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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 18, 2011 21:11:27 GMT -5
Month 2, Week 3, Day 3, Event Horizon, training room, open
Note: This is purposefully set prior to Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? to avoid weird conflicts. Also, if any 'con players want to be expendable villains for the purpose of a sim - let me know! I shall be happy to work you in.- - - Kup did assign Sentinel Prime to lead some training sessions as Kup said he would. It is possible Sentinel Prime's done some before this offscreen; it's possible he hasn't. As it is, Sentinel Prime's there early, futzing with the simulation controls. He wonders if Perceptor will actually show. Probably not. The 'bot's busy. Still, Sentinel Prime has actually given this some thought. Today won't be just, 'Do 50 transform-ups, run around a fake track, drive around a fake track; do more transform-ups, and then run through some tyres'. Today will actually be exciting and engaging, with variety! Today is a sim of busting into a Decepticon complex to steal a widget.
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Post by Perceptor on Apr 19, 2011 20:26:09 GMT -5
Perceptor actually will show up. In fact, that's him at the door, peeking around the doorjamb hesitantly, looking as if he'd really rather be, oh, feeding his hand to a sharkticon or something, than where he is right now.
"Hello?" he announces, and then spots Sentinel. "Um, hello, ah, Sentinel Prime."
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Apr 23, 2011 23:07:34 GMT -5
"Hey, Number Two Egghead," a voice calls from behind Perceptor, "You make a better door than a wi- Wait, let's try that again. You make a better wall than a door!"
Whirligig stands in the hallway with his hand on his hips and a shit-eating grin on his face. Given that he's rather small, the doorways are rather large, and that Perceptor isn't even taking up the entire thing, he could really just walk in if he wanted to. Maybe he's just being polite by not just brushing by Perceptor. More likely he's just being a dipwad.
He quirks a brow. "And the view ain't too great, either!"
It's all crotches and asses from down here!
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 24, 2011 13:45:55 GMT -5
Sentinel Prime puts on a somewhat pleasant expression and sweeps over to Perceptor, trying to... well, he'd like to put his arm around Perceptor's shoulder and usher Perceptor in before he bolts, but Perceptor is a bit tall for that, so he settles for trying around the middle of his back, and he greets with an easy, greasy cheer, "Perceptor! So glad you could take time away from your busy schedule to make it. It's an honour, sir."
He's more snappish as he directs, "Whirligig, just get in here."
Then Sentinel Prime continues, "I figure just doing drills over and over again would bore you to tears, am I right, sir? And then you'd never want to do it again. You want something exciting and engaging, ever-changing, that makes you think. What you are going to get is being dropped out of the back end of C-130 Hercules into a volley of missiles, which you'll have to shoot down before they kill us all. I can't say what angles they'll be coming at us from, but a safe bet is 'all of them'. And then we're going to break into this Decepticon base located in the heart of the Tangle - it's this crazy forest - and we're going to steal the secret weapon they're working on. We don't know what it is or what it does. That's why you're here - to make sure we get the right thing. It'll be tight quarters, and if you shoot into a fight and shoot Whirligig or me, the only one you'll be helping is the enemy. Then Whirligig can set the whole place to blow once we're out."
No, the Tangle is not on Earth. No, C-130s are not on Mirrodin. The sim room makes some odd things when one sets up a template and then lets the sim room fill in the details.
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Post by Perceptor on Apr 24, 2011 17:01:53 GMT -5
Perceptor nearly jumps when Whirligig pipes up from very near his feet. He was... really rather hoping that this would be more of a... a private training with Sentinel, so that no one else would have the pleasure of observing his failure. (No, he isn't feeling a great deal of confidence in this whole affair, really.)
And then Sentinel starts explaining what the sim mission will consist of, and Perceptor is too intimidated by it to even resist being pulled further into the room.
"Dropped from... ah, into a volley of missiles, you say?" he says weakly. "How... ex...um... exciting..." Is it too late to sign up for some of those rote drills?
