[hatch log] pull plug, enter multiverse

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :025 - :026
SUMMARY: Somewhere deep in Station 72, a hatch happens; new hosts arrive on Concordia.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and in a very real sense you are born again. You’re not the same person you were the last time your eyes were open. You’ll never be that person again - well, except for you, Jessica Jones. You know how this part goes, don’t you?

You might not know it right away, though. What you do know is that you’re laying down in a place very different than you were before. The walls angle around you, claustrophobic, and they emit a gentle white light that’s faint enough not to hurt your freshly opened eyes. For a moment you feel fine even if you didn’t before you went under. Whatever injuries you might have had, whatever agony you may have been experiencing, whatever fear dogged your heels, they’re all gone. It’s quiet. When you’re conscious enough to take stock of anything beyond that, you realize that you’re wearing your own clothes and that there’s a faint pinch at the base of your skull - notable as the only discomfort you feel. Reach up, feel along the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment’s back wall. It pulls free without much fuss.

Then it’s not so quiet anymore. There’s the sensation of something more, something louder, something both big and broad and something intimately near to you. There’s the realization that you aren’t alone, that you won’t ever be alone again. You belong here. This is as correct as the murmur of something like muffled voices in the back of your head is somehow familiar, or how the press of emotion that sweeps over you now doesn’t necessarily belong to you but doesn’t feel out of place either.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet, and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you, as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. You can hear a sound in the back of your head, a faint buzzing, something like distant waves or the murmur of a party behind a door. Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone - and the those sounds in your head are louder. Other people’s thoughts swim up: some of them seem clear, most of them are a jumbled mess. Some of these people call to you - their voices are louder, their feelings more clear, they feel right. Further, there’s an awareness that there are others like you - not here, not close, but somewhere: an indelible tug at the back of your mind.

Welcome to Station 72. All new hosts will have one day aboard the Station before being whisked off to Concordia to join the others. Get to know the other new hosts, and ask the guardians of the Station - Prince and Cathaway -, any burning questions you might have. By the time the day has passed, Carata will arrive on the hangar to collect you.



MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA Angel slips into a coma on :025 at almost at the exact same time that some Hosts become aware of missing pieces fitting into place. Those hosts with new brood members waking up on the station will feel somewhere more complete; you might want to let everyone know you’ll be getting new roommates soon.

Everyone might be putting themselves and their broods back together in the wake of the explosion that left the nest down one host and injected everyone with renewed motivation to either find the people responsible or make sure nothing like what happened at Royal Street ever happens again. Things are progressing on multiple fronts, but on DAY 26 there’s an option to put some of those efforts on the back burner...

     ON THE STATION, the new hosts are herded onto a sleek, black brick-shaped transport. Carata, a woman young enough to almost be called a girl, carefully makes sure everyone is seated and strapped in. She’s all gentle, easy smiles and cheerful responses to any questions posed to her. When everyone’s safely aboard, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock and for a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft, ejected into the wild black of space. There’s a nauseating lurch in your belly as it bursts through the delicate shell of the multiverse and snaps into real space above the blue and yellow marble of the planet Opia. Somewhere, thousands of miles below in the city of Concordia, your brood is waiting for you.

     IN CONCORDIA
IN CONCORDIA, as dark falls, Nirad announces he’s going to fetch Carata and the new hosts from their landing. Anyone’s welcome to accompany him on the hour long drive to the stealth transport’s landing zone. The rented bus - manned by that same (now very stoic) android - takes everyone to the outskirts of the industrial block. They arrive at a different parking garage just as the stealth transport drops out of the sky, shivering into sight as it touches down. The hosts on the ship step down and then the stealth transport lifts back off the rooftop and wrinkles out of sight. It’s unclear how many more time they’ll be able to get away with this.

Get your meet and greets in and stretch your legs; you have a few minutes before everyone piles into the van and takes the long drive back to the Bearings Apartment block where the hosts have rented out the entirely of Level 13. New hosts will find there are rooms there that as of yet unclaimed, and they’re free to begin making this their home in whatever ways they please. Get familiar with your new comrades, explore the city, or maybe just take a well deserved breather. Officially speaking, nothing much happens until--

     EARLY ON DAY 27

A NEW WINDOW POPS UP IN YOUR EXTRANET PANEL...

