0008: NEW ARRIVAL BRIEFING

[crux_npcs]

Who: New Arrivals, Graham Baker
Where: Briefing Room
When: Late afternoon, Aprilo 29th
Warnings: None

When awakening, the immediate surroundings are swarming with activity and very chaotic. The people in the medical ward are polite and understanding, but firmly refuse to answer questions until the briefing. Especially not after some group of kooks earlier decided that they'd throw a tantrum and bug out of the hospital before anything can get said. Either given hospital outfits resembling very comfortable pajamas, drone bodies, or their own bodies, they are escorted by polite, unyielding people in red and black uniforms to the briefing room. Fortunately for the robots, things are much more organized.

The Briefing room is large. Not enough to accommodate a giant, but spacious enough for several dozen people. The tiles are black and featureless while the walls are nice, soothing colors. The chairs are high-backed and well-cushioned, more like comforting eggs floating a foot or so off the ground than anything else. Set into the ceiling and floor near the front is a large holographic projector. The floor in front of each seat also has a smaller projector, allowing people to see what the bigger device is showing without having to angle for a view. As of now, it merely displays a rotating pyramid.

Ten members of Security line the walls and various exits, looking rather displeased to be here. Graham Baker, a balding man in an ill-fitting suit, stands at the head of the room with an easy smile, seemingly unbothered by any previous ruckus.

[Questions to the NPCs will go in the briefing thread. The rest of the post is there for people to mill about and do whatever with. The mods will not be doing hangar/medical awakenings unless it's specifically asked for.]

Comments

THE BRIEFING

[crux_npcs]

Baker holds a single up to ward off any early questions or demands. When he speaks, it's in a language that isn't English, Japanese, or anything recognizable, but it still makes perfect sense. Much like the alien writing all over the place that shouldn't make sense, but does. "Please, hold your questions until we're done. I'm going to go through this once, but I'll go over something after that if you need me to. I ask that you pay attention to what everyone else is asking to keep us from hearing a lot of repeats. I'm sure you all want to know what's going on, so we'll just get down to business." He gives a corner a room a pointed look. "You'll want to stay still for this. Anyway." He clears his throat and fiddles with some of the holocontrols, causing the images to shift and reflect what he's covering at that time.

"We, being myself and our Security personnel, represent the Confederacy of Inhabited Systems. We are the 43rd Scutum-Crux Fleet, consisting of a science vessel, two agricultural ships, and seven battleships. Our mission was to explore and found a new colony. This vessel is the Teuberg, a colony ready city-ship that is home to some five hundred thousand beings. And, through some bad luck, you and many others." He bows his head apologetically. "Be patient, there's a point to this. Over one hundred years ago, we ran into a sixth-dimensional being who felt it would be amusing if it helped us 'explore' on the opposite side of the galaxy, dropping us into territory claimed by the Wadjit Empire. The Wadjit thought of us as thieves and declared war soon after. Right now, we're still officially at war with the Empire." The holo displays show their current position in the galaxy, with a large red splotch covering several thousand light years surrounding them. It's clearly labelled as the claimed territory of the Wadjit, and it's clear that they aren't getting out any time soon.

"Months ago, we tried an experimental new method for faster than light travel by means of folding space. It involved manipulation of multiple dimensions and an artificial gravity well, which, as you can probably guess, was rather risky." Graham pulls a small orb out of his pocket and aims it at the main display. Equations and proofs rotate slowly through it, intensely complex. "The experiment failed. Five hundred of our people died and you were dragged here from your relative universes and time periods. For which, we cannot apologize enough. Some of our greatest minds are working on a way to restore you to your rightful homes."

He paces a bit, just to get moving. "However, we don't have enough resources to support everyone if they aren't working. Fleet Admiral Bulsara has, therefore, ordered that all 'New Arrivals' have two months, which is sixty days, to adjust and find either employment, training, or registration for school. In return, you will be granted citizenship into the Confederacy until you can go home." Here, he pauses and adjusts his tie, frowning ever so slightly. "If you don't do so, he has ordered anyone who has not started work or training by the deadline to be, ah. Left on the nearest neutral space station or habitable planet. But I hope it won't come to that."

