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March 26, 1982 The sun rises over Cydonia.  Millions of kilometers away, the crew of the Luna are set to work loading equipment.  Three prototype rovers being tested on Luna are ordered pressed into service. Along with deployable inflatable tents, they can, in an emergency, provide serviceable, if spartan, temporary habitation for the 50 cosmonauts who will deploy to Cydonia from Earth. They'll also provide transportation, command and coordination for the expedition, a basic sensor suite, and, just in case, a pair of 20mm light autocannon. It'll take days to ready them, which is just fine because it'll also take time to assemble the team itself.  In low Mars orbit, the final preparations are made for deorbit burn. The EVAs are completed, the safety tests are green, and the crew has eaten and had what little rest they can get. The Electron-B will remain in orbit, acting as an impromptu mission control for the landing operation (light delay makes it impractical to directly control the mission from Earth). As the dim sunlight spills over the surface, Proton-B descends. Launch and reentry remain the most dangerous parts of any spaceflight, but compared to the old days of 15 years ago they're smooth and simple. The ship's duranium hull weathers the heat of reentry near-perfectly, her engine operates flawlessly, and her drogues deploy right on schedule. When the ship has slowed past the safe-deploy threshold, the landing legs are released and spring open, six of them in pairs along the ship's length. At 2km altitude the ship's main engine is cut and she coasts down on chutes and reaction control thrusters, in a horizontal attitude, the ship's length parallel with the ground. Buried underneath a thin layer of dust a few hundred meters away from the southwest edge of the Face is a large rectangular ferroconcrete pad. It's solid, shows no signs of damage or significant wear, and has no power or thermal sources on or beneath it. It's as good a place as any, and that is where the ship touches down, her thrusters kicking up a huge cloud of dust. As she settles down onto her landing legs, the thrust cuts off, and the dust slowly falls to the ground around her, in near-silence. A neat oval of dust has been cleared completely away around her, revealing the flat, smooth concrete, an unmistakably artificial structure. Scattered around its edges are various small, regularly-shaped mounds of dust, which the crew know are also artificial. They are expected; the Cydonia survivors have been told they are coming, and where they are coming. As (a small part of) the crew disembarks, they are met with bitter cold that pierces even their modern suits, and the barely-audible sound of wind. They are also met by a figure. The figure is humanoid and about two meters tall, dressed in an extremely bulky apparatus. It looks makeshift, thrown together, the outer suit seemingly stitched together out of layers of unidentified rags, and an awkward assemblage of tanks and pipes and hoses on its back - but, extra accoutrements aside, it still looks for all the world like an antique, 19th-century diving suit. Before they can react, the figure has bounded over to them, and swept up the nearest cosmonaut in an embrace.  On descent the crew could see the Face really doesn't look much like a Face at all, but that makes it no less eerie, especially as they approach the towering hill on foot and see the blocky protrusions, the distinct outlines of windows, the geodesic-dome skylights - and, here and there, little pinpricks of artificial light, all pointed at them. One of these lights flashes a signal at them in Morse Code: WLCM 2 MARS PLS FLLW HANS 'Hans' (presumably) gestures for the crew to follow as he makes his way towards the hill. He stops about halfway there to point to a meter-tall rock cairn, topped with a strip of green cloth fluttering in the wind, then another identical one ahead, then makes a bouncing hand motion from one to the other to a point in the distance. The guess is that he's indicating a route, and indeed you follow these cairns to a tunnel cut into the rock. Inside this tunnel, illuminated by light strips projecting cool blue light, is an open, circular metal doorway about two meters tall by three meters wide, and a lit chamber beyond it. 'Hans' eagerly beckons the ground team to follow. Inside the doorway is a large chamber of bare metal, walls covered in incomprehensible buttons and panels, all dark and several of them shattered. On the inner side of the chamber is a sealed double door, nearly solid, but with a transparent window, about head-sized, in each door at about shoulder height. A pale human face with a thick black beard and a blue cap is visible through the window. The cap reads 'USS CYCLOPS' across the front. The person the face belongs to waves, then disappears from view. 'Hans' ensures everyone is inside, and then begins turning a large valve in a recession in the wall. The recession is of the same size and shape as a metal panel leaning up against the wall next to it, and, as he turns it, the outer doors slowly close. Eventually, they are completely sealed, and he gives the valve one more twist to be sure, throws a lever next to the valve, and turns a second, smaller valve. There is a loud hiss and a rushing of air from vents in the walls. He waves to get everyone's attention and points to a spot on the wall, where a pair of glass-faced analogue gauges have been screwed into place - looks like a barometer and a pressure altimeter. The dials move as the airlock pressurizes; eventually Hans is satisfied, closes the middle valve, and slams sharply on the inner door three times with his fists. As the inner doors slowly open, he busies himself closing various valves on his backpack-apparatus, and, finally, removes his helmet. "Hallo Englander!" the spear-bald bear of a man shouts to the crew cheerfully, his booming voice a bit jarring in the confined space. "Come in, come in!" Over a hundred very ragged-looking men greet them in the huge, high-ceilinged, utilitarian-looking chamber on the other side. They're all in parade formation, between rows and rows of shelving and hexagonal containers (a warehouse or storage room maybe?), and snap to attention as the team enters. A man in a woolen coat and officer's cap steps forward and introduces himself as Commander George Worley, captain, USS Cyclops, and formally welcomes the rescue party aboard. Live video is beamed from the ground team to the Proton-B, from there to Electron-B in orbit, and from there to Mission Control, where everyone watches as the team - keeping their suits sealed to avoid contamination, in either direction - is shown around, through corridors, up stairs and ramps, and out onto a raised platform overlooking - something.  