Well, it took me a goddamn week and a lot of whining, but I got it done with an all-nighter. Might be some speelin probblems. I also fear I made some of the challenges too hard. I hope the combination of little success and long wait didn't cost too many people.
GroupsConvenient link to the Master List.Faris reasons by his design that the robot will be small enough to work around terrain on even the smallest wheels, and knows the fans and pumps inside the space suit should have a few. Squeegy can't help but comment that something about this design seems off, but helps disassemble the suit's air pumps.
There are now enough little parts that the robot could probably be put together.
Handstanding is considerably easier in two-fifths gravity. Then all the blood rushing into your head brings the pain back harder and faster.
Robo-acrobatics get the double rover out of the airlock just fine, built for much harder drops than that. Your makeshift joins don't fare as well, and a few of the solar panels break off at the first movement. Figuring the remaining parts ought to work for something, you send the shambling mess around the pod to where you think an exterior power port should be.
You find it quickly enough, and in an astounding bit of foresight on NASA's part, the plugs are actually the same shape. Convincing the robot to send power out through it's recharge plug, a task it was never programed to do, is a lengthy stumble. Telling the pod to just suck electricity from whatever it's connected to works instead.
Without a few solar panels, you're not getting all the power you'd hoped for – the emergency batteries will last a lot longer, but the computer is using more power than it's taking in. It should still last a few days if used sparingly. With that out of the way, you've got a room full of air and four more working robots.
Inside, Serg and Rosie huddle around the suit radio, still trying to get the other voice's attention. You can't hear anyone else, but you gather that he's talking to Dietrich Sacharov, who apparently is alive somewhere. The one-man radio show slowly turns bizarre and disturbing the man loses patience and then contact with Dietrich, as well as the mission rover he spends some time swearing at. Through all this, he never responds to a word from the hydroponic lab.
Out on Mars, Vlad hikes up onto a large rock to survey the area. The wreckage of the Ares III, now completely settled on the ground, is scattered through a long valley, alongside a high mountain and flanked by a curve hills. The hydroponic lab looks like it's near the middle of debris field. Not much can be distinguished over the distance, but a few large lumps of ship lay spread over a mile in one direction, while many smaller pieces were scattered across miles the other way.
That done, Vlad steps back inside, trying to minimize air loss with the office/airlock. Rosie and Serg are frantic and mad, and immediately barrage Vlad with news of the unresponsive radio signals. A bit bewildered, Vlad says he didn't hear anything outside and checks his own radio, finding it still off. Rosie pushes him back into the airlock over Serg's questions. As if on cue, another voice, much clearer, comes up on both radios. “Hello? Is anybody out there?”
So elated that someone else is alive on Mars, and in a big car with plenty of room to boot, that Diet bursts out of his tiny survival-closet and tears off over the dunes of Mars...
Tetsuo keeps going on about how you all need to find a way to escape, but falls very silent when you tell him you're not going anywhere. Augusta snaps too well enough to frantical talk you out of it, but there's no convincing you. Tetsuo quietly steadies her and presses an EVA suit to her.
You all avoid eye contact as the two of them pull themselves into the suits. Resolved, you strap yourself into your station just as well.
The computer doesn't want to cooperate with you – the UI isn't really set up to do any communication except talk to a mainframe. Poking through every command and listing you can find, you realize the biology lab doesn't have a radio, or any means of contact other than being pugged into other modules. Since it was never supposed to be by itself, why would it need to talk over distances?
Cursing all technology, you run your suit radio through every channel. Disturbingly, you don't pick up much, but at last you find a static filled line of shouting and expletives. You can't identify to voice, but it's an American man. From his shouting you get that he's in a vehicle, and was talking to Dietrich Sacharov, but is now quite mad at both.
You shout back in return, but he never responds. Nothing seems to get his attention. Right as you start to think he's lost it, you hear another voice. “Hello? Is anybody out there?” After more shouting, this one doesn't respond either...
Pitor and Louise hash out a plan for disassembling an electric motor to rebuild as a man-powered generator, which Louise sets to work on. Geoffrey readily makes clear that he believes none of the machinery is intact enough to need power. Vernon pointedly agrees, and insists he's going outside. Pitor likewise insists that they should all at least throw together an air-guard of some kind so the door can reused without losing too much air. Geoffrey thinks it a much more sensible idea, but Vernon isn't hearing it. With a roar of air and determination, he throws the service door open and takes off – Pitor manages to shut it quick enough.
