Kado 2013/03/10(Sun)19:05 No. 499387 ID: 5ea969
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"Hm?"

Feels like there's something in my head.

Kado 2013/03/10(Sun)19:06 No. 499388 ID: 5ea969
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So then, who the heck are you?

We're your brand new headvoices!

yup, hello.

us headvoices are here to advise ya or at least provide commentary on your life.

I'm nothing if you must know

We're us. We give advice and stuff. Generally we're slightly more helpful than we are a pain in the ass or annoying.

Enough about us though. Who are you? What's happening? Your ship looks like it's shedding debris, and that looks like a warning of some kind on your display.

>>499388
I dunno.

Space Madness?

Whoever you are, you are either blessed or cursed. Your mind has been tuned into a group of beings who like to give advice. That's about all we really have in common. Some of us are virtuous paladins who will give you the best advice we can so that we can share in your triumph. Some of us are major league assholes who will give you bad advice to set you up to laugh at your failure. Some of us are romantics who will try to help your love-life, others are perverts who want to watch you score. In short, you will receive good advice, bad advice, and more than a little nonsense. We cannot control you, and you must sort out the good from the bad.
I consider myself a whisper of good sense, but take that with a grain of salt.

>>499393
Some sorta infectious disease that causes auditorry hallucinations? Could be. That or a roving band of psychic hooligans. Or hell maybe you're the one who has developed psychic abilites and we've tapped into it.

Kado 2013/03/10(Sun)20:15 No. 499402 ID: 5ea969
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Ok that's... cool? I mean I'm happy I wasn't just thinking pointedly at myself but I don't feel less crazy for getting a response.

Well yeah, my ship isn't exactly in pristine condition. I think I got hit by pirates, buuut my memory's all wonky. I was pretty messed up when I first woke up.

I've been drifting on backup life support for about a week now, but I'm approaching a planet. I've got some info on it from my Galactic Encyclopedia.

Kado 2013/03/10(Sun)20:15 No. 499403 ID: 5ea969
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PLANET: TREYA Treya is an uninhabited desert planet. Atmosphere is fit for life. SATELLITE: ITS #303 Trade station 303 has all standard trade station facilities. |----TRADE LIST----| |LIST NOT AVAILABLE| | | |------------------| !WARNING! INFO MAY BE INACCURATE - LAST UPDATED: 4 YEARS AGO

There we go, some people call this thing the hitchhikers guide. Some human thing I think.

Anyway, I know for a fact that that 'trade station' is now a pirate run thing and that my ship's scanners are picking up a small settlement on the surface of the planet.

I should have enough emergency fuel for a few small maneuvers - so I've got three options:
1) Keep going into deep space. Least chance of a violent death but most chance of a slow one. I'll intersect with a trade route so there's a chance a friendly ship will pick me up.

2) Dock with the pirate station. I'm pretty confident my ship will survive this, but I'm not sure how well I would survive it.

3) Crash land on the planet. I know I'm a good enough pilot to get this thing down without ending my life in an explody mess, but it's pretty unlikely I'll be able to leave the ship in a salvageable state. I think I should still be able to keep the backup generator and communications up, so I may have a backup if the locals aren't helpful.

I can't really decide what to do.

Drifting through the dead of space is never a good option, unless you can use the planet to slingshot yourself on a course you know leads somewhere good, and you have the supplies and life support to make it there.

Although if you're drifting at sublight, and your space drive or ftl or whatever is offline, then keeping going is a real bad idea.

>crash or pirates?
Unless you think you can bluff your way into the cozy company of people who hunt, kill and rob helpless spacers (like, well, you) for a living, taking your chances on the planet seems the best option.

Are you KIDDING here?
GET ONTO THAT SPACE STATION, YO.
PIRATES HAVE BIG GUTS
GUTS YOU CAN RIP AND TEAR
RIP
AND
TEAR
GO BERZERK ON THEM, MAKE THEM RUE THE DAY THEY FUCKED WITH YOU!

Oh, but all joking around aside, the space ship actually is our best bet here. Bounties are pretty much a given, and chances are we'll find ammunition on board.
Most of your options are decieving in that they all have a pretty much identical chance of survival:
The desert planet has a small settlement, yeah, but nothing else. Desert planets probably have sand worms and shit, nobody has time for THAT junk.

The drifting into space thing has, at most, a 10 percent chance of anyone picking you up.
The SPACE STATION, on the other hand, has enough supplies and spare ships that it would be well worth the risk of a bullet or three to the sternum.
You'll also probably find some guns lying around, and if you can manage to utilize our frightening and expansive knowledge of military tactics you actually have a good chance of getting through this alive.

I vote space station.

>>499403
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Oh my gosh. Quick, look up Earth!

So the longer-term ramifications of these choices are:
1) You either die a slow death in deep space or run into a friendly trader and have to hitch a ride with them. They will likely take your ship as payment for transport. Maybe if you're lucky you'll get a good deal and have some money left over from its value. Your destination will likely be optimal for you, and life will resume as normal.
2) They will steal your ship and probably make you a slave if you don't just get shot on sight. Or maybe you could have incredible luck and wind up joining their crew! Hah.
3) Your ship's a loss, but you can use its components. The settlement might be a comfortable life, or you might just stay there long enough to be able to work your way to buying transport off-planet, at which point we resume at the end of option 1.

I like option 3. Low risk, good long-term reward, and could be fun! ADVENTURE!

unless you have some way to contact people in deep space I don't think option 1 is a good idea seeing as how so far your luck has involved your ship being smashed up pretty good and you having some memory issues. For that same reason I don't like how your odds are looking on that space station as well. So I'm going to have to go with option 3 as a default choice.

Kado 2013/03/10(Sun)21:36 No. 499428 ID: 5ea969
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Yeah I think planet is my best choice. Fighting my way into the space station would at least rely on the dock not being guarded, which is kinda unlikely.

I bring the ship down into the atmosphere, this course should leave me within walking distance of the settlement. Thankfully the shields are still up.



MAYBE NOT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT

Emergency! Quick, do you know where your towel is?!

you got an eject if so try and grab anything useful before you do mostly food and water as this is a desert planet. If your stuck on the ship quickly run to the part of the ship which has the most softest crap around and and strap yourself down with all that junk sarounding you cause truth be told that's the best I got

>ship: fall in a less dangerous manner.

Kado 2013/03/11(Mon)01:59 No. 499471 ID: 5ea969
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If I had a towel here I'm reasonably certain it'd be on fire right now!

Leaving this seat is out of the question, so I make sure I'm strapped in while I try and use what little control I still have to guide the ship.

Kado 2013/03/11(Mon)02:00 No. 499472 ID: 5ea969
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I succeed about as much as you'd expect.

[animated]

So... did you survive?

If your comms hardware is intact, try to raise the settlement for aid.

run diagnostics.

Flying a crappy spaceship wasn't fun after all

so other than the ship anything broken?

Well, at least you didn't (visibly) explode on impact. In fact, it looks like you buried yourself in the sand and doused the fire, actually.

Get up, assess situation. Are you okay? Anything on the ship still work? What do you have in the way of useable tools and/or supplies?

RIP Kado ;_;7

We hardly knew ye

Kado 2013/03/11(Mon)19:49 No. 499629 ID: 1132ce
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Diagnostic: I don't have a damn computer to run a diagnostic on.

I scramble out of the ship and rest by a nearby rock. I'm alive, and mostly uninjured considering what just happened. I guess these ships are designed with this kind of thing in mind - but it's not exactly something I go around testing out.

After some time, just as I begin to consider salvaging some supplies from the ship, I hear a voice ring out from above me.

>"Hello? Is anyone down there?"

Stay quiet, and wait for whoever that is to come down and go inside the ship to investigate. That'll give you a chance to listen out to hear if he has any company with him, and if he doesn't to get a peek at him as he goes inside to see how well equipped he is.

If he looks clear, then you can call him over to you from behind that rock as he comes out of the ship.

>"Hello? Is anyone down there?"
Nope, thanks for asking.

I think we should wait and see if this guy is packing before we call back. no offence man but you don't look like you could take a child in a fight right now much less anyone out to get you. If the guy doesn't look like he wants to kill you when you get a good look at him then call back if he does look like he means harm try and stay clear and if he notices you, just play dead or something and see what he does. You might be even able to pull off a sucker punch or something if he can get close enough but save that as a last resort

>>499629
Looks like a traveler with some sort of walking stick. Get a better look at them before answering, to gauge whether or not they're a pirate or raider or something.

Kado 2013/03/11(Mon)21:03 No. 499643 ID: 1132ce
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I peer out over the rock.

>"Nobody? oh dear..."

The figure makes their way down the incline. As he gets closer I can see that he's a Karit wearing some form of homemade clothing and wielding a metal spear. He's alone. He pokes his head into the ship, but seems to recoil at the heat inside.

I stand up.

>"Whoa! I mean um, Hello! Are you okay? Is this your ship?"

"Hey there. Yeah I'm alright and yep that is- uh, was my ship."

>"Oh wow okay we both speak galactic that's really good! I'm Jurek!"

"And I'm Kado."

There's an awkward silence, Kado just stares at me for a bit before shaking his head.

>"Ah sorry! I've never seen an offworlder before! I saw the crash and came to investigate. I've got a bike, if you're not too injured to balance I should be able to take you back home. We've got a doctor and you look a little... um... red.

I still want to try and grab some stuff from the ship, but it looks like it'll still take some time until I can do that without adding more minor burns to my list of injuries.

not like we can do much else so might as well go with him just make sure you remember were he takes you so you can find your way back to the ship. the only thing I think that would be worth heading back into the ship for tight now would be for medical supplies and maybe a weapon if you got them. Maybe some food as well just in case you can't eat the Karit's food, unless you know you can both eat the same type of food.

>injured, home, doctor
Um, yes please, that would be good.

You're not in any position to refuse help, and it looks like you may have lucked out crashing near nice people. We can always return to loot the ship later.

>>499643
Ask him if there are any ruffians around that might steal your stuff out of the ship if you leave it unattended.

Ask him for some help getting your gear out. He seems charitable, but be polite. No sense risking it getting stolen, you must've been seen from all around and judging by the spear, tech is not in wide supply here.

hey man, supplies are valuable when you're stranded somewhere. also when you aren't. I guess supplies are always good to have.

Kado 2013/03/12(Tue)05:53 No. 499685 ID: 3345da
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>Edible food
Food should be just as good for me as it is for them. I used to know a Karit couple who always invited me to their dinner parties. Terrible conversation but the food was always great. Actually most races can eat the same food somewhat surprisingly.

>Ruffians
"Do you think it'd be safe to leave the stuff in my ship here?"

>"Uh, I'm not too experienced with spaceships so I don't really know!"

"What? No I don't mean 'will it blow up' or anything like that. I mean what's the chance of my stuff getting stolen?"

>"Oh! Well I mean I know every sentient being on this planet personally soo... not a lot! Wildlife shouldn't be an problem either, most animals here don't seem to like metal very much."

"Huh, alright. Oh yeah and how far away are we from your um... town? village?"

>"Hah! I'd say village is overstating it. We're only about 5 minutes away."

I have no idea what time scale he'd be using but 'only 5 minutes' should be a short enough time no matter what.

"Alright, I'll head back with you then. Uh, thanks by the way."

>"It's no problem!"

We climb back out of the cleft my ship tore into the ground and board his bike. It's an old model, but not exactly some cobbled together tribal thing. I'm a little big for the back seat, but we manage to get moving anyway.

I struggle to talk over the sound of the wind and the sand in my face.

"SO HOW'D THIS PLANET GO FROM UNINHABITED TO THIS ANYWAY?"

>"HAH! KINDA SIMILAR TO HOW YOU WENT FROM IN SPACE TO IN A HOLE IN THE SAND! THE DOCTOR CAN TELL YOU ALL THE DETAILS BETTER THAN I'D BE ABLE TO!"

Wow how isn't he squinting are there shields for the sand that I'm too tall for is that why my face is experiencing this sandy hell?

Kado 2013/03/12(Tue)05:54 No. 499686 ID: 3345da
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We arrive in the village, my face stinging. There are tents, houses made with something resembling mud brick and buildings that look like salvaged ship pieces. There are groups of Karit here and there. They all seem to want to ask what's going on but Jurek is leading me briskly to a large metallic building with a medical cross on it.

>"He sort of acts like our village elder or something too. C'mon!"

