Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

It's a space ship, remember. The crew have codes to open every door. It's a safety issue. IN an emergency, they need to get in anywhere. If the door has been damaged, jammed, or without power, you can't open it.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

The exo-suit's strength amplification should help somewhat with the mass, but of course that doesn't help with its bulkiness. Pierre will use the clips to attach the kit on the suit's front (easier to reach than the back and that way it doesn't get in the way of the shotgun on his back), as it would be difficult to rely on the shoulder strap in free fall.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

It's a space ship, remember. The crew have codes to open every door. It's a safety issue. IN an emergency, they need to get in anywhere. If the door has been damaged, jammed, or without power, you can't open it. (Someone with hands might be able to, by working the cranks or using a crowbar. Non-pressure doors aren't really very tough; they're only heavy enough to be sound proof enough for privacy.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Nah, playing your character correctly is fine. And it wouldn't lead to IC resentment, either -- Julia's pretty gracious about going with how people phrase things.

I think you can just contact us -- your NAI will have recorded our "phone numbers" already, and for any it hadn't we should just assume that theyx were given because it's handy in the situation. Also, makes for more RP oppurtunity.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Yes. NAIs in personal computers specialize in social mediation. They keep track of your address book and date book, of course, but they also handle a lot more than that. The computer can provide a blub about you "I'm John Doe, a soil scientist from new new new new york, traveling to a conference in Guelph. Contact details are blah." to anyone in range, either as a sort of broadcast, or on being queried. When you meet someone, your NAI gets this information, and usually does some research on this person -- it'll get their publications, their blogs, etc, and flag things that you might find interesting. For instance, it would tell you that the cute girl you see across the bar was at the same rock concert as you were the other night. (And then refresh your memory about the concert, so you know what to say about it...) The information that's available about someone is pretty staggering, even among people who have some sense of privacy. In most places, kids get a pocket computer at about the same time they start school. A computer implant has to wait until the brain is pretty much fully developed, in the late teens.

So, contacting someone you've meet, and who wants to be contacted, is pretty easy. All of you -- including the ship's crew who are still around -- are all on the same tactical network, so you can easily contact each other, share information, look at the video streams from each other's cameras, etc.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Just to make sure that I understood this correctly: The potentially open airlock on level 4 is a part of section three, right?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Yeah, I'll post a map in a bit, if I can get my scanner to work. (the power connector is broken: it some times works if you hold it in the right position. The good news is DHL brought me the replacement fan for my laptop yesterday, so it's working again....)

To hold you until I can get that posted, I'll describe the way the ship is laid out again. From the front (which is the "top" when under power), it consists of several passenger and crew sections. These have independent climate and air systems. They're separated from each other by relatively massive bulkheads, which are airtight -- that's what the pressure doors in the elevator shafts are through. They're about 20 meters long, the first section is a bit longer. They're divided into levels, numbered from the front, of about 3 meters each, though there's variation in that. The elevator shafts, and the central bracing in the center of the ship are the only permanent structures in the section, the rest can be rearranged with more or less effort, like the interior walls of an office building. Typically, each level is divided up into six pie shaped slices, labeled A through F. then things in the section are numbered. So, the first class cabins have address like 2-4-B-3, meaning section two, level 4, section B, room 3.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Okay, that's good. I'd keep the information from the drones available to all crew members, especially the captain.

If they spot anything peculiar, I'd beam him live footage and try to catch his attention via the NAI.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Who's *jumped* out of the ship!

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Xerxes is stopping and basically asking Orville what he's doing. Or can Spacer skill tell me that?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

He's dangling at the end of his tether, getting a look around. That's how he can get a view of the other ship and the shuttles. They're roughly directly behind you.

He's on a tether, so as long as you don't unhook him, he'll be able to get back in.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Okay, I've edited my last two IC posts so that they make sense. Sorry, I'm tired and didn't read through the last IC post properly.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Will Orville have to be helped back inside? Or can Xerxes do something else, like take pictures of the dead bodies to be identified later?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

No. Worst case, he winches himself in all the way. It's likely he'll do it in a more elegant fashion. Pulling on the rope will give him a boost towards the fixed end, and he'll drift in. You get the feeling he wouldn't trust you to help him, anyway. (he trusts you guys not to cut him loose, though.)

