Author Topic: Outpost 2 - Life at the End  (Read 25638 times)

Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #25 on: January 24, 2016, 02:38:08 PM »
Chapter 5
     Collected

       Lights were dim in the hallway Darian walked in after having left the Rec Facility, his food in hand and on his way to the observatory. Not sure that I’ve spent this many credits on one meal before Darian thought. There had been enough time to pass for him to forget the last hot meal he had, there were days that allowed for breaks long enough to sit down and relax with friends and good food, as good of food as you’ll get in this colony, but Darian never believed that he could afford the time. Rushing around and sorting out problems and repairing machinery had been his day in and day out for quite some time now.

     The observatory wasn’t far from the Rec Facility, in fact Darian was sure to find a spot to sit down and start on his meal long before anyone else showed up, and long before his credits went to waste. The best thing about walking the tubes in this colony was the guaranteed power supply, not having to worry about black outs caused by Tokamak downtime was quite agreeable, it was all due to the new Geothermal plant, and it provided ample amounts of reliable power that would prove to be a good thing. Darian could vividly remember running into things right at the moment a brownout would show up and all the lights would disappear. As long as it had been since the last meal he sat down for, it was longer still since Darian stopped to think about things he was grateful for, power was one, holding the bag up in his hand food was nice he thought, and  family that had just suddenly reappeared. Maybe life wasn’t as bad as he originally believed.

     The Observatory door opened up to a cavernous interior holding a simply massive telescope at the center of the room. Connected to it were banks of data retrieval and processing systems used for information transfer to the meteor defense system, and that facility was up in the mountain range to the north far from the main colony. The energy build up and transfer from the Tokamak to the Laser system used by the defense station was on a simply massive scale all of its own. It had been assembled and setup their back before most of the colony relocations due to the blight accident, and when it was first built it was stationed far from any colony because of concerns with shielding and safety thus making placement in the northern hemisphere as the core reasons for its remote location. The building was largely inactive for the better part of a year as all personnel and resources were devoted to migration and spaceship construction, as such the Tokamak power station that was feeding it suffered equipment failure and had gone unrepaired until now.

     Once the colony migrated close enough to the installation the maintenance crews were able to get out to the generator facility and conduct repairs. With power generation and the observatory providing telemetry data on the incoming meteors the defense station could finally operate again.

     Darian found his spot in the gunner seat of the telescope and sat down. Setting the meal out in front of himself he stripped off his jacket and threw it onto the next chair beside him, when he did that the necklace and ring he pocketed before leaving his res unit fell out and onto the floor. Looking at it now laying on the shiny metal floor Darian was flooded again with emotions, more then he wanted to deal with at the moment so he picked the chain and ring up and set it on the chair next to his pile of food items and the large bottle of fruit drink he had standing there. Darian committed himself to dealing with the chain and what if anything he should do with the thing later, for now he grabbed the large enclosed tray of food, reclined back in the chair and began to eat. And as if on cue the first person walked thru the entrance door and stopped, ten meters away, the one he had just passed thru and looked over at him. It was Katherine.

“I remember you always being late” she yelled over to him.

“I remember you smiling more” he said back. Katherine walked over to him carrying a datapad and sat down in front of him.

“Food eh? Good idea, I haven’t ate anything in hours” and proceeded to grab a handful of long cut seasoned potato wedges of out of his tray.

“Help yourself?” Darian asked as a question more than giving permission for her to just dive in.

“What else do you got there?” she asked, he was starting to get the idea that maybe she was hungrier than she was inclined to admit.

“Burger”

“I thought they weren’t making those anymore” Katherine all but jumped out of her seat and lunged towards Darian’s face after the burger he was trying to cram in his mouth. The required ingredients for making a proper ‘Burger’ were not as easy to come across on New Terra and for that reason alone he had to pay extra to get one, much extra, so much so that he would not have shared this particular meal with anyone. Reluctantly Darian handed it over to Katherine and she immediately took a huge bite out of the side, relaxed a bit, closed her eyes, sat down, and enjoyed herself.  It became apparent that Katherine was obliged to space out and eat all of his food when she started taking more bites and completely ignoring everything else going on around her, including Darian sitting there staring at her.

“Give me that” Darian reached out and snapped the burger up out of her hands before she finished it off “there may be more but you’ll have to go splurge for one yourself, and do it with your own credits”

“Fine” Katherine collapsed back into her chair and sighed. “So how are we getting off this planet?”

“Why don’t we start with how we’re going to survive this newest storm?”

“The colony has weathered bigger storms before” Katherine looked out the nearest view window as if looking for the distant storm itself, it was still miles out but creeping closer and closer as the hours passed.

“Jade, what’s the countdown to the storms arrival?”

“The current weather model puts it just under 14 hrs out.” The savant answered thru Darian’s transmitter attached at his belt.

“So that means we should go north than?” Katherine said.