Kado 2013/03/12(Tue)05:54 No. 499687 ID: 3345da
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We enter.

>"Ahh, that explosion brought us a new guest did it? Well then, welcome to your new, sandy home. Tell me how you got here while I patch you up."

He must belong to one of the less travelled races of the galaxy because I have no idea what this guy is.
I tell him the basics: flying through space, get hit, wake up in less of a ship than I was in before.

>"So you tell me that you have some kind of amnesia? Very strange! My equipment isn't picking up anything that would indicate enough blunt trauma to result in memory loss. I'll admit it has been some time since I've worked on a Sil-kath like yourself, but I'm certain your brain is quite intact."

I feel that now may not be a good time to mention you head-voices.

>"Now I should probably explain this settlement is here Hm?"

Apparently 13 standard years ago these guys were on a freighter that got hit by pirates, in addition to cargo the freighter was carrying a large group of Karit passengers. Most of the crew managed to get to the escape pods in time, but the Karit and the medic, this guy right here, got stuck on the passenger deck and went down with the ship. Everyone survived and they achieved survival using the ample supplies the ship was carrying.

He mentions that there are many Karit born here, or simply young enough that they don't remember the outside word. He specifically mentions Jurek as having been 6, making him about 19 now. Jurek seems to have wandered off by this point.

>"Well, that should be all you need to know for now. Don't feel like you're stranded here for good, things are in the works and with your assistance we may just be able to push them along. Ah, but you need rest for now - I shouldn't have said anything! Go and introduce yourself to everyone if you want, find somewhere to sleep and so on. If you need anything just ask Jurek, he's got nothing better to do anyhow."

How should I occupy myself then?

rest and recover. tomorrow you can get to know the locals.

well you did just walk away from a crash so i don't think anyone will blame you if you decided to call it a day. everything else can wait till tomorrow. As for the head voice, well i'm not really sure how to handle that one. you could tell him but I'm not sure how people will view the off worlder that has voices in his head so I'll leave that choice up to you.

Well. Could have done worse. Found an intelligent community of friendlies that have apparently gone unmolested by the pirates in orbit. Granted, you're likely stranded here now, but as you don't remember where you were going or why you needed to be there, it really doesn't matter that much.

Rest before introducing yourself around. First impressions matter, and you want to be in good shape! Once you're rested, see what you can do to help everyone escape the planet.

Kado 2013/03/12(Tue)22:49 No. 499812 ID: 5971ce
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Yeah I think I'll avoid mentioning you guys until people know me well enough that they don't immediately assume I'm space-crazy. Especially considering I'm pretty sure I am space-crazy.

Before I get outside Jurek enters.

>"Hey Kado! If you're all ready I can show you around the village."

"Uh, I may wanna rest for a while getting the grand tour y'know?"

>"Oh, hah fair enough yeah. Do you want to get some sleep then? It's only about midday here."

Ah, I was liking the idea of getting some sleep but I'd rather set my sleeping pattern straight.

"Nah, just a lie down will do me."

He nods and leads the way to his house, a mudbrick type thing close to the medical building.

>"Here, you can use my bed. I've got stuff I probably should be doing if I'm not showing you around, so I'll be off. I'll tell people not to bug you until you're ready!"

I thank him and he leaves, grabbing his spear. Lying down, I let my mind drift.

>Don't remember where you were going
Oh my memory's fine for that, the doctor just seemed to lose interest before I got that far back. I was travelling away from Belonia, my homeworld, en route to Tuatha. Belonia is pretty standard for any moderately populated planet- two ice caps, lots of green, blue and so on. Tuatha on the other hand is one of the largest population hubs that there is, it's pretty much one huge city. I was headed there to pick up some ship customisation parts I'd just bought - fat lot of good they'd do me now.

Wait can't you guys read my mind or anything? Huh. I guess I should give you the proper introduction.

I'm Kado, Freelance Spaceship Pilot.

Is there much work for freelance pilots?

>>499812
What kind of ships do you normally drive? Been in any space combat where you were on the winning side?

so what kind of work do you do normally then, courier work, some kind of space cab serves, or something else.

a freelancer, huh. I always wanted to be a zero-G dog.

close your eyes, freelancer.

Kado 2013/03/13(Wed)22:51 No. 499919 ID: 533e92
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People like me get a decent amount of work. I've flown a few different kinds of small passenger craft as well as a bunch of larger freighters. Usually I just run jobs in my own ship; lotta people want stuff transported and don't feel like paying extra for freight companies. But sometimes those freighter companies want people with experience that aren't on their regular roster, so I get a turn at being in charge of a big space brick. Well, I say in charge but the crew usually answer to someone else on those things, I just need to point it in the right direction.

I've fought in some dogfight tournaments back home, but most of my legit combat experience involves running fast and not much else. I have been in one real fight; one time I was co-pilot on a freighter that got disabled and boarded. Had to keep switching between getting the ship systems back online and shooting at combat bots. We got out with only minor injuries. I've been getting pretty reliable work from that company since, so I guess I handled myself pretty well. Not sure how it would've been if I had been needing to shoot at people though.

Eh, that's enough internal monologue about myself. I'm starting to feel like moving about.

Well if you feel like moving then i guess it would be a good idea to find Jurek and have him give you the tour or something

Forget the tour. That's boring. You can explore on your own.

Well you can wander a little while looking for him, surely.

Let's have our cake and eat it too.

okay take the town tour now.

Explore whilst looking for Jurek, then tour, yup.

Kado 2013/03/14(Thu)19:45 No. 500084 ID: 8c5153
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I head out of the hut. The only people I can see around are the two guys that were outside my window.

The taller one speaks up.

>"Greetings newcomer! And wellcome to our humble vill-"

The shorter guy punches him on the shoulder.

>"Wow are you serious is that your idea of a good first impression?"
>"I wanted to impress on him our home's rustic charm!"
>"Oh my god Hello, Kado is it? I'm Kale, please ignore my friend here."
>"And I am Zenith - legendary monster hunter!"
>"You know how I just called you 'friend'? I take that back"

This is interesting

"Uh, hi. Nice to meet you two."
>"And fantastic to meet you as well sir!"
>"Ughhh. But yeah welcome."
"So uh, when you say monsters..."
>"Giant, dangerous sand worms roam the desert and people like m-"
>"medium size sand worms roam the desert and at the very best they could headbutt your leg. Some of us hunt 'em for food."
>"No sense of drama..."
"Okay that's uh, nice. I was looking for Jurek?"
>"Man I think Jurek is doing errands down at the workshops."
>"This is true! I saw him that way but a moment ago! I also think the doctor has something to tell you, however it did not seem urgent."
>"He just crash landed, he didn't go back in time dude."

These two are gonna give me a headache if I stick around for much longer

"Alright, thanks."
>"It's no problem, and I apologise for Zenith's lack of pants"
>"Excuse me friend what are you trying to say about my battle skirt?"

Yep alright leaving.

I like them.

go to the doctor. Jurek seems to be busy and you don't want to bother him at work right after you blew him off.

I wonder if everyone here is like that?

Oh well we should go to the doctor as we don't really have anything else to do really.

Before leaving indicate that a KILT is indeed a garment fit for a warrior.

*snert* They're adorable.

>>500088
Yes, do this.

>>500088
Yes this, up his confidence so he can annoy his friend more.
The constant back and forth's are probably what their friendship Is based around...so you'd be doing them a favour!

Kado 2013/03/15(Fri)08:05 No. 500133 ID: 533e92
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"Hey now, there's nothing wrong with a kilt."
>"A KILT! Wonderful! Exactly the word I've been looking for!"

Kale looks like he's gonna explode. I excuse myself.

Kado 2013/03/15(Fri)08:06 No. 500134 ID: 533e92
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I head on back to the doctor's building. I meet a few people on the way over, but they're either too busy or simply unwilling to do anything more than greet me.

The doctor starts speaking as soon as I enter the door.

>"Kado hello! I trust you heard that I wished to speak with you?"
"Yep, Zenith told me."
>"Met him already eh? I'm sure he left a strong impression on you. You wouldn't expect it but he's probably one of the most talented and reliable people here.
Anyway, I wanted to ask you about the extent of the damage to your ship before you hit the atmosphere."

I tell him all I knew: most of my systems were down and based on that most of the damage was at the bottom of the ship. I never did risk doing a space walk to check in more detail.

>"Hmm. Well it just turns out that I have a wonderful little device salvaged from our ships cargo. It's a crash analysis system, or the prototype for one at least. I'm not completely sure how it works, but with a few scans and, ideally, acess to your black box data it should be able to give you a history of your ships damage as long as the model is in its database."
"It was an unmodified Darius CTX-5."
>"And the design hasn't changed in the last 13 years?"
"Nope.'

Not in the last century. They're up to the CTX-13 now but their entire -5 series of ships is still in production and popular.

>"Well then, I request that when you go to salvage your ship you take someone along that knows how to use this. I'm curious about the data."

Sure, no problem. A scanner-thingy might be helpful in figuring out which pieces still work, anyways.

yes, that is an excellent idea.

these guys are also stranded here like us, right? this is probably a decent chance to get a ride offworld.

ask him who he would recommend we take with us.

Oh that's nice, make a note to deliver supplies on the planet every now and then to show your gratitude if you manage to make the ship work and they don't feel like leaving.

>"Well then, I request that when you go to salvage your ship you take someone along that knows how to use this. I'm curious about the data."

Well, this is a small place so doesn't the doc knows who might be capable of operating the device?
Ask him for some names.

Ask him if there are any technologically adept villagers.
If not just any that are exceptionally bright.
Ask him what Zenith is specifically talented at, or ask Zenith personally.

Kado 2013/03/16(Sat)00:26 No. 500301 ID: 533e92
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"Sure, sounds like a good idea."

>People who can operate it
He lists off a few names, Zenith is amongst them.

>Zenith's talents
>"He's very skilled at melee combat. I believe he won a tournament of some kind when he was a child before the crash. He also, when he applies himself, has a great technical mind. He and I were the main two who worked out how the device works.

Wouldn't've expected that. He goes on to ask me whether I want to check out my ship today, and if so whether I want to take a bike for myself or hitch a ride with someone else.

I haven't really used hover bikes much before but they should be pretty simple.

>>500301
Sure, let's do that after the tour.

Take a bike out yourself, but bring someone else along, since it's not a good idea to head out into an unfamiliar desert world alone, especially when you haven't actually driven a hover bike before; Lots of things could happen on even the relatively short distance there.

Bring Zenith, since you've already met him and he's rather interesting. Maybe you can ask him why he talks so formally.

>>500302
Zenith can also give you what will undoubtedly be a short tour of the village before heading out. May as well get to know where things are now, since you could be here for awhile.

might want to get a lay of the town first, you never know when that could be useful. I guess we can take Zenith since you've seem to made a good impression on him and it's probably better if you let him drive. I'm not saying you couldn't do it but you did just get into a pretty big crash a few hours ago and I don't think falling off a high speed bike trying to get a feel for it would be the best thing for you right now.

Town Tour Time.

hitch a ride with Zenith because you'll probably fail to operate the device by yourself. unless he's busy.

Let's hitch a ride and see what shape your ship is in.

Not sure you want to use a bike- if there's salvageable equipment in the wreck of your ship, we may want a vehicle more suited for bringing stuff back with us (unless the ship actually stands any hope of being repaired? I kind of doubt it, but I suppose it's possible).

Kado 2013/03/16(Sat)17:55 No. 500498 ID: 533e92
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>Vehicle with better storage
Apparently hover bikes are the only powered vehicles they've got. Apparently they can awkwardly rig up a cart to a bike, but its a bit slow and awkward.

I think I'll catch a ride with someone else and just take a sack or something to carry stuff in.

I start heading back to Jurek's house in the hopes of finding Zenith, but I end up bumping into Jurek himself on the way.

>"Whoa Kado you're up and about! I was just heading back to check on you. You've probably already seen a bit of it but wanna get the village tour now?"

Guess I don't need to find Zenith then.

While you get the tour try to steer conversation towards the space station, perhaps find out if it's occupied. When we head back to the ship, take a look around manually before you deploy that crash analysis system, we don't know if there's any data onboard the ship that we may want to hide. I'm a little suspicious about the space station in orbit with no mention of offworlders by the locals.

Sure, get a tour with him, talk, and then have him lead you to the other guy for spaceship checkup and salvage.

Sure get that tour and see if he would be willing to help you with your ship

yeah, sure. tell him about the errand on the way.

