avengers_assembled | China Update

aa_stark posting in

Avengers shuttle their asses back to New York so that they can pore over their souvenirs, patch up Vance, make sure Vision is firing on all cylinders, and get Steve a sturdier helmet.

In the meantime:

* Recon of the Valley of the Spirits.
** Drones, which might die so let's make sure they are cheap ones and also use that to help determine the radius of interference.
** Satellites. NEENER.
** Any weird radiation, seismic activity.

* Legends of the Valley of the Spirits. Ask around locally if need be.

* What notes did Bru get from Betty?

* Talk to Betty about science.

* Plug the rock chunk into a computer.

* Ask SHIELD what the ten rings have been up to lately.

* ????

* Profit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aa_banner

Per Bets:

From afar, Betty shows: Loki pages, "you can say she got several pages of the notes she was given, some of the handwritten ones with the name blanked out at the bottom and some of the typed" // Loki pages, "the chinese translation she got from coffee-lady during her time made it sounded like written correspondance about progress, that "both iterations" still have problems, but they're running out of time"

From:

aa_banner

Bruce has obtained more notes from Betty basically of her sense impressions and everything she could remember from her work.

From:

aa_loki

** Drones, which might die so let's make sure they are cheap ones and also use that to help determine the radius of interference.

If the drones are Starkish and have been equipped to deal with the effects of interference, then they can map out a general area of low to medium levels of interference which seem to rise or fall depending on how fast the wind is blowing and in what direction. The Valley (technically a mountain cove) runs at about 50 miles long, but the radius of interference is centred on the larger rock formation (bigger than a tiger, around 170ish feet in length, about 80 ft at its tallest point, all measurements being above ground). The interference extends about 50 mi in all directions. Within about 10, the drones will probably die.

For Christmas/Easter/birthday, Stark can probably tinker and define the negatory frequency. It is obviously a lot stronger than what the human subjects were putting out, and they lacked magic where this doesn't.

** Satellites. NEENER.

** Here you go.

Ahem.

Specifically on that Valley, constant cloud cover and fogs (new addition) make it difficult to take coherent photographs. But there are glimpses of things the boys sighted last time, such as the landing pad, which seemed to have a rough road veering off to where a possible bunker like structure might be. However, nothing looks particularly recently used. The avalanche wiped out the pathways Pietro found.

** Any weird radiation, seismic activity.

No seismic activity since. Low, non-dangerous levels of radiation that speaks of electrical/electromagnetic activity, and some thermal radiation.

Science research indicates a kind of air ionisation going on, resulting in remote geoengineering and generating the localised cloud cover.

From:

aa_loki

(And I'm happy to give notes to or do a little GMing if someone wants to explore the bunker. Recommend a smaller group. Look out for guns.)

From:

aa_vance

Always explore bunkers. I think it's a rule.

From:

aa_loki

go back to bed vance

From:

aa_loki

* Legends of the Valley of the Spirits. Ask around locally if need be.

A star fell and carved a valley through the Celestial Mountains, awakening dragons that lived beneath the earth. In culture, they're considered fortune-having creatures, who dominate the weather, rivers, lakes, and seas, and would head east into mainland China to drive out foreigners and grant wishes on their people. But to go into the Valley of Spirits itself is to meet death or offer yourself as food. Only ghosts are welcome there, to return to the lower worlds through the Valley.

None of this come across as contemporary belief, just a folklore story found in the most local regions. However, there's obviously some superstition about visiting, as if it's unoffically sacred.

* Plug the rock chunk into a computer.

Nothing happens.

:D?

No, something happens. The rock, as it did with Vision, becomes warmer when the computer engages with it. Nonsense code will probably come as a result, which Vision might be able to help decrypt. If there are particular outputs you're looking for (visual, audio) let me know.

Oh, and something JARVIS is likely to mention when comparing surface analysis -- the rock seems to have gotten bigger, very marginally. To the human eye, near impossible to tell, but maybe its harder edges seem smoother.

From:

aa_loki

* Ask SHIELD what the ten rings have been up to lately.

Small spots of skirmishes over the last couple of years have been suspected Ten Rings activity (some stuff like helping weaponising unrelated terrorist groups, or attacks on civilians, possession of supplying in critical countries) -- but really, their last radar blip was when they captured Stark. Regional hostile activity in China hasn't been officially claimed by the Ten Rings, and indeed, China continues saying they're facing no particular hostile activity, what are you even saying.

One notable incident is a prison riot in Mexico about five months ago that was ultimately failed, but its planning was attributed to an outside source that could have been Ten Rings. Very few of the prisoners wanted to admit involvement and claimed to just go with the chaos as it presented. Some claimed everyone had known, and had expected the prison systems to fail, but something had gone wrong.

Twelve casualties in total, only one of which was a prisoner.

And the biology/Betty stuff is more of a cash in later, but can/will recollect some thoughts on notes and discoveries if either Betty- or Bruceplayer need more detail.

Edited Date: 2013-02-12 10:23 pm (UTC)

From:

aa_banner

Whenever I RP science it is essentially handwavium, but Bruce basically made noises about trying to combine Betty's work with the samples we have and do modeling to see if any theoretical progress can be reproduced or expanded on. I don't know if this is actually feasible.

From:

aa_banner

In part because I don't know that much about science besides what I learn from wikipedia and TV, and in part because I don't have that clear a grasp on just how much data we have to work with so far?

From:

aa_loki

I am in favour of handwavium myself when it comes to really getting into the molecular/development/innovation stage, which is where we're at now.

Assume Betty has enough practical data that they could begin running projections and theoretical expansions and such. I'll gather my thoughts a little better and compile some notes -- right now, feel free to assume it's a work in progress (as these things would take some time), also if you desire to improvise or whatever, that's fine too.

The notes she has mentions the incubation period, the "chrysalis" period, the recovery and decline (and based on data, they have only witnessed the decline). Curability probably ends post-incubation. After that, it's whether you can modify the "virus" to have changes compatible with human limit. Based on what they have seen, what is being developed and implemented is not "just" a cure-all, but something intended to advance people.

From:

aa_jen

Was the prisoner who died anyone of note? Or any of the other deaths at the prison?

From:

aa_loki

Cracking the decryption itself is not, in the end, overly difficult. Translating the code into something useable and compatible with Tony's (or, you know, Earth) computers is another task that takes a while to run, but after ironing out some of the programming, Tony obtains for himself some workable data.

What is determined is that this particular fragment acts as a sort of storage bank of information. Possibly, the stuff that Vision saw was a last testimony or statement of some kind. Tony is able to draw a transcript of the "dialogue" that Vision sensed and heard and translate it into English phonetics, but it's obvious that this is only a scrap of the information stored here, which is possibly why it's taking a while if one is just doing an infodump. Finding a methodology of drawing out the information in a logical/comprehensible fashion (maybe via a more sophisticated AI-like interface) seems like it'd be the trick.

Over time (and handling), Tony may find that he can kind of go for longer and longer without requiring sleep. Not that this is perfect psychology, but he just finds he doesn't get tired or compelled to take a break which is possibly something he is used to already but it's enhanced from 'reckless' to 'vaguely unnatural'.