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new and recently returning hosts; any threads on the Station should be closed to newly awakened hosts or Station-based NPCs; a top level for Cathaway and Prince will be going live shortly. Any threads on Concordia can be open to both new and old hosts! For anything happening beyond these calendar dates, feel free to create your own logs and posts.

If you have questions about the mission specifically, direct them to the most recent calendar post HERE. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE; you might also want to take a glance at the MISSION CONCORDIA BRIEFING. For all other questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[polyphonos]

[Her smile doesn't waver. It's patient and considerate, mild as still water.]

Here. In the link between us and the Station. [Cathaway's hand rises, fingertips pressed momentarily to her breastbone. There's a faint murmur from the metallic charms at her wrist and fingers.] It's possible to manipulate finer details - the arrangement of architecture and so on - most places in the Station, but the broader systems are only accessible here. The Station's moorings, its alignment in the multiverse and so on.

[greentech]

Wait, you control this whole... station... telepathically?

[ Pidge's jaw drops. Telepathy isn't really on her list of technology, but the Lions and Voltron had put at least a limited amount of it on her radar. Now there was this. ]

How? What kind of technology lets you do that? Is it... how does it tune into your thoughts? Is it some sort of remote monitoring of brainwaves?

[polyphonos]

[Something shifts in the angles of her smile - it softens, or eases, or for a moment leans into something closer to genuine and less practiced. There's a murmur of warmth to accompany it, a faint flicker of amusement and delight lurking in the same pit as some larger, shadowed beast. Cathaway breathes out; it sounds like a laugh. She moves from the center of the chamber with a dismissive twitch of her right hand and makes her way toward the girl.]

The Station shares a similar wavelength as the symbiote in your mind. We believe they're a creature like it, or at least once came from the same place. As your connection to the symbiote deepens, so will your connection to this place. In time, you might be able to communicate with it as we do.

[greentech]

[ Oh, right. That thing. The device or creature or existence in her head that links her to everyone else and broadcasts her thoughts. She grimaces slightly and there's a wave of irritation and a bit of fear and uneasiness. It's tempered by the awe and interest that comes from exploring something new. ]

Why can't I communicate with it now?

[ She runs her fingers over the wall, curious. ]

I could try and make some sort of interface, if you'll let me.

[polyphonos]

[Something in her expression stills. For a split second she's razor sharp, too intent. She stares at Pidge, attention honed to a point.] If you like. But we would prefer to oversee your efforts; the Station can be delicate.

Your connection is too thin. Consider the Nest a pool of water. You're here on the surface [she raises her hand to shoulder level, palm down and parallel with the chamber floor] and the Station resides here. [She lowers her hand to waist level.]

To reach it naturally, you must allow the Nest to pull you deeper.

[greentech]

["Naturally". That seems like such a weird and limiting way to put it. Pidge frowns and then raises a finger, as if to correct her hostess. ]

If we waited around to do things "naturally" then humanity never would've made it into space. I'm sure I can figure out a way that won't actually hurt anyone or anything involved.

[ She has a very high opinion of her own technical ability, apparently. ]

[polyphonos]

[If that consistently cool tenor to Cathaway's observation of her is any indication, the older woman has a significantly lower opinion of the same.]

You're certainly welcome to try.

[Such an interface would be useful for younger hosts eager to find some sense of control in this place - more to the point, it would give her and the Prince some additional leeway in a worst case scenario. She isn't strictly against the concept, merely... hesitant. The idea of an infantile host with no understanding on the Nest digging around in the Station's gentlest places induces the faintest sense of anxiety in her - too little to shake her, but plenty to narrow her broad attention to this specific point.

The girl would need to be monitored carefully.]

[greentech]

Great!

[ And just like that, she's beaming. She doesn't have the gear for it yet, but she has a few theories on just how she can make it work. She just needs to start testing things first, so this might take a little bit. ]

Is there any way for me to actually examine one of the symbiotes? Or... is it all electronic impulses? Do you know how this whole telepathy thing actually works?

