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Skellybones
May 31, 2011




Fun Shoe
I hope nothing bad happens to Captain Hardrock.

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JamezBfod
Jun 13, 2003

there may be people who
find a blender sexy - I
would do well with a more
humanoid model, myself
O Cross Train.

Make an attempt to stave off the madness.

Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

Oh come on guys. Where's the love for Plan Play a Det Som Engang Var ripoff on the PA for a straight decade while we engineer our pet supervirus to wipe out the natives?

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

At some point, everything that can go wrong will go wrong all at the same time and you're going to say, 'this is it. This is how I end.' And you will be wrong. You can fail yourself if you want; but you will not fail your soldiers. There’s always one more thing you can do to influence any situation in your favor—and after that one more thing, and after that…. The more you do the more opportunities arise. Three strikes and you’re not out! There is always one more thing you can do to influence any situation in your favor.
-Commander Ernest Oldcastle, UNS Preserver Battle Manual

Mission Year 1699

You jerk awake inside your cold sleep bed. Red, white and purple lights flash in your eyes. Afterimages? Fragments of cold sleep nightmares? Horrible coughs wrack your body and you expel something cold and wet from you lungs. It splatters on the underside of the panel covering your cold sleep bed. Hands stiff and unresponsive from the cold you fumble with the latches as the goo you coughed up drips back onto you. It's not supposed to be like this. You've woken from cold sleep over a dozen times and you're never cold. Something is wrong. Finally you manage to open the protective cover over your bed and shove it to the side so you can get out. Even the usually cool air of the Herald feels like a warm wind blowing on your freezing skin. You shiver and stumble over the side of the bed and force yourself to your feet.


Thank god, the red and white lights flashing aren't just in your mind after all. Wait, no, alarms are bad. Something is really wrong. The eerily cheerful voice of Doctor Moreau shouts over the siren. "Good morning Lieutenant Commander. So glad to see the crash wake cycle on the cryo sleep pods works. No, don't worry about thanking me. I woke you because I need your assistance. We encountered a micro-asteroid shower and if I'm reading this right have sustained damage in two rooms. Please report to the bridge so you can assist me in resolving this problem."

Oh. Oh, no. That's a depressurization alarm. Still shivering from the after-affects of cryo-sleep you ask: "Doctor, is my room one of the damaged ones?"

"Uh..." A few moments later he replies, still eerily cheerful. "Make that three rooms have been damaged. Yes. Your room is losing air. You have about two minutes before the automatic systems kick in and seal the room."

You quickly scan the room but don't see any obvious holes. The flashing lights of the alarm don't help any. Nor do the purple lights you keep seeing. You do see 29 other cryo-sleep beds. The men and women of your section who have served you well and faithfully for over a thousand years. If you don't seal that leak in the next minute and 50 seconds they're all going to die. If you are still in here and not in a space suit in a minute and 49 seconds, you will die. It takes 5 minutes to put on a space suite. According to procedure you are supposed to suit up before trying to find and patch a leak in order to prevent losing more people. Also according to procedure you should already be wearing a space suit and suited crew members should already be standing by to repair any damage before anything might go wrong. So procedure is already screwed.

1) Decision time.
A. I go get in a space suit ensuring my own survival before patching the leak.
B. A, but I head straight for the bridge and let the automatic systems prevent further atmosphere loss here for the time being
C. There is a patch and leak detection kit in the corridor - I get that and patch the leak. You think you can probably get back before you are out of time.
D. I am not trained in engineering but I want to try to fix or at least slow the leak with what is at hand. write in how you find and patch the air leak.
write in

You outrank the good doctor and can give him orders. Do you want him to start waking anyone else up to help you? A crash wake-up cycle takes just two minutes but can cause permanent damage or kill the sleeper if any little thing has gone wrong. Things are more than a little wrong right now. A full wake-up cycle takes several days.
2) I want the doctor to start waking people up
H. Crash wake-up
I. full cycle
J. Nope, we'll fix this with the people available

3)Who, if anyone do you want to wake up?
You can select as many people as you want, and anyone who gets at least half the total votes will be woken.
L. Captain Hardrock, make this mess his problem
M. Commander Ernest Oldcastle, the second in command, make this mess his problem.
N. Chief Engineer Yurika Pavlovich Korolev, you outrank her so this is still your problem and you're the damage control officer anyways but she'd be able to help a lot.
O. All the crew in your section i.e. the sleepers in this room that is depressurizing.
P. A couple of engineers
Q. Half of the engineering staff
R. All the engineering staff - this is massive overkill
write in

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:
Question: If the room loses pressure but is otherwise ok (and it obviously is). Will the cyro pods keep people aliie since it's sealed?

