revivalproject | OTA Log

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OTA Log

WHO: Tommy Shepherd and Anyone
WHERE: Graq Planet, Agrii Ship
WHAT: Harvesting seeds, capturing animals(?), and trying to learn Science! (TM)
WHEN: During the Return Journey
WARNINGS: None Anticipated?

A. Farming Boy | OTA | Graq Homeworld

Was it strange that he found this world so damn fun? Probably not. The trees were strong, the food was abundant enough that for the first time since coming to their damn level of reality he was full as he needed to be. It was a relief. And the food? Fuck the food was good. Good enough that Tommy had been poking around at the Graq trying to ask questions.

Which was silly. Who needed questions. Tommy just needed the fruits and vegetables. Or at least, the ones he can find that have seeds.

Anyone approaching will find the speedster laying out a variety of fruit on a large piece of stone, considering them before he raises his hands at them.

"You might wanna stand back," he warns, because he's going to try playing with his powers in a whole new way. "These... could explode in a juicy manner. Not sure. Haven't been able to do an explosion since getting here but... well, it's try time."

His hope was that it was just the Agrii ship and planet that fucked with his powers. Then again, if it hadn't... then he had the most awesome idea for trying to get some seeds to long term storage really fast.

B. Bacon Time | OTA | Graq Homeworld, minor Network

Meat. Protein. Fucking GOOD long term food that can be bred and brought up to size with foods that are less desirable to mainly human constitutions? Yeah, Tommy's all on that. Right from the world go on tasting his first side of bacon, he resolves a plan. One that he broadcasts out to the network as a group-text.

Listen. Some of us need meat and protein and all that shit in greater quantities. So I suggest this. A 'hunting' party. We can cure and preserve some of the meat. But I also wanna capture one or two breeding pairs? So we can, like, have more meat in the future? I'm sorry if you're squish and all that, but some of us need this.

Anyway, I'm starting at about noon or whatever noon is here. That's an hour or so. I've put a coordinate point up, and I've woven nets from vines and trip ropes and other stuff. Anyone wanna help?

And at the appointed time, Tommy will be standing at those exact coordinates, with one of those hats like you'd see on an episode of some nature documentary with a wise-cracking Aussie in it. Where he got the hat will have to remain a mystery. Just like why he's doing an Aussie accent. Horribly.

"Well get on their mate, we're huntin' food!"

Horrible

C. Learning Science | OTA | Agrii Ship

The problem with only needing to sleep four hours a day when you're travelling on a ship where the aliens operate on a thirty hour day is... Well, a lot of things. Including keeping oneself entertained when trying not to go crazy from a sense of confinement. Sure, the Agrii ship is a LOT larger than the ships the 'guests' of the Agrii have used, but sooner or later, every space feels confined when he doesn't have a whole planet to explore.

Which had led to the strangest behavior from Tommy Shepherd. All throughout the day the young man can be seen loitering in all sorts of places. He loiters on the bridge, watching the Agrii manage their consoles there. He loiters in the engine room, watching the Agrii and Stark and Tuesti and anyone else who comes in as they look at the new engine core. He crawls through the confined spaces of the Jeffries Tubes ~~and maybe nerds out a little over the idea that he's in a fucking Jeffries Tube because he just happens to be a closet Trekkie~~ and looks at where all of the wires go. He even hangs out in the hangar and watches the people who know how to do it mess with modifying their ships.

Why is he doing it? Well, Calibrations had taught him one thing, if only from the way Tony had stared at him.

Maybe, just maybe, Tommy wasn't as dumb as everyone had always told him he was. Maybe he even wanted to explore that.

So, if he happens by someone studying something, he pipes up with a question.

"How do you think that works?"

And if someone catches him staring as an Agrii is working hard, he waves them back for a second, watching a delicate process complete before looking at them.

"What's up?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The metaphor hadn't been intended to be literal, but it did raise the unavoidable question, "Then why give the Graq guns? What is it about the Agrii--why put them in danger, not give a shit what happens to these other guys, only to perform this rescue for them-- twice?" As far as Tony knew, and sorting the air continued, "The rescue off of Agra 10 onto this ship, and the rescue from the Graq, both instances using the same weapon." If Tony could figure out what that 'storm' weapon was--well, that had been what the Agrii were asking all along.