Kado 2013/03/17(Sun)19:43 No. 500729 ID: 533e92
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"I've pretty much just seen the path from here to the doctor's place, so sure."

We chat as he starts showing me around.

I tell him about what I've done since he left. Jurek laughs on hearing I met Zenith and Kale, muttering something about first impressions.
On hearing about the plans for heading back to my ship he offers to lead the way back, and more immediately he offers to help me find Zenith.

I'm curious about the space station and mention it.
>"I dunno, you can sorrrt of see it with the naked eye? But it mostly just looks like a star. People have talked about seeing things moving around it, but I've never seen anything like that."

I may want to ask the doctor about this later.

I get an idea of the settlement's general layout.
There's the main area, centered around the doctor's place, which is where most of the houses and tents people live in are.
Then there' the workshop area, Jurek just came from helping out at the forge here.
In between the two there's entrances to underground storage areas.
And off to the side is the old storage area that was used before the underground one was built. Nowadays its just used for the bikes.

Kado 2013/03/17(Sun)19:44 No. 500730 ID: 533e92
File 136357464636.png - (36.50KB , 500x500 , 21.png )

He also draws a rough map of the surrounding area in the sand.
My ship's to the east and the freighter crash site is far to the west. To the northwest
is where most of the hunting happens and somewhere to the south there are some mostly explored caves.

Well go to your ship for now. They have been here for how long so I'm pretty sure anything worth scavenging there is long gone and we don't really have a reason to go to the caves at this point and time so I say if you do want to explore the other two sites do it after we scavenge our ship. I mean we have no idea how long we're going to be stuck here so it never hurts to have some rainy day plans for the slower days

Right. Let's organize our expedition, then. Time to see what shape your ship is in, and if there's anything salvageable.

You know, I'm absolutely astonished that no one ever came by to pick up these stranded people. Most of the crew escaped in pods, right? You'd think they would have alerted some authorities or something. Er, IS there some kind of intergalactic authority?

>>500730
Let's get to your ship now. Make sure to bring enough storage space for the stuff you know you're gonna salvage, plus a bit extra in case you get lucky.

Head over to your ship's crash site and start salvaging what you can. Better get a list of what's wanted, just in case there's something big that's going to take several hours work to disconnect and dig out of the engine compartment. How much of value would have survived the fire, anyway?

Since there's going to be two of you going on this expedition, may as well take two hover bikes. That way you can carry twice as much back without resorting to a cart hitched to one, and have a backup in case one dies on you. Are both Jurek and Zenith coming along on this trip?

For smalltalk, ask Jurek if they found anything of interest in those caves to the south. Any creatures, or maybe minerals? Oh, and do they have a telescope or plans to make a telescope so they can watch the station in orbit?

>>500739
That is a good question. Ask Jurek if he has any idea why nobody came to investigate after the freighter crashed. Didn't the Karit passengers have family elsewhere that'd want to see if anyone survived the crash? Or at least a salvage crew would have come along and parked in orbit long enough to scan the wreckage, or come down to pick over it. Was it just the threat of pirates that kept them away? But then why didn't the pirates come down here to pick over the wreckage after shooting the freighter down?

cool.

see any workshops you could make a living in? you're gonna have to sooner or later.

Kado 2013/03/18(Mon)17:09 No. 500935 ID: 8c5153
File 136365178420.png - (59.21KB , 500x500 , 22.png )

>Workshops to help at
I could probably help out with menial tasks at any of them, but if I wanted to actually learn a craft I'd be doing it from the ground up. Something to think about I guess.

We discuss plans for going on the ship run. It's decided that we'll just focus on personal belongings and smaller parts (computer parts, water filter and so on), anything larger can wait until we know more about the state of the ship.

Jurek starts leading me to Zenith, who should be in the hunting grounds. On our way I mention that it seems strange that no attempt at finding the lost Karit was made.

>"Yeah! There were what, 26 of us in the crash? Though I think we've got a pretty good guess as to why. Did you ever hear anything about a WX-Shipping freighter crash up there?"
"Well, I was probably a bit too young anyw- wait WX-Shipping? Huh, I got my first freighter job with them."
>"Wait you mean you've flown one of those huge things? That- that's really cool! But uh, yeah if you ever go on a salvage run to it you'd see. The ship had... stuffff on it."

Before I can get him to elaborate we spot Zenith.

"...Don't you normally do this with spears?"
>"I think 'What is life without challenge?' is what he said..."

>>500935
I find myself liking this Zenith. He has drive.

Hey, tell us about your race, Kado.

tell us about the cutebolds too, while you wait for him to finish while providing minimal distraction.

well we are waiting for Zenith to finish whatever it is he is doing maybe we can get Jurek to tell us what he meant by stuff

Kado 2013/03/20(Wed)01:04 No. 501245 ID: 533e92
File 136376664509.png - (97.85KB , 500x500 , 23.png )

>"Hey Zenith! Kado here wants you to use that scanner thingy on his ship!"
>"Brilliant! Consider me ready after I have defeated this beast. I shall be but a moment!"

While we wait I talk to Jurek

"So, when you say the freighter had 'stuff' in it you mean..?"
>"Well, I don't exactly know much about galactic trading law, but I'm pretty sure they violated it, like... a lot!"

Zenith delivers the final blow to the worm and it drops limp to the ground. He attaches a hook to it and starts dragging it over to us. We start heading back.

>talk about your race
Well alright. I'm a Sil-kath. Lotta people call us Silth for short. We got intr-

>"Hey Kado, I don't really know much about Sil-kath! Would it uh, be alright if you could tell me a bit about them?"

Well dang Jurek okay.

"Yeah sure! Well yeah, I'm a Sil-kath. Lotta people call us Silth for short. We became part of the Galactic Union at a time when we'd pretty much colonised all of our solar system. We had the Three Hour War when we made contact, where our leader declared war on every other sentient race and then swiftly got overthrown by someone more reasonable. Uhh, I guess people know us for our weapon and ship designs? Before contact we were a pretty warlike civilisation, straight up world domination totally happened in our history. Don't think we're really seen that way any more though. We're mammals, as much as the scales throw people off, and I'm a little bit shorter than the average male height."

>talk about space cutebolds Karit.
I know a decent amount but may as well ask right back.

"What about you guys? Know a bit but I've never gotten a full-on overview."

>"Huh. well I'm not really sure what there is to tell! Uhh-"
>"Ahem"

Zenith interrupts

>"Our people are the sixth race to join the Galactic Empire, and to date the least technologically advanced at the time of contact. At the time a Human/Volo starship made contact with the Karit homeworld Horanna the Karit were in a state resembling the Human computer age. The possibility of alien life was a popular subject in fiction at the time and as such most Karit cultures handled the revelation with little chaos. Over next few standard years we as a race experienced a smooth induction into the galactic community and a rapid introduction to approximately 500 years of science and technology.
>We are generally seen as a peace loving race and most of our influence on galactic culture has come in the form of entertainment media rather than scientific advancement or political movement.
>Biologically we are similar to most other sentient, mammalian races - our eating, atmospheric needs and reproductive habits are closely in line with what is commonly seen as 'the norm'."
>"..."
"..."

>"Um, thanks for that Zenith."
>"Not a problem my young friend!"

Well there you guys go.

>>501245
Yes, I definitely like Zenith. That sounded a lot like he was quoting from The Guide, come to think of it. Ask him if there's a specific reason why they're still stuck on this planet after all this time.

Say Kado, you proficient in any weapons? Guns, blades, that sort of thing?

Well that was informative to say the least. Since Zenith seems to be so knowledgeable maybe we can ask him what was on the freighter that crashed here, and maybe what he might know about the caves to the south, I mean we where told that the caves were mostly explored and Zenith seems like the type of guy that would like to be an explorer so he has to know something about those caves.

...young? how old is he?

Yay for cultural exchange?

Anyways, back to the village, drop off the kill, and let's snag a vehicle and that scanner thingy and see what's left of your ship, and what state it's in. Then we can consider options (repair? Salvage? Cannibalize? Stay here? Get up to the station? Set up a distress signal?).

Kado 2013/03/21(Thu)02:15 No. 501513 ID: 533e92
File 136385732311.png - (48.81KB , 500x500 , 24.png )

I ask Zenith about his age. Apparently he's 26, making him 7 years older than Jurek and 3 years older than me.

>Freighter, caves
Zenith is just as vague as Jurek when talking about the freighter's contents. I get the worrying impression they don't really know where to start. His only comment on the caves is that they were 'dull'.

>Weapons
I can shoot a few kinds of pistol and have a little experience in brawling. I'm best at ship to ship combat - assuming I haven't been too babied by the rules of competitions I've been in.

We get back into town, grab the scanner and other supplies and head on over to the old storage area.

It doesn't take too long to secure our packs to the bikes, so soon we're ready to get going.

>>501513
Alright, let's get going then.

do what you're ready for.

Great now lets grab our stuff and hope it still works

Okay, time to get to what's left of your ship and salvage what you can.

Take the driver's seat on the bike with Zenith, that way you get some experience driving with Zenith's instruction, and you can ask him some questions about himself. Like why he talks in such a formal manner, and where he learned what he knows. It sounds like he read The Guide cover to proverbial cover.

>Freighter wreck with hold full of super-ultra-illegal cargo
This definitely sounds like something to check out, even just to see what the heck WX-Shipping was doing with whatever it was. You remember any big news involving WX-Shipping hauling illegal goods in the past couple decades? Any rumors of extra shady dealings or anything?

Kado 2013/03/21(Thu)23:12 No. 501665 ID: 533e92
File 136393275362.png - (62.14KB , 500x500 , 25.png )

The trip there is uneventful. I ride with Jurek, and do a much better job of shielding my face. As much as learning to ride these things properly would be nice, I'm not really feeling up to it right now. Plus I'd probably like to learn with someone less... intense than Zenith.

While walking for the bikes I ask Zenith about his speech and the Galactic Encyclopedia - or the Guide as apparently even head-voices insist on calling it.

"Why, speech is an art, and art demands elegance! And yes, I poured over that thing quite a bit when I was a child. It is a pity that none posses it on this planet."

I still don't know about the state of mine, so I wont bring it up for now.

I never heard anything shady about WX-Shipping and my experiences with them were all pretty pleasant, so the idea of them smuggling stuff is kinda surprising.

Zenith is busy making preparations for the scanner, while Jurek seems keen on exploring the wreckage with me. Don't see why not, so I step into the back airlock with him in tow.

Kado 2013/03/21(Thu)23:13 No. 501666 ID: 533e92
File 136393280009.png - (97.67KB , 500x500 , 26.png )

Both airlock doors are stuck open, as they were when I left. We ascend the short staircase into the ship. To the left is the main area - the 'bridge' as advertisers generously label it, and the bathroom. To the right is access to maintenance and ahead is my storage area.

first things first: go to wherever you will be deploying the device. Zenith?

check storage first to see what you had on you before the crash, then just wonder to see if you can find anything useful and see just how badly your ship is beat up.

>>501666
Do you have a gun on board? Go retrieve it now, wherever it is.

Go to the bridge and see if there are any functioning computers. Check if you have a cargo manifest or flight plan. On a side note do you know if the ship has any hidden containers for smuggling?

Well, you're going to want a box or other container to hold the stuff you salvage as you go around the ship, so may as well head to the storage area first to find one, then start picking through there to start. Get one for Jurek as well.

If you have a toolbox back there, haul it out, since you're going to need tools to dig out the black box recorder for the crash analysis system. Even though you brought tools from the village, your toolbox would be almost certain to have all the right sized sockets and such for the bolts and screws in your ship.

Hey, wasn't there supposed to be fire suppression systems installed in here? At least basic foam canisters with mechanical heat-activated triggers? Did they fail to activate, or did they go off when your ship was first damaged and were depleated?

Kado 2013/03/24(Sun)04:30 No. 502134 ID: 533e92
File 136412462711.png - (59.83KB , 500x500 , 27.png )

>Get box or container
Oh. Yeeeah - not taking our sacks in with us was pretty dumb. We exit, grab the sacks and head back in.

I check out the storage area first. A lot of stuff in here took damage, mostly food and drink, but I quickly work out what can be grabbed.