He coughs nervously and adjusts his tie. "We will supply you with temporary housing, fabricators to make food and clothing, a comm device, some money to get you started, while any training you need to perform in your chosen field will be provided for free. Again, you can find work in the civilian sector, join our civilian-run militia, enlist in the military, or go to school. If you were military in your own world, we will give you special 'guest' status, allowing you to keep your rank. However, you'll still need some training to familiarize yourselves with our tactics and weapons."

"Whatever your choice, you'll be able to register at the Renaissance Center. When you choose your communications device, it will have a map of the city, as well as instructions on how to get anywhere you want to go, and some information on public transportation. For paperwork's sake, the legal age for adulthood is your racial equivalent for sixteen years old. Until then, education is mandatory, whether it's in school or part of an apprenticeship somewhere. You'll have the option to test out of basic courses if you like, of course. No need to make you go over what you already know."

He smooths his jacket and clears his throat. "When you leave this room, your personal possessions can be signed for at the left. Any weapons will require a registration for a permit. You can find comm devices of several makes and models a little further down. These devices contact anyone on the Fleet, providing you have their communications code, supply you with maps and information, access our infonet and other information networks broadcast, and other functions that will be explained in a brief tutorial when you first activate and register your devices. They have a range of several hundred miles and can be in nearly any design you like." He pulls out an orb with several glowing lights. "I prefer the spherical models, but it's your choice. They have cubes, flip-tops, ones set on bracelets or bracers, small tablets... It all comes down to your personal likes."

He pockets the device and folds his hands behind his back again. "In addition, we've already had several people wake up. We've included them on your commlinks, so you can skim through that to see if any of your friends or family were brought over with you."

He clasps the lapels of his jacket and beams. "Now! Any questions?"

[fierybluebird]

At first, Marco was determined to tell the authorities to bugger off. Between the war of Marineford and four years of the political bullshit between Balamb and Galbadia, Marco's temper towards established authority figures hadn't softened much. Still, he promised Grell and Espio he'd listen, so fine, it couldn't hurt. And if he didn't like it, he'd walk out. No problem. But the minute they started talking about folding space and artificial gravity, it all clicked. He'd been toying with time in order to fold the space, but he hadn't been able to counter the pull of gravity from other dimensions. He'd need to use someone with control over gravity, of space. And that.... was not going to happen easily. Especially since even if Blackbeard wound up here, Marco would murder him in a second. He heaved a sigh of relief, his hand going to his forehead.

Wherever Thatch and Ace were, it wasn't dead. Suspended in time maybe, or moving slower, but likely due to the pull. It'd been risky from the start. He told Thatch that, but... Well, it was his brothers. He'd do anything for them, and he'd do it again.

Marco rubbed his temples trying to figure out more about the deaths - probably a part of the anti-gravity and jump -- and more importantly the military and scientists aspects.

Which is roughly when the part about how they were on a freaking spaceship the size of a port, in fucking space sunk in. Espio had said it before, and for all Marco refused to concede he was panicking, he'd definitely been distracted by thoughts of time, death, dimensions, and way too much of the rest.

Space.

They were on a ship.

They were on a flying ship.

In space.

Fuck.

Marco raised a hand. "Can you please tell use more about the military and how it's organized, the Wadjit who think we're pirates," maybe they didn't consider them pirates but hopefully they did, he could work a lot better with that, "And what kind of previous work experience applies for ranks?"

The scientific studies of dimensions he could help with, especially when it came to time, but right then, he had no intentions of going home until he found a way to secure his brothers first and foremost.

[fionna_time]

This stuff was definitely flying over her head, and keeping up only gave her a headache. Than goodness Marco was here.

"Yeah, and tell us about the Scrotom fleet too. Some of us don't know lots about all these ships. Well, these kinda ships anyway."

[crux_npcs]

Graham laughs a bit. "I'm sorry. It's just that the question of military organization gets brought up often, and I'm never quite sure how to answer." It would help if he bothered to look up other militaries. "There's just a lot to cover there, you understand? We've got enlisted and officers, of course. Job-wise, they're split into seven career tracks: Command, Security, Piloting, Science, Medical, Communications, and Engineering." He hoped that each track was fairly self-explanatory.

