Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on May 2, 2007 8:47:21 GMT -5
Dead End shrugged off her comment. It was typical of something Starscream would say, and what Dead End suspected the other fliers had often thought--but only Starscream had the nerve to say it to one of Motormaster's teammates.
However, Motormaster wasn't here. True, he wasn't here to bully and abuse Dead End, but, Dead End uncomfortably realized, he wasn't here to protect Dead End either. The Deadster--as Wildrider, also missing, was fond of calling him--was on his own.
Fortunately, he'd never been in the habit of making enemies.
While Skystrike retrieved her cup and offered it to Hook, Dead End walked over examined the 'fuel delivery system', something he hadn't had a chance to do before. The connectors appeared to be flat paddles. Puzzled, Dead End lifted one out of its slot in the rack and examined it. There was no opening for fuel delivery, but it did remind him of something--
Ah. California again. That was it.
"Fellow Decepticons, before you get too excited about finding a cup, you might want to find the generator and fuel supply first. These appear to be electrical connectors for recharging an electrical vehicle quickly. Though the design and doubtless specific standards and protocols are different, functionally they appear very similar to those in electric car recharge stations in California."
He looks over at Hook. "What kind of vehicle uses metal roads?"
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Post by Hook on May 3, 2007 0:19:07 GMT -5
"Maglevs," Hook said musingly and waved Skystrike's cup away. "Oh, there are other possibilities, of course, but maglevs would be the most obvious and efficient vehicles from what little we know of their technology base."
(( This post is lame, forgive me. ))
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Post by Skystrike/Skylar Stringers on May 3, 2007 11:00:25 GMT -5
“What’s California?” Skystrike uttered as she stuffed the can thing back into subspace. Hook and Dead End obviously knew each other and it wasn’t unlikely that they were both earth bound Decepticons –which would explain why they both seemed to know what ‘California’ was. The seeker felt distinctly left out and that rather unnerved her after being part of a large and dependable team for so long.
They were the ‘earth’ team; part of Megatron’s highly esteemed elite. She, meanwhile, was only part of a practically forgettable fuel distribution team.
The flier ducked her head slightly to hide the scowl and turned her attention to the metal below her feet as she mulled over Hook’s and Dead End’s words. Who knew? Maglevs were certainly possible but they had no idea what the extent of this planet’s technological development was. Heck, considering how far Cybertron was being held back by the Great Wars and the Great Shutdown, she wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of the universe’s intelligent civilizations were a few thousand light years ahead of them by now.
Nonetheless, these roads… These roads would definitely be useful. If they could, maybe, upgrade or have current maglev technology adapted to fit this new setting and use it to their advantage they could save a lot of fuel in long range travel. Or, if things were truly convenient, they wouldn’t need tweaking at all!
In fact—
The momentary blaze of Skystrike’s optics faded to a dull red. Oh, yes, she didn’t have maglev anymore since she hadn’t been in for that medical check last week. She did so dislike those medics thanks to that one time when they’d left a socket wrench in her head for an entire month or so.
“Anyone here have maglev capabilities?” She doubted it, considering the fact that they had antigravs installed and earth wasn’t particularly famous for long metal roads. Antigravs saved a lot of grief for Decepticons that were offworld, but they still took up more energy than maglevs did.
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on May 3, 2007 13:54:04 GMT -5
"California," Dead End noted, "is a sub-division of the nation-state of the United States, on Earth. It's a coastal region noted for peculiar social customs and technological practices."
Dead End watched Skystrike's flare and dim. She was intrigued by the possibility of maglev technology. Perhaps she was one of the more intelligent fliers, then, and would not be a complete grating annoyance.
"No, I do not have maglev capability. I have wheels and standard lifters. Wheels are even more energy-efficient on a smooth surface than maglev. However, a maglev transportation system implies substantial electric power generation capability somewhere." His visor flickered as Dead End turned his head slightly toward Hook. "Hook knows the technical aspects of that better than I."
If this flier was going to be part of the team, there were things she really ought to know. "Skystrike, my risk analysis routines are somewhat flawed. Right now, I am 100% positive that something in one of those buildings will kill all of us within the next hour--if we're lucky. Otherwise, it will kill some of us and cripple the survivors so that they'll die slow deaths of fuel starvation while disabled and unable to repair themselves. That's if they aren't dismantled while still functional for spare parts by whatever lives here. If that doesn't happen, we'll still die of starvation and lack of maintenance from being stranded on this world."
"Ignoring all that, if the builders of this place are at all like the humans of Earth, that," he points at the building behind the recharge rack, 'is probably the main building that controls this recharge station. The other building, with all the large sealed doors, may be some type of service hangar or storage for vehicles. There's a dish antenna on top of the main building. I have no idea what it is for; I'm sure Hook can figure it out by looking at it, but I am a Stunticon, not a technical expert. I'm going around back to see what's there."
