"Well, for the most part, our training has been to expect something to jump out at us whenever we're in one of these situations," Jason replied.

"I don't think he's spooked so much as feeling a bit useless in this techno environment. He can clear a room or check out a closet, but searching for some sort of hidden or secret door... I'm not a techno-geek, either, but I accepted this assignment knowing that we would be going out into the wild black yonder and encountering this sort of thing. Well, maybe not exactly this sort of thing, but it was bound to be alien sooner or later."

"Hell, the Goa'uld themselves are scary alien. They've forgotten more than we know, which is the only reason we can deal with them. We use that weakness against them. We stumbled across it by accident, and the fact that they can't adjust to our tactics just makes them all the more effective."

"So, how do you want to do this? Both look at the same spot... the two-eyes-are-better-than-one approach? Or you take that side, and I take this side?"

"I'm not really a techy either; that's what we have Carter here for; she knows her stuff and she'll figure out that stuff. But for her to do that, and McGuinness to do his geek stuff, they need to know that someone's got their back. That's you, me, and Fox. Often that means clearing rooms and checking out closets, but it can also mean digging trenches and filling them back in again. That's probably why SGC picked us three for this team; Rangers are used to doing the whole gamut of grunt work and surviving in unsurvivable situations, sometimes behind enemy lines; it's what we do.

As for searching, I figure that this transportation thing is probably somewhat out in the open, so to speak. After all it was obvious on the power controls, and if it is meant for general usage, you generally don't hide something like that. So probably we should both take a side. However I don't want us to separate too far, in case something does jump out of nowhere at one of us.

You take that side, I'll take this one; let's stay within earshot.

By the way; I can't believe no one even cracked a smile at my 'Rangers lead the way' joke. Sheesh! You guys are going to have to learn to love my humor, or this is never going to work out!"

Coleman winks and smiles as he heads off to the side he indicated for himself.

Heading down the tunnel that lead to the living quarters area, Coleman and Jason pass a door on the left that has a clear window in it. It's easy to determine that none of the other doors have windows in them, so this would seem to be a door that has frequent use.

Now that the facility has full power, the door slides aside as you approach it. Behind it is a second door that also slides aside when you approach. Beyond is an open shaft in the center of a set of spiral stairs. The shaft and stairs go down about 20 feet.

As you approach the stairs, a shimmering blue disc appears in the shaft.



Back in the control/power room, Travis just wanders around a bit while Carter and Kyle continue to try and understand what the displays all show. They still can't figure out what the sixth bank of controls is for.

Starting with the 'underground' tunnel system, they are able to determine that the display shows real-time conditions. This means that most of the tunnel system appears to be intact still. However, it isn't clear if the sections are powered, or just functional. Still working on translating the language.

Kyle took out a notepad and started scribbling fragments of language as he tried to puzzle it out, looking for recurring sequences as he attempted to figure out the meanings.

In reply to Kyle McGuinness (msg # 702):

Jackie will also be furiously scribbling notes and trying to analyze the language.

"Well, this looks promising. I'll radio back to the others before we go down, that way they know where not to go if we don't come back." Coleman winks and sends his comms; "Carter, McGuinness, and Fox; we found something, a stairway leading down; looks promising.", then he includes the directions needed to get to where they are.

"Ok, let's go down into this unsecured area. You want to take point or cover the rear this time?"

"OK, have fun and don't get into trouble," responded Kyle, his mind still on linguistic fragments.

It soon becomes evident that Kyle and Carter, while attempting to do the same thing, are going at it from two very different perspectives.

Kyle is trying to decipher the language based on cultural references... essentially, how a culture would have designated things, such as 'stop', 'go', etc.

Carter, on the other hand, is working on it from a linguistic standpoint... what constitutes a letter, or a phoneme, or a syllable. Displays seldom show complete sentences, so she doesn't have to decipher lengthy texts or learn to speak it.


Kyle can combine Cultures and Cryptography to make a skill check to decipher the language, DC 30, but failure will only mean he's partially successful

Carter can use her Computer skill, but will have to add Inspiration to have any chance.

Travis is merely trying to get a 'sense' of the culture that built this facility. It's hard and metallic and 'soulless', but people once worked here. He doesn't expect there will be much, if any, 'resonance' left in such a place, especially after all this time, but there may still be residual images trapped within the material.


[OOC: I meant to do this awhile ago, but had trouble getting a round tuit, and then I'd forget, but...

Everyone can progress a level.

If either Carter or Kyle want to, they can spend a skill point to gain Rank 1 in Xenolanguages, which will give a working knowledge of the Sha'Kri written language.]

[OOC: Everyone update their character now? Is it okay to continue?

Been having internet trouble anyway...]

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 707):

OOC: done

OOC: I think I've got it done...

[OOC: Apologies once again for the delay. Last Friday, internet was out and continued for half of Saturday. Monday I picked up a virus/malware that screwed up Windows Edge browser, and it would no longer load anything from the internet. Didn't know what the problem was, though, so I put it into the computer shop. Turns out, Edge is so intertwined with Windows now that I have to reload Windows, which could wipe out a lot of my material.

Also, I just discovered that, somewhere along the way, I've had a lot of files deleted. May be more than the ones I've found so far.

And then RPoL was down for a couple hours yesterday.]


So... Coleman and Jason have found the access point to the underground tube system. The door opened much like an airplane's door, being airtight when closed. It swung open away from you and to the side, revealing a flight of stairs going down.

Lights come on as you descend, and show a station from a magnetic tube conveyance system. The steps end about 6 feet from a siding that has a car sitting there. It's ten feet long and 5 feet in diameter. It appears to have a gullwing door on either side, presumably opening based on which side the exit at a station is on.

The gullwing door on this side is open, and there are four cushioned seats in it.