AJ_Impy
Jun 17, 2007

SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?
Yam Slacker
C J

Fix this ourselves with the kit, hold off on crash waking anyone else.

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

Outrail posted:

Question: If the room loses pressure but is otherwise ok (and it obviously is). Will the cyro pods keep people alive since it's sealed?

Sadly not. The cyro sleep beds are actually over-pressured to keep warm air from sneaking in and were not designed to operate in 0 atmospheres. You're pretty sure they'll explode from the inside out if the pressure gets too low.

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:

LLSix posted:

Sadly not. The cyro sleep beds are actually over-pressured to keep warm air from sneaking in and were not designed to operate in 0 atmospheres. You're pretty sure they'll explode from the inside out if the pressure gets too low.

This is a game theory/logic game problem but we don't know the chances of success/mortality rates etc, so assume 50%.

CHO

Assume 50% mortality on crash wake and Evac.

0% mortality if it's fake and we don't Evac.

100% mortality if it's real and we don't Evac.

Assume it's real and we can't patch it, crash waking and evacuating might kill 50% but the rest survive.

Assume it's real and we can patch it, crash waking and evacuating might kill 50% but the rest survive.

Assume it's false, crash waking and evacuating might kill 50% but the rest survive.

Assume it's false and we don't wake 100% survive.

Assume it's real and we can't parch it 0% survive.

2 minutes isn't enough time to properly assess the situation. The loss of our life in potentially saving many is acceptable. But we don't know the likelihood of success.

Given the above, I'd rather take the definite chance of killing a few, then the gamble of maybe killing or saving all of them.

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

Outrail posted:

Assume it's real and we can patch it, crash waking and evacuating might kill 50% but the rest survive.

If you can patch the hole, you expect the patch will hold long enough for better repairs to be made which will give enough time to fix the leak permanently. In this case you don't have to wake your section up to keep them alive in the short term.

If you can't patch the hole and you don't wake your crew section they all die.

If you can't patch the hole and you do wake up your crew; you'll have to figure out some way to over-ride the automatics that are going to seal this compartment to prevent losing too much air from the rest of the ship, before you can evacuate your crew section.

JamezBfod
Jun 13, 2003

there may be people who
find a blender sexy - I
would do well with a more
humanoid model, myself
1 B - Procedure is there for a reason

Otherwise I'm not sure without proper damage assessment. The crash for this room would take too long I think, I'd rather die in cryo than awake.

AJ_Impy
Jun 17, 2007

SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?
Yam Slacker

JamezBfod posted:

Otherwise I'm not sure without proper damage assessment. The crash for this room would take too long I think, I'd rather die in cryo than awake.

Precisely this. If we succeed, everybody lives. If we fail, they die. Crash-waking takes too long, suiting up takes too long.

Rockopolis
Dec 21, 2012

I MAKE FUN OF QUEER STORYGAMES BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH MY LIFE THAN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE CRY

I can't understand these kinds of games, and not getting it bugs me almost as much as me being weird
1A
2H
3O

Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

CJ

Lord Cyrahzax
Oct 11, 2012

Glad to see you're doing another CYOA!

For this, I'm going to have to jump on the CJ bandwagon

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

Lord Cyrahzax posted:

Glad to see you're doing another CYOA!

For this, I'm going to have to jump on the CJ bandwagon

Thank you! I'm excited to be writing again. I'm hoping to have the next update up soon.