-14 food rations. These things are pretty disgusting, but good for emergencies.
-Box of electronic scrap. Most of this stuff is probably junk, but you never know when you might need something.
-Multi-tool. This thing should be able to take care of most screws, lift up nails, act as a wrench and cut things. Plus if it's batteries aren't dead it's got a multi-purpose laser built into it and a little range-finder display. And if you were as good a student as me in school you can 'overclock' it a bit and use it as a fire-starter.
-Electronics kit. Soldering iron, voltmeter, stuff like that.
-Can of cola. I'm tempted to drink this right now.
-Stun gun. Civilian class weapon, pretty weak but it'll stop most people moving around for a bit.
-Revolver. About half the races in the galaxy made something close to this at some point in their history. This is based on the old Silth design, which is in turn pretty much identical to the old human designs. Reliable, but needs ammo.
-Hybrid Pistol. This thing is designed to fire bullets inside a packet of energy. Strong as heck, but pretty difficult to maintain in rough conditions.
-20 rechargeable batteries. These fit the multi-tool, stun gun and the hybrid pistol. I'm not sure how many have charge. Less than half?
-16 bullets. Should work with the revolver and hybrid.

Jurek speaks up:
>"Uhh, Kado? I think a light just turned on in the bridge."

Run to the bridge! Maybe the ships communicator is still working and we can get off this god forsaken hell hole.

no way, the can of cola must be paid as a tribute to the village elder. as for the rest of the loot: sexcellent.

go bridgeways, point the unloaded revolver at Jurek and shoot. but be really, really sure and then some it really is unloaded.

Pocket the multitool and the stunner and head up to the bridge to see what's up. We can load other stuff into a crate for salvage once we're done evaluating the condition of the ship, and dealing with immediate problems.

pocket the more useful items (the weapons and ammo) and through the rest in a sack then see what's happening on the bridge.

>>502138
Weapon safety, asshole! Don't do that.

>>502134
Take the stun gun and revolver (and ammo for it) and check out the light.

We will want to take everything here eventually, if there's room, but we should check out the light first while being armed.

Kado 2013/03/24(Sun)20:54 No. 502252 ID: 533e92
File 136418365109.gif - (639.40KB , 500x500 , 1_28.gif )

>Give cola to chief
Oh nooo looks like I accidentally opened it already whoops, guess I'll just haaaave to drink it now.

And wow, no I'm not going to pretend to shoot Jurek. What kind of asshole do you think I am?

I pocket the multitool, grab the stun gun and move into the bridge.
It looks like most of the damage from the crash happened here.

>"The... uh, front of the ship is being weird."

The ship HUD is displaying static. This is... actually pretty significant. If the screen's getting a bad signal it should just display nothing, don't want a graphics card error to stop you from seeing y'know? This means it's getting a good signal and interpreting it badly. Which means something is giving out a good signal.

"Which means the ship computer works!"
>"Eh?"
"But I don't think I have any input. The chair had a control panel, but it's all shot up. None of the input over here works either. I should be able to plug in a screen and keyboard though... you guys got any of those?"
>"Um, I don't think so? You could probably cannibalise the scanner for them but I dunno."

[Sorta Animated]

Uh, if it's just a matter of unplugging something from the scanner and into the computer, that's fine. I'm not sure we should just rip it apart though, which is what cannibalize usually means.

>>502252
If we take apart the scanner for it carefully enough we could just put it back together again afterwards... What about the box of electronic scrap? Maybe we can repair something in here?

You'd also want the electronics kit for it. However... maybe we should check maintenance before we spend a lot of time messing around in here.

stare at the screen, in it's entire hypnotic staticy goodness... also yeah any other control panels in the ship we could remove to jury-rig to the screen or redirect the signal to the screen to a different part of the ship & view it there?

do you think you might be able to pull something off the freighter or see if they haven't already pull something from it and have it back at the village for an input device, because the doc made it sound like that scanner was kinda important so I don't think we want to tear it apart if we can help it. Or you might be able to take bits and pieces from your chair and other input devices and see if you can't just jerry rig something up but I'm not sure just how beat up your input devices are so if they are beyond the point of even savaging for scraps then ignore this. Speaking of scraps do you think the electronic scraps you pulled from storage might help you jerry rig an input device?

If you're at all good with electrical repairs, it should be feasible to fix up one of your ship's keyboards so long as it's not completely fucked. Buttons are about as simple as electronics get.

I'm sure the town has enough resources to spare on something so big. you'll report it when you get back.

if there is anything you didn't explore yet, do so now.

What course of action to take here really depends on how urgent it is to see what the ship's computer is trying to show. If it'd only flip on the HUD screen like that for something really urgent, like an incoming communication, then by all means get the keyboard and screen from the crash analyzer, just as long as doing so won't break the analyzer permanently. Get Zenith to bring it in and help you carefully take it apart and hook it up to the ship's computer.

Otherwise it can wait to either get parts from the village, or salvage parts from elsewhere in the ship to jerry rig up. The keyboard would be easy to rig up from parts, but the screen would be the hard part. Would there be a screen anywhere else in the ship? Maybe a piece of equipment in the maintenance area or engine compartment has a screen you could pull?

Oh, wait. Could pull the screen and keyboard from your Hitchhiker's GuideGalactic Encyclopedia and use those? Or even directly plug it into the ship's computer as an input/output device? That is, provided it survived the crash mostly intact. Even if only the screen survived that'd be a big help to your jerry rigging effort.

And whatever you do, be extra damn careful when handling the electronics. It's a desert planet, so the air is going to be extra dry and that means static electricity buildup. So grounding wrist straps properly connected to the ship's ground on at all times for anyone touching those parts.

Kado 2013/03/26(Tue)04:42 No. 502396 ID: 533e92
File 136429816643.png - (54.06KB , 500x500 , 1_29.png )

I take a good look at the rest of the bridge.
All the computer stuff on the starboard side looks pretty bad. I was gonna open this up and at least salvage my data, but I don't think I wanna risk that now. Wanna know what it's doing before messing with it.
The port side didn't have anything installed on it. Just, now broken, panels with empty space behind them. My chair's not looking so hot either, but in the sand in front of it I find my copy of the Universal Encyclopedia! Neat.

For now I think my best bet is trying to get a screen from elsewhere in the ship. There should be another screen down in the engine access, if it hasn't been destroyed. The encyclopedia is designed to be super resilient, taking it apart would take a decent amount of effort, and the scanner might work but I'd have to at the very least wait for the scan to finish first.

The screen turning on could mean a bunch of things. Could be an alert about us entering the ship, cheap bio-scanners break pretty easily so that could explain the delayed reaction. It could be receiving a message; voice, video, text - live and recorded are all possibilities.
Could also just be the same warning alert I've had since the start, buut if that's the case its weird that it wasn't there before we started looking around.

So yeah, maintenance next?

yeah.

Scavenge whatever you find useful.

your the boss

Snap up and pocket your Galactic/Universal Encyclopedia. It's just a good idea to keep it on you for general reference, and at the least Zenith would be grateful to you if you lent it to him.

Maybe the ship's computer is reacting to Zenith activating the crash analyzer. Before heading into the maintenance area, poke your head outside and ask if he's started the scan, and when, and see if it lines up with when the HUD turned on.

There a chance the ship computer flipped the screen on 'cause something in the engine compartment is about to explode, rupture, or catch fire? Such as a coolant or fuel canister?

Johnnoz 2013/03/27(Wed)05:44 No. 502520 ID: 533e92
File 136438827690.png - (67.18KB , 500x500 , 1_30.png )

I head to the airlock and call out to Zenith, asking him when he started the scan. He replies telling me that he hasn't - he was just about to.

>Could the screen be saying something's about to explode?
Well uhh... maybe? It really shouldn't be possible but... nooww I'm freaked out about it.

I head to the maintenance area anyway. Jurek's not far behind, but he's still busy admiring the ship. This upper part's got a board of lights that indicate system status and access to some of the more simple ship systems. The lights are all off.

There's a hatch that gives access down to the engine, the lid seems to have been blown clean off. There should be a screen and keyboard down there on the engine computer.

I peer down. I pretty much can't see anything down past half a meter or so, The part of the ladder I can see is pretty weak.

I'd probably need help getting back out if the ladder broke.

go down anyway.

Well you do have two others around that can pull you out incase the latter does brake and we don't know how long that signal will last so if there is even a chance for you to get a keyboard or something down there I say go for it

ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH

>>502520
I don't like this. Do we have a rope? I'd rather use a rope than a damaged ladder. Also peer down with a... wait, do you have anything resembling a flashlight?

You don't have a flashlight, do you? Maybe you could you rig something up using some LEDs from the electronic scrap and a rechargeable battery? Or activate your Galactic Encyclopedia and use the backlight glow from it's screen for a little light?

Better not head down the ladder until you're sure it can hold your weight. Don't want it to give way right at the top and send you tumbling down.

Go over to the hatch, stand to the side and stop your foot down on the vertical stringers to check if the ladder wall mounts are weak. If it doesn't break loose, then climb down slowly and carefully, gingerly putting weight on each rung as you go.

If it does come loose, you'll just have to climb over the edge and drop down; It can't be that far to the floor, can it? Then you can pick the ladder up and lean it against the wall to climb back up once you're done down there. The ladder can't be much shorter than the distance to the floor of the engine compartment, right? So that should work.

Johnnoz 2013/03/27(Wed)21:42 No. 502622 ID: 533e92
File 136444572845.png - (57.97KB , 500x500 , 1_31.png )

Don't have a flashlight, The only one I had onboard was broken in the storage room. Using the screen of the guide should work well enough I guess, should at least be able to see what's in front of me.

I ask Jurek if we have any rope.

>"Yeah! I've got the thin rope we used to tie the sacks to the bikes. It should be enough to help you climb up if I can't."

Cool. I secure the rope and start climbing down carefully - half my weight on the rope and half on the ladder. It's not a long way down, only just enough that I can't jump up to grab the hatch. The ladder's properly broken at the very bottom.

I can't see much, just the rough shape of the engine control. That red light should be the screen I'm thinking of though.

well just use your light to see if there is anything of value down here real quick then head toward the light to get that keyboard. If you do find something interesting however fell free to take that with you as well.

>>502622
Alright, let's dismantle that thing then. The engine looks cracked from here. Hmm.

Jurek 2013/03/27(Wed)22:31 No. 502632 ID: 533e92
File 136444867492.png - (45.08KB , 500x500 , 1_32.png )

Other than heavy engine components, there doesn't seem to be much of value down here.

Yeah this screen works, and its got power. Not getting any signal - which is sorta expected with the state of this place. The keypad underneath it seems to be broken, but I don't think the main computer would work with it anyway.

I relay all this to Jurek and start removing it from the wall with my multitool.

Christ it's dark. It's pretty difficult with this light, but after a while I manage to get it off the wall and unplugged.

Uh.

There's something down here. Humanoid. It was behind the engine, now it's climbing up over it. Back up towards the light then stay still and listen.

Get a weapon ready.

>>502634
Uh. It's kinda a blobby darker area that sorta could be a humanoid climbing on top of the engine... Maybe.

Best not to take any chances. Stick the screen under one arm, hold the Encyclopedia in that hand as a light, and ready the stun gun in your other hand. Then back up to the ladder, watching the darkness the whole way. Hand the screen up to Jurek, and quickly GTFO of there.

um, I think I see something to your right.

if the multitool has a sharp bit, now would be the time to draw it.

Jurek 2013/03/28(Thu)17:26 No. 502668 ID: 533e92
File 136451678256.png - (55.08KB , 500x500 , 1_33.png )

What???

I uh, can't see anything,,,

Got my stungun out and trying to light up the place but I can't see anything.

How'd you guys see something I didn't anyways? Don't tell me this is your idea of a joke. Regardless I'm gonna grab the screen and get out of here righ-

Jurek 2013/03/28(Thu)17:26 No. 502669 ID: 533e92
File 136451681252.gif - (458.04KB , 500x500 , 1_34.gif )

[sorta animated]

*THUDDDDDDDDD*

>"Kado what was that!!?"

what

go grab the stuff you came for like you were, just quicklier than you originally would have.

Get the screen and get out.

We saw things you didn't because you're living in Plato's Cave, duh.

>Don't tell me this is your idea of a joke.
It isn't. We have a sense of humor, but we're not dumb enough to cry wolf. We saw something in the shadows behind you.

Now git your butt up out of here and find out what's going on.

Alright, there was nothing there, I guess. ...I hope.

Now would also be a good time to ask Jurek if the sand worms come in sizes bigger than "medium." Perhaps big enough to knock around your ship? Or anything else burrowing through this planet that could do that? 'Cause other than that, I've got no idea what's shaking the place up.

