After his cold beer, Sylvester went to Engineering for the actual liftoff. He strapped himself in for the event and when the gee's subsided went back to work polishing the engines. He checked the sensors and gauges and the holographic display showing engine performance.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:35, Fri 26 Feb 2021.

In reply to Sylvester Jinx (msg # 637):

OOC: Time spins backwards.....

Starting the tour in the basement, Tescha becomes very animated with the power plant, pointing out that as a working example of a fuelless power system - it would probably be worth more than Longshot. He then laments that the actual generators or accumulators appear to be embedded in the hull or beneath it - with the panel appearing to be just a regulator & control panel.

Because the desks and cabinets are simply desks and cabinets with no distinguishing markings or electronics, he does not believe that they will be of any great significance or value even if shown in context with what little was recovered.

Only on the command deck does he again become animated. Working millennia old electronics are vanishingly rare, a room full of working consoles would probably be worth a fortune if they could be recovered. Sadly, the parabonding tool does not release the consoles from the floor, only removing access panels. Grabbing the holographic data crystals from their mounts, Tescha leaves the tower with an almost forlorn last look.

ooc: Time resumes.....

Returning to Longshot, Tescha seeks out Reese for a quick conversation, "I agree that someone should probably be put back in the cryo berth, but I've been out of cryo for less than 24 hours & if I remember my training correctly, that disqualifies me."


11:20, Today: Tescha rolled 10 using 2d6+4 ((1,5)).

"Ordinarily, that would be correct," Reese replies to Tescha. "I'm still trying to figure out what these units are capable of. They are clearly beyond just standard coldsleep units."

"But, you are correct. Going back into coldsleep without at least a week's recovery is not advisable except under extreme emergency. And even then it better be a life-or-death situation."

"So I don't know if they shield you from a ship's normal sensors or not, 'cause if they don't, then the Overwatch ship detected you as we came in. That's one of their paramount concerns--only what comes in can go out!"

"I never thought to use a hand scanner on you before pulling you out. I just used the readings from the unit."

"In any case, I've already entered your data into the system. No, that's not quite right. I mean, I did, but it looks like either Veronika or Devlin scanned you in. So, even if the Overwatch didn't register you coming in, we have sufficient documentation that they'll know you were in cryo."

"If not..."
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:04, Wed 03 Mar 2021.

The reply to the Argus included the pictures and video strategically selected to show what Inderpal was saying... decks of playing cards, the paperweight, even the foosball table. This was accompanied by shots of empty rooms and abandoned desks.

"One man's junk is another man's treasure, I guess you could say. Iltharan? Oh, yeah, that old empire, and I use the term loosely. Had delusions of grandeur until the Imperium stomped on them."

"Had a scuffle with Caledonia at one point. 'Bout all I remember. Had to learn that in  school and promptly forgot it as soon as I left. I guess you never know what might turn out to be useful at some point."

"Anyway, you should have warned us about your guy in the freezer. Our sensors picked up the weak life sign on your way in, and we interpreted it as a popsicle. I see your medic has update your I-tag. I was wondering what kind of accident it was that put him into coldsleep, but then I decided I didn't want to know."

"Glad he's better and up and moving around."

"We've scanned the ruins several times on our flyby. As near as we can tell, it's old technology. While I'm sure the colonists could use it, it'd be hard for them to get to it. Doesn't much matter. My standing orders are to destroy it. Well, anything that might be usable."

"No weapons detected, no power plant, no stardrive. You're cleared for departure."

"Maybe we'll see you again next month! Ha-ha!"

"Wow, TAMI is spared the destruction. Now comes the fun part of integrating her into the ship. We will be the most advanced merchant in space! And I'm from Darrian!" He continues to polish until they are ready for jump space.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:47, Sun 28 Feb 2021.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 640):

Inderpal lists to the reply with a mixture of relief tinged with sadness. Relief that they have gotten away scot-free, but sadness that the ruins are going to be bombed flat for no good reason.

She concludes the call.

===BEGIN COMMS:Thank you Argus. Take care and all the best. Longshot signing off.:END COMMS===

She then disconnects and turns her chair to face the others on the bridge.

