revivalproject | March Catch-All

Entry tags:

March Catch-All | Network/Action

WHO: Dustin, Barrys, various people
WHERE: Network, Sh'Ka, Temba, all over the place
WHAT: Dustin discovers some stuff and complains about it. Also, he's building things again.
WHEN: Through the first half of March
WARNINGS: Dustin. Will add as needed.

1. Network | Video/Text | OTA

[It's nearly impossible for Dustin to think of a situation where broadcasting his location, live, over an Agrii-monitored network, could possibly be a good idea. Nearly impossible. But this planet is always full of surprises.]

[This is one of them. The camera cuts on to show Sh'Ka's iconic palace - or where it should be, based on the unusually large patch of short grass growing here amidst the massive trees. What remains instead is a giant pile of rubble. The camera pans around it for about thirty seconds, in complete silence, to show the scale of the destruction before shutting off.]

[Captioning it, in Dustin's characteristic pithiness: ]

What the fuck happened here?

2. Sh'Ka | Closed for Barrys

The Palace had been an incidental observation on his way to a greater project - something that Dustin has had in the works since last fall, actually, and was forced to put on hold when the winter's snows kept him isolated to Temba. Barry intel.

The 'hive' of Barrys he's been focusing on seems to be an especially active one that lives in the walls of Sh'Ka's Agriculture Building, and Dustin is pleased to note that the colony's drones are still alive and stomping around after Agra-10's deep freeze. His offerings today are perhaps lackluster compared to the ones he's left in the past, but unfortunately he has to make due with the small winter and early spring berries he's scavenged on the way here, with a handful of dried summer fruits to supplement. The small pile is left next to a trail Dustin has observed the workers frequently using.

Then there's nothing else to do but sit back several feet away, crouched in the shade of a young fruit tree, and wait.

3a. Workshopping | Closed to Donatello

The lack of snow and warming temperatures mean that Dustin isn't nearly so restricted in where he goes and what he gets done, but that hardly means he's avoiding his typical haunts. If anything, his workshop requires special attention right now; his telescope motor needs to be finished and installed when the nights are still cool and clear, while still avoiding patches of ice or snowmelt mud that could hinder its transport. That window is rapidly approaching and won't stay open for long.

It's one of those days of harried work, when he's spent hours fiddling with the code on his tablet, napped, snacked, then coded a bit more, losing track of what time of day it is save the little streaks of daylight streaming in through the boarded-up windows of his shop, when Dustin gets a single knock on his door. He straightens abruptly from his shrimp-like hunch over his communicator and waits.

Three seconds later, there are two more knocks.

Ah. Dustin hops out of the chair behind his workbench - what used to be a checkout counter - and strides to the door. "I hear you," he announces, loud enough to carry through the thick masonry walls. "Gimmie a sec to unlock the door."

A few extra manual locks have been added since midwinter. There's a series of at least five clicks, scrapes, and pops, then the door cracks open and Dustin peeks around to make sure it's Donatello on the other side.

3b. Demolition | Closed to Link

Finally, finally, the motor is complete. That just leaves the part Dustin had been dreading the most: Getting this fucking massive thing installed back in the stadium light he took it from. Getting it out and into his shop last year had been a production in itself, which is a lot of the reason why he'd been anxious about repeating the process in reverse. At least then he didn't have to worry about breaking it in transport last time - the thing already didn't work. But now it's got all kinds of delicate bits on it for precision lens movement and rotation, and Dustin's spent a lot of time on the initial calibrations while pairing it to the tracking program he wrote on his tablet.

He could have moved it again on his own, yes. Though the more he thinks about that process now, the more he's thankful for Link's offer to help instead.

Link will get that call in the early morning, about an hour before dawn, in the form of a picture of Temba's map sent to his personal inbox. The intersection between buildings Orange 8 and 9 has been circled in bright red. This, rather than his workshop proper, is where Dustin waits for Link to meet him, leaned against the rubble of Orange 8's walls and shivering against the lingering evening chill.

3c. Construction | Amphitheater | OTA

Once he and Link have extricated the motor from his workshop, rolled it to the Amphitheater, and reset it in the modified spotlight housing he left behind last fall, that just leaves getting the newly-minted telescope working again. Dustin spends the next week more or less living here to get this done. A decent chunk of that time is spent just cleaning up the old observation room he stayed in last year, and scrubbing the rust and debris off of the spotlight after three months of neglect.