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

Your legs are still cold and stiff from cold sleep but realizing all of your closest friends are depending on you to save them floods you with adrenaline. Controlling and using your fight or flight reflexes the way you were trained to, you sprint out the door and down the corridor. The flashing sirens and howling depressurization alarm mercifully fade behind you. Your vision is still plagued by flashes of purple light. Did the crash wake cycle permanently damage your eyes? You don't have time to worry about that now. Here's the patch kit. You hammer the fast release button and the kit drops into your waiting arms. 1 Minute 15 seconds left; you think to your self. You rush back to your crew section's cold sleep chamber. Your eyes and ears are assaulted by the alarm again. You charge into the middle of the room, shouting to the doctor to turn the alarms off. By the time you have the patch kit open the room is blessedly silent. 42 seconds left.


The kit consists of two parts. In the bottom half of the briefcase shaped kit is the leak detector. A very sensitive directional microphone tuned to the high-pitched sounds of a leak and a pair of headphones. You put the headphones on and agonizingly slowly turn in a circle with the microphone pointed straight in front of you. beep beep. There's one edge of the leak cone. Even slower now you turn a half degree at a time trying to find the direction the beeps are the loudest in.

Beep.
Beep.
BEep
BEEp.
BEEEEP!

Bingo. You carefully note the direction then snap the patch kit closed and carry it in your hand, not holding the microphone, towards the source of the sound. BEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP! You've reached the wall but you can't see the leak. Doctor Moreau's cheerful voice sounds over the speakers. "20 seconds left. You still have time to get out of the room, Lieutenant Commander." You ignore him. You've already made your choice and you don't think you'd be able to look yourself in the mirror if you left your men and women behind anyways.

You open the patch kit again and get the quick patch out. It's basically a palm sized square of duct tape. Yes, of course duct tape works when exposed to a vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped. Holding it ready in one hand you run the fingers of your other hand over the wall. You can feel a breeze blowing across your fingers. Nearly there. You follow the breeze, caused by the escaping air, to the hole. There, you can feel the vacuum sucking at your fingertips. You slap the square of duct tape over the hole that's just barely large enough to see if you look right at it.

You hear the door to the chamber sigh closed behind you. You force yourself not to turn around. The duct tape will buy you a little time but it's not exactly air-tight. The good news is the next step of the patch is air tight, but you really can't afford to get distracted now.


You carefully lift out the second half of the patch. The underside of the o-ring is sticky and you pull off the adhesive guard before positioning it over the hole. It is large enough to go completely around the duct tape patch. You stick it to the wall, hollow side first and then hold it there for a slow count of 60. The patch firmly in place you press a button on the back side. The patch squirts an adhesive foam into the hollow underside that should plug the leak until someone has time to examine it from the outside and devise a more permanent fix.

Doctor Moreau's cheerful voice comes through the speakers again. "Well done Lieutenant Commander! Sensors are reading no further loss of atmosphere." The door to the room opens again. "Please join me on the bridge. There are still two other leaks that I would appreciate your assistance with." Clear as if he were standing beside you, you hear Captain Hardrock's voice. "drat good job son. You took a hell of a risk though. No time to rest now. I need you to save the rest of my ship." You push yourself back to your feet and retrieve your spacesuit. Carrying it under one arm you head for the bridge. You'll put it on if you have time.

1) How do you feel?
A. Relieved to still be alive
B. Happy
C. Annoyed
D. Angry
E. Tired
F. Worried
G. Scared
Write in

***


You step onto the bridge, still carrying your spacesuit. Doctor Moreau salutes you and eagerly surrenders the command post. He was tracking everything on just one small screen. Probably the only one he remembered how to use. You bring up a full damage control display. A 3D hologrom of the ship springs to life, filling the bridge. Most of the ship is green but there's a lot more blue indicating temporary repairs than you'd hoped. You take a half second to check on the cold sleep chamber for you crew. Still blue and sensors indicate the pressure there is holding steady. There's a dozen yellow areas on the display. Yellow indicating minor damage. Fortunately most of them are in the hab rings. Ultimately expendable if it comes to that but still not good. "Doctor, I thought you said there were only 2 leaks?"

He replies: "Only two more leaks I needed help with. Crew members are already on their way to deal with most of them..." You see one the yellow light over one of the four reaction mass tanks go from yellow to red. Red for serious damage. What the hell? You cut the doctor off. "Reaction tank 2, talk to me."

