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Post by Kasuga Naosuko on Jun 29, 2017 10:57:02 GMT 10
"Oh I was just asking this little thing about it's purpose." Naosuko replies. "Someday that will work, but I don't think it wants to answer today."
Her brief inspection complete, she returns it to the workspace and types a few more notes on the grey datapad.
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Post by emeralddragon on Jun 30, 2017 2:30:39 GMT 10
The Gyushi looked at his superior, debating what more he could share. Finally he answered just one part more, "Its purpose? Exactly the opposite of what it is. Obsidian is the most common sacred substance available to the Spider, and we find ourselves often settling on worlds no one else would consider apart from the Crab. Bombarding stuff from orbit is all well and good, but some creatures and spirits only die to sacred substance. We WANTED to make it safer to handle and and less likely to break, and according to what I have read, we attempted to mix it with metals that should have done just that." The Gyushi shook his head, "Of course, Lady Sun's tears is nothing like Lord Moon's Blood so instead we got that mess."
Picking up a datapad, he turned to his superior, "Diagotsu-sama, I have a feeling Koshuud-san will not be happy till I show him the document you and Asako-san saw last night. With your permission?"
Meanwhile, as the GM fixes his miss read, the probe has no wired ports that Kokishin can see. As he looks over the device, it almost seems to primitive to do this job. Primitive screws, three basic antenna to generate the field, and send and receive data, at first glance this thing seems far too primitive to do what it did.
But it did.
The Kasuga's look over the device revealed clear distortions in the metal, as if someone had acess to only a certain amount of the casing material and had to fit more inside it then the material in its original form allowed. 4 basic screws sealed the case, clearly quite primitive, however on closer examination, a set of two extra holes become clear, each showing some kind of damage, as if they were cut or bored into the device.
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Post by Daigotsu Enshiro on Jun 30, 2017 7:01:04 GMT 10
Enshiro notes the look of his engineer. He turns to the Unicorn and answers with a calm neutral tone, "To burn as fuel would be far too volatile and greatly increase risk of contaminating a ship. As for charge, there is something there, as it is contained within a magnetic field. Though any practical use as a conductor is far outweighed by the dangerous nature of the material. Obsidanite is not the byproduct or runoff of another reaction. My very capable engineer and myself, a member of the Obsidian Dojo, can attest that this is as safe as we can make observation of the material. Once done, further action will be taken to ensure the safe storage of the material. Does that properly address this 'Hellephant' you speak of?"
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Post by Kasuga Naosuko on Jun 30, 2017 7:27:09 GMT 10
"Asako Kokishin-sama, what do you make of these?" Naosuko indicates the holes in the casing. "Drill or Cut? Hopefully from the outside in..."
Naosuko leaves the Obsidianite to those more interested in such things.
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Post by Asako Kokishin on Jun 30, 2017 8:59:03 GMT 10
"Logic dictates a drill, but it certainly does look like cuts... Shall we open it?" Kokishin replies, glad to have at least one other person interested in the satellite.
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Post by The Wake Angels on Jun 30, 2017 11:13:54 GMT 10
"So it's an incredibly dangerous compound with no uses beyond horrific destruction that has to be intentionally made."
Tai-Wen sighs, and rubs her temples. "Not that I'm judging mind, I could tell you things about dangerous compounds that would make the Grand Abbot grow hair just so he could lose it again. But no, it does not address the point. What I'm getting at here is that we can make a fair guess that this shit had to come from either the station or the alien's ships. Either way, we could use it to track them, as it apparently is not naturally occurring and one of the two is leaking the stuff. There might be a trail at least to a jump point. Moreover, if there's a way to date it, we should do just that. Your Clan should have records that Shimazu-sama can unseal as to how much was stored on the station and when it was made. If this gunk is new, then that would imply that the aliens have learned how to make it, which is going to be a whole heap of trouble for us. If that's the case, then I'll want to start running tests, see if I can't figure out a way to make the stuff inert, or at least defend against the nastier side effects."
