2/3 Alison 2013/08/24(Sat)12:31 No. 537105 ID: d38f67
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"Oh, yeah. You'll..." Alison wants to say he'll get used to it, but she honestly has no idea. It may not have been the first time she pulled someone out of a simulation, too. "Well, you're with us, now."

There isn't much at the moment to sense anyway. Unity just feels herself rolling out of a compartment. This continues for a long while, she must be moving far. There isn't much she can do about it.

3/3 Alison 2013/08/24(Sat)12:32 No. 537106 ID: d38f67
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Something slows her down, and one kiloton of jetalium plops onto Unity. She starts morphing.

The two favorite options were to either attack the empire's orbital station and gain its powers, or exit empire territory and go into the blackmap zones for rogue help. From the sounds of it, the former is fast, highly rewarding and ridiculously dangerous, while the former involves largely unknown risks and rewards.

well we don't have our power boast any more so I say head for the blackmap zones for now to make some friends that can give us better gear or even people who would be willing to fight with us when we attack sapphire. And my plan was to head to the blackmap zones first and before we attack sapphire we hit the satellite and then cash the damn thing into the guy or EIN if it proves to be a big enough pain in the ass. Also people can be hijacked by EIN here now so beware.

Huh. Well, one thing to be aware of is real-world nobles will be coming to try and kill us soon, and we now lack our operator in the matrix advantage. Plus, Sevener will be following from behind before very long, and probably still be hostile. That means we need to get out of here ASAP.

Pity we couldn't take our drones or cell phones with us. Although if we're flying away from the planet (either to hit the space station, or hit the outer territories) internet access wouldn't help for very long, anyways.

...Outer reaches might be safer. If we can fly right up and hit the station, so can Sevener and any nobles. And as soon as we're dead, she wins. Whereas the outer reaches are bigger, we have more room and freedom to gather power without organized opposition. We should have some time- it'll be a bit before Sevener can gather the power to hit Sapphire.

I think we should at the very least scout out the orbital station before deciding so lets head there first since it is closer.

y>>537106
i say go on the offensive. go big or go home! (by go home, of course i mean don't because you'll be dead)

Orbital station sounds awesome. But so does the blackmap zones. I say we get out of the building safely and get the lay of the land before we start rocketing off somewhere.

We also want to check if physics are different here and if we are weaker or stronger now that we have left the simulation. Our biggest strength is our ability to multitask. We have the potential to be a small army if we can find more mods that support it.

Do we know if Sevener brought her people along as well? Because if its just her in there we have a advantage in the long run.

>>537130
yes she brought her supporters too. Was mentioned several times by her.

Apparently we are now comparatively underpowered, so let's take the less immediately dangerous option.

>>537148
where did you get that impression? We are still an S-Class Jetal.

>>537155
Because we no longer have the harvester simulation cheating and given us a boost for being an operator.

Also, we kind of just had close calls with a noble and Sevener. Both of which are still going to be around to fight us, actually.

>>537159
We weren't actually fighting Sevener we were trying to get past her, and as for the Noble we WON that fight. Self-destruct generally is only used when you know you've lost.

If we have the mass to get to orbital velocity, then that's definitely the way to go. Hold the highest ground there is.

Alison 2013/08/24(Sat)19:54 No. 537231 ID: d38f67
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The physics, as far as Alison can tell, are effectively the same. Here they seem more real, like the difference between a good realistic painting and the real thing. Engineer does not think things will be particularly different, however.

Alison decides that at the least, she can go in the direction of the orbital factory and decide whether or not to attack it from there. She goes to the door. She does not sense any cores, but sense jetalium returns megatons.

"So Engineer, do we just... thrust up?"
>"We need to find out where the station is in orbit first. It could be in low orbit, it could be in high orbit."

>Operator off shift. Processing bank info... current balance of Operator account: 0 jetalium, 0 new empire dollars. Current balance of Account Benefactor - Loviro: 11,750 raw jetalium, 40,000 new empire dollars. Withdraw?

Alison wonders if Loviro just forgot to mention that.

Hey we got some starter funds. Thanks dad you are the best.

Make sure to save it for a rainy day and not blow it all on moon pies and video games.

>>537231
Someone could have deposited it if it isn't Loviro's originally. Still if we are going to attack an orbital station going Starship Alison mode wouldn't hurt.

.... pity we don't have a battery that could support a couple megatons hah

Withdraw, we should quickly move out. Sevener probably isn't that far behind us... if she hasn't gotten her jetallium yet, we may just be able to imprision her as nothing more as an orb, ensuring our victory while giving us the opportunity the discover the world around us. This was likely her plan, rather than delay or kill us, it would have been better to enure than success is unreachable by adjusting certain parameters for the opponent while still keeping them alive. Make Sevener nothing but a core and we've neutralized her for the rest of the sim, and can freely kill her to end it quickly once we've learned enough.

>Withdraw?
Hey, free resources. And if we leave without them, I doubt we'll have another chance to collect.

Take it.

>Withdraw?
Um... Yes. Very yes! And clean it out! Thank you, Loviro! And also check if there's a secure locker or safety deposit box to go with your's or Loviro's account as well.

Take your time absorbing using straw mode, but keep an eye on where the jetals are out there. If the smaller masses move away and larger ones group up and move in, then they're likely readying to attack. In that case switch to combo gel and light absorption to suck up the last of the mass and get ready to bust out.

Engineer is right about needing to know where the orbital factory is before heading up. Finding out where the Blackmap Zones are as well would be a good idea. That means maps of the entire solar system, including ones that show where the major space facilities are. And GPS isn't gonna work off-planet, so we'll need some other navigation device than a phone as well. Dunno if we have a window of time where we could just walk into a store to buy this stuff, but if we do we ought to take it. Using a low mass division, of course.

>>537238
Uh... That doesn't make any sense for Sevener to do, unless it's reversed and Unity is the one that was stuck as a core at Sevener's mercy. And it's doubtful that Sevener will be hot on our heels, since she'd know that'd put her at great risk of being intercepted as a core. We almost certainly have until the next O-Route window before she comes through, though keep an ear out for rolling cores coming down, just in case.

@WIPU Alison 2013/08/24(Sat)21:07 No. 537264 ID: d38f67
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Alison withdraws everything, but will be sure to not blow it all at once. She does, however, try and eat it all at once. The ground seems impervious to Alison's new weight.

"How do we go about that?"
>"We need a phone, or just some internet access. That's assuming the location of it isn't hidden. Otherwise we need to find someone who does know."
>"We're in the capital, I expect." says Recluse. "Unless we have someone to see in the capital, we want to be anywhere else before trying to investigate anything. Preferably unseen. If we are discovered, it might be exceptionally difficult to shake the nobles who get sent at us."

Lets go see about buying a phone. Probably should use a generic Belenos form

We should also see about buying a battery recharger. We'll have used our current battery up in about 5 b-hours with current usage.

That or find a safe place to put most of it while we go about our business.

Right. Let's sneak out, then. We need a generic Belnos form, again.

Sneaking around and going unobserved should be slightly easier with Polatt on board, right? Now we have someone who's actually had a lifetime fitting into this society.

We'll grab a phone in a slightly lower risk area.

Allison. How would you know whether something feels more real or not? You've never even seen a painting before, much less the reality that painting is in.

Alison 2013/08/24(Sat)21:32 No. 537274 ID: d38f67
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>How would you know whether something feels more real or not?
Alison means this feels more real by comparison, but maybe when she sees the real world, her world will all seem like crude sketches by comparison.

>Let's sneak out, then.
Alison would love to, except that she ate too much.

At her morph of 70, she can only hold 8,062 kg given current battery constraints. If she lowers it down to 20, however, she'll be able to hold 12,093. The downside of that is that she will have to drop mods.

She can also simply hold an amount of unpowered jetalium and carry it with her. She believes that she can carry 25% of her own weight in unpowered jetalium without significant slowdown.

>>537274
SO BIG. Let's go for the full 8k and carry some out with us. Leave the rest in the deposit. ...that means we'll be walking out of here with 10077kg, and we'll be leaving 2545 in the bank.

I would like to note that walking around at 8k would have us use up 7700 battery per hour, and we only have 80,000. We would have around 10 hours of battery life, which means we will probably wind up burning a decent amount of mass to keep our battery at a decent percentage. I guess that's fine though.

Oh god I just got a image of Alison unhinging her jaw and eating a poor jetal whole. Got to remember the whole giant snake thing might be a bit horrifying to some people.

...how many mods would we have to drop to get down to morph 20?

And what are the other downsides of low morph, again? As I remember, low morph meant it took us 30 minutes to disguise as a dancer. We want the ability to change shape for disguises, and for forming divisions.

I think we're going to have to stash some mass, or carry some as inert.

can we shape unpowered mass at all or would that require power for it to keep shape? cause if we can shape the unpowered jetalium I say just turn them into suitcases or a backpack or something that wouldn't look to out of place for someone to be carrying but if we can't than take what we can and deposit the rest (who knows we might be able to come back for it) and leave.

Alright, after crunching the numbers it looks like we can get out of here with 12598 kg, carrying 25% of that, and leaving behind only 24 kg, if we lower our morph from 70 to 50, but that would mean we'd have to drop two modules. However, that's only 2521 kg more mass than what we could keep at 70 morph, so we'll have to decide if that is worth discarding two modules. Personally, I think we should do it, dropping Sniper B and one AutoCannon A.

Whatever inert jetalium there is, split it into many tiny spheres and evenly distribute them within our body and any divisions. That way it won't be a single unwieldy mass in or on our bodies, and if we're hit there isn't a risk a large chunk of it will be destroyed.

Before we leave this room, we should morph into a non-Alison form. And when we leave the Operator building, we should split into three divisions with roughly equal masses and not travel together. It'll arouse less suspicion than one massive jetal moving around, since a massive jetal implies an equally big battery.

Also something to keep in mind: We won't be able to hover using just our thrusters if we're trying to hold up more than 8000 kg. But that won't be a problem if only one or two divisions are using thrusters.

And if we need just need Internet access, we could use a computer in this building. We are still technically an Operator, and this is the Operator building, so we should be allowed to use one, right? And it may also have access to government data that wouldn't be publicly available, such as a map of all facilities in the solar system, and what defenses are at the orbital jetalium facility.

>>537281
Honestly, I don't think we're gonna have access to the Operator bank again. And even if we do, it's going to be once we come back to the Capital, and by then 2545 kg ought to be tiny compared to what we'll have.

>>537304
>>537304
>Alright, after crunching the numbers it looks like we can get out of here with 12598 kg
Is the formula for that in the wiki?

>>537111
>if we're flying away from the planet (either to hit the space station, or hit the outer territories) internet access wouldn't help for very long, anyways.
Belenosian technology has FTL internet!
>If we can fly right up and hit the station, so can Sevener and any nobles.
That's illegal you know! What they can do is requisition jetalium!
>>537271
>How would you know whether something feels more real or not?
The same way you can tell the difference between a monitor image and photograph: higher data resolution! More accurately, the world is a whirling mass of particles that are defined by vectors, but if data compression would change the ratio of particles:vectors from 100:100 to 50:50, then simulation alone would change the 100:100 ratio to 30:70 for greater computational ease, with the second layer dropping it down to more like 20:80, the next layer would begin compression and change 50:50 to 40:60, etc!


tl;dr it's harder to see the pixels noow, and there are tons more pixels than before, and they are changing faster thaan before, and they have greater color depth than before!

Remember, getting to0 orbit requires a tiny amount of thrust to get up, and a whole lot to get sideways. Orbits are really, really fast. We probably need to keep at least some of that Jetalium to burn away as reaction mass to reach the station while still having enough to do anything once we get there. Engineer can probably work out the appropriate mass fractions and trade-offs of more morph and taking along 'dead weight' vs. a lower morph and more power.

So if i have this right at 70% morph we can have up to 10 tons of jetalium on us so to get in to space you'd be trying to do a 10 ton SSTO? From playing KSP i've found that hard to do that with LFEs but to do it with from what i've seen are ion-engines i'm not so shore that we can brack atmo, as nargas is not known for being farst in the air.
(If i have any thing that just sounds stupid plaese tell me:) )

Can't we carry it all with anti gravity?

Alison 2013/08/25(Sun)10:46 No. 537404 ID: d38f67
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>We won't be able to hover using just our thrusters if we're trying to hold up more than 8000 kg.
That is entirely true, however, Alison does have anti-gravity, and that will break that rule. Nonetheless, the mass isn't negated, and using the thrusters will still be slower at high mass, although she can burn some as she spends thruster energy. Not to mention the cost of anti gravity as well.

Alison decides to burn off modules Sniper B and one autocannon A, form her body out of 10,077kg and carry the rest in the form of a suitcase and spots of unpowered jetalium inside herself.

She heads out, following the exit signs. She doesn't see anything or anyone on the way, and complete silence to match outside of a low hum from the building.

To the side, however, she hears a TV from behind a tinted window.

Might as well check in.

can you see through the window here? If not just keep heading towards the exit since I would like to leave before whoever comes to kill us comes but if you can see through the window I don't see the harm in a quick peek.

This area should be a neutral zone. Also word of our exploits should not have traveled to far yet.

Should check it out to help get the lay of the land.

Huh. You could peek in the room and see if there's anything useful to learn, like if the news in on.

Although if there's a TV running in that room, there's a decent chance there's someone in there watching it.

>>537404
It could be nice to check the local news. Also, if there's someone in there, we can ask how many exits there are. If there's a chance we can ambush Sevener, maybe we should? Or just put a jetalium mine at the exit to inconvenience her.

While it'd be a good idea to check the TV news, how much your presence is tolerated here is unknown. It may only be as far as letting you exit the building via the most direct route. So don't just open the door and head right in. Open it, look in, and if anybody is around ask if they mind if you come in and use the TV.

And be wary if there are any jetals or robots in there. Even though they're Operators, they're still EIN-linked. We never found out EIN up here can take control of Operators, so we should assume it can. So that means we ought to morph into a form that isn't associated with Unity/Alison before trying to head in there.

>>537404
There's a problem with that body mass: It exceeds the maximum amount our body can move at 50 morph, which is 9674 kg. Not a big deal, it just means shuffling some mass out to carry instead.

Also, I made a mistake in my calculations back here >>537304. I was using the surge after morph penalties, which was 7700 at 70 morph, instead of the base surge value of 8000. After recalculating it turns out we could carry all of the 12622 kg at 50 morph, with a bit of room to spare. (12622 kg minus 9674 kg gives 2948 kg, which is lower than the 3155.5 kg that's 25% of 12622 kg.)

