voidtreckermods: (voidtrain)
VoidTrecker Express Mods ([personal profile] voidtreckermods) wrote in [community profile] middleofsomewhere2020-11-13 04:28 am
Entry tags:

Not with a Bang Start and Ongoing

"Good Morning passengers. Today is day seven of the month of Imagination." The voice echoes through the train as passengers wake up in their beds. Not long afterwards their SCA’s glow with the colour of the void and a holographic image will appear.

Preperation

They have about an hour to prepare, a little less than usual but perhaps expected, given the urgency of the task.

The cupboards in the dressing room are open to reveal rows of tents, in all four team colours as well as some basic camp cooking equipment. They are in bags that should be easy enough to carry.

"Shortly arriving on System #6416. All passengers get ready to disembark. Next stop world 6416. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." The train rocks and lurches, bright colours of the void filling the space and then fading as they fly downwards towards a very green landscape.

Arrival and Initial Task

The train lands in a clearing, curving round in an attempt to fit. Once everyone who wishes to disembark has done it flies back into the air, vanishing from sight.

The air is heavy and humid, though it is not currently raining. The clearing is open to the sky and looking up will reveal a worrying sight. The sky is an angry red colour, colours shifting as if the clouds themselves were on fire. It's an unnerving sight.

Their SCA's show three points, one Orange, One purple and one that is half blue and half red. The three control centres. Each are a few hours treck through the jungle and it certainly feels like there is no time to waste.

Those that don't want to treck through the forest can start setting up camp, though the darkening sky might be a little distracting. As time goes on flecks of fire drift down, though they extinguish before hitting the forest floor.

Orange are to travel to the north, Purple to the south and Blue and Red must travel together to the west. Each route takes them through thick and unrelenting jungle. Flying is difficult here unless you can get up past the canopy layer, which means vision of the ground is severely hampered.

The control stations themselves are half buried in vines and require cutting into. If voidtreckers are unlucky they will meet their first security robots here, firing on the intruders. They might even meet their first giant Armadillos, the creatures are curious and may wish to investigate. They are not helpful or constructive to trying to power up the stations and prevent the destruction of the planet.

The control stations are simple enough to operate, but there's quite a lot that needs to be done in way of repairs and clearing. It will take a team effort to get it in working enough order to activate the shield.

The shield itself, when it is activated, is mostly invisible but there is a loud humming sound. The meteor, which has gotten more visible throughout the five hours, hits the shield and splinters, fire enveloping the whole sky. It is visibly terrifying, but no fire falls to earth, no rocks get through, the planet is safe.

Ongoing

Once the planet is safe the voidtreckers deserve a rest. But once the next morning dawns it is time to start with their next tasks, to make sure that this planet stays safe from future threats.

Red

The robots at the control stations are not the only malfunctioning security robots around. They roam the jungle, or are more often stranded in the jungle, powering up only when faced with a new threat.

Some are benign, terraforming machines whose only crime is using up precious power. These need to be dismantled so that power can be saved for the shield system. Others are security robots that will attack the intruders to the planet.

Though the machines are scattered they are often obvious, emitting warning alarms or flashing lights. Their SCA's will show some areas where there are larger clusters but machines can be found anywhere.

Purple

Their SCA's are filled with hundreds of purple dots, each a solar stations that needs cleared and brought back online. It's not the most glamourous job, the stations are deep in the jungle, the treck is difficult and most of the work needed is weed clearing.

But once the weeds have been cut away they will need to patch up the station, doing basic maintenance to get it back online. In some cases wires need to be patched back together but it shouldn't take any great feats of engineering to get the stations up and running.

They may run into some of the security automatons, needing to fight their way into the stations before they can begin the clean up operations.

Orange

Like the red team their SCA will show areas where there are clusters of the small insectoid automatons that need to be rescued and restored. However they can be found anywhere throughout the jungle, they are not too suited for the terrain outside of the stations and so they have gotten tangled in vines. They can be found powered down, stranded and in dire need of maintenance.

Tools and spare parts can be found in many of the solar stations that purple team have been locating. Actually repairing the robots takes some engineering knowledge but once they are restored they will go about their tasks in the stations. They will need help getting to the further flung stations as well as the main control centres.

They are very basic in design and follow pre programmed instructions rather than being able to hear and listen to orders. But once in the correct place they are very effective at their job.