And they didn't have that weapon, they had the systems on this ship to autopsy and try to put into context instead. Tony pointed to the navigation system, then seemed to change his mind and point to Tommy to ask, "How do you think it works?"

"Television, man. The grade A television drama. We're not as entertaining if there isn't a very serious threat," Tommy points out.

Come on, when does reality TV not have HORRIBLE ideas? Still, he considers the display Tony is giving him. How does he think it works? Hmmm...

"The ship isn't moving faster than light, which means there are spectrums of light that could be radiated from the ship and then be bounced back to the ship to allow them to know where they are in relation to some things. But that's only useful for REALLY close things I guess. Man, I don't know. Blue-shift? Or perhaps it's running off of the star charts of another species that is just taking measurements, and basically they put it through all sorts of things to make it look horribly low tech."

The tactile physics of navigation and propulsion should have come naturally to Tommy, or so Tony thought, so that his first impulse was to immediately jump to light was unexpected enough to make Tony pout thoughtfully. Ultimately, it wasn't a very interesting answer, infrared was how most of these systems worked, until Tony got some insight as to why it was Tommy's instinct with 'blue-shift' and nodded, alright, that made sense, it hadn't occurred to him before that a speedster would have to be seeing that wavelength contraction and calculating accordingly. "Can you do that? Know how far something is based on colour?," he asked. It would have to be at speed to work over shorter distances than whole galaxies.

That these calculations were based on a different ship's readings entirely made more functional sense, and was the answer Tony hadn't considered. He would have seen that communication, he thought--only, he hadn't seen any network to or from the ships the Graq were on, and they were clearly under some external control. He looked back to the program more suspiciously, like it wasn't just reading but watching. He hadn't picked up on what network their observers must have been using, either.

Could he determine distances based on color? What a strange question. But Tommy doesn't answer immediately. He stands there for a whole minute, eyes closed, deep in thought. His memory was insanely good, his brain mutated and thus physiologically built for not only processing high volumes of data, but storing it for quick recall. It was part of the survival nature of the speedster brain. Even with insane reflexes they had to be able to remember the most ridiculously small details to make sure they didn't hurt themselves.

At last he opens his eyes and shakes his head.

"Not me. Perhaps if you were talking to someone who was faster and flew, that would be relevant. Like the Novas, or maybe Northstar and Aurora. They can manage near light speeds, which means even with enhanced reflexes they need their senses amped up way past mine. No, I think... I think I know how distant things are because of experience. My mind stores lots of little details and I've got all the time in the world to compare them in the back of my head. Like, when you know roughly how big a car is, you can tell how far away it is by how small it works."

Basically, he does highly complex trig on the fly. By instinct alone. Kid's never passed a trig class in his life.

"Add into that my reflexes, and even if I calculate wrong, my brain has time to make up for it. Usually my body too. It's not perfect, of course. If I'm super close to someone in a fight and they're really good, I can mess up sometimes. The Super-Skrull broke my nose, for instance. I dodged about 98% of the rapid barrage of punches he threw in the space of about forty seconds. It was just the one I failed to dodge that fucked me. Granted, it was my first fight against someone with powers."

If you count a Super Skrull as having powers.

"Still, that's how things are supposed to be found, right? Distances between stars and planets? The color skew because of the difference in speed between infrared and ultraviolet radiation compared to what we perceive as visible light?"

But come on, he's probably talking out his ass, right? Tell him he's right. Or just correct him. Because man, he's really interested in this conversation.

"Remoras."

And there is a non-sequitur if there ever was one. But really, it made sense to Tommy. His brain had bounced back onto the idea of the star charts and navigation really belonging to someone else. Or at least being guided by someone else. How could they do that without Tony noticing it? How had Tony managed to be foiled before? Answer: low tech solutions to high tech problems. How would you low tech a high end navigation array but still give it access to the sensor logs to allow it to guide them? Well, don't put it through the main sensor array. How do you do that?

