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Post by NolChannel on Feb 28, 2017 22:23:04 GMT -5
For one Alyssa Johan, today was definitely going to be one that would be hard to forget.
After all, it wasn't every day that an engineer got a contract from Orre, and even rarer that it came with this level of security. All she was told to do was arrive at the intersection of Kaze 3 and Main, at 6:00 AM. And when Khail arrived on bike, there was an additional instruction to get in the side-car, and then put on the helmet in the seat. The catch?
The helmet's visor was completely blacked out: once on, Alyssa would be completely unable to see, the roaring sound of the engine underneath completely throwing off any sense of direction. Between the black panes of plastic was a mirror: any attempt to try and look through it would just give Alyssa an uncomfortable view of her own eyes. It was a mere precaution: when they arrived at their destination, Khail would further lead Alyssa onward, hand-in-hand, until they were past two locked doors.
Only then, would Khail instruct her to remove the helmet. "My apologies. This is about the only way someone without top clearance can get here." No windows here led to the outside, and with a nod, Khail opened another door, leading the way. The pair were soon crossing a catwalk, towards a central room held on its own pillar, a smooth, metal 'bowl' dimly reflecting light from below. "I thank you for coming on such short notice. Sorry that this has been so light on detail... though, heads up, any notes you take have to stay here."
skaravich (Alyssa Johan) |
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Post by skaravich (Alyssa Johan) on Feb 28, 2017 22:56:07 GMT -5
The timing had not been unusual for Alyssa. As far as the situation, however: talk about a leap of faith.
She had to be fair: considering her level of clearance, and the short but broad list of things the project could unravel to the public, she could somewhat understand - even while confused. She also worked in engineering. Nerds tended to keep to themselves, lets others pressure them into unfair contracts. This case seemed no different from other government missions, but one thing did spark her curious: the helmet.
She didn't even need to activate her quirk to notice the layer of film in the side-car. A very dark black, followed by ultra-reflective material. Someone had to spend their precious man-hours working with the material, trying to get it to reflect whilst. How many people actually needed something like this? Chances are, someone had to calibrate this machination for her eyesight. The whole helm-and-visor combination, given some forethought, unsettled her. It did not spark enough for comment, however.
She'd not been too keen on the hand-holding, either. Again, this'd be temporary, but she did whisper: "Would probably be more secure, elbow-to-elbow." Like a square-dancer, she already half-twisted her arm around his.
With the ride over, no longer feeling like she'd been trapped in a CT-scanner, Alyssa twisted off the helmet. If this hadn't been a case to keep her own personal omerta, she didn't know what would. The operative's comment earned another: "I'm honored." She voiced no objections to the bit on notes, but it did earn a slight tilt of the head: "I am aware. The contract made the consequences of a breach fairly clear." Alyssa twirled a pen around. If there'd been any other basics Khail wanted to bat, now would be the best time to do so.
Looking up at the enormous, dome structure above her, she less hoped and more figured there'd been a damn good reason for all the isolation.
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Post by NolChannel on Feb 28, 2017 23:27:21 GMT -5
Alright, elbow to elbow. For the purposes of guiding her along, Khail really didn't mind the specifics of what was just a few meters.
Finally inside, and approaching the central pillar, Khail seemed to note that Alyssa was making more sense of the situation. He just gave a silent nod as they walked forward, Khail now standing in front of a steel, secure door. "Just a moment, here..." The panel was flipped open, Khail inputting an eight digit code before pressing his thumb flat to the base. A red light turned green, the door before them giving a hiss as several metal bolts clicked out of place.
And as Khail pushed the door open, Alyssa would see it: in the center of the room, there was a pillar, just taller than herself. A cautionary and informed glance would make one see the similarities to the Relic Stone, all the way over from Agate Village... though this was definitely not the same construct. For one, the stone was newly cut, and two, the ancient relic of the forest definitely did not have wires strewn across its base. Technical equipment and computers lined the walls, with logs of experimentation, trial runs, failures, and hypotheses.