Blue

Once the shield is up there is a faint humming that can be heard throughout the jungle if they listen closely and find it among the sound of rain and insects. But once they hear it, it is obvious where it is louder and more prominent.

Their SCA will pin point some of the larger control boxes but there are truthfully too many to show on a map. Not all of them have attracted Violet Pandas, but many of them have.

They are curious creatures, both of the power boxes and the voidtreckers. They are protective of each other but not so much of territory and therefore it is not difficult to move them on. Keeping them away is another matter, the power humming is interesting and they will unearth wires and chew through them. It doesn't seem to do them much harm, there is clearly safety stops in the system for such eventualities. It does however cut power off to entire solar stations and require a lot of patch work.

Good luck voidtreckers!
blitzcheer: (something blah ugh words)

[personal profile] blitzcheer 2020-11-22 04:14 pm (UTC)(link)
"I got a whetstone," speaking of those. "But it's fine, it's tougher than it looks. Piccolo made it for me before he took away all the weapons. My girlfriend Yuna," he starts animatedly, pausing, then his energy dying some, but not completely, "--she had the original! Had this weird device where she could pull out a gun or a sword and a whole outfit to go with it. You would have liked it! No clue how it worked."

The sword begins to glow, gathering energy, a breeze around his form as he focuses now, if slowly. He usually needs to be more active first, but he's slicing a tree, not some fiends; the power shouldn't matter too much. So just give him the moment, let him take a step back, bring his blade out, before finally taking the swings: a blue shadow following the sweeps of his sword, slices faster than the usual, a bounce still somehow in his step.

It's not the cleanest thing, but just about three slices gets the tree to crack, tumble over and fall into the other nearby wood.
10billionpercent: (Huh?)

[personal profile] 10billionpercent 2020-11-22 09:41 pm (UTC)(link)
"I heard something about him being able to make things like that." Senku answered and he paused. "But he took them all away, so I'm guessing he's not willing to help us arm the train."

That had been part of their discussion hadn't it?

"Even if he doesn't want to make projectile weapons or something, it really would benefit everyone to have a knife. I use mine all the time and I've already run across someone that didn't have one. Don't worry, I made him one, but..."
blitzcheer: (blahblah yippy doggy love you)

[personal profile] blitzcheer 2020-11-22 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Tidus hums, digging the tip of his blade into the ground. Taking a moment not exactly to catch his breath, but let himself see how he feels after a swing like that.

"It's because a guy on the train killed a girl with one of his swords," Tidus explains levelly. "I don't think a dagger or another weapon's gonna make a difference to ask for - 'least, if you're going to argue for anything." He shrugs, tilting his head with it.

"I asked about trading in weapons for some money on the last mission so we could get some gear for Blue Team, but he wasn't comfortable 'bout that either. Piccolo's got a soft spot for kids..."
10billionpercent: (Avoiding Emotions)

[personal profile] 10billionpercent 2020-11-22 10:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"Nah, I heard about that, doesn't change my opinion." Senku answered. "The thing is my knife is a tool. It's not for stabbing people. Is someone, somewhere, going to use it to stab someone? Probably." He said agreeably. "That doesn't mean I don't need a knife."

He huffed. "He sounds a bit shortsighted."

Senku raised an eyebrow. "And what, leaving the kids defenseless and unprotected is better? Isn't it better to teach them skills they need then to leave them at some kind of mercy?" He had a soft spot for kids too, but that didn't mean that babying them was the right way to go in his opinion.
blitzcheer: (or described the emotions)

[personal profile] blitzcheer 2020-11-22 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Tidus looks over at him, brow furrowing some. "Why are you arguing it with me? The guy was pissed. Maybe he'll think differently about it now if someone brought it up, but I don't blame him for being pissed off."

He raises his shoulder some. "It's not like I don't get what you're saying, but people don't work like that."
10billionpercent: (I Sense A Plot)

[personal profile] 10billionpercent 2020-11-22 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'm sure, but acting in anger is always a bad idea, and it has unintended consequences."

Senku blinked at looked at Tidus. "People don't work like what?"

He was genuinely curious in his tone.
blitzcheer: (blah blah bluh wuh weh)

[personal profile] blitzcheer 2020-11-22 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
"Well, like..." he waves a hand, a small frown on his face. "...logically." Isn't that the way Senku is looking at this?

"Sure, people were gonna have a harder time without weapons. But he's the one who made those weapons to protect people. Then Xue Yang went and killed that girl with one, A-Qing. I'd be pissed -- I make these weapons to protect you, and you go and kill someone with one?"

