Adventures in Time & Space IC

[davyjones]

Donald spends the moments during and after they were almost discovered by mechanical monsters in contemplative silence--or maybe simple, complete silence, tensing himself up for a fight. "Apologies for the sudden question, but what are we looking for again?" he asks simply, shadowing Miles as he pokes into a side room.

"Something that tells us what the Cybermen are up to, beyond starting their own religion," Calico responds as he surveys the compartment. "And why they traveled back in time from the 26th Century.

"And if we happen to find a giant 'off' button, all the better," he jokes. Oh, if it were ever that easy.

[Dodgeson]

With the Cyberman's attention elsewhere the coast was clear for Miles to climb back up out of the vents and begin to explore the side room, the damaged door juddering open with a struggle and a groan of protesting metal. Inside wasn't in any better of a state, lining either side of the room were a series of man-sized metal tubes with glass view ports, some damaged and some still whole though thankfully none of them seemed to actually contain anything right now.

At the far end of the room was another computer terminal like the one they had seen at the entrance to the Ark but unlike that one, this one seemed to still be functioning, its flickering screen bathing the whole room in blue light.

[Ridai]

Making sure to step around glass shards and other debris, Miles is thankful to not run into... whatever it was that was in those tubes at some point, maybe. Instead, he checks out the screen. Who knows, maybe he'll actually understand some of it?

[davyjones]

The professor surveys the room as he works his way toward the functioning terminal, then peers over Miles' shoulder at the display. The first item of business is to suss out the language being used; that'll go a long way to telling him about the origin of the ark and its designers. The second is to determine its functionality, maybe even a little programming to take the humans' signatures out of the cyber scanning parameters - that'll allow the trio to move freely through the maintenance shafts without interference. Well, at least for a while.

Third, if they're really, really lucky, the Cybermen have their plan recorded somewhere. "Wouldn't that be nice," he muses in response to his thoughts.

"Right, I don't suppose you're a computer specialist, Mr. Marwood? Or you, Mr. Jordan?" One he's certain isn't - the other one? Not so much, though Calico suspects Donald wouldn't admit to it if he were. So, in the end, it's likely a rhetorical question, and he draws his trusty sonic out, ready to move forward with his plan.

[Ridai]

"Computers don't like me anymore, sadly," Miles responds, before making way for the Professor. Honestly, he's quite happy to do so. There's no telling in what other interesting and terrifying ways the Tech Gremlins can muck with future tech and make them go haywire.

[Zelphas]

"Decidedly not," Donald says, a bit uncomfortably; he's been told more than once that he acts like someone three times his apparent age when dealing with computers. Chalk it up to another instinct that he seems to be missing while everyone around him possesses it.

[Dodgeson]

It was a fact that (at least in this era) humans were genetically close enough to their Mondasian cousins that for the most part their technology was compatible. The most obvious facet of this was that the denizens of Earth were prime targets for cyber-conversion but there were ups as well as downs and as Miles touched the screen the flickering stopped for the moment, displaying line after line of blocky text.

Surprisingly all of it was in perfectly understable English, giving a readout on the condition of the pods that lined the room, confirming that whilst four out of the ten of them were currently offline, all of them were currently unoccupied.

After a few moments the screen briefly flickered again as another rumble came from the depths of the CyberArk, shaking the room and loosening one of the empty pods from its moorings, sending it clattering to the ground.

[Ridai]

Miles did not expect English to appear on this screen.

He also did not expect a pod to rumble off the wall, making him jump.

"...This is not what I meant about computers not liking me, and it worries me." The Tech Gremlins are getting vicious. "Should we... should we go further into the ship, or keep looking in the outer rooms?" Might as well draw upon the wisdom of the Time Lord.

[davyjones]

The professor leans over and inspects the fallen pod. "Given the condition of this space and their equipment, I would suggest the Cybermen had constructed or converted the ship long before it was damaged. And it's likely its landing here was not necessarily controlled. And, for the record, you don't want to end up in one of these things.

"Now," he continues, not expounding on his caution as he returned to full height and stepped over to the terminal, "let's see what we can gather from their databases."