“Oh? Care to explain how you drew up that largely random conclusion?” Darian looked at her quizzically.

“The RLV”

     Darian forced out his usual ‘that’s ridiculous’ noise out of his mouth just as he was rolling his eyes “The RLV what? All we know is one came down somewhere to the north, and in a electrical no scan zone. You wanna drive up there and go look?”

“Yes” Katherine stared him straight in the eye, serious and unflinching.

“When? When are you going to have the time to do that? Or where are we going to get the time to build another spaceship?  That out there is a fairly large storm and I’m willing to bet the blight is tailing it if not ahead of it and causing it. When it gets here, we had better be long gone.”

“So let’s move everybody now”

“Good, I’m all for it. Where?” Darian finished off his meal, threw the packaging in the nearest reclamation bin and sat down again.

“North. It’s the only direction left to us. Blight encroachment modeling has shown that the northern hemisphere, namely the northern polar region of this planet and a few of the volcanic rock areas will be the last to be overtaken which probably means moving to the north will be the last place we’ll be able to relocate the colony to, after that the only place left is space.” Darian was shifting in his seat now, moving a colony was a lot of work, and as near as he can tell they hadn’t ever settled in the harsh tundra landscape of the north. “We still don’t have enough raw materials to build an entire ship, some of it sure but not all.”

     At that moment a voice jumped in from across the room “ We have a few modules that are almost complete” it was Arlan making his way across to them “the storage modules for resources are complete, as are the outer hull sections, in fact there is a complete shell for another starship waiting for transport up to the skydock” Arlan sat down in one of the chairs next to Darian and Katherine. A much older man than the two of them with a dark green coat and black pants, he was wearing a worn out pair of shoes, and several bands and rings on his left hand and arm. Darian had no feelings one way or the other for Arlan, as of late Katherine may have been of the same mind, right until the spat about hoarding supplies. It didn’t look like Katherine was in the sporting mood for a fight, and if Arlan could just avoid being an idiot things should be fine, then again, he did just say there is a whole shell of a ship ready to use.

“Okay, now I have to ask, where is there an extra shell for a spaceship hiding? You don’t just hide one of those wherever.” Katherine asked

“Plymouth” Arlan said, smiling and quite pleased with himself, as if holding on to this all powerful information, and Darian was quite sure he was still hiding more. Darian looked over at Katherine “If we are to get off this planet we may need all the people and materials we can get.” Grumbling and groaning t o himself he started ticking off items aloud “Okay fine, Plymouth has a shell, there is a fusion drive sitting in the skydock  apparently, we can have people and materials to get a ship going, what else?”

“Wait, there’s a what and where?” Arlan looked genuinely surprised for once.

“What’s the matter Arlan?” Darian smirked “something somewhere you didn’t know about? Welcome to the real world friend, a fusion drive is sitting in the skydock RLV right now.”

“A Fusion drive? Well, it didn’t come from us or Plymouth.” Arlan shifted uneasy, irritated more at not knowing things. He wasn’t upset at not knowing about mission information or rumors, but seemed to crave knowing what everyone had and then holding that as tradable information. The same way Vaughn does with people and gossip.

“The extra ship must be what Elena was on about earlier.” Darian thought.”But the fusion drive I don’t know either. What about that rogue group of Eden and Plymouth colonists that took off years ago, maybe they built one and put it up there. What were they called again, The Divine Order, Cryo Clan or something? I think they changed their names two or three times. Where did they end up?”

“They took off to the Northern hemisphere portion of the planet. No one has stayed in contact with them though” Vaughn said, having snuck up on all three of them and now standing looking at them.

“Oh good, everyone’s here now.” Darian rolled his eyes. “Well let’s get on with this than” Katherine eyed both Arlan and Vaughn in one gaze “How much cargo and how fast can we get packed up and out of here?” Vaughn and Arlan looked at each other and then back to Katherine, Arlan spoke first. “24 hours give or take; nothing is setup to move right now. 20 would be pushing it, 10 if we weren’t going to take anything at all, and that means no structure kits, no raw materials or refined, barely enough food to fill evac transports, if any of them even run now”

“So basically we go with nothing, or hope this storm isn’t nearly as bad as we think and wait it out and take everything” Katherine mulled over the ideas swimming in her head. While doing this Darian spoke up again “The only thing we can’t build if we move is another Command module. If I remember correctly, it requires at least one Savant, and a pile of boptronics hardware to create, the shell is easy enough to build though we could use some more magnesium stock piles for it and some of the other structures, including cryo pods.” Darian continued rattling on again aloud, “That just leaves some remedial stuff that even a half equipped spaceport could build. So unless somebody knows where we could find an extra command module we, and I strain use of the word probably, could build ourselves another ship.”

“What we need to know is if we can wait out this storm and figure out how far away the blight is” Katherine looked around the room at everyone in attendance.

