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Post by Seaspinner/Susannah Webber on Mar 12, 2011 23:22:34 GMT -5
Event Horizon rock room, Month 1, Week 2, Day 2. Open.
Fragments of Cybertron lie in a pile, quiet and inanimate as they tend to be, except on the rare occasion that they draw a visitor. Then there's a glint as a much shinier inanimate object joins the rocks.
It's a stasis pod, and one that will probably seem larger than usual to anyone from the Beast Wars. It's silent for a moment, then it sparks and a calm male voice announces, "Critical scanner damage. Replication error. Reformatting error-or-or-or-kzt"
The pod goes silent and dark until it sparks again and begins to repeat itself.
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Dinobot
Minor
Death Before Dishonor
Posts: 302
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Post by Dinobot on Mar 13, 2011 19:41:05 GMT -5
Dinobot perks up as he sees the glint of metal among the boulders and hears the tinny voice of the stasis pod's onboard computer. He draws his sword from subspace, the blade sliding out from behind his back, and stalks through the rocks toward the pod.
He's never heard of anyone arriving on the rocks in a stasis pod before! And a damaged one, even.
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Rattrap
Major
Sarcasm as a Lifestyle
Posts: 695
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Post by Rattrap on Mar 14, 2011 10:21:52 GMT -5
Rattrap looks up from his card game at the sound of that familiar computer voice – and promptly slaps his forehead with one hand at Dinobot's reaction.
"Talk about déjà vu," he mutters once he sights the stasis pod. It isn't bad enough someone scheduled him to sit a watch with Dinobot, now he has to deal with an Allspark-forsaken stasis pod. "Thought I was through with these slaggin' things." He pitches his voice louder and stands, leaning forward over the console. "Hey, Dino-boob! Y'know it's one of ours!" he snaps. He knows well enough by now what the stasis pods look like. This one's oversized, which is kinda weird, but then again, Botanica's pretty huge herself.
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Post by Seaspinner/Susannah Webber on Mar 14, 2011 13:17:04 GMT -5
The stasis continues to repeat itself, seemingly stuck in some sort of infinite loop. It could be worse, though. At least it isn't counting down to the inevitable demise of its occupant, though perhaps if left alone this would not have remained the case.
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Dinobot
Minor
Death Before Dishonor
Posts: 302
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Post by Dinobot on Mar 14, 2011 19:52:00 GMT -5
Dinobot snaps back at Rattrap, falling into familiar, comfortable patterns . . . that this version of Rattrap is unfamiliar with. "If you paused to think before opening your cheese-hole, rodent, you'd realize we don't 'know it's one of ours.' Inferno, Blackarachnia, Quickstrike, and Rampage all arrived in Maximal stasis pods. We have no way of knowing this pod hasn't been tampered with by the Predacons. We don't even know it's one of the pods from the Axalon."
Coming out from behind one of the larger boulders, the raptor finally gets a good look at the pod. The really large, Rampage-sized pod. "Hrrm. It looks like there's a bit of debris lodged in the control panel."
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Post by Ramulus on Mar 15, 2011 0:54:21 GMT -5
Ramulus comes running into the rock room with great haste. Really, one only needs to call 'Stasispod!' to get him all worked up. Its a sad trauma.
He makes way for any meds/tech that might get into the room, and bounds towards the metal hull. "Hah, Magmatron shelled a lot of the pods the Axalon dropped into Predacons in the parallel time. Don't assume it's a Maximal if the pod belongs to an Axalon member."
Leaping onto a rock, he waits and peers darkly at the console from high up. He has no knowledge on repairing one.
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Post by Perceptor on Mar 16, 2011 22:47:11 GMT -5
Botanica would probably be the better choice for dealing with this situation, as she has actual experience of these "stasis pods", rather than just knowledge gleaned from reading the various bits of information submitted by the Maximals... however, Perceptor is quicker. (And Botanica may still be in quarantine at this point, battling her case of Cosmic Rust.) His feet actually throw up a brief shower of sparks as he skids to a halt just at the doorway.
Funny, but things like, "protoform" and "dying" tend to get Perceptor moving rather quickly.
"Situation brief, please," he asks as he closes the distance from the doorway to the pod and begins examining the obvious damage.
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Rattrap
Major
Sarcasm as a Lifestyle
Posts: 695
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Post by Rattrap on Mar 17, 2011 9:54:16 GMT -5
Rattrap doesn't remember more of Dinobot's litany than Blackarachnia and that one is a sticking point with him on a couple levels, what with the whole undercover mission, risking his life, and having to dupe even his best friend to do it. Sucking up to Terrorsaur should've landed him a medal all its own and remains one of the sorest parts of a sore affair.
"Well, 'scuse me!" he announces loudly in a voice acid enough to etch metal, surrendering the matter with a dismissive shrug. "I fergot – we have a resident expert on Preds in Maximal clothing." He rounds on Ramulus, too, in the same biting drawl he used on Dinobot, and regarding him with suspicious, narrowed optics, "And I take it you're an expert on this shellin' process."
Perceptor interrupts the festivities rather adroitly. Rattrap gives the scientist an airy, bored wave.