Pocket the stun gun to free your hand, run over to the ladder, hand the screen up to Jurek to free your other hand, and climb out of there as quick as you can.

keep your weapon ready and your eyes peeled and just grab what you came here to get and then get out.

Jurek 2013/03/29(Fri)05:01 No. 502705 ID: 533e92
File 136455847177.png - (92.13KB , 500x500 , 1_34.png )

Uhhhh yeah I think getting out of here right this second is a good idea.
I pocket the stun gun, grab the screen and start running over to ladder.

"I have no goddamn clue what that was Jurek but I'm coming up!"

The screen's heavy enough that I need get up a step on the ladder to get it to Jurek - making me pocket the encyclopaedia too. Jurek gets it, leaving me on the ladder without anything in my hands.

Right. Get up them last few feet then. Use the rope and ladder, and for Pete's sake don't fall or nuthin.

climbety climb

use the rope to support most of your weight and the ladder to give your feet support and clime out of there as quickly as you can.

Tentacle: wrap around Jurek's ankle lovingly

As soon as Jurek has the screen safely in both hands, tell him to run it to the bridge and drop it off, then over to the airlock to check if Zenith felt that rumble and to see if he needs any help.

Once you're up, sprint to the bridge and get that screen hooked up. That'll at least let you see what the heck the ship's computer is trying to tell you. Shame you don't have a keyboard, but the only whole one is in the crash analyzer, and piecing one together from the broken ones and parts will likely take too long.

Jurek 2013/03/30(Sat)21:01 No. 502890 ID: 533e92
File 136470250536.png - (72.25KB , 500x500 , 1_35.png )

I switch both hands to the rope and keep climbing up.

Just as I start to tell Jurek to take the screen to the bridge - I'm interrupted by another ship-shaking thud, followed by a crash beneath me. The rung of the ladder my feet are on collapses and I'm left swinging on the rope. I feel something brush against the tip of my tail.

Jurek manages to grab me and, with some effort, help me the rest of the way up.

>"You've uh, got no idea what that is?"
"Nnope..."

While we catch our breaths I can hear it stomping around down there. Suddenly there's a loud zap, followed by silence.

I think we need a better flashlight and a powerful gun before we go back down there. Thankfully we got what we came for- you have the screen. Let's install it. I don't think that whatever it is is coming back up here anytime soon... it probably fell down and can't climb the ladder.

Flashlight and peer in cautiously?

you heard a zap? did it electrocute itself or something? But yeah, I think we should maybe throw something heavy on top of the manhole for now just encase and if we don't have something heavy then just hurry to the bridge and get out ASAP. If you can get a decent flashlight or a flare or something ... and maybe some more backup then it might not hurt to much to give it another look down there, but only if you really want to.

Sounds like whatever is down there stomped on some equipment that still held a large energy charge. Though, considering it busted through your ship's hull in only two hits, and burrowed through the ground to do so, lets be safe and assume it's only stunned.

Grab the screen and tell Jurek you're going to run up and install it ASAP, and that while you're doing that you want him to go to storage and get the guns, bullets and batteries, bring them to the bridge, then load them. I have a feeling you're going to need that hybrid pistol real soon.

get the rope. try to speak to whatever'S downstairs. if it fails to answer, tell it you'll be trapping it down there. if it still remains incommunicado, find something large and heavy like a cupboard or a server or something and use it to block the hatch. then stack some stuff on top of it.

>>502910
If the broken hatch is heavy, it'd make more sense to get Jurek to help carry it over and drop it into the hatch opening.

>>502890
Find the hybrid pistol. Load the hybrid pistol.

Jurek 2013/04/02(Tue)06:51 No. 503496 ID: 533e92
File 136491070761.png - (72.18KB , 500x500 , 1_37.png )

It's odd, I can't think of any equipment that'd be able to release an electrical charge, at least nothing that'd make a noise that loud.

We don't have any decent light sources onboard, or back at the bikes - bit of an oversight on our part. Jurek and I place the warped hatch lid over the hatch. If... whatever that was is able to get past it, at least we'll know about it.

"Jurek, you go on ahead to the bridge, I'm gonna check up on Zenith."

He nods and heads off. He still seems a bit shaken up, can't say I'm any better.

I make a quick detour to swap my stungun for the hybrid pistol before heading to the airlock. Zenith is coming up the stairs just as I'm about to go down.

>"Kado! I heard loud noises and felt I should and ask you if everything was all right!"
"Well, we're fine but..."
I tell him the details of our little encounter.
>"I can't imagine what that could've been... However I am glad you two are safe!"
"Thanks. So did you see anything from the outside of the ship?"
>"I don't believe so, the ship gave a slight shudder but that is all. I'll make sure the scanner picks up any damage it may have done."

At that he leaves. I turn around and head to the bridge.

Jurek 2013/04/02(Tue)06:52 No. 503497 ID: 533e92
File 136491074916.png - (98.76KB , 500x500 , 1_38.png )

Jurek's inspecting all the computer stuff pretty closely, he doesn't seem to notice me enter.

"Hey."
That seemed to startle him a bit.
>"Oh! Hah, hey Kado, Zen's alright then?"
'Zen' eh? I nod.
>"Good. So we gonna get this screen set up?"

I plug it in. The screen doesn't use standard video connectors, so it's kind of a miracle this computer has the right ports.

The screen just shows a 'bad signal' error for a while. There are a lot of different display technologies in the galaxy and the computer's gonna be cycling through them until it gets a positive response.

Eventually it settles on a mouse and text based display. It was a message, a text based one. I've got no mouse but I don't need one - it's already maximised.
_____________ | MESSAGE \x\_____________________________________ | \ | if you are still alive i'd recommend staying | | on that planet for quite some time | \____________________________________________________|

I think we're done here.

Do you know of anyone who likes to or would send you vaguely menacing text messages?

Hmm, we still don't know what actually damaged the ship in the first place...

I think it's time you told us what you were carrying and why your ship was in life support mode when we showed up. unless you already did. I don't remember. also whoever it is that might want to kill you regardless, except for the spess pirates you suspected were in that station.

is that a threat or a warrning? because the only people I can think of that would have know that you crashed here would be the pirates on the space station unless you mange to get an SOS off before your ship got smashed the first time around.

>>503497
I dunno, I still want to get a better look at the creature down there. Surely someone has a flashlight or something?

So... I assume that's a remote communication and not something from the ship's computer? Odd that it isn't signed or addressed in any way. Do you know who it's from?

Since the only ones that saw you crash were the pirates in that station, it'd be safe to assume they're the ones that sent that message. Though, I wonder why they don't want you to leave this planet. They don't want the fact there's survivors from that freighter crash down here getting out? 'Cause that'd be the only reason I can think of. Bit of a moot threat too, since it looks like you're not going to have the means to get off this rock anytime soon anyway.

Still, I'd be a good idea to check that the message came from up in orbit, if you can. Going to have to wait for Zenith to complete the crash analysis before you can pull the keyboard from the analyzer, plug it in, and pull up the ship's logs.

Hey, didn't the analyzer need your ship's black box recorder to finish its analysis? If you can, pull that and take it out to Zenith to hook up to the analyzer and maybe finish its job faster. Maybe you can use the analyzer to poke through the black box records and see if it logged where that message came from, or what hit your ship in the first place.

>Light source to check the engine compartment
Do you have anything flammable you could light up using that "overclocked" multi-tool laser and throw down there. How about some flammable liquid you could pour across the engine compartment floor and set on fire. You could even make a torch if you had some scrap cloth, some kind of stick or pole, and dunked it into the liquid. Though, before throwing flaming items down the hatch, it'd be prudent to just move it far enough to shine the Encyclopedia down for a cursory check.

>"Loud zap, followed by silence"
...I don't know if this is going to sound really out there, but could it have been teleportation? Whatever that was teleporting away? I don't even know if that's a thing that is possible.

Kado 2013/04/03(Wed)07:51 No. 503694 ID: 533e92
File 136500068642.png - (77.13KB , 500x500 , 1_39.png )

It's an external message sent to the ship, didn't supply a source and I've got no idea who it could be from.
While I don't remember the details of my ship getting disabled I can't think of anyone who'd want to harm me specifically, or help me in a vaguely aggressive manner.
I wasn't even carrying anything decent onboard, I was just travelling to Tuatha.

Anyway, considering that it's working, I won't take any parts from the ship computer. Just the black box storage will do.

>make torch
Don't have any flammable liquid, at least not up here. There could be stuff down by the engine but that's kinda where we need the light.

>could the zap have been a teleport?
No that's- well... maybe.
Teleportation is a thing, but the technology is still in its infancy. I've seen a teleporter demonstration before - teleporting some kind of small fruit across a room intact. I guess the sound that made was kinda similar to a 'zap'. I dunno.
Reminds me, you guys really don't seem to know much about anything do you? Guess I should give you a proper history lesson when we've got a bit of downtime.

The broken hatch is thankfully still in place. We pack everything from the storage area into our sacks and move back outside.

It looks like the sun's starting to set. Zenith waves, and tells us the analysis is almost ready. I give him the black box, he hooks it up to the machine, and after a few moments the data is extracted.

>"Allright, all done! Based on the scanner data there was a single initial impact that broke through your shields Kado. It penetrated the bottom of the hull and disabled your main engine. There should be enough information here to work out specifics, but that endeavour would take time and a more intimate knowledge of the ship - and a lot of maths as well! That is the only significant impact before the crash of your ship it seems. Oh! it's also its saying that prior to the first shot you took some kind of undefined damage that installed a bathroom and improved your plumbing.'

Ah, yeahh that's a depressingly recent addition to the basic CTX-5 model.

I ask Zenith if temporarily dismantling the Analyser for it's keyboard is an option, he seems pretty uneasy about the idea - the keyboard's part of the casing itself. He assures me the doctor should have something usable for me.

I do wanna investigate the... uh, I guess we'll call it 'monster' for now. I'm not too happy about potentially leaving something trapped inside my ship, but I'm not sure we're equipped to deal with it further. Plus these two look like they're keen to get home before it gets dark.

yeah well, all we really know about the universe around us is that it is big, most things can't really live in a vacuum of space real well, and space travel is a thing, that's about it.

As for the monster, well maybe ask Jurek if it reminded him of anything from the other ship that brought them to this world or not, like those things he told us about but never gave us proper details on. Either way other then that question I think it would be best to leave this monster mystery for another day and head back to the village for the night. You've done enough for today and there is always tomorrow.

best go with whatever people who can slit your throat while you're asleep want.

>>503694
We don't have a flashlight so let's not go back down there. It sounds like the impact was... whatever the intruder is. I believe if you analyze the impact data, you'll be able to get a general idea of what it is.

>>503694
We don't have a flashlight so let's not go back down there. It sounds like the impact was... whatever the intruder is. I believe if you analyze the impact data, you'll be able to get a general idea of what it is.

Eh, I'm not so happy about leaving before confirming whatever the heck that was down in the engine room is either dead or gone. What if it's merely stunned? It could wake up, bust out, and come after you and the villagers. Then wouldn't you feel bad that you missed the chance to put it down while it was knocked out?

However, the risk that it's still alive and not stunned is too great for any of you to go down; None of you are in a position to take it on in the dark. So you'll have to make do opening the hatch just enough to get a cursory peek, then blocking it up more effectively. If there's any poles or something like them you could use to brace the hatch shut against the ceiling, those would be good. And between the three of you, you could carry a heavy rock in from outside and put it on the hatch. Might keep the creature in, or it might not, but it's better than just a loose hatch.

Leave the analyzer alone. You can some back tomorrow with a proper keyboard and screen, and plenty of flashlights. There's likely going to be a salvage crew from the village coming out here, along with fighters in case that critter is still alive, sooner rather than later. They probably don't want to risk something nastier than a sand worm possibly roaming around down here.

Oh, and when you get back to the village, let Zenith borrow your Encyclopedia for as long as he'd like to. He'd probably be real grateful to you for that. You're probably going to be spending the evening poring over the analyzer data to piece together what the hell busted your ship up.

>Tele-zap
It's unlikely whatever that was teleported away, since it sounds like the tech is nowhere near that level yet. Though... Perhaps instead of a safe teleport, it could have been an intentionally unsafe teleport. Could have been rigged with a tele-unit with to transmit target. Remote activated, and it'd leave not a trace it ever was there. Of course, this is all idle speculation, so ignore if you wish.

