thisavrou | video; 01/04

[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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She's still working at the console five minutes later, not doing anything loud enough that the sound of claws on metal doesn't make her look up.]

Nihlus, hey. [She beckons him over towards the console.] I'm just making sure the power supply to life support is stable before I start. We have generators, it should be fine.

How are you with alien engines?

The most unusual I've dealt is Hanar. They still derived a lot of their tech from reverse engineering Prothean artifacts like everyone else, though.

[There aren't a lot of engines that ran completely free from Element Zero in their universe. Nothing outside of old machinery and prototypes at least.

He steps towards her, leaning down to peer at the readouts on the console.]

How extensive is the damage?

[She scoffs with laughter.] There's a few of those on the fleet. They're the worst ships to stay on, but... [Beggars can't be choosers.]

It's pretty extensive. To be honest, I think we're going to need more replacement parts than we've got on board. We can keep the ship going, but I'm going be living here for a while.

Anyway, it took me a while to get the hang of things, since this ship doesn't have an eezo core and hits FTL speeds in a way I...didn't think was physically possible...

[She brings up readouts of the engine type and stats, and quickly gives him a rundown of how the engines work - since he apparently knows his way around regular engines, she doesn't feel like she has to make any effort to dumb this down. ~~unlike her player, who is handwaving all of the technobabble~~]

[Nihlus for his part, listens attentively and with no small amount of fascination. Ships that didn't FTL with Eezo were just... theoretical, really. Or they didn't exist as anything beyond prototypes in their universe. Being on a fully functional non-Eezo ship- being in the engine room of a fully functional non-Eezo ship no less- well, that was just amazing.]

I'd live in here with you I could, but I think this stop's going to be salvage runs for us. It does give me a very succinct list of parts I can keep a lookout for once I'm on the station. And I can help in between runs.

Do we have anyone else? People who are officially on the engineering roster who might be handy around ship engines?

[She'd suspected the last ship she was on - in the universe that came after home and before the Moira - hadn't used eezo either, but suspicion was all it had ever been; she'd been firmly locked out of the engines the whole time she'd been there. That ship hadn't needed actual crew members. Now, though, she really does live and work on a ship that doesn't have a milligram of the stuff on board. It's been...an experience.

She finishes up with the console and instead takes to tapping at the metal casing idly.]

There's a human engineer down here as well - Tony Stark. I don't think he'd ever worked on FTL at all before he got here, but he's good. The Ingress has a habit of picking people up who happen to be really good at something useful.

[And people who aren't, but the point still stands.]

I'm Chief Engineer, though, I feel like if somebody's going to be bringing down blankets and napping under the manifolds, it should probably be me. [She shrugs, a twitchy little motion more of her head than shoulders.] But if you're offering, I can pester you with salvage lists and cries for help any time you're available.

There's no harm in delegating and especially if it's a priority repair like this. You're also supervising a novice engineer in addition to these repairs.

[Yes, hello, did you call the Hypocrite Center?]

I'm collecting those salvage lists anyways and I'll definitely do my best to respond to any cries for help in a timely manner, although that'll be a bit trickier with me on Del Pascia. Here-

[He lift his arm and lights up his omni-tool.] It'll be easier for me to prioritize things coming through this channel.

[Tali will listen to that advice, and then promptly ignore it. Napping in Engineering is weirdly comfortable, anyway.

...It takes her a second to reach for her own omni-tool.] Keelah, I haven't used the comms functions on this in over a year... Give me a moment...

[While she fiddles with her omni-tool:] Be careful on that station, OK? I don't trust that AI.

[Beat.] Obviously. But this one's been left on its own with no new commands and it's just letting us on board to use it as salvage? This isn't as simple as it looks.

[Over a year?]

That's... a quite a while. Have you been displaced from our universe for that long?

[He leans against the console as he waits for her to sort out the comm. functions, looking oddly pensive.]

It's so strange coming here and speaking with... created life-forms? We have programs, AIs, machine life. The last time I had contact with something like that, I had to destroy it.

[He's quietly hoping it didn't have to end like that with DEL, but knowing their luck and knowing what he did of the station... well.]

I think it's been nearly a year and a half since I was picked up from [Kidnapped. Tricked into leaving] Haestrom. The last ship I was on kept 72 hour days and we were so busy all the time I just...lost track in the end. I don't know how long it's been exactly. I just have guesses.

[She shuts off the console, finished with her work, and stands up straight, stretching out her spine. As she cricks her neck, she scoffs with laughter.] You know who you're talking to, right? I'm still not used to it. The last ship I was on... I hate to say it, but there was no reason to ever be afraid of the AI there. Our superiors had everything under control. [A flattened, bitter tone creeps into her voice there, and she clears her throat.] And back home you'd shoot an AI on sight. I helped destroy a rogue VI on Earth's moon a few years ago. Here the only thing I understand most of the time is that I don't understand.

[Another ship, then. Not the Moira. Nihlus debates asking about it, but there's a certain edge to Tali's voice that makes him pause and he lets the topic pass for the time being.]

Most of the AI I've dealt with were early projects that needed to be shut down.

[Most of them. The rest weren't... quite so early and Nihlus had never really let himself think about those. Most hadn't been self aware. Some were monstrous. Some were not. It's been a long eight years.]

I honestly don't mind not understanding as long as I'm not dead. [This is his motto for dealing with Saren and pretty much most weird and whacky situations like this.] Although with the way things have been the past few days, some understanding would be nice.

[The whole deal with Rinzler was... he's not sure how to feel about it.]

video; 01/04

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject