CFC.com - The MES/NES

ooc: Damn it, Optical! Alternatively, I can say HAL 9000, which surely was inspiration for GLADOS.

You are going colder...

ooc: M.I.G.U.E.L.C.... Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, perhaps?

Wrong way, mate...

So it wasn't quite the 180º degrees, eh? Hmm... I dunno, I only see MIG, but I doubt that a reference would be to soviet planes.

Um... what am I meant to do with XP points? Where do I put them? Stats or into abilities?

They go great with crackers.

They go into abilities.

Milarqui said:

They go into abilities.

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In that case, Severus takes the ability 'Swordsman Lvl 1' granting himself additional skill with a blade (i.e. his chainsword).

Is that an acceptable ability?

Also, do abilities stack? Say, if I have Pistol Usage Lvl 1 and Close Quarters Combat Lvl 1, and then try to shoot somebody at point blank range, do I get bonuses from both or does the best one override the other?

I believe that your refrence is this:
Eddie the computer from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

@Grandkhan: you don't automatically get the ability, you gain experience points into it, as stated in the rules.
@Gem Hound: you are getting nearer, but it is still not the reference I placed.

Oh yeah actions.

Construct a rudimentary bar in the meeting room out of scrap cases that contained vodka and other assorted liquor (Strongnovith drank them all) and stock it too.

Grab shotgun from the armory.

Divine future using tarot cards (If success, improve magick score. If fail, draw death card 5 times from the same deck)

Feed kitten.

Day 1

The Voting

The first thing the newly recruited members of the Multiverse Exploration Corps did was, at my suggestion, to hold a voting on who would be the Captain of the ship after I abandoned it. The Commissar was the first to present his candidacy, stating that the Acebees were actually the forces of the Four Chaos Gods that constantly besieged humanity in his homeline. Idiot. Just a few seconds ago, I had just told him that the Acebees were probably behind those gods, and yet he keeps up at it. Well, at least that would ensure that he would keep going against the Acebees, no matter what.

Arco suggested that Miss Jade, the pilot, became the ship pilot, and himself as an engineer, both good choices. Jack suggested that no captain was chosen while he shuffled his deck of cards. Withington did a small trick of magic that certainly showed off his magical abilities, and that impressed most everyone a little. The sniper, Christos, suggested himself as the captain, but few paid attention to him, for Morris soon suggested that Strongnovitch became the captain, arguing that Hark was not the best option due to his zealotry, but did suggest him as Security Officer. The Strongnovitch option soon proved to be the most popular, and six of the twelve chose Nicholas Carson Strongnovitch as captain, with Hark and Christos voting for themselves and Jade, Takashi, Miller and Jack choosing to ignore the voting. Severus Hark was soon voted in as Second-in-Command and Security Officer, Jade Byrne as the Pilot and Arco Nerras as the Mechanic. The Hermit suggested himself as the Medic, something that no one opposed, given that he seemed to be the only one with experience in the field of medicine, although right now there was little he'd be able to do.

Very soon, everyone found themselves with armbands on their left arms, and the people that had been voted in had special markings on them, so that they could enter and come out of the ship when needed, as well as showing them as members of the MEC to other members, which would help prevent future problems. The first person out of the place was Ky Miller, who had not spoken previously, and whom I had forgotten to allow to talk, as the Commissar had chosen to interrupt after Morriss talked about himself. Miller chose to rush out of the room as fast as possible, followed by everyone else.

Rearming

As I suspected, Miller was the first to reach the Armory, but his attempts to open the door were fruitless, for the door was designed to open only when the Security Officer entered.

Miller managed to prevent his falling to the floor when Severus approached the door, thus opening the lock and allowing everyone there to enter the Armory and take back all of their weapons that they had had on themselves when they died or got into the ship.
After that, everyone went on their way to do what they felt needed.

Hide-Away?

