything we can do protect her work," M says.

"And what about your assets that aren't local?"

"We do have some influence over the UN," she says. "While our opponent is still distracted, we can arrange for funding to be reassigned to EU projects."

The European Union controls two of the five UN security council seats, so that's not surprising. If Alternative V is busy dealing with the fall of the Yokohama Hive, now is a good time to bleed them for funding. However...

"Can you really pull it off? Even with your pull, I doubt it'll be easy."

"It won't be," M says. "I'm certain we'll have to greatly indebt ourselves. However, I am willing to place my faith in you and your work, Flying officer Reber. If you succeed, we will never have to pay those debts."

"I'll keep that in mind. Good bye, and thank you."

You hang up the phone and walk to the research hangar. In the end, this doesn't change anything for you. You just need to focus on your research and do your job. Right now, your priority is...

>... finishing the research on the BETA reactor.
>... working on the Sangreal and the Excalibur.

>>31227702
>>... finishing the research on the BETA reactor.

The possibility of it being adapted in some form for use in TSFs is absolutely amazing and incalculably important.

>>31227702
> ... finishing the research on the BETA reactor.

>>31227702
>>... finishing the research on the BETA reactor.
Time for SCIENCE!

>>31227702
>... finishing the research on the BETA reactor.
Hah, didn't we pick this thing up on quest # 9? Time to finish this up for sure.

>>31227820
Yep. We managed to figure out how to intercept BETA transmissions, as well as how their generators work, from what I remember.

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>>31227702
Your priority right now is to finish the research on the BETA reactor. You've figured out the computer and the power plant, but the thing that produces G-elements is still a mystery for you.

You walk up to Mary's office in the R&D hangar. You find her enjoying afternoon tea.

"Good afternoon, Julian." She pours you a cup. "Thank you for coming."

"Good afternoon." You sit down and take a sip of tea. "And it's my pleasure, I assure you. How's the research going?"

"We're ready to begin work on the G-element fabricator," she says. "We've been conducting regular experiments on the other components, but it looks like we've reached the limit of what we can learn without taking them apart. Come on, I'll show you."

You both down you cups and move to the research lab dedicated to the G-element fabricator.

"We just finished hooking it up." Mary points at the power cables that are plugged into the machine. "Compatibility was a bit of an issue, but we think this should work."

Mary gives you a pair of retinal display glasses so you can see the researchers' current analysis.

"Shall we begin?"

>(roll 3d20)

Rolled 17, 14, 19 = 50

>>31227980
Volling

Rolled 17, 7, 19 = 43

>>31227992
Nice.

>>31228003
And I also forgot to link to >>31227980
So bad at this.

Rolled 15, 2, 2 = 19

>>31227980

>>31227980
You power the fabricator. You can't see anything, but it is getting a little bit hotter, so it must be working. Mary uses a manipulator arm to drop a small mass of something - iron? - in one of the apertures. Nothing happens.

"Looks like it's not getting enough power," you say.

"Apparently not." Mary sighs. "I suppose we'll have to use another power source."
"And we happen to have the original..."

Mary gives the orders and the engineers connect the G-element fabricator to the BETA power plant. It takes you a few hours to coordinate everything and get it done safely. There's no telling how big the explosion would be if anything went wrong.

"We have a small supply of G-elements ready to catalyze the power plant," Mary says. "Let's try again"

The power plant activates, followed by the fabricator. Then all the instruments cut out.

The scientists and engineers immediately start running around you in a panic. Mary and you just look at the instruments' last readings.

"Looks like the instruments melted," you say.

"I suppose that was to be expected." Mary shrugs. "The fabricator must run extremely hot."

"Do you think that'll be a problem?"

Mary shakes her head.

"I doubt it," she says. "After all, the BETA reactors run safely enough. If I had to guess, the mass I fed it was too large. The power plant and the fabricator should be running at about the same temperature."

>(cont.)

