Post by latooni on Dec 22, 2009 1:27:54 GMT -5
Kikoeru ka kikoeru darou harukana todoroki
Yami no naka kokoro yusaburu mezame hajimaru
Daichi wari sosori tatsu sugata seigi no akashi ka
Densetsu no kyojin no chikara ginga kirisaku
Otakebi ga denkou sekka no ichigeki o yobu
Furueruna hitomi korase yo fukkatsu no toki
Hito yo inochi yo hajimari o miru
Supeesu rannauei Ideon, Ide・o・un~
Supeesu rannauei Ideon, Ide・o・uuun~
Sighing slightly, Rachel Arronax clicked off the HAS (holographic audio storage) player, and stuffed the ear clips into her suit pocket. The door in front of her read, in large, official letters, HANGAR. This wasn't the place to be listening to oldies; a hangar in space was a dangerous place. Not a few people had died working in one, just because they were distracted.
Oh, how Rachel longed to be distracted.
In fact, ever since she got the command to proceed with the operation, she'd cursed her mind, which tirelessly reviewed problems and evaluated solutions. Her mind, self-trained and honed to become a balancer of equations, a search engine for solutions, was her most prized possession. And now it was turning against her.
She didn't want to think about her chances, even as she worked on terminals to look through possible transfer orbits and calculate alternate flight paths.
She didn't want to think about the mission, even as her fingers tapped out requisitions for special equipment.
She didn't even care anymore that if she succeeded, if this operation worked, if she lived, it would only be because she slaughtered others.
Rachel was scared. She felt the raw, hot, cold, clawing sensation of fear inside her chest for the first time in her adult life. She found it harder to breathe, and her body was trembling slightly. Yet, her mind didn't heed, no, it outright ignored the body's chemical scream to run away. She was headed towards possible death, and she would be the one responsible for getting herself there.
Even now, Rachel was too efficient to enjoy the luxury of self-pity as any sane human might. If she had time to indulge in crying about how she was going to die, she had time to take 3 more steps to make sure she wasn't going to. Even as she wished dearly for a distraction from life, she keyed open the hangar door.
The sight revealed almost made her vomit.
***
Nature has long been credited by man as an engineer without peer. Mankind has long stolen ideas for itself, creating inventions that have become cornerstones of civilized living. Adhesive tape, from the feet of geckos. Velcro, from bramble seeds. Traffic control programs from swarming insects, bioengineering techniques from a virus, suits of armor from the exoskeleton of insects.
And mankind's triumph, the mobile suit, based on Nature's most successful design, mankind itself.
Few realize just how much a modern mobile suit is based on man. Sure, it looks like a man and moves like one, but it doesn't end there. Remove the armored panels of a first generation mobile suit, and there you see nature's work, not man's.
Pairs of gleaming silver pistons on the arms, identical to the biceps/triceps on a human. The exact same joints in the hands, exposed, the lubricating medium looking and functioning like the cartilage Nature used. Hydraulic cables and thick electric cables form the "circulatory" system. Leaking lubrication and hydraulic fluids, tinged blue and red, seem to form the blood. The white ceramic titanium skeleton, with a ribcage around the cockpit and reactor, the heart and lungs. Smaller wires, sensors, computer clusters, and the central computer form the nervous system. On Federation mobile suits, it's even worse. The binocular cameras and titanium cage around the auxiliary computer systems in the head form a macabre skull, a reminder of the death machine it is. A mobile suit is truly made in our own image.
Are these suits, infused as we create them with our blood, sweat, and tears, designed in worship of our bodies and disdain for our flesh, merely mechanical metal golems?
Or have we created Gods?
- From the diary of Warrant Officer Dawn Ellis, EFSF Engineering.
***
Shaking her head to clear it of nausea, she corrected her first impression. That was not a corpse, it was her GM Juggler. Once she made that distinction, her dominant emotion quickly turned from fear and disgust to the eternal troublemaker, curiosity.
The GM Juggler, which was around 80% repaired yesterday, was almost completely stripped of armor, the head had been removed, and the ball bits were both cracked open.