Technically we could carry a bit more as inert mass to either slightly lower our per b-hour power usage or slightly increase our morph, but I think it'd be best to keep as much mass in our body as possible so it's immediately available.

1/2 Alison 2013/08/26(Mon)20:32 No. 537870 ID: d38f67
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The inside looks like a waiting lobby, except that there is no one waiting or assisting. The walls were sound resistant, judging by the near maxed volume of the television.

2/2 Alison 2013/08/26(Mon)20:33 No. 537871 ID: d38f67
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It's the same newslady casting. Alison starts morphing into a new form while she listens in, as well as preparing divisions.

>"-of twenty four jetals and 30 robots to maintain and serve this station, and make sure it is one of the most well guarded extra-planetary facilities in our day and age. Originally developed under the Diamond Emperor manufacturing line, it was continued by Topa Kelomssa. In other news, there has been concern amongst the citizenry about the Blackmap barbarian capital, the Cloud Slither. High officials have re-examined all security details and confirm there is nothing to fear. In the words of our Sapphire Emperor, 'We have entire factories dedicated to producing surveillance material just for that zone. And for every kilogram of surveillance, we have a megagram of weaponry pointed in the same direction. If the Advisors feel a need to rename it the Rubble Slither, it will be so within minutes.'"

So the station is heavily guarded but not so much its not a possibility.

Also we know not to make a huge mess when we go to the blackmap zone or we will risk a airstrike.

This newscast seems a bit to perfectly timed honestly. The fact it listed both the spots we were told about and basicly taunted us to try anything is suspicious.

So remember what it said but don't count in it being entirely accurate. Sapphire probably knows about us. You don't get to that sort of position without keeping a eye on powerful new players. He probably did not manage to spy on our meeting with Ruby but I bet he knows it happened.

Anyways make off with some of the waiting room snacks if there are any and leave a friendly note for Sevener. Then lets head outside.

>>537871
...it's Ruby. He arranged to have that broadcast right as we broke out, and to make sure that TV was blaring loud enough to be heard through the walls as we go by.

He's telling us how defended the orbital factory is, and warning us that if we go to Cloud Slither that Sapphire could have the whole place obliterated from orbit.

>>537871
Okay, so the station is impenetrable, and is monitoring the Cloud Slither with a huge amount of weaponry. If we go to either location we'll die, because Sapphire is concentrating on them.

What OTHER options do we have?

>>537880
Honestly that wasn't the impression I got at all.

What I got from it was that if we destroyed the blockade the Slither will be grateful and 54 Jetals\Robots are easy-peasy if we do this carefully. Gotta remember the weapons we have are on the CITY destructional scale. Plus we have all that mass just begging to be used.

Alison got this far because she is a natural leader. Sure we have awesome weapons as a jetal and a power boost from our core but that's not our greatest strength.

Why risk 50 to one odds at the station when we can recruit 49 other powerful jetals and robots to fight with us?

There are tons of people who hate the system and Sapphire. We need to find them and borrow there power to complete our mission.

Sevener will have the law backing her up as long as she does not do anything stupid. We need to even the odds. Maybe the first thing we should do is a recruitment drive or jailbreak.

so the station is well guarded and since we don't have a power boast any more I would like to get into a more even fight just to judge how weakened we are, so I say we should leave that alone for the time being. As for the blackmap area... I'm sure they're exaggerating because if they had the fire power to blow that place into a creator I'm sure they wouldn't wait for blackmap to strike first but it probably is watched rather well. The empires have complete control over the news and we know that the news is mostly just propaganda to try and sew an illusion that the emperors are all powerful and everything is safe and fine.

Still say we should head to the blackmap area to gain some allies and better weapons but since we are no longer in the harvester simulation I say we pick a new name for ourselves since up her I'm sure the name has no real meaning other then pointing our enemies in our direction.

From the sounds of those (both being presumably exaggerated for propaganda but vaguely based in truth) the Blackmap zone sounds better. It seems reasonably likely that the Blackmappers have capabilities the empire doesn't know about or won't officially acknowledge, seeing as how they still exist without being controlled by the empire.

>>537886
> Gotta remember the weapons we have are on the CITY destructional scale.
That was only with the Simulation-Bonus!
Chances are that everything takes way more surge now for less effect!

>>537906
Nope, untrue. S ranked weapons are by definition on that scale, inside or out of the simulation. Remember our battle with that bounty hunter? He was carving up buildings like a hot knife through butter and he WASN'T a jetal. The difference between reality and the simulation wasn't all that large.

And that was with A class weaponry.

The only thing the simulation bonus gave us was a tougher core. We could take a glancing hit much better then normal jetal.

I still feel we should check the orbital station before leaving. We have numbers we would go against but we have no idea their current weaponry or modules.

>>537907
wasn't an operator*

>The only thing the simulation [operator] bonus gave us was a tougher core.
No, it also let us hit harder with our modules. Upped the damage output. That's why, say, the plasma sword D we started with did better than the Dead Batteries or Felix would have expected. Sevener also commented on how we got to hit harder than everyone else with the same modules when we hesitated.

Meaning now our weapons are slightly weaker, but we're probably only going to notice that when unloading them in the face of tough opponents. Your point remains, though. Our weapons are pretty much ridiculously dangerous enough we won't see a difference in say, building cutting ability. Anything that was on city destruction scale still is.

>I still feel we should check the orbital station before leaving.
Yeah. Honestly, from the report we just heard, it actually sounds safer to hit the station.

Alison 2013/08/27(Tue)20:51 No. 538078 ID: d38f67
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>Get allies/friends
Alison would love to do that, but going straight to the Cloud Slither has its own risks.

She does ask the lobby, and after a brief discussion, the overall opinion that has the least disagreeance is that Alison has no credibility in the real world, here. In fact, it's likely that all but the strongest have any idea that Unity even exists. It's unlikely that Cloud Slither will be willing to stage an attack just because one jetal defects to them, so Alison will want to prove that she isn't just some jetal.

>"There's a problem with getting a phone." Polatt says. "Remember, we had our own shop with broke phones that wouldn't monitor your activity. Not gonna be like that if you just get one at an electronic corner shop, unless you like a package deal that includes a free tracker."

>"Unity, yes?" One of the stranger looking robots that Alison has seen is in front one of the stranger looking doors also seen. The bot keeps looking away from Unity.
"Who is asking?"
>"A conversation. I am no one, affiliated with no faction. I did not exist before this conversation, and I will not exist after this conversation. I do not know everything, but I will answer your question to the best of my ability for the duration of my lifespan. In order to remain unaffiliated, this life span is limited."

How do we kill the Sapphire Emperor?

>>538078
Does he know that this life is a sim?
Does he know anything about compilation AI's?
Does he know where she can uhhhh... does he know what's important to ask him?

Lets avoid any loaded questions. This guy could work for anyone.

Ask about the surrounding area. Check on what factions are in power and what they are up to. Ask what exactly is up with the space station you heard about on the news.

Try to find out what sort of mods exist beyond S rank and who has access to them. Check to see if there is any undertool type person around here and if the Dead batteries have a equivalent outside the simulation.

Also try to find out the limits on splitting ourselves. Oh and info about what support Sevener might have and what rules she will have to follow to stay with the law.

Oh that's a good idea. Ask him what question you should be asking before anything else.

First question:

How long do we have before anyone from this level arrives to intercept me, or Anya or the others in the simulation catch up? Or before your lifespan ends.

>The bot keeps looking away from Unity.
Can we assume you're not connected to EIN, or you're avoiding looking at me to keep from triggering a remote takeover?

I don't suppose he knows where we can pick up a cracked phone or other wireless device?

>we had our own shop
...actually, is there any chance there's another iteration of the dead batteries on this level? That would be convenient.

Can we take him with us to converse on the move? (He might have a tracker, but moving while tracked is better than sitting still while tracked.)

>...actually, is there any chance there's another iteration of the dead batteries on this level?
Maybe not specifically the Dead Batteries, but I think he said something about knowing people with bank accounts in the main layer, so maybe one of those.

Ask what places there are with accessible jetal mods and jetalium that aren't heavily monitored by Sapphire.

Alright don't question why he is looking away, or asking about the simulation thing. We have no idea of his affiliation and we don't want to look completely nuts, crazy people don't get backing from major powers.

Questions to ask:

Where can we get a clean phone.
Where can we get information on high security installations.
Where does one get off world and what procedures are expected.

Any more is tipping our hand.

What's the most important thing he can tell us?

>>538078
>In order to remain unaffiliated, this life span is limited
"What are the conditions of that limitation?"

ask why he's helping. If he's unaffilated with any group then why help us in the first place, that's affiliating it's self.

Ask how much longer its lifespan is, so you'll know how quick to speak here, who made it and left it here, and why it isn't looking directly at you. The answer to the last one is probably because its EIN-linked and seeing you would alert EIN. And if it's not long to live you both could speak much faster than normal since you're a jetal and it's a robot.

Next ask if it's safe to ask it questions about or use the name of a certain ubiquitous government system with a three letter name, so as to not risk saying "EIN." If not then you'll just have to use a substitute name here.

Ask some questions about EIN: What detection systems does it have at its disposal to determine if a robot or jetal is not linked to it, and how common are those systems? How far does EIN's influence extend beyond the surface of the planet? What can you do to evade EIN and the government's detection until you're out of the capitol city? If a EIN-linked AI is uploaded into an unlinked jetal using an AI upload module, is that AI still linked to EIN? (In case we ever have get a situation where we want to take one in.)

Ask what defenses the orbital jetalium facility has and is there a way to bypass or disable them, what defenders are on it and what're their capabilities, is there anything that would draw the defenders out of the facility, and how quickly can reinforcements reach the facility. Also ask what the government's response to the facility being captured or about to be captured, or even you being confirmed to be in it. Will they attempt to recapture or just blow it away?

Ask how you could get off this planet without using your own thrusters and anti-gravity, so you don't end up having to burn a big chunk of mass for that. It could be by either getting on or hijacking a ship, or buying, stealing, or salvaging the parts for an externally powered thrust or anti-gravity system you could wrap yourself around or hold on to, or some other way.

Ask where you could procure a phone that has all tracking and monitoring software and devices removed; Preferably at least three, so there's one for each division. And where could you get the tools and knowledge needed to "scrub" a phone yourself. The latter may be a better route if you could do it quick once you know how.

Also ask where you could get small modules of the kind that don't take up a module slot; Stuff like computer and electronic system interfaces, electronic and mechanical tool sets, or even a flashlight. And what kind of modules don't take up a module slot? Actually, just ask if there's someplace you could get to on the planet to buy stuff without being spotted by EIN or the government authorities.

And before leaving, ask where the exit door leads, if it's monitored by EIN, and why it's so strange looking. You don't want to step out onto a busy street and get spotted right off. But if it does, ask if there's another way out of this building you could take.

1/4 Alison 2013/08/28(Wed)20:33 No. 538253 ID: d38f67
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"Hey Polatt, did the Dead Batteries have any top world organizations?"
>"If they did, I sure wasn't privy to 'em, sorry."

"Can we converse on the move?" Unity asks the bot.
>"No."
"How limited is your life span?"
>"Until I feel discomfort for the time."
"What is the most important thing you can tell me, or what questions are good to ask?"
>"I do not have complex decision making capabilities."
"Where can I get a clean phone?"
>"Blackmap zones. Alternatively, gain a module that allows for complex tools."
"Where can I get information on high security installations?"
>"Question is too broad."
"Where does one get offworld?"

The robot lists off numbers that the engineer thinks are latitude and longitude, saying that they are flight zones that jetals can thrust upwards in without being shot out of the sky. It does imply, however, that those areas are heavily watched, so Alison may have trouble just getting off planet.

"What modules exist past S?"
>"None, S is an umbrella term for anything past A."
"What factions are in power?"
>"This, the New Empire, is in contested control of 94% of the landmass, 95% of the sea, 98% of the sky and 99.9% of space. All others are in blackmap zones, referred to as barbarians. Factions are largely undocumented within, but typically work together out of necessity."

2/4 Alison 2013/08/28(Wed)20:34 No. 538254 ID: d38f67
File 137774724211.png - (48.31KB , 700x700 , 433.png )

"What details do you have on the space station?"
>"All official ones are varied. Newscast reports are rated as Probable for exaggeration. The station revolves around backwards engineering lost technology, often donated as hand-me-downs from emperors."
"What can you tell me about Anya?"
>"A duplicate of myself is having a conversation with her. She is planning on going out into the open after she is done."
"Are you telling her about me as well?"
>"Yes."
"How long do I have until someone in this world tries to intercept me?"
>"Not until you are found."
"What can you tell me about places with jetalium and modules that aren't watched by sapphire?"
>"Blackmap zones. By definition, all blackmap zones are areas that are not under heavy surveillance."
"I must also know about a ubiquitous oversystem that has three letters. Is that door connected?"
>"EIN." The robot's voice changes, and it sounds like a prerecorded message from a girl. "It is the most sophisticated product born from paranoia the world has ever seen by a ridiculous margin. You can't go anywhere or do anything without being seen. The EIN you are used to in the harvest world is outdated and a shadow at that."

3/4 Alison 2013/08/28(Wed)20:34 No. 538255 ID: d38f67
File 137774727543.png - (48.94KB , 700x700 , 434.png )

>"There are full vision Sky-Cams on every building with such clarity that it can see everything and everyone on the streets below it. Each one is packed with its own bot whos sole purpose is to watch, and report anything.
>Only in case people walk where robots don't. Each robot must sacrifice 15% of its processing power to run EIN systems inside of him, her, or itself, and remain connected to EIN at all times. If that robot sees anything, the EIN process inside will report anything of the most minor infractions.
>Jetals and people aren't free either. Jetals must carry EIN signals inside of themselves, and biologicals must have small EIN implants, usually in their eyes. It doesn't stop there. Cars, trucks. Computers. Cash registers. Anything that moves, either by assistance or on its own. All of it has EIN implants in some way or another. And all of those EIN implants constantly scan one another. If it sees anything that should be connected that is not, it is flagged.

