Time travel shenanigans
Jan. 17th, 2019 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
general_radixWell, less "shenanigans" and "finding out the hard way that there was no surefire method to navigating Cold War paranoia". This is pretty much a revisit of a post from me tumblog with some added musings based on conversation with juzo_kun and hokuton_punch.
The premise: the Rozies somehow end up in mid-1980s Italy, which is a bit of a problem as none of them can speak Italian...oh, and apparently the government of the time was even worse about that "grr arg commies" thing than the US. (This was inspired by watching Star Trek IV for the first time, so similarities abound)
Time travel isn't really a thing in Inmortalitas, at least not that kind of time travel, but for the sake of argument, let's say that the Rozies offered to test a new device of the Jjaro's and it had unexpected results. Said device is (hopefully) still on their ship, and the Rozinante is still in good shape, but until they figure out how to reactivate the device, they're stuck. And wouldn't you know it, a material vital for said reactivation can only be found in a specific region of Earth.
Complicating things further: the Italian government found and confiscated it, and they're not terribly keen on handing it over to a bunch of strangers who not only don't know their way around, but react oddly to just about everything.
* Splitting up isn't the most palatable option, but they'll draw slightly less attention to themselves and hopefully find useful information faster. Before doing so, Vince specifically warns Raz, the sole Russian, not to ask anyone about nuklear wessels.
Unfortunately, while Raz does heed that advice, he knows jack squat about the Cold War other than "it was a thing" and the deeper part of that warning flies over his head.
* However everyone splits off, Raz ends up going with Lysander, who also isn't terribly knowledgeable about late 20th-century politics. Gets to be something of a problem when he's inevitably brought in for questioning and he doesn't realize that Greece (Sandy identifies nationally as Greek and has an obvious accent) was a military dictatorship until recently.
Maybe at the halfway point, he shifts focus from trying to pass himself off as a normal person, to just telling his interrogators outright that whatever they want from him, he can't provide. This is a mistake.
* Raz also gets dragged in and completely fumbles his interrogation, but manages to escape. The problem? His captors witnessed a big strong 6'2" bastard outrun every single guard by many paces, jump down a longer distance than most humans can manage, and leave a big 'ol impact crater where he landed. Their conclusion: "oh shit, the Soviets figured out super-soldiers before we did".
* Oh yeah--without going too far into spoiler-y Inmortalitas-proper stuff, let's just say that the attempts to make battleroids go a long ways back...
* Vince is well-versed in multiple forms of hacking and likes studying what, from his perspective, is ancient Sol Core tech...but 1980s tech presents multiple problems: most of his notions of what to do are too advanced for the time, access to what he needs is much harder to come by, and he can't hack anything from the Rozinante because it's all too old for the ship's systems to interface with.
And he probably keeps slipping up by referencing techniques, systems, file sizes, etc. that, to an '80s person, would be ludicrous even for sci-fi. Ex. realizing too late that he should probably act more impressed over the Cray XMPs.
* All of the androids would get hit with this to some extent, but I think Durandal would be the most frustrated with computer speeds. Everyone around him is baffled by why he's so angry over the computer taking a few seconds to handle each task he gives it.
At some point he might go on a lengthy diatribe about "acceptable" computer speeds...then it slowly dawns on him that discussing 29th/30th-century speeds in a place like this might be a bad idea. Durandal flimsily covers his ass with "uh, I'm an engineer at a very prestigious institution that's also top secret, and this conversation didn't happen".
* Every night, Cassandra attempts to read the events of the next day. This mostly amounts to "inform my teammates of how they would accidentally weaken our cover, then watch them undermine it in a completely different way".
* Finally, the situation starts rapidly going down the tubes after the govt. identifies and puts an APB out for the rest of the Rozies. So now, not only do they have to swipe that phlebotinum and rescue Sandy, but the police are actively gunning for them--perhaps literally, given what I've heard of the Italian police force's weaponry.
Worse? It's very unlikely that someone didn't notice Sandy's neural jack by this point...