The oddest thing, however, was that it wasn't covered by specialist technicians like usual. Instead, the hangar seemed empty of people by comparison, there was just two standing by the shoulders, peering into the neck. As Rachel began to walk towards the suit, she noted that there must be someone in the neck, for one of the technicians nodded towards the small, wire-crammed gap, mouthed some inaudible response, and started climbing onto the frame of the suit, where he made his way to the waist, where he began testing cables and tagging them with white electric tape.
"Please excuse me, but what in the world are you doing to my suit?" Rachel asked as she approached the mechanic.
"Well, miss, we're, uh, that is, I'm just following orders, ma'am." The mechanic squirmed slightly, hoping that if something when wrong, he wasn't to blame for it.
"Oh? Who gave you those orders? My orders were to have this thing repaired as soon as possible, not cracked open like a crab," Rachel snapped.
A female voice came from inside the GM. "They were mine." A hand stuck out from the wires. "Can someone help me out?"
Rolling her eyes, Rachel clasped the woman's wrist and braced herself, as a pretty, but extremely dirty young lady pulled herself out. She wasn't wearing a shirt, but she was wearing cargo pants with rank pins attached to a belt loop - A warrant officer? Rachel gave a weak salute - and a sports bra, but most of what she was wearing was grease and other miscellaneous fluids.
Flashing a white smile, the grime covered girl held onto Rachel's hand, and shook it, then reached back into the GM and pulled out a notebook computer. "I'm actually just finishing with the basic diagnostics and maintenance, and I'd like to crosscheck the psycommu. Oh hey, that reminds me. Have you ever had any psychic episodes or anything? Can Newtypes see ghosts?" She looked up - She was actually pretty short - at Rachel inquisitively.
"Ma'am, who exactly are you?" was Rachel's only reply. This woman was weird.
"Warrant Officer Dawn Ellis - you can call me Dawn - EFSF Engineering. I'm the replacement for the technical unit assigned to your suit, Chief Petty Officer Rachel Arronax."
Rachel looked left and right, but all she could see were the two earlier technicians moving the armor back in place and securing it, a piece at a time. There were no other specialists in sight. She then looked back at Dawn, who gave an understanding grimace. Rachel sighed. "Budget cuts again?"
Nodding sympathetically, she motioned Rachel onto the scaffolding. "We can talk later, I want to run through some checklists with you before you do that suicidal attack on the Gwazine. Hook up."
Nodding grimly, the feeling of fear rising slightly again, Rachel climbed into the cockpit and strapped on the bulky helmet. "Rachel Arronax, passcode LMRSDS4913A." She felt a light buzz as the system recognized the voice identification, and turned itself on.
Dawn had already hooked her laptop in, and was rapidly typing on the water-and-grime-proof keyboard. "Initializing...Neuron activity detected, interface matrix compiling...interface matrix synchronizing, interface matrix synchronized. Brain waves alpha through gamma nominal, delta shows high activity, epsilon...fluctuating at minimal levels, almost undetectable, but it's there. Wow, it's my first time seeing paranormal evidence first-hand. Boot sequence complete, now for calibration."
Rachel felt she had to interrupt. "Excuse me, ...Dawn, but I'm not a ghost and I don't like being called 'beyond normal.' My abilities are far below the project estimates, so don't treat me like some hot-line psychic. In fact, being able to move these balls is about all I can do." Her voice sounded sullen, even to herself.
Dawn couldn't help put press further. She'd already read all of the Jester project's documentation, and one file caught her interest, mostly because the access levels to the file were far higher than what she'd expect over something so irrelevant - or so she thought when she read it. Clearly someone thought it was important. "And what about Firefly?" Dawn blurted out.
Silent for a few moments, Rachel's mouth was a thin line, the rest of her face obscured by the helmet. "It's just a dream. I'm sick of talking about it. Can we start, already?"
Dawn decided to hold her tongue; upsetting the pilot would just make it more difficult to calibrate. "Alright. Eighteen divided by three plus two times four. Follow order of operations."
