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

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?"

[gunholic]

The rabbit hat was cool. No doubting about that.

"Yeah," Axl said, actually smiling a little. He was a little surprised when yeah, he realized he really was and not just trying to follow the usual social interaction script. Maybe it was the power of the hat.

"So what did you think of all that? Think we're probably in trouble?"

[fionna_time]

Of course it was!

"Um, now that I know we got pulled into some weird war without even bein' asked, and that I might have to go to MORE school? Yeah, kinda boned."

Another war. AGAIN!

[gunholic]

"They like to push school, don't they?" Axl said, making a face. "You'd think as fancy as the tech here is they'd just have learning modules to download instead of sitting in a boring room getting told boring stuff!"

He was maybe a little insulted when school was suggested for him, too.

"The war part seems a little convenient too, yeah. Nothing new, but convenient."

[fionna_time]

Fionna sniffed. "I mean, I GUESS I could join the military, since I'm old enough now, but who knows what kinda rules you have to follow?"

Download? That sounded computer-y. "Yeah, I think I could learn stuff looking on the screen, right?"

[gunholic]

"I don't like the sound of the military... Bad things happen if you put them in charge of everything, and if some admiral is telling the civilians how to handle their new population problem, they probably are," Axl said, making a face. "And yeah, they're full of stupid rules. Hated having to work with them. Rules instead of brains!"

Compter-y to the max, yo.

"Don't see why not. Reading stuff isn't any different from sitting and being told stuff, and then if you're bored you can leave!"

[fionna_time]

Fionna wasn't so sure about that, mostly because she knew far too little about this place. In fact, the more she learned, the better she'd be able to figure if she even wanted to be a part of their military, or just go back to learning.

What she REALLY wanted, though, was a certain familiar face.

"I dunno, sometimes it depends. I mean, some junk is fine on my own, but I also need some stuff explained, on account I didn't go to school back home. I had to take some remedial classes."

[gunholic]

"Like hands-on stuff? Yeah, that's always a problem," Axl said with a sigh. "I guess it's not so bad if the alternative is signing on with people you don't know if you can trust."

Maybe some history was in order.. it couldn't hurt. And X would probably have been ecstatic to know that his harping about learning from the past had managed to get through Axl's head, so he also made a mental note to never talk of it.

[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.

[gunholic]

Francoeur was lucky-- Axl had always been surrounded by animal 'morph reploids, so a giant bug-dude was pretty much par for the course.

His thoughtful look canted into a bit of smile, and he waved back, a little more enthusiastically this time around. "Hi!"

Well, he had to start making friends sometime, right? Misery was more fun with company.

[smallest]

The corner of his mouth pulled up into a partial smile, revealing the tips of his sharp, crooked teeth. While Francœur still did not know what he wanted, he was friendly. Though they were not far from the briefing room, he had not quite concluded that he was newly awakened. He chirped in return, undoubtedly some sort of greeting in exchange.

He walked closer. His steps were slow and careful as to not step on any toes or elbow anyone in the face. He chirped again. This one was different; it held out longer and ended on a high note that seemed to suggest he was questioning Axl, asking why he called him.

[gunholic]

Axl tilted his head a little. Communication wasn't his big strong suit, unfortunately.

"Uh... hello?"

Wait, he already tried that. "I'm Axl? I'm new here."

[smallest]

He opened his mouth and, surprise, he chirped. At least this chirp seemed to be one of understanding.

He played with the ring over his gloved finger, making it chime by lightly striking it as he considered his words. He waved his hand in the air and the ring left behind a trail of smoke. This smoke did not disperse into the air; it kept in place and held its shape. This should help with that communication problem.

He wrote,
My name is Francœur
I've awoken here, too
Do you need help
Looking for what to do?

[gunholic]

Oh hey, a bug-dude who also spoke in rhymes. Pretty cool.

"I guess? I dunno, the briefing or whatever wasn't very helpful."

Hey, getting intel from the people who had been stranded longer was probably as good an idea as any other.

"So.. what do you do? They were awfully insistent on everyone having a job here."

[smallest]

He looked around and he grabbed his guitar. The strap was only large enough to fit around his shoulder and the instrument, while an average sized guitar, looked like a toy in the giant's hands. He played a few notes. His chirps turned into a pleasant hum.

Francœur had a job here as a musician. Apparently, whatever it was giant monsters did on a spaceship was sing and dance. He smiled at Axl, hoping that he understood.

[gunholic]

"Play music? Awesome," Axl said. He wasn't that bad at body language. He kind of had to be decent at it, given his specialties. "They were really going on about the military and the militia.. I was starting to think all the jobs here were stupid and boring!"

[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?"

[gunholic]

Axl blinked as he looked down at Pinoko. She looked different, anyway.

"I'm Axl. Wow.. just how many people did these guys sort-of kidnap?"

It was a valid question, ok?

[tinywife]

"A lot, as far as I can tell. More people seem to wake up every month," Pinoko said with a frown. "Pinoko's beginning to think I need to have words with the man who's fault this all was."

She sighed a little.

"Let me guess. Everyone got put in a room, Mr. Baker gave a nervous speech and then you had to pick up your things?"

[gunholic]

"Yeah, after that creepy interrogation thing," Axl said, making a face at the thought of it. Nope, not getting over that anytime soon.

"And they reeeeeeeally want people in their military, I've noticed. Betting they piss off the neighbors a lot."

[tinywife]

"Creepy interrogation thing? What creepy interrogation thing?" Pinoko asked, curiously.

"And considering that mess with the Space Bikers, that's probably a pretty good bet. I still don't know how that one Space Biker grew to gigantic levels of tall. But getting almost-kidnapped wasn't fun."

[gunholic]

"You know.. have you heard of some random AI people, do you plan on blowing up the fleet.. that stuff," Axl said. Well.. he'd thought maybe everyone had to go through it? "I don't know what they might have done to the guys from the medical wing, but they downloaded me onto a terminal. Hell of a way to wake up!"

Scowl was a bit of an understatement for a moment.

"Space bikers? You guys have space bikers? Man.." All right space bikers sounded hilarious.

[tinywife]

Please excuse Pinoko for a few moments, Axl. She's busy looking horrified. "Acchonburike! Pinoko is so sorry! I had no idea they were doing that to all the robot-people! That's terrible!"

Science Captain McEngineer had better hope that he has metal shinguards. Pinoko might be inviting herself to tea with him. And his shins are not going to be safe if that happens.

"We have Space Bikers. The Jagtooth Clan. Their leader was named Bee'eef Slabthrust." And yes, that had been every bit as ridiculous as it sounded.

[gunholic]

Axl looked down, sighing. "The more things change.."

OF course, one freaking out person wasn't what he signed up for. "Hey.. it's ok. I'm all right. Honest."

Subject change couldn't have come at a better time.

"That sounds.. special. Kinda sorry I missed that one."