"Well, this will all make way more sense to you than me. But," Khail tapped a stone plate in front of the pillar. "The general idea of this place, was that a Shadow Pokemon, or its ball, would rest on this platform, and we'd recreate the conditions of Agate to purify Shadow Pokemon. The problem is, well..."
Khail shook his head. "The darn thing's turned on a few times, but its never been able to maintain for more than a minute or so. And the few shadows we've attempted to purify reported nothing but painful headaches and blood dripping from their ears."
As for why Alyssa was here? "Ask whatever questions you need, give it a look. See if you can come up with any ideas... I take it you can look at our setup without opening too many panels?"
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Post by skaravich (Alyssa Johan) on Mar 6, 2017 23:12:52 GMT -5
With her time as a prisoner-of-contract coming closer to etching out the "prisoner" bit, Alyssa kept her arms at her side, and waited. She'd not eaten much more than a salad and a zinc supplement. Whilst Alyssa recognized a need to eat, learned the hard way through a near-disaster of a semester, she couldn't bring herself to go overboard. As Khail unlocked the secure door, just hearing the clacks grew a silent sense of excitement in Alyssa. There'd been at six separate latches, which probably connected to one or more verifying parties. Alyssa knew, at that point, she wouldn't be dealing with any low-level information. One thing immediately came to mind, which Alyssa just had to speak to: "Hephaestus's Relic Stone." Arms folded as a brow of the morning, un-creased from the morning, rose at the same time as a brief smile. The wiring, creased and folded across each other like Frankenstein surgery, accompanied by the layers of data and information folded about, did little to help its authenticity. Alas, she'd not been here to judge a machine by its aesthetic value. Once Taro begun explaining the device, she withdrew a small, bamboo pen. Alyssa took some short-hand notes on spare paper, as she nodded along. She wanted to say, possibly even scream, high frequency, high amplitude. But Alyssa knew she would at least view the start of the documentation, especially with a prototype of this size. Topics seemed to de-escalate into chaos rapidly, going from power inefficiency to great pain. Descriptions of headaches and dripping blood, even with the boisterousness of her field, left her shaking her head. While the reference earned a nod and even a chuckle, it would've humored her more hadn't she known the machine's wretched side-effects. She did ask a brief question, before diving for the notes: "I shouldn't need to disassemble the machine. However, just as a precaution - with the mention of blood - do you know where to find the gloves?" As competently as she thought the government could be, Alyssa did not want a random Shadow-blood pathogen on her hands, and did not want to take chances. Once she'd prepared enough to read the notes, she'd glance at the machine. The only reason she hesitated to dive in is because maybe, just maybe, it used a similar technology as the helmet. A technology that, if aimed right, could seriously screw with her physiology. Music of Orre so oft spoke of opening the heart, perhaps due to the Shadow Crisis. But, after a breath, she'd use her vision to peer at the mimic's innards. NolChannel |
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Post by NolChannel on Mar 7, 2017 18:55:57 GMT -5
"Ah, so you're familiar with the story, then?" Indeed, the Relic Stone was nothing short of an item of legend: though even the original was not a miracle of nature, its very design still perplexed scientists to this very day. And even that stone was fickle, only showing its true nature to a very small number of souls.
It hadn't operated in years, not since the time of the vigilante. And yet, here Orre was, trying to recreate the miracle.
To Alyssa's question of gloves, Khail gave a chuckle: from a desk, he pulled out a sterilization case, complete with gloves and special tools to work with this delicate machinery. "You won't find a drop of blood or even a tenth of an ounce of lead in this room. Everything's been kept sterile between uses." It made enough sense in hindsight, but past this, Khail was a mere observer. He stood back, as Alyssa would set to work.
And boy, would there be a lot to note:
Time since first log: 547 Days, 8 Hours, 37 Minutes.
Power supply: Normal
Circuitry check: Normal
Attempting power: Load Error
Attempting power: Load Error
Attempting power: Load Error
Running circumventing circuit... Complete...