4/4 Alison 2013/08/28(Wed)20:38 No. 538257 ID: d38f67
File 137774749510.png - (34.66KB , 700x700 , 435.png )

>"After the last great war, all of the soldiers were encouraged to take up the law next. In other words, the police force is an army of great numbers. They, too, are connected to EIN. When something is flagged, either a crime or an EINless entity, EIN itself puts it on the queue and constantly dispatches the police force to investigate it using an algorithm to measure the severity of a flag and the proximity and availability of forces. To maximize efficiency of the law system, the police force individuals are trained as judge, jury and executioner for most cases, only in high level classes is much of a bureacracy ever involved.
>If my robot is in the correct position, Unity, then it is standing in front of a sliding circular door. If you were a normal jetal, and you take a single step out of this door, you have a 97% chance of being immediately flagged as a class B outbreak. As it is, you are not a normal jetal, and I expect the outside has undercover nobles. If that door even looks like it is opening, it will be flagged as a Class A threat, and you will have EIN sending its best at you inside of seconds. The only safe place is inside of the Operator building, but you can't stay here forever. Sapphire is attempting to override what is keeping him from entering.
>I understand that your next question is most likely how to get out of this building without having a squadron of nobles on your tail. I will answer for both myself and my robot. We don't know. You are in a far more disadvantageous position than your sister, who has played by the rules as far as anyone knows."

all right then who the hell are you[the person talking through the prerecorded message on the robot]

also I say we take an old move out of our play book and use L.sword to dig/drill our way out... also ask the robot if it can give you any type of map or at least some specific directions to the blackmap zones, like the blackmap zones are 300.76 miles northeast at latitude and longitude x,y you are currently at latitude A longitude B.

I would just suggest sticking to the sewers like we did in the harvester sim but I'm not to sure if they are or are not watching the sewers, we know they have cleaning robots down there that if they spot us would make the whole thing pointless, and we kinda used that trick a lot back in the harvester sim so I'm pretty sure the nobles would have caught on to it by now and probably have a few guards down there.

>What can you tell me about Sevener
...I'm surprised it answered that. They should know her as Anya. Unless it's a construct of the CAI simulation.

>EIN ridiculous overwatch and noble attack as soon as we leave the building
I don't suppose simply loading up on jetalium inside and blasting off strait up at escape velocity or greater is feasible?

...or how important is operation of the harvester simulation? We know intelligences are used to harvest processing power. Does EIN use that? If we damaged or interrupted the simulation from the outside, would that produce a temporary blackout in the overwatch we could get through?

...if it has a double communicating with Anya, could it act as a communication relay? That would allow us a moment to talk to each other without killing each other.

What are the laws for doing illegal acts in a simulation? I can't imagine they carry the same penalty as out here. If I promise to obey the law and carry EIN with me will the threat classification still hold?

>>538256
Well, my first impression is that she's already won, and this contest was fucking rigged from the start. A rebel has no chance of beating the system at this level of police power.

My second impression is that if we can't go outside, let's use all the resources we can INSIDE. There are very large supplies of jetalium around, and if getting upgrades inside the sim results in upgrades when we leave, we can go back in the sim to find better upgrades. Or we could go find the central processing chamber, hack into it, and make it give us more... mods... Wait, if Loviro's S-rank plasma sword came out with us... how does that make sense? It was a construct of the simulation. If it's possible for the simulation to make mods to order just from how it thinks they should behave, let's exploit that. Hack the system, and make it give us CHEATY mods. Impenetrable shields, unbeatable stealth systems, and a ridiculously huge battery to use with custom-made weaponry. We could also run around shoving everyone we can into our inner world, going so far as to make mods that can do so at range regardless of if the individual is a jetal, robot, or organic.

So. Ask the robot where the system is in here that controls the simulation, and how we can hack into it. As a last question, ask exactly who recorded that message. It's not anyone we know, but they know us somehow. Is it the CAI beyond this contest?

if we do go about the breakout plan do not do it in front of any robot or jetal. That includes this one. It will get reported immediately.

Robot, who's voice was that recording of?

>Wait, if Loviro's S-rank plasma sword came out with us... how does that make sense? It was a construct of the simulation.
All jetal mods are just data. It's complicated programming and machine code that specifies how to configure jetalium into a weapon (or more often, how to configure jetalium to produce a weapon) and control it.

There's no reason we can't bring data with us. The simulation found a way to provide us with that data, same as every single other mod. The only difference is that Loviro 'cheated' access to it.

We can't cheat like that, though. Partially because we're no longer in a harvester sim that responds to belief. And partially because we're not an experienced jetal engineer who understands every aspect of the custom tech he's wishing into existence. We would lack the data to make a module that actually worked.

Oh, I'll point out something I noticed here. The girl who left that message knows that Unity and Anya are competing. Not even Sapphire knows that. This strongly implies that the girl is someone who knows the nature of the competition. Didn't someone say that upon winning this CAI Fight, we'd get to meet someone beyond it who knew a lot about the overall Contest and the CAI itself?

Ok I see a few options here. We can try to fake or steal a EIN signal so we can get around undetected. We can tear into this building and make off with everything we can get here and hope we find something that will help.

We could try to get info out showing what Sevener/Anya has been collaborating with a known felon and get her access revoked. Would at least put us on a even footing. And then she would have to work with us to survive.

There definitely seems to be some Cai influence in this simulation. They know Seveners real name and how we are competing. Also the whole system is set up to penalize non system contestants.

Turn to Polatt and say you guess there isn't anything like the Dead Batteries up here. Or any criminal organizations... Or criminals... Jeez... You gotta say you're sorry that he and everyone else is in this with you, 'cause, damn, you didn't expect a goddamn total surveillance police state. This is at least a couple orders of magnitude worse than you expected.

Alright, what are our options for direction? Obviously can't go out the exit door. Can't rush to try and take down Sevener before she leaves, 'cause she can just step outside and we'd get obliterated. Can't try to cut or otherwise move up the building and attempt to launch into space 'cause even if the building shields don't kick on and trap us in every Sapphire noble in the capitol will be on our tail. That leaves down.

Ask the robot what EIN surveillance is under the Operator building, and under the capitol and New Empire cities in general. You already know about the cleaner and maintenance bots, but you can stay out of their sight by moving through sewage, breaking into a water main and riding the flow, or even just plasma drilling down through the walls and rock. So what about other sensor systems; Specifically ones that don't require line of sight like jetal core and jetalium mass detectors.

Also ask what EIN surveillance systems are used for under oceans, seas and other bodies of water. We may want to aim for the floor of the bay next to the capitol and take advantage of its near opaque state to get away.

Right now the option to get out of the building that appears to have the least chance of alerting EIN is to plasma drill into a major structural column near the middle of the building, so the energy doesn't show up outside, then drill down the middle of it. We'll turn sideways once we're at or near bedrock and try to get into a utility tunnel.

Unfortunately we don't have GPS, a map, or even a compass to guide us once we're down there. We might be able to make a simple compass, but without a map, printed or otherwise, we'd be lost down there. How are we going to get a map of the capitol and the tunnels under it?

Ask for an explanation of the coordinate system that is used on-world, and the one used off-world. Then ask for the coordinate location of where you are, where the Blackmap Zones and known "barbarian" settlements are on-world and off-world, and the location of the orbital facility.

Also ask how EIN handles jetal divisions from legit jetals. They don't have cores, so how does EIN recognize them as divisions and connect them back to their jetal?

It also appears those 40,000 New Empire dollars are effectively worthless to us. That is, unless the Blackmap Zones still use New Empire dollars as their currency for some reason. Ask the robot if there's anyplace or anyone that accepts New Empire dollars as currency that isn't monitored by EIN.

...Wait a sec. That girl's voice in the recording, is it the same as the one that was on the Operator control channel back when the simulation was running in reverse? The one that specifically said your name in the warning when you were absorbing mass from that jetal?

I wonder if we can steal a operators core from the server farm and keep it separate in our body to piggyback on its EIN signal. Should ask if something like that is possible.

>>538388
Unfortunately just yanking one out of its socket will kill it and almost certainly send up an alert. And even if we did swipe a live core it would have to be a cooperative one, lest it call out to EIN. And even then it probably wouldn't work because EIN likely takes special notice of cores that aren't sending video or audio or have no mass. It moving around in a body that has eyes and ears would be a dead giveaway. We can still ask the robot about it, but we shouldn't expect a solution.

Though, I wonder if we could copy modules from a core that's still plugged into the Harvester simulation just by touching it. And would it alert EIN or anybody in or out of the simulation? That may be a way to snag high level modules as well as tool and utility ones such as a GPS or phone without having to go outside and beat down jetals. Better ask the robot about that.

>>538388
I doubt we could find an operator core. There are going to be thousands, if not millions, of people plugged into the simulation, and only a tiny fraction of them are operators.

Remember, one drop in a sea was what protected anyone from the 'real' world from attacking us in the simulation, before.

1/2 Alison 2013/08/30(Fri)15:55 No. 538459 ID: d38f67
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The real world is a magnitude worse than Alison was expecting.

>Loviro's sword was a construct of the simulation
Which Loviro had made in this world as well, and if Loviro was thinking right, the construct was the exact same as the real thing, and should be functional since it's just data in her core.

"Who was that?" Alison asks of the robot, whos voice changes back to normal.
>"Data expunged." Alison does not recognize the voice, either.
Instead, Alison asks for the locations of the cloud slither and various blackmap zones. It sounds like the slither is the only place of any significance, and now has that location. After an explanation of the numbers, Engineer says the slither is a few thousand miles away. There are offworld barbarians, but they have expedited themselves into the vastness of space, trying to lose the belenos world entirely.
Lastly, Alison successfully gets the location of the orbital facility.
"How important is the harvest simulation?"
>"If it were to be lost in an accident, it would be a significant economical lost, but not a catastrophic one. It is an experiment as much as a life extending procedure and a prison.
"If I promise to obey the law and carry EIN with me, will the threat classification still hold?"
>"Yes. Chances of being killed are high."
"What EIN security is in and around the operator building?"
>"This building extends one mile underneath sea level. There is a layer of EIN under this. Further data is unavailable."
"What surveillance is used for bodies of water?"
"Submarine bots. Tens of thousands, perhaps digits more, patrol through to cover the most ground in the least amount of time. The patrols change randomly, and the patrols that are used are generated randomly on the spot. Prediction is impossible. With high end gear to detect bots before they detect you, evasion is possible."
"How does EIN deal with legal jetals who have divisions?"
>"Insignias from a noble house. All divisions must hold onto this, where EIN may scan them."

2/2 Alison 2013/08/30(Fri)15:55 No. 538460 ID: d38f67
File 137790335404.png - (52.09KB , 700x700 , 437.png )

"What if I grabbed a core from the simulation and took its modules?"
>"This is possible, but the operators will know."

Alison pauses for a second, but the robot speaks up again, and starts melting.

>"This conversation is concluded."

Say goodbye to the melting robot.

...if it's made of jetalium, perhaps take it once it's expired.

>absorbing from a core in the simulation possible
Probably not worth it if it alerts the operators. The only people in the simulation strong enough to have modules of any use of us are going to be noble jetals, and maybe the operators themselves, and we have no way of knowing which cores are theirs. It's a needle in the haystack, and the first straw we touch will get the alarm sounded.

>now what
...so we need a plan. We need to head to either the space station or cloud slither, or maybe the deep space baddies, although we don't know where they are and our time constraints may not allow for that.

And we need an exit strategy that gets us there without getting killed.

...if Sevener was working with us, we could pose as her division, I suppose? Too bad she wouldn't go for that.

>>538460
Operators are way less of a threat than anything outside the facility.

Let's go hunting for cores in here.

No point playing by the rules anymore if we have that big a bounty on our head. Lets steal everything that's not bolted down here before we head out.

Split up and find the jetalium reserves and where they keep the cores. We need the best modules we can find. Right now we are about at our mass limit but if we start messing with stuff in here we might need more.

>>538464
Individual operators aren't a threat, but a whole group of them could be. And giving up the temporary safe spot we have in this facility to plan and prepare is also a cost. It doesn't seem worth the chance of getting more modules, especially given the fact we have no way to locate the cores with modules we'd want to absorb from. It's a definite penalty for a very small chance of payoff.

>>538473
...and we already literally have more jetalium than our battery can support! We need a way to get out of here, not to go on a fruitless feeding frenzy.

>>538476
THERE IS NO WAY OUT. That has been made abundantly clear.

>>538477
yes there is. we just have to avoid those sea bots. Which we can get modules for here by scanning all those operator cores.

Personally I think we should head to the orbital station still.

>>538477
There's no easy way out. And I don't see any way how grabbing a core, getting nothing new from it, and then getting attacked by opperators improves the situation at all.

Even if we luck out against all odds and absorb a noble in the sim, that's a relatively small upgrade in exchange for violating the sanctuary we have here. We'd still be overwhelmed, and we're still surrounded by other nobles. Who may be free to barge right in, if the operators allow them in the building for us after we cross them.

We need to either escape, or grow several orders of magnitude in power. Core grabbing from the sim won't get us enough power in time. That means our only option is escape- even if it's slim.

>>538476
actually we do have a way to look for the modules we need.

Core Detection A

Able to see a relatively wide jetal core glow inside of jetalium. Class B also allows to scan a jetal's weapons and auxiliaries.

>>538480
...if that works, why aren't we dead already? The news knew our exact module loadout, at one point. Sapphire could have had his goons scanning the racks until they found a core that matched exactly and terminated us on the spot while we couldn't resist.

Remember our safe zone here will only last so long. Sapphire is working on overriding the systems that keep him out of here as we speak.

So we need to explore as much as we can of this building as fast as we can without setting of any alarms by stealing cores or anything. Then once we know where everything is and find what we are looking for we grab it and head out.

Our objectives are any data sources or module storage devices. Also the location of the jetalium reserves in case we need to restock before we leave. Anything else interesting should be investigated so we have as much info as we can going forward. Heck if we can find the modules of our friends in the simulation maybe we can find a way to get them out safely.

Sevener will have the exact opposite problem we do. She does not have to worry about being attacked on sight but she has to follow every rule to keep it that way. EIN will be watching her constantly and if she does anything suspicious it will notice.

We will be fighting stuff constantly until we get to a blackmap zone or space but we should not have a problem with anyone except the most powerful nobles.

>>538482
We're not looking for a specific core though, just any modules we can get.

>>538486
We would be looking for specific cores. Specifically, those with modules we don't have, or more specifically, modules we don't have that would be useful to us. The number of cores in the simulation that posses such modules is low compared to the total number of cores plugged in.

Okay, this isn't quite on topic, but I've been thinking. The anti gravity module cancels out gravity, and if Einstein was right then gravity is caused by a warping of space-time. In other words, the Belenosians figured out how to warp space-time in a limited area using a trivial amount of energy.

So if we can get some jetal module data on quantum entanglement and get access to some module creation systems, then Mathematician will be able to make a wormhole generator. We can get a portal gun!

>>538489
sadly the simulation we are in are fudging things. THe current scientific community has no idea how jetal technology actually works.

