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Sorry for my long absence! I really hope it's not dead!

Jake paced back and forth in the medbay. "So, we are trapped in the same alternate dimension, but we all have different ways of perceiving it..."

"That's what I'm saying," Sarah replied, grimly.

"Is there any way we can get in contact with the others?"

"Well, because of the perception barrier, if we sent out any kind of signal it would be percieved differently by each ship,"

"What do you mean?"

"Say we sent out a radio signal. To us it would be just that. But Eden might hear a faint noise. Bren might feel weapons fire hitting his ship. In this dimension, there is no difference between a noise, a radio, or a laser gun. Everything is up to... interpretation. Heck, a radio signal may manifest itself in changes in behavior - changes in luck. The truth is, nothing is objective anymore. A radio signal is the same as a platypus on a motorbike."

"Jesus Christ..."

"Don't pray to Jesus here." Sarah sighed. "He's up to interpretation,"

Eyesight Technology wrote:Sorry for my long absence! I really hope it's not dead!

Jake paced back and forth in the medbay. "So, we are trapped in the same alternate dimension, but we all have different ways of perceiving it..."

"That's what I'm saying," Sarah replied, grimly.

"Is there any way we can get in contact with the others?"

"Well, because of the perception barrier, if we sent out any kind of signal it would be percieved differently by each ship,"

"What do you mean?"

"Say we sent out a radio signal. To us it would be just that. But Eden might hear a faint noise. Bren might feel weapons fire hitting his ship. In this dimension, there is no difference between a noise, a radio, or a laser gun. Everything is up to... interpretation. Heck, a radio signal may manifest itself in changes in behavior - changes in luck. The truth is, nothing is objective anymore. A radio signal is the same as a platypus on a motorbike."

"Jesus Christ..."

"Don't pray to Jesus here." Sarah sighed. "He's up to interpretation,"

(no worries)

Bren sighed a bit as he looked around, the Lanius were there and calling him confused by why the others wearn't with them

"Getting a signal...all aorund us" he said

"Like I see everyone else...but its like there are hundreds around us...obviously that can't be right" he said

"Maybe the sensors were damages" Ruwen said

"Trying to give it a reboot" he said as he typed on the keyboard

The Pelican's communicator suddenly started to play a series of train whistles, followed by an electronic beeping. "The Train on Platform 5 goes to... bzzzrrttt. First stop... bzzt... then all stations to..."
Eden scratched her head in confusion "You heard that didn't you Luxanna?"
"It sounds like someone might be trying to contact us" Lux replied, looking at her console "There's a definite shift in the electromagnetic spectrum. I'll see if I can calibrate the sensors to..."
A flash of light appeared nearby to the hauler, shaped like an old steam train of the 19th Terran Century. It blew its whistle loudly causing the whole ship to vibrate rapidly.
"Luxanna, shut the..."
The vibrations stopped for a few seconds and started again...
"Hold on... the computer is picking it up as some sort of code. Old Terran code that was mainly defunct in the 21st century" Lux said "Moose Code I think it's called... or was it Norse?"
"Morse Code... us pirates still use it" Eden replied "What does it say?"
"It says... M-U-T-A..." Lux started, her eye and smile widening "It's Jake! His ship either turned into a locomotive or that's how we're seeing it but no doubt his ship is trying to communicate with us..."

BrenTenkage wrote:

Eyesight Technology wrote:Sorry for my long absence! I really hope it's not dead!

Jake paced back and forth in the medbay. "So, we are trapped in the same alternate dimension, but we all have different ways of perceiving it..."

"That's what I'm saying," Sarah replied, grimly.

"Is there any way we can get in contact with the others?"

"Well, because of the perception barrier, if we sent out any kind of signal it would be percieved differently by each ship,"

"What do you mean?"

"Say we sent out a radio signal. To us it would be just that. But Eden might hear a faint noise. Bren might feel weapons fire hitting his ship. In this dimension, there is no difference between a noise, a radio, or a laser gun. Everything is up to... interpretation. Heck, a radio signal may manifest itself in changes in behavior - changes in luck. The truth is, nothing is objective anymore. A radio signal is the same as a platypus on a motorbike."

"Jesus Christ..."