"Remoras," he repeats, nodding to himself. "You should have one of the pilots take you on a shuttle and inspect the exterior of the Agrii ship. Ping it with whatever you can, see if something's hidden on the hull of the ship, or if something is there that shouldn't be. Like a remora, hiding on the underbelly of a shark. Except this one isn't just benefiting from the pieces of the food the sharks miss in their frenzy. It's feeding stuff back to the ship. Okay, maybe remoras is a bad parallel. So think of the rage bugs instead. We didn't know they were there, right, until we found the first ones in Billy and Teddy. But they burrowed in and affected Billy and Teddy in ways we didn't expect. In a way that was almost impossible to detect except to people who had VERY specific powers. Jon, Wanda, Cal. People that could sense other minds. But just looking at Billy or Teddy or me, you might not know at first that we were behaving under something other than our own power, our own control."

Edited 2020-09-05 02:37 (UTC)

A minute was a very long time even for arguably human-speed Tony, who narrowed his eyes after the first five seconds, and was already concerned he had landed on some kind of trigger combination of words and gestures to put Tommy into a trance by second 10. Concerned mostly that he didn't know how to recreate the fluke for future use, but also that it could be done at all, that was probably something to be worried about. By the time Tommy rejoined Tony on the knowable plane, Tony was considering his console again, trying to find a complete record of the ship's flight path thus far and mostly running in to annoying walls. That Tommy was navigating by a far more grounded and perceivable force, to Tony, was less interesting than a secondary adaptation that allowed him to achieve this another way and would have maybe been an interesting avenue to explore for possible space navigation. That he was just doing an array of calculations in the short bursts it took to get him from point A to point B was obvious, of course Tommy could do that. "You know, I was really hoping you weren't just going to say you're good at trigonometry, we're looking for cosmic solutions here, sweetheart, try to surprise me," he muttered. "There's no supposed to. That's just how boring people on Earth do measurements with telescopes. We've got a whole multiverse to navigate, which means a multiverse of possibilities..."

Now Tommy was just saying things, which was at least more surprising than confirming he knew how to add numbers together. Assuming this was still about colour, Tony started to open his mouth, about to point out that biology was not his thing and if Tommy knew something about how remora eyeballs worked, he was going to have to show his process. Tony was looking back at the console with his lips still parted as Tommy explained how he got the to bottom of the ocean, thinking that would go a long way to explain where some of these numbers were coming from. "It's probably not outside," Tony corrected, hands on his hips, then looking up and around the engine room, considering where he would hide a stowaway on an spacefaring cruiseliner. Somewhere that wouldn't be easy to see, and an engineer was less likely to go. "The kitchen. The Green Room," he proposed, the least interesting parts of the ship to him, anyway.

"You wanna check it out? Kitchen. Green room? We can do that. Come on, I'll take you."

Why wouldn't it be outside? Outside where the Agrii won't see it? Well, if Tony says inside, he's trusting the guy. He's smart. And Tony helped save them all.

"Take me?" Tony asked with a chuckle that quickly became serious. "If that's some kind of elderly joke, like I need to be escorted for my own health, we're going to have to stop hanging out. That's a big loss for you, Tomatillo, look at all of this, this is the inner circle," he continued, sweeping a hand up to indicate the posse that was supposed to be following him around because of how magnificent he was. Sometimes, that was how the photos even looked. Tommy was definitely handling his social circle better on this journey than Tony was. "Come on. Tell me how you can make your math more efficient and stop getting punched on the way."

"Carry you. Save you time," Tommy explains. He doesn't think Tony's old. Just that he's slow.

ANd Tommy? He was just better at avoiding people following him. He's just fast.

"Math more efficient?" Tommy asks, tilting his head. "Woah, you going back to the Kl'rt discussion? That's, like, an hour ago."