From what we know of the lost science Jetalium was probably made by throwing living people into a soup of nano bots and liquid metal. The Belenosians had so many mad scientists making doomsday weapons around this time this era's tech was mostly lost.

Heck the dead mans switch for the Sapphire emperor might have been the thing that set it off when this all happened in the real world.

You know if we could find Loviro's core could we get him in our head? Having a Belenosian scientist could give us a insane advantage. They might still have his brain or chip or whatever around here.

>if we could find Loviro's core
Loviro doesn't have a core. He's not a jetal. He doesn't have a brain or chip, either. Remember- Loviro is dead. Sapphire killed him. He wasn't imprisoned in the simulation, the simulation recreated him. He's a ghost in the machine, his consciousness run directly off the harvester sim's servers. Just like Vinyl.

Assuming he's even still alive (there's decent odds a noble has killed him already. Again.), we have no way to get him out of the simulation.

That said, yes, he might be very useful to have around. We should definitely see if we can resurrect him outside the CAI battle with the special stage resurrection mechanic, when we get to that.

I have a quick question
since we have the ability to hide our core would that mean we have the ability to hide from the sea bots as long as they don't see us or would the fact that they could still since our jetalium we'd still be found out by them anyways? Cause if we could sneak past only worrying about being seen we could just make ourselves match the sea floor so as long as we don't move they would have a bitch of a time seeing us and if we have someone watching out of an eye to give us 360 field of view so we can't be snuck up on there is a good chance we'd see a patrol before it would see us. Not saying we could get all the way to the blackmap zone or space before being caught but it looks like Sapphire is pointing all of his guns here at this place and if we can slip away and sneak far enough way before we are caught , yeah we'll still be hit but the attack wont be as concentrated.

Anyways I say explore the rest of this place first and see if we can't find somewhere to slip out or at least give us some more ideas on how to slip out... or worst case scenario, find a good place for a last stand.

Best course of action right now is to search as much of this building as we can in the time we have, but be careful about it. We get spotted by anything or anyone EIN-linked and it's going to get nasty fast. We'll get as much info as we can before choosing a course of action.

Split off two minimum mass divisions to perform the search while the core Alison body returns to the harvester simulation room to scan jetal cores. Have Polatt and Scanner or somebody else who hasn't gotten to be a division yet pilot them. They should make sure to always use tail-cams or similar to check around corners and doorways for anyone or anything that might possibly be EIN-linked so they don't expose themselves. We're looking for any information we can get, where the jetalium storage tanks are, or just anything that might help us out here.

When scanning the jetal cores socketed in the simulation, do a jetalium mass scan first to find all the cores, since they likely have a residue of jetalium on them, then do the core scan and compare them. That'll find the cores that have Core Hide A or higher, which means they likely have other high tier modules as well.

>>538511
Shame that none of us thought about the possibility of AI chip brain uploading and jetal AI upload modules back when Loviro was still with us. We may have been able to get a copy of him into Unity and out of the harvester simulation, and possibly even the CAI simulation too. Pity it's far too late for that now.

Alison 2013/08/31(Sat)11:04 No. 538605 ID: d38f67
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Alison finds a directory, with a red X where she is. She cannot sense any cores, so she is left to wonder if there are mechanisms in place preventing her senses. Jetalium, however, is fully available, although she is about at her max, especially if she must move fast.

>Gravity neutralizers must warp space time, leading to wormholes
Engineer says that he hardly understands them, and there are at least three theories that state that modifying gravity in such a manner should be impossible. But from what he knows, there is still a large gap between gravity neutralizers and wormholes.

The historian adds that in his research, the leading theory on why humans were able to pull it off is that they had, or at least felt they had, a necessity to develop FTL engines. The belenos, however, were able to circumvent that need for land and resources and simply habitat their own solar system with a combination of technological intelligence in other ways, and a callous disregard of ethics in order to keep the population under control. Another theory states that belenosian leadership is often strict and an exercise in keeping every factor in control, which would encourage a government in power to not invent something that would lead to mass, uncontrolled growth. He does restate that otherwise he doesn't know much about this point in time, as he doesn't have any books on it.

>we're just about at max jetalium
Yup. Eating won't help, unless we find a way to increase our surge and battery a lot.

>something blocking core sense
...well that explains why we aren't dead. But that also makes locating cores in the simulation with upgrades we'd want to be next to impossible.

>what do
Okay, we have three exits. We out out the front door, take off flying from the roof for space, or sneak out through the basement into the sewers and try to swim to slither.

Front door sounds like suicide, going for the air sounds like delayed suicide (we'd probably make it a bit, but all kinds of nobles and EIN forces waiting would pursue). The water route might work, but we don't have the long range scanning equipment to evade patrols, I think.

...is there anywhere in the building we could find the equipment or module we'd need to evade the sharkbots? Maybe the reserves or the operators have some?

I think we're going to want to dig here since that robot said the emperors control just about everything on land, sea, air, and space, but never said a damn thing about the underground so I say we just head to the blackmap zone for now to get some things like a phone and maybe a few mods then decide wither or not to hit the space station.

>>538605
Let's go down. I wanna see what's below Harvest Storage. Is the pink area safe for us to wander around in, even on the above floors? I'm wondering exactly where we can go without being flagged.

Hey, what if we woke everyone up in Harvest Storage? Not that they'd all appreciate it, but there might be enough chaos for us to slip away from this location unnoticed.

Still seems a long shot though, with how EIN has coverage all over the planet.

1/2 Alison 2013/08/31(Sat)12:40 No. 538624 ID: d38f67
File 137797802903.png - (29.16KB , 1539x681 , 440.png )

An iso division of a near insignificant amount of jetalium goes up to the operator housing. He still can't sense anything, except for one chunk of 5 tons of jetalium down the hall.

2/2 Alison 2013/08/31(Sat)12:40 No. 538625 ID: d38f67
File 137797803818.png - (119.38KB , 700x700 , 441.png )

Alison goes down. The pink area appears to be the harvest storage. The whole building appears to be a circle, and a tube of harvest storage area goes up through the center of the building until the operator area.

It's about as big as she thought it would be. There are numerous bots flying around, but none seem to pay Alison any mind. Iso will have to hurry and chase Alison downward soon, as the jetal division maximum range is about to be depleted.

Oh wow that's a great idea if its possible. If there is a way to do it we could release thousands of people if not more. Then cause a panic and have them all run at once.

Could we halt or pause our progress enough for Iso to investigate that pile of jetalium? Is there a stop button on the elevator / train?

As for catching up, he just needs to jump to us. Or fly, if he's low mass it won't take much energy.

>wake up everyone in the sim
...that would cause a lot of chaos, yes. But how? I'm assuming just ripping brains chips or cores out of where they're plugged in could actually be damaging. We'd have to find and activate some kind of shutdown or evacuation procedure.

>escape
If we're going down, that means we'll eventually hit the sewers and the waterways, and have to evade shark-bots. Have we given any though to how we're supposed to detect them before they detect us?

Alison 2013/08/31(Sat)14:04 No. 538631 ID: d38f67
File 137798304703.png - (17.24KB , 1551x657 , 442.png )

> Is there a stop button on the elevator / train?
Yes, but Alison pretends there isn't and starts slithering on the rails for Iso to have a look around.

>Stop the harvester system
Alison sees a central building that looks important, so she invites herself inside. After a look around, she finds a manual on the harvest system. Most of it is technical garble, but there is a section on the main shutdown. She reads the book while using the book's map to move down to it.

Although the harvest system is under direct operator control, it cannot be isolated from society as a whole. Therefore, under the unknown situation that the harvest must be shutdown, two operators and one emperor must be present. They will use either their assigned insignias or jetal cores to interact with the key mats. All parties must be present. This shutdown mechanism includes the option for a mass evacuation of harvest subjects. All biological brain data will be converted to AI chips, and all robot and biological AI chips will be implanted into temporary robot forms. All jetal cores will be given enough jetalium to move out as well.

>shutdown plan
...huh. Well, if we got Sevener to cooperate, or got Felix out by the o-route, we'd have another operator. Kind of moot though, as we've no Emperor to use. I mean, maybe Ruby would be willing to cooperate, after we killed Sapphire, but by that point we'd have won and the CAI battle would be over. Moot point, really.

...it doesn't mention what happens to simulation constructed intelligences. I assume they just die if the simulation ends? They aren't uploaded to blank AI chips or something?

Does the book mention anything about pulling individuals out of the simulation? Or what happens if you manually disconnect someone?

>what do
Let's see what Iso turns up on the top floor before descending deeper. All that jetalium just a reserve, or is there an operator to talk to up there?

Well there might be a way to set that off without the proper access codes but not sure if we could figure out how quickly enough. I do wonder what the system considers a emperor. If it only counts current ones or if they never removed access from the dead ones.

Would be entertaining if we could claim to be a heir of one of the dead emperors due to succession nonsense now that Loviro is dead. Still would need two operators even if that would work.

Could go with breaking the control center and seeing if it had a system in place for releasing everyone during a natural disaster. But that seems really dangerous. Could end up just killing everyone here instead.

If we still aim for the orbital station (i.e. getting away from EIN's massive influence as fast as possible), we could construct a jetalium launcher as long as the maximum division distance (essentially making the railgun two massive divisions, with the core at one end). Use the massive quantities of jetalium available to construct it and burn more to power it for the launch (to compensate for the high morph's low power efficiency). Fire it at an angle to gain as much height and sideways velocity as possible before leaving the building itself and entering EIN's influence. Then we can start using antigrav and thrusters to stage our way to orbit, while hopefully traveling fast enough that EIN will have difficulty bringing assets to bear fast enough to take us down on the way.

...if we can get Ruby and one other Operator down here to cooperate, we could unleash a massive army, strong enough to overwhelm Sapphire perhaps. Or we could just use a massive number of the AI Compartment mod to put people into our dream to get them out of the CAI Fight and into our army in the Contest.

It's worth noting that Sevener counts as an Operator too. Hmm. I wonder how she would feel about this plan. I wonder if we could absorb HER? I don't remember if we asked if it was possible to use the AI Compartment mod on Jetals.

For now though, we could merely talk to the Operator in the residential complex. How do we convince them that this belenosian universe is a simulation, though? Would Polatt's word be enough, or could we demonstrate skills we shouldn't have like Bandit's pickpocketing ability? Or maybe the other Operator could interface directly with us to catch a glimpse of Alison's inner world? If we can convince another Operator of the truth, we could send them out to maybe contact Ruby and ask him to come here to help us gather up everyone we can in Alison's inner world, then destroy Sapphire in some way that ensures Alison can escape with all these people in tow.

>>538643
We could disconnect Felix then, and track down his departure location to get him in our inner world. Oh, his girlfriend too. The sim SHOULD have some way of making an AI chip for her despite her being a construct of the sim, right?

Alison 2013/08/31(Sat)14:44 No. 538647 ID: d38f67
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>Manually disconnect someone?
It appears that Alison is supposed to have authorization from others to do so, but there isn't any harm it pulling someone from the system, so she can ignore the rules if she does want to pull people out one by one.

Meanwhile, Iso says that the five tons is just a little storage thing for the operators. There are no operators that he can find at all. He just found a phone. Some in the lobby think it might not be tracked, since operators seem to have special status outside of the system.

Do we know if Sevener has left the building yet? Could Iso look out the window?

>>538641
>use spare jetalium to build division railcannon and fire ourselves at the space station
Huh. ...that might work, actually. Potentially one way to get away from here clean, and hopefully get stronger at the station before anyone catches up.

Really, not any riskier than plan sneak-through-the-sharks.

>>538642
>unleash a massive army, strong enough to overwhelm Sapphire perhaps
Except pretty much everyone in the harvest sim is a civilian, and we have no way to control them or their loyalty anyways. Letting them go would be a great confusing distraction, but a poor army. If we tried to use them that way it would be ineffective, and a slaughter.

>>538646
>disconnect Felix, upload him to us
Except he's a brain in a jar, not an AI. We can't move him over into our core like we did Polatt. ...also, we don't know if there's a way to release simulation constructed intelligences to the real world. The book didn't say that. Does the book say anything about simulation constructs like Loviro and Vinyl? That's worth checking.

>Phone, not tracked?
...maybe? Is there any way we can check? Like, could we open the phone and look for a specific circuit that's missing or something? It's awful risky to take it with us and hope it's not tracked, but we have access to the internet until we leave the building, at least, if anyone can think of anything to look up.

Who's phone is it, anyways?

Have Iso take the phone, but stick tape over its cameras and microphone or just slip it into his body so its in the dark. Even if it it tracked we can use it to get information from the Internet before we leave the building, then discard it. Ask him to check if the phone has anything in its phonebook, notes, Internet search history or any other place that might have data to see if has been used before.

Also have him light absorb the 5 tons of raw jetalium before heading back. That'll take 5 b-minutes and net 4500 kg, so break off that much from the core body and drop it to keep mobile. We may need the extra for bombs or to burn for power soon.

Is there a location lookup near to where you are that can find where in the harvester racks someone is? Or to search by the reason they're in it? And can you look down the harvester storage silo to see what's at the bottom? Eventually we want to get to the bottom of harvester storage.

Well, looks like there's no way we're gonna be able to shutdown the harvester simulation. Not unless the Ruby Emperor suddenly shows up out out of the blue carrying a live operator core or a spare house insignia. Does the manual indicate any situation where the harvester simulation would automatically shutdown and release the occupants? Say in the case main power was lost and the backup power systems were about to run out. Also lookup what kind of security and protection they have on the jetalium storage.

As for getting out of here, here's an idea. We got Loviro's sword which can form into a plasma drill that can cut through rock like it isn't even there. So we could get as low as possible in this building and then just tunnel in a straight line from here to under Cloud Slither, staying under the seabed and bypassing all the patrol bots. We morph into a form with wheels on all sides that are pressed against the tunnel walls, use thrusters to push us forward, and anti-G to get past any voids in the rock. The problem with this may be that we won't be able to get going fast enough to get there before we run out of mass to burn.

Actually, since we can tunnel through the planet as fast as we can move, we could theoretically accelerate to escape velocity while still underground, if we had a enough battery charge or mass to burn. Might be a way we could get moving fast enough to reach the orbital facility without being detected. That is, until we erupt from the ground moving at mach 12.

I also have an idea for how to get extra thrust to get us into orbit: Rockets made using many very thin layers of precision timed explosive jetalium stacked on each other in a chamber at the back of our body. Set the bottom layer to 60 b-seconds, the layer at the top to 120 b-seconds, and all the thin slices in-between at fractions between those times. Then keep applying new layers to the top and pushing the whole stack out as it burns down. It'd be best to use multiple small rockets here so the thrust doesn't prevent the stack from being pushed out.