"Lieutenant Commander? Thank Murphy you're awake." Chief Engineer Yurika Pavlovich Korolev sounds as surprised to hear your voice as you are to hear hers. The doctor must have woken her up too. "Something hit us hard. Holed the reaction tank and we're shooting out kiloliters every second." She sounds pissed about the damage to her precious ship but not particularly worried. "We're leaking hard enough to shove us off course. I'm still 200 meters from the tank and I can already see the jet spraying out. I'm going to have to go outside to fix this. I've been talking the crew through getting access to colonization pod 7, but now that you're here you can handle that and I can maybe keep us from getting shoved off course by too many light years. Over."

You're going to need any reaction mass she can save to recover from being knocked off course. You approve her EVA request then check on the problem with colonization pod 7.


The Herald of Humanity is purely a deep-space vessel. It was built in space and never intended to land. It is transporting 20 colonization pods that are designed for a one-way trip to the surface. You've long since memorized the contents of every colonization pod. Pod 7 is one of 12 pods that are transporting colonists and their initial food stores. There are 5,000 men and women in cold sleep in there right now.

Sensors show that colonization pod 7 is losing air fast enough to be serious problem and that there are three crew members at the door already. You order them to provide a status update. "Spacer 2 Li Chen reporting. The doors are blocked. The netting around the food crates must have come loose and it is blocking the door now. The crates that it was holding it in place are pinning the netting across the door and we can't get through."

That's not a serious problem, actually. If you got some more people over there they could probably move the blockage and then seal the leak. Maybe even before the reserve oxygen and Nitrogen tanks are emptied. Of course, Those reserve air tanks are also designed to serve as emergency reaction mass and you're losing a lot of reaction mass right now. And everyone not in cold sleep except for the doctor and yourself are actively patching leaks. Or you could manually seal of all the connections to colonization pod 7. That would mean dooming 5,000 people to death, but it would make the rest of the ship a lot safer.

2) You give orders to
N. stop trying to fix the leak in the colony pod and focus on other areas. I seal off the colonization pod resulting in the loss of 1/12 of the colonists.
O. I round up half the awake crew and send them to rescue the colonists in pod 7. This would result in minor damage to some low priority areas of the ship due to decompression.
P. O, but I send all the crew to rescue the colonists in pod 7. This would result in moderate damage to some areas of the ship as a result of decompression
Q. Commander Ernest Oldcastle's section is the closest to pod 7. I crash wake them, along with my superior officer, and send them to rescue the colonists in pod 7.
write in

LLSix fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Feb 4, 2017

Mr. Nemo
Feb 4, 2016

I wish I had a sister like my big strong Daddy :(
drat, already risking going off course? Things went south very quickly.

A
Q


Well, Q sounds too rough, but this is an emergency. We might get a bigger one in the future, but this one already seems bad.

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:
We don't have sweet later defenses to deal with micro asteroid?

Once we've dealt with this we should take a full inventory of our remaining resources (and throw that loving doctor out of an airlock).

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

Outrail posted:

We don't have sweet later defenses to deal with micro asteroid?

The planners back on Earth didn't think it was worth the mass penalty. Everything you brought with you had to be accelerated up to about half the speed of light so every extra kilogram was very carefully considered before being added. The odds against encountering enough micro-asteroids to do this much damage in one place are astronomical. If it hadn't happened you wouldn't have believed it.

AJ_Impy
Jun 17, 2007

SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?
Yam Slacker
A O. One twelfth of the known extant human race is a very high priority. Minor damage to low priority we can resolve once we're past the critical point. Crash-waking has the potential to kill, and should be avoided unless we're completely out of options.

Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

FO

stevey666
Feb 25, 2007
RISE AND SHINE Q

stevey666 fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Feb 4, 2017

Hexenritter
May 20, 2001


AJ_Impy posted:

A O. One twelfth of the known extant human race is a very high priority. Minor damage to low priority we can resolve once we're past the critical point. Crash-waking has the potential to kill, and should be avoided unless we're completely out of options.