The largest room Director Kuzmin of MOSA can ever remember being inside was an abandoned airship hangar at a former US Air Force base, which had been on a list of potential sites for new Ministry facilities. It was so large that little clouds could form in the upper rafters, and it could - and did - rain inside sometimes. This hangar's entire volume could fit several times over into this space. A completely enclosed chamber this large shouldn't exist.  Sitting in, indeed, a drydock, or something like one - a sunken pit in the floor - is a very dilapidated-looking ship that matches the profile of the USS Cyclops. This pit butts against the wall, where there are a pair of truly massive double doors. There are three more such pits in the chamber, and in two of them are a pair of large spacecraft. One is rounded and ovoid, looking vaguely similar to the Roswell object in overall design. The other is blocky, skeletal, and utilitarian, following a completely different design philosophy. Neither are human. A fourth 'drydock' lies empty. There is a freestanding multi-story building on the floor of this cavern, and the walls are lined with multiple floors of terraces, extending about halfway up the sides of the domed space. Soft light, the color of sunlight on a gentle spring morning, comes from fixtures in the distant ceiling, illuminating the entire scene. What of the floor can be seen is covered in debris, none of which can be made out clearly from this vantage point. Some of it has been moved into ordered piles, and paths cleared between them. A more detailed survey will come, but right now, the crew's food, water, and health situation must be assessed, the area they're living in examined for any obvious dangers, and the food unloaded. There's much work to be done and little time in which to do it. The 'food supply' garden is located on one of the terraces, taking up the entire third level, and indeed looks done up like a museum or botanical garden, with rows of plants arranged in soil around naturalistic-looking rock features, with pathways between them. Most of the plants are already gone, at least the edible ones, but there's still an extremely wide variety. They're wild, tangled, and mixed, overgrowing the decorative features and the paths, like none of this has been maintained in decades. Ivy creeps up the walls and has spilled out onto the terrace balcony. At the central ramp landing (for a spiral ramp connects all the terraces), the crew points out where they found six alien skeletons, huddled behind what looks to be a makeshift barricade constructed out of rocks and benches. The barricade is shot through with little holes, as were the skeletons. More is seen, and heard - indeed, very much is heard, for the crew is eager to talk - but it will take days at least to sort through and compile all this data. For now, the important things are that the crew is not in immediate apparent danger, they do have a water supply, and medically they appear to be doing acceptably well. The food supplies are quickly unloaded. The last item of immediate concern is the 'Martian zeppelin' the survivors mentioned. They explain that they see an airship of some kind flying around outside the windows to the west periodically, that it's never directly interacted with them, and that's pretty much all they know. The crew keeps a sharp eye out for it, ready to attempt to establish contact or flee if necessary, but the object does not show itself at this time. The unloading of the supplies is completed without incident. The rough mission plan had already been explained before the Proton even landed, but the survivors are still extremely obviously disappointed that no rescue is coming immediately. As the team exits the airlock for the last time, someone behind them calls out, "Don't forget us, okay?" The Proton-B returns to orbit as easily as she descended. Everything is proceeding as planned - which is quite comforting, in these strange times. Something can be normal. We're not going to pause the LP or hold a vote here, and things will continue regardless, but if there's anything you feel Mission Control would have instructed the Proton-B team to ask, or try to seek out in the limited time they have available, post it here in the thread. If it's something I feel they could have reasonably said or done in the time they had available, the results of their investigation will be reported back to you, and, if not, I'll explain why they couldn't do it. There's no official submission time or anything here, it'll just be open until I start writing the next update. Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Feb 9, 2021 |
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Feb 9, 2021 07:05
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A briefing on the two spaceships. Have they tried to enter? Do they look basically functional? (Great writing, functional but very vivid)
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Feb 9, 2021 09:52
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Do the refugees have anyone awake Other than USS Cyclops crewmates? Or do they have any idea what kind of people are in the other pods? Additional important question: have any of them shown signs of the Spanish Flu, and can we enact strict quarantine measures in regards to possible transmission regardless of the answer? Last thing we need is a 70 year old pandemic to start again, or to infect the refugees with the equivalent of a superbug for their dated immune systems. god tho, im so hype for the return. really looking forward to the reactions of the refugees when they find out whats happened back on earth in the past 70 years or so. from their perspective, the russian revolution was an in progress civil war that was only a year old and it was still unclear who would come out on top; imagine going from that and the next day you wake up and they control half the planet
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Feb 9, 2021 12:06
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Mister Bates posted:Mars Contact: WELL IF YOU HAVE TO ASK I ASSUME NOT HAHAHA Wait a sec... where's the German sub? Or did they cannibalize that to make that seemingly human-made airlock? If anything's gonna have parts to make an air-tight door, it would be that.