Dead End looks at Skystrike for a moment, then strides off around the corner of the main building.
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Post by Hook on May 3, 2007 14:58:49 GMT -5
As Dead End walked away, Hook glanced at Skystrike. "Dead End just provided a fine example of how flawed his risk-analysis is. Listen to what he suggests, but do not take his prophecies of imminent death as truth." A pause. "If he gets especially annoying, you may beat him with a wrench. It won't hurt him, but it is therapeutic."
He suggested a wrench because it is often the most heavy tool at hand for a Constructicon, nothing more.
Hook strode across to the main building, leaving the jet standing there. The dish intrigued him; if this planet regularly used maglev technology, they should understand how to create smaller parabolic antennae. That, of course, assumed that these antennae were used similarily to the ones on Earth, something he strongly suspected to be false.
His lifters engaged, and he rose up to examine the parabolic reflector. The first surprise was that it wasn't actually solid; it was formed of a very tiny mesh.
Hook folded his arms. The Constructicons had built parabolic reflector dishes before. He understood both Cybertronian traditional formulae for them, as well as the efficiency increases discovered by humans. A mesh with the holes kept under one-tenth of the wavelength would be lighter and less prone to wind damage than a solid dish of the same size, and it would have nearly the ideal characteristics for such an object.
He removed his toolkit from subspace, set it on the roof, and pulled out one of his laser measures. First, the diameter of the dish, then the size of the mesh holes... Those numbers fed into a few different equations to determine the maximum wavelength, then fed that result into the equation to determine how much gain the dish had.
Hook's optics flashed as the equation completed. That was a rather large number for the power that it could theoretically pull from the electromagnetic spectrum. Far more than a communications device actually needed. Of course, the amount actually available would only be roughly forty-five to fifty-five percent of the theoretical...
"It's a power-receiver," he said wonderingly. "Not communications, beamed power."
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Post by Skystrike/Skylar Stringers on May 4, 2007 6:05:34 GMT -5
Skystrike stared as Dead End walked away. Buwha? Nonetheless, she stowed away the pieces of, uh, new information away for later. She nodded to Hook’s words chuckling softly at the mention of a wrench. Well, kind of chuckled; the sound was more similar to a microphone being blown out if only the pitch wasn’t too low for most humans to hear properly. It wasn’t only her maglevs that needed fine tuning after half a century of avoiding the doctors.
“I’ve dealt with paranoid mechs and I’ve dealt suicidal mechs. Him though…” Skystrike turned to follow Hook as the crane strode over to the main building, “He is something I don’t quite get yet.” The basics of how to deal with people like Dead End were still probably the same, though so it shouldn’t be too hard to get used to him. Hopefully.
Having little better to do, she watched quietly as Hook examined what appeared to be satellite dish, idly trying to scheme up ways to get her maglevs working again. It hadn’t been working for the last few days, but she’d always managed to get it working again after switching around a few wires that she’d stored in her subspace… Skystrike turned to look at Hook when the green mech said something out loud that took her a few minutes to decipher.
“… They… Receive power by satellite?” The flier ventured, not quite understanding what Hook was saying. Or maybe she did understand, but she just didn’t want to think about it.
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on May 4, 2007 11:54:47 GMT -5
Dead End was not yet concerned with Skystrike's understanding of him. Perhaps he should have been, but he still hadn't thought through the concept of "We may have to make a new, permanent team." Right now, Dead End's CPU classed the trio as a 'temporary mission team'.
Around back of the main building were two small outbuildings--too small for vehicles. Utility sheds or sanitation facilities, perhaps. Each had one small door--slightly larger than human-sized, but also too small for most Transformers. They were rectangular, with arched tops; long side oriented vertically. There were also two such doors in the back of the main building. All were closed.
Dead End walked over to the nearest outbuilding. A small pad with a horizontal slot nestled next to the door, about two-thirds of the way up from the ground.
// I'm examining what looks like a lock on one of the outbuilding doors, // Dead End informed the rest of them. // If you hear a loud explosion in the next few minutes, it was booby-trapped. //
He pressed the pad.
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Post by Hook on May 4, 2007 12:32:41 GMT -5
"Terminally depressed is the word you're looking for. If you ever turn your hand to mental programming and mind engineering, the Stunticons are one of the best case studies for designed mutual interdependence through carefully chosen forms of insanity," Hook commented as he packed his toolkit back up and stashed it in subspace once more.
"A satellite would be part of the system, yes." His tone of voice implied that he was both mildly startled that she had thought of that and somewhat pleased that she had. He's stranded with people who aren't as dense as neutronium! Frabjulous day! "There is likely a central broadcast station somewhere that stores power, beams it to the satellites, and they beam it back to individual stations."
