RolePlay onLine RPoL Logo

, welcome to Giant Comics: Explore Beautiful Weston City

17:16, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

The Lab.

Posted by Megaira KattakaraFor group 0
Megaira Kattakara
player, 1719 posts
Dressed casually
casually serious.
Tue 4 Jul 2017
at 06:42
  • msg #1

The Lab

  Megaira's lab, it actually orbits inside the asteroid belt that hangs between Earth and Mars, and is fully shielded by a small reverse-polarity gravity field, that keeps anything from impacting the lab itself.  It's a very large lab, considering that it's in space, and it is powered by solar energy.  There is a hydroponics section where she has clearly been testing biomes for ship-structures, as well as a number of other sections.  It looks, if one were to spacewalk near it, much like a blobby, lumpy asteroid with straight lines and curves made of a dull, almost matte colored metal.
Ozzy Gysbourne
player, 3093 posts
Bigger, badder
and better than ever.
Tue 4 Jul 2017
at 11:58
  • msg #2

The Lab

Ozzy said, "True. "The best and brightest minds" could easily include people like Builder, so that would be bad. Still, having talented scientists and mechanics on-board wouldn't be a bad thing to have, since Murphy's Law almost always tends to strike in space."

Ozzy then started looking around the lab and said, "Nice! You built this all yourself? Way to go, Megs!"
This message was last edited by the player at 11:59, Tue 04 July 2017.
Megaira Kattakara
player, 1720 posts
Dressed casually
casually serious.
Tue 4 Jul 2017
at 16:10
  • msg #3

The Lab

  Meg nodded, and said "I've had free time.  You knew there were times I seemed to disappear off the face of the earth?  Because, technically, I did.  I was up here, working on this place so I could study the right stuff for the engineering."  She'd taken them into one of the places in the lab that had windows, and Ozzy and Matt could both see the Earth, a glittering jewel that looked very far away, and the orb of Mars, a dark ruby in the solar sky.  The shapes of asteroids tumbling about them were like ominous beasts that made dancing shadows, and the Lab seemed to stay relative to the location as the whole belt was moving.  She said "Other than Mom, you two are the first other people here."
Matt Matthews
player, 202 posts
Just your friendly local
lurking monstrosity
Tue 4 Jul 2017
at 21:48
  • msg #4

The Lab

  "Space stations do seem to be getting more popular these days, though I expect it would have been rude of me to check them out on my own."  His manners are far less than perfect alas, so hopefully he continues to refrain from annoying the Global Guardians on that front.

  "Still, thank you for showing us around."
Ozzy Gysbourne
player, 3094 posts
Bigger, badder
and better than ever.
Tue 4 Jul 2017
at 21:57
  • msg #5

The Lab

Ozzy chuckles and says, "I hear that, though I'm not sure how I feel about Bill's. He's the Guardian of the Earth, sure, and his base or whatever not being in any one country helps keep him out of politics, at least a little. I get that much. I guess I'm just worried that he and Darren will become disconnected from the little people on the ground. I mean, didn't we have that one time-traveler that wasn't Bella a while back who was from a place where that exact thing happened, and Bill became a dictator or whatever? I remember Bill was freaked out about that for the *longest* time."
Megaira Kattakara
player, 1721 posts
Dressed casually
casually serious.
Thu 6 Jul 2017
at 12:33
  • msg #6

The Lab

  Meg nodded, and said "I think having Bella will keep them very firmly grounded.  At least, while she's a little girl.  Who can get too big of an ego when they have to change a stinky diaper?  I babysit a lot, but not all the time.  Now, you two should see my plans for the Ark.  Come this way. . . "  She led the way down a corridor and to a window that looked out into the blackness of space, away from the dazzling light of the sun, and they could see the beginnings of a positively enormous gantry beginning to take shape as she said "As you can see, I'm pretty good at multitasking.  Right now I'm assembling the gantry to put the Ark together, if I give it more attention, I can have the actual hull assembled in less than six months.  The stardrives are ready, but the inertial compensation mechanism is still a touch buggy.  Grav shielding keeps the hull from being spattered with impacts, it's low strength at rest and gets stronger as the ship would move.  I've got a thorough scan of a number of extra-solar objects out there I can also utilize and convert to materials, most of them are big enough I've tried to avoid pulling them into easy working distance because I didn't want to go panicking the astronomy circles."
Ozzy Gysbourne
player, 3095 posts
Bigger, badder
and better than ever.
Thu 6 Jul 2017
at 16:47
  • msg #7

The Lab

Ozzy chuckles and says, "Heh, talk about starting a panic. "Meteor mysteriously heads closer to Earth! everybody run for your lives!""