[ If she notices the sharp focus, she doesn't comment on it. She's too busy planning. ]

[polyphonos]

We suggest a digital examination could be made with the equipment in the Station's medical facilities. A visual examination would require a host-symbiote corpse.

[Which is...doable, if not easily. Cathaway has rooted herself to the very center of the chamber, hands folded idly before her and the lines of her slight frame quiet. Still. Studying.]

In simple terms, the symbiote is a small physical creature attached to your brain. They transmit impulses to one another which also carries miscellaneous raw data from your mind to the brain of the host connected to the symbiote receiving the impulse. In essence, the telepathy is a side effect of the symbiote to symbiote communication. As your brain adapts to the symbiote's presence, you can begin to control the symbiote to symbiote communication and limit or expend that data your brain transmits along that line.

[greentech]

[ That doesn't sound too bad. It's not going to be a simple problem, but Pidge thinks she can figure out a way to make it work. Then again, she's not neuroscientist. She's just very good with technology - but isn't this just a different kind of technology? She'll figure it out. Determination and a stubborn sense of pride in her own abilities leaks out of her. She's still not that great at locking herself down. ]

Huh. Depending on how they transmit impulses, I might be able to build some sort of analog that isn't really a symbiote, but can still communicate with them....

[ Yep, she's already thinking about it. ]

It's all data, like you said. It's just a matter of finding a way to tap into it!

[polyphonos]

[Correct, more or less. Cathaway lets her talk without much comment of her own, studying the girl with narrowed attention as she prattles on. It's good to see a young host approach the problem so analytically, as intelligently, but there's a knee jerk protective streak heavy like a stone in her belly.

Or maybe that's self-preservation?, she thinks. Difficult to know for certain, except that if this sweet girl with her ambition harms the Station or the symbiote connection somehow, wouldn't that wound them all?

She finds that a long interval has passed since Pidge last said something: a pause slightly too long to be natural or comfortable. Cathaway shakes herself gently, rising back to the task at hand like slipping above a water's still surface for air.]

We assume it's as you say. If there's any way we can assist you, we're happy to.

[greentech]

I'll be sure to let you know!

[ Pidge is happy to have a project in mind. Less happy to be here, but at least she can work on making something that will (hopefully) make it easier for her to move forward. Of course, she's heading planetside in a few hours, but she can plan. Right? ]

So, uh, what do you do around here?

[polyphonos]

We maintain Station 72 and assist young hosts in their roles as agents of the Nest. We help to prepare you for the tasks at hand and are here to answer any questions you might have about the symbiote and its uses. We are a teacher, as is The Prince.

[There, that's a question easily answered. It rolls smoothly off her tongue, a so well practiced as to be rote.]

It would be irresponsible and counter intuitive to simply have you hatch here without any concept of what that meant or what might be expected of you. We might be more useful elsewhere in the short term, but this assures some sense of stability in the long.

[greentech]

[ Pide pulls a bit of a face. She still doesn't particularly like the fact that she's here and pulled away from her ultimate goal of finidng her family. But at least they're not technically prisoners? Or something? She rubs her chin, brow furrowed in thought. ]

Uh, stability... is good. But if this is Station 72, does that mean there are another seventy-one stations out there? Is there a Station 73? How many stations odoes your organization have? Do you ever meet another group?

[polyphonos]

[Ah, a good series of questions. Cathaway nods in approval.]

Correct. There are other Stations, though we aren't sure where they're located or how many remain. It's possible there are more than seventy two, or simply that this was the seventy-second to be grown and anchored here. We aren't certain, but we feel we can positively say there are still others somewhere.

[She feels it - in her bones, in her mind, in the murmur of the Station's massive body: some intangible tug out their in the layered onion paper of the multiverse. Somewhere there are other platforms, other clutches of hosts. Perhaps in some of them there are thousands of agents working as tirelessly with so many bodies as they do here with only a handful. Perhaps somewhere there is a Station closer to success than they are here.]

But no, we have never met another group. Every active agent we know now once hatched here.

[greentech]

That sounds... weird. But I guess if you're all connected by this thing in our heads, then you don't really have to go anywhere to meet them, right?