Oh, here's a crazy idea that could allow us to grab a huge mass of jetalium from here: We tunnel out though the bottom, funnel the mass into the tunnel, then push it along ahead of us, letting gravity do the job of moving it. Curve the tunnel around so it avoids the planet's core, absorbing and burning mass from it to power us along, and keep accelerating until we shoot out the other side of the planet going at escape velocity. Then we absorb all we can while flying away, going beyond what would keep us from moving on the ground, and then use layered explosive jetalium rockets, thrusters, and anti-G to curve into a trajectory to hit the space station. We'd need three divisions here: One in front to tunnel, the core pushing the jetalium and absorbing it to power us, and one in the back to collapse the tunnel.

>>538648
>All biological brain data will be converted to AI chips

We can indeed get Felix out. Question is, can we get Vinyl out?

>absorb the 5 tons of raw jetalium
Not worth it. We literally have just about as much as our battery can sustain. (More, even, since we're carrying some of it). Unless we plan on spending that jetalium dang near immediately...

>>538650
We don't even know if Vinyl is still alive, or still inside! At least Ruby's goons grabbed her, not Sapphires.

...aw shit. We totally missed the opportunity to ask Ruby about that.

>>538648
>>use spare jetalium to build division railcannon and fire ourselves at the space station
>Huh. ...that might work, actually. Potentially one way to get away from here clean, and hopefully get stronger at the station before anyone catches up.

Something about using an electromagnetic gun to fire an electronic being seems like a bad idea.

>>538654
It could be a cannon that uses a series of timed explosive charges down its length to accelerate us instead. Or instead of using timed charges, they could be mines from our mine module. Those can be set to be remotely triggered instead of using a detector.

>>538654
We've seen jetal cores weather ballistic and laser fire, plasma weapons, and function inside EMPS. I think it's a problem we can overcome.

...if we decide to go that way, though.

>>538654
I'm not quite sure jetalium is completely electronic, but there are other methods of accelerating projectiles too. A Light Gas Gun will get you to the speed of sound in high-temperature hydrogen (around 4km/second), which can feed into an electrothermal railgun, a ram accelerator, a staged vortex gun, or similar.

>>538654
I am fully in support of Operation Railgun, just putting in my vote.

Suggestion 2013/09/01(Sun)04:34 No. 538788 ID: 761017
File 137803528639.png - (33.40KB , 720x369 , Untitled.png )

I'd lack to add a small idea that could be combined with Operation Railgun:

Gas-Enriched Scramjet Launch-tube
Otherwise known as a SPACE CANNON
If you have enough raw material, and the ability to create combustible gas, you can launch yourself with enough force and speed to completely escape the atmosphere in mere seconds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_accelerator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scram_cannon

I can't find my PDF of it, so have some mspaint of the principle in action.

I think going for all the Jetalium in orbit may be overreaching our grasp a bit. It IS a lot of resources, but will likely be more than we can handle.

You know there's probably a copy of Loviro in there, if they haven't deleted him completely.

It's a bit of a late suggestion, but did we think to find where the Operators store their module boxes and steal them? They do probably have some place for jetal Operators heading into the simulation for a specific task or mission to offload their modules into boxes and change their loadout before going in. Or for offloading modules that they picked up in the simulation that were created in the simulation so they could be studied for possible use outside the simulation.

>>539168

We don't have to make our body that size though. There isn't a battery on the planet that could handle that, hopefully. Just set the jetalium up there to explode and begin orbital bombardment. We're sure to get the emperor that way!

...I should stop suggesting things.

1/5 Alison 2013/09/07(Sat)18:10 No. 539759 ID: d38f67
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>Do we know if Sevener has left the building yet?
Alison can't tell, but will assume so. She also does not want Iso getting anywhere near the windows.

>Does the book say anything about simulation constructs like Loviro and Vinyl?
Yes. There is a way to extract them, but it sounds more involved, and also needs other operator's authorization. At least, to do it legally, but Alison might be able to do it by breaking the rules. The harvest keeps backups, as well, so it does have a record of Loviro.

For now, Alison will keep the phone while inside of the building but abandon it once she leaves, and diverts her attention to Engineer.

Engineer, I need you to take control of Unity for awhile.
>"What do you need me to do?"
Railgun.

>>539632
Honestly, we have to remember that this is a CAI fight SIMULATION. This isn't a bad idea -- the rules don't care about collateral damage. Besides, it's not even the real thing. It's a simulation of a simulation inside a simulation still. Abstract enough for me.

2/6 Alison 2013/09/07(Sat)18:13 No. 539761 ID: d38f67
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>"..... are you asking me this because it sounds cool, or because you think it's practical?"
"I can't deny the former. You tell me, about the latter? Our alternative is to try and swim through hyper-sensing jetal seabots for a thousand miles, or leave an underground trail that EIN can follow."

3/6 Alison 2013/09/07(Sat)18:13 No. 539762 ID: d38f67
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He then gets to work, sliding a decent amount of jetalium while Atlas and Charles get a turn fetching loose jetalium and delivering it to Engineer to make the rail gun. Alison doesn't think anyone special actually has to do heavy lifting, but they've looked like they wanted something to do.

4/6 Alison 2013/09/07(Sat)18:13 No. 539763 ID: d38f67
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>"Just how long do you think we have?" Engineer says.
"Not forever! But no one's interfering with us punching a tunnel through the building, and even though Sapphire was going to try to bust his way in, I don't think that was going to be imminent."
>"Alright. This is going to be an expensive launch, and we're going to need to burn a lot to change our trajectory to match the orbit of the space station, but it will work. We'll get there in several belenosian hours at this rate."

5/6 Alison 2013/09/07(Sat)18:13 No. 539764 ID: d38f67
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>Jetalium is not quite immune to electricity, but I believe it can hold a large charge without harm. the Engineer says as he starts cutting live wires and putting them against spots in the rail cannon. Atlas and Charles are reabsorbed back into Unity. "We'll just leave those there. Then, once we turn on the jetalium magnetism, we'll start moving. I won't lie, I only claim to know the basics of this, and not how well it will work. So, if we're ready...."

6/6 Alison 2013/09/07(Sat)18:14 No. 539765 ID: d38f67
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Engineer turns on the magnetism. It works better than expected. Antigravity and thrusters are activated, turning horizontally in quick anticipation of reaching an orbit.

Alison will destroy the phone, but she hangs onto it for just a moment to see if Scanner can get any activity when she bursts through the Operator's ceiling. In the matter of a few seconds, Scanner finds that the whole city's alarm system just woke up like a kicked hornet's nest, although Alison can tell that from the amount of sirens that just went on. Alison destroys the phone, since it is almost definitely helping them pinpoint her exact location.

There is a lot more stuff in the sky than Alison was expecting, and a lot of them are turning at her.

"They're too slow, we've got momentum. We can ignore them. Are we certainly going to the Orbital Station? We're going in such a way that we can land in one of the blackmap zones out in the middle of nowhere to try and lose EIN."

Alison's been split between the decision of blackmap and orbital, but she'll have to make a decision now.

Id say orbital if you can get to it but blackmap seems farster. Or it chold be the other way round

Problem with blackmap areas is they're under even higher surveillance on the borders than the city itself. But then again they're blackmap areas because something keeps EIN out of there successfully, so you might be able to get vital aid there. Or get killed by whatever horrendous monster is keeping EIN away.

Go to the orbital satellite. You can always base jump to elsewhere on the planet, but this will probably be your only shot into orbit.

>>539763
...you know, if we built the launcher on a higher floor, we wouldn't have needed to punch as much of a hole through the building.

Although I suppose we were constrained to working where the big high voltage cables were available.

>blackmap or orbital?
I like the odds at the orbital station better. We know the exact number of robots and jetals stationed. Whereas the blackmap zone is being surveilled and targeted by Sapphire's artillery. And the inhabitants of the zone might not be happy to see us. A fight under fire doesn't sound fun.

Also, Alison-form is kind of perfect for zero-g. The extra arms, the tail, the prehensile hair? Practically made for climbing around a tumbling reference frame.

>>539765
Considering if we went for the orbital station we would have both its defenders AND an EIN hunting squad on our asses, we would die very fast.

Blackmap. It is the only choice.

Station

Awww so we left Loviro there? Should have grabbed him while we had the chance.

I say we head to the space station.

Go orbital, we'll have plenty of objects to use as projectiles if it turns out the Sapphire Emperor is planetside.

...If we hit the orbital station what are the odds of us being able to turn it into a base of operations for any future whatever. I'm guessing poor since they can always send more bots up there to try and take us out but we still could always crash the thing into the planet if to do nothing more then cause a distraction as we reenter the planet's gravity to book it to the blackmap zones. Hell if the station has some way for us to access the internet maybe we could try and crash the thing directly on EIN ( I mean these guys have the main EIN node somewhere right?)

Also saying we hit the station just because I'm sure sapphire is guessing we'd head straight for the blackmap zones and has taken the most measures to prevent us from getting there compared to the orbital station.

Going for the Jetalium factory is sticking ourselves inside of ANOTHER big economic investment probably equal in importance to the Harvester building.

it's the obvious choice, outside of trying for another planet.

Any suggestiosn for the blackmap zones are betting on the Blackmap zones randomly possessing Tera-Shield Plasma Generators to deal with Sapphire artillery!

To Alison: did you remember to turn on your plasma air-spike?

Orbital. Even if we go for a Blackmap zone, find they're friendly, AND find they happen to have vast quantities of Jetalium lying around for us to be able to do another launch, EIN is already alerted to a potential attack on the station so we'd have a harder time trying the same stunt a second time.

Especially as once we're on the station, we hold The Highest Ground. We can land in a Blackmap zone, or right on top of Sapphire himself if we can pinpoint him.

I say hit the Orbital Station. If it turns out to be a total no-go you'll still be in orbit, and from there you can easily maneuver to land anywhere on the planet, including inside the Cloud Slither blackmap zone.

Another reason to go for the Orbital Station: It's pretty likely that Cloud Slither won't take kindly to you careening in with a horde of Sapphire nobles and who knows what else right on your tail. There's a good chance you'll either be fired on or they won't open their shields in order to keep you from bringing that shit down on them. You just can't risk getting sandwiched in a situation like that.

However, I'm worried about what kind of external defenses the station has. It could be some serious shit, beyond what we can handle. So I suggest that two lightweight divisions be broken off and go ahead on an evasive pattern at near-maximum range. That'll tell us what we'll be facing at the station, with a kilometer buffer to figure out how to deal with it.

Hey, what're those narrow super-tall towers in the distance? The ones with the horizontal beams sticking out of either side of them at regular intervals?

>>540061
space elevators are my guess.

Ahem. I'd like to point out that if we go to the blackmap zones, there are areas that Sapphire and EIN cannot see. This is completely the opposite case for the orbital factory, which is owned by Sapphire and in EIN-controlled space.

>>540066
You think that being outside the reach of EIN will stop whatever Empire forces are following after us all the way there from keeping after us? I know Sapphire's nobles and his forces won't stop, and I suspect we're a big enough threat that the rest of them won't either.

And EIN isn't the only way to track us. There's undoubtedly world-wide satellite surveillance and radar tracking systems, in addition to whatever sensor gear the forces after us have. We'd have to pull off one hell of a vanishing act after we land to lose the Empire forces.

But the votes are already 9 to 1 in favor of hitting the station, so it's a near certainty we'll be going there.

>>540070
The fact that it's a blackmap zone means it is not under surveillance. Only the area Sapphire is pointing his long-range cameras at (and guns) is monitored. There are a couple of people voting who seem to think the only blackmap zone is the one Sapphire is looking at, which is definitely not the case. All we'd have to do is escape our immediate pursuers and we'll vanish off the radar, so long as we avoid the SPECIFIC area Sapphire is watching.

After some thought I've reconsidered and will change my vote to landing in the blackmap zone attempting to lose the Empire forces instead of going for the Orbital Station.

There's just too many unknowns with the station defenses. We don't know what if or what kind of exterior weapon emplacements there are, or how strong the plasma shields are, or if there are warships or satellite stations defending it. And considering how valuable the station is, the defenses are very likely to be high class. It's entirely possible we'll be blown away by a half-dozen plasma beam turrets before we get within a kilometer of the station. And even if we do get in, there's up to 24 jetals and 30 robots there who's capabilities are unknown and will be directly controlled by EIN to dogpile us. I don't like our chances with that alone.

So if we're ever gonna hit that station, we're gonna need to recruit a crew to back us up, and the only place we can possibly get that is Cloud Slither.

>>540122
The answer-bot said that blackmap zones are areas that are not under heavy surveillance, which in this context means EIN level. Less than that could easily include satellite surveillance, fly-overs by spy drones, and whatever other long-range monitoring tech the Empire has, but not ground level surveillance.

However, the big problem with landing in the least monitored blackmap zone is that it won't be the zone that contains Cloud Slither. That zone and its border will be the most monitored of all the blackmap zones. We'll have to get to Cloud Slither 'cause it's the only place in all the blackmap zones that might have the resources to help us, and getting there undetected by EIN will be tough.

Alison 2013/09/11(Wed)20:52 No. 540301 ID: d38f67
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>So we left Loviro there?
Alison did, along with everyone but Polatt. She didn't want to spend the time trying to locate them, or try to thin out the operator's patience for Alison doing whatever. She expects they are already rather sour at her burrowing a tunnel through most of the building's floors to make that railgun using an enormous amount of jetalium.

If she gets a chance later, though, to come back to this place, she'll put rescuing Loviro on the table.

"We'll go to the orbital station, but if things look too bad, we'll move back down and try to lose the empire's forces in some blackmap territory. It might not be clear how much or how little surveillance and influence the empire has in the blackmap zones, but if it comes to it, we don't have a lot of choices."

>What are the large towers for?
According to the engineer, they are most likely tethers to launch things cheaply into space, given how high they go. Although, Alison does come by close enough to see one to see a revolving restaurant at the top of it, so tossing stuff into space may not be its only function.

>Put divisions at max distance ahead to scout the station
Engineer says that this is doable if they match orbital speeds of the station and slowly advance on it. However, he suspects that ships, jetals, and other junk are going to pursue Unity even in space, giving her little time to take down the station. He proposes the idea to not match the speed of the orbital station, but rather, continue to accelerate, and use the station itself to break the fall and make the attack more difficult to intercept, and give Unity more time to get in and get out.

Sure, let's ram the station, if it won't kill us. I suppose we could shift into a spear shape with the core at the rear for maximum impact protection and then quick morph into a better form once we impact the station.