>CTX-5 bathroom remodel
I take it the standard bathroom on the CTX-5 was decidedly sub-standard, eh? Bathroom refits a very commonly chosen upgrade on this ship model?

Jurek 2013/04/04(Thu)22:08 No. 503962 ID: dba637
File 136513853960.png - (72.42KB , 500x500 , 1_39.png )

Yeah the base model for the CTX-5 for the last three or so decades had a pretty horrible bathroom. Apparently it was a step above not having one at all, but only just. I guess I was wrong about the design not changing then, wouldn't've thought that counted.

>go with whatever people who can slit your throat while you're asleep want.
That's kind of a pessimistic attitude dont'cha think? But yeah I guess it's also a good point.

I ask the two if the monster seems similar to anything on their freighter. Jurek responds.

>"Uhh, not really? I mean we do have monsters there! They're small and make a pretty distinctive noise though. We don't know what they are, but they're not too dangerous."
"And that thing didn't resemble anything at all from this planet?"
>"Don't think so."

Ah well. Anyway, sealing the engine room better is a good idea. The hatch lid isn't exactly light but putting a rock on-top can't hurt. The three of us find the heaviest one we can lift, carry it onto the ship and place it over the hatch. Something would need pretty big amount of force to get out this way. There's still no noise down there.

And now I think we're done here. We attach the bags to the bikes and head off - me with Jurek again.


We seem to be travelling a lot slower than we were when were on the way here. I ask Jurek about this.

>"Well - it's dusk! It's probably being a bit overcautious, but we've had people get pretty badly injured riding in this kind of light."

That's fair enough I guess. The side effect of this is that we can actually talk to each other without shouting.

>"Hey, I know I've probably been a bit nosy today - but do you wanna talk about yourself a bit on the way back? something

"Yeah, alright"
>"..."
"...uhh..."

Argh where do you start with this kind of thing? Is there anything you guys wanna know? He should know pretty much anything you do already.

well uh, how did you get into the whole pilot thing might be a good place to start, also did you start free lance or was that later down the road and whatever one it was why did you go free lance.

>>503964
Yeah, this sounds like a good starting point. Then you can segue back into your school years and childhood and tell him about your family and homeworld. Maybe share your personal aspirations, if you have any. Got anything big you want to be or do out there?

And it's understandable Jurek is interested in hearing about you; You're the first new person down here since the crash that wasn't born here. He knows the life story of everybody else in the village by now. You've got new things to say and stories to tell. So don't be surprised if some of the other villagers want to hear what you have to say as well.

>Hover-bikes with no headlights
Man, what kind of cheap-ass manufacturer builds a hover-bike without even a token headlight? At least, I assume they were made off-world and were in the freighter's cargo, since they don't look like they were cobbled together by the villagers from salvaged parts. Though, I gotta wonder why they haven't stuck some on by now.

tell him whatever he asks to know, leave out whatever he doesn't. you don't want to ramble.

>>503994
Well, except that you kind of DO. It's not like he really has a list of questions he wants answered, he's just asking you/us/whatever to talk about onesself for a bit, whatever we think notable.

Kado 2013/04/07(Sun)18:54 No. 504480 ID: bb88b5
File 136538604792.png - (61.40KB , 500x500 , 1_41.png )

name shouldn't have been Jurek for the last few updates whoops

>headlights
Stuff like that tends to change depending on the planet something's sold on. Different planets have different light and atmosphere conditions so the strength of a 'normal' light tends to change a bit. My guess is that the manufacturer just makes them without and they get installed locally. There's no speedometer on this thing either, so that's probably the same.

"Okay, well uh, yeah I attended a flight school on Belonia. Learnt a lot there, from books, from sims and from the occasional real ship. The place focused on giving us the most general knowledge so we could fly anything pretty quickly, like, and I'm not joking here, I had a class that was just about reading instruction manuals quickly.
Anyway, yeah I got out, took a loan, bought a little ship and started running small deliveries. There's a grey area around Belonia that's too far away for local services to deliver to, but too close to bother gettin' a big freight company to do it that's pretty much perfect for freelancers. Doing work like that is basically the norm for people wanting to get jobs piloting stuff, unless you've got specific training companies will want to look at your track record. But yeah, did that for about a year before I managed to land a copilot job with WX Shipping, jobs have just gotten better and better since then."

>"Wow, did you just go to pilot school or?"

"Ah yeah, I actually dropped out of regular school to go to the pilot school. My planet has school for younger kids, school for older kids and school that's sorta halfway between what a lot of other planets would call senior high and university. Never finished that last one.
My parents weren't super happy about that, but it wasn't too big a deal. Hell, going on a holiday with them to a few other planets when I was younger is probably what made me want to be a pilot.
I'm not really in contact with my parents any more. I live in an apartment complex on a different continent, one of those big things that's basically its own small town. Know most of my immediate neighbours and some old school friends. Not super close with any of them at the moment, been doing a lot of work.
I guess the most notable thing about my planet is that its small, but it's one of the few to have an orbital ring, even got space elevators up to it. Makes the place much more convenient for ships that aren't atmosphere safe."

I can see the village getting closer now.

that is pretty neat actually, do you have any other skill or would you say that just piloting your only note worthy skill?

>>504480
Hey, I just realized you never told us what you were even piloting the ship for when it got hit. Did you have cargo? Or was this just a trip between planets?

Is that something to your right and back a bit?

>>504515
Looks like Zenith's bike.

Sounds like you kinda put your personal life on hold while working your way up. You planned to get a good regular piloting job before turning back to such things or what?

So, you got any other interests besides piloting and spacecraft? Hobbies? You collect anything? What'd you do in your downtime between piloting jobs?

>Headlights
Huh. Bit odd they haven't jerry rigged some up in the time they've been down here. Maybe they didn't want to use up their limited supply of lights?

>>504494
Kado actually did tell us, back here >>499812. He was going to Tuatha to pick up some customization parts for his ship, and didn't have any cargo on board.

1/3 Kado 2013/04/08(Mon)21:50 No. 504752 ID: bb88b5
File 136548305115.png - (73.12KB , 500x500 , 1_42.png )

Yeah Zenith's bike is off to the right of us.

Mmm, I guess I have sorta neglected my personal life a bit in the last few years, but I'm doing stuff I enjoy. After getting my upgrades for the ship the plan was to either start running jobs less regularly and more locally, or go out exploring. I dunno, I hadn't made any real, concrete plans.

>Hobbies
I speak up again.
"Ah, and as for hobbies... uhhh. I guess dogfight competitions, but they still count as spaceship related don't they? Oh, also I'm a bit of a movie buff, or vids or whatever you wanna call 'em."

>other skills
Nothing too notable, though 'pilot' does cover a pretty wide range of skills: good with mechanics, good with computers and so on. Hell even maths - dropping out of school didn't stop me needing to do that. I'd like to think that I've got the skill to be good in a firefight, but again, I'm not sure that I've got the spirit.

"Oh and Jurek?"
>"Yeah?"
"There a reason why you haven't put lights on this thing?"
>"Haha, well as far as technology the freighter's gifted to us goes; 'working lights' aren't really on the list! Well, we've got little lights but nothing you could actually see by."
"Can't loot the fittings on the ship?"
>"Well they're pretty hard to open up and get at, any we've actually gotten to have been broken so we kinda stopped trying!"

At that we arrive at the village. It's dinner time.

2/3 Kado 2013/04/08(Mon)21:51 No. 504754 ID: bb88b5
File 136548310924.png - (122.34KB , 500x500 , 1_43.png )

A small group seem to have made food for everyone. I'm handed a bowl of some kind of stew. I dint know what's in it but I don't really care - It smells delicious and I'm suddenly acutely aware of the fact that I haven't eaten all day.

Zenith splits off from us:
>"I shall tell the doctor of today's events! He shall likely wish to know about them in more detail, but that can wait until tomorrow."

Jurek and I sit down by a fire and chat with other villagers. I get to know a few people a bit better, including Jurek's parents, who seem nice, and Kale from before, who's still grouchy.

It's very relaxing. It does eventually start getting cold, and people start heading into their homes.

3/3 Kado 2013/04/08(Mon)21:52 No. 504755 ID: bb88b5
File 136548314741.png - (43.96KB , 500x500 , 1_44.png )

Jurek and I make our way back to his house.
>"Oh, I forgot to get sleeping stuff set up! Argh, it's my own dumb fault so you take it, I'll be fine on the carpet!"

what kind of sleeping arrangements did you have in your ship, did you have a bunk bed, either comfy or crap or did you just sleep in the pilot's chair? because if you're use to not sleeping in comfy spots then you might as well take the floor as to be a nice guess since these people really had no reason to help you at all but did anyway. just ask for a blanket and pillow. If you need a bed however, well he did say it was ok so go ahead then but I still feel iffy about it.

>>504755
I think after sleeping in a chair for a few weeks you could use a real bed. That is where you slept, isn't it?

Thank him appropriately though.

Is it really too late to get the sleeping stuff? You're here now so you could even help carry it over. Even got your Encyclopedia to (dimly) light the way. And if it's in somebody else's house they probably haven't gotten to sleep yet, so if you hurry you can get there before they do.

But if there's no way you're getting another bed in here tonight, then take Jurek up on his offer and thank him for it. I bet after sleeping in your pilot's seat for a week, you've got to be liking the idea of resting in a real bed by now.

Heh. Maybe you could jokingly suggest to Jurek that you two could share the bed. Just let him know you're not serious if he doesn't catch on... Though, if he thinks its an alright idea, would you actually do it?

>Campfires
Huh. I wonder what they use for fuel. Probably something from sand worms, like dried sand worm dung.

no way. be polite and take the carpet.

Depends on how good you are at getting to sleep on uncomfortable surfaces, think you can handle the floor?
If a bed seems like a good Idea do this >>504781
if not then take the floor, It's only for one night.

Kado 2013/04/11(Thu)03:25 No. 505219 ID: c344a7
File 136567594087.png - (76.81KB , 500x500 , 1_45.png )

"You sure it's too late to get stuff?
>"Yeah, we lock the the storerooms at night nowadays."
"Well then... I've been sleeping either in a chair or on a metal floor for the last week or two - So I'll take the floor."
>"What, no! It's my fault. Plus it gets pretty cold here! There's spare sheets but I've also got fur to keep me warm."
"Well hey a ship on emergency power isn't exactly the warmest place. Okay look; how about we both take the bed? It looks big enough and I don't really move around in my sleep."
>"Umm, well I guess that could work... yeah ok."

There we go, I slip in first and keep to one side, Jurek follows soon after.

Kado 2013/04/11(Thu)03:26 No. 505220 ID: c344a7
File 136567597318.png - (63.27KB , 500x500 , 1_46.png )

"Night Jurek."

What a day. I quickly drift to sleep.

watch where you put that tail, mister!

When you wake up make sure to ask Jurek If there's anything you can do to make up for the hospitality.
Whether this Is asked whilst In the bed or out Is your decision. I expect In bed will result in Imminent flustered Jurek Interpreting the offer differently.
Aside from that what are you wanting to get done today?
Do they have any means of long-range commucation?
Can Kado salvage anything from your ship and fashion something along those lines?

alright so when we wake up tomorrow other then breakfast what's on our to do list? We could check with doc to see what scanner had to say, we could see if there are any odd jobs to do around town, we could go back to our ship with a torch or flashlight to see what is in the engine room, explore the frigate ship if we really have nothing else to do, or maybe something else entirely that may or may not pop up in the next 24 hours (or however many hours are in a day here).

Kado 2013/04/12(Fri)05:51 No. 505377 ID: c344a7
File 136577108667.png - (74.82KB , 500x500 , 1_47.png )

The light wakes me up. Jurek's already up, I hear him moving about in the other room of the house. He walks in as I groggily make my way out of the bed.

>"Hey Kado, sleep well?"
"Yeah - well enough. There anything for breakfast?"
>"Yep, I was just out getting some! It's on the table."

I sit down and start eating, it's some form of with some form of paste in it, I recognise the favour from last night.

"What's this actually made from? It's damn good!"
>"Well we grow some stuff underground, some plants we salvaged from the ship and some we've found growing in the caves. The spices in that are from the caves."

Well, time to work out what I'm doing today.