The log itself went like that for a while, sorted by log-in dates, added notes by redacted scientist names, voltage numbers, and the like. Descriptions of a few shadows: a Sneasel, a Torkoal, and a Bulbasaur - all showed diagnostics similar to Khail's description, though they all seemed to recover in a manner of hours.
The machine itself, the replicated Relic Stone, was a marvel in its own right: even with Alyssa's keen eyes, there was not a single wire ran through the stone, but rather a system of magnets and latent alloys within the construct itself to allow a particular electrical flow. The design space was such that each layer would be lifted by a magnetic ring, and pulse and rotate the opposite direction of the stone above it. The sterile nature of this room and the shape of the cone outside was to create a magnetic ring capable of performing this effect, to mimic the movement of the legendary stone.
Past that, the slabs were drawn as close as possible to duplicate the manner of the real thing. Tests proved that electricity followed the particularly shaped alloys in the runes quite well, able to glow and give off a sort of particular radiation. But, past all this?
It simply didn't work. There was a disconnect, a step missing, that the scientists just couldn't quite grasp. But just what could that be?
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Post by skaravich (Alyssa Johan) on Mar 7, 2017 22:23:33 GMT -5
"Indeed. Old man told me, every here and then, about the Purifying stone." A breath. "Stories about the stone died after university." Sure, it might be good to know if there'd been some external influence on one of Orre's most pure locations. Even considering the damages, Alyssa had been rather eager to mend and construct the machinations of Gods.
Without much of a second glance, Alyssa got equipped to work, picking items that fit fairly well. "Good to know." A clenched fist opened, peering through the device's innards. For all intents and purposes, the machine looked far smoother and more organized than she'd expected. Her first instinct had been to check for easy fixes, so she checked the system dialogues and-
Wow. The machine couldn't use any of the power. Once exact symptoms Khail spoke of popped up in the test subjects, at least for then, Alyssa found her culprit.
Alyssa figured she could worry about wave-frequencies later. Should she run them herself, she'd be spending a long time fine-tuning the oscillator and running the appropriate tests. That, she left as a note on the desk. Her main issue, for now, had been the complete failure of the end nodes to transfer their intended wavelengths. Based on the ear-splitting results, she strongly suspected some kind of interference.
She examined the shape of the demagnetizers, and the briefed the materials listing. Power didn't seem to overflow at the so perhaps it was an issue with the rings? Alyssa laid out some base math for the construct's parameters, taking into account its mythical shape, and started organizing any theories into a list of most to least likely problems. Once she found the reason for that, the rest could come through cleanly.
Some fifty minutes of parsing through various paths, Alyssa briefly wondered: was this a ploy to rein her into the world of electrical engineers? She'd heard about shortages in the workforce and long hours, but...nah.
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Post by NolChannel on Mar 7, 2017 23:10:02 GMT -5
Khail's usefulness here soon boiled down to that of a simple on-duty guard. After five minutes of review, Alyssa now knew more about this device than Khail could ever hope, or even care to know. So he kept to the side, back leaning against the wall as he crossed his arms, only giving an occasional glance to the scientist.
But as Alyssa would peer into the information, more would become clear from scientific notes and logs. There were several theories - and a few straight-out arguments - about just how the stone worked. Did the radiation stem from the magnetism, or was it the electricity running through a specific mineral composition? What made the stone necessary? Was the stone necessary? Several theories and smaller experiments came up with few results, mere distractions to the main issue at hand:
How did one even power this device? The activation requirement seemed obstinately high for the times it did work - perhaps explaining why the Pokemon were so quickly in such duress - but low loads couldn't push through the resistance of the rock. At least, that's what one note said: others blamed the size of the surrounding dome, suggesting it needed to be much smaller to more densely hold the energy.
This was in contrast to Alyssa's theory, dealing with the shape of the rings itself. And on that note, Khail looked blankly at the math stated, tilting his head. "An issue with the magnetism...?" He merely muttered to himself, not versed on the issue, but it could be possible that their very way of power was interfering with the intended radiation itself. But, after about an hour of this, Khail finally spoke up:
"You work well in this cramped space... any guesses?"
