Color me curious. Since we're such a diverse group of people - how many of you are from "Earth"? I don't care what version of it, I don't care what time you're from. Considering that we're all supposed to be from different galaxies and times, why is it your wonderful planet that gets picked on?

Not that I'm minding, there are so many people from my own galaxy that I'd hate to see again (though, if there's an old man called Ben Kenobi or Obi Wan still hiding out here, I still want my money), it's just odd that it's that galaxy that gets all the fun.

Or, you know, tell me where you're from. How are you? What's Earth like? Something - it's just bugging me.

[ the transmission comes on to reveal a teenager with blonde hair, leaning forward a little too close into the video before he pulls back, muttering a low-- ] Bloody hell. [ before he actually goes to address the network at large. ]

Sorry bout being a proper greenie bout this, but--my name's Newt. Would rather go by a name than a number. [ even if it's not his real name, but. newt at least sounds friendly, if a little exasperated by his entire situation--then again, what else is new? he still offers the camera a little bit of a smile, brown eyes twinkling. ] I just jumped through a flat trans and ended up in bloody space. I guess this place ain't WICKED--nobody seems to know a shucking thing about it, 'sides me, so I guess I just had a question for you. Two, actually.

First off-- [ newt holds up a finger ] Do any of you live anything like this back home? And I don't mean in a bloody spaceship, I mean like--like life's some kinda trial, buncha different things gettin thrown at you for you to try and live through. [ his lips purse for a second, a little resigned. ] I was so sure this piece-of-klunk situation was just another bloody WICKED experiment... I'm still not sure if it isn't.

[ the second of his points is a little less dark, and he puts up two fingers before dropping them, making a little bit of a face; one eye squints up, almost like he's exasperated, if affectionately so. ] Second, for the love of everything good and shucky, have you seen my friend Tommy? Goes by Thomas, I guess. Brown hair, 'bout yay high, [ he gestures at his shoulder ] probably runnin around askin a lot of questions and stickin his nose into things he shouldn't be.

Thanks proper. [ he waves, then there's a little fidgeting before the feed finally goes out. ]

[ not suspected butt texts for you today, instead just a grim-faced teen who looks like he needs to sleep. ]

Corvo Attano is gone.

[ and cut feed. ]

[ katniss has had a month of bored recovery after being seriously mutated by last month's illness. she's still embarrassed about the loss of most of her hair, and she isn't a big fan of texting, so this is voice, though she's just sitting on her bed, playing with the pearl she found in the pocket of her suit from home, rolling it between her fingers. it's late. she woke up screaming. she wonders if she should apologize to tyke, sometime, or if that's not something you bring up to your superior. ]

[ initially, she was going to ask someone to take the wedding dress out of her locker before the next jump, so she doesn't ever have to see it again, but instead all the frustration and restlessness and uselessness that's plagued her since her arrival on this ship coagulates into an angry ball. so when she presses play, she just asks one question, direct and simple and with a grit of fury to it that could be interpreted as either petulance or passion. ]

Why are we here?

[ because no matter what happens, no matter how many theories get floated, she still doesn't have an answer to that question. at least the Games had a clear end point, even if the goal was to kill every other person. ]

( now that she's had some time to recover from the outbreak of "plague", elizabeth deems herself presentable enough to appear to the ship as a whole. she might have pinched her cheeks a little to inject some colour and done her hair up in ribbons to look her best; but she has done so for more reasons than simply to flatter her pride or vanity. her smile is sweet and gentle, though it does not reach her eyes. her gaze instead is quiet and thoughtful, because this is a tremendously bittersweet occasion for her. )

Greetings, Tranquility. Within the past several months, we have all suffered and lost many who are and will ever be dear to us. Far too much to be borne by anyone within the realm of reason. Yet we have, and I daresay grown together as a community as a result. That gladdens me a great deal.

Each day we have is precious. We know not when the next bout of unpleasantness may strike upon us, nor when any of us might vanish from this ship, returned to our homes. While things are peaceful, I would celebrate that fact. That we are here and alive, and in the company of those we have come to care for. Some of you are as dear to me as members of my own family.

( ok, the sappy part is done with. her eyes light up with good cheer now. )

Thus, I invite all of you to a feast held within the kitchens of the first floor, four days hence. It will do us good, I think to feast and be merry together.

I will need some aid in this endeavour, though, should any of you wish to lend a hand in acquiring foodstuffs and preparing the meal itself. I will both owe you a favour and be eternally grateful. Also, should any of you wish to have a specific dish at the table, please do share the recipe for it with me if you know it.

What say you?

Got two things to ask and one thing to offer. I'll try to make it short and sweet.


QUESTION 1: What destroyed or depopulated your version of Earth? Nukes, asteroids, zombies? If nothing did yet, what took the closest shot so far?

Same question if you're not from Earth - just swap out Earth for wherever you came from.

I'm not compiling a spreadsheet or anything. I guess it's just something I've wondered.


