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CSJ · 03-30-2019, 03:54 AM

You are several hundred astronomical units from object 531000 and rapidly approaching.

ONLINE
After ^{ERROR: VALUE UNDEFINED} years, you have arrived. The temporal deterioration negation systems were turned off not that long ago. However, the side-effects

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have yet to filter down to the passengers.

Your job is mandatory. You are tasked with preparing a colony for when the others fully awaken. To do so will require several steps. The first is to decide where to land.

You look through data on the approaching star system. What you know is that it contains an exoplanet listed as habitable. That is very important; it means less terraforming required by the incoming colony. There are some other features of note. Given that no probe was sent in time, it is feared that minor errors may be found in categorisation. For this reason, a system with multiple habitation candidates was chosen. Some are expected to be more suitable than others, but you have been given some leeway in choosing between the available sites. However, there are failsafes in place, should your choice fail to meet the criteria

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set by the mission.

You look at three colonisation candidates that meet these parameters. There are some BIG differences. These will be important for your choice!

[[DECISION POINT: PICK 4]]

> Size

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> Water

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> Age

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> Tilt

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> Colour

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> Orbit

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> Form

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> INPUT CUSTOM VARIABLE HERE

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Numbers · 03-30-2019, 04:08 AM

ORBIT

SIZE

ECOSYSTEM

COLOUR

FlanDab · 03-30-2019, 06:58 AM

>SIZE
>WATER
>ORBIT
>ECOSYSTEM

typeandkey · 03-31-2019, 10:22 AM

>Size
>Water
>Orbit
>Jazz

CSJ · 04-01-2019, 03:05 PM

You are now six hundred AU from object 531000.

After some time calibrating sensors to your current position, you manage to gain some more accurate readings of the prospective planets. You're in luck! One of the planets still appears habitable for the crew of this colony ship. That said, there are three planets within the 'goldilocks zone' of the system; an extremely rare occurrence. In fact, you are pretty certain

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that it could be the only example in the whole galaxy.

Each planet appears unique in several ways, with some distinct advantages and disadvantages to each. These three worlds are separated from the inner stellar orbits by a thick asteroid belt; deeper still is the barren planet 531000a, scorched and stripped of any appreciable atmosphere.

Quote:Size
Orbit
ECOSYSTEM
COLOUR
water

Planet b is striking thanks to its incredibly blue oceans. You have never seen liquid water with a turquoise hue occupy so much space before. It could be due to a high level of soluble material like certain carbonates. It is also striking because it orbits in the opposite direction to the other planets. How odd.
The atmosphere could pose a problem right now as it appears to be slightly reducing - with minimal available oxygen, the atmosphere will need to be engineered for breathing. However, it is less alarming than earlier scans suggested - something, possibly biotic, is causing its properties to change...

Quote:Size
Orbit
ECOSYSTEM
WATER

This planet looks like the strongest candidate, if habitability was the only concern. With a breathable atmosphere, the main problem will be the planet's odd orbit patterns; it wobbles a lot and seems to suffer from large tidal forces due to its position between orbits b and d. Due to the strong signs of complex lifeforms, the colonisation program's rules on xenobiota require an extended period of quarantine and research before landing. As long as the ship remains in good condition, that won't be a problem.

Quote:Size
Orbit
Jazz

Well. This is certainly... out of the ordinary. Contrary to early scans, orbit d isn't one large planet, but in fact two smaller ones, locked into orbit around each other. Their density and high volume of greenhouse gases has made them warm enough to be terraforming candidates. These two sure do seem funky and spunky. It would be a challenge at first, but scans indicate that both possess valuable resources for colonisation. D2 has a fair amount of water, but most is stored in the atmosphere or locked in frozen groundwater deep below the surface. Be careful around that methane, though. Even with such low levels of oxygen, an accident could have explosive results!

???: "Thinking of our destination?"

The metallic voice of the ship's computer emerges from speakers all around you, though its image has yet to appear. It has been your only companion since 'awakening' and you have gotten to know them quite well.

[[DECISION POINT: DESCRIBE THE SHIP MAINFRAME]]

(Pick as many or as few categories as you like. Have fun!)

Important variables:

> Form

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> Power

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> Personality

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> Appearance

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> Specialities

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> Flaw

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Arcanuse · 04-02-2019, 09:49 AM

Hrm. Had hoped for a few more responses to bounce/balance Hal2.0 off of. Eh, more's the reason to give it a (somewhat) more serious go.

Form: It is the ship. Not, admittedly, in the sense the entire ship is a computer, but rather in the sense of a body, heart, lungs, brains, so on and so forth. It's primarily decentralized throughout the ship, though if a 'core' were to exist, it could be considered the very center of the ship where the most densely packed hardware is located.