>slow down and match speed with the station or accelerate?
Ramming speed!

That station is supposed to be filled with robots and jetals, according to the news. They can take a little hard vacuum, and our pursuers can scoop up the survivors before their orbits decay and they die in reentry.

>She expects they are already rather sour at her burrowing a tunnel through most of the building's floors to make that railgun using an enormous amount of jetalium.
Nah, I'm sure they understand that that was our best way out of there and don't hold any hard feelings for it. Besides, it's not like they're going to do the repairs themselves.

>Ramming speed
As long as we probably won't get too damaged by the impact or break through something important, then sure!

Ramming should work if they do not have insane shields. Until we get into the station they can shoot at us freely. So blasting in at high speeds seems like a good idea.

Ram the station. Engineer is right, we're not going to have much time before sapphire floods that place with reinforcements trying to take us out so we might as well hit the station hard and move fast.

Once we're inside what should we look for? I mean wherever the store the jetalium is a given but should we also spend what little time we have to find the controls on this ship, or maybe even a computer to try and see if we can't learn something to help aid us in taking out sapphire, or what?

>speed
Given how fast orbits are, it's more that we'd be using the station to speed us up to orbital velocity, than for it to be slowing us down.

Engi's right; We don't have time for scouting. We'll do the acceleration plan, but also split up into three equal mass, equal form divisions and approach as evasively as we can without slowing us up much. That way if there are exterior defense turrets or drones they'll have to track three targets instead of one.

We'll aim to have all the divisions crash into the station at the same point and nearly the same time. One'll be slightly ahead of the rest and activate Loviro's sword in drill form to punch through the exterior hull, just in case it's stronger than expected. Then the rest follow in series through the hole it made.

And if we plasma drill through the hull, we should keep it up to do the same right through the interior compartments as well. Tricky bit is slowing down before we shoot out the other side of the station, but if we hit the hull at a shallow angle so we intersect as much of the station interior as possible, then use retro-thrusters and morph hooks and such to catch on surfaces, we ought to be able to slow enough to use thrusters to keep our trajectory inside the station.

Ramming speed?!
Are you insane!?

Planet-side, they have ordinary Stationary Plasma Shields that can take a TeraBeam unphased!

IN SPACE, they will have the full solar power of the sun to maintain 24/7 "[REDACTED] Class" Stationary Plasma Shields!

>>540467
Actually, after reading Engi's plan again, it doesn't look like its intended to ram through the hull to get to the interior of the station. It's just intended to stop us after we accelerate as fast as we can by colliding with the station. I'm guessing he's sensibly assuming the station has shields and will have them up by the time we arrive.

In this case I think it'd be best to not crash into the station perpendicular to its shield. At the speed we'll be going we may not be able to cushion our core enough to prevent damage if we do crash that way, and we can't afford risking being knocked out. So instead lets aim to collide with the shield at an angle and skid across it to slow down, using thrusters keep us pressed against it, and attack the shield at the same time to work at running it down.

I also suggest firing the TeraBeam or bending GigaBeam at the station as soon as we can get in range, using cooling to keep our serge regen up, to soften its shields up. Once we hit we'll switch to an overdriven Plasma Well with cooling and burn 200kg of mass for serge recovery, as well as mass for battery.

However, I am worried that we may not be able to knock down the station shields once we get there. We need to know more about how stationary plasma shield generators are powered. Because if it's a case where they can stay up indefinitely as long as there's more power fed into them we won't have a chance to punch through before reinforcements arrive. But if it's a case where they can't be charged while active or one where they'll burn out quickly if they are, then we have a chance.

>>540467
>Ramming speed?!
>Are you insane!?
>Planet-side, they have ordinary Stationary Plasma Shields that can take a TeraBeam unphased!
Actually, a mass traveling at a speed of several kilometers per second hits with a kinetic energy greater than its weight in TNT. Something else comes to mind that is measured in kilotons of TNT.

For extra fun, you could fire a jetallium projectile ahead as a penetrator to brake the mass holding the core if you're worried about it. Sir Isaac Newton, etc.

This all depending on how fast we're going relative to the station though.

1/2 Alison 2013/09/19(Thu)09:36 No. 541130 ID: d38f67
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"Ramming speed!" Alison says.

Most of the reserve jetalium Alison has gets worn down by the trip up, but she doesn't need to lower her active mass any.

>"It should be... yes, there." Engineer notes the station.

2/2 Alison 2013/09/19(Thu)09:37 No. 541131 ID: d38f67
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The shields on the station go up right on that cue.

>"Damn. They saw us after all. We'll crash in hard, but that's good, it will do more damage to the shields than it will to us. I can't guarantee that. We should still fire weapons to try to break the shields."
"How fast are we catching up to the station? I can't tell."
>"... don't worry about it. Fire somethingnowplease."

Our best shield breaker probably would be the plasma well... but thats kinda small.

Lets go with both Gigabeams.

>>541132
slow not small.

start firing lasers at it and when we get in close just see if you can't poke through with your sword(unlikely) and once you're on the shield hit it with a plasma well.

Isn't the plasma well designed for exactly this purpose? We could Overdrive it too.

This would be perfect for the plasma well if it wasn't so slow and we weren't hurtling right for the station. I doubt it would crack the shield before we hit. (Would have been an option if we'd taken the slow approach, I guess).

Which means we default to beams. Terrabeam and/or Gigabeams go!

...can we tell from the outside what any of the sections of the station are? Some sectors might be better for our crash landing than others.

>>541138
Yeah good point. Terabeam is definitely a good idea for cracking the shields of a large target though.

This is space, speed is relative. The plasma well is going to be moving at it's own (slow) speed plus our own (fast) speed when it hits those shields, so it will definitely get there. It is just a matter of whether the impact damage of a well will be more effective than the prolonged (but still short in the grand scheme of things) effect of a beam.

For that question, consider that if beams were anywhere NEAR as effective as wells at weakening shields, then wells would be virtually worthless given their other weaknesses. I feel like we should be using the weapon type which is specifically good against shields preferentially over the type which shields are explicitly designed to protect against.

Fire the well ASAP to give it as much burn time as you can before you impact behind it. If you have time to pepper some additional beam fire once the well is away, then by all means go for it I guess.

Alison 2013/09/19(Thu)14:48 No. 541180 ID: d38f67
File 137962728857.png - (64.53KB , 700x700 , 453.png )

Alison goes with a plasma well. It will hit just a brief moment before she does, but the weapon is theoretically meant for this purpose. She throws on overdrive, and ends up using 10% of her battery in a moment, pushing it forward and to the side, so that she won't slam into her own plasma if it doesn't break the shield.

The plasma shield opens a window right as Alison flies through, still with the plasma ball active.

For a brief instant, Alison is afraid they'd be able to deactivate that section of shielding while the plasma goes through, then shut it on her face, but either they can't or won't, as Alison makes it through as well. Unity is quickly heading to slam into the station itself, now.

Although Alison was on the fence about making divisions in advance before, this would be a good time to do so, if she wants to chance taking the entire station at once, faster.

Yeah, this is probably a good time to make divisions, if we're gonna make them.

If it's not too much of a drain, and it's actually moving fast enough to keep ahead of us, we might want to keep the plasma well online long enough to punch a hole through the station ahead of our entry.

well unless they open a door for us as well think the plasma well can punch through the stations hull?

Also I think they're trying to trap you seeing as they opened the force field so you couldn't drain it and those things keep people in just as much as they keep people out so my guess is they're trying to trap you until the nobles can catch up to you. If that is the case then find the power source of this station and smash it as I feel that would be much quicker and energy efficient then trying to drain the shields.

Also yes to the divisions, I say give them 1/5 or 1/4 of your jetalium and lets see what's inside.

As far as placement goes how about each of you goes to one of the station sections. There are six in all so you can divide the job into three then converge on the center if you haven't found what you were looking for.

1/2 Alison 2013/09/19(Thu)16:24 No. 541210 ID: d38f67
File 137963304476.png - (68.49KB , 700x700 , 454.png )

With all that energy burnt on the well, she may as well use it. She cuts the overdrive out of it so that Duelist and Guardsman, who she sends out at the sides, goes to do their thing.

The plasma well burns through the wall as Alison enters what looks like... she has no idea.

>"Hello, Naga! It looks like I was right about your plans all along, from this little space trip of yours. Right into the trap! Try not to completely die, now!"

>"Self destruct initiated! 10 minutes until destruction." the intercom blares.

2/2 Alison 2013/09/19(Thu)16:25 No. 541211 ID: d38f67
File 137963310331.png - (14.59KB , 700x700 , 455.png )

>"Wait what. A timer? That's not what I... fuck you, Naga."

Blow her a kiss. Also if this is a huge trap that means no one around to stop us looting hopefully.

Worst case we have 10 minutes. Best case we stop the countdown and have our own space station.

So get to hacking systems and looking for info. May or may not have people to deal with up here but better find out fast.

Since the self destruct is probably tied into the space stations energy core have one of your divisions head to the center bit to see if they can't shut it down. You and the other one should start searching for anything you can use.

One way to preserve everything would be to cut the station apart and see which place blows up then search the rest afterwords.

I'd like to remind everyone that those 10 minutes are in belenosian time, which gives us about 2 normal minutes to do our thing and gtfo.

Now, if I thought we could manage it in that small time span I'd suggest we destroy the station's communication systems and then hack it to turn off the self destruct. I doubt we can manage it, though, so reduce Duelist and Guardsman's masses and have them start hunting for modules.

>>541211
>fuck you, naga
You know, its not as if we planned this, mate.

>>541211
Start using the Well to break through walls. Use Jetalium Sense to find jetals and jetalium to nab mods and mass. If possible we should disable the self-destruct so we can just plain take over the station and bombard Sapphire's stuff along with shooting our pursuers.

Uh, also ask... what plans she's talking about, exactly? We're kindof playing it by ear right now.

Swoon a little and say you got me a bomb thank you, now where should I crash this thing" then cut the link (by shooting the TV if you have too)

I really don't think we'd have time to crash this thing but still no one said we couldn't try a scare her a little =)

As for what to do, Find the ships power source and smash it, I don't think we could get out of the space station's shield quick enough to avoid the explosion so I say just find whatever looks like it's powering this place and stop it

...well, that's disappointing.

On the up side, a space station exploding in low orbit should do wonders for our escape. That's going to fuck a good deal with long range comm and surveillance systems, worldwide. It'll be a lot easier to come down wherever we want.

Do you or any of your divisions sense anything? Cores, modules, jetalium? Anything useful? Maybe we could sacrifice a division to absorb as many useful modules as possible while the main body got out of range? (You'd think there'd be something. Sevener barely got out ahead of us- they would barely have had time to evacuate personal from the station and set this up).

Alison should probably see what our options are for getting back out. We'll have to punch the shield again, and station defenses may now be trying to pen us in (we may have to send a division to disable the shield generator while we run?).

Obviously, we'd prefer to get out of this with a profit, but we'll burn jetalium to survive if we have to.

>fuck you, Naga.
There's hardly time for that, Sevener.

>>541225
Thats a good point. How the hell did Sevener convince someone to blow up whats on all accounts a priemier research and production facility? This place HAS to be more valuable then that.

Or at least you'd think so.

Alison 2013/09/19(Thu)17:19 No. 541238 ID: d38f67
File 137963635605.png - (18.12KB , 700x700 , 456.png )

"What plan?"
>"To come here! Ugh, nevermind." Sevener says, to which Alison does, giving Sevener a wave goodbye. She drops the plasma well, since she can burst through walls using far more energy efficient means such as doors. She starts running through the rooms, but she sees nothing but... whatever this stuff is.

"We should blow out their engines or communications. I'm going to look for a way out, or re-punch through their shields. Do either of you see the power generators or something?"
>"All of this tech is oddly shaped." says the Duelist. "I'm sorry, I wouldn't know. I sense some jetalium in section 4, though. None of it's moving, but I'm heading there."
>"My room's - uh, section 6 or whatever - is making a lot of humming noises!" the Guardsman chimes in. "And it doesn't have any modules! So I can blow it up? I mean, some bot here is yelling at me not to, but, you know, of course it is."

>>541238
Yes, guardsman can blow it up. Keep moving.

I'm starting to think that the broadcast we heard from the TV was a lie. Either propaganda, or a falsified report broadcast by Sevener herself.

At any rate, when the ship blows it will create a rather large explosion so we should start leaving with a good amount of time left to escape its radius.

Don't blow that up!

Have someone talk to the bot, find out how to access the modules... or shut down the self-destruct. Or cut the power. Whatever.

Don't go blowing up anything just yet. We are not so low on time that we need to wildly shoot things at random.

Get our engineering team looking at everything and have guardsman take that bot hostage. Grill it for info about the humming equipment but do not hurt it.

Need to figure out what this station does or did before we can do much else. If they are willing to let Sevener blow it up to just try and kill us it can't be what the news said it was.

So we find out if its even worth saving or if we just broke into a space truck stop.

I get the feeling whoever lives here is not high on EIN's favorite person list.

>All of this tech is oddly shaped.
Polatt, you're the local expert. You recognize any of the tech around us, or what it does?

>a bot, yelling
Ah. They didn't evacuate the station. That would have made the setup faster.

That also increases the odds that the stuff Ruby sent us for is still here. They didn't have a chance to get it off the station. There's a chance we can get the modules and jetalium we came for and get out (even if we've got less than 2 real minutes remaining. Might want to crank the move fast mods?).

...maybe ask the bot for one really good reason not to blow that stuff up since the whole station is going to blow, anyways. Presumably the robot doesn't want to die- can Gaurdsman intimidate it into telling him anything useful? (Where the good stuff is, or how to avert the countdown?).

>I'm starting to think that the broadcast we heard from the TV was a lie.
Not necessarily. I mean, the exact same amount of defenders might be stationed here as broadcast. Saphire might just be willing to sacrifice them all.

Send Dualist to check out the jetalium mass. That's most likely near the jetal research area, and that means any modules here will be nearby.

>>541243
I concur. Whatever it is may turn out to have enough bang to destroy the station if shot. Look for signs or other writing indicating its function.

Unfortunately interrogating the bot likely won't work. It knows if it says anything it's dead by EIN. We can still try, but with someone more personable than Guardsman.

Oh, would it be possible to upload that bot's AI chip from Guardsman's division? And without it remaining EIN-linked? Because in that case I'd say rip it's chip out and get its AI in here for interrogation.

>>541242
But Ruby was the one who first told us about this station, back in the simulation. He definitely would know it was worth it for us to hit.

>>541238
Work with the bots because I'm sure they want to survive too and don't give a shit about Sevener's plans unless they're suicidally loyal.