He descended to the ground once more. "We need to find wherever they store power here. Look for signs with flashy colors and writing, as well as symbols that can possibly be interpretted as 'you will die a horrible, electrical death if you touch this'."
Then Dead End's message comes through.
//Duly noted. If you get excessively injured, I shall be annoyed at you for wasting resources.//
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Post by Skystrike/Skylar Stringers on May 5, 2007 5:31:03 GMT -5
“… I don’t know whether I find that interesting or scary.” Mind engineering always unnerved her a bit. Even if she was interested in it, the seeker highly doubted she could ever raise enough creds to study the subject. Skystrike's optics flickered slightly.Though she was quick to snub the flicker of self doubt, the flier realized that it was only realistic for her current state.
She listened as Hook explained his how system should work, shifting her weight one foot another and scowling slightly. An energy distribution system that didn’t need any form of transportation, or conductive materials to carry or send it around and area. The thought made her uncomfortable, yet, at the same time, excited as she thought over the possibilities. The amount of energy that could be saved, a distribution system that could work at the speed of light and… and... She thought back to Lighter and idly wondered what the carrier would have thought of this new technology. He’d proposed the theory several times before, after all. Mostly in complaint, usually whenever he was stuck in a tight corner of an ally, but still.
Skystrike blinked out of her thoughts when the green crane descended back to the ground, her ailerons twitching unconsciously. She nodded at his words and was about to walk off when Dead End talked to them over the intercom. The seeker resisted the urge to rush air through her vents loudly in annoyance when the Porsche mentioned booby traps.
//“Dead End, there isn’t going to be an explosion.”// She replied, a bit irritated as she began to prowl about the main building to find said shiny-flashy danger signs that Hook mentioned. Never encourage self destructive thoughts or behavior; that was what Core Breaker had told her and that was the rule she’d abided by when dealing with a panicky fuel carriers.
Why would they have booby traps in a service station in the middle of nowhere anyway?
Hm. Well, actually, if the service station had belonged to some kind of military organization the possibility of it being protected to a certain extent wouldn’t have been too far off. Still, booby traps? That wouldn’t be very… efficient if this station was visited daily by civilians. Warning electrical shocks would’ve been enough, especially if they’d been organic like the humans on earth. It certainly looked more geared to receiving civilians as far as she could tell by the lack of external weaponry. This alien service station looked nothing like the Cybertronian ones where the possibility of being vampired by said stations were far higher.
This service station looked utterly benign and devoid of sentience.
The flier paused in her search as she turned that particular line of thought over in her processor. Skystrike then cast a rather anxious look around the place before stuffing any paranoid thoughts away in a dark corner of her mind and continuing her search.
The energy receiver was on the building, so she’d assumed that the storage unit should be somewhere in the structure. Why waste a few more yards of conductive material when the storage could be kept right nearby? The jet brought her sensory array online to see if she could spot some kind of energy signature through the walls. If she could find that, she should be able to find the energy storage.
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on May 5, 2007 19:30:13 GMT -5
Nothing happened when Dead End pressed on the small pad. Locked, or no power to the device, which was almost the same thing. He peered at it, then pulled a small flat-bladed screwdriver out of subspace from his personal maintenance & hygiene kit.
A couple of sharp blows around the edges and the cover panel popped off. Dead End peered at the electronics inside; none of it offered any obvious clues. He poked a few leads with his screwdriver; no power that he could tell. The Stunticon shrugged, grabbed a handful of wires and yanked the whole mess out of the wall and tossed it on the ground.
Oh, look, now that the fancy electronic lock was out of the way, there was the bolt holding the door closed. Dead End yanked it out and slid the door open. It was too small for the large robot to fit through, so he just turned on a headlight and swept it around the tiny room.
Several oddly shaped bowls of silvery metal met his optics; there were smooth white disks on the ceiling and what looked suspiciously like pipes with valves above the bowls. This looked familiar, in an alien sort of way. Dead End reached in and grabbed one of the valves...
Several minutes later, Hook and Skystrike received a transmission. // Dead End here. There are two small structures behind the main building. One may be a power or fuel storage chamber; there's some kind of warning plaque on the door. The other is the local washrack and waste discharge facility. You may be interested to know that there is water pressure and that the water valves are quite fragile. //
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Post by Hook on May 5, 2007 23:11:51 GMT -5
Unfortunately for Skystrike, she can't detect any sort of energy radiation from the building with the satellite dish on it. Whether this means the equipment isn't here, the equipment has no charge, or the equipment stores energy in a way that doesn't lose energy, there's no way to tell.
Hook prowled around the buildings, looking for something that he would consider an adequate caution sign. Nothing got his optic on this building-
-Then Dead End's comm came through. //Good work. Try not to break more of the complex.//
"Hm. Do you have an adequate metal-cutter, Skystrike?"