"Pod showed up," he says matter-of-factly and without a trace of the venom only a moment ago. "It ain't workin' right, hasn't opened yet unless Dinobrain's keepin' hush-hush back there. Anything other than that, your guess is as good as mine. But!" and he raises one index finger. His customary sarcasm returns in full force. "If you're lookin' for insight on how we might have a Pred on our hands, these two upstanding gents can explain it."
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Post by Seaspinner/Susannah Webber on Mar 17, 2011 10:36:09 GMT -5
There is debris lodged in its control panel! And the scanner is a bit broken, but that's never hurt anyone. Overall as pods go, it's not particularly badly damaged, it's mostly just jammed at an important point in bringing a protoform online and in need of a bit of a kick-start to stop it from locking up repeatedly.
For now, it's going to repeat itself indefinitely, while its occupant snoozes away the day in stasis. "Critical scanner damage. Replication error. Reformatting error-or-or-or-"
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Dinobot
Minor
Death Before Dishonor
Posts: 302
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Post by Dinobot on Mar 17, 2011 15:54:53 GMT -5
"If you prefer to rush blindly into potential danger, be my guest, rodent. I, for one, will not be sad to see you go," Dinobot snaps back.
"A stasis pod containing a protoform from my reality has just arrived. The pod is damaged, but appears stable. As I was just explaining to my comrade," he growls venomously, "we have no way of knowing whether or not the pod has been tampered with by Predacons."
Dinobot isn't just being paranoid (in his own opinion, anyway.) Every stasis pod that dropped on prehistoric Earth started a race to see who could get there first. Sometimes the Maximals won. Sometimes the Predacons did.
"As none of us here are qualified to repair this equipment, your help would be appreciated, Perceptor."
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Post by Ramulus on Mar 17, 2011 17:04:54 GMT -5
Be careful Rattrap, Ramulus could be a Predacon without you knowing.
Ramulus' look turns quite solemnly as he watches the pod crank out its errors.
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Post by Perceptor on Mar 19, 2011 20:40:14 GMT -5
"Ah, thank you," Perceptor replies distractedly as he examines the controls and the rest of the pod carefully. He did actually catch that part about the pod potentially containing an enemy, but until they get the pod open, they won't know for sure. And as much as several individuals would like to train this out of him, Perceptor still won't let an enemy die through inaction, just because they are an enemy, so it doesn't really matter to him.
Except that if a Predacon does come rushing out at them, he hopes that one of the Maximals present will hopefully help get him out of the way.
With utmost care, he removes the debris from the panel, and reconnects the components that were damaged by its presence.
"Critical scanner damage. Replication error. Reformatting error-or-or-or-"
Perceptor frowns down at the exposed circuits; that should have worked. He prods at a few more parts, and tweaks a few settings.
"Critical scanner damage. Replication error. Reformatting error-or-or-or-"
A few sparks burst out as he tries rerouting power around the damage.
"Critical scanner damage. Replication error. Reformatting error-or-or-or-"
With a frustrated grumble, he balls up one fist and smacks the damaged panel out of frustration, giving it a solid punch.
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Rattrap
Major
Sarcasm as a Lifestyle
Posts: 695
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Post by Rattrap on Mar 23, 2011 9:39:35 GMT -5
Not knowing Ramulus from Terrorsaur as far as allegiance goes was the point of Rattrap's crack about the shell programs. The silence does nothing to make him any less suspicious, but he turns to Dinobot instead.
"Rushin' in blindly? I'm not the one standin' next to the potentially dangerous doodad," he jeers, then draws his blaster and flops back into his seat, propping his feet on the console. "Yer a real friend, Chopperface, steppin' up like this so I don't have to. I'll do my best t' cover ya if it comes out swingin'." His heel is also only inches from the emergency security switch.
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Post by Seaspinner/Susannah Webber on Mar 23, 2011 13:08:44 GMT -5
The stasis pod seems to be stunned into silence by Perceptor's sudden violence. Then, after a moment, the control panel flickers back to life and it utters a final, "Critical scanner damage. Replication error," before popping open with a hiss. Percussive maintenance triumphs once again!
The pod's hatch slams back as something with many hairy legs and even more sharp pointy teeth lunges up, jaws snapping wildly at the air. The pod's occupant looks like nothing so much as a shark in spider drag, with eight longs legs, a several extra pairs of fathomless black eyes, and a set of vicious fangs on top of her many rows of triangular teeth. A truly predatory-looking creature.
But just as suddenly as she had surged up, the spider-shark fuzor settles back on her tail and presses an arachnid foot to her scaled cheek. "Oh, goodness gracious me, I'm sorry, that was terribly rude of me, wasn't it? I must admit, you gave me quite a start!"
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Dinobot
Minor
Death Before Dishonor
Posts: 302
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Post by Dinobot on Mar 23, 2011 21:16:03 GMT -5
Dinobot grimaces when Perceptor punches the stasis pod. He could have done that!
"I am standing here with a weapon drawn in case the protoform is a Predacon! You wanted to just open the pod assuming it was safe!" he explains over his shoulder. Really, this couldn't be more clear.
The raptor takes a step back as the pod opens dramatically and a creature out of a zoophobe's nightmare climbs out. He brandishes his sword at the Fuzor and looks ready to swing when the dread beast . . . starts apologizing profusely. "I gave you a-" He snarls, and drops his blade down into a ready position. "Identify yourself!"
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