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 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.

  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."

  "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 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."

  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 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 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."

  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 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."

  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 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."

  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 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."

  Meg nodded, and said "It's not perfect, but I know I am far from perfect myself."  She indicated a small craft, and asked them both "Want to try that little ship out?  It's got the latest setup of the inertial compensator in it, as well as the engines, and I've had it out, but what *I* can tolerate, and some other people can are two different beasties.  So, want to be proverbial guinea pigs?""

  "While it could lead to a horrible space political incident, honestly I think design should skew towards assuming the residents won't be huge assholes.  Safeguards against misfire are important, and any amount of firepower will always have a risk of misuse.  But when the whole point of this ark is to put the best representation of humanity you can on a long ride, treating them like they need adult supervision at all times is fairly counterproductive to that hope."

  Then Meg brought up expensive amusement park rides legitimate science.  "I do, I so very do.  I'm an indescribable entity of vague origin and I still find this sort of thing fun despite being my own interstellar zipline service.  Though from a legitimate standpoint, I can definitely gauge the physical forces accurately for your tests with my awareness. All I ask is no comparisons to crash test dummies, who are even more expressive than I am."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:20, Mon 10 July 2017.

Ozzy grinned and said, "You even have to ask? Heck yeah! Matt should probably drive, though, in case the G Forces knock me out."

  Matt's nature means he gets to always be able to check his phone, without any of the social interruptions of ring tones, vibration, or physically checking his phone (Of which even he is still unsure it maintains working order beyond expected means, even after five extra years of sci-fi tinkering with it).

  "Huh. There appears to be metaphysical shenanigans about Weston State. Or so I assume, I never get calls otherwise." Okay that's an exaggeration. He OCCASIONALLY gets calls otherwise.

  "Meg, would you mind unlocking the nearest door or a quick access portal?  It would feel rude leaving my own way with all the effort you've put into security."

  Pesky morals.  Could have test driven for science, but no you had to have standards.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:00, Wed 12 July 2017.

"Oh, that's just Roger. If you're talking about the dude with the melty chocolate guy. He's harmless... Well, aside from the psychological trauma, maybe? Still, if you're just in the mood to hit a punching clown, have fun," said Ozzy, as if he were declining an invitation to go see a movie he wasn't interested in.

  This is the life Matt lives now, where that explanation makes complete sense.

  "On the one hand, I don't like punching people for the hell of it.  On the other hand, my nature means I halfway expect Maverick to find ways to cause lasting harm to complacent metas."  That and Matt's apathy towards people screwing with physics and reality, is reserved to those not using it to screw with people (Otherwise, he'd never have any free time).

  Matt texted: Survey says 'Just Rodger, he's harmless' But that's probably small comfort to chocolate guy.  Your call if I play 'concerned entity' or 'apathetic immortal'

OOC: Out of game talks means I can inform Maverick's brother I texted in this thread, handy!

Ozzy shrugs and says, "All I know is that everything Rodger has ever done as part of one of his "evil schemes" has been super simple to reverse. From the patterns I've noticed, he seems to have been set up by the government as a training dummy for the Defenders, as well as any other newbie heroes, I guess. I'll come with if you want, but considering that I go out with Thor to get into fights with jotunn for funsies... Well, I'll mostly stick to crowd control, keeps things interesting."

  "Well, given that informative note it seems Maverick wants to give it a shot by himself first... Which means I still get to drive the space ship!" Oh no Matt is already becoming apathetic and jaded.  Actually, would he be excited about driving the prototype space ship after years of proper space ships if that were true?

Ozzy grinned, "Sweet! Sounds like a plan. We can totally go bail him out if he gets into trouble."

  Meg laughed, and said "Yeah, sounds like a typical Rodger-ism.  Come this way,
 I have a small model in the hangar, which faces out toward the outer planets."  She led the way to the hangar, where a large, (relatively, it wasn't anywhere like the size of the gantry being assembled out there) roughly flattish craft waited, simply floating in the air about ten feet above the floor.  It was all a matte black, with no visible windows or doors.  She moved underneath, and rose up, lightly playing her fingers across a slightly recessed spot, and the bottom irised open, offering them all access.  She said "Hop on in and we can take this one for s spin.   It has the latest version of the grav drive and the inertial compensators.  Full speed is not available within the limits of the solar gravity well,
 but you can still get to almost lightspeed.  Outside of the gravity well, I haven't test-clocked it yet."