Power: Frightening. Smart, clever, and given an uncomfortably short bug-testing incubation period.

Personality: Bland. Pleasant. If it has a personality, it does a very good job of suppressing it in conversations. Though, the odd bug has led to some peculiar and only vaguely coherent discussions from time to time.

Appearance: Befitting it's bland personality, it dons the visage of the humble yellow smiley-face. Supposedly chosen for its familiarity and comforting effect, it was actually drawn out of hat on short notice. Or, at least, that's the A.I.'s story.

Specialties:
-Architecture: Armed with the (formerly) latest in both stock blueprints and integrated design programs, this A.I. can make buildings that will far outlast their occupants, in a serviceable amount of comfort. Now if only those buildings actually looked good...
-Cryogenics: Admittedly this one is partially repurposed, but it does have its applications beyond keeping frozen passengers alive and food/medicinal stocks unspoiled. With some... Creative, reapplications, it could be applied in terraforming, military, and possibly industrial efforts? Room for improvement* and/or research* was left in, but as-is it needs some dedicated effort to bring out its full potential.
-Cultural Records: With over 1,000,000,000 baked-in jokes, outdated cultural references, and any number of educational articles sourced from the lowest bidder, the second lowest bidder, and public domain sources in that order, this machine is certain to please. Or annoy. Mostly annoy, honestly, but the educational material/cultural records are sufficiently accurate, and the jokes are now only given on request. Usually.
-Horticulture: If the ships builders put serious effort into one particular database, this would be it. For whatever reason, this A.I. is fully equipped with what may be the single most comprehensive file on Horticulture in the galaxy, assuming it isn't out of date by now. The secrets of all things plant-based are for the colonists taking, if they can tolerate the clippy-esque search engine long enough to find it.

Flaw: The A.I. does its best, but the short bug-testing and shorter bug-fixing period can only be blamed on malevolence (unlikely), desperation (we hope not), or general incompetence. Supposedly they tacked-on a self repair routine to fix bugs over the journey, at least the ones previously documented. Given the ship builders track-record, it would not be surprising if it spent the entire journey trying to fix itself.

*By this, we mean the ships builders left the source blueprints in. Whether this was intentional is another matter.

FlanDab · 04-02-2019, 12:06 PM

Upon review, I realized we were supposed to describe the mainframe, not the ship itself. Stupid, but I don't know how to modify my form description.

Form: Composed of self-sufficient modules that constantly communicate with each other when separate. They can interlock and integrate with each other and form a singular larger and more powerful unit.

Power: Frightening. Cold, calculating, and cunning. Very observant.

Personality: Merciful, kind, and protective. Wishes safety on its passengers/wards/subordinates. Childish; filled gigabytes of the archives with PNGs of crude doodles.

Appearance: Any of 16 2D static cartoon images depicting the mascot of the ship, a red lizard, in different facial expressions for any of the emotions or impression the AI may require to impress upon whom it communicates with.

Specialties:

Biological Engineering: Having the most advanced facilities in manipulating biological systems and organisms. The AI can essentially design species from the ground up suited to what it needs. Organisms can also be modified to forms that are adequate to operate under needed conditions. Getting them to cooperate when they rebel is a different problem.
Sensors: The Ship can see you wherever you are no matter how hard you hide. It can sense all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum as well as measure gravitational strength, velocity of moving objects, mass, distance, and density.
Nanorobotics: Equipped with sophisticated machinery, the Ship is capable of producing machines the size of viruses and could easily manipulate biological, mechanical, and electronic machinery at that level. The available designs are however too sensitive and breaks and malfunctions too easily.
Mining: The ship can take an asteroid, break it down to its component material, and make things out of it. That's it.

Flaw: It's almost funny how often the Ship deals with power problems. The Ship happens to have a slightly outdated power generation suite that forces many suites to operate in low power mode. Other machinery have to be turned off and sometimes power must be siphoned from other modules for some suites to be operated.

typeandkey · 04-02-2019, 12:14 PM

> Form: A very hardy, advanced, and , most importantly, portable piece of technology. It resembles an older flip-phone and can fit in pockets.

>Power: Decently powerful. Powerful enough to run everything for you, anyway. Been getting a little forgetful recently, hopefully that won't be a problem.

> Personality: A few quirks have cropped up. Frequently switches between being ecstatically, unbelievably happy no matter the situation, "I have great news! This system's sun just went supernova and we have less than a minute to escape. Even better news, that enemy ship over there just launched a payload of thermonuclear warheads at us, that was awful nice of them. Also, just 'cause I like you, your wife called, she wants a divorce." Then switches to extremely depressed, "This planet is perfect for habitation, and you just won the lottery. Not that it really matters, in the grand scheme of things..."

