Post by Chancellor Cheri on Mar 23, 2021 0:16:24 GMT -5
”Ma’am?”
Cheri had been looking over a room full of various tuffles, trained in the mystical arts of mathematical analysis, making their projections of a whole variety of things as part of the tuffles’ new enterprising steps into military data extrapolation-based prediction technology.
”Yes? Speak.”
This one tuffle had walked up to Cheri, a bit surprised and still caught up in his own discovery. ”Ma’am, I think I’ve found something.”
And the screen faded to black, all dramatic-like.
Turns out, one tuffle was especially bored and had been running some near-well perfect simulations on warp distortions on spacetime as caused by the continual use, creation or storage of FTL-capable spacecraft. And, as it turns out, the models didn’t quite match up to reality. This was no error in code, no: there seemed to be a distinct source of these disturbances far away from any spaceports or anywhere that had any actual reason to have such spacetime-disturbing technology near it. No, there was a slight warping effect… somewhere in the Saiba Wastes.
Theory one: some scheme or plot, perhaps a superweapon bought or stolen from elsewhere, that the saiyans intended to use against the rightful people of Plant. Theory two: saibabeasts were figuring out spaceflight.
Needless to say, Cheri was a bit more convinced by the first theory, which was a remarkably worrying possibility indeed.
That was how Cheri found herself moving through the Saiba Wastes, having triangulated the spacetime disturbance to a relatively small area she’d have to look through personally.
Korado and Sickle were back in the makeshift house that was created. He had been collecting scraps and his last few encounters had only made him wish to speed up his plan to escape Plant. He didn't have much of a reason to be here. He was stuck between his Saiyan and Tuffle blood. He wanted to somewhat stay but what side would he pick. The saiyans were his home but they were not his blood. The tuffles were with who he felt for, this was their planet, but what would happen to the saiyans? And how could he ever fit in with a culture that while he admired from a distance, on close inspections he had questions like with the Destron Gas. So while tempting, he was quite sure he had no choice but to leave this planet.
Despite the short time, he had made quite nice progress on his pod. It was nowhere near done of course, but he had gotten enough to at least get the machine going. It rumbled alive as Korado was running some tests to see how the engine worked. Sickle was laid on the table of the house as a giant rubix cube. He was focused on solving himself. Perhaps this had some greater meaning that Korado didn't realize. Or maybe Sickle was bored. Both made sense. The engine smoked out as he tested out leaving him with a frown, "I need some better scraps for this part. The Engine is not going to hold in space. This is usually where my problem starts. The Engine blows out and I crash. I get a few planets away then I fall. If a planet is not nearby i'll be pulled by another celestial body." That meant a moon, a star, or a black hole. All those options were bad news. So he went back to work on the engine trying to fix it.
Post by Chancellor Cheri on Mar 23, 2021 21:38:06 GMT -5
3,000PL!
Oh, now that was interesting. Not only were there timespace disturbances out here, even if remarkably slight, but there was a decent Power Level out here as well. Now, let’s think, three thousand… No, she couldn’t think of anyone about that powerful, at least, no one who would have any reason to be out here. And, certainly, it wasn’t anyone she’d ever sensed with this scouter before, as it would remember the signature.
2,400PL!
Ohoh, and another? Neither were quite as powerful as Cheri herself but, together, she was sure their combined forces would give her quite some trouble, were the situation to descend into violence.
As she followed the signatures, she found something of a hut— though, she could tell there was some effort here, so perhaps more of a house. She formulated her plan: try the peaceful way, have a nice chat, be friendly, only resorting to violence in response to violence or if, in the moment, it was deemed necessary.
”Some nice equipment you’ve got here!” Cheri introduced herself with a chipper, friendly voice. Fake, of course, but with Cheri it was remarkably difficult to tell. ”Don’t mind me, I didn’t expect to find anyone out here.” For now, Cheri seemed to be ignoring that this guy resembled a saiyan more than anything… she could pretend to forget about that for now, when she could gain some information as a result. ”Whatcha up to?”
She was now clearly within sight, with no visible weapons on her person.