Ozzy grinned, "Oh man, this thing looks amazing! I can't decide if it looks more like the ship from The Day the Earth Stood Still or Flight of the Navigator."

He then stopped for a moment and said, "So, wait, we're going to be going to be going near the speed of light? How long are we going to be gone for? I don't want to be missing for sixty years or whatever. I may not be a science genius, but I know enough to know that time dilation is a thing."

  "The second one, definitely the second one." So far the tone set by it's soon to be passengers sets.

  "Ignoring time dilation is like, the first step of a proper spacecraft.  Unless your project or script needs to take advantage of it, in which case it's a claimed to be a feature."

  He shrugs,  ""Still, while I expect Meg took care of that. I'M here, so I can assure you only an act of God's God's boss will make you out of synch with local time." Not, that wasn't an accidental repeat of words.

Ozzy nods and says, "Fair enough. Then let's do this thing!"

With that, Ozzy hopped into the craft, ready to help test Meg's new ship.

  Meg laughed, and said "You won't be gone that long.  For one, it would seem like less time to us than it would to anyone else, and for two, we aren't GOING to go all the way to Pluto or Uranus, just a fast swoop around.  To see if you can tolerate the G forces involved."  She indicated to Matt where he should sit, and she tapped on the large glassine globe that sat low on the floor in front of the seat.  It came alight and rose up to a comfortable height for the person sitting in the driver's seat, and a holographic screen lit up, the entire front wall of the craft appearing to become transparent as it did.  Meg checked the hatch, which had irised closed, and she then used her magnetics to open the hangar doors, but maintaining the atmosphere inside.

Ozzy said, "Exactly! If I just randomly disappeared for like 60 years, Clarissa would *kill* me!"

He then grinned and added, "Still, since we're not going far, it'll be fine!"

  Matt has always been interested how for the most part, regardless of design style there became something familiar with 'space ship pilots seat' over the years.   Well, outside of the ones with deliberately outlandish control methods.

  "Learning to fly ships without crashing was really sped along by the fact I could crash with zero repercussions.  It was like murphy's law of property damage."

  That mixed message given, he goes to ease the ship out the airlock after the universal ritual of 'make sure it's not in park or reverse'.

OOC: Fortunately, Matt does not share my habits from when I was still playing Elite Dangerous... Well, unless he needs to prove a point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLBon8U1Ez0 
This message was last edited by the player at 20:50, Fri 14 July 2017.

  Matt discovered that the controls were very intuitive, permitting the slightest movement of his hands to direct the ship forward or back, and the further forward (or whatever direction), the faster it went.  So a slow, gentle glide out of the hanger rapidly had them outside, and then accelerating toward the open space that was past the asteroid belt.  The ship was beautifully responsive, and it purred subtly under his hands as they rapidly reached more than half of lightspeed without seeming to, the only way to tell by the faintest sensation of one's tummy doing the roller-coaster-drop to the rear.

Ozzy was grinning wildly as the trio started zooming through space, the sensation of rapid movement giving the long time adrenaline junkie just what he'd been hoping for.

"Hot damn! That was some pretty ridiculous acceleration, and I feel fine! I think you're on the right track with your ship, Megs!" crowed Ozzy as they continued their test run.

  It was times like this, that helped Matt feel better about the fact the closest he can get to eating a pizza these days is to headbutt it.

  That feeling when you can personally gauge the accuracy of a prototype ship's space speedometer.  Things like that were what made leaving his inefficient organic biology behind worth it.

  Matt was glad to be home, but space had been good for him.   "So, who wants a loop around a stellar object?"

Ozzy thought for a moment and asked, "Wait, what's that? I'm not up on all of my astronomical terminology. But, sure, I guess."

