revivalproject

Entry tags:

salon

WHO: Esteemed, invited guests (everyone).
WHERE: The greenhouse
WHAT: A party! And not the kind of crime that the Agrii commit. Come show them how it is done.
WHEN: During a very long and slow space trip.
WARNINGS: Mark your threads if you get into trouble.

pre-festivity...network?
[Over the shipwide broadcast system that everyone is lucky Tony has not made more liberal use of, accompanied by gently dimming lights as though signalling intermission was coming to an end, and Act II was about to begin.]

Your attention, please. Please give me attention. You're not doing anything important, I know you aren't, so if you would kindly make your way to the quote-unquote 'Green Room', the rest of us are waiting for you.

Wear something that makes you feel delectable.

[Did he have to say it like that? Of course, he's trying to set a mood.]

the event
The atmosphere of the Green Room, which had at other times been a battleground, and a quiet resting place, was what could be called a soiree. Some of it was magic, brought to brief reality by Billy to disappear as the get together came to an end like carriages into pumpkins as their clock ran out, and other things were altogether different kinds of illusions. Like the tree Cayde had worked to fell, hauled up off of the ground to brace in the branches overhead, its dying boughs slouching down toward the ground in winding tendrils that were strung with glittering lights, a fragrant curtain around the area conveniently cleared by the destruction of the tree to give plenty of room to pull a partner into a dance. The music, naggingly familiar to those who called Earth home but distinctly synthetic, was playing through the broadcast system, loudest near the clearing and progressively softer the further away from this hub, but continuous throughout the ship until it felt like a whisper from another room at the farthest points like the cargo bay.

The noise competed slightly with the raucous beckoning of the karaoke machine installed near one end of the Green Room. This corner felt like it hadn't quite received the dress code, dotted with balloons and nearest to what could be described as a sundae bar, with what looked like all of the right textures for a very indulgent ice cream experience. The Agrii were more than happy to help with the food, so be prepared for a less obvious flavour profile.

More (potentially?) savoury options were offered throughout the Green Room, in no centralized location but spread across tables that had obviously be borrowed and dragged from throughout the ship, flanked by equally mismatched seating, flat-enough surfaces, or piles of linens and pillows where the ground was less even. Some of these tables had a datapad left on them, locked to a curious list that could only be checked off and not otherwise tampered with, at least for those not particularly technically inclined. Each item seemed to describe a person, all following a similar format in various levels of complexity, starting simple with, 'Someone with hazel eyes...'

One of these datapads, on a table tucked under a heavy lattice of vines and under the drape of what looked like approximately 40 metres of a sheer silk, started the evening much more blank, only marked at the top with a bold WHAT WE KNOW. That was a broad statement. Surely, everyone had a little of something to contribute to an article like that.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tony was given a dry look at the hand extended towards her. There were no gaps to reveal wiring or joints, no sounds of internal motion save for a slight electronic sort of blip every so often, soft and slight. Her starlike points moved every now and then, at times in alert twitches, at others, the back half spun one way or the other like a pointy Rubiks cube. She somehow seemed amused for all the looks she gave, drifting closer to hover just above his hand rather than alight upon it.

"Don't break my Ghost," Cayde said absently, smirking but briefly as he considered Tony's explanation. His glowing gaze flicked between him and Sundance. "There's...a slight time discrepancy, but everything else we've managed to recount lines up."

Sundance tipped slightly in a nod of confirmation there. "If there are alternate versions of our world, there doesn't seem to be much issue with compatibility between Ghosts and Guardians of varying instances. Not that there's much to go on when Cayde is the only Guardian present."

Cayde rested his chin across a knuckle as he thought about the super-kids Tony mentioned. "Can't really give you an answer there, chief. It could be all of the above. Maybe they're clinging to what familiarity they find in anyone here too."

Tony finally lifted his chin from his hand to plant his fingers delicately over his heart, eyebrows raised at Cayde for this scurrilous accusation that he had clearly already spread to Sundance. All he wanted was to get a closer look, and it would be nice if one of them would trust Tony to crack them open, like any good friend would, naturally. With the hand under the Ghost, he curled his fingers like he would tickle the closest point to them, pushing his luck to try to coax her to turn so he could better watch those connections move from another angle. "Compatibility," he echoed, glancing between them for further explanation. "He didn't tell me he was married. If it was me, I would be bragging about you to everyone that would listen, for the record."

