Session Start: Wed Mar 07 15:26:51 2007 Topic is '-= Chapter 31: Mars Attacks! | Location: Kali Forlorn | Pools: 5235 §, 13 MXP =- http://storen.rpgcafe.net/IoG/' ==Chapter 31.somethingotherthanyesterday. Lude! For Great Justice!== GMVytor> The crew has been crawling over and within the ship for some time now, trying to get it ready for their ocean voyage. But for one, his work has gotten to the point where he needs an expert's eyes. * Angie has spent the bulk of her time topsides, inspecting the guns and instruments. * Vytor pops open a deck hatch, looking rather greasy and dirty, "Angie? You around?" * Angie 's voice responds from a distance -- she's far enough away that it's impossible to tell exactly what she shouted back. Half a minute later she emerges from the cabin and crosses the deck, waving. Hey! Can I borrow you for a bit? I need some advice. "Sure," she says, dropping to a crouch beside the hatch. "How's it going?" Dirty...but promising. Come on down. * Vytor starts back down the ladder. * Angie waits for Vytor to disappear, then starts down the ladder herself. I want to show you a compartment in the forward section that concerns me a bit. * Vytor leads Angie along the somewhat narrow corridors * Angie hops off the ladder, landing on both feet with a clank. She follows Vytor at a brisk walk, eyes running along the walls as she walks. Here we go, this is the forward...uh...shooting...room. Yeah. * Vytor cranks open the hatch and pops the door open. After you. * Angie steps over the lip of the doorway and into the adjoining room, looking around. GMVytor> Angie sees what appears to be some kind of staging room for some weapon system intended to function beneath the water line of the ship. Most of the components seem to be in place, but her expert eyes quickly notice that as it stands, this room is not secured from the sea. Angie taps a finger against her lips, pausing to think. I've never built or worked on a ship before. I'm not sure what to do about this room. We could just seal the hatch, but I'm not sure letting this room fill up with water as we travel is wise. * Angie runs her hand along the inner hull with a frown. She paces about the room for a minute or two. "Yeah, yeah...hmmm. It might be OK to just let the electrical components in here corrode, but I'd need to look into the wiring in more detail to know for sure." She steps past Vytor into the hall and looks around, arms akimbo. "I saw some big plates of this same material just sitting around spare. There might be enough to design a proper seal." I suppose. Do you know what these plates are made of? * Angie turns on her heel and boots the wall with the steel toe of her boot. "Not a clue! If it's steel it must be treated with something to have lasted this long." Its more than that. What this. * Vytor pulls over two boxes so that he can lay the plate top the boxes like some bizarre karate demonstration. He takes his hammer in both hands, and winds up for a ferocious strike! * Vytor slams his hammer down. To Angie's amazement, the hammer not only bounces off with a loud BONG, but the metal itself shows absolutely no sign of impact damage as it clatters to the ground. * Angie backsteps quickly, lifting a hand to steady her glasses. She leans forward to inspect Vytor's handiwork, adjusting the frames. "That's awesome," she says. Whoo! This is hard stuff. I'm not even sure Emiria's alchemical Ironwork could withstand that kind of abuse. Which makes me wonder, if they're making the internal and external hull plating of the ship out of this stuff, what the heck where they expecting to be thrown at it? * Angie 's eyes wander toward the open deck hatch. "Those were some pretty big guns." Meant to fire what? Small buildings? * Angie shrugs. "That's the weird part! I can't find any shells anywhere. It's tempting to try to get them working again but it'd be a crapshoot unless we knew what kind of ammo they were designed to take." Maybe we shouldn't mess with that. Weapons might be the least of our worries. There's something else I wanted to show you. Come with me, we've got to head for another deck down back towards the middle of the ship. * Angie holds up her hands, palms out. "Show away," she says, grinning. * Vytor leads Angie through a few more corridors, having to double back once as he loses his way. I wish this place was better labeled. I get lost down here. You probably get used to it pretty fast. Here we go, this is the one I wanted. * Vytor turns the wheel and cracks the hatch open. "Follow me." GMVytor> Angie has gotten used to the gun-metal gray hues seen throughout the ship, so this room stands in stark contrast to most of the ship. The halls, the floor, the ceiling, the equipment and piping are painted bright white, having shown signs of being recently cleaned (evidences by the bucket and rag in the middle of the room). GMVytor> A monstrous single mechanism dominates this area, covered in dials and readouts, pipes snaking to and from it in dozens of directions. * Angie doesn't recognize all the markings in the room, but the one for Radiation is unmistakable. * Angie purses her lips and steps inside, hands folded behind her back. She looks around, brow furrowed. "It's pretty different." She whips out her notebook and flips to a copied schematic, looking rapidly back and forth between the picture and the room. I was hoping you still had those schematics. Mind if I look too? * Angie hands over the book. "It's just a copy, but I got most