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video; medbay psa take 2

Hi. Hi. William from Medical again.

[After the blurry bulge of his nose backs out of too-close soft-focus, William looks worse than last time, if not nearly as bad as some. His eyes are very glazed, very bright blinking at approximately thirty percent the speed that they were in his video with Peter, which is a thing that happens to humans when they're very tired. (He is, finally.) In contrast, he's talking proportionately louder than he was before. Exhaustion doesn't preclude excitement.] Unfortunately, we've yet to come up with any kind of a fucking cure. However, we now have some understanding of the etiology of this shit been plaguing us the past few weeks.

Nanites seem to be causing both the shipwide malfunctions and the disease. Not the ones swimming 'round in our tattoos; a foreign vector I'll refer to as-- [the unrehearsed nature of this becomes immediately obvious. Sadly Peter Petrelli is elsewhere occupied with being in charge.] --nanorobullshit. Fortunately, we've got exactly one little bugger among the passengers has reported knowledge and abilities related to nanotechnology, and he's this bloke right here. Aye aye.

[Shake and swivel camera to what would appear to be a pale-looking teenager bearing a pleased, toothy grin.]

Hey, so I'm Rex and I can talk to machines. [He gives a little salute with one fist and lets that info sink in. Yeah, it's awesome.] I checked out my ship-nanites as soon as I arrived-- there was only one type at that time. Now, the sicker people are, the higher their concentrations of this second nanite. The mutations seem to be the ship-nanites' attempt to heal and protect us. [Got it? Good.]

If anyone else on board knows about nanites, I can fill you in on what I know.

[Another tremble and blur, and the comm device turns back to William.] We are still in need of a solution, but we hope that this information can guide your, [he blinks hard. Vocabulary fails him.] shit.

Peter Petrelli has stated that the Medical Bay is open to investigation, though as usual access to sensitive equipment is locked to personnel. Charles Xavier is heading up the Xenobio side of things, including other laboratories and experimental treatments. Kate Bishop is heading up investigation into the physical source of this bullshit, and Mr. Luke Skywalker is presently our tech consult. Heather Mason will probably feed you. Refer to the network for details. Also anybody been vomiting in their sleep needs to be positioned on their side. Laters.

[Attached are: bastard-fucking-bullshit-new-nanites-micrograph.4345 and original-nanites-micrograph.4344]

OOC: Peter-player approved these mild autopilots. You can consider this an infodump. Though Rex's player and I are happy to thread about the details/process of inference/theories/trial-and-error, it'd be totally cool if people went ahead and started launching the solutions we OOCly know about in here as well, threadjacking A-OK. William may be too busy to answer anything that isn't obviously directed at him.

Nanite extraction equipment (OOC): ICly, the probable solution. IC organization pending, network threads and log to be started by relevant players

Main plot discussion (OOC): In case you lost it.

Gravcouch exploration (IC Network): investigating the probable source of the jerk nanorobots.

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[ raven has to watch this twice before she processes all of it, which is frustrating to no end but - whatever, not the time to let this 'sick' bullshit get under her skin. ...ha. ]

don't know nanites but i know tech
any kind

fill me in. i catch on fast

excellent

there are people looking into nanotech-related machinery. Ill point them to you when I hear about it

machinery i can do

what kind of shape's it in? functional? if it isn't, do we have the parts for it or am i gonna have to hunt down scrap

Hi, I'm Luke. As of now we haven't found anything so our current job is finding nanotech equipment. Likely locations are the medbay and science department but could be elsewhere. The more eyes, ears, and brains we have the better our chances so we could definitely use you.

[ and here raven had figured 'looking into' meant they at least had their hands on something. ]

just tell me where you need me and i'll be there

Medbay is crowded right now so sci department probably best. Some people already there so find them and they can put you to work.

on it.

[ ooc | is there a thread i should tag into somewhere? ]

Thank you!

((Yes! Charles and sundry have an open science department log here where I believe one of the nanotech machines is going to be discovered.))

might as well do what i can, right?