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Post by skaravich (Alyssa Johan) on Mar 8, 2017 0:20:16 GMT -5
For that time, Alyssa started digging through theory. Some had been clean, some garbled; few pieces had much of a consensus. She doubted the magnetism served as much more than a power source, especially given the original looked closer to forest-rock than magnetic turbine. With the materials granted, the image of an ancient MRI came to mind. Strange, then, that the signals all came out so jumbled. From what she knew about the Relic Stone's placement in the forests, she was not sure a dome was necessary for anything but security's sake. Did the trees absorb the energy? She did not bother to write that down. Very passively, and without much thought, she scribbled: See Original Relic Stone? She did not come back to this as much more than a crackpot idea that, with the region's current problems, seemed highly improbable. She did not expect the work of Celebi to be easy. She wouldn't be paid so much for anything else. The problems were more comprehensible than she'd expected, but the closer she came to a solution, the closer other factors came to weighing her down. As Khail approached, Alyssa decided to sieve her results. "I see two immediate problems," Alyssa said. She pointed to a ring "The magnetism itself, on its own, is solid. Still, I don't think that the domains within the magnets are arranged to work with these signals. They're sharp and jagged" She listed lot of notes on this subject - some going as far as to make a new system within the relic to emit signals - and a lucky few fitting parameters. They would also add complexity to an already feature-dense 'relic.' Her other concern came as quickly: "But I also have my doubts about the power distribution. It's good there aren't any explosions, but there seems to be an emphasis on sending through large amounts of power through acute insulators, which should be guaranteed." But thirdly, shouldn't she find any within the papers, she'd ask: "Are there any witness accounts of the Relic Stone's use?" She followed, "If we can figure out the pattern of this radiation, we can better model the machine to produce them." Testimony had been dangerous. It may also have held some significant clues to the Great Shadow Puzzle's patterns. NolChannel |
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Post by NolChannel on Mar 8, 2017 21:35:45 GMT -5
Such was the problem of trying to recreate one of the unexplained marvels the world: that 'unexplained' part tended to cause quite a few problems. Though Alyssa's points were sound, at least as far as the inexperienced Khail could gather: the magnetism, as an electrical force itself, likely impeded with the intended radiation of the rock and likely the electrical system as a whole. Past that, did the original stone even use electricity to begin with?
The second issue, that was more beyond Khail's understanding. "Hm... afraid I can't help you too far. There are some notes about attempting psychic energy instead of magnetic, but it was quickly deduced that the emotions from the two-or-three psychics required would conflict with each-other, hampering the process. The scientists were keen on ensuring a purity of form." But perhaps this purity was the problem in-and-of itself? Heck, Khail didn't know, he was just repeating the point verbatim!
The last point, though, drew the guard's attention. "Well, the current sage in Agate has never seen the relic stone in use. Of those alive, our dear 'vigilante' has certainly used the stone multiple times, though with the size of his wanted list and arrest warrant, he wouldn't openly show his face around town." He gave a 'tsk' at that, knowing the information he provided was largely useless. "As you can imagine, the stone's dormancy has drew quite a few eyes, from fanatics to vandals. Regardless of the audience, no-one but the Guru and his disciple are even allowed to know where it is."
And that's about all there was to it. Heck, even this stone had to be kept hidden, for similar reasons! "Though, your insight is quite objective and not filled with some of the hot emotion that was riding on this project. We intended this as just a contractor giving another view, but if you'd like, I could get you on board this project, fairly easily."