"Don't pray to Jesus here." Sarah sighed. "He's up to interpretation,"

(no worries)

Bren sighed a bit as he looked around, the Lanius were there and calling him confused by why the others wearn't with them

"Getting a signal...all aorund us" he said

"Like I see everyone else...but its like there are hundreds around us...obviously that can't be right" he said

"Maybe the sensors were damages" Ruwen said

"Trying to give it a reboot" he said as he typed on the keyboard

Wait, I'm confused. Is Bren in the Upside Down (the alternate dimension) too? Or is he in Normal Space? (For those of you that get the reference, I just finished Season Two tonight!

Name: Jax

Species: Mantis

Age: 16

Topic of Study/Role: Combat and Boarding

Physical Description: Tall for his age, black shell with orange eyes. Well built but not strong.

Personality Description: Very calm and very smart, but sometimes values morals over survival (too much)

Quirks: Is really interested in the species of Zoltan, and wants to learn more about them. loves Lanius

Accepted! Glad to have a new character. You can join in at this event, or wait until the next one.

Also, I noticed some obvious similarities between Jax and Jake. See below, lol. Jax is on top, Jake is on the bottom.

ShadowMantis wrote:Name: Jax

Species: Mantis

Age: 16

Topic of Study/Role: Combat and Boarding

Physical Description: Tall for his age, black shell with orange eyes. Well built but not strong.

Personality Description: Very calm and very smart, but sometimes values morals over survival (too much)

Quirks: Is really interested in the species of Zoltan, and wants to learn more about them. loves Lanius

Eyesight Technology wrote:I think I'll kick us off by making a character of my own.

Name: Jake Collins

Species: Human

Age: 14

Topic of Study/Role: Ship Captain (The role of Captain is now taken! As I said in the original post, there can only be one of each subject!)

Physical Description: Tall for his age, brown hair with blue eyes. Well built but not strong.

Personality Description: Very calm and very smart, but sometimes values morals over survival (too much)

Quirks: Is really interested in the species of Engi, and wants to learn more about them. Also very interested in rumors of the Lanius. HATES Mantis (read backstory)

Backstory: His father was a low-level starship captain, who inspired Jake to enter the Federation. He also taught Jake all about star charts, which lead Jake to become a great navigator. Jake now has a mental map of multiple sectors, and is filled with knowledge his father gave him. Unfortunately, his father was killed by a Mantis warship, which devastated Jake.

See? Pretty much the same thing! That's OK though, I wonder if they'll get along.

In the distance, Jake noticed one of the large dark masses begin expanding and contracting rapidly. There was no mistake, it was morse code. P- E- L - I- C- A- N. Yes!

Jake beeped out a message. It was the "Federation Message Conveyance Utility." More commonly known as "Federation Flicker," this was an updated and more efficient version of more code, with a number of shortcuts involved. In addition to having combinations every letter, Federation Flicker also had numerous combinations for commonly used phrases like 'copy that' or 'repeat.'

[This is] M - A - T - U - R - E [We are receiving you,] P - E - L - I - C - A - N [Partial Stop] [Requesting Status Report] [Full Stop]

[This is] M - A - T - U - R - E [Do you copy] S - C - A - R - A - B [Full Stop]

Once Jake programmed the transmission into the computer (it took him a while to find a program in the Ship computer to make a Federation Flicker transmission) Jake sent it out as a series of pulses of a wide band energy wave.

"Federation Flicker?" Lux asked, looking at the new message being sent.
"The Federation's take on the old code" Eden remarked, looking at the message "Of course us pirates wouldn't be using it but we'd have the codebooks anyway for distress signals and the like."
Lux said "It's something every spacer is taught in school, y'know... Dad insisted I learn it in case I'm the sole survivor of a starship accident and I need to send out a distress signal."

She quickly tapped out a response along the same frequency. "We are fine, but trapped in some sort of otherworldly dimension" she tapped, using the special command for "Trapped in otherworldly dimension" Guess the coders thought that would come up a lot with the FTL drives, she thought to herself. "Looks like a nexus of railway tracks. Your ship looks like a steam train." It figures, telling someone their ship looks like a steam train would also be in it, she added to those thoughts.

"Requesting you move in the following pattern" Lux described a move which would have the Mutare intersect with the Pelican's exact location, followed by a slow burn forwards. Eden explained to Lux why "If we can reconfigure some settings, maybe something on his ship will react with ours and push us along the tracks and get us out of here?"

Yes... commonly used phrases while out in space
Also included as part of Federation Flicker: "We need sandwiches" and "Eaten by Space Whale"

Bren noticed the signals, "...umm everyuone what does Eaten by a Grue mean?" he asked a bit confused, guess some opf the signal got a bit muddled