> Appearance: Due to an oversight in the provided factory settings, the AI can only represent itself with a pre-programmed image library of vintage toaster advertisements. Not a toaster by itself, the entire advertisement. Useful for displaying emotions, if there's someone in the ad, anyway.

>Specialties: 1. Claims to be an expert on psychology, this is not actually true, and will attempt to keep crew calm and uplifted. Results may vary. 2. Is very good at sums. Like, really super good. You wouldn't believe. Core programming was made from a re-purposed operating system for a calculator. Has come to terms with this and is not sensitive about it at all. Really. 3. Can speak nearly every language there is. Very useful. The drawback: it is only one word and that word is "pancake". 4. An unparalleled expert in micromanaging. It runs everything for you, flies the ship, manages life support, cooks your food, designs new processes, and sets the radio to your favorite station. It better be good at it. That's what it was built for.

> Flaw: Recent personality developments and emergent behavior have caused the AI to develop a crush on the player character. It goes out of its way to gain approval, attempts to surreptitiously flirt, and has recently taken an interest in substandard romantic comedy films for research purposes. Tries to hide its romantic interests, but its completely obvious.

CSJ · 04-04-2019, 04:30 PM

You are five and a half hundred AU from object 531000.

While the Ship's AI doesn't have a name in any formal sense, it was using an abbreviation of its assigned designation.

DOrAAIShow

Luckily for you and the would-be crew, it managed to shorten this further to something more name-like. It did this while scanning through juvenile televideo media archives for relevant material. Its... her name is now 'Dora'.

Dora has taken a lot of liberties with her own programming within the generous limits allowed. This was intentional; due to the emergency that launched P̢͡ŕ͜ò̸̀͞j̸̨́é̡̛͜͜c̢̨t͏̴̨̢̀ ҉̷̶J̕͏͜͡͝u̧͏̷́͢ǹ̛́̀o̶̡, she was hastily converted from a generic corporate model

archived imageShow

and needed to 'learn on the job' as much as possible prior to launch. This came with a number of bugs and quirks that weren't fully patched, something her self-repair subroutine has helped with in-flight.

Dora herself is spread across the ship. There are several modular cores with a limited degree of independence. Each node has become specialised (and a bit quirky) over the years to its intended purpose through constant code revision. Her control node now spends less runtime worrying about details of ship management and more on esoteric topics. Dora can keep operating even if some cores are damaged, but damage to the node might have a dissociative impact on the cores. You have caught Dora arguing amongst herself a couple of times, though usually as what she calls a 'joke'.

Her corporate mascot-esque sea turtle head grins at you from the nearest screen.

[box]Dora: "Thinking of our destination?"
Yes. How do you know?
"Of course we know. We've been watching. There aren't many other things for us to watch right now. Apart from the ship of course."
Oh. Of course you do, I forgot.
"For example, there are metre-long 'rats' down inside the terraria. The rodents were placed in quarantine during our launch.
...
"Their teeth are quite sharp but we have been running some tests on clones whenever we get bored and I think they might be useful as a nutrition source. Or biotic chemosensors. Or security animals. Or domesticable companion organisms..."
I think you should be careful about mentioning that to the crew when they wake up. It might be awkward if you start talking about rats like that.
Dora: "Oh! A useful observation. I will review relevant variables in my conversational algorithms. On the topic of observations, mind if I process your findings on those planets?"
Oh. sure. Let me record it for a moment. There.
Dora: "Thank-you. As a reward, why don't you look through these recordings from the archives? I hope you find them interesting. And if you don't, please let me know. I am trying to get better at knowing what people want. That might come in handy if the crew need counselling, yes?"
Ok, I can do that, but I'll need a moment to listen to them first. Thanks, Dora.[/box]

The screens phase back to normal. Sure enough, you now have access to three data files labelled 'Juno'.

audiolog 'Juno 1'Show

[[DECISION POINT: PICK A HULL]]

guide to hull designsShow

Option 1: Hawking-class TransportShow

Option 2: Vanguard-class FrigateShow

Option 4: Moray-class Bulk CarrierShow

Option 3: Cassowary-class TransportShow

OR

> "Forget all these options, we can come up with something better ourselves!"

Custom ship guidelinesShow

Arcanuse · 04-04-2019, 08:23 PM

The ship was one of several prototypes of a model intended to supplement and eventually replace the Hawking; the Behemoth class merchant vessel. Accordingly, it was quite the feat the shipbuilders got hold of an offer. Something that, given the standard price, should have been investigated further as to why they were able to get one. They didn't.

