Shuttle/Docking Bay [1]

[deep_space_final]

This is your standard shuttlebay and/or docking station. Going somewhere? Coming from somewhere? Here's where you can come and go, leave your ships, and the like.

This is an open post. It will be replaced when it reaches a certain limit. Until then, create threads for any plot you want!

Comments

[csm_101]

A man stands midst the cargo bay. He looks roughed up, a M-79 grenade launcher at his one side and the ammo belt around him. Scrapes on his skin reveal a silver beneath the flesh if you look close enough but he doesn't seem to limp or show any signs of pain even for his less-than-ideal looking condition.

T-800 extends a slow look around to access the situation and gather data. Coordinates and communication with John and Sarah Connor have been cut. These coordinates are not correct. His mission has been interrupted. This is problematic. He must return to the mission. Connor must survive and T-1000 has not been terminated.

So he simply continues to among the gathered people. His systems analysis indicates none of these lifeforms are hostile threats. He has identified that he is on a space station but he has not identified how. So, T-800 approaches someone.

Aren't you lucky. The automated voice speaks up, "What year is it."

[forgottendecade]

A Docking Bay would suggest that this was where they kept space ships. There were a number of them as well as crew members working on the ships and other people scurrying between the various ships laden with supplies, gear and messages from friends and enemies alike. There were a few oddities in the hanger, like that British police box or that weird hoop of metal in the corner that no one really wants to go near, so a motor cycle didn't seem too out of place. There were cars and even a boat sitting in that section of the hanger too.

The guy working on the motorcycle was a little odd in the fact that he was wearing odd goggles that brought to mind insects and the like, and was fiddling with a silvery haze that had settled over a perfectly normal engine. At the question, he sighed and looked up, the green lens of the goggles showing a pattern of equations that really haven't been invented by humans written in a language that wasn't really human save for a for symbols here and there.

"The year is whatever you think it had been before you appeared here," he said, sounding a little peevish that someone was disturbing his train of thought. Then the displays on his visor changed and the narrow-eyed glare he had slowly changed.

"Wait... what are you?"

[csm_101]

T-800 had noticed the oddities that would be considered out of place for the environment. Queries have been logged for appropriate personnel or until he gains access to the computer mainframe of this terminal. If mankind said that the Terminators did not have a personality; that machines could not form habits or personal attachments they would have been wrong. And John would have likely been unsurprised that the first person T-800 approaches is a person working on a motorcycle.

"Negative, this technology does not exist in 1995." There is a mark of silence that might have been considered a little strange, but T-800 is assessing both items before him. "T-800. Cyberdyne System Model 101. I must reunite with John Connor and terminate T-1000."

Yeah, he's great at Human Interactions.

[forgottendecade]

It was unknown what the personnel would say, though from Joji's own questions, he was told that 'some items just can't go into a room where people might have to live, don't you know?' followed up by a look that suggested that he really crawled out of a backward planet. The main terminal was easily accessed and there were a few encryptions on some data lines, but he didn't bother to hack them since it had been pretty explanatory as to what they were guarding. After some poking around with them, he decided to work on the malfunctioning trans-dimensional key on his motorcycle without any help.

"1995?" he replied, blinking as a few more figures flashed across his scanners before he pulled the set off and rubbed his eyes. The figures did not make sense, especially for the advanced fusion his readings had gave him. "Last I recall, Earth was at the year 2012, but I'm sure that we're beyond that point. The dimensional shift is off-balanced, and I wouldn't be surprised if Space/Time had fractured in the process."

He wasn't that good with Human Interactions as well, though it could be blamed for being a scientist.

[csm_101]

He was not a scientist. That might have been obvious. All T-800 wanted right now was data. Where was he. When was he. How was he. He had been switched from read-only days ago, adjusting the mission was not the problem.

He looks around a moment. 2012 was after the nuclear fallout according to the time he has been brought back to but that action alone changed the continuum. There was no possible way this man was from that past. What he says makes it more clear that he was not but he must inquire.