"As for your work experience... Well, we generally take your word for it. You've still got to go through training, of course, though it's more accelerated than someone starting from scratch." He leans in conspiratorially. "Of course, if you're lying, it usually comes out in mid-training. But so far we haven't gotten many willing to take that risk." Honestly, they hadn't gotten any. But sometimes a little white lie was best.

"...As for the Wadjit, well. They don't really think we're pirates, but we might as well be." Graham shrugs. "Again, they're a very complicated subject. What, exactly, do you want to know?"

[gunholic]

Axl was more than ready to spend the entire fragging briefing curled up in the stupid egg pod and sulk. It was bad enough he had to wake up without a body-- and really whoever thought that was a marvelous idea did not have any idea how close they'd come to him shooting them in the face afterward-- but whoever had managed to sim his programming outside his body had also confiscated his armor call. Paperwork bullshit for things that weren't his fault?

So tempted to shoot people in the face. And he couldn't even chalk that one up to Lumine's data.

The word "citizenship" did get his attention, though. 'roids in the Earth Federation didn't get full citizen status, hence Mavericks usually getting retired without trial, but if here was different it might almost even things back up.

"You guys have any paramilitary or armed NGOs here?" Axl finally asked, waving a little. He didn't much like the idea of joining a formal military (too Earth Federation, and he was still a bit bitter about getting almost bombed into oblivious kthx), but the Hunters weren't really militia either... and he was willing to bet that if this "Admiral Bulsara" could tell the civilian sector what to do about all of them, there was probably a pretty incestuous relationship going on between the militia and the military proper.

[crux_npcs]

"NGOs?" He frowns for a moment. "Non-Government Operatives, maybe? Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean." He shrugs apologetically. "If you're not looking for the military, there's the militia. Civilian run and operated, they generally deploy when the military tells them, but they operate on their own other than that. It's a popular choice for you new arrivals."

He leans in a bit, dropping his voice. "A large chunk of the reason is that, in the end, it looks like it pays more. Since you get bounties for capturing ships and the like, while the military doesn't. In the long run, though, it doesn't." He straightens and rocks on his heels. "There was a group of mercenaries a while back, but I haven't heard anything about them recently. They may have shut down."

[redcinemareel]

Everything Baker was saying sounded exactly like what Marco had said. Fates, was Marco actually right?! It seems that messing with time and space in space sounds dangerous, and ridiculous. Yet it was all very real. She wonders how much more Marco will get involved with figuring things out when it comes to space time control. It was now sounding similar to the battle to control and abuse time.

Marco had already asked the more important questions of rank. She was curious about training, since all of the technology surrounding them was so far out from Balamb Garden's standard that she wanted to learn as much as she possibly could. The room alone deserved a walk around when this was all done. She definitely wanted one of these chairs.

Grell raised her hand, still wearing her hospital gown, and had stepped up her wardrobe with a blanket.

"What are the most popular foods here?" It had better not include hot dogs, or so help them all.

[chaoscontroller]

Waking up in that place had been quite the déjà vu experience. The stasis tubes, the beds, the white coats, everything had been awfully familiar, something perhaps to be thankful for. While Shadow was still confused, distrustful and wary of everything and everyone in there, he allowed them to explain, he even allowed them to give him instructions and as such he followed the group to the very expected briefing. He wanted to know what was going on, besides, even if accidentally, they had saved him from certain death, unleashing hell on them would probably be... unwise.

When he entered the room he was even wearing that silly looking hospital outfit (in his size and everything... how thoughtful), because apparently someone thought fur wasn't enough coverage for him. He was missing his usual attire, in need for his actual hover shoes, gloves and more importantly, his inhibitor rings. No wonder why he felt slightly lightheaded, he was using all his strength to keep his own power inside. This briefing thing would hopefully be fast, he needed his stuff back or they would have to deal with something bigger than the fuzz that he heard had happened in the medical ward.

He sat on one of those funny looking chairs —surely the good old Doctor Eggman would love the design...—, crossed his arms upon his chest and he listened. He couldn't hold a bitter sneer that went together with very clear mocking sound at how their experiment failed. Attempting to control time and space like little kids, amateurs... Hah... Somehow he could bet (if he had anything) that such brilliant idea had been engineered by humans.