"Let's get out of here."

OOC: I've brought this up, PM, before--I have to wonder that our Patron back on Invermory didn't have some kind of "Plan" to allow for the the Guards shoot-first-ask-questions-never policy, in order to prevent the destruction of the "ruins".  He appeared to express a desire to, somehow, exploit the ruins--even if for no other reason than that there is a frikkin mountain of processed Molybdenum, down there (he does work for a Mining Cartel).
     So, if he did give us some kind of "paperwork" to hand over in the event of the "ruins" being targeted for destruction, now would be the time for us (or...maybe Tescha...?) to produce any such orders.

Sharik trotted onto the bridge and into her navigator's seat.  Cinching the five-point harness snugly around her small frame and tucking her vacc suit's helmet and gloves into the slot for them next to her console, the Longshot's astrogator unlocked her display session and started to tap away.  Sensor data, internal and external, continued to stream past in a couple of different windows, while the various triggers and state alarms let her know when calculations were ready.

She flashed Indy a bright smile even as she pushed a set of potential flight paths out of the atmosphere to the main tactical display on the bridge - overlaying the schematic wireframes on external sensor feeds.  All of them dodged the known local habitations and weather systems.  Shar highlighted one of the paths, noting off-hand, "This one, I think is best ... maximizes our departure distance from the Argus without making it too obvious.  And should give us one of the quickest courses off of the elliptic and to the jump point..."  It was an elegant course that allowed the Longshot to appear to be flying casually, giving the area and the Argus a wide berth, and yet high-tail it quickly.  Shar seemed quite please with it.

Her fingers continued to work as she started through the pre-flight checklist, coordinating with Sam and the rest of the bridge crew as Sharik worked through items towards the imminent departure.

The 'papers' Vonon is wondering about were all electronic documents. Since neither Vonon nor Walter bothered reading them, only Veronika knows what they said.

The understanding was that you'd salvage whatever you found that had value. Your patron was hoping for some financially beneficial research, since it was identified as an Iltharan Research Facility. While, with the proper equipment, salvaging the entire structure might have been profitable (molybdenum sells for about 6Cr a pound), your patron had no way of knowing the building was made of molybdenum. That was something you found out only after you landed.

If you think it's still worth salvaging, pass that information on to the Argus. Maybe the captain will reconsider.

Sam nods at Sharik and comms to V "Any orders, or am I proceeding to the jump point?" starting to bring the Longshot around to the course Sharik had pointed out

On the way back to Invermory from Coventry, Tescha went through all the stuff you got from the Iltharan Research Facility, cataloguing it and estimating a value for it.

There were a lot of people in the facility, going through every room and searching everything. Anything that wasn't nailed down was taken by drones and hauled back to the Longshot's cargo hold. The lab tables were anchored to the floor via the parabonding technique. Tescha had decided that the lab tables/counters weren't significantly unique to be worth anything, and it would have taken too much time to free them anyway.

The same held true for the beds against the walls and the galley, as well as the systems in the basement. However, everyone who went down to the basement recorded whatever they saw. Anyone with Engineering (Power Plant) could have spent the trip back studying and attempting to analyze the system.


The current price is what you could expect to pay for a similar item today. Mundane items have value to collectors of Iltharan relics, possibly even museums. If you put the item up for auction, you could expect to get at least twice as much as the current price, and possibly as much as 5-6 times if a bidding war happens.

 Any exotic item has much greater value due to the potential for research. In the case of the parabonding tool, it would be one-of-a-kind item to whoever owned it, but selling to researchers could far exceed that.

Tescha's evaluation is that you're only likely to get about a 10h of the value of any of these items if you sell them on Invermory. Even if you let it be known that you found them on Coventry in an old abandoned Iltharan facility, there's just not a large enough market on Invermory for that sort of material.


All totaled, 154 vials of drugs were found in the 16 cabinets. Normally, drugs remain viable for about a year under normal conditions. These drugs that were locked into the cabinets had been frozen under the glacier for several hundred years. Between the journal that was found and TAMI's information, names were applied to each vial. For unknown reasons, there were no dates on the vials.