"Fourteen."
"Hold your right arm in front of you and make a fist. Good. Now your left. Now tell me what you see."
"Cat, circle, hand, heart, car."
Dawn frowned. There were outlying peaks in the matrix that were anomalous, yet stayed there from test to test. She decided to get creative.
"Chief Petty Officer, is the rumor about your boyfriend cheating on you true?"
Rachel showed no change. "No ma'am, considering I've been single for 4 years."
"Are you recovering from the news about your family?"
Several numbers fluctuated, but the wrong ones. "News?! I...haven't heard any news."
"I apologize, those were more tests to disarm you. The truth is, I'm a Zeon agent sent to sabotage Newtype research, and kill personnel involved."
Rachel frowned, but didn't move. "I assume this is also a test?"
The click of a pistol being cocked was the only response.
The right numbers spiked even further.
Slowly, Rachel reached up and removed her helmet, only to see Dawn putting the pistol back in her holster looking at Rachel with a look of understanding. "Yes, it's just another test. The psycommu's calibrated, so let's take a walk." Dawn unplugged her laptop and began walking off.
This woman has more screws loose than a Zaku made of scrap parts, Rachel couldn't help herself thinking, as she made her way out of the cockpit and caught up with Dawn.
Rachel was still feeling petulant. "I should report you, you know. That was so not cool. Treason isn't funny!"
Still silently walking, Dawn led Rachel forward through several doors until they reached a viewport. Staring at the stars, Dawn said softly, "Does it make you less scared? The anger."
Casting a sharp look at the stars, Rachel shrugged. "It helps me forget. Is that what this was all about?"
"I just wanted to identify the anomaly in your neural patterns. I apologize. Look...don't turn to anger in this. Ride on top of the fear, let it push your abilities." Dawn put a hand against the stars. "I want you alive after this, and Tobias does too. At least, I'm pretty sure he does," she finished lamely.
Quirking an eyebrow, Rachel smiled inwardly. "And who are you to know such sage advice?, Officer Ellis?"
Coughing slightly, Dawn smiled, or at least a shadow of a smile flickered across her face. "I've uh, read reports that said psychic activity was more pronounced during times of high tension, and less controllable during periods of anger."
I'm starting to think she's the freak around here, Rachel thought to herself. She looked left and right, as if looking for anyone else to ask the other obvious question, because she could feel an awkward moment coming. "And Tobias is...?"
Turning slightly red from embarrassment, Dawn stared at the heavens and curtly said, "Your GM Juggler. I...I believe that mobile suits have primitive machine souls, being made so complex, and so close to our own designs, from skeletal mechanics to computer neural circuitry. I think each mobile suit is dimly alive, and that your suit, who I uh, named Tobias, wants to protect you. And he thinks you can do this." Dawn turned to Rachel. "And even though I'm half guessing at all this - from the way the parts move, the way the code runs, noted anomalies and quirks noted by past technicians - I've still only rarely encountered a suit that bonded and liked its pilot."
Silent for a moment, Rachel looks at the points of light. Then she nods. "Thank you. I'll keep your advice in mind." She looked back over at the smaller technician. "And you should probably get washed up, you'd certainly fail a uniform inspection." Rachel smiles faintly, as if hope flickered through a cloud of darker emotions, and turned and walked away.
Her new techie was pretty loopy, but at least she seemed competent. And it was nice to have someone who actually gave a damn about the pilot. Still..."Tobias, huh? I like that name."
***
Send to: Ensign Cato Galoni (CGaloni@efsf.mil), Petty Officer Marc Simmons (toysdream@ultimatemarc.com)
(No Subject)
Gentlemen, I wish to tell you how extraordinarily brave you both are to volunteer for this. As you know, I can't guarantee your survival, or mine. I may never work with such fine men as you two again, but I wanted to let you know before I lost that chance that I'm very proud I could work with you two today. I never enjoyed fighting, but I have always appreciate the courage it takes to fight, especially in far odds. You almost make me happy I was forced into this war. Thank you.