The problems with this action well demonstrated, Pitor and Geoffrey start looking around for materials. Good construction pieces coming up short, Geoffrey starts putting on a space suit himself. Pitor finds enough metal paneling and hull sealant that a partition around the door might be possible, if lacking a good door of it's own.
You remember that the reactor was stored in one of four identical block containers, and you can see at least two from the hill. The bridge at least is recognizable, so you start hiking,
a song on your lips to distract from what the lopping gait does to your arm.
The lower gravity and slope give you some speed, and in due course you reach the bridge. Looking around, you're not quite sure which twisted door you could try opening. Air is visibly escaping from lines on the hull, but you see figures moving around through the tiny windows.
All this hammering is going nowhere fast, along with your air. You look around the corner of the pod and spot what might be another door. Nothing else to lose, you head down and try hammering on it. A moment later you get a response there too, but the door still doesn't open.
Another minute passes - just as you're about to give the occupant up for mad, the door slides open. You shoulder your bulky suit in past the rush of air, to find yourself in an office.
You throw your helmet open for joy and air, and find yourself spilling out your amazing tale of surviving reentry and beating on doors. You recognize your new audience as the Mountie, Roy Boucher, and Dr. Saberi from the medical staff. Which makes sense, this being the medical pod by the looks of things. You almost immediately notice that not everyone in the vicinity survived.
There's tools everywhere, and the large welding kits as easy to find. Luckily, the welding tanks were latched in place, so they probably shouldn't blow up on you. Finding a sturdy tool to prop yourself up on is surprisingly harder, everything being electric motors. You try a piece of the welder cage, but it only slows you down.
Welder in hand, you spot-seal all the whistling gaps in the bay you can get to, which isn't very many. The bay was built big enough for all the vehicles to move around inside it – with the whole structure on it's side, even with a few perfunctory ladders, most of the walls, and the leaks, are out of reach. Pondering this, you suddenly dodge a flying rivet from somewhere.
Rocking the rover back and forth accomplishes little more. After a few minutes, the wheels even groove the ground so much, you get even less traction, left high centered on some piece of wreckage. You're truly going nowhere fast.
Frustration sets in just quickly. The radio is just as disappointing. You can't raise anyone except Dietrich, and he goes happily babbling off in French. His signal keeps getting weaker until you can't hear him at all.
All of a sudden, your rapidly fading confidence returns with a new signal. “Hello? Is anybody out there?”
The pod rocks and wobbles to deploy it's own stabilizers and antennas. You hold yourself in the seat to keep from falling on your leg, and try not to pay attention to the corpse sliding around the floor.
Once everything is locked in place, the computer runs through it's own painfully slow start-up. Power good. Equipment good. Broadcaster good. Observatory good. The tarantula even craws out of the console to see what's happening topside. Transponder open to all frequencies, all systems go.
“Hello? Is anybody out there?”
You try to explain to Shiedeh your plan about using some plastic sheeting to hold back the vacuum-like air of Mars. The Doctor gives up on arguing the point and tries to pull you to other end of the pod. Soon enough, you hear pounding from the alternate door into the tiny office at that end.
She relents to your bravery anyway at insisting on pulling the door open, since there's no way to control the exterior door from outside the little office. After another pound to signal the person outside, you turn the office into an airlock, with yourself as the latch. Quite a bit of air is lost as the figure works it's way inside – wearing a blackened EVA suit instead of a pressure suit. The pod's structure didn't like the vacuum either, and the walls groan a bit in the process.
At any rate, you're all inside together, and the new arrival turns out to be the Canadian computer technician Qwerty. Excited and breathless, Qwerty stammers out a wild tale of wiring repair and bomb riding, and you and Shideh manage to calm him down. Now, you're all alive, and here together in the medical pod.
A few meetings await, and some people are getting moving. To let people do more this time, I'll call the next turn twenty(20) minutes and round this out to a full hour.
Bear in mind that I said ten minutes, mostly for people who were in more immediate circumstances. That means some people didn't accomplish much. Or anything at all in a few cases.
Other corrections will go here as they inevitably arrive.
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Topic: Angry Red Planet - Totally And Completely Dead (Read 48206 times)