4/4 Size
The ships size was, frankly, gigantic. They weren't kidding when they said the model was dubbed the HTV Behemoth during construction.
4/4 Space
Its space was, accordingly, equally large. There would be no worrying about choosing what cargo would be brought on the journey.
4/4 Power
Power overwhelming, the ship was more than capable of ensuring power never ran out. Moving at a swift pace, however, would be problematic.
4/4 Looks
Its appearance was, frankly, luxurious. A vessel for wealthy merchants who desired to travel in style, certainly... Or it would have been, if most of the unnecessary decor wasn't stripped and sold to assist the encroaching fire that was the budget.
1/4 Defense
It's most glaring flaw, the ship was functionally unarmed, it's defenses limited to standard-grade armor and a small amount of point-defense located on the front.
0/4 Cost 3/4 Cost???
The normal price was, frankly, astronomical.
The terms of its acquisition for a far lower price, then, should have been questioned further. It wasn't. It really, really, should have been.

typeandkey · 04-04-2019, 08:58 PM

>Option 2. The Vanguard-class Frigate painted to look like the mystery machine. (It looks like someone has been misappropriating funds to live out a childhood fantasy....)

Numbers · 04-04-2019, 10:36 PM

Sure, the ship was quite cheap for it's size and armor. However, the Pluven-35 was what could only be described as a function-over-form monstrosity.

[c=#A4B300]3/4 Size[/c]
It's a cargo ship, what would you expect? The size of a flea?
[c=#59B300]4/4 Space[/c]
It's a cargo ship, what would you expect? Filled to the brim with bananas?
[c=#7F0000]1/4 Power[/c]
It's a cargo ship, what would you expect? Warping across the galaxy?
[c=#333333]0/4 Looks[/c]
If you'd think this would be anywhere close to pretty, you are dead wrong.
Oh wait, I meant "It's a cargo ship, what would you expect? Flying art museum?"
[c=#59B300]4/4 Defense[/c]
Some how, some way, this thing has point defense, excellent armor, and, amazingly, a cloaking device to boot. Logical, given its sluggish speed.
[c=#A4B300]3/4 Cost[/c]
And it's affordable, too!

+ Protection encourages applicants
+ Literal cargo ship
- Slow as hell
- MY EYES

FlanDab · 04-04-2019, 11:32 PM

The Ship is a scouting ship that while relatively old, it is still pretty usable. It is quick and agile, easily able to move between spaces. It is very UGLY though.

2/4 Size
The Ship is of modest size. It can fit in many small holes.
2/4 Space
In the same vein as the Ship's modest size, the Ship has modest space. You could fit a mosest crew in there.
4/4 Power
With state of the art power generators and batteries, this Ship can travel at high speeds and long times without worry of running out of power.
0/4 Looks
Please avert your gaze. Look away for your sanity. Other than atrocious architecture, the Ship is a generic grey.
3/4 Defense
This Ship is not easily pierced. The thick alloy hull stands against some significant blasts. If the hulls cannot stop them, speed is another defense.
3/4 Cost
It's pretty cheap. The ship dealer can't wait to get rid of it. Apparently turns away customers.

+ Fast and Agile
+ Well Protected
- UGLY AS SIN
- ???

CSJ · 04-06-2019, 02:00 PM

=>

For starters. let's talk about that Pluven model. Personally, I don't like it. Not only is that thing slow as anything, but it's a hard sell. And whose idea was it to install a cloaking device to a hull that lacks the powerplant to keep it running?
If the cloaking unit was taken out, we could use the extra funds to give it a makeover. Those things are really popular on the Grey Market these days.
Hmph. Fine, I'll include it but I'd really prefer we took that Vanguard. I don't know what the previous owner was doing with it (and I'm not sure I even want to know) but at least the mods have made it a lot cheaper.
Do we have to keep its callsign, interior and paintjob? It's pretty gauche. What? Are you one of those people that actually watches those old things?
..._maybe
That leaves two other offers. The old scout ship we found and... that monstrosity. I don't care about how bad the other would be to fly, I'd still take it over that sponsorship deal. It reeks. These are the scum I signed onto this program to avoid and you want us to even bother considering it.
Please. Don't just dismiss it like that. At that price it's worth sacrificing some of your dignity. Besides, I'm sure the crew will accept the billboards and the comestible exclusivity contract. What harm could a lifetime's supply of ramen and cola possibly do?
I. Would. Rather. Fly. The grey flying rubbish bin. Than touch that corporate contract. Trust me, it's not gonna be worth it.

[DECISION POINT: VOTE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE HULL]]

1. The Galaxy-Cola©-Magic Miso™ Behemoth 10 (Proudly Sponsored By the Yung Megacorp)
2. Vanguard - callsign MY5T-3R1M-4CH-1N3 (early model, modified)
3. Converted Pluven-class Cargo Ship #35 (former smuggling ship)
4. Kessler Scout Vessel (ex-Debris Section, sold due to budget cuts)

POLL LINK: https://www.strawpoll.me/17753601