[Social] Engine of Innovation

[Natalie Denisov]

With access to the Point network, Natalie had discovered where the broken part of the Skrull ship engine was being stored. She pulled it out of storage and moved it to the secure lab, setting it up on one of the tables. Her hard light avatar moved around the table, taking pictures and assessing the device.

((Open))

[Will Stanton]

With the door open, all that was left to do was a knocking sound on the wall of the lab.

"Hey there, Natalie. What'cha working on?" Will asked, standing outside of the door.

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie glances over at the door, "Oh, hey, Will. Just trying to assess some alien technology." She looks back at the strange object, "Well, broken alien technology."

[Will Stanton]

"Broken? Did I miss another alien invasion when I was sleeping?" Will joked.

[Natalie Denisov]

She chuckles, "No, none that I'm aware of at least. This is the piece that was used to unexplode the Point. Shari says it was a piece of their ship's engine, so I thought maybe there would be something I could learn from it."

[Will Stanton]

"Planning on taking a jaunt into the cosmos, are we?" Will chuckled back. "Or just looking to win a local drag race?"

[Natalie Denisov]

"Unless the ship was fitted out with a massive bandwidth connection and hard light projectors, I wouldn't be going anywhere. I'm hoping that maybe I could learn something that would let me go to Maldon with Shari. But even if it doesn't, learning more about it can't hurt."

[Will Stanton]

"Ah, yeah," Will nodded. "I bet she wishes you were at that concert...thing. Or whatever it is.

But maybe we can figure something out with these alien whatzits."

[Natalie Denisov]

"I was just getting ready to attempt to hook it up to an isolated system, assuming I can figure out an interface. Of course, any information it can give is probably in Skrull."

[Will Stanton]

Will sighed. "I never could pick that up. You'd think being a shifter, I'd understand the changing tenses, but no -- it's gobbledygook to me."

[Natalie Denisov]

"I might need Shari to translate some of it unless I can access a translation through the Crystal Computer," Natalie says, "But first I need to figure out an interface. There's several locations that *could* be an interface with it. Of course, they could also be power conduits. Hard to tell with it broken."

[Will Stanton]

"Yeah, you don't want to plug a power port into a display cable, or you'll short out the entire point," Will nodded.

[Natalie Denisov]

"At least the Crystal Computer is self-sustaining, so I'd be fine," she says, looking closely at a protruding piece of the device.

[Will Stanton]

"Frame it, with a 'words said moments before disaster' caption, post to the internet, get 1000 points," Will nodded.

[Natalie Denisov]

"True. Fine-ish, since it'd probably take all my projectors offline."

[Will Stanton]

"Natalie Denisov, persistent pop-up window. That might not fit on the X-Man business card," Will nodded.

"Do you need any help?"

[Natalie Denisov]

"Maybe. I *think* this is the data port," she says, gesturing at something on the oddly shaped device. "Do you think you could improvise as an interface for the moment?"

[Will Stanton]

Will nodded. "Happy to help if needs be," he said, walking over and studying the port. "Question is -- is this input, or output?"

[Natalie Denisov]

"I'm hoping output," Natalie says, "Unfortunately, I don't have the tech specs for it, so it's just a guess."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, there's a handful of ways to find out, but I know all the funny ones," Will joked, walking over.

"Do you want me to interface it with anything in particular, or does it work better if I serve as the isolated system? That way, if it ends up being some kind of infernal Skrull virus or something, you don't have to worry about it infecting anything else you have lying around."

[Natalie Denisov]

“If you can display or give me some feedback on what it’s telling you, my own system can record it. That way it stays isolated as you suggest.”

[Will Stanton]

Will nodded, and rubbed his right arm. Where he rubbed, a simple display screen appeared, as if it had been just covered under a layer of dust. "This will give you any sort of feedback you need, and you can hook up anything else if you need more specific diagnostics."

"And, well, as for the engine...nothing ventured, nothing gained."

With that, he stuck two fingers on his left hand into the port on the engine. Immediately, he took a half step back, a little staggered, his brow furrowing as he tried to handle the dataflow.

[Natalie Denisov]

"Are you alright?" Natalie asks.

The dataflow is mostly garbled nonsense in Skrull. The overall design resembles math equations.

[Will Stanton]

"Mi ken kute e kalama sina," Will replied, which is certainly not in a language Natalie knows.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. "I mean...yes, I can hear you..." he said, obviously having to concentrate to get the words out.

[Natalie Denisov]

"Okay. Can you give me a screen so I can see what you're seeing?"

[Will Stanton]

Will moved his other arm so Natalie could get a better view of it; the one with a screen wrapping around it like some sort of bracer.

"Is...is this clear enough?" he asked, trying to focus.

[Natalie Denisov]

Her eyes scanned the data, "Yes, yes. It is. Thank you. Hold it there for a second." Hard light images started popping up around them almost like whiteboards with the calculations scribbled onto them.

[Will Stanton]

"Can you make heads or tails of it?" Will asked, continuing to try to focus. "Mi awen pilin pona, taso pakala la mi awen lon."

[Natalie Denisov]

"I didn't understand that last part, but I can't understand this at the moment, but it's a start," she says, "You can disconnect now. I think I have enough to look at."

[Will Stanton]

With a bit of a jerk, Will yanked his hand free, and took a deep breath.

"Ooofdah. That thing packs a wallop; whatever it was."

[Natalie Denisov]

"Well, it was used to unexplode the Point, so I'm not discounting that it could be a little warped."

[Will Stanton]

"That's more than fair," Will smiled, as he continued to try to clear the cobwebs. "Weird alien technology and all that.

Do you think you'll be able to get anything useful out of it?"

[Natalie Denisov]

"I won't know until I analyze the data, but hopefully. Maybe Shari can help me translate some of it."

[Will Stanton]

"I don't know how much of an engineer she is, but she can at least tell you which button makes everything kasplode," Will nodded.

[Natalie Denisov]

"At the very least, she may be able to translate the Skrull language or at least some of it. I suspect a lot of this is highly technical."

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, no doubt, and I don't think Shari's much of an engineer. But maybe is she can figure out what the words are, you can figure out how to make them tick."