thebastion | (no subject)

Who: Colin Starfury, any meddling kids
Open: Open as the plains
When: Day 267, late morning and early afternoon.
Where: The Farmland
What: Doing another survey for more development
Format: Anything, can match
Warnings: Colin IS a warning

As far as plans went, this wasn't how Colin had wanted to spend this week. There were a lot of things that needed doing even before the plight of the Ura reared its head. But Colin was an engineer, and he knew well that the universe had plans of its own and it really didn't care one little bit of the plans of individual people.

The day before this had been spent doing research, and helping Rob build his new cart. That had taken a fair amount of time on its own, but it was work that needed to be done if they wanted to set up a supply line. Now that the transportation was done, it was time to set up the facilities that would give them the supplies down the line.

So here he was, setting out more stakes and flags, taking more measurements, and generally making it apparent that SOMETHING is going to be going up in this area soon. And if the layout of the flags and stakes are any indication, it's going to be something BIG.

Anyone care to bother the engineer at work?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No tools needed, no plowing needed," Colin says, his expression turning to a smirk. "No SOIL needed for many of them. The farms I'm introducing are the kind we use to jumpstart colonial life on barren worlds without food production capabilities."

He gestures out over the land again. "Several buildings, climate controlled, mineral bath streams for the plants to ensure proper nutrition and growth," he says, sounding a little distracted. "The trick is... making it WRONG renders everything useless. Getting a plant to grow outside of its typical conditions is not easy."

He shakes his head then. "Nothing to be done, really," he says apologetically. "I don't have an interface for other people to use my scanners. And I need to adjust everything on the fly when I find something wrong, so I can't exactly draw up a solid blueprint..."

"... Huh. That brings up one point of concern. How reliable will the farm be if you're not available for a significant length of time?", Megaera asked. "If something happens..."

"Everyone's so worried about my well-being all of a sudden," Colin says, laughing. "I will be making sure there are instructions that a majority of the Bastion can read, don't you worry. Besides, I'm going to need to teach other people how to use this facility. I may be amazing, but I am not omnipresent. I can't do everything at once."

Megaera chuckled in turn. "You've just started a project that's more than a little critical to our ability to grow, so, needless to say, we're all cautious about that project managing to fail somehow. Which becomes more likely if you aren't handy."

She paused. "You mentioned your tools won't really work for anyone else. Is that just because no one else could read the language, or something else?"

Edited 2015-01-11 17:25 (UTC)

"Not quite," Colin says, smirking. "My sensors are in my eye, and my computers are distributed across several parts of me. No external interfaces."

He beams then, and nods in answer to her first statement. "But I'm not to worried," he tells her. "I leave lots of documentation. In multiple languages."

"... Wait, so like fleshgrafts, then?"

Megaera's experience with grafts was extremely limited - they didn't work on her kind at all due to their highly mutable form - but she knew that some human researchers had experimented with attaching parts of other creatures to themselves. It required a lot of magic to make happen, but it worked.

The idea of technology - electrical devices - within one's body was not as intuitive a leap to her, though...

"That's good, at least. One of my tricks lets me read any language, so..."

"All the more useful," Colin says. "And... well, explaining cybernetics is rather difficult, so if you've got a reference point that works, that's a pretty good way to go on."

He steps forward a bit and crouches, placing another stake in the ground. "Plus, the monument can teach people to read different different languages," he says. "So nothing here should be beyond anyone's literacy if they're willing to spend some shards."

"A fair point. Makes me wonder if a lab for being able to add some of those sensors to other people might be a thing worth getting at some point, though," Megaera considered.

"Never mind that the Shards might start to become harder to find over time.... I don't want to think about that too hard."

"It's also a major reconstructive surgery," Colin said, shaking his head. "It's not an organic eye. Had to pluck the real one to install the artificial one. Learning to use it was interesting. Worthwhile, but not exactly a luxury we have here..."

"Ah. Time costs, yeah. Not good," Megaera observed. "Some alternative measure would be good in time, but that's a lower priority than just getting the food system going."