((First off, I'm very sorry about the wait on this. "A few days" turned into a few months. Between computer problems and a crazy fluctuating work schedule... excuses, apologies
( Read more... )
((The delay's quite all right, and I hope all is well now. Regarding time-skips, a day seems good to me. Telrim and Issek will want to keep their old hosts with them for now (out of mistrust and concern they'll eat something important, respectively), but otherwise we can assume the adjustment's going reasonably smoothly. Bar Issek falling over quite a bit because he has much less applicable experience than Telrim
( ... )
Aurora is rather glad the Yeerks are in their more familiar hosts at the moment; having to catch Issek while he toddles around in an adult body isn't her idea of fun. The lack of easy communication didn't help her mood over the last day much either. (Growing up never more than a thought away from daddy and with access to all the best translation matrices has made her own personal Hell an inability to communicate.) But she knew it wouldn't be an easy job going in, so even if her smile grew a little frayed at the edges she made an effort to remain encouraging.
"For the moment, but I have to give them back when we're done," she teases. "The tall one is Kale, and the one getting covered in grease is Ixt'ichl. Ix, Kale, allow me to introduce your clients: Telrim in Natasha, and Issek."
*Kale (inspired by this piece) turns, smiling pleasantly to Aurora and the clients she introduces. When he catches sight of the group's fourth, unintroduced member, he gives a start, the leaves at the back of his head loosening for a moment, giving a glimpse of amber petals beneath. When he speaks, there's a faint tremor in his voice.*
[I'm, ah, very pleased to meet you, of course. This has been an... interesting challenge, replicating the signature.]
*With a clack of plastic, the other engineer clambers out from beneath the machine. She seems to be clad in a full-body suit of hard plates, the faceplate of her helmet showing glistening, slime-slicked transparent skin over pink musculature, large compound eyes, and a complicated array of mouthparts folded into what might be a good-natured smile. She takes in the group with a nod, wiping sealant off of an armored, three-fingered hand with a rag before extending it in greeting.*
Issek sways forward momentarily in acknowledgment, curiously observing Kale’s rather unusual body language. Telrim’s wishing that she knew more about Kandrona generation. Not for the first time, either. She doesn’t know if it would help her to read this machine, to judge on first inspection whether it’s going to work or not. It just might be some comfort to have a clue.
Her gaze is pulled aside by Ixt’ichl’s emergence, which is fortunate because Issek barely notices the hand she offers. Telrim steps in to shake it, giving a polite nod and a brief smile in turn.
“The same to you.” She takes in the armoured tech’s appearance before her gaze flicks to the other. “We expected it to be a challenge, but I hope you aren’t having too many difficulties.”
She was leaving Samus as a surprise, and gives Kale an innocent look after she notices he's noticed the Hunter. "We're among friends here," she reassures... well, pretty much everyone. "We can be honest with each other."
After a moment for that to sink in, she continues. "How are our experiments going?"
*Kale's fingers brush against one of the several little charms hanging around his neck.*
[Interesting times.]
*Ix seems less troubled by the idea, and quite ready to brag about what she's built. And she has visual aids, in the form of a Y-shaped hologram of a basic schematic of the machine.*
[For the window you gave us, it's been going very well. We're generating two distinct parts of the signature, here, and here, and combining them into the full signal here. We've been fine-tuning along the way with filters--e-mag lanes, oscillating waveguide fields, we're even passing the finished wave through a water vapor screen. We're very optimistic about Test Object #18.]
*Not far from the end of the "bottom" branch of the actual machine, another packing crate stands open, with the scorched, cracked remains of more than a dozen ceramic cylinders, some kind of organic-looking mass seeming to have leaked out of some of them.*
[We're getting very close, although you can see we've had some problems with intensity
( ... )
Aurora’s assurance draws a frown from Telrim, the Yeerk wondering if that’s directed at them and how much honesty this meeting is expected to require. For that matter, she rather agrees with Kale’s sentiment, even if she doubts their reasons are alike. His apparent nervousness makes her envy Issek’s compound eyes. She can’t look around to check Samus’ reaction without making it very, very obvious.
Both Controllers move close to study the schematic, Telrim nodding a little as Ix explains. She can follow the general logic and the components being used, even if she can’t say how closely they compare to the usual method. The results, however…
Issek whips his tongue in and out, turning from the previous test object to the machine itself. Then to Telrim: he knows the mid-size shipboard generators; she’s been outside and seen the large-scale version beaming radiation down through a human town. “It is larger than I expected
( ... )
Aurora listens politely, but it's pretty clear she doesn't really understand what they're talking about. Still, she can make some sense of the results. "It's to help recreate a native environment," she offers diplomatically. It's reasonably accurate.