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Feb 9, 2021 15:00
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How do these people feel about communism? Cuz uh...
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Feb 9, 2021 15:44
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I think we've found our reason to colonize Mars, extensively.
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Feb 9, 2021 16:13
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Fivemarks posted:I think we've found our reason to colonize Mars, extensively. I mean the reason is that it's Mars, The Red Planet. I guess this is also an okay supplementary reason, though.
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Feb 9, 2021 18:01
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GunnerJ posted:How do these people feel about communism? Cuz uh... They're from 1918, getting told that it's half a century later and communism won would probably get a shrug and a "well that does make sense I guess". The nuclear war is the thing I dread having to explain more than the victorious world communism, really....
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Feb 9, 2021 18:24
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I'm more worried about telling them everyone they know is probably dead either of old age or the collapse of the US, personally. I don't know how much they'd know about WW1 but "there were another couple fuckoff huge wars" seems at least simpler to explain to people from a military background.
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Feb 9, 2021 19:00
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Just that joke about going 'Wow you guys were in World War One!' and they give you the old 
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Feb 9, 2021 19:09
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Kitfox88 posted:Just that joke about going 'Wow you guys were in World War One!' and they give you the old the true answer is this. just a casual "well be glad you werent there for three! that was a real doozy"
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Feb 9, 2021 19:36
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Grizzwold posted:I'm more worried about telling them everyone they know is probably dead either of old age or the collapse of the US, personally. I don't know how much they'd know about WW1 but "there were another couple fuckoff huge wars" seems at least simpler to explain to people from a military background. Well they were caught by aliens while operating a sub in 1918, so I think they got a good idea of what was happening in WW1. Other than that, agreed they are going to take the "asleep for almost 65 years" pretty hard. Just not as hard if we have like Vikings and Crusaders packed in tubes here too.
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Feb 9, 2021 19:56
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Question: Did anyone check on their radio equipment before we left? See what they've been making due with, make sure it was in working order, maybe offer them a spare one of ours if we have it lying around so they don't have to communicate in Morse code anymore? It might help them psychologically if they have a bit of a firmer lifeline to wider humanity over the next few weeks, or at least a more reliable way to update us if the situation changes suddenly.
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Feb 9, 2021 20:03
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"Hey you know that war to end all wars you guys were in right?" "Yeah?" "Well we had two more, but don't worry the third one was definitely the war to end all wars, for real this time."
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Feb 9, 2021 20:08
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Welcome back comrade! This is awesome info from the ground on the ships if possible
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Feb 9, 2021 20:53
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HiHo ChiRho posted:Well they were caught by aliens while operating a sub in 1918, so I think they got a good idea of what was happening in WW1. Other than that, agreed they are going to take the "asleep for almost 65 years" pretty hard. Yeah, my point was that if they're familiar with how hosed up industrialized warfare was already then "that but worse" should at least be conceivable. But they were also in the navy, which is a pretty different experience from trench warfare. I honestly don't know what people at the time knew about how bad it was at the front lines. We should probably plan to have some linguists go up there in case any of the older abductees are only capable of speaking, like, classical Latin or something.
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Feb 9, 2021 21:01
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Do the martian skeletons match the ones in the Roswell ship?
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Feb 9, 2021 22:49
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I hope somebody on my crew brought a camera. Even a little Zorki 35mm handheld.