Korado was hard not noticing the person that was arriving. Sickle however noticed the person coming. Sickle would form a slime hand slapping the back of Korado's head. "Ow, what the hell was that for?" He turned to see coming their way was a pink-haired woman. A tuffle. He was worried about a tuffle finding him out there. While he was a tuffle, he took on the appearance of a saiyan. To her, he must have looked like a foe near enemy lines preparing a weapon. From the looks, she was just here to talk. He didn't see any weapons. Sickle must have warned him just in case. He turned in his chair looking at her. "Yes, It is not all that good of gear if I'm honest. I'm not exactly super handy with all this stuff. I am learning as much as I can though." Korado smiled, he was not going to try to play off he was a tuffle. He'd just go with the story he was a saiyan who didn't wanna be apart of the war anymore.
She then asked what he was doing as he turned back to the space pod he was making. "Oh, this? I am working on an escape pod. I plan to leave Plant. I was apart of the Saiyan army for a long time but I didn't like the violence. I made my escape to out here. I learned a bit from tuffle blueprints I found so I'm trying to use them to create a pod to leave. As I said, I don't think it is that good so far. I still got a lot of work to do to get to actually fly but It going well. The name is Korado by the way. Perhaps you would be so kind as to give me your name?" So far so good, he didn't think he said anything to make the tuffle angry.
Post by Chancellor Cheri on Mar 24, 2021 1:31:33 GMT -5
Well, he seemed honest enough, and didn’t suddenly get very stressed out and stumbly or anything. That was a good sign but, then again, it did not definitively mean anything, for Cheri knew that, were she in his situation, she could play it calm, even if internally she was stressed as all hell. He was alone, except for that strange other thing she was having a hard time gathering adjectives for, and presumably it served him; so it was one saiyan, and he wasn’t attacking her on sight. Interesting.
Cheri’s eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly at the next part. A spaceship, yes, she could figure something like that, it made sense and it was consistent with the data. To call it an ‘escape pod’, though, brought up certain connotations. ”Oh.” she said, clearly heavily deliberating on the implications. She looked to him, then the bio-android, then to the technology he had been working on. She almost sat back, but she wasn’t sitting at all. It was more… she shifted her weight, so as to signify a more laid-back thought process.
In line with her duty as a tuffle, she should apprehend him. She should arrest him, knock him out and bring him to a high security area for questioning. After all, he was a saiyan soldier away from anyone else and, especially if he had a bio-android like that with him, he possibly had some decently useful information stored in that noggin of his.
And, yet… She understood. She understood the notion of being sick of the war, of being always stuck in the middle of it. She understood what it could do to you and why someone, regardless of side, would wish to just… be elsewhere, where the war would not reach them. ”The name’s Cheri.” She smiled, honestly and warmly. If it felt appropriate, she’d even offer her hand for a handshake. ”Well, I’m pretty good with tech myself,” she started, forming a vibrospanner in her hand out of programmable matter, ”perhaps I could help?”
Korado glanced as Cheri seemed a bit surprised he was making a pod. Korado supposed that made sense. He was claiming to be a saiyan creating a space pod and having some chemical mass next to him. It looked pretty odd from an outsider's perspective. Korado had to just cross his fingers to see if Cheri was going to just leave him be. To him, that was the best-case scenario. What he didn't expect was the Tuffle after some time of pause to introduce herself and ask if she could help him out. Korado had to admit this was confusing. He was not sure why she'd wanted to help him but he was not going to say no. When she offered her hand Korado would shake it giving her a nod. "Sure if you want to help me out I'd appreciate that. I have been having trouble making the pod work. I can get it to fly but every time I reach escape velocity. But when I do so the pod engine explodes and I crash. I have been trying to fix it up but I can't figure out how to do it." He tapped the engine. "Maybe you can give me advice on how to avoid that." Korado shook his head. Sickle bobbed around watching Cheri just in case she tried something but it seemed, for now, everything was going peacefully.
Post by Chancellor Cheri on Mar 24, 2021 18:43:50 GMT -5
Immediately spurred into action, Cheri started looking over the work Korado had done so far, as well as the blueprints he’d stolen. The blueprints were of an older model, which would normally be quite a bad sign; but in this case, it was better, as the newer ships (while strictly better and all that) were also a good bit more advanced in their technology and required more exotic substances.