There was so much information. Or perhaps not enough. Shadow had never been given the chance to choose what he wanted to do, not in this way, not after everything... He certainly had to do something just... what?

Everything, of course.

The hedgehog doesn't raise a hand, but does raise his voice over the crowd.

"Excuse me if I find hilarious that your first suggestion for a job is for everybody to fight your war instead of helping fixing the main problem."

Okay, it wasn't the first thing Baker had suggested, but it wasn't the point. And whether if Shadow found it funny or not, he was deadly serious. He was sure he could give their scientist a lesson or two about how time and space worked.

Milling Around Later, OTA

[gunholic]

All right maybe Axl'd underestimated the size of the ship. It wasn't like the back corridors he'd been marched through were suggestive of anything.

Either way, he settled not too far from the briefing building, running a diagnostic-- probably warranted to see if they'd installed anything besides that language module-- and reading over the plastic sheet with the specs for the communications module he'd picked. He was gonna have to see if he could find someone to rip the guts out and install them proper, but for the moment the thought of any more techs screwing with him was just ew.

Well, that and trying very hard not to stare. Axl had never seen so many humans in his life, let alone aliens. And it was weird that they all acted kinda normal...

All right, being real? Axl was totally staring. Probably rudely. He tried to at least wave if he made eye contact.

Re: Milling Around Later, OTA

[fionna_time]

Ok, friendly faces, friendly faces. Fionna had a lot to stomach, and speaking of that, her own was plummeting at the thought of starting somewhere new, AGAIN, after making her home in Balamb one year from being taken from her home. that would have been tolerable if at least Namur was here, but he wasn't and no everything was all science talk and robojunk. Fionna felt very much out of the loop.

So the wave was met with Axl seeing the approaching human girl who looked nothing like your average one. She was about 5'5", blue shirt, rabbit hat with a pudgy build, knee high socks and slightly buck teeth.

"Hey! New here too?"

[smallest]

Francœur was just going about his business, doing whatever it was giant monsters did on a spaceship when he had that eerie sensation of being watched. From the back, he may have seemed like a normal, if extremely tall, human in a white suit. However, when he turned around, large, red eyes fixated on whoever was staring at him. His mandibles twitched under his jaw. Why was he looking at him?

Oh, he was waving. Francœur waved back with one gloved hand. His head canted as he watched him. Why was this stranger waving at him? He waited to see if perhaps he would ask a question or introduce himself.

[tinywife]

Pinoko had gotten off of work and was going on a walk. There had been talk of more new arrivals waking up. Pinoko wondered, yet again, how many people had been affected by this dumb accident. She was beginning to think that she might need to try to have a talk with Science Captain McEngineer or something. This was getting kind of ridiculous.

And then she saw a young guy waving and staring at everything. He looked like he was wearing some kind of armor. And Pinoko, with her habit of looking for friends in all the wrong places, decided to go over and say hi.

"Hello! Are you new around here too?"

Pinoko might have been here for a few months... but that didn't make things any less weird, truth be told. Nor did it make her feel like she was any less "new" around the Fleet.

"My name's Pinoko. What's yours?"

Various places | OTA

[priceofpower]

It was all too much to take in at once. The briefing had done very little to clear up any of Vasja's concerns - the answers she wanted seemed to be entirely unanswerable, and the answers she had gotten had done little to placate. Before too long, she left, slipping out to take a look into the situation herself.

She wasn't scared. But her apprentice was nowhere in sight, and there were no signs of the great, hulking beast of her Dashade. For the moment, even the spirits seemed to have quieted. And the more acutely aware she became of their absence in particular, the worse her wariness and anxiety seemed to become.

She hadn't relished the idea of being forced to register her lightsaber, for any reason. She was Sith. She didn't need permission to carry the one item that was as much a part of her as anything else. But she was also alone, so very far from home with no apparent allies in sight, and at least for right now, she decided it would be the more reasonable choice to keep her building anger in check, keep her head down, and try to play along.