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Apr 24, 2011 18:40:57 GMT -5
"Right away, my almighty Chin Lord!" Whirligig says, flailing an arm in a vague mockery of a salute to Sentinel. Strutting into the room after the pair - and really, the view isn't getting any better - he listens with bright interest as Sentinel details the scenario.
With every word Sentinel says, Whirligig's grin gets wider and wider, and by the end of it his thruster-poles are actually twitching in excitement behind his head. Point both fingers at Sentinel Prime in a silent 'you da man!' he states loudly, "There is no part of that plan I didn't like!"
Someday he is going to this sort of stuff in real life, he swears. Once he is no longer green as grass.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 24, 2011 19:01:30 GMT -5
Is Whirligig the reincarnation of Bumblebee?
Sentinel Prime tries to drag Perceptor deeper into the sim room and agrees, "Yes, it's very practical. You never know when you'll be dropped into a volley of missiles."
If Perceptor is begging for mind-numbing drills by the time they're done with this, Sentinel Prime wins.
He fixes a diamond-sharp glare on Whirligig and informs him in absolute zero tones, "My. Name. Is. Sentinel. Prime." There is an unsaid, 'you unwashed motherboardless son of a slagheap,' in there somewhere.
But... Whirligig likes this training idea? Huh. That only soothes Sentinel Prime's seething affront a little. "Give me a quick run-down of your loadouts, abilities, and skills before we get going - there might be some stragglers."
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Post by Perceptor on Apr 24, 2011 19:12:24 GMT -5
Of course Whirligig likes this plan; there's explosions. Perceptor is just hoping that the things exploding aren't him.
Oh, this is so silly! What has he got to be afraid of? He's led missions before! Into Megatron no less! (to save the Autobots and the whole of planet Earth) He knows... mostly... how to fight! (as long as his friends are threatened) Everyone's entitled to a bit of a mulligan now and then, right? (it was just a shield!)
He is going to fall on his face in the most utterly spectacularly awful fashion. He just knows it. Wait...
"Stragglers?" he asks, his voice slipping a bit high in the register with surprise and just a bit of... shock. "There, ah, will be more, um, participants?"
Goody. More folks to watch him utterly fail. He needs a portal generator so that he can sink through the floor on command like he feels like his core has already done.
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Apr 24, 2011 20:16:22 GMT -5
There's also the jumping out of high-flying objects and getting shot at! That's a definite plus, too.
"Yep, that sure is your name, babe! Don't wear it out," Whirligig says with a cheeky grin. "And you know me! Load out? Explosives! Abilities? Explosives! Skills? Antiquing. Haha, no serious, explosives." He rubs his chin in mock contemplation. "I can also reliably identify fifteen metal ores! The rest, eh, it's hit and miss."
That last skill is totally relevant to this simulation.
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 24, 2011 20:27:37 GMT -5
"There could be! Anyone who shows. This session is... optional," he fairly growls the last. Sentinel Prime shakes his head and decides, "So you'll mostly have to engage the enemy in melee, Whirligig? How much experience do you have with that?"
Perceptor could pull rank and override the sim room to make it appear he has fallen through the floor if he wanted.
He paces over to see what 'intel' they have for this mission and reads aloud from the sim room prompter, "Recently, the Decepticons have been stealing various items in order to build an unknown super weapon. They have stolen large amounts of tellurium and silica, as well a number of taxis. Shockwave has personally stolen forty cakes, and that's terrible. Rampage has stolen a pallet of rubber ducks. As such, we have no idea what they're making, but we hope Perceptor will know it when he sees it."
Is tellurium one of the 15 kinds of metal Whirligig can identify?
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Post by Perceptor on Apr 24, 2011 21:24:40 GMT -5
The fact that Perceptor technically ranks Sentinel and could a) skip out or b) reprogram the sim never once occurs to him. Perceptor would make a terrible James T. Kirk.
Okay. Sim information. Time to get serious. He can do this. "Tellurium. Silica. Got it. Ca- ...cake?" Rubber ducks? What insanity is this? "The cake is a lie," he mutters.
Well, he had just been wishing for a portal to swallow him up.