She was silent for a bit. Really, an extended period, and it would have seemed suspicious if she weren’t so clearly focusing on the technology at hand. ”Where did you get these blueprints from, anyway?” Half a second passed. ”No, wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” Besides, it might be suspicious, something she would ask in learning more of the situation if her intentions were ill.
Unfortunately, in ships such as these, the answer was rarely so simple as ‘turn off the switch labelled ‘explode when you reach escape velocity’’. ”So, wait, at escape velocity exactly? Around about escape velocity? Or, just as the height when you’d expect to reach escape velocity?” Cheri had a few theories, and the answer to this question could render void most of them.
Korado glanced as Cheri asked how he got blueprints for a spacepod. Korado glanced at the machinery as he began to try to work on the pod a little bit. "When I was ten years old, a few months before I was forced on the battlefields, saiyans brought forward a ton of dead tuffles and the like home. Guess to celebrate is my best guess. Not that my father was too happy about that." Korado shook his head. "But they wanted me to see who would be my foe. When I was forced to fight in a war I wanted no part of. I saw some of tuffle technology firsthand with that and I have to admit it interested me. So overtime when I got the chance when they brought dead tuffles back I looked to learn from them. I eventually got a blueprint. But prehaps it was not that good." Korado shook his head, "Something along these lines. It has been a long time."
Korado grabbed some scraps he had to get back to work as she glanced at Cheri asking if he meant height or something else. "I think it that when my pod is heading to break through escape velocity the pod is rising too fast to grow in speed. As in as it growing and fighting agianst the friction of the planet and the gravity causing the pods engine to combust." Korado rubbed the top of his head. "Something along those lines. I'm not sure if the engine is too weak or can't accelerate fast enough and in a way that didn't allow the engine to explode." Korado nodded, "Any ideas?" Maybe she had a good idea.
Post by Chancellor Cheri on Mar 25, 2021 7:10:46 GMT -5
Ope, nope, he was answering her question anyway. So, if Cheri was following along the story accurately enough, saiyans brought home some tuffle corpses as prizes, which apparently father was opposed to. A bit surprising, but not to the point of unbelievability given that, after all, Cheri knew Garrick would have shared such a position. ”... Right. I wish there were more like your father.”
”Well, uh, I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on,” she started, referring generally to how massively advanced spacecraft were, and how an essay was the barest minimum for determining an issue such as this, ”but I think I have some ideas.” She would begin to point and make informative gestures at the blueprints and at the technology before her, while the programmable matter of her suit produced some primitive hologram projectors to put basic imagery over the diagrams supplementary to what she would be saying. ”If the engine exploding is the problem, it’s possibly an issue with where the heat goes. Overheating is a serious problem.” She tried to take a closer look. Usually, for spaceships, one would using coolant and, if the ship were older, radiators. ”Where have you been getting your coolant? What have you been making it out of?”
Korado nodded to Cheri note about how she wished other saiyans were like his father. "Sometimes I wish it was less I must admit. Me and my father had a complex relationship. He was a good man but I was never recognized as his son. Even though he was a good man, I have to admit it made me bitter inside. That I could never be his son." Korado worked thinking back to Garrick. He had to pretend not to be related to anyone, just a child that existed and eventually fought in Garrick's squad. Despite him doing a lot of good, Korado didn't necessarily always feel that way. Maybe he was selfish for that since Garrick had done everything he could be kind to him. He just never did the thing he could of done which would of truly been his father.
As for what was going on she said she had a few ideas and asked what he was making his coolants with. "I can't say I've had the chance to use coolants." Korado frowned, "I'm working on lets say a less than sustain budget. I don't have access to anything like that. I use scraps where I can and try to make things that would work." Korado rubbed his head, guess now he looked like a fool asking what could be wrong with the pod when making coolants from scratch with never seeing one actually work would explain why the ship would explode. At least that was one step forward in this whole mess. "right you know how I can get make or get a coolant that is going to work? Because I've been unable too." Sickle moved on the table making hands to do a mocking slow clap to Korado. He glanced at Sickle shaking his head. "Yes that is much deserved."