* Somewhat lighter note: Vince and co. giving the Jjaro engineer whose device they tested the death glare when they finally get back.
juzo_kun and hokuton_punch.The premise: the Rozies somehow end up in mid-1980s Italy, which is a bit of a problem as none of them can speak Italian...oh, and apparently the government of the time was even worse about that "grr arg commies" thing than the US. (This was inspired by watching Star Trek IV for the first time, so similarities abound)
Time travel isn't really a thing in Inmortalitas, at least not that kind of time travel, but for the sake of argument, let's say that the Rozies offered to test a new device of the Jjaro's and it had unexpected results. Said device is (hopefully) still on their ship, and the Rozinante is still in good shape, but until they figure out how to reactivate the device, they're stuck. And wouldn't you know it, a material vital for said reactivation can only be found in a specific region of Earth.
Complicating things further: the Italian government found and confiscated it, and they're not terribly keen on handing it over to a bunch of strangers who not only don't know their way around, but react oddly to just about everything.
* Splitting up isn't the most palatable option, but they'll draw slightly less attention to themselves and hopefully find useful information faster. Before doing so, Vince specifically warns Raz, the sole Russian, not to ask anyone about nuklear wessels.
Unfortunately, while Raz does heed that advice, he knows jack squat about the Cold War other than "it was a thing" and the deeper part of that warning flies over his head.
* However everyone splits off, Raz ends up going with Lysander, who also isn't terribly knowledgeable about late 20th-century politics. Gets to be something of a problem when he's inevitably brought in for questioning and he doesn't realize that Greece (Sandy identifies nationally as Greek and has an obvious accent) was a military dictatorship until recently.
Maybe at the halfway point, he shifts focus from trying to pass himself off as a normal person, to just telling his interrogators outright that whatever they want from him, he can't provide. This is a mistake.
* Raz also gets dragged in and completely fumbles his interrogation, but manages to escape. The problem? His captors witnessed a big strong 6'2" bastard outrun every single guard by many paces, jump down a longer distance than most humans can manage, and leave a big 'ol impact crater where he landed. Their conclusion: "oh shit, the Soviets figured out super-soldiers before we did".
* Oh yeah--without going too far into spoiler-y Inmortalitas-proper stuff, let's just say that the attempts to make battleroids go a long ways back...
* Vince is well-versed in multiple forms of hacking and likes studying what, from his perspective, is ancient Sol Core tech...but 1980s tech presents multiple problems: most of his notions of what to do are too advanced for the time, access to what he needs is much harder to come by, and he can't hack anything from the Rozinante because it's all too old for the ship's systems to interface with.
And he probably keeps slipping up by referencing techniques, systems, file sizes, etc. that, to an '80s person, would be ludicrous even for sci-fi. Ex. realizing too late that he should probably act more impressed over the Cray XMPs.
* All of the androids would get hit with this to some extent, but I think Durandal would be the most frustrated with computer speeds. Everyone around him is baffled by why he's so angry over the computer taking a few seconds to handle each task he gives it.
At some point he might go on a lengthy diatribe about "acceptable" computer speeds...then it slowly dawns on him that discussing 29th/30th-century speeds in a place like this might be a bad idea. Durandal flimsily covers his ass with "uh, I'm an engineer at a very prestigious institution that's also top secret, and this conversation didn't happen".
* Every night, Cassandra attempts to read the events of the next day. This mostly amounts to "inform my teammates of how they would accidentally weaken our cover, then watch them undermine it in a completely different way".
* Finally, the situation starts rapidly going down the tubes after the govt. identifies and puts an APB out for the rest of the Rozies. So now, not only do they have to swipe that phlebotinum and rescue Sandy, but the police are actively gunning for them--perhaps literally, given what I've heard of the Italian police force's weaponry.
Worse? It's very unlikely that someone didn't notice Sandy's neural jack by this point...
* Somewhat lighter note: Vince and co. giving the Jjaro engineer whose device they tested the death glare when they finally get back.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-23 05:15 pm (UTC)Haller might be in a constant state of "I need to prove that I'm as skilled/knowledgeable as I'm claiming, but if I mention anything I'm familiar with, we're boned". XD;;