video; 01/04

[keelahselai]

[It's basically the middle of the night cycle when you might notice - or be woken up by - the sound of the engines starting to fade down to almost nothing. Machinery usually powerful enough to reverberate - albeit very softly - throughout the ship goes still. It's just about completely silent when the MID broadcast goes out.

Tali's isn't a face - or mask, right now - that's seen on the network much, but here she is anyway. There's a slight air to her of having prepared this in her head.]

If you just noticed the engines shutting down, don't be alarmed. They're just in standby so I can do some maintenance. [Her eyes are only just visible as glowing points behind the opaque visor, but her whole head moves to pay attention to something below the MID - and there's the sound of her keying in commands one-handed.] I'd like to tell you it's routine maintenance, but tiny bots eating into the manifolds isn't routine in most places I've been.

It'll be done in a couple of hours. [...Pause.] I don't think I need to tell you that life support's still running... Do I?

[Well, she just did. She's about to sign off when--] Oh! Almost forgot.

I asked the captains a while back if I could start doing some research into the Ingress. How it works, what's wrong with it... Anything we can use, anything that might help us repair it, or...or something. [This is clearly not rehearsed.]

It'll be slower work on my own, so I'd really appreciate some help looking into it - and anybody who works with the Ingress probably knows it better than I do right now, too.

Let me know.

Comments

video

[noitatnacni]

I don't work with the Ingress or anything, but make sure you get someone who can talk to you about the mystic elements of it. I mean, it's pretty clear that you're a scientist, but there's magic at work in it too.

[Just saying.]

[keelahselai]

[...You got her there, madam. Tali's head tilts slightly and there's a pause.]

Huh... You think so? I didn't even think about magic being involved. Surely it's just alien tech...

[noitatnacni]

No, there's magic. [Said with both utter confidence, and far too much ease.] Maybe alien magic, but I sensed the mystical energy coming off of it when I got here. My guess would be technosorcery, where someone's combined science and magic together to make something more powerful than the two--but that's really not easy to accomplish, especially not on this scale.

[keelahselai]

Combined? [The sound of her working on the computer terminal slows.] I've never heard of that being possible... What can you achieve with that? I mean, what have you seen - not just this.

[Tali: easily distracted when nosy.]

[noitatnacni]

It's pretty much brand new where I'm from too, and the guys that pulled it off? Scary powerful. [As in actual Lord of Chaos level power; although she's confident enough in her theories, Zatanna can't even begin to replicate such an effort herself. The best she's hoping for here, is to get Tali looking for someone who can.]

The stuff I've seen used was for mind puppetry on a massive scale. It broke the boundaries of lifeform, or technology to be a single weapon viable against humans, a bunch of different aliens, and androids.

[keelahselai]

[There's a long moment where she's not entirely sure what to say.] Keelah.

[That's it, that's what she's got. She goes on, a little uncertainly.] You know, there were creatures back home - artificial intelligences called Reapers. That sounds like them. We just thought it was really advanced tech, but it's billions of years old. [She scoffs.] I don't know what it means, but there's nothing I can do about it from here.