revivalproject | Ship Them All Away

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Ship Them All Away

WHO: Reeve Tuesti, Open
WHERE: Agrii Ship
WHAT: New Tick Has Arrived
WHEN: January 10th and 11th
WARNINGS: None ~~unless you consider Mini near a gun dangerous~~

1. Let's Get Accessorized

The gifts are, at their core, nothing new. Well, there were more than there had been previously, and Reeve wondered if the Agrii were going to keep escalating this celebration of theirs. How long until it became a truly untenable amount of things for them to take back? There was still that giant stone statue on the one ship since Link left. Not that he begrudged the thing, it was just so... large.

"Ya need ta stop worrying so much. Gonna go gray early," Mini chides from where he sits in Reeve's lap on one of the nice blankets. The cat had just finished hauling all three of Reeve's gifts over and was now making a show of 'resting' in the man's lap.

"A bit of gray in my hair would likely only serve to make me look more distinguished," Reeve counters as he reaches out for the first gift.

"Ya're vain enough ta dye it," Mini teased.

Reeve rolled his eyes, even as true as it was. Meanwhile his hands went through the process of opening a box. He wasn't even thinking much about it. Only he did freeze when he saw what was inside.

Golden sandals. With little straps and red stones on the outside edges.

"Oy, those are hideous!" Mini laughs. "Hey, come here, look at these."

Reeve meanwhile was left staring in shock as Mini beckoned to the next nearest He Row, still laughing up a storm.

2. Mini's Got A Gun

"Now this one," Mini says, when things calm down after the teasing about silly accessories from home. Reeve now wore his Protect ring on his finger to keep it easy to find until he can find Richie and put it on the man's finger. For now the cat was dragging over the largest box, one wrapped in orange.

"Clearly, as there are no others," Reeve said before gesturing for Mini to act.

The cat tears through the orange paper with all of the fervor of his form, shredding the paper as he went. Soon enough the feline was pulling the top off of a box and.

"Holy Mother Minerva!" Mini shouted in shock before falling back on his fluffy butt and scooting quickly away. "Is th-tha-that what I think it is!?"

"You're making a scene," Reeve sighed before reaching into the box with both hands and lifting the gift out. "Been a while since I saw one of these."

The man expertly checked to make sure that the safety on the semi-automatic rifle was on before he started field stripping the thing with casual efficiency.

"Seems to be in working order too. But of course they did not include a proper maintenance kit," he lamented as he checked the firing pin. "I shall have to ask Cayde or Soldier if they are equipped in such areas. It would be quite unfortunate to not keep such a fine piece of machinery in anything but pristine working conditions."

"Reeve, that's a gun!" Mini protested loudly. "We can't have one of those!"

"And yet," he said with a shrug before continuing his deconstruction and inspection, "would it not be nice to have a means to be protected in emergencies when my magic does not function?"

3. Tension In The Air

"Is it just me, or does this whole place feel like a ticking time bomb?"

The words are breathed just under Reeve's breath at breakfast the next morning. The lines for food in the Mess Hall are not lengthy, at least not this portion of it. Perhaps People are already tired of the faint peanut butter taste to many of the foods. Reeve... Well, he'd been driven enough in the process of repairs last time that he was pretty sure he had burnt his tastebuds out on the flavor and could no longer tell it was there anymore.

At last that's what he told himself as he stood in line for what looked like a slightly teal form of pancake that smelled of... honey and peanut butter of course. But hey, that combination of flavors might actually work.

Mostly, though, he was here to speak. With the way the Agrii felt like they watched him, the ones that wanted to thank him for repair help last time, and his quiet conversations with the AI the night before, well, he wanted to bounce some ideas off of any other 'He Row' he could.

And this one felt insanely pressing to him. The metaphor felt particularly fitting as well. He'd been in situations racing against ticking time bombs before after all. plus all of those executive level meetings that just as well could have been compared to one.