She looks up from the tube, her eyes darting between the Gyushi and the Daigotsu. "Well? How about it? This gunk have a half-life, or any other way of telling age?"
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Post by emeralddragon on Jun 30, 2017 13:21:20 GMT 10
The Gyushi chews for a moment longer, "Weeeellll, you could possibly radiometrically date the substance Koshuud-san, but that would tell us the when of its manufacturing, rather the when it was leaked into space. I suppose we could possibly date its leak into space using the dust from the solar wind, given how much this star puts off, but I can't promise its accuracy. The void of space isn't exactly known for modifying substances as they drift. And I would want a lot more Obsidanite to do that to back confirm my calculations, rather then the small sample I have now."
The Gyushi looked at his superior, before turning back to the unicorn "And I don't rightly think we should be chasing a foe without at least knowing who they are, but I am no general. Thats Diagotsu-sama's decision. But yeah right, we could at least track it to the edge of the system, find out which direction the enemy is going." He paused, "Beyond that, its difficult. Assuming they used Opening the Way, finding the trail after the space station jumped would be like finding a needle in...well, a needle floating in the void of space. And then jumping to that needle to search for the next one. It would be slow but I suppose we could do it, should Diagotsu-sama approve of that plan."
He mutters off the necessary calculations for a moment, fiddling with his data pad as he tried to work out how he would need to reconfigure the ships equipment should his superior go with that plan, as he worked he continued, "And I suppose we could turn it back into Obsidian glass again, but thats not really inert. More inert maybe. We would need to have something to take the energy from such a process though. Its only metastable as Obsidanite, thus why it wasn't found this way on Rokugan. To go further then that would require atomization, and atomizing a sacred substance...I aren't exactly the most spiritual of Samurai, Koshuud-san, but I got to admit that seems like a nice way to end up cursed. And thats ignoring the impact of the sacred energy of Tengoku that separates Obsidian from more mundane Perlite. Not sure we are equip to go that far."
As the Asako and Kasuga talk, they notice that the Engineer had seemingly decided to put the recently fabricated screwdriver required to open the Satellite onto their table. He wasn't exactly subtle about it, despite his attempts to be so, but perhaps that was because he was trying to avoid the Koshuud's attention rather then theirs.
((OOC:lv90F_Q91-101-101-10k3, 10s don't explode, slight of hand.))1-10·1-10·1-10
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Post by The Wake Angels on Jun 30, 2017 17:39:09 GMT 10
"Glass would be fine. Glass we can deal with. If this stuff is leaking off of the station, then I'm more concerned with it painting our hulls mid flight. If who or what ever took the station is deliberately manufacturing it, then you said it yourself, it's basically only good as a weapon. So I'd like to find a way to deal with it before such a weapon is deployed against us. Every drop of sweat in the workshop is a drop of blood spared on the battlefield."
Tai-Wen taps her metal-clad finger on the Transperisteel container. "Look. This is a whole bunch of ugly right here. I don't blame anyone here for cooking it up, but we've got to deal with it all the same."
She leans back, rolling a bit of the night's tension out of her neck. "It's my job to look at something, and say how it can be weaponized. So, follow along if you will. Obsidian shards going anything short of 'fired from a railgun' aren't going to so much as scratch a properly configured Radiant shield, or even the armor if it gets underneath. Slow-moving liquid on the other hand could stick to the hull the moment a shield drops, maybe settle into grooves, gunports, viewports. We carry that shit with us, never knowing it's there. We dock, the ships pressurize. The environment change shifts this muck to a gas at the same time that the autocondensers start refilling the air supply. Suddenly, next time we're flying, each and every one of us is taking in a lungfull of crazy. I don't want that, and I certainly don't think any of you do. So, Gearhead to Gearhead. What does it take to re-glass this crap in vacuum, what materials do you have on board that can pull it off, and if we don't have the right stuff, what's the closest port that does? We figure that out, I can stick it in a warhead. I'm Koshuud. We're good at that."