  "Oh, it's just an excuse term you can apply to basically anything in space." That said, Matt maneuvered to take a conservative loop around the closest uninhabited moon, mindful of staying well out of any notable amounts of gravity.

  "That reminds me, Meg.  While your project intentions are for all space, all the time.  Are you designing these to be able to handle reentry and the influence of local gravity wells in a practical manner?"

  Meg answered "This one can enter the gravity well of a planet, but you have to switch to a different drive system.  It will automatically switch drives when the sensors detect a stellar object with a deep enough gravity well is detected.  The Ark itself won't be able to, but I would be placing quite a few of these aboard it too.  We could literally land this in the back yard at my house, but then we would definitely have to call Ethan and let him know it's NOT hostile aliens making a landing.  I haven't had any of the ships close enough to really register on anyone's radar systems."

Ozzy chuckled, "Heh, I imagine some folks at SETI would be pissed if we buzzed their radars in this thing. Well, at least when they find out that we're not aliens. Probably a good thing that you his out in the asteroid belt, otherwise you might have been seen."

  "It must be a real headache for SETI when their job involves not only looking for things, but also how often they are told not to report their findings when they manage."

  Matt is glad to hear the ship is normally accommodating for practical travel, "That sounds like a smooth transition, especially if it scales back the speed on it's own rather than an a systems straining emergency stop so you don't hit something even at the more leisurely superluminal speeds."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:00, Tue 25 July 2017.

  Meg chuckled, and said "Yeah.  Well, anything that isn't able to land itself on a planet will need shuttlecraft, so I figured I could design a good working shuttlecraft before I made the bigger ship so it would have viable options since I don't want to horse with teleportation like in Star Trek.  If someone else wanted to horse with that design, they are welcome to do so.  I think I did pretty well coming up with a functional FTL design.  But in any case, I am glad to see that this design works well, and we can make it work for the Ark.
  And then hopefully make an Ark a viable and working 'emergency plan B' that we can put into action."  She poked Ozzy with one finger, and added "Are you sure your Dad will be up to working closely with us on the idea for this one?  It IS a big tangle of potential legal headaches, since I do NOT plan to restrict potential 'employees' of the Ark to American citizenship."

Ozzy shrugged and said, "I mean, he can at least point you in the right direction. I'm sure there's some treaties or something like that that govern the International Space Station. Something like that would be a great starting point. I'm honestly not sure if the law even covers this, to be honest. Just don't, like, kidnap anybody. There's probably nothing on the books for FTL ark-ships, though, since they're still just science fiction to anyone but us. It's hard enough to get Congress to act on existing tech, much less bleeding edge stuff like this."

  "Well, hopefully however that gets smoothed over doesn't involve too much complaining that you were already working on it in the first place." Matt really doubts the project would be put to a stop if she was asked, but it would certainly make things more convenient for Meg to get the go ahead.

Ozzy nodded, "More or less. The only thing I can think of is don't put any radioactive, biological or chemical weapons on these, and you're good from a letter of the law standpoint. That's what sis said, anyway, but she's usually right about that kind of stuff."

  Meg chuckled, and said "Right now it doesn't have any weapons, but most of the ones in question are not meant for in-atmosphere anyway.  There are short range lasers which are set to destroy things that threaten hull integrity, if it gets through the shielding, and a couple things that I haven't shown anyone else because they're sort of accidental discoveries while I was working on the grav drive, but nothing radioactive, biological or chemical.  So I guess that neatly covers that aspect.  Ozzy, do I need to type up a proposal for the idea and give it to you to hand off to your family, or can I just explain it to them in person?"  The ship moved through space so smoothly, it was amazingly fun.  And it made one easily picture swanning around the whole solar system with these things, given that Megs could obviously visit just about any planet she wanted with it.  NASA was going to be jealous as hell.