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Feb 10, 2021 04:10
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Hey, wait a second...Mister Bates posted:
 ...did...did the Martians steal the Hanging Gardens of Babylon!?  edit: Also a little concerned about those skeletons. They were huddled and hiding behind a makeshift rubble barricade that was just shot through by something, which tells me even they were surprised by how effective their weaponry was. The bodies just being left where they fell is also a little weird. Someone just came in, hunted these guys down, and then just... left, not even bothering to turn the lights off on the way out. If they wanted to take the place intact, why leave it totally derelict? Did they just come in here to slaughter everyone? Why not shell it from orbit? Did this place used to have anti-air defenses necessitating a ground assault? It would explain the apparent debris field near the Pyramid... Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Feb 10, 2021 |
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Feb 10, 2021 21:21
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I personally think it might be some manner of open revolt/ internal quarrel maybe? That certainly seems likely to be what could cause our alien "friends" difficulty?
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Feb 10, 2021 21:49
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sebmojo posted:A briefing on the two spaceships. Have they tried to enter? Do they look basically functional? They have attempted to enter both, neither successfully. One man died in the attempt - not from a security system, he slipped and fell off the hull of the Roswell-style vessel. Both of them look intact to us, but the northern ship looks significantly older. The Roswell-style vessel, located in the central bay, is the same shade of grey as the Roswell object itself, but unlike it has a few markings - a broad horizontal blue stripe running along its length, four white hexagons arranged in a line below the windows of what's presumably the main bridge (located near the bow), and, below that, in our first known example of alien pictorial art, a black, stylized silhouette depiction of a figure in profile, standing, proportions similar to the Roswell alien specimens, pointing forward with one hand, clutching an unidentified rod-shaped object in the other. The ship is approximately almond-shaped and about 200 meters long. The windows at the presumed-bridge, and the engine bells aft (three of them), are the only obvious openings. The other ship, in the northern bay, is a collection of rectangular and cylindrical modules fore, a long, skeletal metal girder amidships, and a large vertical disc aft. The outer hull is dirty, faded white, with signs of rust and corrosion in places. It too has external markings, located on the largest module, though they're faded and somewhat difficult to make out - a single red circle surrounded by three concentric black rings, each ring with a solid black dot on it, like planets in orbits (that may indeed be what it's depicting, though that's pure speculation). Above that, another major discovery, our first known discovery of what is presumably alien writing - 15 characters of a sharp, angular script in faded black, with no spacing. This ship is the longest of the three, about 300 meters long (it barely fits in the bay, coming just a meter or two from scraping against both ends), over half of that length taken up by the girder section. There are a few small porthole windows on its modules, all of them covered by shutters or curtains or something on the inside. zanni posted:Do the refugees have anyone awake Other than USS Cyclops crewmates? Or do they have any idea what kind of people are in the other pods? Aside from the Cyclops crew they also have the crew of a German U-boat which went missing at around the same time, and tell a similar abduction story (they are tight-lipped about it but may have actually been hunting the Cyclops when they got abducted). The survivors have lost eight people to various causes, but none of them have been due to illness, and there's no indication of any disease in the crew. As for the sleepers, they do the team one better and take them down, down, down the central ramp of the terraced building, below it, into the chamber where they woke up. At the bottom landing, the ramp opens up onto a large, glass-windowed circular room of blue-grey metal that looks like it's been turned into an impromptu fortress. Furniture (seating, tables, shelves), stone and metal debris, and other objects have been piled into a rough semi-circle of barricades facing the landing. Behind these barricades there is a chaotic mess of more furniture that looks like it was dragged from a bunch of different places, with an eclectic mix of types and styles - hard benches and stools, padded couches, rolled cloth mats, tables made of metal and other unidentified materials. There are hexagonal crates, all of them opened and empty, and numerous other small containers. The walls of the room, below the windows, are lined with dark glass panels, presumably computer terminals. They found more alien skeletons here when they woke up, about eighty all told when they finally started cleaning them up and counting them. None of them had sustained visible damage. They found other items with the corpses but we didn't have time to examine them or ask in much more detail than that. Beyond the glass windows, illuminated by regular pools of dim light, are rows and rows of vertical cylindrical glass tubes extending as far as the eye can see in all directions. The team didn't have time to look at them in much detail, but nearly all of them are apparently full, almost all of them with humans. The Cyclops