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Fair enough. After all he's only just met us, not to mention the fact that we're just one step above landlubbers (would that be planetlubbers?) compared to him. :)

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

We've got cameras going. Does that mean we've already got pictures of the bodies so we can identify them?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Yup. If the ship's database were online, you'd be able to identify them (or, at least, the name they're traveling under) pretty much instantly. People with implant computers tend to let a facial recognition program running all the time.

I'm not going to post to Xerxe's and Pierre's subthread until we've heard from
Fleckenzwerg. I expect he's going to react badly to a pile of corpses.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I, and Xerxes too apparently, didn't think of that until after I'd typed the IC post. No matter, maybe Xerxes thought that the pics might not have showed enough of the faces of the bodies.

I imagine you're right about Pierre's reaction to the corpses.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I'll point out it's unlikely that there's any loss of data. You have no idea what was on the missing modules (which have a, to me in the 21st century, mind-boggling capacity, a couple zettabytes or so. That's something on the order of a 10 times the current volume of data stored on computers on Earth.) , but this is deep off-line storage, and it'll normally be stored in a redundant fashion. So theft of the modules (either for their content or themselves, they're moderately valuable) is probably why they're missing.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

According to a pc world article, "One exabyte is the equivalent of about 50,000 years of DVD quality video." So, one zettabyte should be about 50,000,000 years of DVD quality video. *low, long whistle*

Out of curiosity where did you get the 100 exabyte estimate for all data stored on computers on earth? Also, why would a ship have enough data storage for everything currently stored on earth several times over?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

For an AI?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I'm not sure why they'd want the capacity to have an AI on board -- it's a jump ship, and jumps destroy AI.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Maybe it's for an NAI. They aren't destroyed by jumps.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Maybe it's for 4d porn?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Because they can. Most of the PCs are walking around with a couple petabytes in their heads. Data capacity is dirt cheap. And while 50 megayears of dvd video sounds like a lot, it's not really. Remember, DVD is pretty low quality, even by 2008 standards. What's an hour of immersive VR take up? Also remember, the ship spends most of its time out of range of planetary datanets. So it's got to carry all the information it might need. And because data storage is so cheap, people figure out how to make use of it. What was stolen was one rack of "disks" (no rotating parts involved.), out of 50. Things will stored in a redundant fashion, so it might be 10% of the storage capacity in this databank (there are others.)

The 100 exobyte number came from the back of my head, and probably from some piece of marketing material from EMC or netapp or the like a couple years ago. The expectation, i think, is that production of data will reach a ZB a year by the end of the decade.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I'm sure there's lots on offer.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I knew it!

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

You'll have to do your own descriptions of _Debbie Does the Tentacled Monster from Latena IV_, sorry.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I kinda figured he meant 4+time... so maybe it ought to be "Xalon and Yorxa Gettin' Down and Tesseracted".

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Yeah, I meant the fourth spatial dimension. ;)

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I'm assuming that the ship is steered from the bridge and that, in order to chase the pirates (if we want to do so) Ronnie and Julia will have to fix up the damage in Engineering and we're going to have to secure the bridge as well. Is that right?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

That's roughly right. Steering can be done from engineering, which is what your hijackers were doing. Do note it would take a long time to get back. It would take nearly an hour at max thrust to come to a stop relative to the jump point, plus whatever time it takes to accelerate to a closing speed, close, and then slow down at the end. There also might be concerns about reaction mass. One of the reasons you'd stopped at the station you were hijacked from was to refuel. (Fuel is expensive at Junction, since it has to be shipped in. Most ships that can sell their excess fuel there, and leave with as little as they figure is safe.) The engines on the Lorna can be run in two modes, a high thrust lower specific impulse mode, or a lower thrust, but more efficient mode, which limits the acceleration to about 0.1 g. (a bit more, you're not at the mass that number is for). Since you have no idea where you are, where you're headed, or where to refuel, conserving fuel is going to be a priority.