[ for anyone whose interests it might be relevant to, she's over in the SCI log now. ]

[Jack swears under his breath.]

I knew it. I knew it had to be the nanites. It's just the same as before...! Okay, maybe not just the same, but still.

What do you mean before!

[William's eyes are wide, but it turns out that's because he's trying to scrape the fuzzy feeling out of them with his fingertip. Realizing this is indecorous, he twists away from the camera momentarily, though his voice is still audio.]

Snape's always on about reading the history of the Tranquility, but there never seems like time for that balls-- until there really ain't time at all.

Sorry. I meant before, before. Before this place. My past. Something happened, nanogenes were introduced into people where they had never been before. They were supposed to heal, but they got the blueprint wrong. Started mutating people to fit what it thought was right.

[He shudders, and it's much the fever as the memory of it.] Some pretty horrible stuff. And not all that different from the stuff going on here. It's what got me thinking.

That's what you think's going on?

[Long ago and far away stories still have relevance up here in space. Micrography works almost the same, why not terrifying megalomaniac nanogene nonsense.] It's possible. We've determined that the mutations are in response to the organ failure, as was said, but. Maybe that relationship's more complex than we thought.

If the nanorobitches is technically designed with an end goal of mutation, maybe-- organ failure only occurs when the process is hitting a snag. [His brow furrows.] Or something.

You mean to say that all of this has been caused by tiny robots?

You got it. Could have been worse, though. Where I'm from, they turn people into berserk monsters so...

Berserk monsters might have been more quickly solved.

[That's possibly a little cold to be saying on the network, but it's been a long week.]

My understanding of this technology was that it followed commands. Can we not simply tell them to stop?

[He frowns a bit at that, but doesn't fight him on it. People on the Tranquility are quicker to jump to violence than he's used to... which is saying something.]

Theoretically, yes. But they're so heavily encrypted that I can't pull any information from them-- let alone input anything new.

[Gold isn't so bad with tech as to be stumped by the idea of encryptions, but he does still relate to it in terms of locks. And locks don't happen accidentally.]

Then this was intentional. Someone infected us with this plague.

Could be. Or they might have come from the ship. There's no way to tell. [ He says this firmly. The last thing they need is for someone to go off half-cocked at the local tech experts. ]

[That gets raised eyebrows. Under other circumstances he might be more bemused by the insistence, but right now he's a little too irritated by everything to hold tolerance for vague optimism and premature defences of fair justice.]

'Coming from the ship' holds just as much intention as any other possibility, unless you'd rather hold onto the notion that our continued unfortunate experiences are just bad luck and poor happenstance.

[He says it dismissively - it's not a real suggestion. But it does bring into highlight that they can't follow the course of finding the culprit and solving the problem that way. If it is the ship, there'll be nothing to find.]

Surely there's some way to just... flush the damn things out.

[A slight wrinkle to his nose. This newfangled medical science stuff is gross.]

If we get a trace on their origins, we'll make an announcement. [Determined cartoon protag eyes go here.]

As far as flushing them... that's a little trickier. Nanites tend to get tangled up in living tissue, so any sort of physical removal is dangerous unless the tech used can get them to disengage first. [ Blue light flares up the arm he's gesticulating with. ] We're working on it.

[The look on Gold's face twists into something incredulous and slightly disgusted at tangled up in living tissue, an expression that doesn't really change even at the light show Rex makes. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make things like this and put them in people?]

Perhaps, if tech is what's causing the problem, you should be looking for something more non-technological for the solution.

[Still unaccustomed to the idea of magic being real, Rex assumes that 'non-technological' amounts to 'holistic medicine' and mostly succeeds at not wrinkling his nose. ] Minerals and stuff are only going to get us so far.

Not quite what I meant.

[She frowns deeply, her brow furrowing in concentration. This sort of thing does not come easily to her, not at all. She'd never heard of electricity before coming aboard this ship, for goodness sake. But she's trying.]