Not about to be carried around the ship by Tommy, still somewhat of the opinion that he could pretend he possessed dignity when not under pressure, Tony didn't even acknowledged this expanded offer. Absolutely not. Tommy could do laps if he really wanted. Instead, Tony echoed, "Woah," eyes sarcastically wide, "I can also remember stuff that happened yesterday." If what Tommy was talking about three minutes ago was boring to him already, though, Tony was happy enough to shrug it off; he was just trying to help Tommy have an important breakthrough and it wasn't like Tony could just tell him anything without Tommy finding a reason to brush him off and argue with him. Just like he couldn't just tell Tommy that he was probably right about this remora theory, until they found some evidence. "If I was going to plant a parasite, it would be in plain sight. Give 'em the ol' razzle dazzle, you know, make 'em think they're looking at one thing, when it's something else. If this is all about a show we're putting on, that's probably how these guys think about most things," he talked through, tapping his temple as he wandered without a hint of urgency from the engine room and down the hall.

"We've got time for math later," Tommy shrugs. "You can teach me whatever then. But this is important, right? Because it might help us get home."

It might help Wanda get back to Vision. It might send his brother and Teddy home. Those are the things that matter. Those are what he'd working toward.

But then Tony's moving and Tommy's immediately at his side.

"I still don't get why it can't be outside. Wouldn't you be able to see if the data for navigation was too, well, smart for the Agrii? And if it wasn't showing up as that, then the system has to be looking through stuff on it's own, right?"

Is he wrong? He doesn't know. Tell him.

"It's not that it can't be outside, but that's not a reasonable risk," Tony explained his logic. It wasn't that he wasn't open to Tommy doubling down on the remora thing, but it wasn't exactly a future-proofed plan. "They had those ships shooting at us, there's a chance the Agrii would land the whole ship on a planet and burn it off, outside isn't as safe. You keep your brain on the inside, too."

That was the only part Tony was following, though, and slowed his step even further to look questioningly to Tommy, not sure what he was asking. "The whole engine is too smart for the Agrii," he pointed out, "Open secret. Looking through what?"

Everything is clearly too smart for the Agrii. It feels rude to say it in front of them, but there it is. They both agreed. Tommy keeps up with Tony easily, while somehow still managing to scuff his shoes against the floor in a manner bespeaking nervousness over what he's saying.

"Well, data from a sensor system has to come in through the computers to be processed, so that the ship doesn't crash, right? But if you're looking into the navigation systems and nothing seems really advanced and it doesn't explain things to you enough, then they might not be using the actual ship's sensor data. Which would mean that either sensor data is being relayed in from somewhere, or there are additional sensors on the ship taking in separate data."

"Yeah, that's..." Tony started, pointing the way they were going, because he thought they were already on the same page about this, but realized he hadn't said that part out loud and was just assuming Tommy was following. They had a while to go yet before Tommy could read him like that. "No, yes, you're right about that. Separate data would be unnecessarily complex if the intent is to have control over where the Agrii are going. There's a relay, like you said, we're going to look for it. Kitchen. Green Room. Come on, that was an hour ago," Tony smirked. "Why are you sure it would be outside?"

Tommy's definitely going where pointed. Sorry, he isn't that good at reading geniuses yet. He's working on it. He'll need it if he ever gets the courage to reach out toward David again.

But he does smile at the 'that was an hour ago'. Snail that learned fast, he likes it.

"I'm not. But that's what it would be on Star Trek. Something added to the sensor array, or the deflector dish. Because mostly you're not expecting data to come in from the dish since it's there to project the shields and warp bubble."

Yeah, go ahead, Tony. Call him on the nerdom.

"Spock knows that ship inside out, though," Tony pointed out, happy to talk about Star Trek at any time and of the general opinion that everyone should have watched it, and of course Tommy could understand the reference point. Because he was a nerd, yes, but Tony thought they had both already figure that out, too. "This isn't the Agrii's ship, the guys who made it didn't have to hastily throw their relay on the exterior and hope it was camouflaged, and the Agrii know just enough to function. If the navigation looks like it's working, no need to think about it or start wondering where the information is coming from. If you're trying to fuck with the Enterprise, you already know you're on the clock, you don't build to last, doesn't matter if your ghost gets blasted off in the next dogfight." They were already near the mess hall, but Tony had his own ideas about how he would get control of a Federation starship, so continued as they wandered into the kitchen to some baffled looks by the Agrii there, "If I was trying to get the Enterprise to go somewhere specific, I wouldn't be spoofing nav systems. I'm not going toe-to-toe with Sulu on his turf. You have to get the bridge crew scrambled, two pronged attack: fake distress signal from a planet full of beautiful women, then evacuate the rest of the ship with a self-destruct sequence. Easy."