“I might have something on at least one of those fronts” Vaughn said from his chair he found back in the corner.

“And? What?” Katherine asked.

“There is a prototype Command Module at the Aramo Facility.” Darian and Katherine looked at each other, even Arlan looked surprised again.
“I don’t know of any prototype” Arlan said

“Nor should you, it’s in the Advanced Lab there. Just like there are items in this Advanced Lab you don’t know about” Vaughn smiled. Darian was sure he was holding something back, and he had no idea what.

“Fine I’ll bite, why is the module still there, what makes you think we could even get to it seeing as its beyond where the Blight has already passed, and what in the hell is in this Advanced Lab?” Darian asked impatiently.

“I have the codes to get us in the Lab at Aramo, but I have no idea of a means for us to get there.”

“And what about this Lab?” Katherine jumped in irritated.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that” Vaughn sat up straight and crossed his hands. Not willing to take no for an answer Katherine reached for her sidearm, and Darian caught that movement in the corner of his vision, he knew what she was planning to do so he reached out and put his hand on hers to stall her from pulling the weapon and pointing it at Vaughn. Darian looked back at Vaughn “We are not going to make you tell us what’s in that Lab, you are going to give that information to us willingly”

“Whatever makes you believe that?” Vaughn asked.

“You want to get off this planet as much as the rest of us. And I’m willing to bet you have a plan for what’s hidden in there but can’t use it now. Am I right?”

“Yes you’re correct. It won’t hover high enough to get past the Blight.” Vaughn stated. Again the other three looked at each other and then back to Vaughn. “What won’t hover?” They all asked. At that point Vaughn got up and started walking out of the observatory. Arlan was next and trailed after him. Katherine stood up and looked at Darian “Don’t suppose Vaughn is telling us everything do you?”

“Not even close.” Darian got up and started to clean up his pile of bags and wrappers he made a mess of on the chair next to him. Katherine had the same idea as him and before he remembered what he had left on the chair she found the ring and chain and picked it up to look it over.
“Is this” she started and took a breath before continuing “the chain I gave you?” she looked up at Darian and into his eyes. “You kept it all these years? Why?”

“I’m not really sure to be honest” He picked the chain out of her hands and put it back in his pocket. “Guess I felt bad in some way, like I couldn’t give those feelings back to you”

“And now?” Katherine asked.

“I don’t know.” Darian didn’t have anything else to say and was now stammering for anything to say “I, I really don’t know, something happened in the back of my brain, so I looked in the back of my locker and grabbed it. As for keeping it all these years…or why I decided to get it out now I don’t have an answer for you. I still don’t think I’m the person you want right now.”

She reached down and took his hand in hers “I don’t want anything right now other than to get off this planet and see my son, what I need is someone I can trust”

“Good” Darian said, letting go of her hand and threw his coat on “that’s about all I’m good for right now. Let’s find out what Vaughn is up to” he then turned and walked towards the door with Katherine in tow.

« Last Edit: January 24, 2016, 06:56:37 PM by dave_erald »
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Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #26 on: January 24, 2016, 02:39:47 PM »
                           X                                X                                  X

“Alright Vaughn, spill it, what are you hiding?” Darian and Katherine caught up to Vaughn and Arlan on their way to the Advanced Lab on the other side of the base.

“It’s a surprise, though with little of us left it hardly needs to be a secret anymore I suppose” Vaughn didn’t look back as he talked, just kept walking forward in a steady march.

“You suppose right” Katherine piped up from the back, irritated still.

     Past corridors and walkways the four of them shuffled their way towards the Advanced Lab. The last and latest of the big Advanced Labs to be built it was still mandatory for it to be constructed at least 1000 feet from any attached colony building, and with that it required a separate contamination chamber halfway down the connecting tube for safety purposes. Before the Blight explosion it had been several years since the previous large scale accident had occurred in an Advanced Lab, but still safety protocols remained in place and followed to the 't' to avoid any potential spill over of chemical or explosion accidents into the colony. Only a select few reserved people had access to the Advanced Lab due to equipment and testing restrictions, thus none of the current group of colonists walking down this tunnel should have had access to the Lab, yet as surprises go Vaughn pulled a silver trimmed green keycard from his pocket and swiped it in the security chamber outer door datapad. “Well of course you would have a card.” Darian muttered “Who’s life did you crush to nab one of those?”

     Vaughn ignored him and watched as the three lights over the outer door changed from red to yellow, air valves cycled and locks disengaging with mechanical clicks and clunks behind the steel door, yellow lights went green and the door unlocked. The older man pulled on the door and swung it open to reveal a cramped chamber that the four of them did their best to squeeze into. After the outer door closed and locked shut the room went dark for a moment before being filled with a dim red glow.