Soon after recovering his weapons, Ky Miller chose to rush away. For reasons I did not know, he seemed to believe that he was in danger, despite everything that I had done to show him he had nothing to fear. He entered one of the bunk rooms and tried to move one of the bunks in order to form a barricade. Unfortunately for him, all the bunks were fixed to their positions, as well as all other furniture in the room. Even the mattresses! (It was far more useful than one would think: considering the chances of space fighting, it was clear that anything not fixed to the floor or the walls would fall, thus potentially causing damage to crewmen) That certainly nixed Ky's rather mistifying attempts to barricade himself. Thus, he decided to get himself into the bathroom, closing the door tightly behind him, and readying his weapon.

Learning Experiences

I smiled when Miss Jade entered the pilot cabin. Fortunately for us MEC recruiters, MESes had rather simple controls, as it was clear that not everyone in the multiverse would be as versed (pardon the pun) in the idea of taking over the helm of such a ship as this. At least, I could contemplate her beautiful face smiling at the sight.

“Take a seat, Jade Byrne,” I told her, showing her the co-pilot seat. As soon as she did, she started to bombard me with questions that I struggled to keep up with.
Fortunately for me, I managed to explain everything to her quite clearly. Not that she was stupid, but rather that it was quite new for her. I showed her how to drive the ship, and also pointed out to the buttons that controlled the two drives and the direction where the ship went when travelling between universes. She certainly took everything quite well.

Meanwhile, Arco Nerras went to the Propeller Drive room, in order to understand the workings of the drive. His armband gave him full access to the two Drives and the Power Plant, so he would not have problems in reaching them. He was, though, startled when someone appeared all of a sudden beside him without nary a sound.

“Hello, pal!” the man said, grinning.

“Who the hell are you?” Arco asked.

“I'm Mike, the computer. You did remember you were told I could help you, right?”

“Yes, yes, sure. Now, mind showing me around here?”

“Sure, pal, no problem!”

“I'd rather you call me Arco.”

“Sure, Arco, no problem. Now, this here is the Propeller Drive room...

...and that is how you can fix the connections in the Power Plant. Do you have any questions?”

“None at all, Mike. It is impressive, all of this is impressive. Nothing I've seen in my world could compare to this.”

“Glad that you think like that, because I am also a product of the technology that made all of this possible. Well, if you have no more questions, I'll go, there is someone around trying to make trouble. See ya!”

Training for the Future
While some explored around the ship in search of one or another thing, and others learned about the ship's intrincacies, Palaiologos and Blackstone decided to get back on form, trying to revive their abilities and become stronger in them.

Marcus prepared his rifle to train his shooting ability, but suddenly an hologram appeared before him.

“Pal, better if you don't shoot around,” he said, in the computer's voice, “you don't know what a mess you can cause if you do that.”

Duly admonished, he left the rifle on the floor and started his physical training. Unfortunately, there were no gym apparatus in the entire ship, so he chose to drop his shirt and start running up and downstairs for several minutes, to later drop to the floor and do several push-ups and sit-ups in one sitting before running around again. This helped him feel more alive than before, and perhaps a bit better, especially considering that he could still remember the way he had died.

Meanwhile, on a side of the huge Storage room, Christos began his daily training on Kung Fu, a martial art he had learned thanks to his forming part of the Imperial Brigades, as it was an excellent way to keep fit and, at the same time, learn how to fight off enemies without using weapons. However, he knew that, without someone to fight against, he would probably get rusty, and some katas might go slightly off the way, but he knew it was better to train and be slightly off than not training and be very off. At least, the routine movements helped him keep his mind off the fact that he was on something that was perhaps, by far, the weirdest and most dangerous thing he had ever done.

Searching around the Ship
Takashi and the Hermit had decided to inspect the entire ship, the former to gain better knowledge of the ship's size and outline (pretty much only for clearer inspection, since the map on the meeting room was quite detailed already) and the latter to search for possible medical supplies, of which there were none save for some alcohol in the storage room.

