OOC: For the purposes of the event, 'today' is Sept. 24th, 2009. Anyone who's in comm distance/receiving distance of Hephaestus, currently outbound to the Belt, is welcome to participate. At the end of my post here, I'm on the surface of Hephaestus whacking golf balls into space for one of the Boys to fetch with, and I have voice-only comms through a few KW of 900mhz radio, mediated by Hermes.
Edit: Added OOC descriptor, changed title to indicate RP, changed comm from 'The Jason' only to all interested parties.
September 23rd, 2009
We're up. Thankfully, atmospheric containment is holding, at least underground. We rigged some of air compressors and pulled the dome empty, basically giving up on the plants.
Pulled the plastic back onto rolls and left the fiberweed frame up. No air, no friction, no drag.
I love it up here. The three of us loaded into one of the Boys this afternoon and just poodled around. Hermes says the orbit is stable right now, we've got a couple of days before we need to do anything to maintain it, and I've got her working a trajectory to the Belt. Nothing to it but to do it, and I want to get full holds before we start thinking of what next.
September 24th, 2009
More on the dome. On our way up, we took a burst from the gun on a USAF interceptor. I'm not sure why he fired, honestly, and I'm not honestly that worried about it.
Seriously. Noone was hurt, and the dome was a LOT less reliable than we thought, so better to find out now.. I guess.
I still wonder why he fired, but I haven't heard anything on the radio, and, well, you can hear a _lot_ up here.
So the dome was punctured, and one of the fiberweeds was snapped, by a bullet. It chain-reactioned out quite a few more, and the structural and atmospheric integrity were compromised. We managed to patch up the rip before we lost much air, but the environmental plants were working overtime, before we locked off the dome and pumped the air out of it.
Repair was going to happen - we would have a dome, come hell or high water, but it wasn't going to happen soon enough to make keeping the shreds of the existing one pressurized make any sense. The 'Carbon Fiberweed' we'd developed had failed utterly, succumbing to the cold of space, most likely. The dessicated carcasses were still fairly tough, but didn't have the tensile strength needed for this.
Hermes lit up the motor at 2am and pointed us at the Belt. I wasn't very amused, but she just looked at me and reminded me how much I'd fretted about liftoff.. Is it possible to lobotomize an AI?
(Edit: No. Not once she's had this long to backup components and put them where you don't know about them, boss! -Hermes)
So we're well on the way to the Belt, and Hermes says she's identified a couple of likely candidates. Today we fashioned airlocks out of 'waved plastic sheet, velcro, zippers, epoxy and 'Wavium. We then updated our design to include painted surfaces, since near-optical quality plastic sheeting ended up being more of a pigeon-into-glass situation than a man-through-the-lock one.
Hephaestus looked strange from the top now. The bright-orange airlocks were very visible, against the grey-green background of dead and dying plant life.
"Hermes, you found anything on the radio bands from 'folk yet?"
"Quite a bit, boss. Private conversations are happening all over the place, with different encryptions and codings, there's some sinusoidal carrier at 1.8ghz that seems organic, and a lot of public stuff in 400 and 900 meg UHF."
"Logical, that. Antennas for that can be very small and simple. Pick a public frequency you like and open me a channel, broadcast."
"You're on, boss."
I looked at the display, Hermes sitting in an old-school Trek workstation with an Ohura earbug sticking out the side of her head, and sighed.
I picked up the handmike and pressed the button.
"This is HSF-000 Hephaestus, KL1XD 'Wire Geek' commanding, and while I'm not, I repeat not, calling an emergency, I'm pretty bloody close. We lost dome containment on the way up, and we're not going to be able to restore it. If there's anyone in the sound of my voice or anyone you know who is a dab hand with domes, or a dab hand with plants.. "
I let up off the mic and considered a moment. Hermes glanced at me inquiringly from the monitor, and I winked at her. There were a couple of responses, and I smiled as I picked the mic back up again.
"Again, this is HSF triple zero Hephaestus, KL1XD 'Wire Geek' commanding. We just got off the dirt and into the Out Here, and we're headed for the Belt. We're a full-service refinery and asteroid mining operation, and dome or not, we will be open for business. Hit us up on this frequency, and we'll be happy to help you with pretty much anything that can be described as 'metal', aside from the music. We also have a few tons of raw organics, a few thousand gallons of basic 'wavium, and a couple of homebuilt strains that you might just be interested in. I'm turning the show over to Hermes, the nice young digital lady who actually runs the place, and lets me push the buttons and look important. She'll tell you where we are, where we're going, and answer any questions you might have."
I put the mic back in its holder, and the TX light clicked back on the radio console as she took over. I smiled at her on the screen as she busily pushed buttons and flipped switches on her console. She looked over at me, still busily working.
"Couple of live wires here, boss, the closest seems to be a gentleman who calls himself "The Jason". He's actually _in_ the Belt now, so I've already altered course to meet him."
"You, my dear, rock. Is the prow pointed forward?"
"does the Pope shit in the woods?"