Post by Chancellor Cheri on Mar 25, 2021 22:13:54 GMT -5
Hm. Suddenly, Cheri wasn’t all that sure about this Korado bloke. If he recognised that his father was a good man, and still wished that the saiyans would be less like him simply because he personally had a complicated relationship with the man, Cheri would recognise Korado as a selfish man who did not consider the public good to be more important than their personal feelings and past experiences.
”Ah, you’ve— you’ve just not been using coolants?” Cheri looked at him, a bit shocked. When space travel was a new thing, generally the ‘not picking up heat’ was far more important than the ‘getting rid of heat’. However, when interstellar travel became feasible, one of the first questions was: just how fast can we make this process? Faster ships were better ships, more useful for trade and in war, but they also put far more strain on a ship’s engines. More strain was more heat, and with enough heat… well, Korado knew what happened then from personal experience. Hence, removing heat became more important, hence, coolant. Other types of ship sometimes employed different ways of doing it, but, well, coolant was the old reliable. ”Right… well, there’s your problem.”
She went over her training. She didn’t know the ingredients used to make coolant in factories, and she certainly didn’t have any of the stuff on her, but she was aware of the chemical qualities that made good coolant good, and was aware of certain other materials with other properties that, especially together, would be a decent enough substitute. ”I think I can make a list of ingredients, and a method. But, that will still require that you go around the planet in search of the ingredients. I warn you, it might be dangerous, and it might take a while. Do you truly need to get off-planet that desperately?”
Korado glanced embarrassed as Cheri looked at the pod as he admitted he really didn't have a coolant for his pod. "I'm just looking for scraps. It is pretty hard to find a coolant. Plus the last pod I had to make was on a planet without any sorts of advanced technology." Still it was an excuse. He needed to get a coolant for a pod it was so obvious. He could not believe he was making such a blunder. Still maybe she would have an answer for this. What was even better was that Cheri knew exactly what he'd need to create the coolants. Still he'd need to go around the planet to find all the materials and it would be dangerous. Korado smiled, "I think no matter what it was going to be dangerous."
She did ask if he wanted to get off the planet got that bad Korado leaned back in the stool. He glanced outside. "This planet been at war for as long as I been alive. The saiyans who I lived with brutal and came to this planet to take it from your people who rightfully own the planet. Yet, we needed a home so I can't fully blame them. At the same time, I can't blame the tuffles for fighting with all fiber of their being to get the saiyans off the planet. But they also used things like Destron. This planet to me anyway, it is not ever gonna recover from this war. I don't wanna be apart of either. Maybe their a way that both people can rule over their own parts of the planet and everyone can be happy but...I doubt it." Korado shook his head. "So I don't see myself fitting here. It better I leave before I'm pulled to fight."
Post by Chancellor Cheri on Mar 27, 2021 3:48:48 GMT -5
”Hm. Right, well, uh…” Cheri wasn’t sure what to say, to be confronted so clearly with the terrors of war, and the declaration that the planet would never recover. She paused, and looked down. She looked to Korado, briefly thought on an old memory, and looked up at the sky. ”I won’t lie to you, it’s pretty bad.” Yeha, obviously, the Vegetans did terrible things, that much went without saying, but even the tuffles had resorted to measures as extreme as destron to save themselves. It possibly was necessary, and some claim that, were destron not resorted to, the invaders would have murdered every tuffle long ago… but it was still remarkably difficult to justify. ”But that’s why we keep fighting. With hope in heart, only by keeping at it could things ever improve. And, besides,” she looked to the side, thinking of Seed, ”where there is destruction, creation is inevitable.”
She just stood there for a moment, thoughts back to her late mothers.
