synopsychic | (no subject)

Mine wasn't particularly hospitable either - the Shade floor would have been unsurvivably cold if I hadn't had help from a summon with Ignite.

I've got all the robots. There were too many crystals for me to go through even a fraction of them for anything useful, though. Inspect turned up nothing when Parvati tried to use it on the crystals.

Edited 2020-01-02 22:59 (UTC)

Really? We had the same thing. One floor was so cold I couldn't go on it at all. I had to wait a level above while Bismuth and Casper looked at it.

Maybe the robots will be useful somehow?

Were there crystals on that floor in your tower? Crystal storage is improved by cold.

Probably, once we find out where they're meant to be used. The destination coordinates they contained weren't identical, but they were grouped into two different clusters, with the destination coordinates being adjacent numbers within the clusters. I was able to piece together that those destination coordinates were just under 322 kilometers away, and that the clusters are a little over 241 kilometers away from each other. One set of coordinates were roughly northwest, while the other set were roughly due north.

Yes. Bismuth said it was data storage. She can probably tell you more.

So the robots are meant to go somewhere?

They're meant to be taken to certain coordinates, at which point they activate, fold themselves into a self-propelling shape, travel to a location they'll recognize by electrostatic shock, and then re-fold themselves into a second form that moves constantly until a secondary signal deactivates it. The first form is always a quadruped; the second form is always in motion. The first one I checked had a frog as its initial form and a snakelike creature as its second.

When they're not active, they appear to be sheets of something that looks like heavy silver, gold, or copper foil, two millimeters thick and twenty centimeters to a side.

Oh! We have one of those. Well, Bismuth does. We did not realise it was a robot.

Yeah, I've still got that in my hammerspace! It's a bit thicker than those ones you found, a couple centimeters maybe. Could be for a different task, we pulled it out of the water tower.

I'm not even sure what these are for - I just know what they do.

Think it might be worth setting 'em loose and seeing where they take people? Could be interesting information.

It could be, but we'd need to get them to the proper coordinates first - they won't activate otherwise.

[And there's also the question of just what they'd unleash if they did - he can't forget Magician confirming that the activation of the Shadow Towers was what drew the large Nation Eater.]

Well, if it's out in the middle of fucked-up nowhere, could be worth seeing where they're trying to go after that. I'm space-hardy, I can go up to wherever they wanna start and follow them around. I can activate them, too, so if they do need a nudge at some point I got them settled.

I think northwest would be... in the direction of Scatter-Spore, while due north would be Lodestar and Cabal. Closer to Cabal, I think.

Fun fact, you know what's east of Scatter-Spore and north of Cabal?

Mystic Spires.

[Too bad she's not videoing, or people would see the massive grin she's projecting.]

Well now I definitely wanna check this out for myself!

And they're definitely Mystic-era technology if not earlier...

Hey, the more the merrier. Especially if you know a way around radioactive fumes.

...Not as such.

[Remember what era he's from.]

General 'you.' Someone else who's listening might know.

Well, I don't need to breathe. So I'll be fully functional at whatever altitude we end up at.

It's not an altitude problem so much as I'm 99 percent sure 'used fire in war' means 'nuclear bullshit.' Even as far back as it likely was, the air's probably still fucked.

Also the Vale locals thinking the fourth element hasn't already betrayed them is morbidly hilarious, from that viewpoint. Not like they have any way of knowing it, though.

I am... [There's a not insignificant pause.] ...mostly sure I'm immune to radioactive crap. I'm one of the sturdiest damn Gems in existence, we're supposed to build everything that lets more fragile Gems survive in shitty locations.

I'm less worried about us after the fact - Kanji's bro has done radiation antidotes for everyone before and he's sharp enough to see the need now - but for the locals, any way around it might help. Even if that's fewer of them going in.

Not even Nation-Eaters are going to keep Hypatia away, though.