But there was always a chance this was all in his head. That the tension he read in the Agrii was just his own stress manifesting in a misreading between species. So the outside input was something he very much desired.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Keith nodded. Neither had he, honestly. He and Lance had gotten stuck in the forcefield traps a few times, and he'd ended up in the garden area with a group of Graq trying to get them to calm down.

And got to witness John's weird power firsthand. That had been mildly disturbing. But, so had the weird Graq spit attack that made them all feel high.

"That's probably a good idea. I don't know if Tony got to interact with the original core, but he might be able to tell if they're related somehow... or maybe even get the AI to tell him if it knows."

Jon's powers were only mildly upsetting to Reeve. But only because he had never given the man enough of a reason to display them.

"That sounds wise. Tony has a way with computers that I quite envy."

Keith didn't really envy it, but he knew a couple people who probably would.

"Thanks. I'll ask him later."

He looked lost in thought for a bit, looking back at the crowd again for a moment.

"I just hope the computer knows something. I feel like we're spinning our wheels sometimes." Though, what they'd found in the Warrens... it was definitely something. "I feel almost a little weird with all that knowledge we found about the Agrii, too. I don't think they're aware of any of it."

"Why would they be?" Reeve asks. "Could they not have been more useful without knowing? People can be quite manipulative when it serves their needs."

And who knows what the motivation for the work was.

"I... would like to ask you something about the Atroma, if I might."

Keith huffed a small sigh. Reeve wasn't wrong. He knew that for sure.

"Yeah... they sure can." Like what Lotor did with the rest of his team back home while he'd been working with the Blades. Not that he was sure anything would have been different if he hadn't gone except that he wouldn't have found his mother or the rest of the Alteans trapped on that colony being used as quintessence farm, but...

He definitely second guessed that choice often.

Keith shifted his gaze back to Reeve, a curious look on his face at the request.

"Uh, yeah... sure. What's up?"

Reeve takes a moment to stroke his chin thoughtfully. Like he wasn't even certain if the question was a good one to put out there.

"Did you experience any forms of... factionism among them?"

{OOC: CW: perceived torture against beings that look like actual people but were unknowingly robots, mention of panic attack (actual panic attack thread on torture post in link)}

Keith considered that.

"You mean, like what's going here?" He shook his head. "We never even really met them directly. There were these... caretakers, I guess? They were in charge of caring for the Marsiva once we got their systems uncorrupted. But, while we were technically on the 'show', they were the hosts. There had been a pair before, and no one really knew who they were or anything about them, until suddenly they were..." He frowned, remembering the panic attack it triggered for Shiro, and the fact that Kate and Shiro had hidden that attack from Keith and the other Paladins for quite some time...

"It was during one of the Calibrations sessions," Keith said. "The hosts would come on the screen and talk to us sometimes, but they'd been kind of absent for a while. I'm not really sure what happened, but... it was almost accidental... we heard... noises and the hosts pleading for their lives...

"The next time we heard from anyone, it was different hosts," Keith continued. "No one really fully explained what happened to the first two... and we did sometimes hear directly from someone calling themselves Atroma, but..." He frowned. "There wasn't any real 'factions'. And it was never really clear if 'Atroma' was a name, a title, a race... just... that was it."

He shook his head.

"I guess... the short answer... no. There weren't really enough people involved for us to see anything like a faction."

Edited 2025-02-28 10:47 (UTC)

Reeve considers this all silently for a long while. He had a lot of experience in politics after all. That sometimes made it easier to interpret where underlying factions others might not see were indeed hiding.

Except there wasn't much to work with there. So Reeve sighs.

"Alright. My theory had been if that there had been factionalism before, the difference in behavior could be attributed to differing groups of the same sort. I wouldn't rule it out yet of course, but there's no new evidence here. Still, this is very helpful. And makes me all the more nervous about the instances of Calibrations we have been in. They have seemed more mean spirited, but now I fear those that may not go may be hurt in other ways."

