WEEK 2

[bathymetric]

So far, good news! You've managed to avoid killing! A week has passed in the facility, but how many more are there to go until one of you tries out Rule Seven? I mean.... we know, but.

No new areas just yet, it remains you guys and yours here for now. Well, and Angel, but again - you don't exactly see her unless you want to. It's more than a little lonely... maybe someone ought to shake things up.



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Week 2, your first case week! Remember to turn in regains here, your AC for last week here, and if you like, come visit Angel's office hours here!

Comments

[snackooed]

6,000 years ago? Hm, I was always more of a science person than a history one, but I can help, if you wouldn't mind the extra hands. I can't say I know much about the 4th millennium BC, but I'm a decent researcher, so I could tell you all about it with a bit of time and a cup of coffee.

[hardnosed]

[ Why? she almost asks. Why venture outside her specialization? Why help someone who's done nothing for her?

But even the humans have to be bored out of their minds here, Jasper remembers. It probably weighs on them more, with so little time to exist in the first place. And it's not like it's going to cost her anything. ]

If you're volunteering. This [ how does she put this ] isn't what I do normally.

[ nnooooooo, what, really ]

[snackooed]

[ That seems more in line with her first guess, really. Even so... ]

I think all of us are a little out of our comfort zone here, to put it mildly.

[ Which is why she sits down and gets cracking at one of the history books-- ]

That doesn't mean our lives have to be that difficult, though. If you don't mind me asking, though...what should have been happening at that time? In your world, anyway. If I have a little more of an idea of that, I'd be able to get the info you need more quickly.

[hardnosed]

That was when the development of earth began in earnest. The Prime Kindergarten in Facet Five was completed and the first Gems implanted there were about to emerge, and construction was underway. All the spires and temples they built for the colony, the arenas... they're still there, but they're ruins.

[ She pauses, looks at whatever page she's open to, and then abruptly shuts it and rises to her feet. ]

I've gotta get something.

[snackooed]

Hm...

[ All of that certainly sounds important enough, but a lot of the terminology is whizzing right over her head. Facet Five? ]

I'm not going anywhere, but I'll look into the temples and stone structures from that time period. If we still have ruins of them, we can probably find how they were made...

[hardnosed]

[ Jasper, meanwhile, is up scanning whatever here passes for a geography section! After about a minute of dissatisfied grunting, she produces an atlas and comes back to sit down where she started. ]

I know you lot don't use our names. [ She opens it and starts flipping through the contents, stopping when she gets to a full map of the earth. ] This is easier. Facet 5 is [ she drags her finger down what looks like the Eastern seaboard of the United States ] this area, here. The Prime Kindergarten [ and her finger stops! ] was there.

[snackooed]

Aha, I've got it. It's pretty much all the way across from where I was, right here...

[ She spots Los Angeles on the map and points her finger there. ]

But I'd like to hear a little more about this Prime Kindergarten, then, if you don't mind. Its purpose was to make these Gems?

[hardnosed]

[ Oh hey, not too far from the Beta Kindergarten she's absolutely not going to bring up now! Jasper nods in response. ]

Gems aren't organic lifeforms. We don't just... [ and she waves her hand around in a gesture that is very vague, and thank god, because she continues on to say ] reproduce all over the place. Everything is planned in advance.

To create more Gems, especially strong ones, you need a location rich in specific resources, with enough potential injection sites for many Gems to grow. This one was an ideal production space for Quartzes.

[snackooed]

So they take in nutrients from the planet, and that makes them grow big and strong, huh...sounds like a hybrid between forestation and rock formations. That's kind of fascinating...

[ It does have her curious, though... ]

So about how many Gems would grow, then, per site? Hundreds, maybe?

[hardnosed]

[ in this edition of Leah Makes Shit Up: ]

Per batch, maybe. Gems stay in the ground for hundreds of years before exiting — usually the technicians stagger groups. They probably would have gone deeper to make more room after the canyon walls were exhausted.