[ Although the idea of being that closely entwined with someone else's head - let alone who knows how many others - is a bit disturbing to Pidge. She winces slightly and presses on. ]

So you routinely get replacements via... "hatching"?

[ She makes air quotes. ]

Do they all get recruited like I did?

[polyphonos]

In theory, yes. Though we've never shared a connection with a host hatched from another Station.

[Is that unsettling? Maybe it should be. Sometimes it bothers her when she gives it considerable thought. But that's a puzzle for another day, another year, another millennia.]

Yes, new hosts are rescued from an attack such as the one your yourself suffered from, incubated and then hatched here where ideally they - you - choose to assist in combating the Enemy's machinations elsewhere in the multiverse. [Is that sufficiently dramatic enough? She's trying her best.]

[greentech]

I'm not sure that's the question I was asked.

[ Pidge points this out with a little gesture of one hand, sounding irritated. She has better things to do. Then again, saving the universe is saving the universe. ]

Who's this Enemy, exactly?

[polyphonos]

[How annoyingly thoughtful, she thinks. But no - that's a good thing. Better clever than blind, and there's no harm in a bit of showmanship being called what it is. Cathaway shrugs her narrow shoulders, offering Pidge a thin apologetic look. Fair enough.

Then, honestly:]

We believe them to be similar to us. Given their appearance in multiple universes and at different chronologies, we suspect they must be based in a pocket of the multiverse similar to this one. We don't know why they want to destroy us, just that they do - and that they've been good at it. Their hand has appeared in many places and they seem to have a goal the involves manipulating the flow of certain universes, but we haven't been able to determine what that is if it's more than simply exterminating us and our symbiotes.

[Another, smaller shrug.]

They take many bodies and forms. Direct contact tends to lead to death, not conversation.

[greentech]

So you're just fighting them... for reasons?

[ She's not sure what she thinks about that. She doesn't really approve. There has to be a reason besides "they don't much like us". Even the Galra have a goal of universal domination and she's fighting them for her own reasons. It doesn't really make much sense to her. ]

How'd this war start? Or is that something else you don't know?

[polyphonos]

We fight them because our survival depends on it. Hiding doesn't appear to be an option, so we stand.

[Does it need to be more complicated than that?]

There once was a version of hosts perfectly compatible with the symbiote. We believe the beginning of this 'war' [there's some disdain for the word; it suggests more coordination, more purpose than they have] started with their extermination. It's also why imperfect hosts like you and this body are now the symbiote's only option for continued survival.

[greentech]

[ Of course it has to be more complicated than that. There has to be more to a war than "they just hate us". Even if it's something like "Zarkon is a giant bag of dicks who wants to rule the entire universe with an iron fist". Pidge frowns at her, lips locked in a scowl. ]

Is that how this works, then? We're just vessels for the symbiotes to ride around in so they can survive a little while longer? There's a word for that, you know: parasite.

[polyphonos]

[Patience: so stitched through the Cathaway's end of the mental link that it might as well be what she's made of. Yes, she understands the resentment. She understands it feels like being trapped, like being thrust into a position no one asked for.]

Consider that the enemy would have pursued you regardless of whether a symbiote was planted in your mind and that the symbiote has no bearing on the physical or mental development that occurred to make you compatible. They didn't chose you. You would have been marked whether you came here or not. As for our purpose here...

[A thoughtful pause. Her mouth thins in consideration, then:]

We are the only thing that stands between the enemy and the multiversal genocide against the symbiote and their would-be hosts. We suppose we believe life is worth preservation.

[greentech]

[ OK, Pidge can't argue that stopping genocide is a bad thing. This whole situation still leaves a bad taste in her mouth and her expression settles into something sour and more than a bit sullen. ]

Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better. Thanks.

[ It's not really Cathaway's fault, but Pidge is not in the mood to be logical. ]

[polyphonos]

[These things take time. She respects that.]

You're welcome.

[Sick burns.]

Now, [There's a sensation of turning of a corner, of changing trajectory though nothing in Cathaway's bearing or demeanor changes.] Were there other questions you had for me? About what to expect on your mission, maybe? How to use your mental connection more proficiently, perhaps? Anything?