>>31228298
It takes you a few more hours before you can send a hazmat team. They hose the fabricator's chamber down to cool it before they enter, but it doesn't take very long for the room to return to its normal temperature. Eventually, the researchers come back and confirm that some of the iron mass was converted into a variety of G-elements.

"Very interesting results," Mary says. "I think it'll take a few days for us to figure out a balanced system." Mary pauses for a moment and looks up at you. "I could arrange a room for you, if you'd like to stay close to the project."

>"Thank you for the offer, it'll make things easier."
>"No need to bother, I'll go back to my room."

>>31228321
>>"No need to bother, I'll go back to my room."

It's easy enough to get here, as kind as her offer is, and we should be at our room in case of emergency.

>>31228321
> "No need to bother, I'll go back to my room."

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>>31228321
"No need to bother, I'll go back to my room."

"In that case, you should be back here by six in the morning," Mary says. "And help yourself to some food on your way out. The mess will be closed by now."

"Will do, thank you."

You grab some scones and biscuits from the nearest lounge and go back to your room. On your way back, the BETA reactor is the only thing you can think about. The reactors don't melt themselves, so they must have some sort of coolant system, or their normal temperature must be much lower than it was during the experiment. You'll need to look over the analysis of all the components again in the morning to have a better idea of how they fit together. The power plant and the G-element fabricator, at the very least, are clearly design to work off each other. The plant provides the power that keeps the fabricator going, and the fabricator provides the G-elements to catalyze the reactors by converting the mass it's fed. It's not perpetual motion, but once the cycle is going, it should persist as long as the reactor is fed more mass to convert into G-elements.

You finish mumbling to yourself just as you enter your room. The first thing you notice is that Elaine and Vivian are both sleeping on Elaine's bed. Their bedsheet is mostly covering the floor.

>Ignore them. They'll be fine.
>Pull the cover over them. It gets cold in here.
>Prank time! You need some amusement. (Specify the prank)

>>31228714
>>Pull the cover over them. It gets cold in here.

>>31228714
> Pull the cover over them. It gets cold in here.

>>31228714
>>Pull the cover over them. It gets cold in here.

They need the care.

>>31228714
You cover the girls up and throw your clothes around the room haphazardly. You spend most of your shower trying to figure out if the G-elements that superconduct at room temperature are used to conduct heat away from the reactor's interior components. It's damn near miraculous that you didn't bleed yourself dry while shaving.

By the time you crash into your bed, you're wondering if the combustion you saw could even be used in a jet engine. You're familiar with aeronautics, but chemistry is just outside your field of expertise.

Or maybe the computer unit is part of the production process and has to be plugged in as well?

In any case, you're certain the fastest way to figure out how the BETA reactor really works is to disassemble the components and get a good look at their internal components. The researchers and engineers have been conducting passive scans for months, but it seems they've reached the limit of what they can learn. However, if anything goes wrong, you might cause irreparable damage to the components. Trying to rebuild the engines from scratch based on what you've learned so far might work, but it would take a while.

>Ask Mary if you can take the components apart.
>Try to rebuild them from scratch based on your current scans.

>>31229003
>>Ask Mary if you can take the components apart.

>>31229003
> Try to rebuild them from scratch based on your current scans.
Lets not risk the components yet.

>>31229003
>>Try to rebuild them from scratch based on your current scans.


We should have done pranks

>>31229003
You close your eyes and try to get some sleep. While time is against you, you can't risk damaging the reactor components at this point. It's not like you can get more of them by raiding a Hive. No, you're going to have to make do with what's available to you. At best, you might be able to cut off the exterior plating and have a look at the interior. Right now, it's the best you can do.

Waking up on time isn't difficult. You drifted to sleep once or twice, but you couldn't get any real sleep with the reactor on your mind.

You're actually early for your meeting, but it's been moved. One of the engineers points you to a different, larger research labs. Mary ordered the components brought to the same place overnight once the hazmat team was done with them. Even so, everyone - including Mary - is wearing the protective suits.