“Chamber decontamination initiated” an automated voice sounded off inside the chamber. Ventilation and scrubbing gas valves cycled and the room was filled with a fast moving gas that swept over the four before being sucked out thru the grated floor panels beneath them.
“Decon complete” the same droll voice sounded again. The inner door popped and Vaughn swung it out and open to reveal the last section of tube before the Lab outer doors.

“Final door and then we are in the Lab, I’ve been told not to touch things in the Lab and it would be best if you all followed my lead and did the same. We will be entering into a stairwell which we'll have to walk up three flights of stairs before we enter into the Lab.” Vaughn looked back at the others to judge their reactions.

“Why would it be built like that? And where are we going?” Arlan asked with a confused look on his face.

“The chamber and stairway is another part of safety measures” Vaughn started. He inserted is keycard into the Lab outer door datapad and it lit green and popped locks to allow them access. Stepping in and starting the climb up the stairs he continued his explanation of the facility “Due to the Acid Cloud weaponry and the Blight program these gases have a very high specific gravity, I’m told they were engineered this way so that in the case of the Acid Cloud it would not disperse into the atmosphere and effect friendly units. Same as the Blight or any other chemical compound they would be working on, hopefully making it simpler for containment and reduce the chance of spillover into the colony”
“Good idea” Darian said from one flight down, trailing the aloof Arlan who was good with numbers and locations, but walking and science seemed to stumble him a bit.

     Vaughn looked down to ensure everyone was still following “after we enter we will need to take the catwalk across the vehicle and weapon test center and over to the north east stair case and down to the testing floor. That is where it is.”

“What? Where what is?” Darian asked, and then immediately got distracted with all of the test equipment and stations in the Advanced Lab after they rounded the staircase corner and into the main facility. There were beakers of colored liquids, testing equipment and apparatuses everywhere, weapons in different stages both apart and fully assembled. Darian could make out the power supplies and capacitance units for the Laser and Thor weapons pods. The only thing he couldn’t find was any research techs or assistants.

“There’s nobody here” Katherine spotted it before him and had the same idea to ask.

“Most everyone is on the ship” Vaughn struggled at resisting the urge to crush the keycard in his hand when saying that, the man was still very clearly upset at not being on the ship and instead being here, his muscles tensing and the way his face contorted made it pretty clear to the three he was harboring resent at anyone involved in the decision to keep him off the ship. “The few remaining are in the rec facility running out the clock. This way” Vaughn pointed over to the catwalk. As the four of them walked across Darian couldn’t help but stop and look down, and what he saw made him whistle in aww.

“What are those?” he asked. Staring down into the pit were two vehicles lined side by side facing the large hangar doors, one sort of looked familiar as it was a Tiger chassis but with some massive modifications to the top side. The second vehicle was only slightly smaller and painted in a dark grey and black motif with small carbine cannons mounted sides and front, and no wheels or track system that Darian could identify. He looked over to the other three descending the wall staircase and picked up the pace.

“You’ll have to excuse me as I only have a basic grasp of what these vehicles are and what they do. The one on the right is an UpArmored Tiger Chassis with a modified Rail gun package.” As Darian was making his way down the stairs he could now get an idea of what the system on top of the tracked chassis was. There was one longer single barrel in the middle of the turret similar to an RPG setup, but with the necessary magnet bands and wiring to distinguish it as a Rail Cannon, though it and the capacitance cylinders, wiring, bands and magnet assembly’s all looked much more oversized than typical.

“That’s a long range Rail Cannon isn’t it?”  Darian asked in awe. Anything mechanical, technical or weaponry itself was fascinating to him, and anything brand new was so much more exciting. “Shiny” he said now finally standing next to the big machine and running his hand down the lowered barrel.

“That’s exactly correct. With a clear line of sight it has almost triple the range and close to twice the concussive force of the standard cannon. I have been told it uses ammunition sized 35% larger than original issue, and something about with the extra power and distance shot it does more damage or something. And there was something about the fire refresh rate was cut by a large portion, almost a 150% cut in re fire time I believe. I wasn’t all that interested in how it worked to be honest. I just liked knowing it was here.” Vaughn stated standing on the other side of the tank from Darian. Darian opened his mouth to finally speak “It would make sense that the cyclical rate of fire would be cut as the larger capacitors and firing system would take longer to cool and recharge. How well does it work?”

“It’s only been field tested once. I did manage to get my hands on that report” Vaughn smiled. Katherine looked him over not at all surprised at that tidbit of information.

“It was fielded 10 months ago against a small Plymouth outpost. It has the power to completely destroy an UpFitted Lynx in a single shot.” Darian’s mouth dropped slightly at that. “However, the energy surge and release from firing, flash and noise that is emitted from the cannon barrel made it very easy for their sensors to pick up its exact location. They immediately sent units out to recon; if the commander in charge hadn’t swiftly retreated we may have lost it. The first EmpLynx and spider on scene came very close to shutting it down and stealing it, side note the Plymouth Spiders ground speed has been increased sizably since there first introduction. Ever since then it had been parked until it could be shielded better from detection.”