You can see the circular openings in the walls to either end of this station; they look a bit larger than the diameter of the car. The siding tapers into the main track, which is a semi-circle in the floor of the station.


Carter is able to read the data displayed on the consoles now, although it's not 100%. The six power distribution units are marked: Habitat, Research, Transport, Power, Solar, and... Orbit.


Travis surprisingly begins getting impressions... of the way life was here at the facility. He's a bit astounded to get them, but quickly realizes that it's probably because the species was psionic. It may be that he's receiving these residual psionic images because he's open to spirits, but he think that it is the spirits of these people... or the land... that he is 'seeing'.

OOC: Sorry, looked at this on my phone, then forgot to respond when I got back to a computer. Better late than never, I guess!

Upon surveying the hyperloop, Coleman is pretty happy with what he sees. He tries his comms to see if he can raise the others; if not, he'll head back up to the top of the stairs and call them; "Carter, McGuinness, and Fox; we've located the conveyance system; looks like maybe some sort of mag-tube setup. There's even a car here waiting for us; once you've got the setup sorted out, head on down and we can try it out. Or, if you like, Bjorn and I can jump in and give it a whirl. Just make sure whatever you're doing doesn't include self destruct or smashing us into a collapsed tunnel!"

In reply to Coleman Hendricks (msg # 711):

While Carter answers she makes sure their is power to the transport system and tries to pull up a map of the system.

" Understood, Transport looks good from here. "

Coleman opens the door to the transport pod and gets in, then signals to Bjorn to get in too. Then he closes the door and looks to see if there are controls here, or if this is meant to be centrally controlled/automated. "Let's see where we can go, shall we?"

As soon as Coleman gets in, the front control panel lights up with a display similar to the one in the control room. The destinations that are reachable are lit up.

Presumably, you just have to touch the destination.

Jason looks at the conveyance rather suspiciously.

"Are you sure we can get out of this... especially if something goes wrong?" he asked, reluctantly climbing into the seat behind Coleman.

"You do realize that our radios aren't going to reach back this far, even if the others are outside. What if this conveyance doesn't bring us back?"

"Hell, we don't even know how far these other destinations are."

He thumbs his radio call button.

"Hey, Carter! Does that fancy display give any indication how far away these other stops are?"

"Well, I'm sure that they built it with built in safety features just like we would, and it almost has to be a two way conveyance; not much point in a transit system that only goes one way. It is old, but given the condition of the base and the fact that everything came back up with nary a problem, I think it is worth the risk. Besides, where's your spirit of discovery!"

Once inside he waits for Carter to answer Bjorn's question before hitting the button for whatever seems likely to be the closest destination, taking note of what appears to be their current position.

"Just think of it as riding an elevator... only horizontal," Coleman smiles.

Kyle watched the console, to see if there were any indications that anyone was using the transit system.

"I'm with you," Jason grumbled. "To infinity... and beyond!"

He climbed in behind Coleman.

"I don't think was intended to be mass transit. Two or three people at a time? And what if another car was coming from the other direction?"

"Yeah, only four seats per car; though, perhaps, it is meant to allow many cars in motion at once. As for cars going the other way, it is possible that there's a return track that we just couldn't see beyond the car? or there may be siding tracks so that cars can travel in opposing directions with the computer timing them so that they miss each other.

If either of those is the case, then it could be utilized for mass transit similar to that hyperloop thing that what's his face proposed."

"Hyperloop?" Jason queried. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Wait! Are you saying these cars phase out... so that two cars approaching each other could actually pass through each other?"

He suddenly realized that sounded a lot worse that it probably was. After all, they used the stargates... which, if the eggheads could be believed, disassembled your molecules, beamed them through the wormhole and put them all back together again on the other end.

It also suddenly reminded him of an old joke he'd heard, though he couldn't quite remember how the whole thing went. It just ended with: 'me push the button and it go like hell!'.

Guess they were going to go like hell...

"Ready when you are, Colonel. Though I swear to God that if this kills me, I WILL come back and haunt you!"

"Huh, hadn't thought of that; no I meant that they may have periodic side tubes they can take such that the controlling computer can send them one way or the other to miss each other; with a computer it seems like timing something like that would be simple.

As for haunting me; I'll be in Heaven, so good luck contending with Saint Peter, sergeant!"

Coleman smiles and winks, and hits the button to go.

Back in the control room, Carter and Kyle see the changes on the monitor for the transportation system.

First of all, the image for the pod changes when Coleman gets in, and then again when Jason gets in. A number appears above the pod image: 2/0. The 2 is green, the 0 is yellow. A readout along the side indicates that the numbers represent live occupants and cargo.

The pod also develops an arrow at the front, clearly showing the direction of travel. All the lines in that direction turn blue.

As soon as Coleman presses the button, the line to that destination turns green, and a name appears over the destination. The closest translation Carter can come up with is Zerlon.


Down in the pod, when Coleman presses the button, the door of the pod closes, non-visible restraints engage, and the pod accelerates forward. As soon as it enters the tube, it takes off like a bat out of hell. There's some sensation of acceleration, but not nearly as much as there should be.

The green line also has a number appear above it, which Kyle translates as 37 miles.


Up in the control room, the green changes shades to a lighter green. And the pod reaches its destination in about 5 minutes.


Coleman and Jason find that the trip only lasts about 5 minutes!

The pod arrives in a station similar to the one they left, except it's a bit bigger. There are 5 tubes side by side, with walkways over them. Flights of stairs go up on both sides.

It looked like the lights came on just before you arrived; you could out the front of the pod.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 722):

Carter gets over the comms.

" First, Colonel, the system says you are in Zerion. Second, and this is cool, the system keeps track off live occupants and cargo. "