"Hm..." Keith frowned. "I mean... if 'dispatching' the original hosts to replace them with new ones could be considered a faction situation, maybe," Keith offered. "But, by the time we were able to get into the Marsiva to fully take on what we thought was Atroma, I... I don't think it actually was." Not having seen Atroma before that made it hard to fully judge.

"The entity that took over and replaced the hosts called itself Atroma, just as the entity that supported the original hosts did," he continued. "It was clear that whatever was going on, it was either something happened to this 'Atroma" to cause a sudden shift, or it was a second being or organization or race that took over, but didn't want us to know there'd been a change. It sounded like the hosts were only replaced because the first ones weren't fully cooperating with the Atroma."

Now that was intriguing. Reeve considers their situation in light of what he's learning.

"If these Atroma really do have factions... Perhaps the reason they unleashed the city here was because of a faction battle such as you posit may have taken place in your situation. Instead of the hosts being targeted for not cooperating fully, it could have been the Agrii that were."

Keith looked thoughtful about that.

"I wonder if anyone would know what the creature that had taken over the Marsiva was, then..." He was pretty sure that none of the younger Agrii would, and probably not even the computer AI at this point. But maybe someone who'd been around longer... someone who'd seen what the creature was if that last confrontation had been broadcast to the fans.

Now that's a good question to ask. Not that Reeve would know at all.

"Perhaps if we ever get to return to the space dock you could ask."

There seemed plenty of wise and experienced people there."

Now that was an idea.

Keith mulled it over.

"We did get a lot of good information from them," he said. He leaned on the table, closing the distance between himself and Reed. "Have you noticed that the more aggressive Agrii... the ones with the orange armbands... sometimes, when they get aggressive, they kind of resemble those aliens several of the people on the station were worried about? At least, according to the descriptions we were given?"

Had they? Reeve hadn't talked to many. Still, he considers what Keith says. He'd... maybe heard something from Link?

"Our data from the deep places seemed to imply the Agrii were taken from a vessel. That they were changed. So perhaps those other aliens are somehow related to them? Is that the suggestion?"

Keith nodded.

"Yeah, they're not native on the planet," he said. "And the aliens I heard about on the station had a different name." He couldn't remember it exactly now... it wasn't something he'd heard a lot, so remembering it exactly was kind of hard. Keith was bad with names in general, but alien ones were harder.

"The data we got from below the mines mentioned about the food... but the Agrii up here have been trying to emulate us." He looked over, giving a slight nod to where the food was being served. "They're bringing some of our homegrown stuff up here. If any of them are eating that more often than the stuff being supplied by the ship... you know, all that stuff that tastes like peanut butter... Yeah. They're not getting as much of the stuff that data was talking about."

He looked back at Reeve, still keeping his voice low.

"What if eating it less often or less of it makes it wear off?"

Edited 2025-03-06 21:57 (UTC)

Geez, that might explain some things. Reeve curses under his breath.

"And since they didn't grow up used to a slightly more aggressive set of neurochemical transmitters, they don't know how to temper it."

Goddess it made more sense. Even SOLDIERS were noted to be more aggressive once they had their treatments, but they were taught to manage that.

"They're like children having their first tantrums and no one knows how to manage it. Dammit. And maybe they might want the chemical help, but unless they grow up with better education on emotional control, they aren't being thoughtful about it. Fuck. I can get why they were so angry when they were taken and being trained. I'd be pissed off too. So now they're dealing with so much overcompensation..."

He wants to break something. But of course, he grew up knowing how to manage his temper, so he doesn't. Can the Agrii even do that?

Oof. The implications were definitely something there. Keith looked concerned for a second and then somewhat sympathetic.

"It can be a hard lesson to learn, too." Keith had also gone through a rough stage in his life with his temper. He was better at it now, but it still got to him on occasion. "This stuff that they've been given, it goes against their nature, changes it, even."

He took a breath, letting it out in a soft sigh, something he did when he needed to push down some of his own anger.