"Good morning, Mary." You grab a containment suit for yourself.

"Good morning, Julian." Her gaze doesn't stray from the reactor components. "I don't supposed you had a breakthrough last night?"

"I can't say I have," you say. "We're going to have to rebuild these from scratch. We just can't risk damaging them."

"It will take time," Mary says. "But it should be possible, and we still have some time left. We're going to have to perform some hands-on analyses, but I was planning on getting to those anyway. The instruments we were using just weren't precise enough. With this, we can have more precise readings."

You nod slowly. For the time being...

>Analyze the components one by one again. You might pick up on something you've missed.
>Connect all the components together. That's how they're meant to work, so that's how they're meant to be studied.

>>31229434
>>Analyze the components one by one again. You might pick up on something you've missed.

>>31229434
> Analyze the components one by one again. You might pick up on something you've missed.
Then lets connect the things.

>>31229434
"Let's start from the beginning," you say. "There might be something we missed, and getting the details would be useful."

"I agree," Mary says. Mary waves her people and goes over the protocols again. You're basically redoing all the experiments by hand and without the benefits of a controlled environment. When she puts it that way, it sounds a completely suicidal. Which it is.

The researchers gather their instruments and get to work. They crawl over every inch of the components, switch their tools and start all over. A few of them are even able to pry some loose panels. Meanwhile, you watch their progress alongside Mary.

>(roll 9d20)

>>31229434
>Analyze the components one by one again. You might pick up on something you've missed.
fucking captcha

Rolled 10

>>31229793

Rolled 13, 12, 10, 10, 1, 10, 7, 5, 6 = 74

>>31229793
Rolling.

Rolled 1, 10, 7, 19, 9, 15, 17, 19, 11 = 108

>>31229793
Volling

Rolled 8, 13, 1, 10, 17, 18, 6, 17, 19 = 109

>>31229793
Rolling.

Rolled 20, 15, 15, 1, 11, 10, 15, 4, 20 = 111

>>31229793

>>31229793
The retinal HUD systems that are integrated into your hazmat suits make life a lot easier. You use a virtual blackboard to map out the data you gained from previous experiments and from your current findings.

The problem with the fabricator becomes immediately obvious. It appears that the raw materials that are fed to the fabricator are first melted into some sort of slurry which is refined and redistributed to produce different G-elements. Your experiment did not redistribute the slurry adequately, so the G-elements came into contact and triggered a chemical reaction. It wasn't too destructive to the fabricator, but it seems that the process does need to be regulated, probably by the computer unit.

The power plant is also easy to figure out. The G-elements fed to it trigger a chemical reaction and the resulting thermal power is converted into electrical power. You have no idea how - the study of G-elements is still obscure, and it's not really your priority - but it does work. There's probably some sort of mechanical labour involved, but if there is, it's part of the internal components and you can't get to it.

The computer is the most difficult part. You give it some power to turn it on, but you don't notice anything new about it. Mary, however, notices something odd.

"There." She points to some of the transmitters located on the computer's surface. "The number of inactive transmitters matches the number of known G-elements. If I had to guess, they're in charge of regulating the G-element fabricator."

"I thought of that possibility, but isn't it a bit of a stretch?" You point to your schematics of the fabricator. "Normally, the most efficient design would be for the fabricator to regulate itself."

>(cont.)

>>31229434
>>Connect all the components together. That's how they're meant to work, so that's how they're meant to be studied.

>>31230252
"Not necessarily," Mary says. "It might not have enough processing power on its own, or the computers might need to regulate the production of G-elements throughout the reactor as a whole. The process might need to be centralized."

That does sound plausible.

>Link the components together.
>Take the components apart anyway.
>Leave the components as they are for now.

>>31230273
> Link the components together.