”... Anyway. Regarding the coolant.” She made a sleek black pen in her hand made out of programmable matter. She would find an empty spot on the blueprints and begin making notes, summarised forms of what she would soon be saying written as she’d say it. ”You’ll want three main ingredients. That is, four ingredients, but water is easy to get, so three big ones. They are as follows:
“Firstly, antifreeze. This might be difficult to find, or you might have some hiding in the back, I don’t know. If you can bear a trip to civilisation, you should even be able to get some at any tuffle market or, potentially, any saiyan market with an active spaceport nearby. If you can’t do that, you can use monoethylene glycol, which you should be able to extract from plastic as degraded by the acid of a saibapillar.
“Next, you’ll need an element to the coolant that will allow it to properly interact with the subspace interactions moving through and from the ship. This won’t be all that important for getting into space but, if you want to go FTL, you’re gonna need such an agent if you don’t want to explode mid-warp. Mercury is probably the easiest of these to get: near the Acidic Lagoon there are some mercurial roses you should be able to extract some from, if you can’t get store-bought.
“Lastly, you need something to bind the other ingredients together, and make sure no bacteria grows in such a mix. Life in the coolant leads to life through the whole ship. The best option for this, strangely enough, is concentrated destron. The mercury isn’t going to combine well with just about anything else. Between those three and water, ratio 5:2:1:3… that should do it. Just blend it evenly over at least an hour, and it should be relatively stable.”
Feel free to do these off-screen, but I figured it would be cool to give you a ‘quest’ to justify your not leaving Plant for a while.
Korado listened on as Cheri noted that things were not that good for the Tuffles. They were fighting hard to keep themselves and to keep their planet. But they would keep fighting, and they keep fighting as long as they could. Plus with destruction they was cost it would lead to new life. Korado closed his eyes in thought thinking on this for a moment. This whole war just killed a lot of people, and maybe they could make the world a better place. Maybe he was a coward for not giving it a serious go but he was tired. He was tired of being born a bastard and living in shadows in the past. He gave a nod to Cheri.
Meanwhile Cheri began to explain about the Coolant and how would Cheri, three main things he'd need. He already could get water but Cheri noted the other three things. He grabbed some paper and pen to write down. Cheri's noted that she first need Antifreeze. He could get one in a tuffle or saiyan market if he headed into civilization. But she did give another option he could take with using Monoethylene glycol. "Right." He wrote it down looking up. Next up the element of mercury was what he was going to need. He wrote that down as well. Finally he'd need something to bind it together. He would need concentrated Destron for that. Normally he could use something else but it was not going to be on this planet. Korado sighed. "I see." He rubbed his head. Sickle beamed up looking at the two. It seemed he knew what he'd need to get off the planet but it was a lot of stuff. The first two he was sure he could get pretty easy. Destron may of been a different story. Though their was that one factory Yurei blew up. Maybe he could go their. "Alright good guess that is it. Now I got just gotta grab everything thank you Cheri." Korado tipped his head to her.
Post by Chancellor Cheri on Mar 27, 2021 21:42:35 GMT -5
Cheri felt that a line of connection had been drawn between them. While Korado was wordless in this respect, they shared something of an understanding when it came to what the war was, how terrible it could be, but how it could be improved from with hope and perseverance. Of course, again, Cheri understood where Korado was coming from. She understood that, sometimes, one simply had to be rid of it. Cheri had chosen to stay, to actively engage, to dedicate her life to it. In a sense, she had sacrificed herself for the greater good, and she wasn't even dead yet.
"It's quite the tough shopping list, I understand, and with such rough ingredients it won't be quite as efficient as the laboratory-made stuff, but... well, it'll work." Indeed, with the ingredients already known in relation to what their purpose was, and the ratio known after much scientific inquiry in the past, it would likely result in a better coolant than anyone had been using before a century ago. "Is that everything you need? Or will you be off now?" It seems the encounter was fast approaching its natural conclusion. "You should know, I investigated this place, traced by its warp fluctuations, to see if it was some covert saiyan mission, or some weapon of mass destruction they'd bought or stolen from some black market on another planet. I'm certainly glad it isn't. I think I'll say, in the official record... I think I'll describe what actually happened, if that's all right with you."
Would be an interesting boost to morale, to see saiyans tiring of the conflict and leaving. Perhaps, one could glean, it meant that one could get the rest to shove off and leave also.
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