[ 12 ] Voice

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Seems like the Initiative felt we needed some new blood - to all of you, if you haven't heard already, you really drew the short stick this time, unfortunately. Things are a mess up here and on the ground, and are likely to stay that way for a bit.

We've got two sets of goals, really - short term, and long term. Short-term is survival, and part of that is undoing the recent damage. Most of us need four things - air, water, food, and sleep, in that order of urgency. This place has air and water recyclers, but while some designs are pretty good, they're not limitless. Dunno how many weeks or days we have before either give out. Food is probably a bigger concern - can't recycle it, we can only produce limited amounts here at best, and it takes up space. Anything fresh runs the risk of spoilage, which is not something we want to deal with in a totally closed environment like this. So anyone doing supply runs, keep that in mind.

The situation on the ground... I know we all want to fix that, as soon as possible. The quick way is to do something about their missile reserves - disarm them, take the fissionable cores somewhere safer, hit their production facilities to keep them from replacing them right away. It needs a fair bit of skilled, dangerous recon - weapon design, launch locations, production locations, all that. And time travel isn't some instant-reset button where if we screw up we can just do it over again. Time can be changed, but that doesn't mean it doesn't resist change. Overwriting the same period repeatedly - you're pulling at the fabric of the universe there, and eventually you hit consequences. I'd like to gather a team for recon, but if anyone has less risky ideas, well, you've got time to speak up now.

[There's a pause, as he remembers his conversation with Dick about the weapons] To those of you who are from times or places where nuclear weapons haven't been used - they create immense explosions by using materials with a great deal of stored energy. These materials - and the by-products they create in an explosion - are hazardous in other ways, too. They release energy even when not primed for an explosion reaction, and that energy, if there's enough of it, will kill you by destroying your body on a cellular level. An explosion sends all those kinds of materials into the air, and ground, and water, which is one reason why we aren't on the island right now - after what happened two days ago, the land isn't safe.

[Here ends your fun science lesson for the day]

Fixing all of that is only a stop-gap, though. The UE still knows where we are, still hates our guts. Fixing that - well, that's the long-term goal. Which the Initiative is working on, but I'm starting to feel like we might be able to come up with some ideas of our own.

Comments

video;

[imperfectness]

I don't know much about this United Earth, but this sounds like it would be a good start...though they can always rebuild their production facilities and that doesn't prevent a long-term threat. Maybe if we were to go back in time far enough to prevent the development of nuclear weapons, that might be one thing, but there's always the possibility of them being developed in the future anyways, or maybe there would be a higher emphasis on biological weapons...

[He's deep in thought about this, and silent for a few seconds.]

Oh! It's still recording. Umm...yeah, I mean, that sounds like a good idea for now.

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

You'd have to factor in the political consequences of changing the World War II, too.

And the UE's already used a viral bioweapon at least once on the island.

[voice]

[imperfectness]

Yeah, sorry, I'm not exactly a historian.

[He could take a couple of guesses as to how things might have changed, but they'd be simply that- guesses.]

I think I recall seeing a little about that on this network. It was a few months ago, wasn't it?

voice;

[getoffmyearth]

[Cable you can be his favorite person for at least a week, for this.]

I wish I had a less risky idea, but hell if I can think of anything. Changing something that big and making sure it actually works out is going to be a pretty delicate operation. Even with the "one who knows" and Kang helping us out and a cosmic cube that one time, we still didn't really get anything undone. But maybe if we're not trying to repair the fabric of reality to begin with, it will be easier.

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Hopefully we'll avoid dealing with rips in the fabric of reality in the first place - I'm not sure we have anyone really qualified in that here.

Toppling a regime - well, suffice to say I know it can be done.

[voice]

[getoffmyearth]

We have Adam Warlock. If he doesn't have an answer, I've got none, short of magically summoning somebody none of us would be happy to see to provide some answers.

[NEVER ASK THANOS OR KANG FOR HELP IF YOU CAN HELP IT EVER. Or. Other people. He can think of some more, surely.]

I...helped overthrow Ultron and the Phalanx. Does that count, do you think? Because I've been thinking, since I got here, nothing good can ever ever come from putting an AI in charge. But given what a trainwreck that was, I'm willing to defer to your judgement.

voice

[devotedtothecore]

Materials such as those that fuel nuclear weapons-- are they mined, or harvested? Do we know how abundant have they been in the past?

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Base materials are mined, but they're usually processed after.

[devotedtothecore]

Are they rare?

voice;

[alittlesweptup]

No shit we might be able to come up with better ideas on our own, but it seems like a pretty barmy one to just shoot in the dark and hope we don't keep the Initiative from ever being born.

[Yeah, he's short-tempered. But who isn't at this point?]

Anyone have a sit down with the bloke running the transporter yet? Or the AI?

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

[The nice thing about voice-only is that he can't see Nate eye-rolling over here]

I wasn't suggesting people just jump into the timestream willy-nilly. That'd be idiotic at best.

Not yet, to my knowledge.

[audio]

[pauldron]

You could kill two enemies with one attack: go on recon and get supplies at the same time. If they store those explosives on or near a military base, raiding their supplies and bringing back rations would take care of our food and recon problems in one trip.

[Somewhat, at least. It's better than going to the same point twice for two different things, anyway.]

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Excellent point - the launch controls at least would probably be linked to a base, even if the site itself is farther out.

voice;

[sweetling]

How'd you get to be such a time travel expert?

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Experience. Though I'm only an expert compared to most people here.

video;

[taggingwomprats]

I'm working on organizing a repair-crew. We'll see what the Initiative gives us to fix.

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Good - that should give us a little more breathing room up here, at least.

[crocodilesmiles]

When did this world first start turning to massive nuclear warfare? DO we have a time on that?

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

I'd have to double-check the archives to see if we have a date - though given how widespread the destruction is, there's a chance any concrete dates have been lost.

voice / private

[gevurah]

It's a risk we're going to have to take as long as they keep the Transporter online. The more people they bring in, the less cohesive we can be as a group when for every five people who know what they're doing we have fifty who don't.

[ But they can't sit around waiting for supplies to empty out; they need to start acting and while she doesn't know Nate, she knows he's right about everything. ]

[voice | private]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Unfortunately. We'll have to hope anyone new has skills that can be put to use, and just... put the time in to train people to work together. I've had some luck with that so far.

video;

[worldswillburn]

Been keeping yourself pretty busy.

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Not as busy as I'd like.

Video

[bodilesswarrior]

[Barbara's hands are clasped in front of her, a bit more tightly than they really need to be.]

I think we should try subtlety first. Infiltrate their facilities early on, gather intel, commit some sabotage.

[voice]

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

The only flaw I see is that if the sabotage is detected, they'll tighten security, which will make additional moves against them harder.