QUESTION 2: What are we even doing here? What's our destination? The purpose of the voyage? Who sent us, and why us? Maybe I missed something and by all means point me there if I did, but in less than a day, this ship sucks up more resources than the Ark could spare for a month.

I've been here for over a month now and I'm the first person I've seen ask anything like this so far. I want to think it's because we were up to our airholes in highly invasive nanotechnology. Or - like I said, maybe I missed the big 'who, what, where, and why' memo.


OFFER: I'm bored off my rocks, if you haven't picked up on that yet. I was a zero-G mech back on the Ark, and if that's not enough, I helped fix the thing that saved your asses pre-Jump. I can repair, rebuild, or build from scrap just about anything you can think of. So somebody give me a job before I start opening panels and improving whatever the hell's inside.

[ is she serious? she very well could be, so throw her a bone here, yeah? ]

[ lydia looks like she's exhausted and if she's truthful about it she honestly is exhausted. for a moment it looks like she's not going to say anything, that she just wanted to broadcast her own face just to show how she appears before she ends up just exhaling. ]

I've been here two years. I know we don't measure things by months and years here but— it's been 25 jumps and where I come from that might as well mean two years. I've been home for months at a time and it felt like a blink of an eye. [ she pauses. ] I'm tired of being on this ship. You get people who are dead at home here and there's no guarantee they'll stay. If you're lucky they stay and you get to bond with them. If you're not, they just leave and you don't. You— who can totally go back home and be alive. They can't.

I get wanting to stay because of that. You all can enjoy being on a creepy horror ship that I'm honestly pretty sure wants us dead or something even worse. It's better than being dead at home, I'll give you that. But I want to go home already. I want to see my mom again and not find myself back here afterward.

[ lydia clears her throat. ] I want to find a way home. I don't want to make this place my home any more than I have. And to do that, I need to do a little research. Now, if you're the type that's getting a little tired of being here and would like to help, you should come talk to me. And maybe, with any luck and a lack of another plague happening, we might actually make some headway.

This place gives a whole new level of meaning to SITUATION NORMAL, ALL FUCKED UP.

[ if this were not a text post but rather audio or video, there would be a pause here as he chooses his words, but given that it is text, there is no lag. ] Looks like Petrelli's gone. [ the lack of specification as to which of the two petrelli brothers is deliberate, seeing how they're both gone, but he really means nathan. ]


RECON FILTER | 75% ENCRYPTION.
Check in. Especially you, Thomas.

[The video blips on--but as it's meant to be voice, it's not a steady video, or even a good one. The lighting is poor, flickering a little, and at first, the recording is mainly of a hand and a portion of wall. This is one of the lifts, with no life to it. The first sound captured by the recording is a cry of pain, from somewhere off-screen--loud, and low, and agonised--before it cuts off into sharp, panted breaths instead. The video blurs, as Sirius moves--he's the one holding the device, and he hunches over it to record, so most of the image is now his face--]

One of the blue lifts, in the passenger quarters-- it's out. It's stuck, it's not moving. Again. What a shit month we're having. Welcome to space.

[He looks pretty shitty himself, face all pale and hollow, hair damp with sweat. When he turns to look off-video, there's a streak of blood along his cheek, dripping down from his ear. He's looking at someone; he's not alone, the pained breathing, the cry--those belong to someone else. (Sally, actually, midway through a werewolf transformation, not appearing in this film.)]

This lift's meant to be going up to, uh. To one of the higher levels, one of the ones way beyond us. Avoid the passenger lifts for now if you can, I don't know--this one might start up again, and if it does, that's--we'll be all right. And if you do call a lift going up, don't-- jam the door before you let it open, if you can. Wait. You'll know which one this is, you'll be able to hear it, just don't board it. This one's not safe. And no one try and fetch this one just yet. Leave it where it is, just leave it.

[Another sound of pain, from off-screen--louder, more insistent--Sirius bites at his lip, hard, and whether this is to himself, or the Tranquility at large, or Sally, it's not obvious, but he offers--] It's all right.

[Another start of a scream, but by then he's thumbing off the recording, and that's all.]



[[ooc note tho: MOST responses to this will be ic-ly delayed! this is a werewolf transformation in a tiny box scenario. feel free to recognise the voice shouting in pain as Sally's I think that is okay (I will note if that changes).]]

[ She looks, perhaps, a tad miserable and she sounds miserable, but Allison Argent is the leader of a family of hunters of the supernatural. She's not going to let something like the flu get in her way. That said, she knows she needs to rest, which is why she's laying in bed when she appears on the network. ] Um. So I got this weird message... 'we ride at dawn'? I tried to message it back, but it wouldn't go through. So, um, sorry to whoever sent it, but I think you sent it to the wrong person. Maybe try again?

[ This missive is from an early-teen with black hair and black shades, as well as a confident bearing and an easy smirk. ]

Hey, guys and gals! Name's Robin, and I work for the Communications department.

Welcome - as per the circumstances - to Tranquility for the new arrivals! For everyone, I know this place is big, confusing, rage-inducing - because most of us would prefer to be back home - and generally not fun. Not to mention scary and sometimes pretty evil.

