The Grand OC! [CONTEST XXX: HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEN]

So I'm not gonna be able to top Dalm, but here I go with
Nanomachines, Set (Sirens or Flight)
(alternatively, Nanomachines, Noise, Redundancy + Sirens)

Username: Schazer
Name: Ariel Regatta and Quil Regatta, on Hydrogal 8
Gender: Low-flying professional couple, their six working pets, and their mobile home
Species: Two seakin, six Gas-chambered Nautilits, living on a Rainbot'l
Text Color: Six months in a leaky bot'

Biography: The Rainbot'l were a triumph of Siroccan songineering, a solution to a few water cycle problems bothering the numerous delta-deprived areas of the Praeterwater. Any rumors that King Sirocco was in a technobiological pissing contest with any number of young gods also looking to fix the weather problem are probably slander, but hey! At least the end result was pretty nice to look at.

Of course, giant sea animals being repurposed for what amounts to terraforming is a long-standing tradition in Middle-Ocean, so the teething problems during the design stage were solved by raising the beasts alongside dedicated handlers. Ariel and Quil were that couple through the last couple years of the kingdom's education system, and decided to head into what the school's careers advisor assured them was a solid opportunity. The Hydrogal Programme had initially envisioned Rainbot'l operation and maintenance as a one-kin job, but the couple showed such promise through the programme's first intake that pairing off operators became industry standard.

Ariel and Quil did the usual pair-bonding commencement rituals after graduation, signed their contracts, and headed on up to the surface. They've been running water in its various permutations around the Praeterwater for the past three years, and recontracting's on the horizon. The two were en route back to the Siroccan industrial capital of Levacha to discuss their second term when abducted.

Description: Ariel and Quil are a pair of seakin with stockier builds than average, and a fair bit of upper-body strength and fanlike fins on their arms (which are still present, if reduced, when they go legs). Their tails are heavily forked, their grey bodies (with black mottle) have a bluish sheen when the light hits them right. Ariel's got a single, stubby horn, while Quil has two thinner ones she can raise and lower a bit. She keeps them clipped back when working, mostly.

Ariel's the more extroverted of the two, and has been assembling a pitch over the past week of travelling to see if they can't move toward partial ownership of Hydrogal 8 and start privatising the trade, now that the ecosystem up Praeterwater's a bit more stable. Quil is a domestic type at heart and really wants kids, though raising them isn't feasible on a crown-owned rain station. She's got the superior sense of direction and is generally better at reading the weather, and Ariel knows it.

Additionally, Ariel named the Nautilits (at Quil's behest), but it's Quil who takes care of them and can actually tell which is which. Life on the Hydrogal's busy but rarely dangerous, though it would get lonely if the two weren't head over heels for each other.

The Nautilits are weird little cephalopods which resemble paper nautiluses, except that they are bouyant in air and require only a fine misting and a bit of whatever the Rainbot'l caught and didn't digest. Quil's trained to make them light up on command, and they're used to communicate with other Hydrostations. Station protocol only requires four (three for signalling and a backup), but Quil keeps six about because she likes them.

The Rainbot'l is a large, translucent creature composed of a variety of specialised smaller organisms working as a colony. It's about the right size to park a large car on its top, though this would be impossible because a) cars don't exist and b) it's got large, glassy bladder-sails which keep the whole thing afloat. It's got a dangling collection of tentacles, some of which can sting, others which absorb water, others which absorb nutrients or eat small animals. There's always one long stinger up to 100m in length, which the Rainbot'l keeps in contact with the surface it drifts over at all times, and will adjust its altitude to maintain contact. Up top, the Rainbot'l stores water and has a few specialised chambers which comprise the couple's living space.

Weapons/Abilities: Hydrogal 8 is a sky-jellyfish the size of a marquee tent. Its stinging tentacles can paralyse but tend to break off when activated, and its main function is to suck up water (usually from the surface of Middle-Ocean) and store it up top in its bladders. Ariel then pilots it to wherever they need to go, and the water is released either as a fine mist or just poured out (depending on the job). When the primary storage bladder is empty, it can be struck to produce a note which travels down the dragline tentacle and alerts underwater folks to their presence. Once given the all-clear, it's lowered to about five metres above the surface and the shorter, drinking tentacles suck up water. This process often gets a lot of pelagic junk up in the Rainbot'l's danglies, so Ariel clambers down and cleans them out. While not immune to the stingers, the duo are resistant. Quil normally stays up top and directs the colony by Singing, monitoring all its systems and passing on to Ariel if anything needs maintenace.

Their on-board weapons are a sharp blade to slice off diseased/tangled up tentacles (best used by Ariel), a pitchforky sort of thing which is normally armed with discarded stingers to repel boarders (not that they've had any).

An unused feature are the Rainbot'l's "leech" tentacles, which can burrow into soil or other terrestrial surfaces and suck water out. The couple try not to think about the less-pleasant applications of something like this.