Vaughn finally turned and looked at the second vehicle in the hangar bay and pointed to it. “This is the Jaguar class scout and attack chassis.”

“Where are the wheels?” Arlan pointed down at where he surmised they should have been, and found none.

“It’s fitted with the same repulsor tech as the S.C.A.T. or Small Capacity Air Transport but with carry over improvements from the spaceship program. It hovers. And with the energy cannons was going to be used as a means of dealing with the Plymouth Spider problems. It is shielded against Emp discharges so it doesn’t have to worry about Emp attacks.”

“Very cool” is the only thing that came out of Darian’s mouth. He looked it over up and down, bow to stern. “So this thing does work?”

“Yes it does, but like I was saying before we could never get it high enough away from the Blight to avoid the risk of contamination. And everything up till that base is infected already. The rock the base is sitting on, which is heavy in iron and magnesium has so far resisted infection but only just, it is still making its way across.” At this point Katherine piped up again.

“How long?”

“Maybe a couple of days, I’m not sure exactly. It doesn’t much matter unless we can get it past the blight. If we could then we have a command module for the ship.” Vaughn stated at her with folded arms.

“So how do we get past the blight?” She crossed her arms and stared over at Darian. He noticed that everyone was now staring at him.
With mouth agape and a blank stare on his face it was all he could muster for them “Why are you looking at me? I’m not a chemist, I’m a mechanical engineer.”

   Arlan was the next one in line to talk, and the first time he had said anything since entering the Lab. “Too bad you couldn’t just burn it like you do in Lab experiments” Arlan said staring blankly off into absolutely nothing at all.

“What?” Vaughn asked.

Arlan quantified his first statement by adding “Incinerate the Blight. Like what you do with crops or hazardous chemical accidents for fear of contamination.”  To Darian it made sense though he wasn’t sure how Arlan came across the idea in the first place.

“Oh, and how deep is the Blight contamination zone before we even reach the clean zone of the research outpost and the facility?” Darian asked looking back to Vaughn.

“A full three kilometers, give or take” Vaughn shrugged.

“Three kilometers or so” Katherine laughed “how would you like to burn three kilometers of New Terra soil?”

     Before anyone could answer there was a burst of light from the north that bathed an intense red glow through the window panes of the upper level of the Lab. Out of the viewports Darian could make out the bright red muzzle flash that was the Meteor Defense Laser Cannon as it laced out a large beam of energy, hurtling it out into space towards an incoming asteroid like a vibrant red spear, as he glared at it, it gave him a marvelously absurd idea.

“That, we are going to use that.”
« Last Edit: January 25, 2016, 12:16:56 PM by dave_erald »
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Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #27 on: January 24, 2016, 02:44:30 PM »
Sorry for the delay on posting this.

And if anyone sees any glaring mistakes please kindly point them out, I rushed thru posting this and only had time to skim thru it (moving from office format to forum format screws it up a bit, I basically have to redo everything) but am confident I found any mistakes if there were to be any.

Thanks Again!!!

EDIT: I've already found and edited about four mistakes or so, I should be able to have anything else cleaned up by tonight or tomorrow DOUBLE EDIT : There appears to be a lot of red, I need to slow down next time...

Side note - Chapter 5 is in two different posts as there is a 20000 character limit to each post. Who knew?
« Last Edit: January 25, 2016, 12:18:06 PM by dave_erald »
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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #28 on: January 24, 2016, 10:15:56 PM »
Thought I would throw this up on Google Docs and get some feed back.

Link to Google Docs version of Novella

I don't know if it would be better this way or just leave it as being posted in forum topics?

Ideas?

P.S. Could someone let me know if this link worked correctly for them and if it sets it to read only or to an edit version. Thanks.

Double EDIT, I am also looking into keeping the master copy on my home drive, and it will be the finished version if such a thing ever happens, like say putting it all together in a paper back version for myself. Anyways, that's way out and the only reason I say this is for the purpose of clarifying that there could be three very very slightly different versions (editing mistakes, very small rewrites) that could set the three only marginally different from each other, and that my home version will be the proper version if and when completed. Sorry for the confusion, I am trying to avoid confusion, so maybe I will just pick one way or the other.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2016, 10:21:40 PM by dave_erald »
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Offline leeor_net

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #29 on: January 25, 2016, 04:49:55 PM »
There are red highlights in it for some reason.


Google docs is a great place to put them all together as a single doc but I would post the chapters here anyway so demonstrate activity.

Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #30 on: January 25, 2016, 05:47:44 PM »
Red highlights in the google doc? Probably any words I added to the personal dictionary. If you mean the chapter posted here than that was me moving to fast
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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #31 on: January 25, 2016, 05:52:27 PM »
No, red here on this post. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #32 on: January 25, 2016, 06:17:50 PM »
Nope. That's me editing the grammar and a bit of style in some sentence's. I try to get it out without having to do edits later, me changing the text to red when I edit something here helps me keep track of what I'm dicking up so I can fix it in my home version. The ideas and direction will remain the same, misprints and grammatical errors are the only things I'm correcting thus far.


How is it so far? Again all comments or ideas are welcome.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2016, 01:06:37 AM by dave_erald »
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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #33 on: February 16, 2016, 10:38:15 AM »
* leeor_net nudges with a stick

Any progress?

Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #34 on: February 16, 2016, 06:41:45 PM »
I hope to get working on chapter 6 and get it out before end of February. The more I look at this thing I've created the more I want to slow down and make more of it, take some time to actually write something good and worthy of people reading, right now it feels like I'm sailing thru writing chapters too fast. Also I got it in my head that I would love to be able to get this bound and printed one day. Not to make money per se but so I have this, I made this, look at this. Anyways...February has been awash mostly.

I'll get back to it.
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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #35 on: February 29, 2016, 09:17:37 AM »
... “What?” Darian looked around at the three colonists that were staring intently at him

“Oxygen deprivation” Vaughn said

“What?” Darian repeated

“He’s been without oxygen multiple times, in fact you can see the brain damage already, repeating ones self, half baked plans, delusions of heroism…” Vaughn was still talking and intended to continue on if Darian hadn’t already started walking towards him...
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Offline Hooman

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #36 on: February 29, 2016, 10:20:29 AM »
Sneaking something in before the end of February? Good thing it's a leap year. :p

Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #37 on: February 29, 2016, 10:42:55 AM »
Quote
Sneaking something in before the end of February? Good thing it's a leap year. :p


Notice that did yeah?


Honestly didn't realize I was at the end of the month, and then I didn't realize it was a leap year till your comment. Wake up Dave...
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Offline leeor_net

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #38 on: February 29, 2016, 07:57:09 PM »
t's okay. We've all been there. I've been there too.

Offline Hooman

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #39 on: May 25, 2016, 08:23:23 PM »
Typos:
Quote
of out of his tray
Quote
Vaughn stated at her with folded arms.

Do they have cows on New Terra? Where's the beef?

I rather like where you're going with all this. I like how you incorporated the S.C.A.T., and the meteor defence burning a hole through the blight idea is cool. The coincidence of having the meteor defence fire just after someone mentions burning the blight seems like a bit much. It's a little too convenient. I sort of feel the two events either need to be spaced out a bit more, or the idea should come after seeing the meteor defence fire. I do like how you introduced the meteor defence well before it fired.

And yes, I shamefully admit that reading the update to your story sat on my to-do list for 5 months. I can only say that is because of who I am as a person.  :P

So..., any more updates planned?

Offline Vagabond

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #40 on: June 03, 2016, 05:11:00 PM »
Dave,

I Really enjoyed reading this so far as well. Would be excited to see it continued.

Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #41 on: December 14, 2016, 01:11:09 PM »
So, I think I know where I need to go with this story to finish it now, and I do apologize for the gap in posting.

I think I will need help with some technical things on the way


For instance, Blight propagation =

Quote
...snip...

The blight can only even remotely become airborne, by which I mean it can travel with larger dust particulates expelled by CO2 and O2 generation that it naturally creates in the planets crust, but it in itself is not by the very definition airborne.

...snip...

Does this make sense to anyone? It is a rough cut, but a first hack at how Blight may work. I need to read up on this again unless someone knows exactly how the Blight worked in this game. I'm not entirely confident they explained the science in this game (may have been for the better)

And Hooman, as for animals in the Agridome, think Mystery Meat. Or something something, I should find a better answer for you
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Offline leeor_net

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #42 on: December 14, 2016, 02:43:17 PM »
Woot! Looking forward to this! And I bet you're looking forward to me not poking you about it all the time.

Your explanation sounds plausible to me, most bacteria and viruses aren't airborne anyway, not for long anyway though they can be 'airborn' on mucous droplets. Thinking in terms of cold/flu here vs. blight.

Offline lordpalandus

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #43 on: December 14, 2016, 02:51:39 PM »
What I think needs better explanation is why the Blight moves quickly during the day but quite slowly during the night. Unless that is explained somewhere...
Currently working on Cataclysm of Chaos, Remade.
Link to OPU page = http://forum.outpost2.net/index.php/topic,6073.0.html

Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #44 on: December 14, 2016, 04:30:16 PM »
I got an idea on that lordo, or more so just a shitty slightly educated theory.

Im going to go out on a limb and say this type of synthetic "bacteria" most likely based off of Cyanobacteria was mutated to work better off of Thermal energy and mineral deposits as opposed to water content.