Then, testing. Hours upon hours of testing. Some of this Dustin can do during the day, where he calibrates the motor and lenses by sighting in distant objects at the edges of Temba, but a lot of it has to wait for nightfall. Then he can start combining his mental star maps with his makeshift tracking software to have the telescope follow stars across the sky. This is a more passive process, where he sits back, takes measurements of the telescope's current position, checks the sighting scope and compares it to the observation piece, sometimes makes adjustments to one or both, then breaks to scarf down some dried Baconroom and wait for another thirty minutes in silence. It might seem like tedious work, but the entire time Dustin is practically vibrating with excitement, even if someone unexpected shows up in his workspace. Eight Agra-10 months of planning and naked-eye observation are finally paying off.

5. Spores | Various Locations | OTA

Dustin's final task for spring is one that happens between all the rest, generally when he's going from one location to another. The shortest path is always the preferred one, of course, but this month he's been going out of his way to take odd routes, circling areas that people don't frequent often, where he spots new plant growth starting to sprout with the warming temperatures. And where he goes, Dustin carries a jar with a sieved lid, filled with a powdery, partially aerosolized red substance. He pauses periodically to tap the jar over these islands of greenery, makes sure that a fine mist coats wherever he stops, and then, apparently satisfied with his work, continues on his way.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dustin's face falls, though he can't be too disappointed. Long-distance transportation and communication don't seem to be any of these plant-based civilizations' priorities, so it makes sense that they'd only have knowledge of their immediate neighbors. On the other hand...

[Something I can fix, maybe,] Dustin taps with a shrug. He's already been ruminating on a spore-interpreting device for better understanding Funfrond language - it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to build one for pheromones as well. Adding it to the list. [And the fourth?]

The workers finish their weaving of needles and the queen Barry perches on the low chair. Finished with their task the workers leave once more.

[Needle-kin. They mind the trees that do not drop leaves to the north. We trade regularly with them, but they do not like animals greatly. Too much nibbling at their shoots and bark.]

Dustin nods slowly and his hand mirrors the action in a sort of rocking bob of understanding. Coniferous forest of some sort - the description sounds right for it, anyway.

[And you?] he continues, electing to shift the conversation away from the other sapient plants. As the Queen has already pointed out, there's probably not much more she can realistically tell him about them anyway. [What have your interactions been like with animals, before me? The Elders of the Fungi-species mentioned a disruption to your people near the beginning of their history. Tunneling?]

Really? That was the question he would ask? She gestures to her warriors as if to say 'what do you think our history with animals is?'

[Yours are the first thinking animals we have encountered in my generation. But yes, there are stories, written histories of when the tunneling happened. It altered things greatly, but we are not a people who settle below, so we cannot speak to it as much. Only to what was written.]

The Queen's somewhat blunt response does get Dustin to bristle a little, but only slightly. There's more interesting information to be gained here - no use losing his temper over something as minor as his ego. He reels it back in with a deep breath.

[Then what was written?] he asks, unable to help the terseness that comes through with the more stiff stomps of his fingers. [As far back as you have.]

Why would she not be blunt? She is the core of a hive, hers is the opinion that matters. She doesn't care to dance around things, it is inefficient.

[Many things. For one thing, invasive species coming to this world. There are plants that are not from this region, and likely not from anywhere nearby. They were brought by the tunneling metal. They were made, clearly, by things not like us, and they started to change the world.]

That same directness that made Dustin bristle just a moment ago works now to center him, like the calm words of an adult patiently dealing with a child edging on a tantrum. His hunched shoulders slump, his intense stare shifts into something a little more sheepish, and by the time the Queen pauses in her speech, Dustin has thoroughly shamed himself into submission.

[The 'Wrong Plants,'] he taps in quiet acknowledgement. [I am familiar. The tunneling metal - that's what made the...]

A beat, as Dustin struggles for a good translation. 'Mines' and 'quarries' don't seem like concepts the Barrys would be familiar with.

[...Big holes? The underground tunnels? The ones that are still there, I mean.]

Ah, so he's familiar with them. The Queen Barry nods her confirmation as a worker arrives and presents her with a coiled up leaf. Inside of it shines a rich, thick, golden liquid. No doubt it's from the fruits that Dustin had collected. She sips at it before continuing on.

