monolith revisited | mingle

[mythbuster]

One fine morning, a boyish voice broadcasts to everyone around base:

There's a lot left to explore inside the Monolith, so I'll be visiting it today. If anyone else wants to come along, feel free.

Once all interested parties are assembled and traveling arrangements sorted out, they're off to the Monolith! Given the length of the journey, this will be a real time investment. A one-way trip takes nearly two hours by flight. Traveling in silence? Boring. How should they occupy their time? Travel games? Joy rides in the Seamoth? Maybe even some old-fashioned chit chat??

Once they arrive, there's plenty to explore. With some sniffing around, they'll find a map revealing that the Monolith contains a cafe and common area, crew quarters, lab, med bay, and "special alien containment" room. However, it'll take some ingenuity to actually reach each area. And by ingenuity I mean bombs.

Which is why the group will need a demolition crew! Get to blasting those walls in logical places. Or illogical places. No one ever said it had to be a good demolition crew. With enough willful destruction, surely all of the the Monolith's secrets will be laid bare in no time.

(( Here are the full details on what can be found in the Monolith! Create your own topics and go nuts. ))

Comments

[bad naps]

[oneandmikleonly]

[oh. oh dear. Mikleo comes up beside Dirk to peer at the readings; he'd gotten a look at them last time, too, but he'd mostly been occupied dragging newbies out of the monolith and off to the base.]

That sounded pretty serious. Reassess it how?

Re: [bad naps]

[splinten]

[Dirk opens up the charts. He doesn't show the information from when they showed up, which is the rapid decline: he shows it going further back.

For a full two months.]

The charts indicate that everyone here entered these pods at about the same time that my group appeared on the Aurora.

[oneandmikleonly]

[he was raised not to swear. he's a polite boy. but internally, he does curse, and what does come out of his mouth sounds pretty strained as he stares at the readings.]

Who keeps doing this?!

[splinten]

And how.

[Different universes. Different rules dictating them, places possibly outside of the scope of Paradox Space. People yanked out and dropped here in groups, but why separated? And who put them into pods?]

This better fuckin' not mean we missed any other groups.

[A low growl cuts through his tone, a rumbling anger that is also a fear. If anyone else from their group showed up, but somewhere else, somewhere it was too late—]

[oneandmikleonly]

How many mysterious buildings and crashed ships can there be in this ocean to hide them in -- ugh, don't answer that one.

[because the answer is: too many. just look at the inexplicable nature of the Monolith, the way people built in the most unlikely and inhospitable environments like the Shroom caves.]

It seems something's hiding their life signs from URSULA until such time as -- whoever -- wants us to go for them; that's a big obstacle to us locating them at all. Is there a way around that? Could it perhaps be in the mechanisms in these pods, or in the larger building?

[splinten]

We can search the area for anything that blocks transmissions. I assume part of our team passing out was help from the friendly horrorterror. [So at least someone is sort of on their side? That guy and the Reefbacks. Hmm.] Roxy and I can keep working on improving URSULA's sensors and her radius. If we find anything that blocks her here we could potentially adjust equipment to bypass it.

[oneandmikleonly]

It did sing to put us out too. I hope it does stay friendly.

[it would be nice to be sure something isn't trying to kill them.]

That's good to know. Is there something I can help with one that front right now? I've mostly just been poking around.

[splinten]

[That's a really good question, and for the moment Dirk isn't sure. URSULA's sensors can bypass the problem now, so how will they know what it is later?]

It might have to wait. Whatever it is we're doing fine against it now, so we need to work out some kind of method that will let us compare the difference.

[oneandmikleonly]

All right. If I see anything relatably of interest in the rest of the building I'll let you know, though.