Unfortunately, that alcohol was in the form of alcoholic drinks, and there were some people in there already enjoying the taste of them. Among them was, of course, the Captain, who was chugging a vodka bottle and singing a song in what might be Russian, not that the others understood it well. Jack was the only other person drinking vodka as well: Alexander seemed to be a bit letdown on the fact that there was not a drop of whiskey in the entire storage room, and Jade had helped herself to a bottle of beer, which she was now taking away while muttering something about the “SEAL hunk”.

Jack then tried to follow on a previous suggestion to build a bar, but there was not enough supplies to build anything. He also used his cards to do a reading, and the result was pretty much useless, for it told him that he would go through many adventures in the future. At least he managed to feed his kitten to keep him happy.

After seeing everything on the ship, Takashi sought out one of the bunk rooms, entering and choosing the bed he felt was the best for him, sitting down on it and starting to divest himself of his clothes before lying on the bed and starting to relax.

Very soon, the other crewmen of the ship followed Takashi's example. Some of them pensive, some excited at what awaited them, some slightly drunk, and the Captain completely drunk, passing out on the nearest bed.

All save for Miller, who was still barricaded behind the bathroom's door. Hopefully, he would be calmer tomorrow and try to work a relationship with the rest of the crew.

“Good night,” I said, softly, while trying to relax in my own seat. Tomorrow would be the first day of these people's new lives, and hopefully all of them would be up to the hard task that lied before them.



OOC: Don't understand why an entire third of the group decided to ignore the voting for captain. Also wondering why some chose to needlessly use Actions for things that were rather useless, such as exploring the ship or trying to barricade yourself into a room (sorry for not mentioning Miller on the previous update, but, well, he could have, at least, said something before running away).

Also, to all Lurkers: if you want to join, you will have to wait until we reach the first timeline. Then, your options will be limited, for you can only be someone from that timeline.

As for the references: yes, one of them was the ASBs = Acebees, that one was quite easy. However, the second is the one no one has realized about, although you guys were getting near: Mike comes from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, where a supercomputer on the moon of the H.O.L.M.E.S. class becomes sentient and gets nicknamed Mycroft, or, for short, Mike, by the book's main character. He is also a computer with a rather interesting sense of humor.

A petition: when you put up your actions, make sure that they appear in the correct order, otherwise it becomes really, really weird. For example, the first action you should have all put should have been who you wanted for Captain, 2nd in Command, Security Officer, Mechanic and Pilot. Hopefully, next turn will be a bit more logical in the sequence of actions.

@Seon: not sure if you realized it, but I said several times that you could only have 2 items initially. Thus, right now you don't have a deck of cards, at least until you decide to drop the lockpick. I can re-write the parts of the update related to the deck if you want.

Great update. The kind of dry humour is pretty brilliant, I quite like it

Also, I like how our captain has pretty average charisma but the Security Officer has really high charisma but low strength and endurance. Thats kind of funny, since I always set up Severus to be a kind of Lyra Silvertongue/Odysseus type character. This is going to make an interesting security team, I must say.

OOC: Great update, question can we do actions now or do we wait to get to the new timeline?
With the security team Morris will probably be willing to help there, just don't ask him to charge the enemy.

I think just having a captain who believes in something called "Vodkarism" will keep things interesting.
I vote for keeping the parts with the cards as they are. It adds to Jack's completely insane, offbeat sort of character.
Also, I'm with Merciary; I'm unsure if we're supposed to be doing anything yet, or are we just waiting for another update of some sort?

I personally wanted Eddie to be the reference. So cheerful that he's annoying.

OOC: Great update, I enjoy the humor as well. Although I'm not sure what we're doing now, yet

I need an item slot for a deck of tarot cards? That's like needing an item slot for a hat or a badge!

Seon said:

I need an item slot for a deck of tarot cards? That's like needing an item slot for a hat or a badge!

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Or a half-burnt ragdoll. Wait, I didn't include that in my stats.