"Come by Gysbourne Manor on Sunday, we have family dinner every week. You're more than welcome, and it's been too long since Mom and Michaela saw you. You can tell Dad and Grandpa then. Like I said, this is a bit too high tech for anything too specific to be on the books, but I'm sure someone can figure something out for you. I'll let them know when we're back in cell phone range, give them some time to research the issue," said Ozzy with a grin.

  "I suppose 'too short range to hit anything from orbit' would logically be a comforting specification for a giant laser.  So I guess hope nobody is smart enough to point out the ship moves so fast that doesn't matter, but still dumb enough to take offense."

  At Ozzy's comments, he adds "Well, unless Meg wants to test out the equally important features of stellar grade communications.  Don't think about it too hard and you're cleared for making successful cellphone calls from space for the moment. Though talking about this sort of thing in person probably would be for the best."

Ozzy nodded and said, "True. I mostly wanted to give my family a chance to do some research so they can have something salient for Meg at dinner."

  Meg chuckled, and said "Well, I did design something, but it's a little hard to test it out without a second shuttlecraft in operation.  Nobody on earth has a matching set of hardware to receive the signals the ship would use to communicate."  She spread her hands a bit, and admitted "Bleeding edge tech like this isn't precisely easy to test when you're working by yourself most of the time."

Ozzy chuckled and said, "Well, if you got NASA or something like them in on this, it may help with that. That would be a good thing to maybe talk to Ethan about. Im pretty sure that the only reason you're still alone on this is you haven't let anyone else know about it. There's a lot of sci-fi geeks with degrees who'd give their left nut to work on this."

  Well, Matt is certainly a head of the curve on that old phrase.  "To-Do list.  Make a phone that does more than talk to itself.  Doesn't quite have the same ring to it as 'space ship. work in progress'."

  Meg laughed, and said "I have three of these shuttles already built.  They all have the FTL comm system, so it will be easy enough to test it when I have more than one of the shuttles out, but yeah, I will have to open up the project to some more scientific minds.
  Although I am NOT asking them to donate nuts to get on the project."  Her cheeks had colored as she considered that idea.

Ozzy chuckled and said, "Still, glad that you're at least thinking about bringing in more people."

  Meg admitted "I can't do everything by myself.  I need psychological experts to help me select the right people to be passengers and crew on the Ark.  Perhaps making it a nonprofit would be a good way to do that?  I am sure your family, Ozzy, with the legal expertise you share, can help me find a way to make my plan B for humanity's survival succeed."

Ozzy nodded and said, "Maybe not us, at least not by ourselves. We may be a big firm in Weston, but we're small fry in the world at large. And you're talking about stuff that organizations like the U.N. are going to want to watch. We'll at least point you in the right direction, though. Make sure whoever represents you has their heads on straight."

  "You should probably remind people that they will be lightyears away from anyone who will care they are famous. That might shave off a dozen applications or so."

  Meg nodded, and said "I figured they would be interested.  That'[s one reason I want to make sure that they know that it will be based on a selection process includoing psychological evaluations, professional skills, and physical fitness.  Health will be an important thing, because a healthy person will do better in a ship than one that requires long term, expensive medical care.  Although I could probably take care of anything that needed fixed if we found a candidate that was perfect except for health.  But we don't precisely want to let the world know that anyone with health issues is wide open to potentially going.  That would make me have to go into hiding since it would reveal I have some method of curing almost anything."  She always had made a point of NOT disclosing that her healing abilities went far beyond just patching up injuries to the world at large, and she likely always would.  After all, given how some people were, if that was known, she would be hounded to the ends of the universe by people desperate to have their person healed, even if the person did not want that.

Ozzy chuckled and said, "Right? I was a little worried after what you did with Don and Nora, though thankfully nobody seems to have caught on that they're both mysteriously like 20 years younger than they were before the wedding."

He then looked at Matt and said, "Maybe, though a big star on the decline might see it as the best way to get away from their careers."

  Gee Matt, why haven't you cured world hunger? I don't know, why haven't the rest of the immortals hundreds of times my age?  Petty, yes. But not one of the worst mindsets to help adjust to his new existence.

