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[retromach]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=164640.0

Mission 1 begins.

[Happy Demon]

[Tina Murdoch + Priscilla]

Tina got a message, it says she's rejected for this expedition, but may get sent in for a later expedition.
She's a bit bummed out over it, but hey, later expedition.
She gets herself a packet of choco-sticks, and nibbles on one, while she ponders.

Tina then figures she'd practice dealing with interference, so she'll need to know what kind of interference that is causing it.
She checks in on the Akras database, to try and find any info on the type of interference that's found in the Castle.
Just in case they got any readings through the gate.
Tina also tries looking up what interference come from the gate itself.

[retromach]

You find a paper from Yuki Nakatomi on it. Predictably, like all research papers, you have to pay a fee to access it. Looks like 100 credits. But you can read the abstract for free.

"This study develops a theory on the unusual number of drone-related malfunctions and incidents within The Castle. It is a statistical analysis that shows a nonlinear non-monotonic relationship between duties assigned within The Castle and malfunctions, particularly during gate activations. This study does not demonstrate the source of these malfunctions, but uses a series of test cases to determine that proximity to active Castle Alien technology is a substantial but non-monotonic factor. It demonstrates that there is no correlation to malfunctions if the droid is deactivated at the time."

Complex engineering speak, but you figure she took some notes and figured out that if a drone was switched on in the castle for any length of time, there was a decent chance it would malfunction soon, and if it was online during a gate activation, it would malfunction quite quickly.

[Happy Demon]

[Tina Murdoch + Priscilla]

Tina hypothesizes that the interference from the gate is an intensified version of the interference from the Castle itself.
She also hypothesizes that training in handling gate activation with the drone, would make handling the Castle itself would then be a piece of cake.
She still needs to know what that interference is.
Tina messages Yuki Nakatomi.
Message: "Miss Nakatomi

I'd like to ask for the system logs from the drones that malfunctioned during the activation of the gate.
It'll help in calibrating my android for operation within the Castle.

Tina"
Tina had written "Priscilla", but switched it to "my android" right before sending the message.

Tina then boots up Priscilla, and has her do some stretches. She normally never does this, but if she's to prepare for Castle interference training, then she needs to eliminate any malfunction that can be caused by other things.
Tina does maintenance to Priscilla. Along with clearing joint servos.

[retromach]

"Understood Tina.

If the gate turns out to be two ways, I'll put in a good word to include your experiment in the next transit. We should hopefully have good logs to review when the team returns through the gate. For now, meet me in my office, we'll get you to sign an NDA before we share any research information.

Nakatomi"

[Happy Demon]

[Tina Murdoch + Priscilla]

Priscilla is trying to touch her toes, and Tina is pushing at her back, then Priscilla pushes back, to try and get speed, to reach her toes.
Tina isn't really making a difference, it's like trying to tug of war a car. Priscilla just completely dominates in the strength department.
Then Tina's computer pings, and she goes over to it. She reads the message.
Tina goes over, and stops Priscilla's stretching program, and does a little bit of fiddling, and then decides that's enough.

Then Tina goes to the bathroom, and washes her hands, face, and up her arms. To prevent herself from looking too dirty.
She then goes over to the closet, and puts on pants and a t-shirt, along with a pair of socks. And finally a hoodie with the hood up.
Tina then leaves her room. Bringing her laptop. She doesn't bring Priscilla though, as that'd look kinda weird.
She does look around a bit, to make sure she's not attracting too much attention.
Tina heads to Yuki's office.

[retromach]

It was a beautiful walk down a glass-roofed hall looking up at the dark martian sky, the glass shading itself in front of the sun to stop glare, but stay bright. Self-watering planters alternated every two meters or so, between each set of doors, trailing over with vines and tropical plants and a pleasant scent of fresh oxygen. The hall turned into a walkway over the market with staircases down, but Tina continued on it until she reached the office block, then another walkway, leading out through the Martian sand, over to the power and water facility. In all, it took about ten minutes to get there.

The main entrance had an AI secretary that directed you in to a room that overlooked the main fusion generator and water piping, with a window out onto the market station. Yuki was at her desk. "Come in, Tina." she smiled a perfect corporate smile. She wore a jumpsuit like an engineer, but it had been cleaned and pressed and looked immaculate as when she bought it, like it was more of a costume than a practical item.

[Happy Demon]

[Tina Murdoch + Priscilla]

Tina fidgets for a moment, trying to think of what to say. She goes with...
"Pa-pardon my intrusion."
Tina pulls back her hood and enters, she gets a good look at the generator, before going up to Yuki's desk.
"S-so... the NDA."

[retromach]

The generator is a massive, 6 storey complex, in a thick reinforced underground pit beneath the main building, with tracks along it for maintenance droids but little to no simple means for a human to descend.

"I have it right here." she said, holding a datapad. "Just hold your thumb here, look into the camera, and say 'I, Tina Murdoch, agree to the terms of this contract.' It'll record you and your biometric data, then we can discuss Akras' next move, if the gate team makes it home."

[Happy Demon]

[Tina Murdoch + Priscilla]

Tina looks at the datapad, swallows, and then presses her thumb, looks at the camera, and says: "I, Tina Murdoch... agree to the terms in this contract."
Then Tina takes her thumb off, looks at Yuki, and then fidgets a bit, as she realized she said "in" instead of "of". She hopes it wasn't gonna cause problems.

[retromach]

It seemed fine by Nakatomi. And she seemed excited to be able to talk anyway.

"Right. So, we're very excited. Legal has been looking over the speculation and mining rights, and if The Castle can reach other places, Akras will retain ownership and an exclusive monopoly on interstellar travel, maybe even for centuries. If, that is, we build up ports and manage other gates. Which, of course, means that we'll be wanting to figure out how to get drones through castles, through gates, and working on the far side."

[Happy Demon]

[Tina Murdoch + Priscilla]

"Y-yes. I think I could get Prisci- m-my android working... by being close, and with more direct control.
I think the cause of malfunction is macroscopic. A-a... consequence, of high-level programming. And reliance... on wireless."

[retromach]

"Alright, well, take it down to The Castle then, and run some trials." she shrugged. "If you find anything alpha 0.1 or more significant, we'll discuss buying your patent. In the meantime, though, I wanted to talk about transport solutions. Moving full-sized construction drones without the use of drones."

Construction drones weighed between 1-2 tonnes, and carried and installed heavy cargo. They were shaped to slot a cargo contained in their backs, and had a number of tentacle-arms, with modules equipped with various tools, to install, weld, seal, wire, and otherwise build facilities.

[Happy Demon]

[Tina Murdoch + Priscilla]

Tina thinks a bit, to not use drones needs pulling, but humans aren't strong enough to pull them. Crane? But that would only work in zero-g...
"What ab-bout a winch? It should be simple enough, to resist the... interference. While pulling more weight than a man would.
But if there's gravity... it'd be like moving... logs, roll it over logs. Like the Pyramids."
Tina does a quick search on how heavy the blocks of the pyramids were. About 2 metric tons, yeah, close enough to the drone weight.
"Any cylinder should do."

[retromach]

"We've considered a rail system," she agreed. "and a conveyor belt to take it in to the gate. Depending on what's already on the other side though, once they're through, there'll need to be a base for people to actually live in, maybe fly from. You can see the enormous technical challenges involved."