[Indeed. The large stone hole. It is a nuisance to us of course, as it is very deep and nothing will grow in or around it. The rocks are not natural, they do not belong here. None of the plants that belong can tunnel through them, and so the land cannot be reclaimed. It took many generations for us to help cultivate vines that could grow over this horrid stone forms that the Interlopers used before they left here. And these mockeries of trees are dangerous for my people. We have had to limit ourselves to areas away from them. A single fallen stone can crush our strongest warriors.]

Dustin perks up a little with recognition and curiosity. That's definitely the special fruit juice, yes. It reminds him a bit of a bee's royal jelly - although, there's no way for him to tell if it's used in the development of the Queen's successors or not, nor can he be sure that it's necessary for the Queen herself to have or if it's treated as more of a delicacy, like a fine vintage of wine. Either way, it's kind of nice to see the fruits of his trial being enjoyed so soon.

But that idle observation doesn't distract him from the Queen's answer. [We're not thrilled about them either,] Dustin notes with a frown. Visiting Sh'Ka last autumn had been a stressful exercise that he's not keen to repeat. He ponders for a moment, then blinks, his hand rapidly tapping his idea into the dirt. [Have your people been able to study how they survive? Do you know if they rely on their leaves to generate energy when they aren't hibernating, like most other plants?]

The Barry Queen actually seems pleased by the question he's asking. Not just history but thoughtful science as relates to plants.

[We have not had an expedition to the tops for many generations. But records indicate that the very top and outermost leaves are much like those of other plants. The ones that are lower or more interior are more calcified. These are used to store the sugars they produce. As the cold season approaches more of those stored sugars are pulled into the tree itself and down into the roots for storage during the season of little growth, and so the heavy leaves are not worth the energy to store and are dropped. New calcified leaves are created the next year, often from broken down material of previous years' drops.]

Batteries. She was effectively describing a natural form of battery in some way, though a very complex biological one that was likely not very efficient on this planet.

Edited 2023-04-28 14:16 (UTC)

Dustin listens with intense interest. The Queen's description matches what he's observed, at least externally, and the internal mechanics aren't nearly as alien as he'd anticipated either. If he hadn't seen the leaves turn to stone and drop off the branches with his own eyes, Dustin might be tempted to assume she was just talking about normal deciduous trees. Or maybe some combination of that and a seasonal tuber. Either way, he can see the inefficiencies with it.

Without the nutrients from an established forest of similar plants, they're operating at a loss, Dustin notes. They might not even drop the leaves if they have enough to work with. Huh.

A new idea forms. [There's two paths from what I can see,] he taps idly. Had the Queen asked for a solution to this problem? No - but Dustin can't resist offering his thoughts, while they're still buzzing around in his head. [We could remove the leaves before they have a chance to fall. We know the ones that brought them here could melt and shape stone with a naturally-produced chemical - I could synthesize an artificial version of the same. Alternatively, we might be able to encourage the trees to retain their leaves by enriching the soil with the nutrients they need to survive the winter.]

How intriguing. She was not expecting proposals for solutions to the problem. Which was of course a serious problem as the things were too large for her kind to try and rehabilitate. The best they could do was keep the seedlings from successfully growing.

[And that is why you come here? To learn the problems of the plants and cure them? We are not so different then.]

Dustin hesitates, his enthusiasm faltering. Oh, right.

[...Kind of,] he admits with a sheepish sweep of his fingers. [Came for the history, mostly. But before that, we were brought to stop the storms. Helping the plants mitigates one of their symptoms.]

A beat. Dustin's hand freezes, then makes a 'wait' gesture before he lifts it off the ground, sifts through a side pocket of his satchel, and retrieves a tiny sample of artificial Funfrond spores in a stoppered glass vial. He places it gently on the ground between himself and the Queen before setting his hand back up to explain.

[The Fungi-species have been treating the foreign plants with this. Seems to stabilize them.]

The Queen looks at the vial and then shakes her head.

[We do not have this ability. We manage the plants around us with getting rid of what we do not want and trying to encourage planting of things that are beneficial. We cannot stabilize anything.]

Dustin nods and his hand does the same - a sort of quick, bobbing gesture before getting to his response.

[Then maybe this will help,] he suggests. [I have enough here to test on a small area of plants, or a single small tree. The effects are usually immediately observable. If it helps to stabilize the calcified leaves on the test tree, I could increase production and start treating the rest of this location.]

Would save him a lot of bother, too - having to go the route of total eradication or dissolving the tree's stone leaves before they fall would take a lot more research, effort, and time.

