VIDEO ☢ OO3。

[anomalies]

Hey. [ HELLO, TRANQUILITY. someone appears to have found a razor since their last post. someone also appears to have not slept in the past... well, sleeping's overrated. connor's eyes are droopy and dark, and if the communicator could communicate smell, it'd probably be producing a intense odor of coffee. which is pretty much all he's been drinking lately.

off the side of the feed, there appears to be some kind of shifting, golden light—it's throwing cheerful, twinkly shapes against the walls of his room, lending a pleasant atmosphere to the feed, despite connor's obvious discomfort. the source of this light remains offscreen, but the mask is there nonetheless, sat innocently on connor's bed. despite telling abby he would... he hasn't yet locked it away. he can't seem to make himself do it. (it's got to be there for a reason, right?)

anyway. not the point. ]

Right. Couple of things. I'll try to be quick.
Jenna mentioned a headcount system last month, so Tony and I put our heads together and whipped up something to keep track of what numbers are in use at any given time. It's completely anonymous, so no names associated with the numbers—just that they're being used, which gives us a pretty solid count of how many passengers are onboard and using their comms, which comms are active, that sorta thing. It's obviously not gonna work on life-forms who aren't using the communicators, but this is a pretty good springboard. I heard— [ stalked ] —Communications was working on something a bit more refined?

If you guys need an extra pair of hands on that, I'd be happy to help.

And trust me, if there was some way of knowing what else is lurking on this big hunk of metal with us, I'd be all over it, but right now, this is the best I've got. [ he offers a small shrug, rubbing his hands together. ] We can work on triangulating organic life forms next, I suppose, but that might take a bit more doing.

Anyway, it's been up and running for a while—but I finally hooked up a VDT from the science department in medical to display the actual number, so you can check to see if it's fluctuated at all before or after this jump. No disrespect to the dead or missing, but this might... make it a bit easier to figure out if someone's gone right off the bat. There's also a subnetwork version if you'd rather check in on the go. I'm putting it up now. [ he reaches forward to tap a few keys, and a text link pops up. ]

» HEADCOUNT

[ right, onto the next thing. ]

I've been thinking. [ more like debating various distractions from all the crap that's been happening lately, but: ] If anyone were interested, we could start up a sort of... lecture series. There's a lot of people what are really well-read in their respective fields, and it'd be nice to spread the wealth. So to speak. So—the idea is, pick a topic you're particularly specialised in, and we can set up something in one of the conference rooms, or maybe a rec room. Broadcast it to the network. Myself, I've got experience in computer science, mechanical engineering, physics, and palaeontology, but I know quite a lot of other people've got experience in some of the same stuff—it'd be good to give everyone a chance to present what they'd like. Y'know. Variety.

I've typed up a rudimentary electronic sign-up sheet, so if there's enough interest, maybe we can make it happen. [ or something. ]

LECTURE SIGN-UPS (NAME, SUBJECT) 1. Connor Temple, Palaeontology OR Temporal Physics 2. Chapel Hill, Nanotechnology OR Basketball 3. Mike Ross, Literature 4. Topher Brink, Computational Neuroscience 5. Leoben Conoy, Yoga

Right, that's it from me.

—One last thing, though. Stay safe, everyone, alright? I know weird stuff on this ship's pretty much a given, but... [ he sighs. ] It's been a bit weirder than usual. Let's try to keep our wits about us.

[ connor out. ]

Comments

[voice]

[jurisimpudent]

The head-count is a very good idea. For what it is worth, you have my thanks for it.

[voice]

[anomalies]

[ aw. you can pretty much hear the faint grin in connor's voice. ]

Thanks. Wasn't my idea, but—no problem.

video;

[fraud]

I'm good at... law. I dunno, if you wanna dude who does that or something.

[ a nonchalant shrug and he kind of runs a hand through his hair. he's sitting on his bed in his raggedy hoodie and jeans, stubbled all up and hair kind of messy as fuck. he looks kind of gaunt too, like he hasn't slept in ages. yeah, he's totally good at law. ]

voice;

[growling]

I bet you write a stellar resume too.

[ seriously though, way to sell yourself bro. ]

video;

[anomalies]

[ ... wow, okay, sudden flashbacks to duncan and his cave of slightly horrifying conspiracy discoveries. connor's eyebrows go up—judgmentally—but he shrugs, because hey, if you're good at something... you're good at something. ]

Sure. [ er. ] Any specific law... area?

voice;

[starked]

Do we have to?

[ tony, please sound more like a five year old about signing up to teach. ]

voice;

[goldshirt]

You don't.

voice;

[firstofficer]

I wish to echo this query.
Are passengers obligated to listen to Mister Stark?

voice;

[anomalies]

What happens if I say yes?

[ will you actually do it. serious question. no, he's joking, he can't imagine tony teaching would amount to anything good.

... even though it'd be fun to watch. ]

video »

[unparental]

You guys are still my absolute heroes on that one.

video »

[anomalies]

Heroes? [ he can definitely live with that. ] Yeah, alright. Cool.

video;

[goldshirt]

Fancy.

video;

[anomalies]

[ he tries. ]

Cheers, mate.

voice;

[firstofficer]

[ it bears repeating okay ]
Palaeontology or Temporal Physics?

voice;

[anomalies]

Yep.