Oh man, a FELLOW. Tommy's eyes light up because Tony isn't judging him and might actually TALK Star Trek with him. Oops. The nerd is excited. Don't tell his brother.

"Just make sure you're doing the fake distress call it's early series. Because he does get a lot more mature about not just jumping after any piece of tail later in the series. And if it's the remake movies, he just cares about getting himself a ship."

Damn, it's a great plan. Tommy grins.

"You're better than Khan. And admit it, you so want Sulu's ass."

"You don't have to get him distracted for long, just off the bridge so he doesn't pull the Captain Goes Down With His Ship speech during the self destruct," Tony pointed out. He was prepared for these eventualities, his plan was smash and grab theatrics. There wasn't a good guide in the kitchen for Tony to really know what might be out of place; most of it looked alien to him, and he wasn't confident in a more familiar Earth kitchen. They did plenty of microwaving, he could see that, but wasn't sure if another appliance was for mixing drinks or their navigation bug. Probably not.

"I would enthusiastically obliterate Sulu in a fencing match," he did agree, "but if it's ass I'm after on the Enterprise, Bones, easy. Uhura is a close second, obviously, but that's more of a long term relationship, and I don't commit well."

The more tony talks, the more Tommy smiles. This? This is easy. This is fun. This makes him feel good.

While they're in the kitchen Tommy takes a quick speedster second to slap together a sandwich for himself, and while Tony's commenting on Uhura, he's taking his first bite.

"You're not good enough for Uhura, no offense. Best thing the reboot did was let Spock and her get their kiss. And don't tell me you can't commit. You and Jon have seemed cozier."

Tommy smiling turned out to be a terrible omen for Tony, because saying 'no offence' did not negate the mountain offence he appeared to be striving for with every successive statement. First, not good enough for the hypercompetent space scientist, that was the kind of thing Tony told himself, kids weren't supposed to be able to point that out to him, he had a whole public persona that a few months in this place had obviously shattered. Second, who was rebooting Star Trek, and how was a romance the best part of it? Third, and by then Tony was already looking like he had been slapped, forgetting his hunt for a disguised relay to stare at Tommy incredulously, Tony seemed to have missed when Jon and Tommy had resolved their differences, because he sure as hell hadn't been sharing how cozy or not they had been. This all culminated in Tony asking, "What the fuck are you talking about?," sharply enough for a loitering Agrii to back away and realize they had something to do on the other side of the ship.

Oh come on, Tony. Uhura was a marrying girl, like Tony said. And that won't work for him. She deserves that, someone who devotes themselves to her first.

But Tony's on to something else and Tommy tilts his head at Tony. When did they resolve? Back on the in transit planets. But now he takes the question and frowns.

"Was I reading that wrong? You two looked really cozy when I came into the cafeteria for sandwiches. Shit, did I make something up? Fuck. He's clumsy, did he trip over you? Oh man, I'm sorry. That was insensitive."

Yeah, he suddenly seemed like he was contrite. Because he was.

"Shit, I was rooting for you guys. You were clearly both miserable over each other."

That didn't nearly explain the Star Trek reboot thing, and while Tommy's smile had ended up unsettling, Tony thought he preferred it to this posture. He looked much more like Billy suddenly, when he was supposed to be the cocky asshole that snapped back at Tony; Tony didn't know how he would handle both of them becoming over-apologetic. Did Star Trek break him?