This
AO

Mr. Nemo
Feb 4, 2016

I wish I had a sister like my big strong Daddy :(
Crash waking would kill way less than 1/12. I honestly feel that not going there now because "things are not yet so dire" is like saving items for the next boss battle. Gotta love the moment.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company
1A
2O

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:
A universe full of hostile aliens and the morons back on earth didn't think lazer defenses were worth taking. Incredible.

Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

Yeah, really. Not having defensive armaments of any kind is loving RETARDED. One stray stellar body floating in the way as we approach our destination system while we slow down and there goes the species.

Lord Cyrahzax
Oct 11, 2012

FO

AnAnonymousIdiot
Sep 14, 2013

Voting FQ

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:

Blasphemaster posted:

Yeah, really. Not having defensive armaments of any kind is loving RETARDED. One stray stellar body floating in the way as we approach our destination system while we slow down and there goes the species.

Or alien spaceship for that matter.

Also, look at the psych profiling that led to doctor fucktard doing, well everything that he did and who knows what else.

Prediction: we crash land on a tropical paradise planet, fall into infighting over rapidly depleting resources instead of building up defenses and are eaten by Ewoks (the most shameful of aliens) because we don't have enough supplies or weapons.

It's gonna be awesome and I like where this CYOA is going even if I'm wrong about everything.

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords




The Herald is equipped with two large habitation rings that spin around the ship's central axis to generate a region of simulated gravity. They're currently rotating fast enough to simulate 2g along the main corridors. A little higher at the outer edge where sleeping quarters are. A little lower in the recreational areas on the inside of the ring. Their primary purpose is to help the crew maintain muscle mass and bone density during the centuries long voyage. Captain Hardrock set the simulated gravity at the upper edge of the anticipated gravity of your destination to prepare the crew for the worst case of the planet. They're also the most exposed part of the vessel by far and have nothing truly vital located in them.

You order all the crew members heading to patch holes in the habitation rings to head for colonization pod 7 instead. One twelfth of the known extant human race is a very high priority. Any damage to the habitation ring can be repaired later. You seal off the leaking sections, then engage the flywheel. The flywheel located along the central axis of the ship will absorb the rotational energy from the hab rings, gently slowing them to a stop and reducing the strain around the damaged sections of the hull. Once the hab rings are repaired you'll be able to use the flywheel to get the habitation ring spinning again with only very minimal help from the ring's thrusters.

You heft your spacesuit in your arms then sigh regretfully. No point in putting this on now, you decide. You strap the suit against the back wall of the bridge using one of the many available tie downs. If you'd just put it on the deck it would have floated away since the bridge, like most of the ship, is in zero-g. You look Doctor Moreau in the eye, trying not to let the purple lights still floating in your vision distract you, and tell him you're heading back to the colonization pod and to send the rest of the crew to help you in the cargo bay as they finish their repairs unless something worse comes up. Doctor Moreau hands you a pair of magnetic boots. "I got these while you were talking with Chief Engineer Korolev. They'll help you get enough traction to push through the blockage at pod 7." He's right. The boots will be helpful. You nod your thanks and roughly shove your feet into the boots. You sprint down the corridors, leaving the Doctor effectively in command once again.

***

Once you're on the spot at the entrance to colonization pod 7 you're able to get the situation sorted out promptly. Compared to directing repairs during battle this is a breeze. You have the crew cut the netting to shreds until they can start hauling the crates out into the corridor. As more crew arrive on the scene you rotate the fresh ones to the front and let the others catch their breath securing the crates that have already been moved. It takes longer than you'd really like, and you're keenly aware that you are the only person there not wearing a spacesuit but in the end you are able to force your way into the colonization pod and repair all the leaks before the reserve air tanks are completely empty. Your crew pop their helmets and let out a cheer when the last leak is fixed.


Your swift and decisive actions saved the lives of five thousand men and women. They may never know it but the crew does. You let them savor the moment before sending them back out to repair the remaining damage. You break them up into sections and rattle off assignments to the damaged areas by memory.

***

Several days later all the damage has been repaired and you summon your officers to brief you on the ship's current status.


