"Same questions I had before, plus what happens if you use an open electrical arc in the "snow" that you've talked about."
Get answers and have a peek to see how far down it is to the ocean.
You look down but don't see anything. Far too dark.
"You'll have to refresh my memory about the earlier question, but the snow is conductive. Very conductive. It would be like a live wire in a pool of water, only arcing across particles of snow. Plus it has this nasty habit of almost seeking out living things. Which considering the place might be possible..."
What kind of automated defenses and robots?
"Thats one of the dangerous parts; it varies. The entire snowglobe is a constant warzone. Imagine you took a few miles of suburb and city and stuck it in a dome. And then you released a bunch of robots into it, some rebuilding buildings, some destroying them, and some destroying the destroyers. And then you make it so that those robots are always changing in response to the tactics of their opponents. The place is in constant flux, both geographically and..uh...whatever the equivalent of "biologically" is for self modifying robots."
'Yeah, I've got a few questions for you.
First, what remarkable things have you discovered on this planet already?
Second, is this whole planet covered in these metal plates? Do they cover the entire planet? And do you have any idea what is their function?
Thirdly, is it standard practice to use your arrival ship as an impromptu basecamp?
And lastly, those tech-divers, are they employed/paid by the UMW? Or are they more like adventurers or treasure-seekers?'
Ask above.
"Uh. Well, I'm not really at liberty to tell you about a lot of it, but most isn't that interesting. You see, the technology of the planet becomes more advanced as it goes deeper. We believe the inhabitants continued to expand underground as their technology advanced, however it also becomes more dangerous as you go down, so the tech-divers and people like myself tend to just scavenge from the upper levels. So nothing is terribly advanced up here but some of the things from a few levels down are..." He stares into space, "Practically alien. You'll probably see some of it in the snowglobe. It resembles more of the deep tech then the surface stuff."
"No, no. Well, partially. The entire surface of the planet is built up but these plates are just the cover for the ocean." He laughs a bit, "
Just the cover for the ocean. And their function is to keep the water in the ocean rather then let it into the atmosphere. The machines and processes use massive amounts of water. The entire ocean is their coolant pool."
"Happy Landings? No, no. That was the first UWM ship to rediscover this world. They got caught in some sort of anomalous energy reaction, they're common around here, and crash landed here. The wreckage is a town now, one of several that dot the planet, a place for the tech-divers to sleep and get high. "
"No. No. The tech divers are...prospectors? Just free lancers who come here to get rich by exploring the inner planet and bringing back some sort of valuable tech to sell to the UWM reps or One of the corporate shadowmen. They're a sad lot; almost all of them go massively in debt to get here, suckered in by the promises of riches and buying tickets with insane hidden charges. Most of them are just trying to get enough money to leave."
"So, what exactly do you want us to steal, Mr. Techaeologist? I mean, you want all the technological doohickeys we can find, but anything more specific than that? You know, so we don't come back with a shipment of high-tech trashcans or something when there were loads of other cool things to loot. Are you looking for strictly useful stuff like wicked ordnance, cool armor and awesome computer thingies, or will any old piece of trash interest you?"
"Well, anything that looks...more advanced then what we have is good, but there's a specific place and a specific building near the center of the dome I want you to investigate. I'll point it out when we get there."
So uh...who built the tram?
Ask the above question while looking around, trying to notice anything out of place
"The same people who built this cover over the entire ocean."
You don't see anything out of place. At the very edge of your vision you can see a rather passive supporting pillar stretching up out of the darkness and connecting to the plate ceiling, but everything looks...well as right as you can tell. It's almost like being on the catwalk above a factory, just with the lights on the factory floor off.
Draw my rifle and check everything is in working order then cradle it to my chest and listen to the strange man talk.
Your rifle did indeed not break within the last few minutes. You hug it close and whisper sweet nothings, just in case.
"Who are you anyway?"
After asking question examine equipment and surroundings.
((Time to see what all the fuss is all about.))
"I'm a tech-archeologist. I study these people and their technology."
(Your equipment or the stuff around you.)
In the distance you hear a dull electrical buzz and metallic clicking that grows slowly until a softly rounded metal pellet of a tram slides into the light of the platform and glides to a stop. A pair of doors slide open and a harsh, yellowish light spills out. Inside are a few rows of metal benches and a wall console as well as several display screens, apparently standing in for traditional windows.
Wolfe steps in and the group follows, slouching against the walls or sitting on the benches as their guide taps away on the wall console. He stops for a minute, his mouth silently working, before nodding to himself and entering a long command. The doors slide closed and the tram takes off, slowly gaining speed until the display on the screens is nothing but a blur of movement.
"We'll take this to the Snowglobe, or at least near it."
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette (Original Thread: Rules, Armory, Misson archive 1-11) (Read 3944801 times)