"One imagines that their weapon of mass destruction will be the one with the mass of fused yellow latex in the midst of it," he observes with a faint frown.
Yes, yes, he knows. The sim is just spitting things out at them. He understands that. But... cake? Rubber ducks? How is he supposed to take the field of eventually-to-be-incoming rockets and missiles seriously if he knows that he will be hunting for rubber ducks?
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on Apr 24, 2011 22:12:08 GMT -5
It probably isn't! That would be far to convenient.
"Well, I've survived every melee encounter I've had with a Decepticon!" You know, all two or three of 'em. And the only one that was technically a victory for him was also strange and ridiculous and still resulted in him being stuck under a Decepticon. But hey, it's still technically the truth! Lying by omission is one of his favorite types of lying.
Whirligig looks impressed at the list of purloined items. "I have no idea what you could build out of all that scrap, but I do know that I want one."
Ducks, taxis, and cakes? How can that go wrong!
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Post by Sentinel Prime on Apr 24, 2011 22:22:44 GMT -5
"Hmm, you think the cake is misinformation? Could be, could be..." Sentinel Prime speculates.
Sentinel Prime gives Whirligig a very hard squint as he gets evasive. He decides, "Whirligig, you're in the middle. Perceptor, you take tail - and I want you to watch out. I'll take point."
This of course could change if someone else shows up, but for now, Sentinel Prime is putting the monkey in the middle. Tail is a hard role, though, and Perceptor needs a challenge.
He taps the console, and suddenly, they're inside a C-130, apparently aloft. There are NEST personnel running around, trying to coax the Autobots into parachutes, except that instead of humans, they're apparently pretty Shi'ar ladies with downy soft lavender feathers. They seem friendly enough, though!
One of the NEST Shi'ar has her hands full and is trying to get another to retrieve her communicator, shouting, 'Left cheek, left cheek!'
Sentinel Prime has absolutely no idea what to make of any of this, so he just transforms, as directed, to get fitted for his 'chute.
One thing that might be noticeable is that the gravity on this planet is roughly 75% of Earth's gravity, accounting for the impact of altitude. That'll affect freefall and the flight of missiles, oh yes.
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Post by Perceptor on Apr 29, 2011 16:17:17 GMT -5
For a long moment, Perceptor merely stares around himself as the scene changes. Parachutes. Yes, of course. Um... Yes. He... should probably stay in root mode for his chute. He can run out of the back of the airship faster than he can drive out of it, and, while his accuracy in scope mode may be more advanced that when in root mode, he has no hands, and hands to wield either his concussion rifle or his rocket launcher may be beneficial if the incoming ordinance is as numerous and unpredictable as Sentinel is expecting, and...
He should shut up now. Even his mental monologue.
Lower gravity. He makes a note of it and adjusts all his background calculations of force and mass and acceleration appropriately, and tries not to jump as one of the Shi'ar ladies starts running her hands across his plating rather, ah, familiarly, ahem, as she adjusts the attachments and such for his newly acquired chute.
"Understood, Sentinel Prime," he manages, although if Sentinel hears his rather weak rejoinder in all the chaos and noise, it would probably be a miracle.
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Post by Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh on May 7, 2011 10:36:22 GMT -5
"Whatever you say, Big Blue!" Whirligig chirps. The middle it is!
He's completely unruffled by the change of scenery to the rather mismatched scene of chaos around them. It's all new to him! And he's been through weirder. Or not actually been. Whatever. He does start flapping his hands at the Shi'ar ladies as they approach, trying to fit him with a parachute.
"Hey, hey, ladies! I know I'm hard to resist, but I don't want what you're offering!" That being a parachute. "Oy! Shoo! I don't neeeed it- 'Ey! Watch what you're touching-!"
However, the ladies are rather determined and Whirligig isn't much larger than any of them, and soon he finds himself grudgingly contorting into vehicle mode and getting a 'chute strapped to his rear. His chuckle is actually slightly shaky as he says, "Insistent little feather-dusters, ain't they?"
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