"Affirmative. I was sent back to 1995 to protect the child that would grow up to lead the resistance against the machines. T-1000 was sent to destroy him." A moment. "Do you know who John Connor is."

[forgottendecade]

That explained it. Joji tossed his goggles into his tool kit and tapped the silvery haze floating around the engine. There was a snap as the haze suddenly vanished, causing a crazed greenish glow settling along the lines of his right arm before it vanished. He stood up and tilted his head so he was looking at the T-800, studying the almost human facade coating the machine his sensors said was there.

"I do not." A pause as he thought of one thing - Blame it all on Tsukasa - before dismissing that idea. From where he stood, there were a lot of time meddlers bumbling about this station. One more would only be normal by this point of the equation.

"Your reality is part of several that manage to co-exist along the same boundaries of others. Think of them all potential Earths, each one with a story that marks it differently than the next. This station seems to exist at a crossroads of sorts in which several stories collide. On the bright side, your story will be there when you get back. On the other side, it may take a while for the dimensional shifts to bring you back to where you came from."

[csm_101]

T-800 spends some time listening and reassessing already gathered data. Scanners observe the technology a part of this otherwise human man before his optics turn back to the bike and then to Joji again.

His programming only gives him enough to react to a situation that is out of place by accessing a new alternative method to achieving the end result. He had guidance and someone to learn from when his mission was to protect Connor. Having no sequence to follow is a difficult thing to register for a Terminator. Being left entirely to his own. It is possible, however. T-8XX's self-aware re-write abilities are highly advanced. Skynet will recognize this flaw in the T-8XX series and initiate their termination.

He has that information already.

"How have you collected this data." He inquires in the midst of re-writing his current mission perametres.

[forgottendecade]

Joji was a little surprised at how easily that the T-800 was taking the information, but realized it was possible that it simply did not care. He took a rag and started wiping off the grease and grime from his hands.

"I am a scientist," he said and then made a slight snort at his claim. Depending on which world he was on, the flimsy from DaiShocker was probably not worth anything.

"The organization I worked for had cataloged nine separate worlds outside of our own. Each one of those worlds were almost exact replicas of our Earth save for slight changes. We developed a... method to access those worlds so we can explore the differences, but in my travels across them, I have a feeling that ten worlds are just the beginning of the infinite possibilities. I have yet to find anything that does not cast light on a possibility of multiple Earths."

[csm_101]

He doesn't know 'care'. He knows mission and the completion of the mission or the alteration of a mission if the mission has gone off course or failed. He is a machine. He is very much a machine and it will become extraordinarily more painfully obvious that he is not anywhere near human the longer you're around him.

"Time is a variable." A complex equation but an equation and it was almost humorous, if he knew what humour was, that while mankind was so fluid in their functioning the world and the universe was a system- a series of equations.

"I am a terminator." Guess what that means! "Your bike. I can fix it."

[forgottendecade]

That wouldn't surprise him. 'Care' had taken a long while for Joji to understand and even in his case, that came about only if he really had interacted with the people for any length of time. As it was, he found the whole thing ridiculous.

"Space is a fixed point but when you move Time, the point Space becomes fluid in relative notations." Thus the ability to monitor and mimic the designs and powers of Riders, or even to craft replicas from the particles floating in the air when the proper sequence was reached. It was so simple and yet no one but him managed to create the two Drivers that worked off of that principle.

"So you end the function of those that you were tasked to end? That seems like a waste of a potential." Because there was so much that could be done with someone like the T-800. "You can?"

[csm_101]

Mankind is not naturally a logic based organism. In his time with them he has not yet decided whether this means anything more than a character trait. Skynet believed it made them weaker which may be true to an extent but they have survived this long. T-800 has decided, on gathered data, there is something more complex about mankind that makes them valuable, and resilient, and it is why they will win.

"Correct. I was created on an assembly line by a complex machine designated Skynet. My series and model was created for infiltration and termination of mankind." He steps toward the bike. He's not a gentle creation but at least he knows what he is doing.