It's also not clear that you can do anything if you caught up with the pirates, anyway. They presumably still outnumber and outgun you. And you don't have much transport to get to their ship.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I guess they've gotten clean away, then. :( Maybe, once we get the ship's sensors back online, we can at least make a recording of their ship to give to the authorities once we get back.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Dscheidt when is the next update going to be? Sorry if I sounds like I'm nagging you, but want to know what happens next!

Edit: I just found out when it was.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

About 5 minutes ago.

About the time line: I've got the hijacking taking place just after 8 pm ship's time, and about 6 hours have elapsed since then. You're all pretty well knackered. It isn't just Smarg. (I don't think I've been very clear about the passage of time...._

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I noticed (about the 5 minutes thing). As for us being knackered, does the Fit advantage help Xerxes with that?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

It gives a bonus to avoid falling asleep standing up and things like that. I don't think it gives a bonus for recovering FP lost to lost sleep (that's what Less Sleep and the like cover). You are a fair way from that. It's only a couple hours past a normal bedtime, so you've got several hours (8 or 12, I forget the rule off hand) before it's going to be a problem. The less military disciplined of you are likely to start thinking about a nap, though.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Oh, okay. I'll edit my last IC post (which is in the middle of your IC update posts) to reflect the fact that he's getting tired.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I'm putting one point in G-experience (0G - 0.2G), and saving the other.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Noted. And now I'm feeding the length monitoring nanny.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Dscheidt, why would someone eject a magazine that still had rounds in it?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Suppose you're holding an assault rile, with a 50 or 60 round magazine. You've fired all but five or six rounds. You've got full magazines on your belt. Which do you want in the gun? Those handful of rounds is only one short burst, while a full magazine is several.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Personally, I'd keep the magazine. Wasted ammo is useless ammo.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

That takes time. To save the magazine, you need to put your off hand on the old magazine while it's ejected (There's a motor to do that. Can't rely on gravity in space, after all!). You then put the old magazine in a pocket or pouch, draw a new magazine, insert it into gun. That takes five seconds or so, and the gun isn't fireable for most of that time.

To discard the magazine, you'd draw the magazine out of its pouch, and as you're bringing it into position, command the gun (there's motor, remember, you can do it over your neural link) to eject the spent one, insert the new one, and you're done. That takes less time overall, and there's a much shorter period of time when the gun isn't ready to fire.

Load out for someone in combat armor is 10 or 12 magazines, so it's 1% of their ammo load. And the magazines are disposable -- they can be reloaded, but not while you're wearing the gloves that are part of the armor.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

If no one objects, I'm skipping the detailed search of the rest of the section. There's nothing interesting to be found, really. What's interesting is what you don't find. Not many more bodies, no deployed survival pods.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

D'uh. I'd do it after the firefight, if anything. Assuming I was able to.

I didn't need the lesson. ;)

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Really, the only reason you'd so that is if you have a limited supply of ammo -- guerilla warfare sort of situation, or tighter controls on the sale of ammo than seems to be the case.

While your implant could tell you where you'd dropped all the rounds you had, it's probably not worth the time it takes to go back and collect them (and danger when, as in this case, you aren't certain if the area is clear). A handful of bullets and a clip isn't much in cost compared to the amount of money invested in your implant and gun.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

The magazine is disposable; military ammunition comes pre-packed in magazines. The only time a military force would collect the magazines is in live fire training, where the partially fired magazines would collected and reloaded, for use on the range. They'd never get issued as combat gear, though; there are reliability concerns. If, as appears likely, they've got a jump ship, it's got a workshop that's capable of churning out the ammunition. (And, yes, the ship you're on is likely to have one, too.) Cost, for a military buying billions of rounds at a time, is about a buck a magazine. Making them is more expensive, of course, but still cheap.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

To be clear, the survival pods you don't see deployed are what I called a "rescue bubble" in the very first IC post. Everyone is issued one at boarding, and you're supposed to carry it around with you. (Many people don't bother, because you don't ever need it, right?). It's a tough plastic cylinder that will hold a person (two very friendly people, in a pinch) and protect them from a vacuum. It doesn't have an air supply, so you've got what gets trapped in it when it's deployed, about 15 minutes worth.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Okay, I've edited my last IC post. I hope we get to sleep soon: our characters must be even more exhausted than they were before.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

You could suggest it. You've searched the habitable areas of the ship, and have them secure. (Section one is the head of the ship, bridge and crew quarters, and has been secure the whole time. ) It's possible that there are people lurking somewhere like one of the cargo containers, or among the fuel tanks, but it's unlikely.