  "Screening should probably work out, unless you go full overkill 'you have a family history of heart disease, no space flight for you' and the like.  Though now Ozzy has me wondering about the wild world of famous rocket scientists that don't get grant money like they used to."

  Meg shook her head, and said "I'm thinking more along the lines of 'you had two heart attacks already, you're not eligible' than something that small.  Or something like 'you've had six rounds of skin cancer, and you still sunbathe and tan regularly, not eligible'.
 Behavioral tendencies that are self destructive that way would be bad to include for someone who may have skills that are vital, and I would not want those skills lost."  She waved her hand over another crystal set into a wall, and a panel moved out, the display configuring to reveal most of the current transmissions (there were a crapton) that Earth was currently sending out, aware of it or not.  "This is the commset, by the way."

"So, how does it work? Is it one of those quantum entangled dealies like in Ender's Game?" asked Ozzy.

  "Well, you will certainly avoid people trying to pass their tests thanks to a crippled athlete on their payroll they are impersonating that way." Nerd.

  "Quantum entanglement is overrated and generally used for it's often exclusive nature rather than practicality.  But then old literature also thought a smart talking baby was the most outlandish thing in the world, yet here we are."  Neeeeeeeerd.

  Meg chuckled, and said "Actually, it's a gravity based system.  Gravity travels faster than light, so you can send gravitic information faster than light to a gravity receiver."  She indicated the comm system reading realtime information on the asteroids and the outer planets and their moons as she spoke.

Ozzy nodded and said, "Fair enough, I guess. Though unless you only send out tiny amounts, it might cause issues with pulling things towards it, since gravity curves the spacetime around it. Also, you should make sure that the system won't fail if you're near something that's got high gravity, like a big planet or a star. I wonder what Iris would think about this."

  Meg shook her head, and said "They won't pull.  I worked hard on that part.  See,
 the real trick to it is the sensors on the receiving end of the comm unit, it 'sees' the small fluctuations in the gravitational fields.  Make them sensitive enough, and they can see what amounts to micropulses.  The 'sending' part makes a pulse that's only strong enough to be seen, but not felt, and it's a directional thing.  I designed them so that it shifts direction depending on who or what is being addressed.  Now, there IS a 'normal' commset, with the regular radio, microwwave and suck, but those aren't ftl.  It's built into the same panel,
 and can be used without switching terminals.  But the FTL part basically uses grav pulse patterns.  It can also attach a data-packet in the RF spectrum, although those take a bit longer and have to then be drcrypted.  I never said it was perfect, but it IS FTL comm."

  "If it works without horrible ingredients or metaphysical repercussions, that's good enough for me."  There are very low odds the main component is the tears of orphaned black holes.  But you never know these days. Fortunately, Matt would have been able to tell...

  Matt spends a lot of his time trying not to think about his ability to detect such absurdities.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:54, Tue 08 Aug 2017.

Ozzy nodded, "Yeah, fair enough. I was just curious is all, and I know Iris is going to ask. So, what else needs testing? Or should we bring this back to base?"

  Meg considered, then asked "Do you want to take it back to the lab, or land it in my back yard on Earth to test the stealth capabilities?  I DID work on those, because stealth is a good idea sometimes."

"Let's test out the stealth, and head for Earth,"
said Ozzy, wondering how the stealth mode worked.

  "Well at least your own back yard means the least amount of potential complaints if somebody spots it." Though, plenty of people Meg knows could spot it regardless.  But they would also be the ones least likely to complain.

  Matt swings around for a lazy course back to Earth.

  Meg moved to another crystal orb set into the 'wall', and when it morphed a control panel out of the wall, where she tapped a couple more crystalline looking spots, and the ship seemed to alter shape, streamlining itself and removing shapes that would trip radar, as well as the matte black exterior becoming 'camouflaged' to match the EM fields around it, including all the other spectra.

  Matt considers the philosophical matter of a nearly featureless streamlined ship streamlining itself. The design aesthetic equivalent of 'it goes to eleven', perhaps.  "So what would you say are the main limitations of your design that keep you from going off the radar full time?  Though knowing you, maybe the answer is nothing but courtesy to flight control."