The core that glowed blue at its center turned and twitched in the direction of Tony's moving fingers the way an eye would. She obliged him with a twirl, and then she abruptly floated up and back, flaring out each vertex before each completely separated from the central sphere, circling, orbiting around her like planets around a sun, caught in a glowing corona of gravity. She was showing off. Maybe there were some traits the two shared after all.

"Married," Cayde laughed, watching as Sundance pulled herself together again, all points joined and accounted for as she floated back down. "She's really something though, isn't she? If it weren't for her, I'd be very dead."

"Multiple times," the Ghost dutifully added.

Tony dropped his inquisitive hand to the table to watch this display with a blooming grin of curious delight, just as baffled by this construct as he was by Cayde, but quick to glance between them again as he inferred, "You're the one who knows how he works." Tony was going to have to figure out how to get her alone, and if she was anything like the droids, this was not going to be easy. As curious and wonderful as Sundance was, though, Tony did have to wonder why only Cayde had the luxury of fingers, when clearly they were capable of producing them. Not wanting to suggest that she would be any more beautiful with a humanoid shape, Tony watched how Sundance moved carefully before taking his guess at the major difference, "You're fully AI."

"I'm the one who gets him back up when he falls off a cliff or takes one too many shots. That goes for any Ghost of their Guardian, organic or Exo."

Sundance flitted past Tony and returned to Cayde's side, considering Tony's conclusion. Ghost and Exo exchanged a glance. "I suppose that is accurate," the former conceded.

"Not like they came with blueprints. Ghosts are tough but not invincible, so if something happens to 'em, it's not like them fixing up their Guardians," Cayde said, tracing a circle on the table in front of him. "The Traveler didn't leave much by way of instructions or anything."

Did Cayde really not expect Tony to jump on that? His chin was back in his hand to flash that inviting grin again as he said, "Let me take a look at you, I'll figure it out, you'll never have to worry about it." At least, up until the point that it was unavoidable there was some magic at work here, which Tony was starting to be naggingly aware of. Bringing an Exo back to life was one thing, that seemed to be their whole deal, but a meatbag 'organic', that was a fringe that rarely fell exclusively in the domain of science. How disappointing.

"I take it I should be expecting more self-destructive ventures from this point on," Tony offered to Cayde, eyebrows raised, because so far the Exo had been so very careful.

It was definitely anticipated. Cayde sat up with a crooked smile, jerking a thumb at Tony as he looked over at Sundance again. "What'd I tell you?" he chuckled. The Ghost seemed to offer a sigh at that by the way her vertices slackened but briefly.

Both looked back at Tony with that prediction, Cayde scowling slightly. "You make it sound like I try to get myself killed on purpose!"

"...not that that was necessarily a denial," Sundance pointed out, earning a sniff from her Guardian.

"Hey, who's side are you on? Also, it's not like there have been very many places to be destructive," he added, glancing from Sundance to Tony.

Edited 2020-10-06 02:45 (UTC)

Sundance's sigh didn't appear to be in any way discouraging to Tony, making his smile brighten instead like he was proud to have been the subject of discussion and would not be shamed out of trying to get an unfamiliar body on his workbench. However that could be taken.

"And yet you've found so many of them," Tony replied, looking graciously impressed with Cayde's commitment to a cause. "This is good," Tony realized, "You two can have secrets. I thought for a second you had some kind of neural link and I'd have to start watching what I say about him when he wasn't around."

"Hah!" At least Cayde could still laugh about it. Who was he kidding? He took a lot of unnecessary risks. High risk, high gain- that was usually how he rolled. He rocked his hand back and forth in a 'sorta-kinda' gesture. "Seriously though, when do you not speak your mind, Stark," he grinned.

"So what kind of fun you think we should get ourselves up to once we get back planetside?"