Because the colonists still had to live on the planet I figure the scientists used a form of this cyanobacteria to recreate the Great Oxygenation Event on early earth. But the low water content (and other items) typically used to create Oxygen demanded the reengineering to work specifically off of mineral deposits and thermal energy for cellular replication. Thus deep well testing underneath the Advanced Lab complexes.

In a roundabout way explains how surface Blight moves faster during the daytime (dependant on atmosphere makeup) could go from -153c to plus 120c

Or I could also be way off

EDIT = per discussion with Leeor, not a bacteria maybe but an organism. Extremophile or Thermophiles would fit the bill.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2016, 06:56:49 PM by dave_erald »
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Offline Hooman

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #45 on: December 22, 2016, 03:25:48 AM »
Glad to hear you're taking this back up.


As for the blurb on the blight being/not-being airborne, that sounds like the difference between getting sick because someone sneezed on you, versus getting sick because someone in an adjacent hospital room is sick, and the two rooms share the same ventilation system.

I think there was a reason in the game as to why the blight spread faster during the day, though I can't remember what it was.

Offline dave_erald

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Re: Outpost 2 - Life at the End
« Reply #46 on: January 12, 2017, 12:57:37 PM »
Chapter 6
     United we fall

   The night sky returned to its dark beauty following the end of the red glow the meteor defense tower created. Darian had forgotten how bright the cannon was at night time and so much so that he found himself waiting for his eyes to correct to the dimly lit interior of the work station. Once they came back in focus he could see everyone glaring at him, and all with quizzical looks on their faces, probably waiting for an explanation he thought.

“What?” Darian looked around at the three colonists now staring intently at him

“Oxygen deprivation” Vaughn said

“What?” Darian repeated with a puzzled look

“He’s been without oxygen multiple times I bet; in fact you can see the brain damage already, repeating one’s self, going on with half baked plans and delusions of heroism…” Vaughn was still talking and intended to continue if Darian hadn’t already started moving towards him; Katherine knew where this was going and immediately jumped in between the two men.
“Enough. Idiots” Katherine got Darian’s attention and looked him in the eyes “Care to elaborate before we all start believing you actually have brain damage?”

“I don’t know” Darian said as he blinked his eyes “I’m making this up as I go” Katherine let go of him and muttered something under her breath.

“I know what he’s got in mind” Garvin piped up from the back. Nobody noticed the robust man walk in and Darian was curious how he managed to sneak up on them probably the bickering back and forth he thought, either that or he’s very light footed for a heavyset man, I need to learn that skill.

All attention now focused on Garvin, though he lacked the hubris of someone like Malworth, still he rose confident and started “He means to incinerate the ground same as you would burn bad crops for fear of contamination”

Darian looked Garvin in the face “Yes that. Exactly”. Voss sat down with his datapad in hand and started furiously typing away at it.
Vaughn sighed loudly, rolled his eyes in his head and put his arms up in disbelief “And just how would you like to do that? We are out of time and personnel not to mention food. We still have to relocate the colony and that alone includes amongst a dozen things that need to happen requiring two or three times the people we currently have. Are you even listening?” Malworth slowly rolled from confused to frustrated, and his face was working towards anger next “Hey! I’m talking to you” Vaughn was ready to charge across the floor towards Darian when Katherine pulled her gun and jumped in between.

“What is your problem Vaughn?” Katherine pointed the well maintained carbine at his face
“He’s not taking any of this seriously” pointing at Darian ”why not start with making the transport fly higher or try…” Katherine cut him off by all but yelling at the man “SIT DOWN” and gestured with her pistol to take one of the open seats and park it.

“I can fill in” Garvin continued. Everyone looked back again at the man standing by himself. Katherine let go of Vaughn and holstered her pistol once more.

“It’s highly wasteful but as we probably have no other choice it may actually be very useful.”  Garvin stepped closer so that he could be better heard. Darian was now smiling to himself because he was remembering just how picky Garvin is with numbers in and numbers out.
The head of food production for the colony was very particular about calculating all materials and energy used and to make sure that everything produced something and was accounted for. It had zero use in a weapons or military application but as far as energy required to effectively sterilize and decontaminate land, items and equipment Garvin always had the math on point.

“I can very easily run the numbers and calculate energy required and area of effect needed to maintain a safe perimeter around the vehicle to get us where we need to go. The blight is not an airborne particle by trade, it only infects above ground units and structures when it gets expelled from O2 and CO2 pockets that it is naturally creating, its mass causes it to fall back to the planet’s surface after a short distance travelled in the air. We should only need to burn a path on the ground and a sizeable corridor in front of us to drive thru. Provided we can make our insertion on a less turbulent day and reduce the chance of dirt and dust contaminants getting into the boptronic circuitry of our vehicle we should be able to drive in, get what we need and drive back out safely without risk of contamination.”
“And you are sure you’re not working for military intelligence?” Darian asked.

“What? I talk to people, other people talk. You wanna do this or not?” Garvin stood with his arms crossed.