  Please direct yourself to runway eleven, watch out for the other three ships also not showing up on radar and pray nobody is already parked there.

  Meg chuckled, and said "Pretty much, yes, it's being polite to flight control and the poor fellows manning the radar installations."  She'd blushed a little at Matt's very accurate assessment of her own innately polite mannerisms, since he'd gotten her exactly correct.

  How many girls did you make blush with compliments before getting pushed into traffic by a little old lady Matt?  Zero that's how  many.

  These insights happen when you make an effort to be less of a cliched jaded jackass in your second strange shot at life.

  "Speaking of precautions as we approach your choice landing spot, while I know the hull could handle the slight drop, are there old fashioned landing gear?  On site repairs at the very least would benefit from such a thing."

  Meg nodded, and said "There are, although you have to manually deploy them, normally it sits on a cushion of antigravity that keeps it a relative ten feet off the ground.  That height can also be adjusted for preference of the pilots."  As she spoke, she highlighted her back yard on the display for Matt to aim them at for their first Terrestrial landing.

  Always good to put the navigational aids through their paces.  The point is to test the ship, not go 'I could park this with my eyes closed, even if I had eyes' after all.

  "Good to know, just having them in the first place reduces the odds of needing them." He comments, as the ship heads for Meg's preferred landing spot.

  Meg chuckled, and said "The fun part will be seeing how many people come to the gates today swearing there's a UFO in my back yard now."  She clearly DID have a bit of wickedness in her sense of humor every so often, but they were testing out the stealth systems.  The ship moved gracefully, and Matt found it responded beautifully to his control, heading precisely where he indicated, even as they hit the upper edges of the atmosphere, the clean lines of the hull slicing through the air without seeming to meet any resistance at all.

  Always a plus not having to enter atmosphere as a fireball.  Matt wishes he had thought of that sooner than the third time he had done it himself.

  Soon enough, Meg's ship is parked without incident.  "Well, I guess it's up to you what they get told should they ask."

  Meg giggled, and said "Well, to ME, it isn't a UFO.  So I could tell them that it's not a UFO.  But I probably really should call Uncle Ethan too."  She grinned at them both, and said "It works pretty nice for hopping around the planet too, if you don't mind people swearing it's a UFO and they think aliens are coming."

  "One would think you have to identify it, to longer have it be considered a UFO.  But that's what technicalities are for.  Either way, having actual seating is much more responsible a mode of transport than theoretical distance ziplines"
This message was last edited by the player at 00:16, Tue 05 Sept 2017.

  Megaira and Bella were at the Lab, with the enormous gantry outside that was the drydock for the Pandora in full swing as she worked on things inside, puttering in the kitchen.  Bella loved the cupcakes and cookies Auntie Megs produced in prodigious quantities for her, and it gave Meg something to do while she constructed the Pandora.  Honestly, the exterior hull was about done, aside from little things like the defensive mounts and such, she still had a considerable amount of work to do on the interior.  She'd put herself through some extremely rigorous education early on in the time between then and now, and she was probably frighteningly far ahead of the terrestrial space programs of any major country on earth now.  She wasn't building interplanetary ships, she was building an interstellar ark.  One for humankind, to keep them alive in case someone, like those aliens who had come knocking, decided to wipe out mankind.  Ozzy, Matt, and Uncle Ethan were pretty much the only ones who knew that so far, but she'd also talked a little to Oswald senior, and she knew she needed to begin the selection process for those who would go on the Pandora.  Like Pandora's box, this ship would hold hope for a future for humanity even if something happened to Earth.

Park ------>

  Matt could probably enter through previous permission or his own means, but honestly it's not just manners that have him decide to come to a stop outside a convenient airlock.

  It's to take a moment and appreciate the absurdity of looking like an Aliens parody.  Don't worry, it's safe to open the airlock, the monster has cotton candy!  Totally legit.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:21, Wed 20 May 2020.