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Post by skaravich (Alyssa Johan) on Mar 11, 2017 1:45:29 GMT -5
The inexplicable came with a myriad of new challenges. Here's one Alyssa found: she had not yet come to a conclusion about the type of energy necessary to aid Shadows. However, she could determine it wasn't raw electricity. Otherwise, a shock from Nauru would've purged the hereticism out of the Pokemon like it would've Frankenstein's lifelessness. The concept of purity of form earned a curt nod and an, "Understood." Chances are, the analysts, scientists, and engineers that worked on this previously had a better concept of form than she did. But then, perhaps their methods were either newer or older? It puzzled her so. Hearing about the work of sages and sparked a sense of adventure, and hearkened back to years of skimming Orrean history assignments. Admittedly, she did not pay too much mind to mythos beyond her father's studies, and she honestly could not expect too much solid information from her agent...but the base was still good. She figured there'd be as much ambiguity from a relic that could, at one point, mend the hearts of Shadow Pokemon. Alyssa said, then, "Considering the tumultuous history of the stone, that's fair enough. Thank you." Hand twisted around pen and returned to a world of spreadsheets and conjecture. The comments of objectivity and particularly hot emotion, garnered a tilt of the head. Truth be told, Alyssa had plenty of reason to have both. Liuxang's fall to psuedo-intellectual disability alone, never mind the thieves' incident, forever marked her as an actor in this stage of crooked regional affairs. Some time in and even her notes referred to some rough language, cut off only by what did not work earlier. It took her some time and pen-twirling to conceive a fair answer: "Khail, I truly appreciate the offer. First, however, I'm going to run some simulations. I want to see if there's a better way to get this "perfected" signal. By the end of seventeen o'clock, I'll have a solid answer for you." She'd been as militant in her pursuit as she had her timing. Sitting down and peering through some of the software available, seeing some different logins, Alyssa turned her head and called: "Pardon me," This call preceded a request. "Would I use the guest account, or create another?" Again, she would keep her name off, but she did not already expect to need an administrator or authority for what seemed to be an unaffiliated program... NolChannel |
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Post by NolChannel on Mar 11, 2017 22:40:26 GMT -5
"Of course, take your time."
Well, Khail had pretty much written this entire day off, it seemed: he wasn't even able to give his Pokemon any time off, all of them sitting in reserve on his belt. But Akane's next question prompted Khail to walk up, looking over her shoulder. "'JA Aud4, password, LuckyCr0wn." He spelled it out, as needed, before giving a brief description: "You'll get full access to everything relating to this project, but nothing further. This includes both scientific work and anything else."
That was easy enough to go through, and depending on Alyssa's approach - looking through the electrical programming, the scientific research, or running theoretical simulations with different kinds of energy, she may come up with different approaches. There was an immense amount of work, just relating to the shape of the facility. It appeared that, in activation, the walls around this suspended laboratory opened out, fully utilizing the space around to simulate the open area needed to produce the proper signals in wavelength. Attempts to use the machine with the lab walls closed off ended up with overheating and generally damaging results!
Still, most of this was beyond Khail's pay-grade. And for now, Khail just returned to his resting position, leaning against the wall.
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Post by skaravich (Alyssa Johan) on Mar 13, 2017 21:46:03 GMT -5
Alyssa nodded. A strange password set, she felt - more fitting for some online gamer's than a scientist's - but she would not question it too much. Her coworkers had much, much weirder...though the reference to crowns would earn a silent note.
For the next two hours, if no models of the machine existed, Alyssa would have typed away to build one. If they did, she would spend her time analyzing them so she could build a better one. She shouldn't have needed to turn the machine on until she could stimulate such a wavelength virtually, particularly if she had the right simulators on the computer itself. Alyssa figured that, given some of the data she'd been given, she could try to build. The area effect of the machine had barely been considered until now, where the scientists and engineers probably attempted something of a reverb.
That made sense. Chances are, however, that the outgoing signal would need to be refined first before the amplification did much good.
All this researched delved to find one of a few small direct errors. Many led right back to the stone's material itself, and trying to get that smooth effect from the rock. She figured it'd been something from data entry, which...come to think of it, from the last time she worked with this type of stone, the density was higher than represented. "Pardon me," she said again, "Is there a way to verify the reports used here?" A paper with some of the outlined problems, complete with data-tags, would be slid to Khail if necessary. Given the enclosed nature, she could understand why there was no internet, though that and the anonymity made this verification quite difficult.