He thinks for a moment, then says, "Though, maybe you *should* talk to the international space community, just so they don't freak out. Somebody's probably going to see your ship at some point. Maybe talk to Ethan about it, if you haven't already. I'm pretty sure he'd be a good person to have on your side, and the DPA might have some interesting strings they could pull to help get this ready faster. You can't tell me there's not some guys out there who want to work on space stuff, and can't get into the International Space Station for whatever reason."
Matt Matthews
player, 205 posts
Just your friendly local
lurking monstrosity
Thu 6 Jul 2017
at 19:13
  • msg #8

The Lab

  Matt has some very mixed feelings about branch timelines, given his instincts.  So he tries to focus on the more positive aspects of that, such as allowing people to high five themselves with no risk of paradoxical annihilation.

  "While I do appreciate the mindset towards just wanting to live calmly out in space, eventually something to defend itself and it's passengers from more than just the stray space debris will be needed…. Which of course will probably make politics even more nervous than playing marbles with stellar objects."
Megaira Kattakara
player, 1722 posts
Dressed casually
casually serious.
Sat 8 Jul 2017
at 03:46
  • msg #9

The Lab

  Meg chuckled, and admitted "As much as I see Ethan, I hadn't really discussed it in a more than theoretical way with him, even if he IS like a crazy adoptive uncle."  She made a motion indicating the scope of the gantry as she said "I will get the actual hull started, and if there are engineers and such planetside that want to work on it, I'd be happy to let them join in.  once they get cleared to work on the Ark.  There would be weapons, but they wouldn't be without safeguards.  That's something I'd want to talk to Ethan or perhaps Bill about, since anything that can defend  space ship is a pretty powerful weapon by itself."
Ozzy Gysbourne
player, 3096 posts
Bigger, badder
and better than ever.
Sat 8 Jul 2017
at 20:47
  • msg #10

The Lab

Ozzy said, "I'm veto-ing AI right now. I'm not comfortable with any machine having control over a weapon that doesn't have to check with a human before it kills. Though maybe something to help with targeting, since in space, there's no inertia to stop a mis-fired shot from giving somebody else a hundred lightyears away a really bad day."
Matt Matthews
player, 206 posts
Just your friendly local
lurking monstrosity
Sun 9 Jul 2017
at 03:01
  • msg #11

The Lab

  He shrugs, "Honestly, compared to half the hardware being swung around on the surface, the only reason your ships would look any more noteworthy by comparison is the fact they can aim from all the way up here."

  Matt nods to Ozzy "Well, maybe if you found an AI who was already a proven non jerk.  That seems to work out better than trying to purpose build them in the first place, for some reason."
Ozzy Gysbourne
player, 3097 posts
Bigger, badder
and better than ever.
Sun 9 Jul 2017
at 04:13
  • msg #12

The Lab

Ozzy nods and says, "Yeah, though that's part of the issue. You put a six meter long tungsten rod in a railgun, and fire it at Earth from all the way out here? That's a straight up WMD."

He then looks at Matt and says, "Fair point. If there is a pre-existing AI who is definitely not a Skynet wannabe, then I guess that wouldn't be so bad."
Megaira Kattakara
player, 1723 posts
Dressed casually
casually serious.
Sun 9 Jul 2017
at 16:20
  • msg #13

The Lab

  Meg shook her head, and said "I hadn't even considered AI or AS.  For one, a computer programmer I am not, and I don't know any that are that good well enough to ask them to build such a unit.  I was thinking more along the lines of having to have two or three people agree and use simultaneous keys to unlock them or something like that, as well as some strict controls on the autotargeting. Like if whatever is targeted is beyond a certain range, it won't fire, or if it's above a certain size, or if it isn't moving under it's own power."
Ozzy Gysbourne
player, 3098 posts
Bigger, badder
and better than ever.
Sun 9 Jul 2017
at 20:22
  • msg #14

The Lab

Ozzy said, "Admittedly, there's flaws to that system as well, but I'd be more willing to trust it, I suppose, depending on who was holding the keys."

He then shrugged and said, "But, there's flaws to any system, really. That is the nature of humanity, after all. All of us, and everything we make, has its flaws. It's just one of the realities of life."
Sign In