of the important details down." She runs a hand along one of the pipes to the central chamber. "This is obviously the core, but I'm not sure about this over here..." * Vytor holds the book in one hand, running a second over some of the components. "What over where?" * Angie raps her knuckles against a second, smaller chamber connected to the reaction chamber by a pair of pipes. * Vytor goes over to take a look at the smaller chamber, and how its connected. Let's see...the main housing there...one intake pipe, one exhaust pipe... Turbine maybe? * Angie steals another look at her notes while Vytor is checking out the pipes. "Could be, yeah. We could crack it open and have a look, but we'd probably want some of those suits." She puffs in exasperation. "We should just keep everything we get our hands on ever." This smaller piece only connects to the secondary loop, so its carrying the superheated steam from the heat exchanger located back along these...wait. Wait! Don't crack anything open yet! * Angie pulls her hands off, holding them up in defense. "I know, I know! I'm just saying!" * Vytor relaxes Its not so much the radiation I'm worried about. This room seems extremely well sealed, but some of the internal reactor components I've gotten to have lead shielding in them. Unfortunately they're looking brittle and worn. I'm afraid if we start breaking into things lead debris might break off and get into the lines. * Angie huffs. She leans back against a bulkhead and strokes her chin. "Mmm. But it could happen anyway if we take her out to sea. I suppose we really need to power her down completely and replace it to be sure, and we probably can't." She pushes off the wall with her shoulders and begins pacing. "It's impossible to know what kind of stresses we're dealing with without turning it on, either." In any case, it seems the basic functionality of this generator shares a lot of similarities to the one we saw in Bluetooth. The good news is, from what I've seen, the system hasn't be put through more than initial testing. So I don't think its gone to 100% power yet. That's good, but I'm not really eager to test someone else's science project. * She traces the coolant intake line and raps on the tank. "Wonder if the coolant will still work. From what I can tell they seem to use a synthetic material." If that's the case, I'm not sure the ship has even gone through so much as a shakedown cruise yet. Which means we could be facing all kind of surprises on this trip. * Angie folds her arms and scowls down at her feet. "She may have a mast, but she's not set up to take sails at all, so if we want to get her anyplace without using the engines we'll have to paddle." We'd never be able to paddle this monster out to sea. Its either the reactor or nothing. There is one good thing in our favor here. Did you notice all the weird high-tech stuff up at the bridge? * Angie deadpans, "That was kind of what I was saying, except through humour." She traces a path around the room, frowning at each object in turn. "Yeah, I was up there looking at their instruments." Well, compare what you saw there to what you see here. They're all anachronistic pressure dials and simple valves. Extremely low-tech, but extremely resilient. That kind of design philosophy in the reactor spaces might work to our advantage. * Angie nods. "That's just basic good design. 'Make sure your machine can be operator 3000 years later by people who don't know how it works.'" True, but these dials and values also tell me we can vary the power output of this thing by 1% increments at a time. A 1% test might be able to tell us if this thing even still works or not. Without killing us, preferably. Yeah, a 100% test would kill us, so a 1% test should only 1% kill us. It's simple math. * She strokes her mouth with her palm.* Can I see the book again? * She takes the notebook from him and flips back through it.* Everything's differently positioned but except for this extra loop here it does seem pretty similar. That's the loop I don't get. Yeah, exactly. * She perks up suddenly.* Hey, do you think Webbly would know anything about it? Maybe. Good thinking! It's not really his area, but it's worth a shot, and he can at least warn us if there are any checks or safeguards we can do. * She drops her voice a level.* I wanted to check on Mars, too, see if she's up and about yet. Yeah. I wanted to ask Mars why she thought Emiria was her enemy. Everyone's been wondering that. We have some notions, but only she can say for sure. Hopefully she'll be a bit more agreeable. Maybe some Moon Chocolate will calm her down? * Angie half-laughs, more to acknowledge the reference than anything. She nods back toward the door. "I'm gonna go take another look at that first chamber, see if I can figure out what they had planned for it." OK, I'm going to study a bit more in here. If you need anything...uh...yell? Real loud? * Angie opens her mouth wide and closes her eyes. "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! Like that?" Yes. If I'm listening, I might hear it. ;) Thanks for the input Angie, I needed that. * Angie beams. "With your listening skills and my yelling skills, we can accomplish anything." She spins around, waving back over her shoulder. "I'll catch up with you!" Seeya! GMVytor> The two tech-heads separate, knowing there is much yet to be done before the rendezvous with Pluto can happen. GMVytor> ==Lude Failed! Try again!== Session Close: Wed Mar 07 19:22:37 2007