  The most noticeable thing Matt perceived, was that the gantry had been disassembled, and there was an absolutely enormous ship now parked where the gantry had been.  Sleek, clearly capable of speed, but also with so much space it was stunning.  And there were a number of clearly operational hangar bays in action, with at least one of those small ships docking right now.  The Lab's airlocks had 'friendly scanners' and irised the external door open for Matt when he approached, as he was in the friendly database.  The computer greeted him once he had entered with "Greetings Matt.  Megaira and Bella are in the hydropinics section."

  When the concepts of speed vs aerodynamics are often a mere suggestion for intergalactic travel, going for the style points anyways still stands out. "Thanks for the heads up." Defaulting towards polite to onboard computers has also proven to be a good idea.

  Matt zips along just fast enough to let doors perform there intended function, arriving at his intended destination. "Hello, I've come with carnival snacks and to pass along the fact Andy wants to play catch up with Meg.  Though I can see you've been even more busy than expected.  Though if you'd rather stay up here for the moment, I can grab Bella something for herself." I mean sure, Meg COULD share the cotton candy.  But that wouldn't be the same now would it?

  Megs looked the same as ever, and she smiled at Matt as she said "Oh, I imagine Bella would prefer her own.  Have you ever known a toddler to want to share?  And yes, I have been busy.  It's just a little project I've had in the works for about five years, although I began some of the preliminary application work almost a decade ago.  Most of the final details were finalized in the last year, and some only in the last month.  Mostly everyone else has been busy pursuing things, careers and such, so I've been working on this one.  It's a non-profit one."

  Bella said brightly "Pandora!!"

  "Honestly people have seen too many movies to want anything to do with a for profit space ark anyways." Even when megacorp dystopia isn't the problem and healthcare is so great they can grow you spare fingers, they just have the worst luck.

  Matt's head tail or whatever we're calling it today returns from a quick gentleman's agreement with physics with a second batch of cotton candy.

  "Here you go, Bella.  It's nice to see you."

  Meg chuckled, and said "Well, most of those movies involved cryonic stasis, which this does not, nor were they the intended destination. They were all going somewhere. Pandora is meant to BE a home for humanity, with the option if the folks aboard so choose to set colonies out if they want, but colonization isn't the destination, it IS it's own colony.
 We were just picking some plants to put in the one garden aboard the Pandora.  There are large hydroponics sections for atmospherics, but that doesn't always include the 'pretty' that sometimes gets forgotten alongside 'useful and edible'.  But that's beside the point.  A festival would probably be good for Bella."

  Said young lady was hanging upside down in midair, six feet up, gobbling the cotton candy Matt had procured for her.

  "Having both options does tend to work wonders on disaster proofing a concept more than usual. Though it is true that it's easy to take the stuff keeping you alive for granted when it starts to look samey" Probably the real reason for so many seemingly pointless blinking lights in Sci-Fi. Installed so you'd have something more interesting than watching paint dry.

  He turns towards the floating kid, and comments "Of course, the fair has a bouncy castle already.  And so far as I've heard those stay entertaining even if you've already learned to fly like you have, Bella."  He asks Meg, "So how would you prefer the trip down?  Your own ride, Mittens express, or my way?"

  Megs reached up, lifting slightly off the floor, and plucked Bella out of the air with ease, and said "I think we will let you provide transport, might as well enjoy it."

  Bella giggled, and snagged at his head-tail with a sticky-fingered hand.

  Matt has always been thankful for his Super Harmless Powers, but leaving his headtail blunt by default means no 'Hey kids, sharp objects are harmless!' lessons will be his fault down the line. "Well, off we go then."

---> Weston City Park

The shuttles were landing and disembarking their volunteers every hour.  The crew complement were already there, and the hydroponics and greenbelt sections were being filled out, all the plants being lovingly selected, as well as more seed samples collected with every incoming load of crew.  The ship was complete, aside from the crew, and could embark upon it's endless flight whenever the crew was complete.  If anyone on Earth actually looked, they could now see the enormous craft nestled into the asteroid belt between Earth and Mars, nose pointed outward, solar sail rigging and engines still off and folded, but clearly powering up section by section.