"So do you know if I'm able to look at the scanner results yet?"
>"Well, I haven't seen him but I imagine the doctor will want to talk to you about the ship either way. You should probably head to his place before anything else. He's probably gonna want people to take a look at your ship in more detail at some point too!
"Cool. Oh yeah, is there any chance I'll be able to get a look at the freighter you guys crashed in?"
>"We usually go in big groups to check it out. Sabara usually leads them, but she's been out exploring for the last few days. She might be back by tonight actually! But yeah, I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to join in on the next run."
"Anything I can do to help out around the place?"
>"Hmm, people probably want help at the workshops - and I might be going out hunting later. Either way the doctor will probably have something for you to do!"

>salvaging long range communication
Yeah it might be possible, was hard to tell what kind of communications were still up when we were there.

Well waltz over to the doctor and find out whats what.
Also thank Jurek for letting us crash his bed.

cool. cool cool cool.

head doctorways.

ok then so we head on over to the doctor then if nothing else pops up then head to the workshop if not to do anything else then to kill time.

>>505377
This is a generous fellow. I like him. I think he'd make a good partner.

Well, the next thing to do would be to help them work on things. Should give us a good idea of what sort of tools they use around here.

Alright, time to see the doctor. Thank Kado for his generosity and hospitality, and that you'll come help him with his work after meeting with the doc, unless there's something more urgent to be done elsewhere.

In addition to checking the analyzer results, tell the doc to not send any salvage crew to your ship without you. You know it better than anyone, so it'd be best if you were there for that work.

We don't know how long we're gonna be stranded for, ask Jurek when he think he's going hunting.
Familiarising ourselves with the wildlife Is a good Idea If we're gonna be here for a while.
Figure out when he's going hunting, If It Isn't straight away see If you can get an odd job from the doctor to pass the time until then (asking about the scanner whilst there).

Kado 2013/04/14(Sun)17:11 No. 505766 ID: c344a7
File 136598469469.png - (68.02KB , 500x500 , 1_48.png )

I ask Jurek what time he's going out hunting. He says he isn't sure, he's busy for most of the morning so it'll be no earlier than midday. He'll probably be at the workshops if I want to find him before then.

"Thanks for the breakfast Jurek, and the whole bed thing, and uh, giving me a place to stay and rescuing me and all of that stuff. Crash landing coulda been a less positive experience y'know?"
He becomes bashful.
>"Aah its nothing - don't worry about it! Anyway, see-ya later today!

I make the quick journey to the doctor's.

>"Ah Kado, I trust you are adapting to our lifestyle well? Or at least as well as can be expected? Now, about this 'monster'..."

He's already heard the brief version from Zenith, but he wants to hear about my encounter in the engine room in more detail. I recount it as it happened.

>"Interesting..." He pauses for a moment "When you were drifting did you enter the engine room at any point?"
"Yeah, a bunch of times. The damage hadn't punched a hole through the room and I liked making sure my rotary thrusters and stuff were still working."
>"Then it likely boarded after the crash. Unless teleportation has made major breakthroughs in the time we've been here? No? Ah well. Anyway, you probably want to look at the scanner data, yes?"

I do. Some of the black box data isn't interpretable by the doctor or the scanner, but between his and my knowledge we get a good picture of the state of the ship. A single shot from some kind of ballistic weapon punched through the underside of my ship, disabling my main engine and main power generator, before stopping directly underneath the bridge. The shot then disappeared, presumably exploding in some way, taking out my weapons and causing some damage to my shield generator. After crashing only the generator in charge of the computer systems was left running, the shield generator, power generator and main engines are unsalvagable, or close to it. The main backup generator, computer stuff and the rotary thrusters should be salvageable. It looks like short range communications are up, but the signal booster for long range is destroyed.

The shot is very strange. Bypassing shields at full strength should be pretty much impossible and, given the damage it dealt, the shot could've very easily killed me. It looks like they were deliberately trying to disable the ship without harming anyone inside.

The doctor mentions that, with my permission, he'd like to send people to salvage as much as they can from the ship. He wants Sabara to be there, so it'll either be late tonight or tomorrow. I'm okay with this, but want to be there when it's happening.

"Oh, before any of that happens, do you have a working keyboard? Or any other kind of input device I guess."
>"I believe we do, there should be at least one packed away somewhere."

Good. The doctor has a few suggestions on how I can help out today. As I've been told, people in the workshops can always use help, a few people are reorganising the storage areas and one or two people in the village are in the progress of building houses.

>>505766
If it's considered to be impossible to bypass shields at full strength, perhaps someone put a timed shaped charge on your ship. Or something like that- a bomb that would, at some future point, launch a projectile precisely into your ship. I think we should at some point dig out the underside of the ship to look at what sort of hole was made by the weapon. That'll give us a better idea of what hit you, and how.

Hrm. Why don't we help make houses? I'm interested in finding out what they use for materials.

well you're use to fixing up ships so a house shouldn't really be a problem for you now should it? and who knows maybe you'll end up building your own house in the process encase you stay here is a little longer then you would like.

as for your ship being destroyed even with full shields and with minimal harm to the crew it sounds more like so kind of pirate attack to me, one were they steal all the cargo on the ship and kidnap the crew for ransom. but if that was the case then they should have hit you as soon as your ship was out of commission so that just adds to the mystery. either way I believe we will get some answers or at least some clues after we go back and salvage what we can from the ship.

I'd say go help with the house construction. It'll give you a chance to talk to and get to know more of the villagers. It'll also get you closer to having your own place here, though probably not until much later since the houses being built are certainly assigned already. Oh, and you having scales instead of fur might mean you can stand up to the heat of the day a little better while working than the Karits, but I'm just guessing at that since I don't know Sil-kath physiology.

Just out of curiosity, ask the doctor (who you really should get the name of before it gets embarrassing) if he's totally sure it was pirates that attacked the freighter all those years ago. Then ask if they've used that crash analyzer on the wreck of the freighter. If it's "not sure" on the first, and "no" to the second, then add getting that ship analyzed to the list of possible endeavors. I have a hunch that it might have been downed by as mysterious means as your ship was.

I suppose it's too much to hope that the long-range signal booster on the crashed freighter survived intact or in a repairable state, and the only reason the villagers didn't use it was 'cause the rest of the communication equipment was destroyed. May as well ask about that too.

Looking at what happened to your ship, I'm wondering more at the "why," then the "how." Why would somebody go through all the trouble to damage your ship in such a way as to not kill or harm you, and at the right point in it's flight path so that it drifts past this planet? I mean no disrespect, but you're just some freelance pilot, not anybody who'd warrant such a thing. You haven't engaged in any shady dealings, or took a job that was suspect, right? Not done anything that'd get anyone who could possibly have the resources to do this?

Leaving that aside, the only thing I can think of is it was a case of mistaken identity on the part of whoever hit your ship. They meant it for some other Sil-kath piloting a CTX-5 on the same flight path as yours, and somehow got the wrong ship, either by mistake or their real target doing something to get them to hit you instead. ...Or maybe they got the right CTX-5, but the wrong pilot. I assume you bought your ship above board, right? Legit transfer of title and all that jazz, correct? Not flying under another person's name or something?

Did you tell the doctor about the message? Do you think you should?

manual labor is boring. try the workshops.

>>505766
You know, I think Jurek might have a crush on you. How do you feel about that?

So a projectile impacted your ship. Any idea what it was made of? Because it's possible that the monster was on it when it hit.

It's also possible that the shooter wanted you to crash on this planet. They could be stranding people here deliberately, for whatever reason. Does the previous ship crash fit with that theory?

>>506067
I'm all for going for the workshops.
Manual labor might be the better time waster until hunting later on however If you're going to be here for a while best get yourself familiarised with the locals better and running errands for the workshops will probably give you more opportunity to socialise and gain favour with your camp-mates.
Also Jurek Is crushin' yup.

>>506267
Yeah, thinking on it, I'm changing my suggestion from >>505829 to work on the houses to heading to the workshops and help out there. Get to know the folks there and helping Jurek out would be alright, and you'll get to see what tools and materials you'll have to work with if you need to do any crafting later. It's also out of the sun, which is a plus unless that's something that doesn't bother you.

1/2 Kado 2013/04/25(Thu)04:34 No. 507645 ID: 0a8129
File 136688966405.png - (45.67KB , 500x500 , 1_49.png )

>Charge hidden on underside of ship, monster on it.
I guess that's a possibility, though why would it fire a projectile instead of just exploding? If I didn't notice it it couldn't have been big enough to hold that monster. But the monster may not have been that big to begin with... Either way, the bottom of the ship is pretty thoroughly mashed up so I doubt we'll be able to confirm it one way or another.

And yeah my ship is 100% legit. Bought it from a respectable dealer under my own name, got insurance for it and everything.

I ask if the doctor (his name still hasn't come up in conversation!) is sure pirates attacked their freighter. He was there to see them board, do more damage than intended and retreat. He's reasonably sure he didn't imagine that..

Oh yeah, the message. I tell the doctor about it. Turns out Zenith already told him, he finds the message a bit worrying but is more interested about the ships potential for communication.

>jurek crushing
I, uh... you guys seriously think he's got a thing for me?
I mean, I guess with the way he's been acting - yeah... s'pose I can see that... hmm.
Okay there are a decent amount of things I need to think about but that's all gonna have to wait until I'm nice and settled in. Or until I get off the planet. Or until forever.

The sun doesn't bug me much, at least not as much as it would those with fur or bare skin. That being said, the general consensus seems to be the workshops, so I'll head out there. I'm told to go to the tools workshop and talk to a woman named Kara.

Kado 2013/04/25(Thu)04:35 No. 507646 ID: 0a8129
File 136688971630.png - (99.04KB , 500x500 , 1_50.png )

I walk on over, the tools workshop is one of the closest to the village.

Female Karit working on something (some kind of wooden tool with electronic parts?) like a pickaxe
A Karit I assume to be Kara is sitting at a table working on some kind of drill. She hasn't seemed to notice me.

"Uh hi. I've been told I can help out around here?"

She looks up and smiles at me.

>"You're Kado yes? Jurek told me you might come here. If you want to help out I have some simple things to get done. I need someone to get supplies from the storerooms and organise the mess I have here. I might also need an extra pair of hands when I do the electronics on this. Other than that...
She leans back, thinking for a moment.
>"I suppose the blacksmith could always use some help."

Sounds pretty easy. I still haven't gotten around to giving Zenith the encyclopedia so I can give you guys a history lesson while I work. I know there's a "History of the empire" lesson on it, so I'll show you that. If there's anything else you wanna know I can show you stuff on that too.

yes please.

I'm sure it is covered in history of the empire but who was the first race to achive space travel and how did all the know first contact with other races go.

Visit the Blacksmith after this.
We can ask him If he has any suitable weapons for hunting on this planet If your Pistol won't suffice (I forget what weapon you have, hybrid pistol or something).
Although I'm sure Jurek would supply you with a weapon beforehand anyway.
Also give us some History.

he's got plenty of light firearms- enough to donate the ones with least ammo to the community.

do the manual work here first. then you'll show us.

>>507720
Then we should probable ask the Blacksmith once we're there if he's up for any fire-arm charity.

>>507720
Kado has two firearms that apparently share the same ammunition type. I'm guessing with the 18 rounds he posesses he could fully load both, and nothing more.

Kado 2013/04/26(Fri)05:31 No. 507830 ID: 0a8129
File 136697950989.png - (64.89KB , 500x500 , 1_51.png )

ERRORS: Second paragraph, first line of the last update shouldn't be there. Also at some point(s?) I've called the empire the union, that's a mistake!

>firearms
Yeah the ammo is shared between the revolver and hybrid pistol. I'll use them if it's asked of me but I'd prefer to hold on to them. The stun gun might be free to use, It looks like people have some kind of source for batteries.