>>541251
its gonna die anyway. Maybe we can promise to take it with us to get anit-EIN'd

Oh, we could grab its AI via the mod we have for that. The more the merrier!

>>541254
I thought that was a one upload per module kind of deal?

Besides, we hardly have time to save the entire station's worth of bots, unless there's a way to avert the self destruct.

Have Guardsman yell back to the bot to ask why he shouldn't wreck this equipment when this whole station is going to explode in less than 10 b-minutes.

>>541255
We're not gonna try to save all the bots. We only need one who's free to answer our questions about the facility, which means uploading into Unity. EIN won't let it say much otherwise.

But if that AI upload module was one use only or the bot's AI chip can't be uploaded from a division, then it'll seriously curb what we can ask. It knows it's dead no matter what at this point, so it might be able to answer one or two important questions before EIN takes control and locks it down. But what should we ask?

Alison 2013/09/19(Thu)19:13 No. 541271 ID: d38f67
File 137964320578.png - (15.47KB , 700x700 , 457.png )

>Use the AI module
Unfortunately the module only allows one AI in storage, and picking and choosing, Alison will keep Polatt in her system.

"Hey Polatt, what's all this stuff anyway?"
>"Uh, just looks like computers to me."

"Ask the bot why you can't destroy it!"
>"Are you serious fine.

Alison pays attention this time while Guardsman speaks, while she tries to burn out the plasma shields.

"Bot tell me why I shouldn't just blow this place up!"
>"Shield generator is active and highly unstable. Selective damage will result in immense explosion."
"Oh I guess that is kind of - wait, this place is gonna explode anyway!"
>"Objective is to keep station functional and clean. Main threat to objective: Self destruct in 10. Override for self distruct is legal. Primary objective is to keep station function and clean until destruction."
"What is this place then, bot?!"
>"Research station 142. Jetalium efficiency and weapon study specialty."
"If that's the case, why're they just going and blowing up the place, huh?"
>"Value analysis: little to lose. All data and studies have been backed up off-site. All material wealth considered replaceable."

>"I've located some weapons." Duelist mentions. "It has is own shields though, but they are most likely weaker. It will take me a moment to break in."

Ask where the backup location is maybe?

After that leave that guy and look for more shielded areas.

>>541269
Get the bot to take Guardsman to where we can pick up some weapon data! This is pretty much our top priority aside from making sure we get out in time. Even if Guardsman can't follow us out and we lose the jetalium in his body it'll be well worth it. Guardsman can threaten to make a huge mess if the bot doesn't cooperate.

Jetallium efficiency might be just as important. If we could find something that reduces Mass Energy cost, or better quick absorbtion.

Time remaining? Alison is sort of going to have to start looking into securing an escape route if we can't avert the self destruct.

...ask the bot if there's anything that could be done illegally to avert or slow the self destruct? We're not bound as it is, and that's a way it overcome the obstacle to it's objective.

>duelist found modules
Break in. If he absorbs them, they'll be copied to our core. Even if he doesn't make it to the exit, a third of our jetalium may be a fair trade for sufficiently powerful mods.

Get as much weapon data as you can and restock on jetalium if possible. If we find a easy way to save the station we try for it if not let it blow.

Guardsman try to convince the robot that if you have to break into stuff it will make a mess of things and then it will die with a filthy station on its hands. So obviously it should help you get what you want so it can die happy.

Oh Get directions to other modules.

Tell Dualist to use whatever method is fastest, shovel all the modules into his body to carry and check them, then break into the jetalium storage to quick absorb mass to burn to recover.

Have Guardsman try to get the bot's cooperation by telling it if it doesn't help then he'll start smashing up the station and making as huge a mess as possible before the self-destruct goes off. If it agrees to help then Guardsman should grab and carry the bot, since he likely can move faster than it.

First question for Guardsman to ask is how long it would take an overdriven plasma well to wear down the station shields from their current level. 'Cause if it's way longer then we have then we may as well stop wasting mass and energy on it and look for another way.

Second question to ask is if the bot can or will open any or all of the secure storage plasma shields within the station for him, either remotely or by bringing the bot to them. Then ask what types of modules are stored on the station and where, and which of them are usually the most restricted ones. Specifically ask about ones for batteries, improved energy and surge efficiency, improved mass absorption efficiency and speed, improved jetalium to energy conversion, and especially ones for massive efficient jetal division. Oh, and also ask where are the ones that don't take up any module slots. We could take all of those.

Next ask if the bot could lower the station's exterior plasma shields, either in whole or part, or tell you how to safely disable them. Use the argument that if you're not here, you definitely can't cause a mess.

Then ask what kind of self-destruction the station has, where it's located, how powerful it is, and what kind of modules would you need to survive the blast from it, by a combination of shielding yourself and flying away from the station fast enough.

ask the bot if there is any way to power down the station. That way the place will stay clean (if dark) and not blow up which even if legal is still messy

and yes to have duelist try and get the weapons

Alison, how is your work coming along, does the shield look like it's wavering at all or does it still look just as strong as ever?

Backup plan: see what Emperor-related targets we can hit on the surface by deorbiting the station within 10 minutes.

Wait, "override to self destruct is legal"? Does that mean we can just ask the bot to turn off the self destruct? Try that.

>>541393
No, it means the self destruct was legal, which overrides his orders.

Alison 2013/09/22(Sun)14:09 No. 541599 ID: d38f67
File 137988419391.png - (61.16KB , 700x700 , 458.png )

>Try to find emperor-related targets we can hit on the surface by deorbiting the station within 10 minutes.
Alison is pretty sure she won't be able to de-orbit the station in less than 2 real-time, non-belenosian minutes.

Duelist starts applying weapons on the module and jetalium storage protection.

"Override, as in your orders were superceded? You can't stop the self destruct?" Alison asks through guardsman's division.
>"Correct."
"Where's the backups?!" Guardsman takes over again.
>"I am not at liberty to say."
"I'm not at liberty to keep you alive! Do something illegal to stop the self destruct, bot!"
>"Error: Illegal Operation."
"Take down the jetal module shields!"
>"I will not."
"You're supposed to keep the facility in working order till the place goes boom, right? If you don't help me out, I'm gonna smash the place up before it self destructs!"
>"Threat level detected. Compromising... accepted. Will lower shields." The bot moves over to a console and plugs itself in.

"Wait really?" Alison asks.
>"They're down!" the Duelist responds, to which he starts shoveling boxes into himself.

The plasma well Alison brings back up appears to be doing the trick, and the plasms shield starts flickering.

>"We have a problem." The duelist starts picking up the modules to try and absorb them. "They're all unlabeled and experimental."

>>541599
We don't have time to test them out, just grab them all, store them in jetalium, then escape with the main body. Now! Move fast, Duelist! Strength boost and thrusters and all that.

We can probably bring them to someone in unmonitored space to analyze them.

...we can't absorb them all and then throw away what we don't like we usually do?

>>541600

I'm with the cram all the boxes inside yourself plan. Try to get your masses back together before you jump off the station. If we can reach Cloud Slither we might be able to solicit their help depending on the value of the prototype modules we just snagged. However you may have to settle for another blackmap city if the orbital velocity of the satelite's has taken us too far away from Cloud Slither.

Ha ha I knew the little guy would hate the idea of his nice clean station getting messy.

Grow a few arms and shovel yourself full of modules. We can experiment with them later. Sure we wont know what we managed to get away with for awhile but nobody will know what we are packing until we use it on them.

Make sure to leave yourself enough time to both get to the exit with time to spare.

Duelist grill the little guy on how big a explosion this station will make once it self destructs.

duelist, just loot and scoot, no one is saying we have to absorb them now. and if you're afraid that you won't be able to get to the shield in time to escape the explosion then just shoot your way out, it's not like we're we have a reason to be gentle here what with the self destruct thing and all.

Oh and if the little robot starts bitching about how we're making a mess by shooting through the walls tell him if he drops the shields that would mean we'd have to leave and therefor can't mess the station up anymore.

Is Dualist saying that when he tried to absorb the modules they don't even have name and description data encoded into them? Not even a record reference number? 'Cause if that's the case these modules are gonna be super risky to test out. For all we know there might be something nasty like a self-destruct module in that pile.

Dualist should still continue shoveling modules into his body to carry out. He can use Quick Morph to increase his volume and form extra arms, tentacles or Alison hair to get as many of them into him as fast as possible. If there's any labels next to the containers he's taking them out of he should note what's written on them. And if the jetalium storage is open he ought to tap into it to absorb mass to burn, then grab as big a chunk as he can quickly carry on the way out.

Guardsman should ask the bot where the records of what the experimental jetal modules stored on the station do, and if they're here to flip through them on the screens he can see really quick. Then everyone in the lobby can split up remembering that data. The bot probably won't comply, but it's worth a try.

Meanwhile flip the plasma well into overdrive and keep it up until the shield comes down. If Dualist isn't back yet flip the overdrive off and stick the plasma well where the plasma shield was to "hold the door," then thrust away to maximum division range in the direction of Cloud Slither. Then Dualist can fly out after you and you two can adjust thrust to meet up while still accelerating away from the station.

1/2 Alison 2013/09/23(Mon)19:00 No. 541793 ID: d38f67
File 137998802019.png - (14.83KB , 700x700 , 459.png )

"Loot and scoot, Duelist!" Alison says, breaking the wall. Duelist hasn't absorbed anything. "You mean you can't tell what they are at all?"
>"That's right. I can absorb them, but there's no telling if they're any good or not. I nabbed about 12. They could be 12 different copies of, well, master musician, for all we know. I did grab some jetalium though." Duelist says as he jets out of the station to Alison.

>"Hey, bot!" Guardsman asks. "What do the modules here do?!"
>"Please input ID card to continue."
>"Ahhhhhh!"

Guardsman, please leave the bot alone.
>>"No!"
"Please do."
>"No! I'm gonna get info out of this su-"

2/2 Alison 2013/09/23(Mon)19:00 No. 541794 ID: d38f67
File 137998803676.png - (158.37KB , 700x700 , 460.png )

BOOM

>"Oh. Fuck." Guardsman says through the lobby. Alison and Duelist latch on to each other before they get knocked apart from the resulting shockwave.

The jetalium Duelist got starts getting absorbed to recoup what losses Alison took, and jets around to stabilize herself from spinning. The duelist takes a look from the direction in space Alison came from.
>"We've got company, I see fuel burning from, maybe, 30 seconds away. We have momentum towards the planet from the blast, though, we might be able to go faster than them."

>>541794
We can't risk combat while carrying the modules. They might break. Accelerate towards the planet and try to gravity assist around it to head towards unmonitored space.

Have engineer and math figure out the best route to the middle of the largest blackmap zone we can get to.

The modules are probably delicate so lets try to avoid combat if possible until we can get them tested and applied properly.

Tell Guardsman that while his intimidation skills are good he needs to work on his temper and focus. In another simulation we could have lost him there. How would Scanner feel if you got blown up forever?

Let's try and run. We can always send a division back, without our looted modules, to fight our pursuers, if necessary.

The exploded station should help us somewhat- that place was huge and blew up big in low orbit. That's a lot of EM and charged particles in the atmosphere. Communications and electronic surveillance is going to affected.

don't think it would be wise to fight right now, just rocket yourself towards the closest blackmap zone and see if we can't lose them there.

No fighting. We'll try to outrun the pursuers instead. Fire full thrusters and plot a trajectory that'll land us in the Cloud Slither blackmap zone. But split off two divisions to hang a bit behind, just in case those pursuers are faster than expected.

We shouldn't trust that all of those modules are safe to absorb to test ourselves. For all we know there's ones in the pile that are meant to be traps. Ones that'll do something like immediately lockdown or shutdown a jetal or activate an unstoppable self-destruct.

We need another jetal to load these on. One without any scan blocking, and preferably not EIN-linked so EIN doesn't know what we have. Strip it down to just enough mass to interface with the module box, stick it in and scan it after for what the module is. If it's clean, we yank its core and absorb the module from it.

>>541802
Guardsman doesn't react well to Alison chiding him, so she should ask Scanner to talk to him about that instead.

Suggestion 2013/09/24(Tue)01:07 No. 541849 ID: 2f4b71
File 138001005078.png - (344.46KB , 1000x483 , 1000px-Skip_reentry_trajectory_svg.png )

>>541795
>gravity assist
We might not have the right vector, but we could also try skipping along the atmosphere to greatly increase our range. If we angle ourselves right (we'll probably have to grow an aeroshell too, but that's really just a flat cone of insulating material) we can even skip out sideways to reach further north or south.

1/3 Alison 2013/09/28(Sat)11:53 No. 542430 ID: d38f67
File 138039441691.png - (23.10KB , 700x700 , 461.png )

"Engineer, take over Unity for me, get her out of here. Try to land us in the middle of the largest blackmap zone you can manage."
>"The biggest zone is the one that Cloud Slither is in, but that city isn't in the middle of the zone anyway. We'll land several hundred miles away from it, at least."

"Hey Scanner could you do me a favor and try to get Guardsman to improve his temper and all?"
>"I can try, but that's like trying to get you to hug less."

Unity manages to keep her distance from her pursuers, but doesn't manage to gain much ground either. It looks more like they're just making a show of chasing Unity.

2/3 Alison 2013/09/28(Sat)11:53 No. 542431 ID: d38f67
File 138039443276.png - (244.53KB , 700x700 , 462.png )

Re-entry is successful, and Alison uses the clouds as cover. She isn't sure if the empire's forces can see through clouds, but it doesn't hurt. What does hurt is getting struck by lightning a couple of times, so she doesn't stick around for long.

3/3 Alison 2013/09/28(Sat)11:53 No. 542432 ID: d38f67
File 138039443994.png - (105.86KB , 700x700 , 463.png )

She moves down the rest of the way. The blackmap zones don't look like a bastion of fun filled freedom.

>>542432
Alright, we have two choices now. Either start installing the unknown mods one by one and test them out to see what they do, or just wait until we find civilization and ask around to see if we can find someone who can identify them. The first one risks suffering backlash from the experimental nature of the mods, the second one risks us getting mugged.

Either way we should keep moving. Make a couple divisions with small amounts of Jetalium to serve as mobile cameras of a sort so you can't get ambushed in this rocky landscape.

I think we should keep moving just to make it harder for anyone still trying to follow us. Just because we're in the blackmap zone doesn't mean we're safe just yet.

>improve Guardsman's temper
Would probably be easier to have another personality step into his division and say 'hey, time to run from the exploding now'.