"Our CPU's were created with advanced learning program codes in order to better infiltrate the resistance. Skynet will realize this as a flaw as more of my series type joins mankind against the machines and will initiate our termination. I was reprogrammed by John Connor and sent back to protect his young self against a more advanced prototype sent to terminate him."

[finefinefinefinefine]

Martin likes to do his studies in the docking bay sometimes. The hum of machinery, the echoing conversations, the sounds of work. It's all very productive. Good place to sit and absorb ship schematics and statistics. That is, if nobody bothers him.

It takes him a second to even realize the voice is speaking to him. He only looks up after catching a glimpse of the man in his peripheral vision.

And then he realizes he has no idea what the question was.

"Sorry?"

His eyes flick to the silver being revealed under the skin... maybe not exactly a man, then.

[csm_101]

He still has a lot of programming to do when it comes to human interactions. Case in point, when the man he approached turns and says sorry but holds the tone of a question, T-800 does not understand.

"What." Which could also be a question and technically it is but his vocal processor does not have the same range of function that mankind possesses.

He wants to understand man, honestly. His curiosity just doesn't read in his expression or voice. Maybe he will clarify. "I do not understand why you are sorry."

[finefinefinefinefine]

"I -- didn't hear the question." Martin's voice halts partway through the sentence, but (he thinks) nobody could blame him. The man (cyborg?) has at least six inches of height on him, and a great deal more shoulders. But he attempts to square what shoulders he has, stand up a little straighter. "Could you repeat it?"

[csm_101]

Does he have any idea how intimidating and out of place he might be? Nope. The re-adjust body language doesn't register as anything particularly worth noting. His preinstalled assessments of human body language extends only to mission relevant. It's a work in progress like much of his human-machine related interpersonal skills to which he has few (but more than he had at least).

For a microsecond, T-800 considers the response and questions how that is a logical reaction but stows it away in the event it might be useful to apply. The uniform looks dated and foreign. He cannot find a match in his database.

"What year is it."

[finefinefinefinefine]

...oh. Easy enough.

"On the station--" Martin looks down at his notes. Still adjusting to some aspects of this. "--Year Prime-7."

Elsewhere, it gets rather more complicated, and Martin has the feeling they're about to get into that. But you've got to start somewhere.

[csm_101]

Year Prime-7. That does not register with anything uploaded into his data banks. He takes it, logs it, and continues his queries. No, what time is it elsewhere is not important to him. He needs to know the situation right now, right here, not anywhere else. First.

"Do you know John Connor?"

[finefinefinefinefine]

People -- the newly-arrived, the ones who just wake up here rather than landing -- often ask about their friends and loved ones. Having been one of them once upon a time, Martin has more sympathy for that question than most. But the cyborg is still standing over him with all that jaw and with no sort of inflection in his tone. Harder to say what the intent is behind the question under the circumstances.

"Is... he on the crew roster?" No, probably not, stupid. Take Two: "Is he your maintenance operator?"

[csm_101]

If you want someone dead or want to ensure someone doesn't die, he's your borg. If you want an engaging conversation, well... it will get awkward fast. It gets more awkward now that his CPU has been turned to from read-only to write. Now his programming wants him to learn and with a structure like him and a voice that barely passes as human, well.

But there is no mistaking that he isn't human and that he has no clue how to react like a human should or would react. Work in progress. Safe to say, though, that if he meant harm it would have been done by now.

"A maintenance operator is not required. I am fully automated and programmed for self repair," he clarifies. "John Connor is the leader of the Resistance in the war against the Machines and is the last hope for mankind. I must ensure his survival. I require data to re-adjust my mission parameters."

[finefinefinefinefine]

"Oh!" Ooooh. Now it's falling into place. New arrival, definitely. Martin adjusts his stance, becoming instinctively more relaxed as he also adjusts the binder and electronic clipboard in his arms. "Data. Data I can do. What d'you need to know?"

[csm_101]

"General information pertaining to time and place of current coordinates. The time-sphere is only capable of one way travel. I cannot determine the method of my appearance."