He shifts his position from where the tree leans now on its side, getting into a position, ready to do as he did before. Energy glowing into his blade, the bubbles coming off from it glowing too.

"People get angry over --less!"

He swings down the blade, making an easier slice into it from this position. His sword going through, but none of the pieces moving, trapped into place. For now, anyway.
10billionpercent: (Listen...)

[personal profile] 10billionpercent 2020-11-22 11:39 pm (UTC)(link)
"I didn't say he couldn't get angry. I'm not a robot you know." Senku commented wryly. "I'm still human. I get angry. I've got anger up to here sometimes." He gestured at the top of his head.

"Thing is, acting on that anger is a bad idea. It's pointless. You don't think things through if you lean into it. There's no point in getting mad. It wouldn't fix the problem. He killed her and she was dead. She wasn't going to be less dead because he got mad." Senku explained. "And the result of that is leaving everyone else defenseless, which for the sake of argument, if he wanted to go around killing people there's only so many that could defend themselves."

He sighed. "Anyway, in my opinion as long as he's not going to do that, there's no problem, but then again I gave the man who killed me a sword, so he could fight for me. Xue Yang hasn't indicated he wants to kill anyone else in the time I've known him, for what that's worth." He'd be very disappointed if he decided to do that.

"If he won't help, it's fine, I'll make knives and arm people myself. If anyone has a problem with that, they can find me."
blitzcheer: (the QUEEN)

[personal profile] blitzcheer 2020-11-22 11:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Tidus puts up his hands, one still with his sword in it, wearing a baffled look at where all this came from.

"Okay, man, take it easy," he says, attempting to placate. "I was just saying - you don't got to make an argument out of it with me. I just get why he did it."

He already sees both sides, and it was what it was. He didn't want to get drawn into a big thing about it either way - not the way Senku was getting into it, anyway.
10billionpercent: (I Sense A Plot)

[personal profile] 10billionpercent 2020-11-22 11:56 pm (UTC)(link)
He was just a very opinionated person when it came to certain things and Tidus happened upon a subject he happened to be a bit passionate about. It was Tidus' good luck.

"I'm not really trying to argue with you exactly." Senku responded with a bit of a blink.

He turned his attention at another pod to carefully remove it from the tree as he reset his thoughts.

"Nevermind." He added, just to let Tidus know he was in fact, dropping the topic and wasn't going to continue. He wasn't trying to upset his friend after all.
blitzcheer: (bluh bluh dad sucks)

[personal profile] blitzcheer 2020-11-23 12:00 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe he should try saying that when he hasn't just gone off on a rant....

Tidus is pretty okay with not flaring up that opinion box back up, so he'll just keep on working at this trees in a semi-silence for the rest of this thread probably the time being. It's cool. He's got to concentrate anyway.
10billionpercent: (I Sense A Plot)

[personal profile] 10billionpercent 2020-11-23 12:35 am (UTC)(link)
He was not the most perceptive when it came to other people and he should notice much sooner than he does that Tidus has essentially stopped talking to him.

When it dawned on him, he blinked and looked over at Tidus, but he was as always, not the best at leaving things alone.

"....You're mad at me." Senku concluded suddenly out of nowhere.
blitzcheer: (HUUMMM)

[personal profile] blitzcheer 2020-11-23 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Really, he has taken that time to concentrate. That tree has now been split into portions, and Tidus has moved over to where the solar panels sit facing upwards to catch the light. Hearing Senku, he looks over at him, surprised. His brow stitching thoughtfully.

"Eh? Not really... I mean, I said I knew where you were coming from." But-- no, he really doesn't want to get into that, so shrugs, admits instead, "I figured you just needed a moment. I get it if you feel it's a waste."

He points a finger over at the trees. "Anyway, if we wrap them up in some vines or something like that, it should be easier to put them in the arms and call them back out. Right?"
10billionpercent: (Avoiding Emotions)

[personal profile] 10billionpercent 2020-11-23 05:27 pm (UTC)(link)
He hummed thoughtfully, not all that surprised that he misunderstood the situation. "Alright." Senku shrugged. "No, I'm good."

He already said he wouldn't talk about it, so he wouldn't. He was done with cacao harvesting so he went over to look. "I haven't put anything this big in the arms band before. You might be right. Let me..."

Senku went to tug on some vines so he could cut them.