After after finishing up the business in the Renaissance Center after the brief, that was what she had originally intended to do, saber hilt hidden in the folds of her robes, hiding her corrupted features beneath her hood as well as she could while she walked, and tried to follow the map on the strange little comm device she had picked up as she walked around the ship. But it was too easy to become distracted, by the sheer size of the vessel, by aliens she had never seen in such great numbers outside of the Outer Rim systems or the core worlds of the Republic, species even the Rattataki couldn't recognize.

And in her distraction, it was too easy to find herself bumping into other people in a much undignified, un-Sith-like manner, each collision met with a scowl and a sharp look from sharper yellow eyes, and she had to try hard to not reach for the lightsaber at her hip and to hide the way that arcs of electricity jumped between her fingers.

"Watch it."

[redcinemareel]

Grell didn't want to wander off too far, mostly because she didn't want an all out search to be done for her. She had the feeling that her family may want to stick together for a while. In her wanderings, she had found a window, and finally saw that they truly were in space. It was something she only saw either in a movie or through images.

Feeling as if she stared enough, Grell stepped away from the window, noticing that someone was in her path, so she tries to move out the way, but got bumped into anyway.

"Hey! YOU watch it! If you can't even bother to pay attention, then stay still!"

Re: Various places | OTA

[fionna_time]

"You bumped into me!"

Fionna realized her voice sounded small now, almost pathetic compared to...someone that was obviously some kind of bad guy. Gal? Whatever. But if she was here, that meant she was brought here too, so no point in going and making an enemy for no reason.

Even if she did look like the kinda person that would have blown some junk up.

"Anyways, I'm still gettin' the hang of this place. People are gonna bump into each other, you know?"

[gunholic]

Axl was on his way to the center to look at job listings and decide how he wanted to get money. The place didn't, alas, operate on zenny so any random bits of money in his armor's storage was just going to be a curiosity... maybe he'd look into those mercenaries that got mentioned, see if he could strike out on his own if nothing looked good-- if Red was able to run an independent organization, no reason why he couldn't. (Well, ok, maybe a part-time job was going to be a prudent fall-back...)

The downside of the crowd combined with wearing his combat armor meant that it was really easy for people to trip on the stabilizing wings on his back if they weren't paying attention... and it looked like someone had, hard enough to knock him a little off-balance.

"Watch it yourself, lady. Jeeze," Axl said, making a face at the hooded figure who had plowed right into him.

let's change the beat (i hope it's ok)

[chaoscontroller]

Apparently Shadow was not the only one eager to find his way in that shiny new place. Having finally collected his stuff back and gotten one of those fancy devices, Shadow set course to... adventure.

However he wasn't one to walk —more like run at incredibly speed— without looking where he's going, and stopped from time to time to check for directions.

It was during one of those pauses, in he was really absorbed by trying to make the stupid map to work in the way he wanted, that he didn't actually hear the rapid approaching steps coming his way —in fact, even if paying attention he would have had trouble noticing this particular person approaching.

Unfortunately, Shadow is a bit too... small (3'3"), to simply be bumped into. Hopefully tripping over him won't hurt too much...

[fierybluebird]

"My apologies," Marco bowed formally. "I'm terribly accident prone on the ground. Or rather, when not in the air." Artificial gravity... right... he seriously needed to check that out still.

"That's how I met my wife actually. I tripped over her," not that this person would care, but Marco had to make a pretense of being friendly at least. "Again, I can only apologize, yoi. Are you all right?" He made a vague whirling gesture to the room. "Getting sucked up to someplace foreign aside, that is."

[cannibalgourmet]

Hannibal finds it interesting how this place is just thriving with aliens, though being on a spaceship is probably only to be expected. It does seem he bumps into them quite often, and in this case literally. He wonders why this one looks so jarred by it, but he can tell he or she is probably dangerous.

"Good evening, have you just arrived to this space city?"

Fionna gathers her bearings! Probably!

[fionna_time]

Mostly not though. Fionna was still reeling, trying to understand all of what she was being told. She had the device, which was cool and all, but it didn't help that she still really had no idea what to do next. Brass, as usual, just told you boring schematics, about what she would have expected from someone that was official.

Time to find someone who might be able to help her out with more simple stuff.

"So," she said casually, "where do you think are the fun places around here?"