Doctor Drake Moreau reports "None of the cold sleep pods in colonization pod 7 sustained any obvious damage. It will take me several weeks to run full diagnostics on all of them, but I have every reason to believe they are all in perfect working order. I've scheduled full diagnostics on the crew cold sleep beds that were in damaged rooms for after that. Also, the cold sleep pods in colonization pod 21 showed a brief malfunction during the asteroid encounter but when I checked them yesterday all instruments showed green. There have been several such glitches during the voyage so it is probably nothing, but I plan to check them more thoroughly after the other items have been addressed.

All of the awake crew are in good health. Two of the crew have strained backs from forcing their way into colonization pod 7. They're restricted to light duty for the next two days. No long term problems. Both you and the Chief Engineer, sustained damage from being crash woken. The sheath around your optic nerves was punctured in several place by crystals that formed inside your skull during cold sleep and didn't thaw out completely before you started moving. The crystals are gone now but the damage is already done. The purple flashing lights you are seeing are caused by random contact between the damaged sections of your optic nerve and various parts of your head. Back on Earth I could repair that kind of damage in a few hours, but the facilities available here are more limited. The good news is that the longevity treatments you received mean you may live long enough for your body to repair itself. I'm afraid you're both going to have to do your best to ignore the purple flashes until then. My sincere apologies."


Chief Engineer Yurika Pavlovich Korolev frowns at the news that the doctor can't safely help either of you. "The good news is that the habitation ring is fully repaired and Reaction tank 2 is still a fifth full. The bad news is that the tank is supposed to be just shy of half full at this point in our voyage. That means we lost about 28% of the initial volume. The Herald of Humanity is massive, but the reaction mass was under very high pressure so it jetted out at a good speed. We definitely lost enough reaction mass to deflect us off course before I could seal the hole. In layman's terms, the reaction mass jetting out of the hole was like a passenger grabbing the steering wheel and dragging us several degrees off-course. To get back on course we need to turn the steering wheel back the other way until we're back on our planned path then straightened out.

We're traveling a little faster than half the speed of light so we're light minutes off course. I've completed my estimate of exactly how much acceleration the escaping reaction mass imparted. On that topic, I've invited Helmsman-4th class Lal to speak to us. Go ahead Helmsman, tell the Lieutenant Commander what you told me."


You didn't even realize there were 4th class Helmsmen. Lal must be the lowest ranked pilot on the whole ship. A quick check confirms your guess. Lal is the lowest ranked member of the crew with a pilots certification. He was picked for this shift because Navigator Dana Ander is the command officer for the next shift. Back when Captain Hardrock was making crew assignments you remember him deciding to assign the two lowest ranked helmsmen before and after Dana where they couldn't get into too much trouble. It seemed like a good idea at the time but now...

Lal looks obviously nervous and swallows twice before he finds his voice. "I was trained to make course corrections, but that was back on earth. I haven't made any major course changes since then and the variables on this course change are fuzzier than I'm comfortable with." He glances hesitantly at Yurika and she smiles encouragingly at him. He swallows nervously then locks his eyes on the rank tabs on your collar. "Chief Engineer Korolev and I did the best we could to compute the needed course changes, but the error bars are" he swallows again "are very large. Essentially, I'm going to have to guess. If I guess wrong then I'll have to make additional course corrections. The course I have right now would put us right at the edge of our fuel reserves. I'm not that confident I guessed right. I strongly recommend waking up Navigator Dana Ander and possibly some of his assistants. I think Navigator Dana Ander can do a better job then me."

There's still two weeks before the plan called for waking everyone up in time to pass through the oort cloud around your destination solar system and start decelerating. The sooner you make a course correction the less fuel you'll spend on it. A smaller course correction now has more time to accumulate so needs less fuel.
1) What do you want to do?
A. Go with Helmsman 4th class Lal's course
B. Go with 3/4 of Helmsman 4th class Lal's course. If his course overcompensated this will use less fuel.
C. B, but 1/2 of Lal's course correction. If his course wildly overcompensated this will use less fuel.
D. Go with 125% of Helmsman 4th class Lal's course. If his course undercompensated this will use less fuel.
E. E, but 150%. If his course wildly undercompensated this will use less fuel.
F. Gently wake up your best Navigator, this will mean drifting off course for 5 more days, but is what your expert recommends
G. F, but crash wake
H. Gently wake up your best Navigator, and some other experts to assist him, this will mean drifting off course for 5 more days, but is what your expert recommends
I. H, but crash wake
J. Gently wake all the crew up two weeks early and turn the problem over to your captain
write in

Having decided on a course of action for the future, you direct the meeting to the topic of how this happened in the first place. "Doctor Moreau, how did we get hit by not one but dozens of asteroids? The scientists on Earth told us the chances of encountering even one asteroid were astronomical."