"But... we can't just... tell them, right? I feel like that might just make things worse."

Does it change their nature or just manage it? Reeve doesn't know. He's not a physician. But he is so tired because this is so damn wrong.

"It might well. It's a complicated answer I think. We could make the orange-faction worse. But do we have the right?"

Truly he doesn't know.

Keith shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "It was probably wrong to mess with them in the first place, but..." He was reminded of the alternate Alteans that had used digital devices implanted in others' brains to keep them... 'docile'. And then, without really thinking about it, he brought his left hand up, touching a small lump behind his left ear.

The augment from Drift Fleet. Anyone who might be left here now still had them... It was too hard to remove it. It didn't affect anyone's personality. It just gave them knowledge about their assigned spots in the same way the Data Points did. It was just... more invasive.

"Well, the Atroma were good for that sort of thing... messing with people."

"Those who are cruel and conniving tend to be," Reeve says with a sigh. "Thank you, Keith, for everything you're telling me. This is clearly a lot for you."

And he still needs the information

Keith managed a weak, but mirthless half-smile. He shrugged.

"Everything's been a lot for a long time now." It was kind of his whole life, really. "I guess I'm kinda just used to it."

Which said a lot, to be honest. Things were weird at home. Things were weird in Drift Fleet. Things were weird here. He just had a weird life.

"I don't mind answering questions, though," he said. "We tried to share a lot of the information back and forth with each other. I don't know if it's something I can even try to request to get here. I feel like, if I ask, I'm gonna get something really weird."

After all, when he'd asked for a notebook and a pencil shortly after the Agrii put out the request box, he'd gotten a note book and an unsharpened pencil... and he didn't even have any of his knives to try manually sharpening the pencil with.

"Either way, the more people know stuff, the better." People disappearing and whatnot made keeping information hard if someone decided not to share. So, Keith had decided it was better to share... just in case.

"Yes. I wish there was a safe way to leave notes to everyone. Things that could not be tampered with, like the Network."

Somewhere for people to just store all their collective knowledge. But too many people seemed too secretive to offer that.

"A central location... but where we could hide it from the Agrii." They didn't need the Agrii getting a hold on certain information right now. "We had something like that in the Fleet, because we didn't trust the network for storage. I don't think the Agrii can get it for anyone to have it here, but the idea isn't a bad one. In the Fleet, it had been stashed inside the wall of the amphitheater on the Iskaulit. We figured that ship would be the safest because it was kind of like a common area... none of us were on those ships specifically, and it wasn't like the smaller ones that could come and go and get combined with each other... stuff like that." He leaned on the table. "But the Iskaulit I think was a ship we picked up. Like, we tethered it to the Fleet, and then just kept it with us. We could do stuff to it... like customize rooms and stuff.

"But, someone pried a panel loose in the back of the theater, and put a stash of information in there. We had some digital information that, when we shared it out, it disappeared, so we decided to keep anything we found like that a secret going forward. Like, we all know where it was, but the Atroma couldn't touch it if it wasn't on the network."

But... where to keep it so that they always had access... and how to get everyone to be more willing to share...?

An interesting idea. Reeve considers, his eyes closed as he thinks.

"I can put a safe in the Whale Comb Sent Her," he suggests. Something with a simple code. Or perhaps just completely hidden.

"Handy... while we're on the planet." Though, multiple copies in multiple locations wouldn't be a bad idea either. "Maybe one there and one on each ship... A few of us can go back once in a while to make sure everything's up to date and matches between each..." They'd need at least one person from each ship because of the whole access thing.

Ship Them All Away

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CW: torture, panic attack

Thank you for warnings

Sure thing... would have done it sooner, but the topic kind of went there unexpectedly.

yeah, but it was interesting to learn.

Keith was in the game a long time... honestly, this has been fun getting to read my old threads!

And I'm appreciating the ammunition i mean the lore

hee hee

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