So, I've been thinking, and - for reasons I can explain, if anyone's curious - this goes for the crowd of sixteen and under.

Y'all interested in a movie night? I can probably temporarily turn one of the holodecks into big-big screen, and I'm sure we can find a movie or three that sound at least a little interesting, from the whole media library.

What do you say?

[ Yeah. Because the sixteen-and-under crowd is not even a little negligible. ]

Oh, and for those of you who come from places that don't have movies, yet, they're sort of moving pictures with sound which tell stories!

So, that's my offer. Robin out.

Got a couple of requests.

[ his cut is stripped off and draped across his lap, one desert eagle resting atop it. jax is in his faded white "reaper crew" t-shirt and shoulder holsters. he's sitting tipped back in the chair. his boots are resting on the edge, not that it's within frame. ]

Anyone with some technical know-how wanna swing by the gunnery? See, we been doing what we can on these fucking turrets and consoles, but there's some shit that's beyond us. A bunch of them are too fried to work, and that's a problem, assuming the shit that goes bump in the night comes at us from the outside. Back home, we get a second opinion before ripping out the guts and starting over, so anyone thinks they can shed some light on the situation, I'll owe you one.

[ it's not as detailed a description as it could be, but as far as jax is concerned there's only so many ways to say "fucked beyond comprehension" before getting redundant. he tugs at the strap of one holster, pausing like he's letting that sink in. ]

I also gotta ask, anyone up here capable of tattooing? It's not like I've seen any place capable of it since we made our last stop. Am I reaching here?

[ probably, but a man's gotta ask. ]

Hey, Hyperion. I gotta talk to you too. You got a minute any time soon?

Has anyone seen an ice dragon?

[ musing, seemingly to herself, atop her bed. nymeria's head and forepaws are pillowed on arya's thighs and belly. she brushes the sleeping direwolf's neck. ]

There’s a story of a girl who was born during winter. The cold was so terrible it stole into the house and past the great fire her father had built and it crept under the blankets piled high on the birthing bed. It killed her mother, but not her. She was born blue and cold but alive and winter was inside her.

[ children of winter. a fairy story. but arya is a northern girl — no, a woman, now — and though she has not seen winter yet, it lives in her bones. ]

She loved everything about winter. The cold and the grey skies. Making enormous snow castles that turned to hardest ice overnight and playing with the ice lizards that swarmed out of the snow, but she loved nothing half as much as she did the ice dragon.

It came to her when she was very young. She could pet it without burning her hands from the cold. And one day, she got to ride it.

She didn't tell anyone, though. No one had ever tamed an ice dragon, you see. Anyone who'd gone close would be found the next day a block of ice. And it was her secret anyway.

One day, when summer had come and winter was still a long ways away, other dragons, fire breathing ones, came with their riders. She hid and she thought she would die but her ice dragon came to her even though it was summer and ice dragons never come in summer. Even though she wanted to leave and be with her ice dragon in a place where it's always winter, she couldn't leave her family to die. And the ice dragon loved her so much it stayed and battled the other dragons and their riders and it froze them all and it won — but its wings were melted and it was felled.

[ arya takes her time running her fingers through her wolf's long warm fur. nymeria continues to nap, and arya finishes her story. ]

She ran inside the house and freed her family, but when she went back outside, where her ice dragon had been was only a pond of always cold water. She saved her family, but no one believed her. No one had ever tamed an ice dragon, after all.

It's only a story, [ she continues, her tone as even as it had been through the narrative, ] but I always hear of weird animals in other places. Mayhaps someone knows of one like it. The only true ice dragon we have is a bunch of stars: follow the tail and you'll go south but if you chase its blue eye, you'll find north.

[ find home, she means. but there is no ice dragon here either. perhaps it is only meant to live inside the stories old nan spoke in winterfell. ]

[ Though Éowyn has gotten used to the device over the past few months, she still takes a moment to adjust the camera once it is connected, shifting away and tilting his head politely once she has done so. ]

A good day to all. Months have been since I have arrived here, yet this is the first time I address the ship as a whole. So I introduce myself: my name is Éowyn, I hope to find you all well.

[ Now onto the point of her video. ]

I have recently joined the Security team. As such I wish to practice further, so that my skills will not fall into disuse. For this purpose, I seek any and all people who would be interested in sparring with swords. [ A moment before she adds. ] Equally, if anyone who should like to be taught, I will gladly spare what little knowledge I do have.

That said, I also ask if anyone here should be so willing about teaching me about... firearms, I believe that is the term. I have never before heard of them, so I would ask for your patience as I learn.

Thank you all ever so much for your time. [ She smiles briefly, then adds as a last note. ] Oh, La-- I mean, Buffy, I should like to speak to you when you have the time.

[ And with that, she ends the feed. ]

[Unanon. Not that anyone will necessarily know to think 'Holy shit.']

Hey, good ol' buddies of the TQ. I need a doctor. So I guess if you're in medical raise your hand or something. Thanks.

[Click.]