"At 3 in the morning I was woken by the watch standers. Forward lidar sensors had detected an object on a probable collision course. Impact predicted at 3:30. By a quarter after both myself and Helmsman 4th class Lal were on the bridge. Shortly afterwards I and Helmsman 4th class Lal approved the anti-collision software's suggested course change and the Herald of Humanity changed course 2 seconds to port. At 3:28 the anti-collision software identified additional fragments of the comet in our path and suggested a course correction back to port. Helmsman Lal rejected the course change since it would take us back towards the comet. Shortly before 3:29 the software suggested an even sharper turn to port. Helmsman Lal showed be the suggested course. I told the software to reject it and instructed Helmsman Lal to take manual control. At this point Helmsman Lal reported that the anti-collision software had locked us out of manual control and was executing a turn back towards the comet. I began the crash-wake process for Chief Engineer Yurika Pavlovich Korolev. By sheer luck we missed the body of the comet but we still passed through the tail of micro-comets being dragged behind the comet in its gravity wake. At 3:30 the first micro-comet impacted the Herald of Humanity. At that time I began the crash wake process for the damage control officer per standing orders from Captain Hardrock. At 3:32 Helmsman Lal reported that he had regained control of the ship's helm but by then then we had already passed out of the comet. I sent the rest of bridge crew to begin repairs. The Lieutenant Commander woke about then and is aware of what happened afterwards."

"Per your orders I have focused my attention on the crew and passengers health. I have not attempted to investigate what caused the malfunction."


You turn your attention to the military police Lieutenant you assigned to investigate the incident. "The ships logs corroborate Doctor Moreau's report. There was no sign of tampering or that the doctor accessed the relevant logs assigned from his personal logs. Doctor Moreau cooperated with my investigation in every way. I interviewed the other crew on the bridge during the time in question and their reports match the doctor's. All evidence is that there was a computer malfunction which caused the Herald to veer towards danger instead of away from it. I asked the Chief Engineer to help me investigate the cause of the malfunction."


"I wouldn't call it a malfunction exactly. More like a series of individually reasonable decisions that in concert resulted in a near-tragedy."

"700 years Navigator Dana Ander modified the anti-collision software to lock out manual controls when the ship was in danger of a collision. The logs from this time are very clear. Navigator Dana Ander was meticulous in his records and the related code is elegant. This change was made after the night watch failed to wake him prior to approaching a dust cloud. The night watch further compounded their mistake by attempting to over-ride the collision software when it detected a dangerously high density region of the cloud. Fortunately Ander was woken by the sudden acceleration and was able to re-engage the anti-collision software in time. Afterwards the panel lead by Ander concluded, correctly in my opinion, that their piloting error had endangered the ship and new software was put in place to prevent the same sort of mistake from happening again."

"400 years ago, some settings on the anti-collision software were modified causing it to only use a third of the sensors, primarily those focused in the front of the vessel. The only log entry related to this change was 'power saving'". She's obviously frustrated by the cryptic comment.

"200 years ago 2 of the sensors on the starboard side failed and we don't have the spares to replace them. Unfortunately, the anti-collision software was still configured to rely on them for readings and so was always treating the section of space they covered as empty. The logs from the time of the incident show that the comet was in the blind spot thus created. Since the software could not see the comet, it though that was the emptiest segment of space and turned towards it. Frankly, we're lucky this is the worst software glitch we've had so far."