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Post by Daigotsu Enshiro on Jun 30, 2017 20:13:19 GMT 10
"While your ideas are certainly... intriguing, we are on a clock. All of these endeavors and research ideas sound more than time consuming. What I need right now is to know who we are dealing with and where they've gone with the station. As for your concerns of defense against Obsidanite, it would be easiest to simply avoid it. Perhaps if we simply program our detection systems actively search for some identifier of the material, such as it's electromagnetic frequency, that would be enough to avoid harm. At the same time, this would allow us to follow any sort of Obsidanite trail with a measure of ease, as you have noted. We could trace such a trail to the edge of the system, and maybe even to wherever they jumped from. From there we might be able to detect a kami remaining after the Way of Opening. Thirdly, it could also allow us to detect if any Obsidanite were to get aboard one of our ships. I would also like to know if Radiant Cannons have any effect on the material while it's in space. If the enemy indeed has a weaponized version of Obsidanite, it would be good to know if we are able to parry such a strike, and what happens from such a reaction. Perhaps that is something the other Angels could do while we focus our efforts here in the lab? As for the sample we have here before us, the information of when it was made and when it was leaked sounds useful. Do what tests you need for this information, Gyushi-san."
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Post by Kasuga Naosuko on Jul 1, 2017 1:02:41 GMT 10
"Can't be too careful." Naosuko reaches into her toolkit and retrieves a pair of protective work gloves and some eye protection. She dons the protective gear and picks up the screwdriver, examining the work closely. She presses a button on the grey datapad, beginning a voice recorder program. "Kasuga Naosuko, <Day and time>, disassembling possible Sassathif device recovered in orbit around Daigotsu 5768b. Device is made of a reflective material possibly sourced from Void aligned planet near their space. Object is roughly spherical, some indentations about the upper hemisphere. Three antenna, four primitive screws about the equator. Two holes drilled or cut in the lower hemisphere." "I am loosening the first screw..." Beginning Dissection. Engineering(Gaijin)/Int 9k3 Raise to be careful: 9d10o10k3 22
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Post by Asako Kokishin on Jul 1, 2017 1:12:36 GMT 10
Kokishin raises an eyebrow. "Sassathif? This is a Sassathif contraption? How do you know?" What do I know about the Sassathif (besides what they look like on the inside)? Lore Sassathif 25 orokos.com/roll/530068
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Post by Kasuga Naosuko on Jul 1, 2017 1:19:33 GMT 10
"Trade secret, Asako-san." Naosuko says, slowly working the screw out of its place. "It's just an initial theory based on the materials in play. They don't usually operate using stealth though, which makes the theory tenuous at best."
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Post by Asako Kokishin on Jul 1, 2017 2:58:54 GMT 10
"Perhaps a different party stole and adapted the technology from the Sassithif."
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Post by emeralddragon on Jul 1, 2017 5:22:48 GMT 10
"Hard ta say what Radiant Weaponry would do it it, Sama. The weapons should have enough energy to push it into its more stable Obsidian state, but with how little their was out there, it would also likely shatter the newly formed Obsidian, if it didn't boil away due to the heat and the fact its in the vacuum of space. Of course I can't garentee that, and it would hold the riskl of a runaway reaction that could damage the ship, although highly unlikely." With that final tidbit out of the way, the Gyushi bows to the Unicorn and the Spider, "Sama's" before moving elswhere in the lab/engineering room to try and set up something he would consider safe to handle Obsidanite in.
As Naosuko pulls away the first screw, she sees in her carefulness that the screw was attached to two wires, completing a circuit. Had she pulled too hard and broke the connection to remove the screw from the hole, it would likely have been quite bad.
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Post by Kasuga Naosuko on Jul 1, 2017 6:21:45 GMT 10
"Booby trap, clever." Naosuko comments, holding the screw in place while still attempting to get a good look at the wires. "There are two wires in contact with the first screw," she observes for the recording. "Working to bypass."
"Asako-san, please take the screwdriver from me and hold this screw in place. I need to get another tool from my kit to get in there and twist the two wires together and keep the circuit in place."
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