“I think it’s our only choice. So who’s going where and doing what boss?” Darian looked at Katherine. She must have been running numbers and scenarios in her head because it was a while before she answered him.

“It sounds like we need to break up into three teams, team one needs to take a group north and act as point for the convoy of trucks and people that will becoming its way, I’m going to have Sylvia lead that unit. Team 2 needs to work on this gun contraption thing and procuring the new command module, Darian you and Garvin can work together on that. Vaughn, and I hesitate to suggest this, but you are going to run fire support for them in the Long Range Tiger tank, we’ll find you a hill to sit on and pick away at infested vehicles.”
 
   That last part met with some noticeable stares and uncomfortable tension, Darian was sure that everyone felt the same way and was unhappy with the idea of Malworth piloting some long range doom tank pointed in their direction.
“The rest of us are going to get what remains of the colony on the move. I’m going to have the colony savant program the mining spiders to start disassembling the parts of the colony we are not using and shove them into the GORF, the space ship leaving farmed all of the raw materials out of the storage facilities and if we need to build anything we are going to need all the resources we can get.”

“That brings up a good question” Darian looked down at his comm. “Elena come in”

There was a brief pause before the link was established and his daughter answered back “Yes I’m here. Everyone good down there?”
“We are all fine, how are you?”

“Good, or as well as I can be by myself up here” was all Elena could muster for the moment “I have good news”

“I was hoping you would” He replied “what do you got”

“So it looks like there is a base of some kind to the far north hidden in a snowy mountainous region. I could make out what looks like a Command Center but smaller, most of a Spaceport though it doesn’t look like it has all of the facilities for building starship components, only big enough to send and receive launch vehicles. A Tokamak and what looks like a common ore mine and a smelter.”
Darians mouth noticeably hung open for awhile before confusion set in, same confused look on everyone elses face right up until realization dawned on them all pretty near at the same time.

“There is a way to get off this planet than” Darian started.

     Arlan was one of the first to put things together and figure out that they were still going to come up short “we still don’t have a ship to fly, let alone the materials to build one. Even if we farm out all the structures and mine what we could we are still going to come up short”  and like a typical materials handler he was counting stuff off on his fingers and in his head, quietly doing all the background math that kept saying everything is coming up short. “We need more people and we need more materials. And time, we just need more of everything”

   And as if on cue a warning claxon and alert came over the building speaker system “Enemy units sighted. Southwest, 5 kilometres out and approaching” Darian spun on his heel and sprinted to the nearest workstation and sat down. “Jade bring up the cameras for that area, let’s have a look” as the monitor sprang to life everyone else in the room filed in around behind him to have a look at what was going on. Finally the screen came to life with four video inputs showing, two cameras showing the inside view and outside view of the building they were in, and the other two had the information he was looking for. Screen 3 looked like it was trying to zoom in and focus on the incoming vehicles and the 4th screen was showing an overlay of the area around the base and all of the structures and units within range. The system was pinging 5 units just within range of sensors moving very slowly in their direction. “Blight infested units looks like. Five of them” the other camera had finally focused and zoomed in on the units “looks like 4 Lynx vehicles and a Panther, one Emp, three Microwave and a Stickyfoam, the Panther has a Rpg on the top. We need to stop these things before they get here”
“We don’t have any operational assault vehicles right now, none of them have been started up and moved in the last two months. They won’t be ready in time.” Katherine said now very obviously worried.

“What about that?” Darian pointed at the Tiger Tank sitting behind them. “Let’s see if it works” He got up from the desk and walked over to the tank and stared it down.

The 70 ton behemoth sat there patiently waiting for its next combat mission. The ‘Tiger’ class chassis was built strictly for combat, derived from old earth data packets and built for life on the near inhospitable planet they now call home. At nearly 15 meters long with the main cannon stretching out another 3 meters in front of the tank it claimed a sizable amount of real-estate in the hanger. The longer he looked over the tank the more he could see changes from the previous versions of Tiger tanks that were in service up until then. The composite armor body plates looked noticeably thicker and stacked higher than usual. The main drive system was different somehow; larger cooling units on the back and the tracks themselves looked to be made from a different material all together. And this was all before he got to the differences in the main weapon.   
 
   Tiger units all came equipped with a ‘Dual’ unit weapons pod, where this tank should have had two Rail guns side by side it had one much larger, and much longer setup right down the middle. The cooling lines, energy coils and cables all were substantially larger than normal iterations of the weapon system. The barrel of the gun was designed differently and was again made out of a different material than standard issue Rail guns. The tank was obviously designed for testing purposes with an on hand crew as there was a small cockpit similar to his own Lynx. Darian popped the hatch and climbed on in.

“Somebody care to open the inner hangar doors maybe?” He called down to everybody standing there.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” Katherine looked up at him.


“Hunting”



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