That question made Tony narrow his eyes suspiciously, looking briefly to Sundance and figuring that if the guy that always picked Tony up when he fell suddenly showed up, he'd suddenly have a whole lot of energy. "Is that what you're still doing here?" he asked in response, flicking a finger back to way Cayde had come, a clear path without a crowd to pass through anymore. "Waiting for the witnesses to clear out? I gotta say, it has been very quiet around here since we sent the Graq packin', but it's got to take more than that to start testing the hull integrity of this boat. If that's a grenade in your pocket, maybe save it for another time."

"Why do you automatically figure I'm going to blow something up? I have been an absolute angel this entire time," Cayde proclaimed, clasping a hand to his chest. "It was an honest question. No destruction intended. Already left my mark with that tree- nice job stringing it up, by the way."

Sundance didn't even glance in that direction, likely already enlightened about that incident. She did level a look at the Exo however, what with the mention of grenades.

Cayde groaned, practically faceplanting on the table as he threw his arms out across it with a sigh. "I wish I had my grenades. Got a lotta guns in stock now, thanks to...whoever armed the Graq, but they're still nothing to gloat about. -Ooh!" He pushed himself up abruptly, a grin lighting up his face as a thought crossed his mind.

"So, how familiar are you with matter transfer technology?"

Absolute angel only made Tony look even more suspicious, genuinely worried that if he looked hard enough, he would find a mysterious, locked room that the Agrii proclaimed irreparably cursed. There was only so much Tony could do to make beautiful dance floors in Cayde's wake--of course that had been his fault, Tony didn't even have any follow up questions.

The narrow look cracked into a snort and a grin as Cayde had his brief meltdown, ready to meet the Exo's excitement with a surprised jump of his eyebrows, only to ask, "Like, 'beam me up, Scotty', that kind of matter transfer?"

Wait until he heard about Cayde's ventilation duct excursions. Not that Cayde had found anything interesting. Maybe a few places to stash things, as he was wont to do.

"If that's a reference that has something to do with transferring something or someone from one place to another without a vehicle, then uh, yeah. That kind."

He straightened up again, all his fingers drumming a few times upon the table in growing excitement. "Useful thing, transmats. It's how we can virtually pull weapons out of our pockets, get our sparrows from the Tower or wherever to whatever other planet we might need 'em, how we hop out of our jumpships without having to worry about parking..."

That did sound very useful, and the kind of thing they typically depended on the magic users to accomplish on Earth, making Tony glance curiously to Sundance again, wondering if it was her appearance that brought on this revelation. It sounded like the kind of very useful thing that would have come up before, if it were possible.

"You're going to tell me you've got some blueprints for me. Some math, at least, an equation. You're not going to tell me all of this and leave me with blue balls over here, thinking about how we could just beam up out of this place if I could man up and figure that one out a few decades ahead of schedule."

Cayde grinned again, then reached out to make grabby-hands at the datapad Tony had been fiddling with earlier.

"Not that I'm expecting something so simple as finding the exact parts in those crates down in the docking bay," he said, which suggested at least one of the things he'd been spending their copious amount of freetime doing. "But between your brains and Sundance's intel, I think we'd be able to pull it off."

Granted Tony gave over the datapad, the Ghost would hover on over, beaming out a sparkling light from her 'eye', which somehow allowed her access and the ability to pull off a data transfer, given the things that flashed across the screen.

Tony slid the datapad over just as eagerly, and watched Sundance's transfer with a curious pout, once again mystified by this visual feedback in an interaction that Tony didn't see the purpose for, like the lightshow as she spun. They were really working with something he had no concept of, but maybe getting to build this transmat would get him that much closer. "We'll be able to transfer people," he said, hand out flat to make sure he was getting this clearly, not totally confident that was what Cayde meant by 'hop out of our jumpships'. "We'll be able to just," and snapped his fingers, only frowned then, perplexed. "Why do you even have ships?"

"There's different flavors of transmats," Cayde explained with a vague wave of a hand. "Localized ones, such as between a person and a ship, make it a convenient way to get on and off planet without having to find where you left your ship- not that that's a big problem when you can call it anyway. But for other things, depending upon size of transfer and distance, you need beacons, relays."