<font color="#b93dc8">Alyssa</font>
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Post by NolChannel on Mar 14, 2017 21:07:33 GMT -5
Sheesh... Alyssa knew how to occupy herself, didn't she? Khail wished she'd join the project so he wouldn't have to sit around as an impromptu assistant! And with her working on the screen, there wasn't even a good angle to see just what she was doing.
Of course, Alyssa would have far more to look at, and as far as the machine was, there definitely were models to go by, old and new, for Alyssa to copy and make edits as needed. The most recent models had settled on the stone design, some debating material while others debating shape, but all seemed to agree on the internal system to draw some sort of energy. Magnetic just seemed to make the most technical sense at the time.
And then came the bottleneck: Alyssa asked for verification. Blinking, taking the report in hand, Khail flipped through it. "Hm. It would be somewhere in the logs, the actual source of the material... however." He closed the file, and set it on the desk, giving a nod to the clock on the lower-right of the screen. Indeed, they were running late, it blinking as 11:58 PM.
"I'm impressed at your level of focus. Far more than I could ever muster." He chuckled. "Certainly, we can get you the information you need. Honestly, we could almost insist on getting you on board."
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Post by skaravich (Alyssa Johan) on Mar 17, 2017 0:15:47 GMT -5
Khail's verification took little time for Alyssa to confirm. Yeah, that needed to be a different decimal place. "Understood, thank you. He had the right set in the logs." The corrections left the simulation just a bit smoother, but it still needed a little more specialization to get that rounded look.
The debate over materials and shape, however, caught her attention. Given that so few have even seen the stone in the first place, that had to be found from scratch, and a couple proposals came around to help aid the material. She briefly toyed around with an hourglass-shaped tone, in the event that it could help some power transfer through. Considering the current stone's ability to
It'd been abandoned in a minute. If she had trouble with bottlenecks now, an hourglass would bring on bugs incarnate. She had more success using what she had to build on the device, attempting to make the device work in the round shape it was in. That...would take some processing time. Time which, while she couldn't do that, she parsed through some of the other notes, making a dry commentary of her own.
The comment drew a light hum from Alyssa. Something told her this individual wasn't really supposed to act as a guard, if her level of focus was too great...or he'd just made a compliment to boost her confidence in this work. Either way, she'd seemed content with the project at that point - a weird state, for working on the machines of Gods. She didn't have much to say about Khail either, until he brought an offer to the table...one that seemed to imply she might be trapped in this project. Insistence would be a pain in the arse to handle even if it was something she enjoyed. Rolling the insist off her tongue as an exercise, she politely smiled and asked: "Almost?" No off-hand comments followed, but her attention did turn to her surveillor.
Almost?
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Post by NolChannel on Mar 17, 2017 18:37:00 GMT -5
Well, Khail really wasn't supposed to be a guard. To be honest, on an average day, this level of work could have been handled by someone much lower authority than him. But Orre had a true security interest in this area, and only this officer was both on-hand and qualified enough for this clearance.
A clearance that, if passed to Alyssa, could allow her to work more freely, with outside resources, and without a designated, unknowledgeable supervisor at all times. Though it did seem that Alyssa had a quirk or too, latching onto what was honestly meant as a tacked-on statement: Almost. "Well, unfortunately, I have no way to weigh the accuracy of your work. And those who would be judging your position are the creators of the very formulas you're proofing and scrutinizing: though we would like to think that scientists are wholly objective, there was definitely a high amount of passion put into this project." And it would be a shame to just see this new perspective go by the wayside!
"Still, that's just par the course for the field, isn't it? Just say that you're up for it, and I'll get my good word up on your resume." The tone of authority coming from someone a few years Alyssa's junior did come across as slightly awkward, but Khail kept a smile. "But, just based on what you've seen... if you had, say, five people working on it, how long would a working model take?"
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