So, here's a list of potential tasks. Some of these are things that need to be done; others are things I sort of expect PCs to do. Some of them are outside the PCs area of expertise. The first few items on the list are in some sort of order, the rest aren't.

Fix the ship.
Figure out where you are.
Figure out how to get somewhere you'd rather be.
Figure out what happened
figure out who did it
figure out why
figure out where the missing people are, why they're there
What got stolen?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Okay, I edited my post to suggest we get some sleep, and edited out the section 1 reference. I suggest that, after we've slept some of us check the cargo area to see what's missing that the crew knows about, whilst the others all pitch in to repair the ship. We can run a search of the ship's database whilst we sleep, and work out exactly who's missing.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Dscheidt, does Xerxes get easily to sleep or does he eventually have to go to sick bay to get some help?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

He shouldn't have problems sleeping. Nothing is going to happen to wake him up, unless someone makes it happen.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

He's going to have trouble getting to sleep even if there's the slightest noise, and there's going to be noise if there's a bunch of people sleeping in the same room. If there is he'll need a HT roll (see the PM I sent you).

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

The crew quarters you've been put in are tiny, but they're private, and utterly soundproof. They're just big enough for a small bed, which folds up into a chair and desk for day use, and a small locker to hold personal gear. Ship's crew spend lots of time aboard -- for a liner like the Lorna a typical cruise is two years or so -- and builders understand the need for privacy.

I'll do an IC to describe them.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Nothing is going to happen before the meeting in the wardroom, unless you choose to make it happen. I'll make a post tomorrow that describes that, at about 2200 GMT.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Thanks. :)

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Have our things been gathered from our previous cabins? If not, Julia will take the excuse to collect the bugs she'd planted there -- otherwise she'll try to find a moment alone in her previous cabin later.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Nope. Only the stuff you brought up with you is. Everything else is still in the cabins, on the wrong side of the secure bulkhead dividing section one and two. You'll have to wait.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I've made the start of this. I'll post the rest later tonight, when I get home. Feel free to respond before than, though. Ronnie is done speaking.

quick orbital mechanics explanation
 

In a two-body system, where the two bodies are orbiting each other, there are five points where the gravitational forces exerted on a third body by the first two are equal. These are called lagrange points. Wikipedia has a page lagrangian points
which, at first glance seems right. The picture is clearer than I'm likely to be.

If the central object is the star, and the planet the gas giant, you've jump in at L4, and are heading away from it, towards the planet, on a course that will take you out of the system, but not by much. The containers left behind weren't given the huge boost that your ship was, so they'll be orbiting around L4, for a long, long time.

Re: quick orbital mechanics explanation
 

Hopefully when the antenna is fixed we can find out what's in them and why they were dumped.

How does reaction mass affect the ship? I'm assuming, the lower the mass the less fuel we burn getting around.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

A question has just occurred to me: what's the minimum crew of a ship of this type? I hope it's not more than 19.

Re: quick orbital mechanics explanation
 

You'll be able to see what the manifest says they contain. That's likely to be something usefully descriptive like "Machine tools, 8456 tons". (A more detailed manifest is available, which would have an exact description, down to the serial number, of everything that's supposed to be in it exists, but it's not available for general consumption. What's publicly available is enough to let automated freight handling equipment make sure it gets on the right ship, and to allow customs agencies to decide how to tax it, but not enough to be interesting to a pirate (or a salvager.)) It's quite possible they're dumped because they're empty, and they needed the space on the cargo spine to attach the containers they stole from your ship. Even if they're not empty, they came from a pirate ship, so you shouldn't believe the manifest.

Reaction mass is what you shoot out the end of the ship to make it accelerate the other way. The engines generate (no more than, you can turn them down) a fixed amount of thrust, which is capable of accelerating the ship at about 1 G, when it's fully loaded. As you burn fuel, the ship gets lighter, so you can accelerate faster, if you want, or you need to burn less of it to accelerate a constant rate.