I grinned, rising from my seat. "I'm going Outside, me and Raven are gonna go play fetch-golf with a couple of the Boys. Keep an ear on the radio, and if someone seems chatty, patch them through to my suit."Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Edit: Added OOC descriptor, changed title to indicate RP, changed comm from 'The Jason' only to all interested parties.
September 23rd, 2009
We're up. Thankfully, atmospheric containment is holding, at least underground. We rigged some of air compressors and pulled the dome empty, basically giving up on the plants.
Pulled the plastic back onto rolls and left the fiberweed frame up. No air, no friction, no drag.
I love it up here. The three of us loaded into one of the Boys this afternoon and just poodled around. Hermes says the orbit is stable right now, we've got a couple of days before we need to do anything to maintain it, and I've got her working a trajectory to the Belt. Nothing to it but to do it, and I want to get full holds before we start thinking of what next.
September 24th, 2009
More on the dome. On our way up, we took a burst from the gun on a USAF interceptor. I'm not sure why he fired, honestly, and I'm not honestly that worried about it.
Seriously. Noone was hurt, and the dome was a LOT less reliable than we thought, so better to find out now.. I guess.
I still wonder why he fired, but I haven't heard anything on the radio, and, well, you can hear a _lot_ up here.
So the dome was punctured, and one of the fiberweeds was snapped, by a bullet. It chain-reactioned out quite a few more, and the structural and atmospheric integrity were compromised. We managed to patch up the rip before we lost much air, but the environmental plants were working overtime, before we locked off the dome and pumped the air out of it.
Repair was going to happen - we would have a dome, come hell or high water, but it wasn't going to happen soon enough to make keeping the shreds of the existing one pressurized make any sense. The 'Carbon Fiberweed' we'd developed had failed utterly, succumbing to the cold of space, most likely. The dessicated carcasses were still fairly tough, but didn't have the tensile strength needed for this.
Hermes lit up the motor at 2am and pointed us at the Belt. I wasn't very amused, but she just looked at me and reminded me how much I'd fretted about liftoff.. Is it possible to lobotomize an AI?
(Edit: No. Not once she's had this long to backup components and put them where you don't know about them, boss! -Hermes)
So we're well on the way to the Belt, and Hermes says she's identified a couple of likely candidates. Today we fashioned airlocks out of 'waved plastic sheet, velcro, zippers, epoxy and 'Wavium. We then updated our design to include painted surfaces, since near-optical quality plastic sheeting ended up being more of a pigeon-into-glass situation than a man-through-the-lock one.
Hephaestus looked strange from the top now. The bright-orange airlocks were very visible, against the grey-green background of dead and dying plant life.
"Hermes, you found anything on the radio bands from 'folk yet?"
"Quite a bit, boss. Private conversations are happening all over the place, with different encryptions and codings, there's some sinusoidal carrier at 1.8ghz that seems organic, and a lot of public stuff in 400 and 900 meg UHF."
"Logical, that. Antennas for that can be very small and simple. Pick a public frequency you like and open me a channel, broadcast."
"You're on, boss."
I looked at the display, Hermes sitting in an old-school Trek workstation with an Ohura earbug sticking out the side of her head, and sighed.
I picked up the handmike and pressed the button.
"This is HSF-000 Hephaestus, KL1XD 'Wire Geek' commanding, and while I'm not, I repeat not, calling an emergency, I'm pretty bloody close. We lost dome containment on the way up, and we're not going to be able to restore it. If there's anyone in the sound of my voice or anyone you know who is a dab hand with domes, or a dab hand with plants.. "
I let up off the mic and considered a moment. Hermes glanced at me inquiringly from the monitor, and I winked at her. There were a couple of responses, and I smiled as I picked the mic back up again.
"Again, this is HSF triple zero Hephaestus, KL1XD 'Wire Geek' commanding. We just got off the dirt and into the Out Here, and we're headed for the Belt. We're a full-service refinery and asteroid mining operation, and dome or not, we will be open for business. Hit us up on this frequency, and we'll be happy to help you with pretty much anything that can be described as 'metal', aside from the music. We also have a few tons of raw organics, a few thousand gallons of basic 'wavium, and a couple of homebuilt strains that you might just be interested in. I'm turning the show over to Hermes, the nice young digital lady who actually runs the place, and lets me push the buttons and look important. She'll tell you where we are, where we're going, and answer any questions you might have."
I put the mic back in its holder, and the TX light clicked back on the radio console as she took over. I smiled at her on the screen as she busily pushed buttons and flipped switches on her console. She looked over at me, still busily working.
"Couple of live wires here, boss, the closest seems to be a gentleman who calls himself "The Jason". He's actually _in_ the Belt now, so I've already altered course to meet him."
"You, my dear, rock. Is the prow pointed forward?"
"does the Pope shit in the woods?"
I grinned, rising from my seat. "I'm going Outside, me and Raven are gonna go play fetch-golf with a couple of the Boys. Keep an ear on the radio, and if someone seems chatty, patch them through to my suit."Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979