crew report that everyone they've seen looks, from clothing, to be probably from the 19th century at absolute earliest - they haven't run into any ancient Romans or anything as far as they know. They're also reasonably sure they're the last people who were put in. In addition to the sleeper tubes they were in, one other tube is empty, the one they tried to open. The occupant did not survive the process. Asterite34 posted:Wait a sec... where's the German sub? Or did they cannibalize that to make that seemingly human-made airlock? If anything's gonna have parts to make an air-tight door, it would be that. What's left of it is on the deck of the Cyclops, but it's been pretty thoroughly stripped for parts. The airlock is actually alien-built, but it took extensive engineering to get it to work without being able to operate the computers (when asked about it, the German captain states three sailors died in the attempt), and the parts used for that did come mostly from the sub. The system supplying drinking water, and a few other projects here and there, also used parts cannibalized from the U-boat. The space suit they're using is constructed out of a human diving suit, parts from the sub, and the stitched-together remnants of a bunch of alien space suits they salvaged from the airlock. They've only got the one. Asterite34 posted:Question: Did anyone check on their radio equipment before we left? See what they've been making due with, make sure it was in working order, maybe offer them a spare one of ours if we have it lying around so they don't have to communicate in Morse code anymore? It might help them psychologically if they have a bit of a firmer lifeline to wider humanity over the next few weeks, or at least a more reliable way to update us if the situation changes suddenly. A spare voice radio was left behind with them and they were instructed on how to operate it. In an impressive feat of improvisation, they've tapped into an alien cable in one of the walls and have been using that to supply themselves with electricity, so they have a power source for it. Prior to this they were just using the radio on the Cyclops, which they removed from the ship and moved to a room far up the inner wall of the dome; our team did not have time to look at this arrangement. Pacho posted:Do the martian skeletons match the ones in the Roswell ship? Our team did not have time to examine them (the crew clarify they've just been dumping the skeletons they find in the empty drydock pit as a form of makeshift burial), but from description all of them have been identical to the Roswell specimens. They don't have an exact count of how many they've found, just a ballpark 'several hundred'. 'How long have we been asleep?' is a question they did ask, and since Pirate Radar is actively posting in the thread and was the captain of this expedition, I'm going to give them an opportunity to decide how that question was answered, along with exactly how open they were about the whole 'communism' thing and the two additional world wars. Update (and Discord link) coming this evening either way! Mister Bates fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Feb 11, 2021 |
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Feb 10, 2021 23:55
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Props to the absolute madlads that manged to reverse engineer a space suit with a knowledge base stopping around the turn of the century, class acts all around
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Feb 11, 2021 00:24
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quote:'How long have we been asleep?' is a question they did ask, and since Pirate Radar is actively posting in the thread and was the captain of this expedition, I'm going to give them an opportunity to decide how that question was answered, along with exactly how open they were about the whole 'communism' thing and the two additional world wars. On the presumption that this has been discussed as part of the mission plan, I think we should be clear that a significant amount of time has passed (which shouldn't be a surprise given, e.g. SPACE TRAVEL) but defer detailed questions and answers until debrief.
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Feb 11, 2021 01:14
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:Props to the absolute madlads that manged to reverse engineer a space suit with a knowledge base stopping around the turn of the century, class acts all around Submariners probably had it pretty easyish since you have to worry about much of the same poo poo but also don't need to worry about the weight of the water crushing you or whatever.
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Feb 11, 2021 02:16
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Maybe if we're lucky the aliens will have scored some stalks of Silphium for their little garden. Now there's something that would make the entire trip worth it.
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Feb 11, 2021 02:17
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sebmojo posted:On the presumption that this has been discussed as part of the mission plan, I think we should be clear that a significant amount of time has passed (which shouldn't be a surprise given, e.g. SPACE TRAVEL) but defer detailed questions and answers until debrief. Yeah, at this point their imaginations are probably running a bit wild. The other cryotubes containing people from about 20 years earlier than themselves might give them the impression that it's been at least that long... but a Science Fiction Gee Wizz Space Rocket means all bets are off. At this point they'd probably be reassured to know it's been less than a century. Heck, some of them might still have a living relative or two, kids maybe.
