🛠 001 🛠

[xrater]

Who: Alia
What: Doing various things
Where: In various places
When: At various times
Warnings/Notes: None as of yet!

Operation!

"Ah, it's you. Would you mind giving me a hand?"

Well, that was a quick. Then again, a quick look at what she's doing might explain why. Alia's in the bathrooms sitting on the counter, having peeled her jumpsuit down around her waist, and she's holding a mirror up to see the reflection of her back. In her other hand, she's holding a long pair of tweezers. Next to her, on the counter, are four flattened bullets. The reflection of her back shows six silver marks where her pseudo-skin has been torn away by gunfire.

"I'm not hurt, I just startled someone on the top deck," she comments smoothly, to try to cut off any panic. "There's just two left in the middle of my back and they've gone rather deeper than the others. I can't get at them with this angle. Could you get at them for me, please?"

Silence in the Library!

Or, at least there should be. But, no, the silence is repeatedly broken by increasingly hysterical giggles and outright laughter at one point, quickly smothered. The culprit is one blonde Reploid, now smothering her undignified noises with a hand as she skims through the physics, chemistry, and engineering books arrayed around her.

She wonders, silently, if they'd be too offended if she started to make little corrections here and there.

Workshop of Wonders!

Okay, perhaps a slight exaggeration. But Alia's claimed a portion of the robotics and mechanics labs for herself, erecting warning holograms and weak, but stable, force barriers to keep her territory hers. No, Jorgmund hadn't had the tech. No, they hadn't had the tech to make that tech. Which was how she'd earned the right to claim those areas for herself. One, however, that she's left the door open to.

It will probably be a while before Jorgmund's mass production capabilities have caught up with just those two bombshells she's dropped on them, and she's not done. However, she's not going to be blasting them too hard with advancements. Before they've caught up with the early 2000s, she needs more access, more permissions. Ones that they haven't given her yet. Ones she needs to prove she can be trusted with.

And that's why she's ended up crafting some small mechaniloids for Jorgmund. Small robots, not very advanced in her consideration, but to be used for Rig maintenance and as more powerful drones for their pre-mission scouting efforts. One hops about just outside the door, robotic nose wriggling at anyone who comes close. The blonde Reploid has another half-assembled on the desk, missing a power source. Finally, she's got a third sitting on a desk as she sprays some finishing touches on the paint job. Holograms float right around it, listing alternate configurations for this 'met' robot. She also seems to have one coated in foilage in mind, as well as a few other environmental variants.

"Watch where you step," she requests, well aware that she has company. "One of the Jorgmund representatives dropped an Iworm a while ago and I haven't gone looking for it yet. And I'm not in a particular rush to build another."

Comments

Silence in the Library!

[greyerrant]

"Why are you laughing?" A deep voice rumbles, and loken lurches into view, looking over her books.

"Those aren't written by a humorist."

[xrater]

She glances up at Loken. There's not a trace of surprise in her expression at his size, she's used to bigger people than this. And the trace signs of non-human parts definitely explains the unusual beefiness. No, not surprising at all, not like the blonde man she'd seen the other night.

Alia gestures at a passage on the physics book, summarizing an essay on gravimetric effects on space-time. "I'm sorry, it's just. This is such old science. It's almost like I'm reading a text that says fire lives in wood and has to be coaxed out of it!"

[greyerrant]

"Ah. Well, science beyond the strictly practical is outside my purview, for the most part. We left that to our technical adepts, and organic techmarine support. I know how to operate my weapons and support gear. I take it this is mostly..." he gestures to the books, as if making a private joke. "Theoretical?"

[xrater]

Alia arches an eyebrow at the gesture, setting the book down. She knew what page she was on. Folding her hands in front of her, she shakes her head. "Oh, certainly not. Not all of this, anyway." She gestures dismissively. "Of course, by my time, much of it is practical rather than theoretical, but that's progress."

Progress she'd have to teach to Jorgmund.

[greyerrant]

"I wouldn't know. But the technology... aside what brought us here does seem crude. And poorly fit for a war against the things they intend to pit us against." Not that it matters much to a gene-bulked posthuman like him. He could probably win wars with a sharpened piece of wire given proper intelligence about his foe.

[xrater]

"I don't believe they have the technology to bring us here," she comments cooly. Almost dismissively. "Unless there's something I haven't deciphered, much of their progress seems to have been halted in the early 20th century, with a few very specific advances. It's no wonder Doctor Grey has had so little trouble fitting in on their medical staff, this must seem like leeches and humors to her."

Granted, her version of the 1990s had robots, teleporters, and fusion reactors that could fit in a backpack.

[greyerrant]

"Yes, our resident medicae does seem a bit annoyed at the overall level of technological development. But that leads me to another question. If they didn't bring us here, how are they taking advantage of other phenomenons to use us as their slave soldiers, exactly?"

Loken frowns, this is the first time he has said out loud how they are being used, and it is beyond distasteful.

[xrater]

She waves her hand dismissively. "All they have to do is be in the right place at the right time. They rescue us from these... Stuff storms, _{what a ridiculous name}, then install nanomachines to enforce obedience via negative feedback." There's a light shrug from her and she sits back in her seat. "Really, if they did have something to do with us coming here, I'd find it far more likely that they'd spend their time gathering a batch of war machines and fighting robots rather than collecting a mix of combat cyborgs, child soldiers, and civilians."

[greyerrant]

"I would say that depends on their purposes. War machines and fighting robots can only do what they are told, and if they are lacking in skilled soldiers to lead them, they can only fight as well as the person ordering them about."

That said, she did say something interesting which loken will focus in on.

"Combat Cyborgs? I haven't seen any obviously enhanced humans yet, well, aside from one fellow who got an augmetic fitted while he was here, but near as I could tell he was from a feral world to begin with."

[xrater]

"I suspect we may have a difference in the capabilities of the robots we're talking about," she comments idly. "Combat robots capable of reacting to changing environments and tactical shifts while leading armies have been around since the early 21st century in my world."

Alia waves a hand at him. "Well, perhaps none as heavily augmented as you. But there are a few... subtle enhanciles who would do much better at hiding their true natures for someone who didn't have my talents. Not to name names, of course. I'd hate to strip away anyone's privacy."

[greyerrant]

"We once had far more impressive combat robots. But they... proved difficult to handle. It is now a matter of faith and technological edict that we do not produce machines that can think like a human."

Loken nods, "I suspect Dr. Grey is somewhat modified, likely because she did it herself, given her familiarity with augmetic systems and her upgrade of our feral-worlder."