Rolled 12, 7, 17, 14, 17, 10, 17, 10, 14 = 118

>>31230273
>>Link the components together.

>>31230273
>>Link the components together.

i have no idea what I'm voting.

>>31230273
>>Link the components together.
in a controlled environment please...

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>>31230273
>Link the components together.

>>31230359
Basically we analyzed how each component works on its own without looking into them. Now we'll link them together, and hopefully figure out how the generator works as a whole.
If we manage that, we'll get new insight into how to produce power, G-elements, and probably break the laws of physics in the process.

>>31230273
"Looks like we're going to have to plug everything together and see how it works," you say.

"Seems like it," Mary says. She waves her team over and gives them their working orders. After that, she brings up the data the researchers have collected so far and the two of you start calculating how you're going to jumpstart this thing without setting yourselves on fire.

>(roll 3d20)

Rolled 15, 1, 18 = 34

>>31230610

Rolled 9, 9, 11 = 29

>>31230610

Rolled 15, 5, 5 = 25

>>31230610

Rolled 5, 2, 4 = 11

>>31230610

>>31230610
You check and triple-check your calculations as the engineers connect the components to each other. It's all improvised, but it's an impressive feat of improvisation. You consider doing this remotely, but if things go wrong, the entire base will probably be caught in the explosion, so it's not like there's much of a point to playing things safe.

You and Mary check over the connections one last time and gives the order to begin the experiment.

"Catalyze the power plant first," she says.

One of the scientists feeds a small amount of G-elements to the power plant. It immediately begins to glow with a soft blue light. The computer and the fabricator soon glow blue as well. The instruments indicate no problems.

"Activate the G-element fabricator," Mary says.

Another scientist inserts some iron in one of the fabricator's slots. Infrared scans show the fabricator heat up significantly, but it's not dangerously hot. Another scanner shows the computer's bioelectromagnetic transmitters. They're all active.

The fabricator spits out G-elements through several different slots. Nothing melts down or explodes.

"Congratulations, Mary," you say. "You've just mastered the secrets of BETA technology. Or close enough, anyway."

>>31230925
MISSION REPORT:
- Richard Hall has survived. (1XP)
- Acquired additional resources from the UN. (1XP)
- Conducted analysis of the G-element fabricator. (1XP)
- Successfully produced G-elements. (1XP)
- Conducted in-depth analysis of the BETA components. (1XP)
- Conducted holistic analysis of the BETA components. (1XP)
- Completed analysis of the BETA reactor components. (1XP)
- Total: 7XP

NOTES:
- MI5 assets will arrange for additional UN resources to be diverted from the Alternative Project to Project Round Table.
- In-depth understanding of BETA technology will facilitate the redevelopment of [CLASSIFIED], one of the theorized components of 5th generation TSFs.

CHARACTER STATUS:
Julian Reber (Main Character)
Level 7 (23/60XP)
Skills: TSF Piloting, Gunnery, Melee, Engineering, Computers
Resources: Budget 1, Connections 7 (Cerberus Battalion, Swiss Government, RAF, Crusaders, MI5, British nobility, Cherno battalion), Gear 4, Personnel 1, Rank 1

Rolled 10, 3, 17 = 30

>>31230959
Thanks for running, its alwasys fun

>>31230959
And I managed to finish right on time for once. Next thread will be Sunday at 7PM EST. We will be going on a trip to Italy.

'Night, folks.

>>31230981
Thanks for running man. Great fun as always.

See you next time.

Rolled 11, 1, 15 = 27

>>31230981
>We will be going on a trip to Italy.
Oh? Taking the girls on a romantic date are we?

I doubt it but we seriously need to bang Elaine already, or her pent up issues and lust for Julian's ass might make her explode

>>31230925
>No explosion.
Well that sure is nice to hear.

>>31230981
Thanks for running. See you later this week!

>>31231020
I think Knight and Wright will be a problem for this endeavor.

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>>31231346
Not if they join in on the fun.