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Feb 11, 2021 02:25
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I think it’s reasonable to answer the year and to give a few answers about ourselves, since the men from Cyclops and the U-Boat will have already started noticing certain things and deducing others: it’s been a long time, we have manned space flight now, I am commanding a Russian-speaking crew of mixed origin (even if all our communications among the crew are by radio, our suits are not free of insignia or lettering). Detailed political questions can wait, and I’ll try my best to defer them, other than to confirm what they probably suspect, that the war is over and none of us are each other’s enemies. These men can undergo political education during the quarantine period I expect to follow their return to Earth. I am curious about several points here, and attempt to verify for myself or ask the abductees for information, while documenting as much as possible. 1. Is the Cyclops still carrying a load of manganese ore? I’m not suggesting the alien intelligence behind this situation was committing piracy, but I want to check. 2. The alien skeletons that were atop the, let’s go ahead and call it the Hanging Gardens as comrade Asterite suggests: I am assuming their wounds were not consistent with conventional gunshot wounds. I take it these have been consigned to the empty drydock along with the rest, but if possible, any skeletons with injuries are a priority for photography. 3. My understanding so far is that the crew of the Cyclops and the U-Boat were released from the tubes as a unit, all at the same time, and that no members of either crew are still in tubes. This suggests that the alien intelligence saw them as a single batch (reasonable). Were the tubes they slept in all together, or is the tube room not so organized as that? Relatedly, when walking through the tube room, can we see what looks like any other groups? Uniforms would be ideal. 4. Is there any indication of why the group was released when they were?
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Feb 11, 2021 02:35
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:Props to the absolute madlads that manged to reverse engineer a space suit with a knowledge base stopping around the turn of the century, class acts all around Realworld ones are from 1931 for upper atmosphere flight. They're not actually that complicated if you're only looking at short-term, exhausting to move in, unreliable, and with conduction to get rid of heat. Has to hold about 10psi of gas if you start from normal earth air (excess can be let to leak out) and then have some air supply/CO2 removal hose/tank/scrubber. For a kludged together one, probably have a tank of compressed air with a regulator constantly exhausting into the inside of the suit and rely on leaks to bleed off the excess pressure + CO2.
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Feb 11, 2021 02:43
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Pirate Radar posted:I think it’s reasonable to answer the year and to give a few answers about ourselves, since the men from Cyclops and the U-Boat will have already started noticing certain things and deducing others: it’s been a long time, we have manned space flight now, I am commanding a Russian-speaking crew of mixed origin (even if all our communications among the crew are by radio, our suits are not free of insignia or lettering). Detailed political questions can wait, and I’ll try my best to defer them, other than to confirm what they probably suspect, that the war is over and none of us are each other’s enemies. These men can undergo political education during the quarantine period I expect to follow their return to Earth. I would agree with the captain's points, they're well-thought out. I do have a suggestion about how to describe ourselves if they ask (or more likely, when). We (meaning the crew, of course) are part of an international organization that has been conducting spaceflight for about a decade. For slightly more details, the best way to describe ourselves would likely be as the "Fifth International"/"Fifth Socialist International". While this is a controversial term and will probably get me dragged across the coals by the Volksrat for even suggesting it, it is one that they would most readily recognize. The Second International had only just disbanded when these men were abducted, so the idea wouldn't be too unfamiliar and it wouldn't be outlandishly farfetched that an organization that had included multiple powerful socialist political parties could have gained government in some nations, especially with the Russian communists being well entrenched by the time they were abducted in March 1918. Beyond that, I think deferring more detailed questions is both reasonable and also something they'll understand. Simply telling them that sixy-four years have passed is going to prepare them for the idea that the world is radically different (if not perhaps THIS much), and also alleviate any worries they may have about loved ones back on Earth (if in the somewhat grim form of most of them likely being dead already). Detailing HOW different the world is would take a long time, and time is precious in that situation.
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Feb 11, 2021 06:30
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Fully support Redeye and Pirate's plan and questions, seems the best approach for now. Christ, I really hope all those tubes aren't full though, that'd be.. horrifying. Countless people abducted over just over a century and humanity never noticed?
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Feb 11, 2021 07:36
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Oh yeah! One more thing about the tubes. Mister Bates posted:The team didn't have time to look at them in much detail, but nearly all of them are apparently full, almost all of them with humans. Emphasis mine. So, uh, what’s in the ones that are full but not with humans?
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Feb 11, 2021 08:02
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I'll be really curious for the investigative team to plot the where and when of the abductees. Are there patterns? Was it a random collection? Can we deduce the why behind it all? And as mentioned, what's in the ones that don't have humans?