He arched one hand and pointed with the other as he thought of an example. "There was this Dreadnought that ate everything that came towards it for breakfast, so the plan was to stealth ship someone in and they'd set up a beacon so other Guardians could get in there, bam- shortcut!"

"Except the ship was blown up," Sundance dutifully added.

Cayde gave a shrug. "This is true. But the Guardian did not and in the end things still went down more or less how we planned. Anyway. Jumpships in general are not very big. Personal craft, not exclusive for passengers usually. We got bigger ships for that sort of thing but most of the populace don't really use transmats as extensively as Guardians do."

Of course there were relays, they weren't just opening portals with infinite recallability, but Tony still frowned in disappointment for this future possibility still out of his reach. Then again, Cayde's world didn't have him. As far as Tony knew. Maybe Tony could make this system obsolete, and have everyone hopping back to where they came from with a few brilliant adjustments.

He slid the datapad closer again, flicking through what Sundance had delivered hungrily, and knew right away that this wasn't a job that he was going to be doing on his own. "Could use an engineer," he muttered, because the power systems were already going to need adapting. He had some reading, and some notes to make. Tearing himself away from the data dump, he raised a questioning look to Cayde, searching for an answer before he actually asked, "Most of your resources, they're for the military, aren't they?" 'Your' not being Cayde specifically, but the society he came from, which Tony's expression suggested he wasn't thrilled about. Meanwhile, though, processing several dozen questions at once as usual, the gold nanoweb had bloomed on his exposed forearm, wrapping around his hand that he laid on the table with his palm up for Sundance. Before he had his answer from Cayde, his attention jumped to the Ghost and he said, "Tell me a secret." If she could interface easily with an alien tablet, she might just be able to use Tony's network like it connected to the Iron Man.

Whatever Cayde's intention with giving Tony this gift right now, the Exo had successfully made him practically vibrate. If it was fun that they were getting up to, Tony was obviously primed.

"I'm kinda surprised you didn't take the engineering data-thingy," Cayde said as he leaned back in his seat. "Oh yeah, we gotta talk about those, Sundance."

Both watched as Tony glossed over the new information he was given. Sundance seemed to perk at Tony's display of golden skin, flitting over for a closer look. The first light that beamed from her core played across his forearm and hand for a quick scan. Her little points twitched in and turned with interest as she let her light focus over his hand, deciding to test this invitation as she shared an image of the Traveler hanging in the night sky above the Last City. The Tower had the best views of the sprawling masses of buildings, and with how it looked to thrive, one wouldn't think that they were still rebuilding in places from an outside invasion, much less that this was truly the last surviving city on the planet.

The question that came up had the Exo tilt his head in thought for a moment before nodding it. "No denying that most of the tech that's hung around were designed for military purposes. Hell, we got an AI named Rasputin that's a giant interplanetary defense system. But especially now, when you have things wanting to kill us once we step foot outside the City, survival and the means for it is top of everyone's list. Didn't always used to be that way, but I'm not saying it hadn't been a focus even before the Collapse." He raised his hands slightly, gesturing at himself in example. Exos were designed to be war machines, no surprises there.

Cayde's description had not prepared Tony for how awesome the size of the Traveller was, making him start with surprise as the image resolved and stare at Sundance as though she could have given him a better explanation than yeah, it's really big. This revelation almost overwhelmed the confirmation that the Ghost to make transfers to him this way, which surely would come to be useful, if only for finding Cayde when he strolled into an inevitable trap. Out loud, Tony said, "We'll keep that between us, you minx," letting his gaze slide slowly to Cayde with a smirk like Sundance really had shared something secretive about the Exo. The expression hardly changed as he waved away the thought about the Engineering datapoint, sure, he could see that, and explained, "Communication let me tap into the network," with a wiggle of his golden fingers. Without something to connect to, it would just be an interface without a framework, and while Tony could definitely survive without the connection, he definitely didn't want to talk about the ways he probably depended on it. He just went through a detox, he wasn't looking forward to another one immediately.

Tony could see how constantly being on the defence would mean prioritizing the resources that way, but that did leave him wondering what the whole point was then. "Why don't you leave?" he asked, then gave a tilt of his head to roll his eyes, because he knew the logistics were not that simple. "The quality of life you could have with this--with all of this, with just you, it's incredible."