As commanding officer, what, if any, punishment, the doctor deserves is up to you. It sounds like most of your senior staff thinks it wasn't really his fault though.
2) Do you want to punish the doctor?
R. I do nothing to the doctor, but order the software reset to use all the sensors to prevent a similar glitch
S. I relieve the doctor of watch-standing responsibility (he'll probably regard this as more of a reward than a punishment)
T. I order the doctor confined to quarters except when on duty for 30 days.
U. T & reduce his rations to bread and water - this is a little harsh
V. I relieve him of duty and wake a replacement - this would be regarded as wildly tyrannical
write in

JamezBfod
Jun 13, 2003

there may be people who
find a blender sexy - I
would do well with a more
humanoid model, myself
1)H - We need to undo the damage and fix the errors that allowed it to happen. I imagine the 4th class is just there to babysit, not deal with such major operations.

Airlock the Doctor.

2)A The Doctor was out of his element, but still woke up the right people to deal with the situation.

AJ_Impy
Jun 17, 2007

SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?
Yam Slacker
1H
2S


The duty navigator says wake up the primary navigator. We follow the advice of the expert. We do NOT want the navigator's eyes damaged.
The Doctor has performed well in unusual circumstances. Since We're awake, we have the leeway to relieve him from watches so he can focus on his speciality, and we do have a lot for him to get through with all the pods that need checking.

Outrail
Jan 4, 2009

www.sapphicrobotica.com
:roboluv: :love: :roboluv:

AJ_Impy posted:

1H
2S


The duty navigator says wake up the primary navigator. We follow the advice of the expert. We do NOT want the navigator's eyes damaged.
The Doctor has performed well in unusual circumstances. Since We're awake, we have the leeway to relieve him from watches so he can focus on his speciality, and we do have a lot for him to get through with all the pods that need checking.

This sounds reasonable

Rockopolis
Dec 21, 2012

I MAKE FUN OF QUEER STORYGAMES BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH MY LIFE THAN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE CRY

I can't understand these kinds of games, and not getting it bugs me almost as much as me being weird

AJ_Impy posted:

1H
2S


The duty navigator says wake up the primary navigator. We follow the advice of the expert. We do NOT want the navigator's eyes damaged.
The Doctor has performed well in unusual circumstances. Since We're awake, we have the leeway to relieve him from watches so he can focus on his speciality, and we do have a lot for him to get through with all the pods that need checking.
Yeah, this sounds good

Edit: would tossing in C, do 50% of the pilot's course correction be good? Sounds like it'd reduce the magnitude of the problem while we wake up the navigator.

Rockopolis fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Feb 6, 2017

JamezBfod
Jun 13, 2003

there may be people who
find a blender sexy - I
would do well with a more
humanoid model, myself
If we are going to relieve him of duty can we make sure to update the sensor settings to eliminate/reduce the blind spot that almost wrecked our poo poo?

LLSix
Jan 20, 2010

The real power behind countless overlords

JamezBfod posted:

If we are going to relieve him of duty can we make sure to update the sensor settings to eliminate/reduce the blind spot that almost wrecked our poo poo?

Yeah, I'm assuming you do that with all the options. There's no real reason not to.

Ralith
Jan 12, 2011

I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn't for your misfortune
I'd be a heavenly person today

Rockopolis posted:

Edit: would tossing in C, do 50% of the pilot's course correction be good? Sounds like it'd reduce the magnitude of the problem while we wake up the navigator.
Do this

AJ_Impy
Jun 17, 2007

SWORD OF SMATTAS. CAN YOU NOT HEAR A WORLD CRY OUT FOR JUSTICE? WHEN WILL YOU DELIVER IT?
Yam Slacker

Rockopolis posted:

Yeah, this sounds good

Edit: would tossing in C, do 50% of the pilot's course correction be good? Sounds like it'd reduce the magnitude of the problem while we wake up the navigator.

Concur with this amendment.

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Blasphemaster
Jul 10, 2008

AJ_Impy posted:

1H
2S


The duty navigator says wake up the primary navigator. We follow the advice of the expert. We do NOT want the navigator's eyes damaged.
The Doctor has performed well in unusual circumstances. Since We're awake, we have the leeway to relieve him from watches so he can focus on his speciality, and we do have a lot for him to get through with all the pods that need checking.

I want to go full Sir Phobos on this guy, but this makes sense. We need some severe threat against further fuckups, though.

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