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Feb 11, 2021 08:47
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Pirate Radar posted:I think it’s reasonable to answer the year and to give a few answers about ourselves, since the men from Cyclops and the U-Boat will have already started noticing certain things and deducing others: it’s been a long time, we have manned space flight now, I am commanding a Russian-speaking crew of mixed origin (even if all our communications among the crew are by radio, our suits are not free of insignia or lettering). Detailed political questions can wait, and I’ll try my best to defer them, other than to confirm what they probably suspect, that the war is over and none of us are each other’s enemies. These men can undergo political education during the quarantine period I expect to follow their return to Earth. The ship's holds are empty, no manganese ore. This could be because the abductors stole it, or it could be because they dumped it over the side. Either way, it's not there. Your crew shines a floodlight down into the pit and gets some photographs of the pile of bones at the bottom, but a more detailed investigation will have to wait until the scientific expedition arrives. They were all released at the same time, and were all grouped together. It'd take hours to sweep the whole room but you do notice quite a lot of uniformed men - the further you go into the room, the earlier the occupants seem to be chronologically, and the vast majority, probably more than 70%, of the people in the first few rows are uniformed soldiers from various nations, with uniform styles and insignia appropriate for the period of the First World War. The most notable are a group of 22 black soldiers in French Army field uniform, their insignia indicating they are from the same unit. The remainder are people of assorted age, gender, and nationality wearing variations on the theme of civilian clothing, or, occasionally, no clothing. The Cyclops crew, who have been here for a year, have gone all the way back, and from their uneducated guess based on clothing styles the oldest batch probably dates back to the early 1800s. They have absolutely no idea why they were released when they were, and there's no immediately obvious indication either. You tell them how much time has passed, that the war is over, and defer most other questions for now. The enlisted crew is upset, the officers are understanding and help to calm their discontent. Pirate Radar posted:Oh yeah! One more thing about the tubes. Fifteen tubes near where the Cyclops survivors were stored contain individuals of the same species as the Roswell specimens. They are clothed but not in uniform, each one of them wearing something different. __________ March 27, 1982 A voice transmission is relayed from Cydonia to Barsoom via the Electron-B. The Cyclops radio operator gets the name reference and finds it amusing. The Cydonia Expedition's ships ascend to an areostationary orbit to conserve fuel. With the new, modern radio, the survivors on Cydonia will still be able to maintain contact. March 30, 1982 All the physical infrastructure required for the Cydonia outpost is assembled, and is dispatched on the Luna, ETA about two weeks. The actual field team, and their equipment, will follow on the Tranquility once the entire team is put together, which will still take some time. April 3, 1982 A Comintern diplomatic mission is able, with the help of pressure from local communists, to schedule a meeting with the Prime Minister of India, to discuss the offer voted on at the last People's Congress session. The trade delegation will be sent shortly after the Japanese mission. April 7, 1982   The four ships of the Berowra-class clear the slipways at the Interkosmos and Gateway stations and are officially commissioned into service. Due to a data entry error they're commissioned under the Earth Surveillance command; this is rectified a few hours later. Though just over twice the mass of the Luna, the Berowra class freighter is much larger. They're about four times the cargo capacity, and nearly five times faster. The Luna, which has done humanity proud in its few short years of service, has been rendered decisively obsolete, even as it flies towards Mars.     Four previously-idle officers who have qualified as Ship Commanders are assigned to the ships. April 14, 1982 The Luna arrives in orbit around Mars for the second time. Her commander, kyoon griffey jr, orders the cargo landers deployed to Cydonia with supplies for the research team. The 482nd Provisional Infantry Brigade of the US Army, a US Federal Government loyalist unit operating in the Blue Ridge Mountains, murder their own commanding officer, and the unit disbands, most of the men melting away into the civilian population. Under the command of a junior officer, about 100 of the unit's soldiers (a quarter or so of the unit) formally defect to the Comintern, surrendering to an Interplanetary People's Army peacekeeper detachment. April 15, 1982 The Luna's shuttles ferry 50 people from Barsoom to Cydonia, where they make contact with the 'locals' and begin setting up a permanent camp outside the Face.  She then departs, halfway through her second voyage to Mars. April 22, 1982 The Barsoom team begins conducting interviews of the Cydonia survivors and performing an initial survey of the exterior and interior of the Face. They leave ranging further into the unexplored ruins to the second team, which will be ready for departure on the 24th. April 24, 1982 50 of Earth's finest, along with their equipment, are loaded onto the Tranquility, for the long trip to Mars. April 27, 1982 An oceangoing cargo ship offloading TNEs in Marseille, France is bombed and sinks in the harbor. Miraculously, only one person is killed. Gladio activity is suspected, and an extensive investigation will be carried out. May 1, 1982 International Workers' Day is, as always, the biggest holiday of the year. Parades, parties, speeches, television specials, all the usual. One of the German submariners asks the Barsoom advance team about the festive mood they're in, and a scientist absentmindedly explains the holiday, in the process giving away a bit more than intended about the current political situation on Earth. This leads to more confused questions, and the agreed-upon response to such questions, as suggested by Redeye Flight, is given. There is some awkward silence as the military men - about thirty of whom are in earshot at the time - absorb the revelation that they're in the care of communists. The silence is broken by one of them - Hans, the diver turned impromptu EVA specialist - snorting, giggling, and finally roaring with laughter. His crewmates roll their eyes at him as he walks over to the space-suited scientists, claps one jovially on the back, and shouts, through barely-controlled laughter, "Kameraden!" fun fact, the German navy had, by 1918, been heavily infiltrated by communist agitators, and a sailors' mutiny would trigger the German Revolution just a few months after these men were abducted
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Feb 11, 2021 09:25
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Wait, so there's live aliens in the tanks? This doesn't change everything, but it does make securing the site fully more important.