>See through clouds?
They might have modules for that, but I'm really expecting the global surveillance system to have a hard time tracking you. Thanks to that exploded station there should be a lot of charged particles and EM static in the upper atmosphere right now.

Depending on how big the station was and how energetic the explosion was, (and how good their tech is), that could keep being a problem for days.

>The blackmap zones don't look like a bastion of fun filled freedom.
Makes sense. The criminals went where the empire either doesn't want, or has a hard time getting to or controlling.

>what do
...probably get under cover somewhere, and start going through those modules?

Lagotrope 2013/09/28(Sat)16:46 No. 542473 ID: d38f67
File 138041197263.gif - (24.40KB , 700x700 , 464.gif )

After thinking of a better idea, Alison simply tells Scanner to keep an eye on guardsman when he's in control of a division. Therefore, guardsman control will be replaced with Scanner-Guardsman Tower control.

Alison finds a subterranean link that she starts using as a windy path towards the Cloud Slither. Engineer thinks about it, and believes that this entire region is chalk full of nuclear fallout from a previous time.

The trip is slower than Alison would have thought since she is effectively trying to navigate through a maze, Jetals come built in with a few basic functions, of which a compass is included.

Eventually, within the cave, Unity hits a landmark.

Well scan for traps and then ring the bell I guess.

But have a division ring it while your main body is way back somewhere safe. Might be ok but not going to risk it.

>>542473
Carefully examine the surroundings to make sure you aren't walking into a trapped spot. Especially stick an eye into the bell to make sure it isn't going to explode you if you ring it.

Then ring it. You could even take the precaution of having a tiny division ring it.

We have those modules well buffered inside us, I hope? Don't want them damaged before we get the chance to absorb them and/or figure out what they are. (You'd think there'd be a way to plug in and read the meta-data documentation before downloading).

Check that the bell isn't tied to a bomb or anything and then apply master musician to it. This will be the best damn bell ring ever heard on this planet.

look around for any traps before you ring the bell. If you don't see any then back away and use your hair to ring it or a very low mass division while you stand a relatively safe distance away.

Raise a shield around yourself, something seriously solid and spherical! Plasma shield, rock shield, jetalium shield, sand shield, etc!

Hok 2013/10/03(Thu)17:31 No. 542946 ID: d38f67
File 138084671163.png - (37.40KB , 700x700 , 465.png )

>We have those modules well buffered inside us, I hope?
Alison is using them to help armor her core.

Alison keeps her shields on standby and scans the whole area for traps. When it appears clean, she rings the bell and adds a tune behind it before the screen underneath it flicks on.

>"Hello. Oh, Unity, yes? We're not surprised you came to us, but we are happy that you did make it here. You're welcome to join us. Someone will be with you shortly to verify your legitimacy and take you up, if you'd like to call this home. Do you have any requests or wishes, in the meanwhile?"

Do the signs really help?

>>542946
Ask about their organization, before we agree to join or anything. We know little about the "real" world. As for wishes, uh, what do they mean? I would think you would need to be inside before you could take advantage of their services.

That's... a surprisingly cordial welcome for a stranger from a group of outlaws hiding from an aggressive police state.

Especially if they know who you are. Letting in someone as hot as you brings down heat on them, and risks upsetting the status quo that keeps them alive and free. (Not that we're not glad for the reception! It's just not what we might have expected).

...what and how do they know about us, anyways? I wouldn't think what goes on inside the harvester simulation is public knowledge outside, I wouldn't think the empire would have been too keen on making information about us public, and you only broke out a short while ago. I mean, I suppose our exit and the space station were too big to cover up, but it's interesting they already have our name.

We might want to ask if they have anything that can ID unlabeled modules. Then, the modules we looted become a trade-able commodity. We can absorb the ones we want, and sell or exchange the ones we don't.

I'm wondering if we should give Polatt a division at this point? He knows a lot better than us how to talk to the belenosian underworld. Could be useful to have him around, and this seems a sort of safe chance for him to get used to driving a chunk of jetalium.

can we get a phone, somewhere to buy/sell/test out mods, info on how we can make some money so we can buy stuff if we have to, and your name.

I mean I'm not to surprised you know who we are I guess, didn't think you'd be able to tell who I was just by looking at us what with us being a jetal and all, but could you help maybe put us on more even ground.

Alison 2013/10/04(Fri)12:50 No. 543014 ID: d38f67
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"A question, actually. Do these signs help?"
>"Only on non-threats. Sometimes people don't even know where the blackmap zones are, believe it or not, and think this area is a flee-flight zone or something, and so go flying or riding right into blackmap zones. We don't just kill anyone, but when they start getting uncomfortably close to a landmark, we let them know they're not in friendly territory anymore. It doesn't happen that much anymore, but we keep it anyway."
"Can we get a phone or something?"
>"Oh, absolutely. There's obviously a lot of demand for that, but there's a lot of supply too."
"I also have a bunch of modules that don't have any metadata. Can someone find out?"
>"Really? Yeah, we can take a look."
"It's nice to have a nice reception like this, but it's also unexpected. Isn't it a problem to take someone with heat like me?"
>"Oh, no. At first it was, and we were careful who we took in, but people who the empire considers wanted never actually bug the empire again. So, when the empire finds out their criminal came here, they've slowly came to the realization that they're literally and figuratively off of their maps. They don't need to worry about them anymore, and we think that they only like to perform vengeance if it isn't too inconvenient. Oh, that is the one big thing you should know about us. You're free to leave at any time, but if you don't do so without an approved reason, there's no coming back. We don't want the new empire thinking we're making moves, only that we're keeping to ourselves."
"Before I agree to anything, please tell me about your organization."
>"In the old empire and kingdom, there were a lot of underground factions who just didn't like each other, but still fought against the big powers. When they were 'united' into the new empire, well, the underground factions were mostly either eliminated or gave up and joined the new empire. The few that didn't, though, wouldn't have had a chance, and were forced to band together. There's a few places in the world where they gathered, and that's where we came in. As you can guess, there's a lot of types up here, and a lot of disagreeances, and our goverment has some very heated debates daily. But, no one's afraid that there's going to be a coup or anything. Everyone's smart enough to realize they're counting on the Cloud Slither as a whole, and that trying to forcibly take over and divide it will be, well, stupid in everyone's interests except for the new empire."

Alison senses a jetal coming up fast, and side tunnel's door opens up to show it.
>"Unity? I'm ready to take you up, if you are."

>>543014
Another question. How do they know about us? I wasn't aware the events inside the harvester simulation were public knowledge. Aside from that, sure, let's go in.

>up
...huh. The cloud bit may be more literal than I expected.

Biggest problem I see here is they're isolationists. The Empire ignores them because it's sort of a self-maintained prison. Their problems go here and disappear, and they don't even need to pay for it. Maybe the prisoners get more comfort and quality of life than they'd like them to have, but the convenience more than makes up for it.

The problem, of course, is we can't stay here, or not take action against Sapphire. We can't do non-aggression. And Severer slash Anya knows this, and Sapphire knows this. Which means the Empire's neutrality with this place isn't going to hold once they figure out where we are. It's only a question if the Empire strikes first while we're here, or if we get out in time to strike at Sapphire.

...the only question is whether we're honest about this upfront. That we can't stay.

1/2 Alison 2013/10/04(Fri)13:29 No. 543023 ID: d38f67
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"Two more questions. What's your name, first off?"
>"Salice."
"And how did you know who I was? All I've done is in the harvester simulation."
>"EIN is formidable, but we've managed to wedge some spies in over the years, after many attempts and many losses. You can bet there are empire spies in our home as well."
"Oh, and when you said wishes, what did you mean?"
>"Oh, just stuff to help you with, like the unlabeled modules."
"Okay, thank you very much, Salice. I'll be heading up, now."

2/2 Alison 2013/10/04(Fri)13:30 No. 543024 ID: d38f67
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The jetal waits for Alison to cross over, and the platform she gets on starts speeding away.
>"Okay, let's cover a few rules while the elevator takes us up. Most of it is obvious stuff, like don't destroy property or harass anyone. We don't have any official policing entity, but we all look out for each other. In fact, we don't have a centralized leadership. It's all democracy, and like Salice mentioned, the only reason it works without falling apart is because of the new empire. Sole leadership isn't looked on as anything but a tyranny. I know I said rules, but the idea is that there aren't really any rules, but that goes for everyone as well, so keep that in mind. Do you want me to show you around at all or just go straight to the module labs?"

Well, we certainly don't have a problem with the basic rules and playing nice.

The module labs, if you don't mind. We don't quite have your faith that the Empire really is gonna leave us alone, and we'd like to figure out what we have and if it's useful. And even if we don't need the modules for a fight, I assume some of them might be useful to trade or sell. ...I assume there's some kind of market for that kind of stuff around here, right?

Ask our guide his name, as well.

keep an eye out for back stabs but sure go with him and lets see what we can do here.

>>543024
Module labs first, then the tour. It's possible we may have to leave in a hurry, so it's best we get our business done first.

1/2 Alison 2013/10/04(Fri)14:15 No. 543030 ID: d38f67
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"What's your name, anyway?"
>"Oh, excuse me. I'm Scout B-18. Not much of a name, I know."
"That's okay. I'll go straight to the appraiser."

Alison is guided out of the elevator, but it only looks like another passage.

>"There isn't much planning or foresight into the infrastructure, but everything is close together, at least." B-18 hands Alison a phone. "This also has a map to the cloud slither, complete with directions to go wherever in an efficient path, so I recommend giving it your size so that it can give proper directions. It does allow jetals to plug directly into it, so you can use it like a brain extension. There's communicators and cloud slither planners as well, so in effect, it's basically our version of EIN and the internet, except it can be unplugged at any time."

"Thank you very much."
>"'welcome. I'm going to do something else while you go in there, but if you still want me to show you around afterwards, just ask for me on your phone, it'll know who you're talking about and call me. See you later. Oh." Alison hugs him.

2/2 Alison 2013/10/04(Fri)14:18 No. 543033 ID: d38f67
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B-18 shows Alison to the module labs, and is directed towards the appraiser.

"Hello, I'm Unity."
>"... ah. New here."
"Can you show me what these are? There's no metadata?" Alison asks, handing him some of the modules.
>"Where did you get these from? I don't mind, but it will help narrow possibilities down."
"An orbital station." Alison says, adding in a few specifics about its appearance.
>"Right. I can get the information, but if you don't mind, I'd like to go deeper than that and really study how it was made. Do you mind if I take an additional day or two to extract each of these? I would like to be able to reverse engineer these, if they are at all useful."

I forget does using modules wipe the data? I have no problem giving them to him after we identify and then decide on what to keep.

Mousebot!

>1 to 2 days
Um. Well, in theory, we don't really have a problem with the Empire's opponents having access to more firepower. More outlaw jetals with good modules could help if and when we're attacked.

On the other hand, two days is a long time! We went from nothing to busting right out of the harvester simulation in a day. We may not have 1 to 2 days.

...I'd agree, but ask him to ID first. Just in case circumstances require us to use them before he can reverse engineer them.

>>543034
Downloading a module from an external storage device into a jetal removes the data from the device, yeah. And offloading modules from a jetal to an external storage device removes the data from the jetal. Both are cut and paste. For some reason we're able to copy module data from jetal to jetal just fine, though. I'm assuming this is some kind of deliberate copy protection / anti-proliferation built into the module storage devices, since it doesn't make much sense otherwise.

Actually
I think Unity is good on time!
We are now in a world with 1984-nightmare levels of EIN without any of our Operator superpowers....
But Sevener is stuck in the same world too!

Both contestants left at the same time, but Sevener has to follow rules and regulations while under the Emperor's eye! She already has EIN installed, so she'll have to find a way to get around that before she could try an Emperor assassination!!!

>>543039
...or she can use her position to get the Empire to kill us first. Which, judging by her act on the space station, is what she's trying.

I completely expect her to push the empire to make a move against Cloud Slither once she knows we're here. She wants us either dead, or busy running and not getting stronger while she's building up. Sevener's not going to give us time to prepare if she can help it.

How much time we have here is dependent on how paranoid Sapphire is, and how paranoid Sapphire is is dependent on what his spies observe of our actions and how convincing Anya manages to be about our motives.

If any spies check out what we do with these modules, then being casual about it will lower Sapphire's suspicion, while acting as though we're in a rush by requesting we get any of them now will raise suspicion. Given that, I vote we let him take his time.

If Sevener is going the route of trying to kill us instead of going for the empire we will need people on our side. So reverse engineering these so other people here can use them might be a good idea.

It does mean the empire might be attacking us here once she convinces them we are a big enough danger. So we need to get the best modules we can find and try to get allies quickly.

1/2 Alison 2013/10/04(Fri)15:23 No. 543044 ID: d38f67
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"I'd like to ID them first before I decide on it, if you don't mind, but otherwise, I don't mind at all."
>"Certainly. I got ahead of myself. I will ID them first, regardless, then ask you your input. These are advanced types modules, with security to match. The slightest wrong move will trigger a complete internal self deletion, so I must exercise maximum caution. It will take awhile. I will contact you when I'm done, I expect ID will take a few hours. Please do not disturb me until I am done."

Alison calls B-18, who says he will be right over.

2/2 Alison 2013/10/04(Fri)15:23 No. 543045 ID: d38f67
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From the tour guide, what Alison and everyone can glean is that most of these jetals and robots do nothing in particular all day long. Most are low powered, as the Cloud Slither can only generate so much renewable energy at a time, and everyone gets a share. The rest goes to backup batteries in case of emergency. B-18 explains that sometime, Alison may have to help in assisting mining operations and energy gathering, but she won't have to until this place decides how to put her to work. Even then, he explains, most people only have to work a small portion of the day. The rest of the time spent is killing the remaining part of the day, often with gambling or other games.

It's not much of an existence, Alison thinks, but then again, it doesn't look like they have it too bad. The major concern is the day the new empire decides to wipe them all out, but that thought is well shuffled to the back of their minds.

The biologicals, she notes, also have respirators and night vision goggles. The air quality is particularly abysmal, but B-18 says that the cloud slither does provide sufficient protection against the lingering nuclear fallout from outside. There are frequent rolling brownouts as well, so night vision is required.

No wonder the EIN doesn't care about this place. They aren't going to fight unless attacked and even then I get the suspicion they might either roll over and die or try to run.

Ask about barter and such.

>>543045
Ask B-18 what's up with his eyes. Does he have any interesting mods? We could do a mod exchange, maybe, or outright buy some since we have money and jetalium to spare.

Are there any shops around? Of note is that if we stay here for long, we'll be falling behind. Sevener could gain power faster than us, if we just loiter.