[fierybluebird]

"I want to check out the agriculture area. Where's there grains, there should be hops. And where there are hops, we can make beer," Marco grinned slyly. Yup, he was plotting already.

[espio]

Espio's mind was still reeling from finding Shadow, of all people, here in this strange place. The hedgehog's presence had been entirely unexpected, and despite knowing that not all Shadows were the same as the one who had murdered his friends, Espio had still felt the urge to lunge at him, screaming. Restraining himself had been such a distraction that he hadn't even got around to asking any of his questions.

Still, he learned his lesson from the last time he and Shadow had met, and decided not to confront the hedgehog... at least, not yet. Not until he had his bearings.

For now, Espio was leaning against a wall near a window, checking out the maps on the comm device - looks like it wasn't an overstatement to say this place was huge... every so often, he glanced up as people went past, partly just in case he recognised anyone else, but mostly out of curiosity.

[fierybluebird]

Marco cheerfully went back to his pirate ways of kidnapping Espio, and put him up on his shoulders.

He'd been expecting to have his son around to do this with, but in lieu of that, his son's best friend would just have to do.

"I'm sorry I messed up, eh?" Well, he did and didn't. He couldn't fight the pull of this place, but he hadn't even known he'd needed to. He knew the risks involved and took the chance anyway, but he didn't tell the others again after the one time he told them his plans. Espio hadn't thought he could do it, so Marco hadn't bothered to explain his plans. Still, it wasn't exactly steadying to suddenly get displaced across the universe, or maybe in an alternate dimension.

He wanted to tell Espio that this meant there was a good chance he could track down the rest of the Chaotix now, but he didn't want to get Espio's hopes up if he failed. As it was, they wound up with probably an alternate version of Shadow again instead. It didn't bode well. And it definitely didn't help that Espio was without Toby or Ace now too. Damn. Did he need to talk to the doctors? Espio had been trying to deal with more than just the hypnotism, and now he had this thrown in. Marco wasn't sure it would help.

"So those ships look pretty interesting, eh? And they're even short on pilots." It was a mark of how desperate Marco was that he was talking about the space ships when he generally assumed engines were all the same and ships and cars were just the same mobile containers with too many buttons that needed smashing.

[chaoscontroller]

As soon as Shadow had gotten his belongings back after the briefing, he bolted to get a general picture of where he was now.

Chaos, it felt exhilarating to skate at full speed again through the unfamiliar corridors and soon, through the streets of that place. It was hard to believe he was, yet again, in space. The ship was completely different to what the ARK had been before. He was enjoying it so much that for a moment he even allowed himself to forget about where he was and what he was truly set to do. Not even once he had to look at the map to find his way, after all he wasn't looking for anything in particular, at least not in that moment.

That came later.

He had challenged himself to find the way back where he came from. After all those turns here and there, anyone would probably be lost already, but not Shadow. But he was trying to figure out if he had passed through that particular spot when he felt it. Chaos Energy. Of course, Shadow's immediate reaction was to find the source of it.

And he found it, alright. But it wasn't at all what he was expecting.

When he came to an abrupt halt, Shadow found himself staring yet again at that extravagant colored chameleon —extravagant was an understatement, that incredibly rich fuchsia could leave Amy's soft pink in shame any day—, from a few meters away. At least Shadow was sure he was that same individual, since he couldn't see his face from where he was standing. But there was no doubt, that faint, yet mighty flow of Chaos Energy came from him.

Despite of the rather awkward moment they had shared earlier, Shadow needed to know if he was right, it could be rather useful. He approached then, not exactly in an stealthy manner himself but not making his presence known until he was closer.

"You carry something of invaluable power with you." Shadow spoke once he was only a few steps away from the other. It was definitely not a question.

[gunholic]

"Hey!" Axl squawked, as the crowd rather unceremoniously propelled him into the window. Man, talk about your crazy pedestrians.

"Sorry," he offered to the lizard-guy leaning against the window, just on the off-chance that he might had clipped him on the way into the space glass. It took a moment, but Axl recognized him from the briefing-- there had been some kind of brewing argument going between him and another fuzzy dude.

"Hi. I'm Axl. I'm new here too. What's your name?"