*For her part, Samus seems somewhere between bemused and annoyed by Kale's reaction. Either way, once she'd seen those pendants, his response didn't surprise her.*
[Well, this is a prototype--built on short notice, and we've had to swap out parts and configurations fairly often. When we pin down something that works, we can work up a more compact version for you, if you're still interested.]
*Looking at the schematics and test notes, part of the almost-Kandrona signature they've managed to create is resonating with silicates in the ceramics of the latest test cylinder, heating it and flash-boiling the organic contents. They're close to the right process--judging by their notes, they've been dialing it in closer with every iteration. If there's some secret recipe of eleven herbs and transuranics, some quirk of the homeworld's magnetic field or ionosphere that isn't being replicated, it may well be the final clue they need. Or if Kandrona is just supposed to superexcite silicon-ceramics, that would be good to know, too.*
Telrim shoots Kale a sidelong look: she can guess what he assumed, but on reflection she’s not sure why it would worry him. Granted, a suddenly-appearing Samus is cause for alarm on general principles...
“I wish I could tell you for certain,” she says, and for once, yes, she really means it. Whatever lingering reluctance they have to give away details of their species, it doesn’t apply here. She starts working her way through the chain again: yes, it looks like the reaction sequence she was taught, and yet… “It is almost right, but the interaction cross-section’s far too high. The scale’s different, but I think you’re using similar mechanisms
( ... )
Aurora will take a few steps back, letting the others work and keeping an eye out for any other misunderstandings that might need smoothing over. It'll be a good time to source Issek's next meal.
((Feel free to skip Aurora while you two are being all science-y. I don't really understand it anyway.))
((Right-o. I'll try to keep the science part short.))
*Ix is quite willing to pull up a separate holo of the schematics for Issek. While the names for pieces may be different, they are likely to be at least descriptive enough when translated to make them readable that their various functions are clear (what science lacks in nomenclatural creativity, it makes up for in utility). Listening to Issek, Kale tsks quietly.*
[Hmm. A circular array might have been more effective; if distance is what's needed to tune the waveform--]
[Called it. You're buying lunch.]
[Hmph, yes. There may be an alternative.]
*Green hands reach into the schematic holo, prodding a "warp process coil" into place. Ix perks right up, seeing it.*
[That could go in fairly fast. I think there might even be a few loose on the station from that overhaul in Green Sector last cycle.]
[It would allow us to adjust spatial constants within the track, create illusory distance to let the waveform stabilize.]
*Alongside the schematic, the math describing what the new part
( ... )
Something eases in Telrim's expression. That's not bad at all. It'll leave a good margin of time for further tests and tuning, if this addition doesn't solve things by itself.
"That's good to hear. If it stops breaking the pottery, try finding out what it does to a tub of water." She's not so eager that she'll jump in without checking that. "Can we be of any assistance in the meantime?"
...Probably not, admittedly. It's their turf. But it's a familiar sort of place and an urgent project, and both are giving her an itchy urge to make herself useful.
[Well, we're waiting on the part, but we can't make the courier go any faster from here.]
*It's safe to assume that by now, Aurora has probably already identified the part they need, negotiated for its purchase, and hired someone to bring it to them. And Ix, at least, is apparently familiar enough with how Aurora works to have made that assumption.*
[In the interim, now that we know we're replicating an environment, the more closely we can replicate it, the better.]
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"For the moment, but I have to give them back when we're done," she teases. "The tall one is Kale, and the one getting covered in grease is Ixt'ichl. Ix, Kale, allow me to introduce your clients: Telrim in Natasha, and Issek."
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[I'm, ah, very pleased to meet you, of course. This has been an... interesting challenge, replicating the signature.]
*With a clack of plastic, the other engineer clambers out from beneath the machine. She seems to be clad in a full-body suit of hard plates, the faceplate of her helmet showing glistening, slime-slicked transparent skin over pink musculature, large compound eyes, and a complicated array of mouthparts folded into what might be a good-natured smile. She takes in the group with a nod, wiping sealant off of an armored, three-fingered hand with a rag before extending it in greeting.*
[Hey. Nice to meet you.]