The context made it clear what Tommy meant, but Tony narrowed his eyes skeptically, not sure how much Tommy knew he meant, and not about to be tricked into revealing any more. "Yeah, we're cozy. His Earth is more normal than the one you come from, it's cozy," he said, taking the reboot as further evidence that Tommy was obviously from a different dimension than him, and not that he just didn't pay attention to movies. "Who was miserable? I'm great. I thought you hated him. Is that what this is, you hate us both so we deserve each other?" Tony could have picked up on that animosity without knowing the details of what Jon did to Tommy, right? Probably. That wasn't tipping his hand too much, especially if he turned to give the kitchen a final glance over, giving up on finding whatever he was looking for there to keep Tommy moving and not thinking about this anymore. He waved the kitchen off, stalking out for the Green Room.

Well, part of the deep apologies and all of that was that... well, Tony had something Tommy wanted. A way to make Tommy feel better about himself. An idea that maybe he's not the worst and useful only for his speed. The chance to learn. No one ever had patience for him in those areas.

"Dude, same Earth. And if not, you and me are pretty much the same one. Or enough of one. Anyway, you were. On the beach. Drinking. And he was in another place, drinking. You were miserable."

His arms come up to cross defensively over his chest. Fuck.

"Listen, Jon stuck his nose into my business and then forced me to admit something I didn't want to. SO yeah, I hated him. But it's changed. We talked. In that Calibrations bullshit. Like you and I did. It... changed things."

Come on, Tony. Not like you aren't fucking Jon, right?

"I just thought you two finally talked and were, like, together. Which isn't bad. Because he's way better than Judgmental Asshole."

Does he have opinions on Reeve? Hell yeah. But if he knew Tony was making moves on Sansa too, well, Tommy MIGHT 'accidentally' lose Tony's favorite things out through an airlock.

Tony was not under the impression he had the ability to make anyone feel better about themselves, or that he had much patience, so it still wasn't clear to him what had changed how Tommy was treating him until Tommy suggested the Calibrations. Because they had fun together, was Tony fun now? Was that all it took to override what he did to piss Tommy off so much? He would figure it out eventually.

As much as Tony did appreciate Tommy not immediately chewing him out, on this reflection, he didn't appreciate how much Tommy seemed to be aware of and have opinions on his personal life. Especially without some apparently crucial context, because he had to ask, "Cap...?," not sure who else Judgmental Asshole could be in this tale Tommy had constructed.

No, it wasn't the fun. It was the Tony asking him questions and taking Tommy's comments seriously. Prompting Tommy to try and answer things. And not sounding hyper disappointed.

"Dude, I can't really picture you with any of the Caps. Because, like, you're intense in a way they aren't and probably can't handle. And I don't have a problem with Cap Spangles beyond his clear attempts to try and Dad at me. Because that ever works."

"Intense?" Tony parroted like he couldn't imagine what that could possibly mean. Not from Tommy, anyway, who made every interaction a contest. Tony had come to a stop again in the hall, having turned from defensive and under threat of an uncomfortable exposure, to baffled, having no way to anticipate any of this insight and not sure if he should be taking any of it into consideration, or just intrigued by the way Tommy's brain worked. It definitely was weird that he didn't think Steve was a judgmental asshole, he had more reason than an idle civilian to think so, mostly because he had interacted with Steve at least once. Tony thought this trait was unavoidable. "You've met Steve, right?" Tony continued, as though those two thoughts that actually made it out loud connected, and maybe they did; Steve's intensity was mostly in his ability to be judgmental. Tommy clearly interpreted that as being kind of a dad, which wasn't wrong, Tony supposed, do this the way I would do it because I am always right, that was a strong Dad energy. "Asshole and Dad can be pretty interchangeable," he acknowledged under his breath.

That Tommy didn't think Tony was suited to Cap was...fine, fair, but still offensive enough that Tony pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. That was still his friend, Tony thought they got along pretty well, cozy even, Cap seemed to be able to handle him fine. Who else was he that close to that Tommy would call Judgmental Asshole? Was Tony fixating on this because he didn't want to know what Tommy thought 'together' meant? "Who's the asshole? Are we there, are we worried about who each other socializes with?" Apparently, he was fixating. "Because I think you're doing fine, your friends are great, don't know how you pulled that off."

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i am sorry, tommy is VERY talkative right now because he wants to impress tony

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