Maybe it will. In fact, she seems intrigued. But it is so little to use to address so large a tree. So what to do?

[I will allow for the growth of a sapling to see the effects on a small scale first. It is just as possible that the spores could cause other harm and make leaves fall out of season. They are small now, but that could mean less crushing and more piercing like needles. Is this agreeable?]

[Agreeable,] says Dustin with another hand-bobbed nod. Ideally he would have slightly more control over the tree's growing environment, but that sort of luxury isn't something he can expect in a post-apocalyptic alien hellscape. An isolated location under the Barrys' purview is the next best thing. [How long do they usually take to mature?]

[I will have my workers pick one to manage, on the edges of the grove. They can reach several feet in a year, so we'll see what happens.]

In fact, she's quite intrigued. Management the Funfrond way was clearly not that of her species, and so to play with it could be fun. The other hives might be intrigued.

[Forgive the delay in our story telling of the history. I have had one of my workers going into the archives to fetch forward the oldest records. I do not remember things perfectly, it is better to give you fully accurate data from first person sources.]

Fast-growing enough, then. Dustin nods, this time also with his head.

[A productive experiment came out of it, so it was worth the wait,] he taps with a shrug. Honestly, he'd allowed himself to get hideously sidetracked with the whole Plants thing - history is what he'd said he came here for, wasn't it? [Primary sources would be best. I won't need them for long.]

He would not? How interesting.

[Our records are scribed to a size that is suitable to us. If you do not have a means to read the size, it will sadly be a while. I will have to relay it to you.]

Edited 2023-05-28 02:21 (UTC)

Dustin's eyebrows arc slightly. He probably should have anticipated this, and the fact that he hasn't is a legitimate problem; being able to perfectly remember indecipherably tiny writing is not going to help him read it later. Hmm.

[Can you write an example for me?] he taps. [Something in the dirt will work. Might have a workaround.]

Well of course she can. The Queen holds out her hand and one of the thorn swords are placed in her hand. She immediately starts to write. The characters, scratched into the dirt with the point of the thorn, are small, with multiple sentences easily etched into a square inch.

If anyone wanted a grain of rice written on, a Barry was clearly the ideal artist for the work.

Simultaneously, Dustin pulls out his communicator and starts furiously tapping away at a new, but simple program. Just a modification on the existing video recording software, stripping away the bells and whistles, and...

"...There we go," he murmurs to himself - the first words Dustin's actually spoken in more than half an Agra-10 day - as he long-presses to save the new app. Magnifier_beta.exe is a quick-and-dirty pseudo camera application whose only purpose is to make use of the tablet's built-in digital zoom and push all resources into improving image quality. There's only so much software can do here, but as he hovers the communicator just over the tiny writing and zooms in, he's hoping it's enough to make out and tell apart the individual characters written in the dirt.

The software can indeed do only so much, but more importantly, only so fast. It will take a few minutes for it to even begin to offer the first part of the image zoomed in. In that time a pair of worker Barry arrive, carrying between them a large shell. It seems to be something like a coconut, or worked down from a remarkably similar item. They carry it on sturdy metal rods between them, and since it doesn't seem like Barrys have metalworking, that's got to be its own question.

They set this down before the Queen and open the lid. She rises and moves to lift out a very thick book. One of several. The covers are made of some sort of hard shell or wood, and the pages between them very thin, almost like onion paper.

[Your method will work then? To help you read? There are many volumes, with Barry history mixed in with the information I imagine you will find important. They are the records of our people. I have commanded for only those around the years of great upheaval to be brought to be inspected. The other casks will arrive as needed.]

Too damn slow. Dustin's frown deepens the longer he waits on his program to work, and by the time the Queen is ready with her own supplies, he's more or less given up on it as a suitable, immediate compromise.

[Forget it,] he taps sulkily (in the best way he can manage - a finger kind of twisting in the dirt as it hits a little too hard). [I can use this to learn the language for myself, at least, but it won't speed up the information transfer process.]

Dustin takes one last look at his tablet's screen at maximum magnification to internalize the tiny runes, letting the Communications data point ruminate in the background, before shutting the device off and sitting back on his haunches.

[Whenever you're ready.] He sighs, although whether or not the gesture translates to the Barrys is debatable. [I'll listen.]

March Catch-All | Network/Action

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Sorry for the delays

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again forgive the delay please

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