I grab the stuff needed from the storerooms and lug it all back to the workshop. I'll put this on while I sort it all out. Oh, and you'll probably want to know - the year's 812AC.

|| A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GALACTIC EMPIRE || There are two points in history that the 'Galactic age' is argued to have begun. One being the first known extraterrestrial contact occurring between sentient species. This occurred between the Riekling and the Daro. Their homeworlds a solar system and contact was made relatively early in the space ages of the two civilisations. Physical contact was made two standard years later and over the next century the two cultures combined and grew, settling much of their system. 113 standard years after this contact the second major point of contact occurred, the first known contact between solar systems. The Riekling and Daro caught transmissions from the Humans, who had been sending long range (for the time) communications into the depths of space. The Riekling and Daro developed the technology to respond and begun communicating with them. Humanity had by this point fully settled their solar system and had begun work on warp drive travel. Collaboration between the two groups allowed warp drive technology to reach its most primitive, usable state in just two years. The first manned warp jump took a ship of Humans to the <system1> system, the Galactic Pact was signed, marking the start of the modern calendar. The length of year between the Daro and human homeworlds is extremely close, the average of the two was adopted as the length of a standard year. In 63AC. the three species officially formed the Galactic Empire. Two decades later the first successful jump to a new solar system was made and wider exploration of the galaxy begun. Contact with the Volo was made in 126AC. Their scientific prowess advanced the technology of the empire even further. Races made contact at an accelerating rate. Eventually the borders of the inhabitable galaxy were hit, slowing down exploration to a crawl. At the present time long distance transport is achieved through the use of warp beacons, a technology that, for undiscovered reasons, does not work correctly in certain regions of the galaxy. These reasons effectively wall off inhabitable space, through paths are still occasionally being found. No new sentient races have been found since 640AC. |-SEE ALSO-| |--------------------------| | GALACTIC MAP | |--------------------------| | STUDY OF TECH PROGRESS | |--------------------------| | CURRENT EXPLORATION | |--------------------------|

As it turns out Kara didn't need me to help her with electronics, she does mention that she may want me for some more technical work with engines at some point in the future.

So blacksmith now then? There anything else you want to know the guide didn't cover? It's not the most well written bit of history but it gets the basics down.

uh. is the Daro system actually called <system1> or was that a typo?

study of tech progress sounds like an interesting read.

and yes, do go to the blacksmith if your chores here are done.

would say the map just so we have an idea of where we are and where we should go but without a working ship that seems a little pointless, so lets go tech.

Map is nice

Kado 2013/05/01(Wed)08:03 No. 508348 ID: a2e728
File 136742058443.png - (147.25KB , 618x500 , 1_52.png )

>'<system1>'
Yeah that shouldn't be there. A glitch with the article I guess. The Riekling/Daro galaxy is called Daikarra, Dakaro or something like that.

Space can be hard to represent on a map, but this political map works well as an overview. The gold is empire controlled space, the red is known pirate space and the other colours are factions that aren't technically part of the empire, but are allied. Laws are identical and citizenship is already a system based thing, so to the average person they may as well be in the empire.

2/3 Kado 2013/05/01(Wed)08:06 No. 508351 ID: a2e728
File 136742077802.png - (62.91KB , 500x500 , 1_53.png )

Here's a more local map. This shows the jump links between systems rather than physical location.
The dotted lines are warp beacon jumps, while the solid ones are local jumps.
Blue systems are populated, red are known to be pirate or otherwise unsafe. I came from Mildra and was trying to take a route to Tuth with minimal beacon jumps, this planet's in K-113214.

3/3 Kado 2013/05/01(Wed)08:07 No. 508352 ID: a2e728
File 136742083001.png - (52.80KB , 500x500 , 1_54.png )

The blacksmith is Turka, one of the people I met at dinner last night.
>"Hey man, you here to help out? I've just finished up for the day."
"Oh, I'll go to someone else then."
>"Nah man you should stay here, you're goin' out hunting later right?"
"Uh, yeah probably."
>"Yeah cool, I can set aside a weapon for you then."
"Well, I don't have much ammo for them, but I've got guns."

Turka seems looks surprised.

>"Oh! Nice! It'd kinda be overkill for huntin' though. I'll get you a melee weapon, we've got a bunch of spears and pikes, a few swords, some clubs. What 'ya think you wanna try out? I'll give you a hunting knife with that as well. Also, would uh, I be able to have those guns for a bit? I won't break them or anything and I'll give them back, but I just wanna see what I can see."

how's your upper body strength? spear if it's low, club if it's high, sword if it's somewhere inbetween.

Pikes are nice for taking on larger baddies than yourself. Nice and defensive.

what about some kind of say... pike but the handle can be taken apart so it can be wielded like a sword just with a slightly longer handle then normal?

go pike, long reach and can be used for more then just stabbing things, and if something does get close to you where the pike isn't useful anymore then you could just pull out the knife.

Also with the guns, you have 2 on you right, the hybrid gun and the normal one? Give him the one that you have the least amount of ammo for right now and when he's done with that one then just switch for the other and then grab that one when he's done with it. we may have just found the guy who can give us more bullets.

>article glitch
I may be overly paranoid, but it's possible that this might not be a glitch. Someone could have hacked the computer to block certain information, and it reverted to the default to fill in the gaps. Do you think anyone had a chance to do that?

>choice of weaponry
I think a spear would be best. Good for defense, good for long range. It'll let you keep some distance from big creatures and more easily reach small ones.

>examining our guns
Does he/she (?) have experience with guns? If so, then it's probably safe to hand over one of ours to inspect. Otherwise, I'd rather not risk it.

He seems a little excitable, ask him If he's ever handled a firearm before handing It over.
Just because he's selling/minding/making the weapons doesn't mean he knows how to handle them.

Go for the spear/pike & knife combo, you should be comfortable at both ranges then.

>>508352
You're bigger than most of these folk. Get a big weapon to make use of that.

Kado 2013/05/03(Fri)23:31 No. 508627 ID: a2e728
File 136764907166.png - (83.40KB , 500x500 , 1_55.png )

>Experience with guns.
>"Yeah a bit, its been a pretty long time though. We used to have a few guns but they were pretty bad quality - they had energy components that eventually failed and ruined the the rest of the gun."

I think I'll give him the revolver, the hybrid pistol's inner workings are difficult to get to but the revolver is pretty dang straightforward.

I decide on trying out the pike, Turka heads off to get one for me while I get the revolver back from Jurek's place. I'm given a few brief lessons on how to use it before getting called off to some other odd jobs for Kara.

At roughly midday I bump into Jurek.

>"Hey Kado, I'm heading back to get ready for hunting! If you sti-"

He is cut off by the sound of an explosion somewhere to the south east.

well what are you waiting for, you got your pike and still have the hybrid pistol encase things are really bad, go and make sure no one is hurt over there.

>>508627
Let's go see what exploded.

run.

>>508643
Yes. Towards the explosion!

If we're lucky this might result In some eventual walking-away-ignoring-explosion type deals.
We're gonna make you a badass freelance space pirate like that title oh so deserves.

Kado 2013/05/06(Mon)00:45 No. 508947 ID: a2e728
File 136782629984.png - (105.58KB , 500x500 , 1_56.png )

I run in the direction of the blast, Jurek not far behind. It sounds like it came from beyond the old storage area, but from the distance I can't see anything along the lines of smoke.

We get to the storage area, the ground takes a slight downwards incline after it. Jurek and I are the only ones here so far. There's a crater about 200 metres away, something metallic is in it. I can just sense something moving down there.

Sense?

...you don't happen to have a pit organ, do you?

Another crashed ship. Approach and call out for survivors.

uh. be careful. Jurek got lucky with the attitude of survivors the first time around, doesn't mean it's gonna be the same now. I mean, spess pirates and shit, remember?

Did we bring the hybrid pistol or did we just bring the Blacksmith the revolver and leave the other at the hut?
If not draw your pistol before going down there, this could be your spess pilot nemesis (which you obviously have) being introduced.

Oh and see If there's a logo or something you recognize on any of the debris!
(if it is a ship)

another ship? how often do this things crash here? Well you might as well go down there and make sure whoever is down there is ok, just keep your weapons at the ready incase this turns into a fight for whatever reason.

>>508949
Bio-electric receptors in his schnozz?

That would be something.

Better be cautious in your approach. With the way things have been going for you, who knows what's in there? No way to tell if it's friendly, or will come out shooting.

If Jurek has a weapon on him, tell him to follow you, and to get low and take cover if there's shooting. Otherwise tell him to run back to the village and tell the villagers coming to investigate what he saw, then get armed and come back.

Move in a rough inward spiral around the crash site, moving between any cover there is. Look for any markings on the wreck to indicate where it came from, and at its size and shape to guess what it was. Is it a ship, part of a ship, a drop pod, or something else?

Once you're within shouting distance, get behind whatever cover there is and shout out to ask who's moving in there. The cover is in case the reply is in the form of bullets.

Kado 2013/05/09(Thu)07:01 No. 509468 ID: a2e728
File 136810810432.gif - (37.77KB , 500x500 , 1_57.gif )

Nah I don't have pit organs or any stuff like that - I meant more along the lines that I think I can see movement, but I can't really be certain. I've only got the 'normal' 6 senses going on in here.

I've got the hybrid pistol on me, it should have a battery in it already. I grabbed 6 or so bullets for it too, plus an empty magazine - but the bullets need to be loaded into it, which takes time. I also don't know what kind of condition the battery is in, think it should be fine.

"Jurek, do you have a weapon?"
>"Only my hunting knife."

Nobody else seems to be approaching from the village.

"Huh. How about you go back, get other people and grab a weapon with better reach. I'll try getting in a bit closer."
>"Uh, okay, I'll be quick!"

He starts jogging back. I can spot some bits of rock cover off to the right. Moving from rock to rock gets me about a third of the way there. I call out, there's no response. I honestly can't identify what kind of ship this thing is, if it's even a ship at all - it's a bit small for one.

It looks like a plate of scrap is moving - like there's something underneath it.

Somebody might be trapped under the rubble and slowly suffocating to death! Rush down there and help them!

6? I thought the normal was considered to be 5. which 6 are you tlking about?

move toward it slowly with your pike at the ready. Call out and see if anyone responds to you then move the plate with the pike and get ready for something to jump at you or to see an injured person, either or really.

>>509468
Whatever's moving that is not going to have a lot of trouble lifting it off themselves. It's wiggling quite a lot... Wait just a moment before approaching. Try to stay behind cover.

>I honestly can't identify what kind of ship this thing is, if it's even a ship at all - it's a bit small for one.
A scape pod or a cargo container perhaps?
Try calling out one more time.

Since this thing doesn't look like a proper ship, escape pod, or anything like that, you really don't want to get near whatever could survive the reentry and impact from space riding inside something not meant for that.

Hang back, watch the panel, and load your hybrid pistol, just in case.

If the panel stops moving, or slows down, before Jurek comes back with the villagers, then you approach. Come at the wreck from the side, and get up on top. If whatever is in there is hostile, then you'll have a better position to attack from above it. Use the pointed end of your pike to lever the panel open.

Kado 2013/05/11(Sat)23:17 No. 509982 ID: a2e728
File 136833946814.png - (189.32KB , 500x500 , 1_58.png )

>6 senses instead of 5
Yeah, there's 6 senses right? Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell... uh... and the other one...
Look okay uh, we should be focusing on the task at hand!

Calling out still doesn't seem to get a reaction. I put down my spear and start loading the pistol, keeping my eyes on the plate.

It stops moving for a moment.

There's a sudden explosion, the plate is sent flying.

Kado 2013/05/11(Sat)23:18 No. 509983 ID: a2e728
File 136833950509.png - (140.01KB , 500x500 , 1_59.png )

A figure, a robot of some kind, rises up from the wreckage.

It looks my way and points it's arm at me.

At this point the only thing I have in my hands is a magazine loaded with three bullets.

Taste and smell are the same sense, pretty much. Taste is a combination of smell and a teeny bit of touch.

>>509983
Stay behind cover, and ask them to not shoot at you. If it starts shooting at you, yell at them to stop shooting already we're not here to hurt them. If that doesn't fix things, then we should probably fire back with the hybrid pistol. I'm quite glad we brought our best weapon to this fight.

Do you know anything about robots? Where would we shoot it to disable it with the fewest shots?

>>509983
It might not be a robot. It looks kind of like a person in a suit of armor.

I see an antenna. Maybe it's sending out a signal of some kind. Can you detect it? We might be able to communicate with it that way.

how good of a shot are you because right now I think you should get behind some cover incase this thing isn't as friendly as we would like it to be. If it does start shooting think you could knock out it's antenna? If not then just try and shoot it's big arm canon thing and hope you can disable it so at least it can't shoot you. just don't shoot first because if we can avoid a fight with a robot thing that survived a fall that smashed whatever it was riding in without getting to much damage itself I think that would prolong your life expectancy quit a bit but if it shoots at you first then you're going to want to take it down quick.

It's a hostile pointing a gun at you. That arm is a weapon. GTFO.

holster the gun & raise your hands, it might be percieving you as a threat because you have the gun out, however keep ready to run/dive for cover

dodge and look for cover