Calico inspects the control interface, tapping it a couple times to stabilize the image. He looks for a menu button of some kind, or maybe a button that returns the display to a "main page" of sorts.

OOC: If necessary, the professor will use his sonic to get the terminal back to normal function.

[Dodgeson]

Miles had done an excellent job in waking up the terminal and Calico's previous encounters with the Cybermen would give him a pretty good idea of how to navigate the system but that was when things started to get weird. Sure the first menu the Time Lord was met with showing the status of the holding tubes was fairly standard, but delving in to the core data files looking for answers he would find none of the cold emotionless facts and figures he might be expecting, the whole thing looked more like well...like this.

¹So it was that there was a war in the heavens.

²And the unworthy and the incomplete did struggle mightly

³And He was cast down to shatter amongst the bones of the Earth

⁴Long did He wait for His prophet and he did arrive and he did commune with him and He became whole and he became whole

⁵And the prophet did see his glorious purpose for the incomplete would soon be blessed and remade, perfect and whole as shining silver

[davyjones]

"This...this is extraordinary," Calico breathes, leaning close to the display as he reads the passage. "Religious text - scripture."

The Time Lord collects his thoughts, focusing on the words in front of him instead of letting the myriad of possibilities run free through his mind.

"This passage appears to allude to some sort of space battle - probably the Cybermen versus some faction of humanity - 'the unworthy and incomplete' would suggest those not converted to join the Cyber race," he explains. "'Cast down to shatter' would indicate, perhaps, a form of crash landing...maybe even this ship. The capital 'He' perhaps indicates a leader or a sole survivor, regardless of rank.

"Waiting for 'his prophet' would likely indicate being discovered and rescued by a local...but, when, I wonder? I'll probably have to analyze the entire manuscript to get an understanding of the time period of its writing. Maybe even reach out to one of my former colleagues in London," the professor notes. "The last passage mirrors the phrase our wayward vicar uttered in the church - that gleaming silver nonsense."

Standing upright as he considered the possibilities, he added, "Regardless, we need to preserve this, even if only for later study. Look around for a storage device of some kind - I could probably store it in my sonic, but that could take up memory I would need for other tasks, and we aren't close enough to my TARDIS to upload at all, let alone quickly."

Calico rifles through his own pockets for a stray portable drive; he always used to carry a larger-capacity portable drive when he was teaching, but he's not sure he ever left one in this jacket.

Spoiler: OOC: Actions

Show

Here's what Calico would like to do:

1. Transfer the entire religious manuscript to the portable storage device. (I'm happy to burn a Story Point to have or find one of sufficient size and compatibility.)

2. Use the terminal to get to the file folders, trying to determine when the scripture was created and last modified.

3. See if there are other similar files within the database (like secondary religious texts - prayer books, study books, Cyber-ism at a Glance pamphlets, and the lke), and download those, too.

[Ridai]

"So... the Cybermen fought a war and lost a... battle and got sent here?"

...Yeah, leave the speculating to the Time Lord. Looking around for... any sort of doodads, something vaguely slate-shaped and, well, techy catches his eye.

"Is this one of those devices? It seems... slightly hard drive shaped?" Miles pulls the rectangular object from a gap next to the terminal, looking like it at some point fell in there.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Spending 1 SP to make a storage device.

[Dodgeson]

Calico might not have been able to locate an appropriate storage device on his person (some time travellers swore by pockets that were bigger on the inside but who knew if the Professor availed himself of similar technology?) but luckily Miles was able to find one amongst the techno-gubbins that littered the room, go teamwork! Then came the task of transfering over the Cyberman's new faith, whatever had caused it, there were universities across the galaxy who would kill to study the text.

And there was plenty of it to study, book after book spreading out from the central data core filled with tenets and psalms and scripture, it wasn't going to be difficult to move it all but the sheer mass of data was going to take some time. Time that might give our heroes time to ponder something about the infomation, every single piece of information had been created within the last two weeks.

"Well what do we have here?" Or maybe they wouldn't have time as the voice of the wayward vicar came from behind them "We would be more than happy to help introduce you to His gospel, despite your little sabotage." Father Pleasance said, looking out of place and surprisingly menacing for a rural vicar standing in the doorway of a damaged timeship.