Since it makes no sense to talk about range of rocket ships -- they're going to keep going in straight line forever -- their ability to change position is rated in "delta-V". One meter-per-second of delta-V means the ship can change its speed by one meter per second. Your ship has about 1000 kilometers per second, at 1 G, or about 4 times that at 0.1G (roughly). That's, by 21st century standards, a huge amount. It's about 10% of what the ship has fully fueled.

The atomic rocket page, http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3b.html
has clear explanations than I'm going to manage. (It's well past my bed time.)
t

I believe I said you've

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Depending on what you mean, zero. The ship is mostly automated, and the routine stuff takes care of itself. You're going to be busy fixing things for some time, though. Life support is fully automated, but with out labor to process the food produced, you're going to be eating a less than varied fresh diet. (On the other hand, there's a vast amount of stored food, and only 19 people eating it.) The ship could fly itself, if given instructions. It doesn't have a real AI, of course, but it's got expert systems that can plot a course, etc.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Thanks for all that. :) With all this talk of weeks and months, it's a good thing we have all that fuel, food, and life support.

Ping?
 

Anybody out there?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Pong.

I'll make a post soon. Been busy with stuff.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Dscheidt, are there going to be any more briefings by the other members of the crew?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

There certainly could be, but I was rather hoping the PCs would say something, or protest that they want to chase the people that kidnapped their wives, or asked about the prisoner, or about what the heck happened.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I (and Xerxes) just assumed that if the crew knew what had happened they'd get told that in the briefing. Ditto for the prisoner. That's what briefings are for, I thought.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

Yes, there's that. On the other hand, I wouldn't assume they're going to tell you everything. You're just a bunch of passengers, after all. They'll have you doing the equivalent of peeling potatoes if you let them.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I hadn't thought of that. I'll try to think of something to ask them. Xerxes has done quite enough of peeling potatoes in the past, thank you. :D

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

I edited my last IC post to include a new question: how many vacuum-suited bodies did they find? If there is only the one, in engineering, could that indicate that those guys were the winners? I don't know what the policy is with marines: do they generally pull out and take all their dead and wounded with them? I'm guessing that pirates wouldn't be that disciplined. I'm hoping that Xerxes Soldier skill can tell him stuff like that.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

It's just the one. There are several pirates (I think five, but I'm not going to go count right now. at least four, plus your prisoner.) It's not unreasonable to think that a force that was in light battle dress and didn't seem to have heavy weapons would have a tough time against guys in vacuum rated combat armor, carrying assault rifles, yes. It's certainly the way to bet; a shotgun slug wouldn't have a hope of penetrating armor like that.

Nearly any organized force is going to make some attempt to retrieve their dead and wounded. How much depends on the force; most won't risk death to retrieve a body. A wounded person, maybe. You don't know who was involved, so you can't say.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

"Things to do" doesn't sound promising. It sounds like Xerxes is going to end up doing the equivalent of swabbing the decks and peeling potatoes. Unfortunately, he doesn't have any specialised ship skills. He did offer to help with the repairs, but they're under no obligation to accept his help, especially since he doesn't have any repair skills. :D

If Xerxes can, he's going to try and gain some skills so he doesn't end up doing that kind of thing.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

If Julia interrogates the chap unsuccessfully, can I drop my point into Interrogation and try again later? I'm assuming I can't put the point there straightaway.

Also, does having experience in 0-0.2G give a bonus to Free Fall, or anything of the sort?

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

G-experience reduces the penalties you have trying to do things in the gravity, and for things that are easier to do in low gravity (play catch, for instance, but there are probably useful examples) you get an extra bonus. An observer would mark you as someone who's spent enough time in free fall to take advantage of it. For instance, you can use random bits of empty space as a work surface, since things won't float away (much, air currents will move light objects faster than denser ones, but everything loose gets sucked into the vents sooner or later.). The reduced penalities at 0 G are pretty big -- -2 instead of -4.

Re: [OOC] The Catacombs, hard SF
 

One of the tasks that's on tap is looting the possessions of the missing for equipment that's useful for rebuilding instruments. There may be interesting things to find there.