[ don't you judge him, he's a man of many... disparate... talents! ]

» video

[tarheel]

[ aaaaaand chapel's finely-honed this gon' be good senses are going off. ]

I'm pretty sure you could just go ahead and call 'em TED talks, except for the part where we're not competing for prize money.

» video

[anomalies]

[ yes but chapel not everyone is from earth be culturally sensitive like connor generally isn't. ]

Didn't want to mess with copyright infringement. Y'know. Just in case.

[ ... does this mean you volunteer, or. ]

voice;

[coffeeking]

Well done.

video »

[anomalies]

[ more praise? don't mind if he does. ]

Thanks.

text;

[inebriety]

How to be a high-functioning alcoholic with the help of nanites.*

*Building your own nanites will not be covered as it would take me too long

text;

[anomalies]

not... sure that'd go over well.
in any sense.

[ wait for it ]

hang on a minute
you can build your own?

video; comms encryption

[cargojet]

Keep it down. It may seem like a great idea to you and me and anyone sane, but once the reality of it sinks in, our being able to track anyone down at any given time is going to seem like a gross invasion of privacy. That's what we want in the end, so if you got your technology down to individual numbers, permanent IDs, I'd love to see if you can merge it with ours.

I'd also be psyched if we can assign some sort of IDs to the various methods different comms use to be anonymous. Don't know if you've got any thoughts on that? That way even anonymous users can have pseudonyms. Creepy Anon, Speaks Like Smiley Anon and Miserable Asshole Anon, that sort of thing.

[ Oh right he was getting to a point. ]

I've been looking for excuses to get Comms working with other groups on board, so if you wanna come in and take a look at our tech, get friendly with the team and see who you think you'd like to work with, I think we can accommodate that. Drop in any time.

video; comms encryption, bumped up to 100% unhackable

[anomalies]

What? Oh. [ oh. okay. yes. that. ] Wow, sorry, didn't realise it'd be such a problem.

[ as... with most things, when you're dealing with connor. ]

Well, I—I mean I could do that, but like you said. Gross invasion of privacy, so I thought perhaps it might be best not to touch on it yet. Just in case people might have problems. But theoretically—actually, no, I know I could do it—you can comb the network for people who've said their names in conjunction with their numbers with a hackable encryption and start a list that way. I don't know how to tackle people who've gone anonymous; the network kinda completely scrambles that connection, and it's hard enough to wade though it as it is.

But I suppose— [ and here connor pauses, looking down at his hands for a moment, gnawing the inside of his cheek. this feels... just a bit sketchy, if he's honest. ] Er, right. I don't think it'd be too far of a stretch to assume that going anon might use the same kind of channels for the same kind of people. So even if we can't determine who they are, we might be able to differentiate them from other anonymous users, like you said. That way we could try to assign names.

[ he pauses again. ]

I've been working primarily with Science and Engineering, but I'd really like to come check out Comms and meet a few people. Love to, actually. And no disrespect, but... are you really sure we should be doing any of this? D'you really think it's... I dunno, necessary?

Text;

[theredchampion]

What are we considering an 'active' network ID? Simply that the communicator is turned on? For that would not register a loss after a jump so easily. That it is showing network traffic? How long would it have to be unused to display as 'inactive'?

Enquiring minds.

Text;

[anomalies]

that a communicator is turned on and that someone's using it.
so yeah - network traffic, i suppose.
just looking at the numbers says that a comms device is generally not unused for more than 24 hours at a time
when people aren't in stasis. so if it's not been touched for longer than that, it won't register.

i mean obviously it can be compensated from when someone's in the brig
and if someone's lost or destroyed it accidentally that can also... affect the count
but this is just meant to be a rudimentary sort of thing, just as a jumping point.

[ voice ]

[sexting]

[ drum roll for the feature point of this entire post: ]

Ah, you've shaved.

[ and he sounds rather pleased about it tbh. ]

[ voice ]

[anomalies]

[ only through sheer force of will does he not touch his face. ]

Yep.

[ t... ha.. nks? totally did it for abby ngl. ]

[andblockbuster]

I'm sure there's about ten guys who'll want dibs on computer programming, but if anyone wants to sit on a lecture on computational neuroscience, I'm still the leading expert.

[anomalies]

[ so that's what you do topher ugh neuroscience that's so awesome ]

Supercool. [ HUGE GROUP OF NERDS, HUGE GROUP OF NERDS ] So I'll just put that down?

[meddler]

How about temporal paradoxes?

[anomalies]

Temporal paradoxes.

[ what what what could it be that someone else studies this stuff too oh my god

GO ON... ]

voice;

[toasterprophet]

I used to teach yoga. But that's more of an in-person kind of thing. [But wow, considering the way people are acting lately, could some of them ever use it.]

voice;

[anomalies]

[ huh. ]

Still counts. Probably. I can add it, if you like?

voice;

[mingus]

[ there's a hum of thought here. ]

This is really good. There's a lot of programers aboard so I won't offer mine but --

[ it's almost like he's running his fingers against your codes, connor. but actually, he's at his desk in comms and with the braille keyboard and hooking up his comm to his computer, he can convert your codes to train for him to feel. neato! ]

I think I'll stick around to see what comes up.