There was a certain smugness to the Ghost as she leveled her own look back at Tony. When he finally spoke, she seemed to offer a shrug that suggested a smirk, dipping slightly before she eased back with the grace of a tiny dancer.

"What'd you tell him?" Cayde asked, glancing at her and squinting as she offered him something of the same before looking away as though just discovering the fascinating amount of drapery about the table.

Not dwelling on it much longer, Cayde looked back at Tony as the explanation of the man's decisions for datapoints was made. He nodded. It had certainly come in handy. "At least you managed to work it out by the time we got to the ship," he said, grinning knowingly.

He rested his arm on the table again, offering a shrug of his own then. "Because it's still home. We fought hard just to keep the place. Everywhere else we settled and built, out in the solar system's been overrun or in disrepair, and while we have Guardians out there, the most we're really doing is fending off tiny little holdouts for what resources we can still use out there."

It hadn't really been a fair question, Tony did already know the only answer, and the best answer, was that it was home. It was the same reason the Agrii hadn't just accepted a migration when their planet was all but uninhabitable. Their understanding of morality aside, it did make sense that the Agrii, and the people from Cayde's Earth, would go to some extreme lengths to hang onto whatever was left of home. But Tony still had his Earth, it was flourishing with life and invention, he wasn't defending some last bastion and could consider that with remove.

He had meant to say that the transmats would easily improve life in Temba. Instead, he asked, "How do you feel about fighting for somebody else's home?" It wasn't really a fight the way Cayde described defending his borders, but a battle nonetheless.

There weren't many options prior to them digging their heels in. Humanity had taken a blow, and people couldn't just get up and vacate to somewhere better because they just didn't have the means. Now they just didn't really have anywhere better to go, but to hang on to what they still had.

The Exo returned to propping up his chin with a hand. "It's different," he finally replied. "And I guess I haven't really thought of it that way, but even now, I don't know that I'd think of it that way." There was obviously now more to it than just keeping house for the Agrii.

Tony raised his eyebrows to press the question, how then?, with another dismissive twirl of his hand and roll of his eyes to put aside the obvious, that this was a conscription and what they were actually doing with their time was debatable. "The Agrii have been deliberately run out of their home by an invading force," he offered to explain how he thought of it. "That's what the video suggests, sure, but that's weak. It's the 'storms', that it's an effect that isn't natural and weaponized, it's deliberate. Whatever the Agrii's role in this otherwise, that makes them a people under threat." Not said out loud, while Tony continued, but apparently the obvious conclusion to that thought that he placed on the table with a spread hand; so they deserve help.

"It stands to reason," he had to acknowledge, "that this same threat is what also brought us here, both right here, as in, to this fight that they orchestrated, but should also be considered the benefactors of the technology used to kidnap us. A completely separate third party," counted on his free hand, "(Agrii, their attackers, and the watchers), is--possible, but bears no meritable evidence. Occam's razor. So, we are here under the guise of helping one party, on the order of their attackers.

"Does that make helping the Agrii less worthy?"

"That's just it though," Cayde said as he leaned forward. "There's a third party, and it's not really much of a fight when they won't even show themselves. They're placing pieces, and those pieces unfortunately include the Agrii, us, the Graq, whoever..."

He shook his head. "So I'm not saying that not looking at it in the way I would a regular fight means I'm not on board to help someone out when they're obviously in need. The Agrii probably don't even realize they're being played. I didn't exactly interview anyone for feedback once the mysterious voice spoke up though, so I don't know what their thoughts are there." Not that he'd get very far if he tried- no one but Ga Re seemed to even be capable of vaguely communicating enough to be understood.

"Now. I would love nothing more than to uncover whoever this mystery party is and confront them so we can fix everything, or at least keep them from meddling around to make things worse so we'd have to fix more things than we already got. But they're obviously not playing fair. So in the meantime, I guess it's back to digging around with how to deal with whatever the storm thing is that's keeping the Agrii from home. I wonder if they'll stick around a little closer, now that we've all met and played nice with each other."

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