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Feb 11, 2021 09:41
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Live as far as we know, at least. And for now we have no idea how to get them out while keeping them that way. Any more sightings of the Martian Zeppelin? How frequently did the Cydonia abductees see it before (i.e. is its absence now notable)?
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Feb 11, 2021 10:04
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Mister Bates posted:The silence is broken by one of them - Hans, the diver turned impromptu EVA specialist - snorting, giggling, and finally roaring with laughter. His crewmates roll their eyes at him as he walks over to the space-suited scientists, claps one jovially on the back, and shouts, through barely-controlled laughter, "Kameraden!" Absolutely wonderful. Thank you for this.
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Feb 11, 2021 11:15
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Josef bugman posted:Absolutely wonderful. Thank you for this. Intensely agree. = = = = Fletcher is actually in his office, for once, going through sheafs of news reports. The simple presence of aliens in what was clearly a system designed and intended for humans is highly curious. No uniforms suggests civilians, being stuck in near the Cyclops crew suggests they were placed into, heh, "cold storage" very late. Base staff seems most likely, tossed or fled into cryo as whatever stopped this operation stopped it. Whatever their purpose, they can drat well stay there for now. We have priorities, and getting the abductees returned to as close to a normal life as we can give them comes first. Once that is finished, we can see about dealing with them. And, uh. He actually smiles at the camera for this. Please send the warmest regards of Germany to Kamerad Hans, and the rest of the U-Boot crew. If they desire it, there will absolutely be a place for them at home. Fletcher starts taking down notes to rattle trees in the Volksmarine to see how many of the old revolutionary sailors are still alive, though he knows it can't be many. Figuring out WHICH U-Boot it is will have to wait for later debriefing, though his staff say the most likely candidate for the timeframe is U-61, which was extremely successful. = = = = I also have a proposition from the Volksrat, which I feel is important to get on the table despite us being nowhere near the next committee meeting, due to its contents. The Volksrat applauds the development and commissioning of the new Berowra freighters, but members of the more historically-minded states as well as the aerospace and shipworkers' unions have expressed a desire to ensure we do not lose our foundational space history in the form of the Lunas. The DVR proposes to ensure the preservation of at least Luna and hopefully also Tranquility as museum ships or exhibits. When the two are retired, they should be disposed of for preservation rather than scrapping, possibly at a spaceport like Ascension Island, Baikonur, Jiuquan, Vandenberg, what have you. Additionally, if a situation develops where the survival of the two ships could be under serious threat, such as the appearance of armed and angry aliens, the DVR would like to see at least one immediately recalled and retired. Again, it is acknowledged that the next Committee meeting is months out; however, given the pace of our industry and events, the Volksrat wished this desire to be known now rather than later. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Feb 11, 2021 |
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Feb 11, 2021 12:00
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Redeye Flight posted:I also have a proposition from the Volksrat, which I feel is important to get on the table despite us being nowhere near the next committee meeting, due to its contents. The Volksrat applauds the development and commissioning of the new Berowra freighters, but members of the more historically-minded states as well as the aerospace and shipworkers' unions have expressed a desire to ensure we do not lose our foundational space history in the form of the Lunas. The DVR proposes to ensure the preservation of at least Luna and hopefully also Tranquility as museum ships or exhibits. When the two are retired, they should be disposed of for preservation rather than scrapping, possibly at a spaceport like Ascension Island, Baikonur, Jiuquan, Vandenberg, what have you. The Kalmar Union seconds this, as well as suggesting maybe one be preserved on the moon while the other is preserved on Earth?
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Feb 11, 2021 12:40
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Redeye Flight posted:Intensely agree. Thirded by the PRANZ
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Feb 11, 2021 13:13
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 04:09 |
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UAWR gives it a third!
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Feb 11, 2021 13:14
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