[Day 225] [EVENT] A sinking feeling

[bastionmods]

Who: Anyone and everyone
Open: Open
When: Early morning on Day 225
Where: Everywhere in the Bastion
What: Remember how cores used to be a thing? Yeah, they're still important.
Format: any
Warnings: terrible modpuns

[Early in the morning on Day 225, most people are probably asleep. For the couple of stragglers who may still be awake so late, though, they may notice something strange. At 2:31 am, any lights that are on start to hum, and flicker in and out of dimness.

At 2:32 am, every light in the Bastion (excluding the emergency lights) shuts off entirely.

At 2:33 am, a horrible grinding noise can be heard throughout the Bastion, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. This sound continues on for several minutes, throughout everything else that begins to happen.

At 2:34 am, for anyone outside Nathaniel can be seen running from the Apartments towards the Monument as if his life depended on it.

At 2:35 am, ever so slowly, sections of the Bastion begin to sink.

What do you do?]

Comments

[bastionpc]

It's not so much that it keeps it floating as it is that it keeps everything connected. The Bastion itself is only really the middle part, around the monument. The rest is just chunks of Skyway that has been pulled in and connected to it.

Think of it like a giant electromagnet that draws chunks of land to it. Shut off the power, and what happens to the land? It drifts away, and since the Skyway doesn't really go in any set direction, some pieces drift down, others up, and others in all different directions.

[dragonsorcsandwolves]

[Rob nods. That made sense. An odd design choice, perhaps, but there was probably a good reason for it.]

How much power does the "electromagnet" part take? Is it something we could power with a generator if we had to, or are we talking about a full-on power plant? Having some kinda backup for that one function in particular would be good, since there can't be an infinite number of cores out there. Eventually we're not going to be able to find any more.

[bastionpc]

[...hmm. That is something Nathaniel actually hadn't considered before. So he takes a moment to think on it before answering.]

Well...I suppose a power plant is possible, but we would still need to have a steady supply of fuel, which is pretty much our problem with cores right now. Also, power made in a power plant can't be stored like cores can, so we couldn't just trust it to run on its own. We would need people monitoring it at all times, feeding whatever fuel we used, to keep it running.

It's certainly an option, but I'd save it as a 'plan B' for now. In the long run it would have more headaches than powering the Bastion via cores would.

[croceamors]

If I may, something else to consider once we've all rested and to discuss tomorrow?

[Oh hey, some other asshole is joining the conversation.]

We need to be more organized- both with evacuation efforts when something like this inevitably happens again, with who is going to search out the cores, and some actual form of leadership.

Something to keep in mind.

[freedom_engineer]

To say nothing of the time it would take to get it built and then properly integrated with the Monument, without blowing up something vital.

Power is easy for me, but it's NOT easy in general.

[Colin's going to nod in agreement with Nathan here, before looking to Saix.]

Agreed. That's something we need to start working on immediately.

[daughterofursa]

[Zuko glances over at Saix and nods. She's definitely been thinking about that.]

There are people we look to already. We should probably formalize that if we want things to run more smoothly.

[superdrowningskills]

[Alucard will be the first to admit that he doesn't really understand most of this science stuff (although probably not aloud). He does, however, have a simple suggestion.]

...Would it not make sense to attach the pieces that wish to drift away together with rope or chain?

[bastionpc]

[Nathaniel agrees with the idea of some kind of leadership, there's enough people here to justify that at this point.]

If you're looking for leaders, I think Zuko has the right idea. Look at who tends to have the plans right now, and decide from those people.

[For Alucard's question, though...]

Well...pieces of the Skyway don't exactly have a set size. The part with the chain attached to it could break off from the rest, and then we'd have the same problem as before. Plus that wouldn't solve the problem of having things like electricity.