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Her gaze is pulled aside by Ixt’ichl’s emergence, which is fortunate because Issek barely notices the hand she offers. Telrim steps in to shake it, giving a polite nod and a brief smile in turn.
“The same to you.” She takes in the armoured tech’s appearance before her gaze flicks to the other. “We expected it to be a challenge, but I hope you aren’t having too many difficulties.”
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After a moment for that to sink in, she continues. "How are our experiments going?"
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*Kale's fingers brush against one of the several little charms hanging around his neck.*
[Interesting times.]
*Ix seems less troubled by the idea, and quite ready to brag about what she's built. And she has visual aids, in the form of a Y-shaped hologram of a basic schematic of the machine.*
[For the window you gave us, it's been going very well. We're generating two distinct parts of the signature, here, and here, and combining them into the full signal here. We've been fine-tuning along the way with filters--e-mag lanes, oscillating waveguide fields, we're even passing the finished wave through a water vapor screen. We're very optimistic about Test Object #18.]
*Not far from the end of the "bottom" branch of the actual machine, another packing crate stands open, with the scorched, cracked remains of more than a dozen ceramic cylinders, some kind of organic-looking mass seeming to have leaked out of some of them.*
[We're getting very close, although you can see we've had some problems with intensity ( ... )
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Both Controllers move close to study the schematic, Telrim nodding a little as Ix explains. She can follow the general logic and the components being used, even if she can’t say how closely they compare to the usual method. The results, however…
Issek whips his tongue in and out, turning from the previous test object to the machine itself. Then to Telrim: he knows the mid-size shipboard generators; she’s been outside and seen the large-scale version beaming radiation down through a human town. “It is larger than I expected ( ... )
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[Well, this is a prototype--built on short notice, and we've had to swap out parts and configurations fairly often. When we pin down something that works, we can work up a more compact version for you, if you're still interested.]
*Looking at the schematics and test notes, part of the almost-Kandrona signature they've managed to create is resonating with silicates in the ceramics of the latest test cylinder, heating it and flash-boiling the organic contents. They're close to the right process--judging by their notes, they've been dialing it in closer with every iteration. If there's some secret recipe of eleven herbs and transuranics, some quirk of the homeworld's magnetic field or ionosphere that isn't being replicated, it may well be the final clue they need. Or if Kandrona is just supposed to superexcite silicon-ceramics, that would be good to know, too.*
[Recreating ( ... )
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“I wish I could tell you for certain,” she says, and for once, yes, she really means it. Whatever lingering reluctance they have to give away details of their species, it doesn’t apply here. She starts working her way through the chain again: yes, it looks like the reaction sequence she was taught, and yet… “It is almost right, but the interaction cross-section’s far too high. The scale’s different, but I think you’re using similar mechanisms ( ... )
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((Feel free to skip Aurora while you two are being all science-y. I don't really understand it anyway.))
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*Ix is quite willing to pull up a separate holo of the schematics for Issek. While the names for pieces may be different, they are likely to be at least descriptive enough when translated to make them readable that their various functions are clear (what science lacks in nomenclatural creativity, it makes up for in utility). Listening to Issek, Kale tsks quietly.*
[Hmm. A circular array might have been more effective; if distance is what's needed to tune the waveform--]
[Called it. You're buying lunch.]
[Hmph, yes. There may be an alternative.]
*Green hands reach into the schematic holo, prodding a "warp process coil" into place. Ix perks right up, seeing it.*
[That could go in fairly fast. I think there might even be a few loose on the station from that overhaul in Green Sector last cycle.]
[It would allow us to adjust spatial constants within the track, create illusory distance to let the waveform stabilize.]
*Alongside the schematic, the math describing what the new part ( ... )
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[Twenty minutes to calibrate, and perhaps another ten for final systems check before the next test.]
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"That's good to hear. If it stops breaking the pottery, try finding out what it does to a tub of water." She's not so eager that she'll jump in without checking that. "Can we be of any assistance in the meantime?"
...Probably not, admittedly. It's their turf. But it's a familiar sort of place and an urgent project, and both are giving her an itchy urge to make herself useful.
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*It's safe to assume that by now, Aurora has probably already identified the part they need, negotiated for its purchase, and hired someone to bring it to them. And Ix, at least, is apparently familiar enough with how Aurora works to have made that assumption.*
[In the interim, now that we know we're replicating an environment, the more closely we can replicate it, the better.]
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