With great respect,
Rachel Arronax
Yami no naka kokoro yusaburu mezame hajimaru
Daichi wari sosori tatsu sugata seigi no akashi ka
Densetsu no kyojin no chikara ginga kirisaku
Otakebi ga denkou sekka no ichigeki o yobu
Furueruna hitomi korase yo fukkatsu no toki
Hito yo inochi yo hajimari o miru
Supeesu rannauei Ideon, Ide・o・un~
Supeesu rannauei Ideon, Ide・o・uuun~
Sighing slightly, Rachel Arronax clicked off the HAS (holographic audio storage) player, and stuffed the ear clips into her suit pocket. The door in front of her read, in large, official letters, HANGAR. This wasn't the place to be listening to oldies; a hangar in space was a dangerous place. Not a few people had died working in one, just because they were distracted.
Oh, how Rachel longed to be distracted.
In fact, ever since she got the command to proceed with the operation, she'd cursed her mind, which tirelessly reviewed problems and evaluated solutions. Her mind, self-trained and honed to become a balancer of equations, a search engine for solutions, was her most prized possession. And now it was turning against her.
She didn't want to think about her chances, even as she worked on terminals to look through possible transfer orbits and calculate alternate flight paths.
She didn't want to think about the mission, even as her fingers tapped out requisitions for special equipment.
She didn't even care anymore that if she succeeded, if this operation worked, if she lived, it would only be because she slaughtered others.
Rachel was scared. She felt the raw, hot, cold, clawing sensation of fear inside her chest for the first time in her adult life. She found it harder to breathe, and her body was trembling slightly. Yet, her mind didn't heed, no, it outright ignored the body's chemical scream to run away. She was headed towards possible death, and she would be the one responsible for getting herself there.
Even now, Rachel was too efficient to enjoy the luxury of self-pity as any sane human might. If she had time to indulge in crying about how she was going to die, she had time to take 3 more steps to make sure she wasn't going to. Even as she wished dearly for a distraction from life, she keyed open the hangar door.
The sight revealed almost made her vomit.
***
Nature has long been credited by man as an engineer without peer. Mankind has long stolen ideas for itself, creating inventions that have become cornerstones of civilized living. Adhesive tape, from the feet of geckos. Velcro, from bramble seeds. Traffic control programs from swarming insects, bioengineering techniques from a virus, suits of armor from the exoskeleton of insects.
And mankind's triumph, the mobile suit, based on Nature's most successful design, mankind itself.
Few realize just how much a modern mobile suit is based on man. Sure, it looks like a man and moves like one, but it doesn't end there. Remove the armored panels of a first generation mobile suit, and there you see nature's work, not man's.
Pairs of gleaming silver pistons on the arms, identical to the biceps/triceps on a human. The exact same joints in the hands, exposed, the lubricating medium looking and functioning like the cartilage Nature used. Hydraulic cables and thick electric cables form the "circulatory" system. Leaking lubrication and hydraulic fluids, tinged blue and red, seem to form the blood. The white ceramic titanium skeleton, with a ribcage around the cockpit and reactor, the heart and lungs. Smaller wires, sensors, computer clusters, and the central computer form the nervous system. On Federation mobile suits, it's even worse. The binocular cameras and titanium cage around the auxiliary computer systems in the head form a macabre skull, a reminder of the death machine it is. A mobile suit is truly made in our own image.
Are these suits, infused as we create them with our blood, sweat, and tears, designed in worship of our bodies and disdain for our flesh, merely mechanical metal golems?
Or have we created Gods?
- From the diary of Warrant Officer Dawn Ellis, EFSF Engineering.
***
Shaking her head to clear it of nausea, she corrected her first impression. That was not a corpse, it was her GM Juggler. Once she made that distinction, her dominant emotion quickly turned from fear and disgust to the eternal troublemaker, curiosity.
The GM Juggler, which was around 80% repaired yesterday, was almost completely stripped of armor, the head had been removed, and the ball bits were both cracked open.