Have you any notion of the origins of the more...hostile nanites? [Did she say that right?]

Afraid I haven't.

[She seems to have caught him in a lull. William is sitting, the medical bay behind him quiet and dark, except for the privacy screens glowing milkily pale.] Not yet, at any rate. Kate's been working on it. She took one of ours with her-- two of ours, for access. Doesn't seem to be a passenger, but it would've been someone on-board.

Somebody knows a shitton about nanites.

One more mystery to add to the lot, then. [Her frown deepens and she sighs, rubbing her forehead.] Forgive me if this has long since occurred to you -I have little knowledge of such things- but it seems to me the most efficient system of delivery would be the 'pods.' Have they been examined?

Actually we tried that. [William looks regretful, shrinking in the monitor as he sits back in his seat.] The things is all sealed up, totally locked up, until the next Jump. Not even medbay nanite access can get us in. However, that's where Kate comes in. Even though we can't get into the gravcouches themselves, Kate and her crew is tracing the source of the substrate fluid.

[A beat.] I seen you around the network. You been here a long time, haven't you?

[Well. She doesn't have much more to add to that. Really, she's just glad that people who do know about this sort of thing are on it. So she simply gives a thoughtful little nod and moves on.]

That is a matter of perspective, is it not? I have been here far longer than I would wish to be, certainly; it has been... [Give her a moment to think] well over a year by the most common calender.

That's a long time, love. [Eventually, he'll figure out that 'love' is a fondism a little too intimate for plenty of vaguely acquainted women on the ship. Until then, though, he says it without any real or special weight.]

Have you got any clue who else is on here ain't a slavering mindless manticore, might have done this to us?

[Mileage apparently varies on how much she has to add to the present crisis. A year of experience is considerably more than he has.]

For a mortal, perhaps. [But not for her. And yes, she does just intend to gloss right over that.] And I will thank you to call me 'Galadriel.' I may have dispensed with my title for now, but I have not become so informal as to permit endearments from near-strangers. [Thankfully, she doesn't sound too offended, though. Probably, in large part, because of the normality of his tone. She knows better than to think he meant anything by it.]

As for who else may be aboard, I know nothing with certainty. I might share my speculation, if you wish?

Galadriel, then, [William's quick to accept the change, not a problem. A moment spent looking over the screen reassures him that she isn't offended-- definitely better than the alternative.] Your speculation's very welcome.

[Those who know him would note he's being somewhat less informal than usual. Even digitized and shrunk down to a few inches up and across, Galadriel commands certain considerations.]

[She settles back against her chair.] Throughout my time here, we have been given... it is perhaps simplest to call them 'glimpses' into the fates of the crew which was here before us- either through the network, through visions, or, in rare circumstances, through actual interaction. I cannot fully explain all that happens here, but it is enough to lead me to believe that there is some slip in time, for lack of a better way of putting it, that may be occurring. That our fate is intertwined with theirs.

I would therefor suggest that, if we seek to understand how this has happened now, we should look for records of a similar event in the past.

[The young man's eyes widen, narrow, then brighten again. The corner of his mouth twitches after that, remembering that she certainly isn't the only person to have ever recommended a record review; it's just that.

It's just that the records go so far back, raritywhy.] Sounds right, [he says.] I known a few passengers who've made fairly extensive study of the network archives. Have you got any quick references to these glimpses you've seen? Or can you describe when and what they was, if you experienced them yourself?

"Quick" is the most difficult part of that request. With time enough, I could find something, I am certain, but it would be quite a task. A great many of us shared a- dream, for lack of a better word for it- during the jump last December, I believe? Significantly, it did involve members of the previous crew believing that some of their fellows were becoming monsters of some kind, though it was never clear what of this was truth and what was madness.

That sounds like the local brand of fucked up, yeah. All right. Fuck it.

People have been on me to look through the archives for months, honestly, so I will and get back to you.

By all means. I would be most grateful.

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present day now y/y

works for me. and sorry for the perpetual slowness.