Since some of the drugs have been identified as Psionic drugs, those have research potential of about 20,000Cr each. The other drugs are around 10,000Cr each.


The ship's company was paid 5,000Cr for delivering the cargo, plus, when you get back and land, your refueling is also free.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:38, Sun 18 Apr 2021.

Can we ask TAMI what the drugs were designed to do as well as the names? Also Can anyone with med skill determine if the Iltharians were sufficiently different for the effects to vary significantly for other humaniti races?

In reply to Samantha Kilgore (msg # 648):

OOC: we kinda-sorta did ask TAMI about the drugs, and she said all files related to the work being done in the various labs had been downloaded and erased from all systems she had access to, as part of the Evacuation Plan of the base personnel.  She knows what each lab was assigned to research, but nothing more.

ooc
ok yeah - memory fail. So I guess we'll need to sell them for research so someone can try and analyse them. Was just wondering if any were worth keeping by us

In reply to Vonon Ronkunu (msg # 649):

"Captain... we should ask TAMI if she read the non-psionic minds. And get some motion sensors in the areas not already covered by security cameras" says Jack

     So, does this mean that these compounds may still be viable to analyze their formulas, or are you saying they could actually be safe for consumption?
     Let's find out....where's Serge?  ^_^

     Jack, which "non-psionic minds" are you referring to?  The Base inhabitants, way back when, or just us--the only "non-psionics" she's met in a thousand years?

     I think I just answered my own question...

     Sure, we can ask if she has any personnel files--including any "readings" she may have made of them.

     Because, until we dock, only us--the crew of IAF Longshot--have been anywhere near her.

Getting sloshed with unknown compounds in the name of science? Write me in. But I need a boozing companion.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:44, Thu 11 Mar 2021.

In reply to Serge Baklanov (msg # 653):

Sylvester volunteers, Serge is his newest friend.

On the whole trip back Khea remains grumpy, seeing this whole mission as a complete waste of time as the only thing they got out of it is a bit of furniture, century old snake oil and a valuable AI the captain most likely won't agree to sell.

In reply to Kheaiftouaw (msg # 655):

And we have an AI all this time we didn't even know about. That could be a win. Maybe we have a hyperdrive too.

"How about we sell TAMI's memory module units and keep the main computer with TAMI in it, Then go to Kingston and look into going into drug manufacturing."

"We have all been learning from TAMI, she is part of the crew now, we get her a few Petabytes of drive space via our ship board computer and get her fully integrated. Longshot will be sentient itself as TAMI!"

In reply to Sylvester Jinx (msg # 657):

     "That is one of the first questions I asked Tammy, guys." Vonon says, "I asked her to connect to Longshot and assess the possibility she could either directly transfer her programming into our computer, or if she could place a copy of herself there.  Now, I'm no cyber-scientist, but I think I understood her answer was No."

     "But you guys are bringing up a point I hadn't thought of--trying to integrate her Core Unit into our systems.  Again, I'm no expert on computers, but while that would just be a job of hooking up connections--there is still the issue of compatibility with the electronics, isn't there?  And, even if we get her hardware to work with ours, won't we still have the problem of compatibility between our Imperial coding languages and her Iltharian coding language?"

     Vonon looks around at the group,

     "Seriously.  I'm asking because I don't know."

In reply to Vonon Ronkunu (msg # 658):

You're probably right, coding like one is in Microsuck, the other is Unix. In transit worked on computer skills to get to Computer 3.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:31, Tue 16 Mar 2021.

"Yes. The Iltharan programming would probably be an antiquated version of whatever we are using today," Valeska offers.

"But all modern operating systems take that into account. They almost all have an adaptive algorithm that will let them 'translate' an older language, even a previously unknown one, into a modern language that the computer can then run."

"If and when you run it, it'll ask the operator for permission to convert and request you give it a name. I suggest we give it a name that has no reference to TAMI or Iltharan.... maybe... Jinx-1, or perhaps Jynx-3.0 and let them think that it's an experimental language the Sylvester was trying to develop."

In reply to Valeska Brandenberg (msg # 660):

"You're so sweet Valeska, thank you!" He looked upon her with growing appreciation.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:12, Tue 16 Mar 2021.