The oddest thing, however, was that it wasn't covered by specialist technicians like usual. Instead, the hangar seemed empty of people by comparison, there was just two standing by the shoulders, peering into the neck. As Rachel began to walk towards the suit, she noted that there must be someone in the neck, for one of the technicians nodded towards the small, wire-crammed gap, mouthed some inaudible response, and started climbing onto the frame of the suit, where he made his way to the waist, where he began testing cables and tagging them with white electric tape.
"Please excuse me, but what in the world are you doing to my suit?" Rachel asked as she approached the mechanic.
"Well, miss, we're, uh, that is, I'm just following orders, ma'am." The mechanic squirmed slightly, hoping that if something when wrong, he wasn't to blame for it.
"Oh? Who gave you those orders? My orders were to have this thing repaired as soon as possible, not cracked open like a crab," Rachel snapped.
A female voice came from inside the GM. "They were mine." A hand stuck out from the wires. "Can someone help me out?"
Rolling her eyes, Rachel clasped the woman's wrist and braced herself, as a pretty, but extremely dirty young lady pulled herself out. She wasn't wearing a shirt, but she was wearing cargo pants with rank pins attached to a belt loop - A warrant officer? Rachel gave a weak salute - and a sports bra, but most of what she was wearing was grease and other miscellaneous fluids.
Flashing a white smile, the grime covered girl held onto Rachel's hand, and shook it, then reached back into the GM and pulled out a notebook computer. "I'm actually just finishing with the basic diagnostics and maintenance, and I'd like to crosscheck the psycommu. Oh hey, that reminds me. Have you ever had any psychic episodes or anything? Can Newtypes see ghosts?" She looked up - She was actually pretty short - at Rachel inquisitively.
"Ma'am, who exactly are you?" was Rachel's only reply. This woman was weird.
"Warrant Officer Dawn Ellis - you can call me Dawn - EFSF Engineering. I'm the replacement for the technical unit assigned to your suit, Chief Petty Officer Rachel Arronax."
Rachel looked left and right, but all she could see were the two earlier technicians moving the armor back in place and securing it, a piece at a time. There were no other specialists in sight. She then looked back at Dawn, who gave an understanding grimace. Rachel sighed. "Budget cuts again?"
Nodding sympathetically, she motioned Rachel onto the scaffolding. "We can talk later, I want to run through some checklists with you before you do that suicidal attack on the Gwazine. Hook up."
Nodding grimly, the feeling of fear rising slightly again, Rachel climbed into the cockpit and strapped on the bulky helmet. "Rachel Arronax, passcode LMRSDS4913A." She felt a light buzz as the system recognized the voice identification, and turned itself on.
Dawn had already hooked her laptop in, and was rapidly typing on the water-and-grime-proof keyboard. "Initializing...Neuron activity detected, interface matrix compiling...interface matrix synchronizing, interface matrix synchronized. Brain waves alpha through gamma nominal, delta shows high activity, epsilon...fluctuating at minimal levels, almost undetectable, but it's there. Wow, it's my first time seeing paranormal evidence first-hand. Boot sequence complete, now for calibration."
Rachel felt she had to interrupt. "Excuse me, ...Dawn, but I'm not a ghost and I don't like being called 'beyond normal.' My abilities are far below the project estimates, so don't treat me like some hot-line psychic. In fact, being able to move these balls is about all I can do." Her voice sounded sullen, even to herself.
Dawn couldn't help put press further. She'd already read all of the Jester project's documentation, and one file caught her interest, mostly because the access levels to the file were far higher than what she'd expect over something so irrelevant - or so she thought when she read it. Clearly someone thought it was important. "And what about Firefly?" Dawn blurted out.
Silent for a few moments, Rachel's mouth was a thin line, the rest of her face obscured by the helmet. "It's just a dream. I'm sick of talking about it. Can we start, already?"
Dawn decided to hold her tongue; upsetting the pilot would just make it more difficult to calibrate. "Alright. Eighteen divided by three plus two times four. Follow order of operations."
"Fourteen."