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Post by Skystrike/Skylar Stringers on May 6, 2007 8:12:10 GMT -5
Skystrike stood up, giving up her search around the building. She leant back slightly, settling her weight on her thruster heels for a moment to ponder the wall before her before shrugging her wings. She was about to turn and walk off to the next building when Dead End spoke to them over the com.
//“Glad to hear you’re alive.”// Skystrike smirked despite the fact that he couldn’t see it. She looked up and then around to Hook when the green mech asked her for a metal cutter.
“Yes, I have a metal cutter,” the flier said, unsubpsacing the aforementioned cutter. Like the rest of the few things that she carried, it was dingy and worn down, the paint completely scraped off; here and there, wires stuck out or a panel was missing. Otherwise it was in surprisingly good shape –it was a heftier piece of heavy duty machinery, about as long as the seeker’s forearm, obviously not much of a precision instrument.
“You’ll have to plug it in though. Haven’t recharged it.” Skystrike murmured, tapping the machine’s recharge port before taking the protective blade covering off to check the circular saw-blade for any unevenness. She’d been putting this machine through quite a lot of abuse cutting up the stubborn rusting pipelines that riddled Cybertron’s underground.
“Is it ‘adequate’?” she questioned finally giving him a quizzical look as she held it up.
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Dead End
Major
Yes, we're all doomed. I already knew that.
Posts: 797
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Post by Dead End on May 6, 2007 11:01:56 GMT -5
Dead End nonchalantly wanders off from the now-slightly flooded restroom building to look around the other large building, the one he's mentally dubbed 'the garage'. It's the same long, low, rounded construction the other one is--rather like a large quonset hut with external support ribs and rounded ends. He circles the building; there are no buildings in back of this one, but there are eight large, vehicle-sized doors along the 'front', and a smaller, "local-sized" door on each end, and one in back. Both have similar lock-plates to the one on the restroom.
Dead End walks around back and tears off the lock-plate on the back door just like he did for the restroom. He slides open the back door and peer inside.
// Hook, Skystrike, there are vehicles in the garage. It looks like the big doors unbar from the inside. //
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Post by Hook on May 6, 2007 13:09:21 GMT -5
"Not if it has no charge, it isn't." Hook waved his hand dismissively. "However, unless the locals are insane, the pavement isn't laid down in one solid mass. Normally, I would have Bonecrusher do this, but as he is not here..." And you are went unspoken. He pulled a metal tube that fit easily into his hand out of subspace, then offered it to her. "The large thumb-switch on the side turns it on and off. Point it towards the ground when you activate it."
That's all the safety advice Hook had for using his energy sword. "Look for the seams and cut along there. We'll need-"
He ran the calculations for the entirety of his hydroelectric dam - how much metal they would need to build it, how productive it would be - and ran up against a fatal flaw.
His expression was terrible for a brief moment - snarling rage and terrified grief intermingled - then he thumbed the energy sword on and drove it into the ground. He sunk down with it and hunched over it, the line from his crane-arm spilling in a tangle behind him.
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Post by Skystrike/Skylar Stringers on May 7, 2007 5:16:50 GMT -5
“Well, it can be charged,” Skystrike said and tapped a panel on her wrist vaguely, “but that takes power out of the system.” There was a reason why the cutter was in good condition; the energy had to be saved, otherwise she had to plug it into her fuel system incase of emergency. While the cutter was useful, it used up more energy in a few seconds rather than say, simply moving an obstruction out of the way in ten minutes and barely half the amount of energy. Nonetheless, the flier subspaced it when Hook took out his plasma blade.
// Hook, Skystrike, there are vehicles in the garage. It looks like the big doors unbar from the inside. //
Skystrike nodded to Dead End’s description while listening to then crane in front of her at the same time as he explained how to use the sword. So they’d have to investigate the vehicles later, maybe take them apart and see what parts could be useful –or at least, see how they worked and confirm or completely dissipate the theory on the maglevs.
With an idle wing flick, the seeker reached out to take the plasma sword from Hook and start a discussion on the Dead End’s new find—
The expression change on his face didn’t make her hesitate. Faster than most human eyes could see, the flier was quite suddenly twenty yards away before Hook even activated the plasma sword, guns up, wings twitching and optics blazing in an unhappy glare. For the briefest of moments, the flier was so sure that the crane had been about to kill her.
That thought flared and then, just as quickly died down when she saw the plasma sword buried in the ground and its owner crouched down and being was generally miserable about something that the seeker didn’t understand. Reluctantly, the sound of her thruster’s whines faded away and her heels creaked as the weight of her metal body returned to her feet rather than being lightened by antigravs. Skystrike glowered at him for a moment longer before lowering her arms, the guns along with them. Just as a precaution though, she kept her combat system online.
After a moment more, the seeker finally, cautiously, asked, “… Hook, what’s wrong?” She sounded more anxious and unsettled rather than really concerned about him.
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