"Hold your right arm in front of you and make a fist. Good. Now your left. Now tell me what you see."
"Cat, circle, hand, heart, car."
Dawn frowned. There were outlying peaks in the matrix that were anomalous, yet stayed there from test to test. She decided to get creative.
"Chief Petty Officer, is the rumor about your boyfriend cheating on you true?"
Rachel showed no change. "No ma'am, considering I've been single for 4 years."
"Are you recovering from the news about your family?"
Several numbers fluctuated, but the wrong ones. "News?! I...haven't heard any news."
"I apologize, those were more tests to disarm you. The truth is, I'm a Zeon agent sent to sabotage Newtype research, and kill personnel involved."
Rachel frowned, but didn't move. "I assume this is also a test?"
The click of a pistol being cocked was the only response.
The right numbers spiked even further.
Slowly, Rachel reached up and removed her helmet, only to see Dawn putting the pistol back in her holster looking at Rachel with a look of understanding. "Yes, it's just another test. The psycommu's calibrated, so let's take a walk." Dawn unplugged her laptop and began walking off.
This woman has more screws loose than a Zaku made of scrap parts, Rachel couldn't help herself thinking, as she made her way out of the cockpit and caught up with Dawn.
Rachel was still feeling petulant. "I should report you, you know. That was so not cool. Treason isn't funny!"
Still silently walking, Dawn led Rachel forward through several doors until they reached a viewport. Staring at the stars, Dawn said softly, "Does it make you less scared? The anger."
Casting a sharp look at the stars, Rachel shrugged. "It helps me forget. Is that what this was all about?"
"I just wanted to identify the anomaly in your neural patterns. I apologize. Look...don't turn to anger in this. Ride on top of the fear, let it push your abilities." Dawn put a hand against the stars. "I want you alive after this, and Tobias does too. At least, I'm pretty sure he does," she finished lamely.
Quirking an eyebrow, Rachel smiled inwardly. "And who are you to know such sage advice?, Officer Ellis?"
Coughing slightly, Dawn smiled, or at least a shadow of a smile flickered across her face. "I've uh, read reports that said psychic activity was more pronounced during times of high tension, and less controllable during periods of anger."
I'm starting to think she's the freak around here, Rachel thought to herself. She looked left and right, as if looking for anyone else to ask the other obvious question, because she could feel an awkward moment coming. "And Tobias is...?"
Turning slightly red from embarrassment, Dawn stared at the heavens and curtly said, "Your GM Juggler. I...I believe that mobile suits have primitive machine souls, being made so complex, and so close to our own designs, from skeletal mechanics to computer neural circuitry. I think each mobile suit is dimly alive, and that your suit, who I uh, named Tobias, wants to protect you. And he thinks you can do this." Dawn turned to Rachel. "And even though I'm half guessing at all this - from the way the parts move, the way the code runs, noted anomalies and quirks noted by past technicians - I've still only rarely encountered a suit that bonded and liked its pilot."
Silent for a moment, Rachel looks at the points of light. Then she nods. "Thank you. I'll keep your advice in mind." She looked back over at the smaller technician. "And you should probably get washed up, you'd certainly fail a uniform inspection." Rachel smiles faintly, as if hope flickered through a cloud of darker emotions, and turned and walked away.
Her new techie was pretty loopy, but at least she seemed competent. And it was nice to have someone who actually gave a damn about the pilot. Still..."Tobias, huh? I like that name."
***
Send to: Ensign Cato Galoni (CGaloni@efsf.mil), Petty Officer Marc Simmons (toysdream@ultimatemarc.com)
(No Subject)
Gentlemen, I wish to tell you how extraordinarily brave you both are to volunteer for this. As you know, I can't guarantee your survival, or mine. I may never work with such fine men as you two again, but I wanted to let you know before I lost that chance that I'm very proud I could work with you two today. I never enjoyed fighting, but I have always appreciate the courage it takes to fight, especially in far odds. You almost make me happy I was forced into this war. Thank you.
With great respect,
Rachel Arronax